For high street retailers, social media can often seem far removed from daily operations, often being perceived as requiring a great deal of effort for relatively little return. While there is a degree of slow acceleration within social media, with new profiles generally taking a long time to build up a large audience, there are a number of creative ways high street retailers can engage online audiences without the need to rely on typical content creation.
Shop Aesthetics
Instead of encouraging employees to spend time creating stylish and effective social media content as part of their job role, retailers can, instead, curate a bespoke aesthetic in-store. By making a visually pleasing shop space, retailers encourage shoppers to capture their own photographs and share them online, which is a form of passive advertising.
For example, some retailers embrace colourful shop shelving and furniture, creating a retail space that both elevates product quality and sets individual items against interesting backgrounds, those ideal for photographs. A brilliant example of this can be found in eos’ pop-up event, The KeosK, for which the Crown Display team created a dazzling pink shop space.
Other retailers have found success in creating a statement wall or a visual backdrop within their shop space. Designs and assets, such as neon signs and bespoke shop counters, can make great prompts to encourage customers to take even a quick photograph, giving them stylish content for their social media profiles alongside free advertising for a retailer.
Experience Focused Retail
Alongside design and aesthetics, events and activities remain a crucial part of the modern retail experience. Whether a pop-up collaboration, product sale, or an in-store experience, a great deal of social media buzz can be generated by offering limited-time experiences to customers who visit a high street shop.
Experiential retail has become exceptionally popular in part due to its success, with customers eager to participate in special events, and in part due to the modern transformation of retail spaces as high street shops seek to merge their business with e-commerce.
With many catalogues being hosted online, retailers have the option to alleviate their brick and mortar venues from a degree of product storage, dedicating a larger portion of their shop space to shop shelving and furniture, as well as visual merchandising and events, with customers still able to browse products but being increasingly drawn into a high street space to experience the brand.
Influencer Collaboration
Depending on your product and demographic, there may be an opportunity to collaborate with local influencers. These social media personalities tend to have established audiences that might complement a retailer’s customer base. As such, it can be worthwhile for brands to reach out to such influencers and invite them to collaborate on content, helping the retailer to reach customers in the area.
The influencer-retail relationship can manifest in a number of ways, with some retailers simply inviting influencers into their retail spaces to shop as normal, simply taking photographs and generating positive brand content as they go, helping to showcase presence on the high street.
