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Social Media and Retail Industry

Enable your organization to effectively implement social media concepts in to core business. functions.

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Retail Industry

Confidential
This document is solely for informational purposes. The contents of this document are strictly confidential and contain proprietary information. The recipients agree that they will use the information only for their own use and will not divulge any such information to any other party without In-Rev or any of our affiliates' prior written consent.

All rights, including IP and copyrights in the creative concepts, ideas, plans, drawings, logos, designs, or other intellectual property in this document are with In-Rev. No part of the same may be reproduced (including through any modification / adaptation thereof), in any form or by any means whatsoever under penalty of law.

Simplify360 Social Media Management Application for Social Business

Copyrights 2012 Simplify360 www.simplify360.com

Abstract
Retail Industry is one of the most active industries on Social Media. Retail Brands like Walmart and Target are among the top 20 brands on Facebook with the highest number of Facebook fans. Recent Comscore research shows that 54% of the referral traffic to retail websites comes from Facebook, 30% from Pinterest and 8% from Tumblr. Among the many use cases of social media, marketing is the top priority for Retail Brands. Amplification of their marketing message makes the huge chunk of their overall social media strategy. Besides marketing, customer support is another key activity on social media. In this report, we will explore the conversation trends around the best US Retail brands as listed by Interbrand. Interbrand is one of the largest branding consultancies. The brands are ranked based on the BrandValue1 which is calculated using Financial Performance and Role of a Brand Index.

The keyword combinations used for the research: (Region Target: United States)

Walmart, Target, The Home Depot, CVS.Pharmacy, Best Buy

Note: The report is based on the social media conversations. The brands chosen for the research were not commissioned by any organization. The research was carried out with the sole intention of showcasing Simplify360 and the power of social media research.
1. Brand Value Details: This means that our method takes into account all the many ways in which a brand touches and benefits its organization -- from attracting and retaining talent to delivering on customer expectations. The final value can then be used to guide brand management, so businesses can make better, more informed decisions. http://www.interbrand.com/en/best-globalbrands/best-global-brands-methodology/Overview.aspx

Simplify360 Social Media Management Application for Social Business

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The Top 5 BEST US Retail Brands chosen for the Research

The top 5 US Retail Brands 2012 below are ranked accordingly to their Brand Value.

Walmart Target The Home Depot CVS/Pharmacy Best Buy

*Source: Interbrand

139,190 $m 23,444 $m 22,020 $m 17,343 $m 16,755 $m

Walmart is the most valued Retail Brand in the United States, followed by Target according to Brand Value scoring. We can clearly see that Walmart leads with a high margin.

Which Brands are most talked about on Social Media?

By taking only a sample data set of around 4K, Target (53%) and Best Buy (24%) are the most talked Brands in United States. Most of these conversations are happening on Twitter and on Facebook. Twitter captures almost 85 % of the conversations. 5% 15%

24%
0% 18% 53%

Walmart Target The Home Depot CVS Pharmacy Best Buy

Twitter Others 85%

66%

Distribution of conversations based on different platforms.

10%

14%

1%
Blogs Other Facebook Flickr

6% News

2% Video

*Note: In the social media conversation data only Public Facebook conversations are considered.

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Which regions are most actively talking?

Minnesota

3%

Michigan

3%

New York

5%

Pennsylvania

3% California
North Carolina

18%
3%

3%
Georgia

Florida Texas

5%
Alabama

8%

3%

The above MAP distribution shows that most of the conversations are coming from CALIFORNIA around 18%

Other 46%

Then we have Texas with 8%, and NewYork and Florida with 5%. Based on this small sample size data, region wise distribution can only show us the online activity of consumers and not their preferences in details. More data could give us clarity on the Brand preferences and sentiment distribution as well.

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How are people talking about Retail Brands?

Link No RT RT 34% 9% No Link
Unlike in other Industries where the number of messages with Links is higher than number of messages without Links, in Retail Industry we see the opposite. Around 44% of the conversations are mentions of the Brand without any RT or Links. This shows that the mentions are more related to brand experiences than simple news/information.
44% 40%

44%
13%

Types of Tweets

Negative Positive Neutral

16%

In terms of sentiments of the conversations, 44% are positive and only 16% are negative. The trends in sentiments are very similar to other Industry Sentiment distribution.

