by Zheng
While social media becomes an effective way for brands to manage their relationship with consumers and for its advertising, I wonder how the high-street fashion brand– Zara managing their social media online. Each social media platform has its unique way of marketing and communicating with its audience. With the understanding of specific uses for each social media platform, Zara can have active customer engagement on these platforms.
Here’s how Zara manages its most popular social media platform: Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.
Zara follows the best practice on Instagram. In the Social Insider blog, Maria Ganta talks about how to use these 12 strategies to boost engagement on Instagram. Zara is good at applying the following strategies on Instagram: Zara used branded hashtags in its posts: Zara sticks with one Instagram filter and uses the right Instagram image size, and Zara includes a link on the Instagram biography page. With all of these strategies, Zara, which can help them boost engagement with followers. Also, Zara uses product tags on Instagram’s content; in this way, it can easily let the consumers click through the website and make a purchase.
On the other hand, there is an improvement that Zara should work on it in the future on its Instagram account. Zara should use Instagram stories as one of the advertising tools, let followers know that they are actively on social media. According to sprout social, Brent Barnhart writes about “Over 400 million people use Stories daily.” This is one of the best strategies to help Zara stand out from its competitors. The article from sprout social, “Instagram Stories Best Practices for Your Brand,” Barnhart shows the advantage of using Stories feeds can good for a brand. For example, “Many brands share stories dedicated to their followers’ user-generated content such as tagged customer photos. For instance, Converse uses their #FOREVERVHUCK hashtag to show off follower’s photos in a massive Story slideshow.” Zara can use a similar format to post Stories from reposting followers’ content. Instagram Stories is the best way to post user-generated content if they do not want them to dominance their feed. Followers want to engage with brands too.
Zara uses photos and videos contents on Facebook. The comments are mostly positive, with some negative comments appearing occasionally. According to Hootsuite’s “Facebook Marketing in 2020: How to Use Facebook for Business,” it states that the image post and video post will be more attractive than the text post. Zara is a clothing brand. It is suitable for Zara to use these two content forms because it can show audiences of the products visually. But Zara’s Facebook account which has low social engagement with followers. In one of their post, there are 56 likes, 3 comments, and two shares. The statistics show there is little engagement on Facebook. Zara can use the strategies from best practice and apply it in its Facebook. Zara needs to bring their engagement up with its followers.
Zara post the same content as other social media platforms on Twitter. The feedback is mostly negative. The negative comments are about consumer complaints about the customer service of Zara. However, Zara did not follow the best practice on Twitter. The HubSpot blog mention that “If your content does not inspire conversation, it is not worth publishing.” Zara should post more creative content on Twitter. Followers do not want to see the advertising campaign all the time from Zara. The article from Sprout Social, “How to use Twitter effectively and grow your brand,” Rebekah Carter points out that it is essential that brands “develop a ‘human’ side on Twitter…Humanizing your brand means bringing your personality into the content.” I noticed Zara’s Twitter lacks personality in it. Zara should follow the best practice on Twitter and create some humanize content that relates to its consumers. Consumers like to engage with brands too.
Conclusion
Overall, Zara follows the best practice strategies on Instagram, and it has more engagement and sufficient value from Instagram. I think Zara should pay more attention to apply the best practice strategies on Facebook and Twitter. Social media platforms are a new way of advertising tools for marketers now. I assume that Zara would not want to miss this chance!
What do you think Zara should do more to improve its strategies on social media platforms? Let’s chat and please leave a comment below!
Social Media life 