Who were the most social retailers over 2019?

Trading announcements paint a gloomy picture of the worst trading period for 25 years on the UK High Street. Over Christmas 2019, retailers continued to fight against economic uncertainty and a growing preference for shared experiences over traditional gifting methods, in a bid to capture what they could of consumers’ spend.

With increased promotions and communications in the run up to Christmas and over Black Friday and the January sales period, Maybe* has taken a look at the retailers creating the most social media content. At the same time we’ve profiled whose communications were actually effective at successfully engaging customers online.

Looking at the insight through December 2019 - January 2020

All data collected from Mid December 2019 -January 2020. Data correct as of the time of collection and may not reflect the impact of any paid media support, or data accrued since.

Victoria’s Secret

Victoria’s Secret have the largest social media following of any retailer in the Maybe* retail index. In addition their social media content achieves the most engagement per day with over 150,000 engagements.

Utilising their celebrity models and campaign imagery, the brand resists the urge to include ‘shop now’ calls to action. Instead it uses products placed in lifestyle settings to tell a seasonal story. The girls getting ready for a New Year’s night out was its best performing post.

 

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ASOS

One of the first brands to embrace social media for a customer service channel, customer engagement mechanic and community building tool, ASOS is the second best performing retailer in the Maybe* benchmark.

Posting an average of 13 times per day, ASOS’ global audience of over 17 million delivers the pureplay and their partner brands, over 40,000 engagements per day. Knowing their audience, and the tone of voice they respond best to, resulted in a new product from Nike achieving ASOS its best post.

 

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Primark

Primark was the most active brand in the Maybe* index over the period, posting an average of 237 times per day. That’s a LOT!

Despite ranking third for average engagements per day with 35,000, each post achieved only 158. This is because 75% of the content that Primark posts is responses to customer feedback. As well as creating engaging content for its audience, the brand continues to engage with their customers - listening, learning and solving customer problems is a visible pillar of its social media strategy.

 

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No such thing as too many plants tbf @primark.home ? Faux Plants from £3.50/€4/$5 #Primark #PrimarkHome #HomeDecor

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Marc Jacobs

The first luxury brand to make it into the Maybe* index. Marc Jacobs creates most of its content on Instagram. Though luxury, the brand keeps its colourful, playful and makes it fashion. On the whole it's not its womenswear clothing which drives engagement, it’s beauty and accessory lines which appeal and  see the most engagement, while it was Marc Jacobs’ selfie that scored the highest.

 

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Burberry

Like ASOS, the British heritage brand was an early adopter of social media for engagement purposes. Over the years the brand has continued to use social media to share its campaigns, new seasons and fashion week coverage from London’s catwalks.

Though not creating vast amounts of content, with an average of just two posts per day, Burberry has kept its content  as prestigious and polished online as it is offline. It has retained its luxe positioning, comfortably engaging its aspirational audience as well as its affluent spending customer.

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The Maybe* benchmarking tool allows us to see who’s been building their audience and creating the most social media content. The Maybe* UK business index compares your social media activity with other businesses in your town, region, sector or industry. Our completely customisable indexing feature is 100% free and open to everyone. 

Log into the Maybe* platform to look beyond follower count and get to the really juicy stuff like engagement and social media sentiment. Want to see how you benchmark? Get started for free. Get started for free.