Sentiment Distribution

Example of Conversations
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------@aj_toledo I gotta take it to Best Buy hopefully they can recover my shit --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------@apexonline did u tell him no offense, but ur only a register dude at home depot not even a real handy man??? --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Oh my gulay. I need to go to target since they sell @onedirection school supplies. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Poop in the target hallway? #Hahaha --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Why is it every time I go to Target I spend way more than I was supposed to.Went in for one thing came out with a cart load. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------@saraherod237 best buy and if you want one I'd get it from like radio shack it's cheaper 50$ for the 4 and 100$ for the 4s ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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What at the most talked about Topics in Retail Industry?

EVENT SERVICE EXPERIENCE PRODUCTS LOCATION COST

25% 1% 20% 36% 12% 6%

EVENT

17% 1% 21% 35% 21% 6%

EVENT

3% 2% 12% 57% 10% 16%

EVENT

25% 2% 14%

SERVICE

SERVICE

SERVICE EXPERIENC E PRODUCTS

EXPERIENCE

EXPERIENCE

PRODUCTS

PRODUCTS

36%
LOCATION

LOCATION

LOCATION

22% 1%

COST

COST

COST

CVS has a very negligible amount of conversations for any relevant analysis to be carried out.

Note: EVENT: Any campaigns or events around the Brand. SERVICE: Conversations related to services of the Retailer. EXPERIENCE: About experiences of customers. PRODUCTS: Around products offered by the Retailer. LOCATION: Conversations related to Check-ins. COST: Conversations around the prices of the Products.
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Summary of the conversation analysis around Retail Brands:

The comparison charts above shows that most conversation around Retail Brands revolve around the PRODUCTs. BEST BUY has the most conversations around PRODUCTs, around 57% along with the most conversations around the COST, around 16%. On the other hand, TARGET and WALMART have more conversations around Retail Experience than BEST BUY, around 35%. Among all brands, TARGET and HOME DEPOT have the highest conversations around LOCATION, which means people like updating their location details when they are in TARGET or HOME DEPOT than in any other Retail outlets.

What else are people talking about Retail?

JOBS

The Best Buy

22%

One more Thing: Beside all the other kinds of conversations, the analysis also saw many conversations related to JOBS and employment.
28%

Home Depot

Out of this, more than 90% conversations were around jobs and remaining around people updating about the employees working at the Retailers.
---------------------------------------------------------------

Target

20%

WalMart

22%

Eg: this girl working at home depot has a 69 tattoo.... lolwhy.

---------------------------------------------------------------

In addition to general updates, there were around 5-6% conversations related to PARKING spots at Retailers. Ofcourse parking is an important aspect of the Retail Experience. We can see that Target has the most parking conversations around 58%, then followed by The Best Buy which has around 20%. Even Home Depot has significant amounts of parking conversations, around 17%. Eg: Sitting in the parking lot

PARKING
20% 5%
WalMart Target Home Depot The Best Buy

17%

58%

slappin pandora and everyone coming out of home depot just staring. #Akward

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Are people loyal to Retail Brands?

Looking at the conversations between TARGET, THE HOME DEPOT and THE BEST BUY, we see that there are very few overlapping people talking about these BRANDs. Out of a sample of 3187 conversations between TARGET, THE HOME DEPOT and THE BEST BUY, we found the following:

61.1%

1%

22.5%
0.3%

0.1% common people talking about all three brands.

0.2%

14.8%

The above diagram shows that only around 0.1% people are talking about all the brands at this point of time. This is a very low number indicating that people are generally exclusive about their Retail preferences. In addition to this, we see that BEST BUY and TARGET are the most associated Retail Brands compared to others. Home Depot and Target only have 0.2% common people talking about them, and Home Depot and Best Buy have only around 0.3%.

Simplify360 Social Media Management Application for Social Business

Copyrights 2012 Simplify360 www.simplify360.com

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Simplify360 Social Media Management Application for Social Business

Copyrights 2012 Simplify360 www.simplify360.com