Local social media campaign attracts 100 retailers and reaches 10 million people

A local social media campaign to help Gloucestershire retailers engage more with consumers has gone from strength to strength and has now reached over 10 million people, had 10,000 competition entries and has 100 active retailers on board.

The campaign, called #WDYT (‘What Do You Think?’), launched 3 months ago and encourages shoppers to post their shopping ideas on social media using the hashtag #WDYT and then tag the desired retailer. This then allows the stores of Gloucestershire to engage with and get to know their shoppers. In order to encourage consumers to engage in the campaign, each week one shopper who has used the #WDYT hashtag is picked out to win £100 of high street vouchers.

Polly Barnfield OBE, founder of Maybe*, and one of the drivers behind the campaign comments: “We always knew that the #WDYT campaign would be popular with both retailers and consumers, but we could have never imagined it would be this successful in such a short space of time. To reach 10 million people, and have over 10,000 competition entries in just a few weeks is truly astonishing. Ultimately we want to see online and offline shopping working closer together in order to improve customer experience, and improve trade for the retailer and our recent statistics show that we are doing just that.”

Polly and the team at Maybe* have put together this pilot in partnership with GFirst LEP, Gloucester City Council, Cheltenham Borough Council, Stroud District Council and the Government.

Since the campaign has launched, a variety of retailers have seen impressive results with luxury shoe shop Moda in Pelle increasing their online audience by 22% and Beards Jewellers seeing 500 people engage with their campaign in a single weekend. Law & Company, the ladies boutique received over 1,120 twitter entries over their first weekend of launching resulting in 450 new twitter followers and a 22% increase on Instagram. Retailers that are involved are seeing a huge success from the campaign.

Sophie Scarrott, owner of Keith Scarrott Shoes in Cheltenham and a retailer on board with the #WDYT project comments on the benefits of retailers taking part in the campaign: “We’ve never done anything like this before and that’s why we’re so keen to do it now. The #WDYT definitely has some mileage and it’s such an easy thing to get involved in. The mechanics are all there for you and there is so much support. There really is no reason not to do it.”

Margaret Cavanagh, Store Manager at Neal’s Yard Remedies also comments on her involvement in the campaign: “It’s a fantastic idea to get the internet supporting the high street, rather than the other way round. I’ve never been involved in a campaign like this before but we’re finding that we have a whole new way of communicating with customers that we didn’t know were there. I just think businesses need to be having conversations with all potential customers and the #WDYT campaign really helps us do that.”

Polly concludes: “We hope the campaign will continue to grow and would like to roll it out on a national level over the next year or two. Our aim is that the #WDYT campaign is the kind of initiative that can really set the standard encouraging greater interaction.”

For more information about the #WDYT campaign please visit www.greatgloucestershirehighstreet.com.For more information about Maybe*, please visit www.maybe.xyz.