Grocers Get Serious about Social Media

Spend some time surfing Facebook, Twitter or another platform, and you’ll find plenty of retailers interacting with their followers – and vice-versa. But as the pervasiveness of social media’s influence continues to intensify, it’s no longer an on-the-side endeavor for most companies. In fact, a new report finds food retailers making significant investments in both time and money in their social media outreach – as well they should.

According to the report, developed by Tampa, Fla.-based marketing and promotions management company Aptaris and Cincinnati-based analytics firm Dunnhumby, 95.6 percent of food retailers have a presence on social networks, and three-quarters are making significant or moderate investments in social media-related outreach. Further, companies running upwards of 50 stores are more willing to make significant investments with digital technology to power digital marketing and promotions.  

And it’s not just the intern handling things here. While some food retailers might still be complementing their operations with support from an intern or agency, most employ in-house staff to manage their social outreach, particularly larger grocers.

As for platforms used, size matters. Among the 96.4 percent of food retailers using social media, all use Facebook, alongside 57.8 percent which are active on Twitter, while second-tier platforms such as Instagram, Pinterest and YouTube are also rising in penetration. But larger grocery companies tend to engage more across all social media platforms, while small independents mostly rely on Facebook and Twitter.

Much like gathering data, however, social media efforts are worthless without measurement and analysis, affirms the Aptaris/Dunnhumby study. While one in five food retailers doesn’t measure the effectiveness of its social media outreach, 83.7 percent closely monitor likes and shares of posts. Additionally, click-through rate is an important benchmark, in contrast to tying social media posts back to actual sales lifts or conversion.

This is where size and frequency are most revealing: Retailers that post more often tend to be more likely to measure effectiveness, and larger ones are more likely to track likes, shares and click-through rates – as well as their overall effect on sales.

Addressing the Disconnect

Thus, while the vast majority of food retailers have embraced social media, there seems to be a disconnect between grocer activity and that of their patrons, according to another recent study by the Lake Success, N.Y.-based Retail Feedback Group, which found that despite nearly nine in 10 supermarket shoppers regularly following one or more social media sites, only one in four (25 percent) of that group claims to be friends with or connected to his or her primary grocery store.

So, what can grocers do to narrow the gap and connect better?

Focus on the local community first, advises Tom O’Reilly, Aptaris CEO, who noted that the local grocery store has often been a community center, supporting people through everything from little-league and high-school-sports teams to fundraisers and jobs for high-schoolers. By focusing on building the community through digital channels, grocers can make a huge impact.

One idea shared by a participant in the Aptaris/Dunnhumby survey is for local grocers to send personal friend requests to shoppers in their market areas through neighborhood pages. Since people like to know the owners of local businesses, they could be more willing to follow a grocer on social media after getting a personal friend request. 

When done right, O’Reilly believes “local grocers can own the social space by reinforcing their identity in the community and gain an edge over competition.”