Ranking: Nike to Next – the 20 fashion brands bossing social media

During the third national lockdown, ‘non-essential’ retailers have relied on digital channels to communicate and sell to their customers. And, as the likes of Asos and Boohoo have demonstrated in their financial results, those with a strong ecommerce presence and the ability to adapt quickly to consumer trends have reaped the rewards.

But during the coronavirus crisis, retailers have pivoted their social media communication with customers away from ‘hard selling’ techniques to offer a more supportive, sympathetic narrative.

Such interaction via channels such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter has arguably been more crucial than ever, but which fashion retailers have mastered that art and driven online engagement at a time when high streets have been closed for business?

In data compiled exclusively for Retail Week, social listening specialist Maybe* – which tracks the social media activity of 3.9 million businesses across Facebook, Instagram and Twitter – has ranked the top 160 fashion and luxury retailers in the UK based on their engagement during the first three months of 2021.

Sportswear titan Nike comes out on top of the Maybe* ranking, which scores retailers and brands on their average engagements – including likes, retweets, comments and shares – per social media post.

Shares and comments are considered a “deeper level of engagement” from consumers and are therefore given a higher score than simple likes or retweets. 

On average, the businesses in the top 20 post 19 times per day.

Marks & Spencer and Primark are the most active per day as they prioritise responding to customer engagement. Burberry and H&M are the least active with an average of just one or two posts per day, although H&M operates separate social media accounts purely for customer enquiries. 

Analysis from Maybe* head of insight Amy Rountree

How are retailers driving strong engagement? 

Nike scored the top spot through successful Mother’s Day content, paying tribute to mothers that raise athletes and athletes who are mothers themselves.

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A post shared by Nike (@nike)

Nike continues to champion its diversity and inclusion agenda through its social media content. As we saw in 2020, this messaging and, crucially, being seen to walk the talk continues to be of the utmost importance to shoppers.

End, Zara, H&M, Nike, Burberry and Urban Outfitters all occupied the top 10, but did not rely on competitions to drive their engagement. By contrast, Missguided’s best post offered the chance to win a house deposit for a first-time buyer. This was an interesting social media campaign since the prize was not cash to spend with the brand, but instead a prize that reflects the current position and priorities of many of its shoppers.

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A post shared by COMMITTED TO EMPOWERING ALL ⚡️ (@missguided)

While Boohoo, Missguided, Asos and Gymshark all used competition mechanics to drive their social media engagement, the likes of Nike and Urban Outfitters prove that brands can still cultivate deeper and meaningful engagement with relevant content that reflects the world we live in.

Retailers have a job to recognise their customers’ state of mind and create content that speaks to those situations. There is no need to be overtly mentioning ‘lockdown’, ‘pandemic’ or ‘corona’ – those points do not need to be laboured.

The brands that are doing best are simply creating content that either serves their customers’ needs for entertainment and escapism or that demonstrates authentic care for the world we live in and the issues facing us.

Businesses like Zara, H&M and Burberry excel at social media by staying true to the simplicity of their brands. They post less frequently, content is beautifully styled and messaging reflects hero products. All three of these businesses regularly create content that champions sustainability issues. 

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A post shared by Burberry (@burberry)

Nike ensures everything it does is about achievement and breaking limits, in the sporting world and outside of it.

Brand identity and authenticity clearly have a role to play in how customers respond to and engage with content, and issues like diversity and sustainability must form not just a core part of brands’ positioning, but also the actions they take in order to win customer loyalty.

Who should we be keeping an eye on for the rest of the year?

Topshop has continued to engage customers via social media and narrowly missed a spot in the top 20 during the first quarter of the year, despite posting minimal content. But will its new owner Asos seek to overhaul the way it engages with consumers via its social media channels? 

The majority of Topshop’s social content of late references the fact that items can be bought at Asos.com. This speaks to the strength of Topshop’s existing social media audience and its brand recognition.

There seems no need to completely incorporate Topshop social media within the Asos umbrella when its content already performs strongly.

Topshop has always enjoyed social media success and delivered great levels of customer service via social media. It was the same story at Debenhams, especially with the Debenhams Beauty Club.

Asking who ‘owns’ social media within a business is like asking who owns the customer. Social media adds value to multiple areas across a business

The opportunity for Asos to grow Topshop’s social media success and the value it brings a business will not lie in the 20% of social media we see on the surface, which is the content that gets created, but in the 80% that happens behind the scenes.

Asking who ‘owns’ social media within a business is like asking who owns the customer. Social media adds value to multiple areas across a business. The user case where social media will add more value to Topshop and to Debenhams is in whether it is employed as a business tool and not just a marketing channel. 

Will they use social media as a listening tool to quantify and qualify customer feedback? Will social media commentary inform customer experience and business strategy? Can Asos and Boohoo use social data to cross-sell the Topshop and the Debenhams brands they stock?

Also worth watching are brands with a strong sustainability agenda through recycling or peer-to-peer rentals, such as Girl Meets Dress.

These brands previously enjoyed growing success, but post-pandemic they may have to seek new ways to engage customers as concerns around safety and lockdown impact events and occasions the business is used for.

Both activity and engagement with their social content has seen a decrease throughout the first three months of this year. It will be interesting to see if this increases in the coming months as social distancing restrictions are eased and weddings and other larger events start to take place again.

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