So, what is the social media best for retailers?
If you’re considering which social media platform is best for home improvement retailers to sell products, it’s important to consider a few things first.
What is it that you want to post? Is the content visual? In this case, Pinterest, Snapchat, Houzz and Instagram are visually oriented platforms. Or is it wordy? Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn allow more text to be written.
Who is your target audience? Snapchat is predominantly used by teenagers who are unlikely to be homeowners, so would not be the best suited to your business. But a domain such as Facebook tends to have older users and therefore would be.
We’ve outlined all the social media best for retailers that you might like to consider, along with the pros and cons of doing so.
Houzz
Houzz has 20 million active users a month and is primarily used by women rather than men. 90% are homeowners and want to improve their home in regards to: redecorating (84%), building a custom house (10%) or building an addition or remodeling (40%). Houzz also has a Q+A section which allows experts to provide information to customers with questions. However, Houzz is visually oriented rather than text, so if your business does not create the most appealing/attractive products then another platform may be worth considering.
It’s no surprise that Houzz is often referred to as the social media best for retailers in the home improvement sector.
If you’re considering which #socialmedia platform is best for home improvement retailers to sell products, it’s important to consider a few things first! We have some suggestions for which platform you may want to use… #SMM Share on XTwitter is the most ‘conversational’ type of social media platform as it allows quick and easy interaction between you and your followers. You can tweet about your products, deals, events etc, engaging with your followers who can tweet back their thoughts and queries.
As a consequence, you may find that the limit of 280 characters may be rather restrictive, in which case Twitter may not be the right platform to use (this problem can be combated with shortened URLs – https://goo.gl/pxQ1EB ). On the other hand, there are over 14 million people in the UK who use Twitter on a monthly basis (according to eMarketer’s latest forecast of internet and social network usage in the country) which allows you to interact with a wide and diverse community.
A good example is tile shop Hometiles (@HomeTilesUK) uses Twitter multiple times a day by retweeting posts and tweeting photos of tiles they have in store. Tweeting multiple times a day helps to increase followers because your account is more active as there is more, new content.
Instagram is the most visual social media platform and there are currently over 700 million active monthly users. However, a thing to keep in mind is that the majority of Instagram users are under the age of 30: 31% of Instagram users are between 18-24 years old and 30% aged 25-34 in contrast to 9% who are aged 45-54. Yet engagement on Instagram is 10 times higher than Facebook, 54 times higher than Pinterest and 84 times higher than Twitter.
As Instagram is a visually reliant platform, if you require heavy amounts of text and your brand isn’t visually oritentated, you may not benefit from having an Instagram account. It has been found that higher quality photos, regular posts, hashtags, adding locations and tagging people will help your brand to stand out. For example @harwoodhomes has over 700 followers, regularly posts photos of their products and parts of their showroom and receives around 20 likes per post.
We often get asked if the social media best for retailers is Facebook…
Facebook is the most widely used social media platform and the average person spends around 50 minutes on Facebook, Instagram and Messenger a day (more than any other social media). Plus, an estimated 1.55 billion people log into Facebook monthly with the most popular age group being 25-34 year olds. Facebook can promote a ‘positive word of mouth’ as the ‘like’ of one follower will show up on their friends’ timelines, promoting your page, as well as your posts and notifications.
However, it has been found that only 1-5% of people who have liked your page will see your updates which may get lost in people’s lengthy news feeds. A way to combat this problem is by purchasing Facebook ads which include video/domain ads/offer ads etc. These ads allow you to target customers by location/demographic/age/gender/interests/behaviour as well as tapping into their recent purchase behaviour. It is important to note that you shouldn’t rely on Facebook for people to purchase items, as people use Facebook to look at their friends/family’s activity rather than shopping. However, the use of Facebook ads will increase brand awareness and traffic to your website which may lead to purchases of products.
For example, @buildercarpenterhertford’s page shows how customers can review their business and contact them by facebook messenger at the top right
Snapchat
Approximately 77% of people who use Snapchat are 18-24 years old which drops to 38% of 35-44 year olds in the UK. This means these users are unlikely to be interested in home improvements. Although ads are apparent on Snapchat, they are skippable which may mean that not much attention is being paid to your advertisement.
Pinterest is predominantly used for lifestyle, such as: fashion, home, decor and recipes. The primary audience of Pinterest is female.
Many businesses create moodboards that are likely to share interests with their customers. For example Hillarys Blinds has a Pinterest account and they have made different mood boards per theme e.g rustic or festival seasons.
It is important to note that, as something is pinned and then repinned and repinned again, it is possible that the link to your website will be lost and traffic will not necessarily be directed to your it. Yet, in spite of this, Pinterest offers a creative outlook for you to post information about your website.
Conclusion
Overall, hopefully you’re no longer confused as to your choice for social media best for retailers.
You’d probably agree your home improvement business would greatly benefit from using Houzz and Facebook, possibly Instagram if the items you are selling are aesthetically pleasing.
As Facebook is the most widely used platform, it creates a great opportunity for brand exposure and increased traffic. Houzz’s purpose is to help with home improvement and Instagram is a good tool to use to advertise products or showrooms.
If you would like to find out more about how Cariad’s social media team can help to boost engagement and increase brand awareness, please contact us by filling in our online contact form or call us on 01992 582 824.
