41% of UK will be “Social Shoppers” by 2021 – how can retailers tap into this?

Posted on Thursday, June 21st, 2012

Social media has not only changed the way consumers shop but also the way they interact with brands. While many retailers were initially concerned with any negative backlash social media can ignite – may it be small or big, more and more brands have seen the benefits of embracing it and have thus started to capitalise on it.

A recent article from Retail Systems reports that 41% of UK consumers are expected to be influenced by or will use social media to make a purchase by 2021. That’s almost half of the UK population of consumers that shouldn’t be ignored!

Social media is beneficial to your retail business because it provides a platform for powerful customer endorsements of your brand. When a satisfied customer recommends your brand’s services or products, their referrals carry much more weight than any marketing or advertising within the communities they are a part of.

The above statistic speaks to the importance of integrating social media communications into a retail brand’s overall business strategy. Are you ready to integrate and leverage social media communications into your retail operations today and get ahead of your competition?

One way that a retail brand can consistently and quickly identify these satisfied customers and encourage them to recommend your brand is through Empathica’s GoRecommend social media advocacy solution. Here’s how it works: after customers have provided feedback on their visit and indicated that they have had a great experience, they will be invited to share it on Facebook or Twitter. The personal recommendation will then be promoted to all friends in their social networks – which could amount to thousands of people.

For example, within less than 18 months of launching their CEM programme, Debenhams identified more than 22,000 brand advocates who in turn have shared their positive experiences with 2.2 million friends and followers via Facebook and Twitter using GoRecommend. As a result, they have recently won a Loyalty Award for the Best Use of Social Media to Enhance Loyalty.

Visit our Advocacy Management section to learn how your customers can help build your brand with you.

This entry was posted in Featured Resource How Do I Build Loyalty, Advocacy & Acquire More Customers and assigned these Tags: active advocacy, advocacy, advocacy management, Advocates, Brand Advocacy, CEM, CEM program, Retail, social customer, social media, UK. Bookmark the permalink