Blog

There’s no escaping the prevalence of Social Media.

Grocers identified Social Media as the #1 tool used to engage with customers. About 96% of grocers are on Social Media and 87 percent of supermarket shoppers regularly follow at least one Social Media site.

So which site (or sites) should grocers use and what do you post on those sites, anyway? This blog post outlines the top 7 topics grocers should share on Social Media and provides a brief overview of the 4 best Social Media platforms for grocers.

What to Post

What should grocers post about on Social Media?

Discounts/Promotions

73% of shoppers are looking for discounts or promotions. These can be special deals for Social Media followers, in-store sales or a combination. Generate buzz by sharing about the sale in advance, post when it starts and post a last call/supplies are running out in the final hours of the sale.

New Products

72% of shoppers are looking for new products. Share photos, product information and recipes related to new products. Post about why these products are now being offered, quote customers about how great the new product is and link to existing favorable product reviews of your new product.

Circular

65% of grocery shoppers look for a digital version of the circular. If it’s posted on your website, share a link. Post images of food advertised in your circular and share recipes related to sale items.

Assist with Shopping Trip Planning

65% of shoppers plan for their shopping trip in advance. Planning activities include collecting coupons, viewing sales, looking for product information and making a shopping list.

Store Events

59% of shoppers want information about in-store events. Free samples, storewide savings and participating in community events count!

Recipes

45% of grocery shoppers are “very willing” to make a new recipe. Recipes are readily available on websites like allrecipes.com and delish.com. There are over 15 billion recipes on Pinterest. Share videos or photos of finished recipes. Consider how-to posts, such as bakery staff showing how to frost a cake or meat selection tips from your meat department.

Coupons

Shoppers are more interested in finding grocery coupons (94%) than any other category. 42% of grocers report generating new traffic through coupons.

Where to Post

Now that you have an idea of what to post, where do you share it? Grocery shoppers prefer Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram. We provide a brief overview and key statistics for these 4 Social Media marketing channels here.

• Users: 214 million US users & 2 billion global

• Gender: 53% Female/47% Male

• Networking: Average user has 155 friends

• Age: 26% 25-34; 19% 35-44; 18% 18-24; 16% 45-54; 10% 65/up; %7% 55-64

• Income: 72% users earn over $75,000/year

• Daily Time Spent: 35 minutes

• Device: 57% are mobile-only users

• Content: Words, links, photos, video, paid advertising, boosted ads, direct messaging, hashtags

• Users: 67 million US users & 317 million global

• Gender: 24% Male Internet users; 21% Female Internet Users

• Usage: 500 Tweets/daily

• Age: 37% 18-29; 25% 30-49

• Income: 54% users earn over $50,000/year

• Daily Time Spent: 1 minute

• Device: 80% use mobile

• Content: 140 character limit, words, links, photos, video, paid advertising, direct messaging, hashtags

• Users: 175 million global

• Gender: 85% female/15% male

• Shopping: 86% of grocery shoppers use Pinterest while shopping & 52% bought something they weren’t planning to because of Pinterest content

• Age: 67% under 40

• Income: 50% users earn $50,000/year & 10% users earn over $125,000/year

• Daily Time Spent: 21 minutes per day

• Device: 75% browse on mobile

• Content: boards with idea clusters, pictures, videos, words, promoted pins, paid advertising

• Users: 77.6 million US users & 700 million global

• Gender: 68% female/32% male

• Networking: 40 billion photos shared daily

• Age: 55% 18-29

• Income: 30% earn $50,000-$74,999/year; 27% earn $30,000-$49,999/year

• Daily Time Spent: 15 minutes

• Content: photos, videos, hashtags

Putting it all Together

Sharing engaging content on Social Media will grow both your audience and sales if done correctly. Correctly means posting regularly, responding to all comments and above all, sharing authentic content that makes sense to both your store and your audience. For more, see our Ease into Social Media with the 5 E’s blog post.

A common question is posting frequency. Most grocers post content to social media a few times a week. However, do what makes sense for your store. How often can you prepare content and how much time can you spend monitoring your Social Media platform/s? If you are considering Social Media marketing but lack sufficient resources to do so in-house, consider hiring an advertising provider to execute on your behalf.