Topshop is the most popular retailer on Facebook and Twitter: stats

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Posted 19 April 2012 12:51pm by Graham Charlton with 3 comments

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Topshop continues to grow its following on social media sites, thanks to lots of features, in-store promotions and relatively high levels of engagement with fans and followers. 

Stats from eDigital Research look at the number of followers for the top 20 retailers on Facebook and Twitter and, for the first time, Google+. 

Here are a few highlights from the study, which can be downloaded here (survey required)...

Top 20 UK retailers on Facebook

The last time we covered this study, Topshop was also in pole position, and it has added more then 1m new fans since May 2011. 

Why is Topshop doing so well? 

It's target audience are big Facebook (and social media in general) users, so the strategy of promoting its Facebook presence works well. 

Content is regularly updated to keep people interested, while it also promotes its social media profiles in stores and from its website. The retailer uses exclusive deals and interactive content to keep people interested. 

How much this translates into sales is another matter, but it's significant that it hasn't opened an f-commerce store, presumably preferring to drive users to its product pages. 

Engagement levels on Facebook

The number of posts roughly correspond to the most popular retailers, suggesting that those that make the effort to communicate with followers reap the rewards. 

However, the report does find that enagement drops over the weekend, presumably because the staff responsible are working 'standard' office hours. The same pattern is seen with Twitter. 

Since a quarter of Facebook users visit the site more than once per day, it could be argued that retailers are missing a trick (and perhaps some customer service issues) by taking the weekend off. 

Top 20 UK retailers on Twitter

Many of the same brands as the Facebook top 20 feature heavily on the Twitter list, though the follower numbers are much lower. 

The report picks out M&S as an example of best practice on Twitter, thanks to its use of multimedia, as well as a willingness to engage with followers and deal with customer service problems. 

Top 20 UK retailers on Google+

There are retailers on Google+ but many, such as Tesco's page, are just placeholders in case in takes off. ASOS has made the effort though, and this has been rewarded with top spot.