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Supermarkets Aldi and Tesco are in a David and Goliath fight for share of voice on social media in the UK, based on their relative market share, according to a ‘Talkability Tracker’ from big data product company DigitalContact.co.uk, which monitored millions of social media mentions during June.
Aldi is becoming the talk of the town on social and taking on Tesco for the top spot in this first supermarket online Talkability Tracker.
DigitalContact.co.uk has developed a snapshot view of the most talked about supermarkets online via analysis which ran for a five-day period between June 24 and 28 and found that Tesco – by far the biggest food retailer in the UK based on market share – topped the conversation list of supermarkets’ online presence. However, of the tweets, 15% of those received were negative, which was 73% higher than average – akin to the incident caused by their placing of Bacon flavoured Pringles in the Ramadan offer, a forbidden food for Muslims.
However, Aldi is getting value for money from its social presence, securing 17% of market share based on social conversations – despite only commanding 5.5% of market share by UK revenue. Aldi has been encouraging positive conversations about their brand by using #AldiChallenge, promoted using the hashtag to report any savings they have made by shopping there. The tracker shows that, if you take into account Aldi’s smaller market share, it is punching far above its weight, outperforming its giant rival by a factor of 2.3x. If you only look at positive mentions, the challenger is doing even better, beating Tesco hands down by a factor of 2.8x.
As for other supermarket competitors, ASDA is also outshining a number of high street and traditional British retailers, featuring fourth on Digital Contact’s sentiment report, ahead of Waitrose and Marks & Spencer.
It is important to acknowledge that this data is a five day ‘snapshot’ of the most talked about supermarket brands on social media, only taking into account what their customers are saying about them, rather than the conversation they are building themselves. Despite only showcasing a short period, the research reinforces the changeable and powerful impact that conversations had by customers online can have on a brand.
Digital Contact CEO, Gareth Mann (pictured left), said: “Social media is the voice of the consumer and companies need to be listening to what it says if they want to stay one step ahead. Understanding what has been said about your brand should be paramount to any organisation. This calibre and depth of analysis can help businesses establish a better relationship with customers, understand consumer needs, see the differing trends from around the world and help predict future trends in their industry.
“As we can see, social media is making the fight for brand recognition a level playing field and, by understanding and capitalising on social media, many brands can take on the Goliaths in their markets.”
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UK department store, Selfridges, has chosen software from enterprise listening technology company Synthesio to listen to and engage with customers online.
Selfridges will now be able to monitor and analyse customer comments online on a global basis, including key Asian social networks like Sina Weibo. This will enable Selfridges’ marketing and customer service teams to 
respond efficiently to customer queries, engage with customers and analyse their online and offline experiences with Selfridges.
Synthesio’s software monitors and evaluates online conversations across social media platforms, review sites, forums, blogs and the comment sections of newspapers, in 50 languages and 200 countries.
The agreement with Selfridges follows Synthesio securing a similar brief with Virgin Atlantic last month.
Claire Higgins, head of digital marketing at Selfridges, said: “We are continually striving to provide the best possible service to our customers. By using Synthesio’s platform we will be able to provide even better care online and gain valuable insights that will help us better understand the online and offline experiences of our customers.”
Loic Moisand, founder and CEO of Synthesio, said: “We are delighted to start working with such an iconic brand like Selfridges, and we look forward to helping them continue their great work of delighting their customers. This project is another great example of integrated Listening and Engagement, which is becoming the de-facto strategy for mature brands.”
Synthesio’s platform also contains a built-in metric for measuring a company’s online reputation – SRS (Social Reputation Score) – which many brands use to benchmark themselves against competitors, and measure the impact of their activities.
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