Asos cashes in on social networking

Asos has continued to cash in on the retailing potential of social networking sites. By expanding its Facebook store and using exclusive previews and offers to entice customers on to their pages, ASOS has managed to attract almost 500,000 new followers since April 2011. This is over twice the amount of any other retailer, according to a study from eDigitalResearch.

However Top-shop remains the social networking reigning champion, with over 1.5 million followers on Face-book. The top twenty retailers on eDigitalResearch’s top 100 have a total number of 8 million Facebook followers online, and it remains the most popular and effective way for retailers to connect with customers.

The Social Media Benchmark emphasises the need for a strong online presence and the need to keep evolving with technology in order to reach as many potential customers as possible. With this in mind, eDigitalResearch have developed surveys features designed to aid promotion of retailers, encouraging customers to recommend pages of brands they like to their friends through their media pages.

Given its success, it isn’t surprising that more and more retailers are deciding to employ the social networking strategy. Tesco was slow to jump on the bandwagon by only launching its official Facebook page in early 2011 but has already jumped up twenty five places on the table, showing that it’s better late than never to take advantage of the increasingly powerful online tool.Derek Eccleston, director at eDigitalResearch, expects this success to continue, as ‘retailer’s social media following continues to increase, allowing them to strengthen bonds with customers and increase revenue streams’.