US retailers say social media as important as online shopping

Jun 12, 2012 by Dirk Singer

According to KPMG, social media is as important to US retailers as online shopping itself.

When asked which digital marketing channels were having a significant impact on their business, 59% said online shopping and 58% social media – both far ahead of email campaigns (49%).

So far so good, the next question however related to what those retailers intend to do about it. 57% say they will use social media for “external brand promotion” – e.g send out promos on Twitter and Facebook. 51% intend to use it for customer insight.

However – less than half (45%) intend to use it for two way customer engagement. That brings to mind two related studies.

First of all, a recent report in the Wall Street Journal said that more CIOs were interested in big data than social media. Why talk to customers online when I already know all about them – a potentially short sighted approach (see this Atlantic article on how hash-tags can bring corporations to their knees for reasons why).

Secondly, it chimes in with a study carried out last year showing that only 25% of UK retailers responded when called out on Twitter, a stat I’d hope would have improved by now.