Today will mark the final day of trade show Fashion Exposed autumn/winter 2015.
We look back on top tips we learned from last year's business series.
Social Media Servants: Tim Krotiris, director.
1. What is the biggest impact social media has had on the Australian retail landscape?
There is no doubt the biggest impact social media has had on Australian retailers is the ability to connect to customers daily. The ability retailers have to connect, position themselves top of mind and establish additional sales channels is, quite frankly, phenomenal.
The ability to see upcoming trends, listen to customers discuss likes and dislikes, and get a deeper understanding of market segments is so powerful.
Retailers have the ability to literally become part of customers’ daily lives. There is no bigger impact than this.
2. How can retailers determine the best social media platform for them?
Retailers must determine the role they want to play online in their customers’ lives.
What this means is they must decide on the one thing that will make their customers choose to connect to them every single day.
For instance Pinterest and Instagram are brilliant for fashion brands, especially for the younger market. Twitter is great for brands wanting to create relationships with media and Facebook is really where it all comes together.
Each platform has a different role to play in a social media strategy. This is determined by the core business objective, attributes of the target market and desired outcomes. The first step is to decide the role your business will play and then pick the platform best suited to this.
3. Who are the new kids on the block, in terms of social media channels that are growing in popularity or can be leveraged to benefit business and connect with consumers?
There are surprisingly quite a few social media platforms released every year. At the moment Snapchat is making some waves and getting great traction.
For retailers that currently have a highly engaged social media audience, this is a platform that you can really have some fun with. For the right brands and businesses, Snapchat has some brilliant creative possibilities.
A platform also worth remembering (and continually overlooked in Australia) is Google+. We are expecting this year to see the higher adoption of IPTV (Internet TV), which will make Google+ very important. For retailers that have ignored Google+ up until now, it's time to rethink the strategy.
4. How can retailers monetise social media avenues?
Monetising social media is the key question all businesses have. The top tips required to monetise social media are:
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Likes are worthless without engagement. Engaged communities buy.
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Create reasons for customers to visit your social pages and click links.
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Treat your social audience as your best VIP customers.
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Create joint ventures with complementary businesses and brands to leverage each other’s communities.
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Make it easy to buy through your social channels (e.g.: links work and are easy to purchase).
Note: Working out how to monetise social media for your business is a process. The cost of not continuing to try, experiment and work it out could be the complete destruction of your business in tomorrow’s retail environment. You have been warned.
5. How much time or budget should retailers dedicate to this?
While social media time allocation and budgets differ for all businesses, key factors such as the business size, database, offline presence, PR and access to quality content are important factors that play a part.
As a guide, we work with businesses ranging in size from $250K to $250 million a year in turnover. None of these businesses with a successful social media presence would have less than 15–20 hours a week dedicated to it. In terms of advertising spend it differs from business to business.
The key element to remember is that digital and social media does not mean throwing out proven business principles. Invest some money and track the return. If it works, then invest more. If it doesn’t, try something else.
The great thing about digital advertising is the ability to measure results; the data is extraordinary. So set a budget, try it out and see what works best for you. It really is an exciting place to play.