Shopping Center Marketing, Online Innovation Part 4

Posted by David Allred

A survey from ComScore on Monday showed that 28% of shoppers were influenced by social media. More than ever, shoppers this year are online reading consumer reports, searching for deals, and checking out what their friends on Facebook are buying.

With 350 million Facebook members and 58 million on Twitter, retailers need to seriously consider a presence in social media to compete.  According to BusinessWeek, ComScore Chairman and co-founder, Joe Fulgoni, “Having a social media marketing strategy makes sense for retailers in this environment, because it’s cost-effective and shows an effort to get closer to one’s customers.” With 7 percent of shoppers signing up to receive alerts on special deals, shoppers want a connection with the brands they shop with and want to save money in this weak economy. Transparency is key for retailers on social media networks. Consumers want to feel like they can have an open dialogue through Facebook, Twitter, and online applications.

Shopping centers should consider a basic Facebook page where they can post sales, and push seasonal messages. Centers could also start using a Twitter aggregator application – where an organized collection of stores (i.e. a mall) could empower retailers to feed information on sales, special offers, discounts, available inventory, etc. into a portal that would allow a local shopper the ease of “following” those options. With time, more online shopping options may emerge and links to ecommerce for these items can begin to be included in these updates, making it easy for the shopper to buy.

Shopping Center Marketing, Online Innovation Part 1

Shopping Center Marketing, Online Innovation Part 2

Shopping Center Marketing, Online Innovation Part 3