Polly Barnfield shows how retailers can use Instagram as a digital shop window. Rag and Bone, a vintage store in Bristol, stages new rooms consistently to build a recognizable look that drives engagement, uses location tags and hashtags to find local customers, and strategically likes other local brands to build visibility without being obvious about it.
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Today we're looking at how you can really extend your shop window or the inside of your store onto social media. So Rag and Bone is a quirky antique vintage store. Over on Instagram, you see high levels of engagement, generally speaking, because they stage a room every single time time they have new stock, so customers can enjoy the lovely styling of the imagery and be inspired, or they can get in touch to get their hands on any of the new stock. So by using the image and the consistent turnaround of the rooms, then people get to know that a certain type of image on maybe a certain day of the month or in a certain time period will mean new stock. That creates following and it creates engagement because it's through consistency. So if you are a brand that maybe regularly changes your shop window or it might be your displays, think about using Instagram as your shop window and extending it. Because if you rely on physical footfall, we don't always know that you've got all of these products here because we don't actually know that you exist. So if we found you maybe through a hashtag or we found you through a location like Bristol, then all we're doing is getting an insight into what we can physically purchase and what we can see and the kind of feel and the experience we will get when we cross your threshold. So think of Instagram as your digital shop window. Now, if I was Rag and Bone based in Bristol, I would want to look at other businesses in the area that I can engage with. Because guess what, if you are in Bristol, in my local area and you are going to a restaurant or maybe going to get your hair done, what's to stop? You wanted to come in and have a look at the antiques that I have. It's all about sharing customers in a location. So what I would do is I would go into the maybe tab, going to engage and go into location and then what I would do is I would make sure that local is toggled here and then these are all the most engaged businesses in Bristol in this time period right now. So if, for example, your shop brand, I would definitely want to be a watch brand. Sorry, I want to be going in here, I'd want to be liking it. I don't want to be commenting on it because then it's a digital signpost back to that brand. If you've got any questions whatsoever, tap on the little blue button. We love to help.
