Major UK retailers were busy building their social networks in January, with the traders adding 905,792 fans to their Facebook pages last month, according to new research.
Ecommerce software solutions firm ChannelAdvisor‘s latest UK Facebook Commerce Index shows that Topshop still leads the pack on the social media site with 2,005,191 fans, and with nearly 10,000 new followers it also saw the largest growth in total numbers during last month.
The top ten retailers on the Facebook remained unchanged from January; with Topshop followed by Asos.com; New Look; River Island; Urban Outfitters; Next; Net-a-porter.com; Marks & Spencer; La Senza and then Tesco, but several other firms also saw substantial growth during the period.
From next to no presence on Facebook a few months ago leading supermarket chain Asda increased its fan numbers by 59 per cent in January to 117,965, while value clothing chain Matalan recorded a rise of 55 per cent and online bike specialist Wiggle posted a 32 per cent jump in numbers.
ChannelAdvisor account managers Simon Belsey & Vanessa Harpley commented: “Asda has been the largest percentage grower in the Index this month.
“On its website, Asda tells customers to follow Asda on Facebook, share ideas and help shape what they do. They followed through on this by launching a new flavour of Haggis pie and giving fans the option to choose its range of clothes.”
“Matalan uses its page very well to display its products, offers and provide customer service. However, the main driver for the dramatic increase was a competition to win a year‘s worth of household energy, which drove a large number of leads.”
Boohoo.com saw the largest percentage increase of any retailer in the top 25, with a 30 per cent growth of 93,030 new fans, meaning it jumped from 14th to 13th in the overall list.
Promotions used to entice consumers to follow the brand last month included a competition to win a Fiat 500 car.
Belsey & Harpley added: “Topshop, boohoo.com and New Look are the top three growers of January, accounting for a remarkable 30 per cent of the fan growth, or 276,518 additional fans.
“Topshop continues its unstoppable rise without competitions or promotions, but gains fans through fun engaging comments, daily fix pictures and predictions of the top trends for 2012. Boohoo.com and New Look take a different approach by heavily advertising January sales and using competitions for fan acquisition.”
