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Retail is scoring over travel and financial sectors when it comes to adopting a proactive approach for engaging consumers through social media.

Published: 02 May 2008

Retail is scoring over travel and financial sectors when it comes to adopting a proactive approach for engaging consumers through social media.

According to the 2008 Social Media Sectors report from search conversion agency Tamar, major brands across the travel and financial sectors could be missing out on potentially massive revenues by failing to engage and capitalise with large numbers of consumer support groups on social networks.

The report analyses the levels of unofficial social network groups in relation to the top 10 travel, retail and financial services brands to determine opportunities for brands to engage with their customers through social networks. The report assesses unofficial group levels for and against top brands on three of the most popular social networks.

"More vociferous consumers are using social media as a platform to highlight positive experience, not just the negative, said Henry Elliss, Head of Social Media at Tamar.

"Failure by brands to engage with groups set up by consumers could see opportunities to engage with customers and boost revenue slip by, where a proactive strategy is not in place. However social networks need to be much clearer in their differentiation between official and unofficial activity so that it is clear to consumers and brands what exactly it is that they are engaging in."

The Report reveals that all the leading organisations from the travel sector have a great deal of consumer support on social networks through unofficial groups, but few brands have registered an official presence to capitalise any support that is evolving from social media. The report found that the few organisations (30%) from the travel sector that registered an official presence on social networks were the subject of on average 59% more unofficial supporter groups than the brands that did not have an official presence.

"With many travelling consumers purchasing tickets on the Internet, the travel sector has an established online presence," said Elliss.

"Travel brands are currently experiencing positive feedback on social networks as a result of the many unofficial consumer led groups supporting brands in this sector. But where organisations continue to be slow to enter the volatile social networking arena they could be missing out on taking advantage of this support."

Retail companies value their social network friends

The 2008 Social Media Sectors Report reveals that retailers are most in touch with social media, with all top brands holding an official presence on at least one major social network. Brands from the retail sector are also the focus of large amounts of social network comment with more than 16 times the number of dedicated unofficial groups as travel brands and over 10 times as many as financial brands. In addition the report reveals that 80% of brands from the retail sector were the subject of over 100 customer support groups.

"With most retailers keen to push their product sales online, they have moved faster than other sectors to implement a strategy that engages with the social media environment," said Ellis.