Social Media and How It Affects the Retail Industry

As a small business within the retail industry, we use social media as a way of gaining new business, showcasing our work, engaging with our customers as well as helping our business grow.

We’ve embraced this form of communication, but not only is it difficult to keep up with, it’s difficult to integrate it into your Marketing Plan. The idea is genius and has endless opportunities, hence the necessity to include this media in Retail Marketing.

Although social media is important to use in any business, it does have some positive and negative aspects.

Advantages of social media:

• Increased sales.

• Increased traffic to your website.

• Improves your ranking on search engines.

• Greater customer engagement.

• Greater access to international markets.

• Opportunity for customer feedback.

• Improves networking opportunities with customers and other businesses.

• A benefit to Impulse is also reminding followers, or people searching via specific hashtags that we exist and can help in the Retail Sector. A well-targeted post always responds with new followers, giving us an opportunity to reach out directly via DM’s.

Disadvantages of social media:

• Not having a clear marketing or social media strategy may result in reduced benefits for your business.

• Social media is immediate and needs daily monitoring.

• If you don’t actively manage your social media platforms, you may not see any real benefits.

• Risk of unwanted or inappropriate behaviour on your accounts, including bullying and harassment towards your business and individuals.

• Greater exposure online has the potential to attract risks. Risks can include negative feedback, information leaks or hacking.

• The brilliant work we do that we cannot promote due to contractual restrictions from brands or retailers. That’s frustrating!

The constant battle everyone experiences is that of content – and this is why social media channels evolve to make content more engaging, and we’ve found video media gets good uptake and is always popular.

Social media and physical stores

Have you ever considered that your presence on social media can help you increase the traffic not just to your website but to your physical store too? If you are creating interesting and valuable content on your social media and, for example, you’re posting eye-catching images of your physical store such as new stock in beautiful bespoke displays, your followers will find it interesting and it will increase the urge to visit your store and see this in real life.

ImpulsePOP realises the importance of adapting Displays to changing trends, including those being forced by the Social Media Evolution.

An in-store display now has to merchandise and inform in high-quality media, whereas, in the past, the brief was less demanding. This direction is relying on “instant reactivity” via social media, through smartphones, gaining client details for future campaigns. It is advisable to approach the success of this style of marketing as you would a website. If you cannot gain attention within 3 seconds, then the client will lose interest and move on.

If you wish to consult us on how to use this to enhance brand awareness, and ultimately sell more products, please get in touch to discuss ideas or view our wide range of displays from many award-winning brands that we have designed and manufactured over the years.