Most brands already know Twitter is a hot place to reach consumers. But to move from noisemaker to valuable content provider, check out what consumers are looking for on the platform while shopping. Twitter recently conducted a survey via its Insight Survey Platform, which polled both a general Canadian audience and an active retail audience (who follow and engage with brands). Here’s what they found:
How shoppers use Twitter
The top reason (52%) the active retail audience is using Twitter while shopping is to “browse for inspiration on what to buy.” That response was followed by “find product reviews” (45%) and “find product information” (42%). Other answers were “compare prices” (27%) and “check in-store availability of a product” (20%).
How demos differ
Broken down by demographic, the younger cohort (respondents aged 13 to 24) say they “browse for inspiration on what to buy” (68%), followed by “find product reviews” (35%) and “find product information” (26%). Contrast that to the 35-plus crowd, for whom finding information on products ranked as the top response (54%), followed by product reviews (48%) and inspiration at 42%.
Content affecting purchase decisions
When trying to decide what to buy, “exclusive discounts/deals” was found to be valuable by the most users (29%). Next in line was content around “price information” (22%), followed by “product information” (20%) and “product inspiration” (14%). About one in 10 found tweets with “links to expert reviews” most valuable, with 5% responding to “information about product availability.”
Dissecting content by category
The value of the above-mentioned content categories tends to differ by retail category. For instance, in fashion, “exclusive discounts/deals,” “price information” and “product inspiration” all tied as the most valuable kind of tweets for users when trying to decide what to buy (at 23% apiece). In grocery, “product inspiration” led the pack (23%), followed by “exclusive discounts/deals” (21%), while for speciality stores, “exclusive discounts/deals” tweets were a clear leader (34%). “Price information” content was the most valuable for one-stop retailers at 29%, followed by “product information” and discounts at 24% each.
Tweets that promote store switching
Tweets could encourage nearly one in three active retail audience respondents to try a new store. Content “about how shopping there is faster and easier” was the top response (44%), while tweets “exemplifying how the store excels in customer service” was a close second at 42%. Content on Twitter “letting me know about new store locations near me” and “from a brand responding to my tweet” netted 39% and 32%, respectively.
Image courtesy Valentina Razumova / Shutterstock.com
