Amazon Named Top Retailer on Social Media

Web giant Amazon have been named as the top retail brand on social media, according to Social Insights on the Retail Industry, a report by social media monitoring firm Brandwatch. Making up the top three were two other retailers, Etsy (2^nd) and Ebay (3^rd), with Walmart the top Bricks & Mortar retailer in fourth. Target made up the top five.

A comprehensive study analysing and scoring the world’s top retail brands and their visibility, sentiment and mentions on social media, the Retail Social Report examined over 10 million interactions over four months, giving each retailer a score across five categories: Social Visibility, General Visibility, Net Sentiment, Reach Growth and Social Engagement & Content.

The key findings from the study, which awarded retailers a total score out of a possible 500, included the following:

• The top five retailers all scored upwards of 300, with Amazon scoring 349, Etsy 336, eBay331, Walmart328 and Target 320

• Positions 5-10 in the study were held by Toys R Us (with a score of 320), Lowes (315), Kohls (307), Sephora (299) and Bed, Bath & Beyond (292)

• The individual category winners were: Amazon (General Visibility), Sanborns (Social visibility), Sams Club (Net Sentiment) Kmart (Reach Growth) and Debenhams (social engagement & content

• Facebook is the clear leader in engagement, with consumers nearly three times as likely to share brands’ content on the platform than they would on Twitter.

• Surprisingly, 99% of all content retailers share on Facebook is visual, with only 1% exclusively status copy.

• The average response time from a retailer on social media is 7hours and 33 minutes, with Petco having the quickest average response time

The study also found that when it comes to responsiveness, retail brands scored better than other industries, such as automotive and television networks with a retailers’ tweets a third more likely to be a direct response to a consumer.

When it comes to gender, retailers’ online audiences are predominantly female and in terms of engagement, women are twice as likely to comment on a retail brand’s social media post than men are. As an illustration, Amazon’s online audience is 56% female and primarily interested in books and family, Etsy’s audience is 86% female with a core interest in fashion, fine arts and family while eBay’s online audience is 65% female and interested in shopping, fashion and family.

The report has also identified that consumers have continued to adopt an additional step in their shopping routine, normalising the behaviour of ‘showrooming’. The art of ‘showrooming’ explores the decision making process that consumers implement before they make a purchase. However, pre-purchase research goes both ways with 80% of consumers researching products online before they buy in store, with 41% looking in store before they ultimately purchase items online.

James Lovejoy of Brandwatch said: “Customer service has always been core to the reputation of the retail industry, but as the number of communications channels increases, providing a quality experience for consumers is increasingly difficult.

Most retailers now will recognise the important part digital plays and that it is now imperative to develop a clear social media intelligence strategy if retailers want their customers to remain loyal advocates of their brand.”