Before our analysis of social media performance moves on to examine fresh territory, we thought it’d be prudent to round off our look at UK high street retailers’ use of social media by putting not one, but four, retail sectors under the DBD Media knife: card shops, jewellers, booksellers and opticians. This broad range gives an overarching indication of how successfully – and seriously – the space is being used by the retail sector.

You’d be forgiven for thinking that retailers are dropping like flies. It seems that every week a different household name goes into administration – Borders, Habitat, MFI, Oddbins, Woolworths, Game…the list goes on. At the risk of stating the obvious, many in the retail sector are struggling due to the combined effects of the economic downturn and the shift to online. Read more »

Welcome our third examination of the social media performance of UK retailers. Our analysis of the casual outdoor fashion and toy retail sectors generated some interesting results, so we thought we’d take a good look at high street players in the health and beauty space.

With spring now in the air, there’s increasing pressure for UK consumers to get “body beautiful” in the lead up to summer. Plus, of course, the nation continues to be obsessed with celebrity culture and image. But are UK retailers effectively capitalising on social media channels as a way of exploiting these themes? Are they using social media to encourage their target audiences to invest in products that realise their desire to look good? Read more »

Facebook announced some pretty significant changes to its business proposition. Not only is Timeline now available to brands through the revision of Facebook Pages, the social network has also made some major changes to its advertising platform.

In isolation, these updates have a big impact. In combination, they offer businesses an even more powerful marketing tool. Read more »

Here’s the second snapshot in our sector-by-sector examination of how UK brands are performing in terms of social media. This chapter sees us move away from casual outdoor fashion that we wrote about last time to look at a different end of the retail spectrum… toy shops.

As every Facebook login shows, proud parents have colonised social media with pictures of their kids. Community portals like Mumsnet and Netmums have become powerhouses capable of influencing social policy. And the blogosphere is bursting with mummy diarists. Read more »

This marks the inauguration of our sector-by-sector examination of how well businesses are really performing in terms of social media.

With high street retailers closing down at an alarming rate, we felt the time was right to examine how some of the major players are performing in terms of social media. In the first of our snapshots, we look at the casual outdoor fashion sector, namely Fat Face, White Stuff, Joules, Superdry and Crew Clothing. Read more »

As the esteemed American marketer, Brian Solis, recently pointed out, we are entering an era of ‘Digital Darwinism’. That is: “the evolution of consumer behaviour when society and technology evolve faster than our ability to adapt”. With the digital landscape developing at such a dynamic pace, it’s no wonder some companies are nervous about taking that bold but crucial decision to go truly digital.

Gartner research predicts that by 2015, 50% of traffic and orders to retailer websites will be from social media and mobile. So it could be argued that to undervalue digital is to severely compromise future revenue flows. Yet, some companies are alarmingly slow to adapt. They may have a basic e-commerce strategy in place. But it is really integrated? Is it mobile-friendly? Does it use social media to maximum effect? Read more »

IBM recently unveiled research showing that chief marketing officers (CMOs) feel deluged by the ever-increasing wealth of consumer data coming from social media sites. So much so that 82% of CMOs are basing their marketing strategies on traditional – and costly – market research, rather than using the freely available information that can be drawn from social media’s readymade data goldmine. Read more »