Social strategy to combat challenges

Retailers and digital experts talk Facebook fundamentals and TikTok tactics to boost sales and grow reach.

By Sarah Britton

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Rising costs and spiralling crime mean it’s a cutthroat world out there for convenience retailers. But social media is fast becoming one of the most effective and underrated weapons in a retailer’s armoury and it’s high time you took advantage.

“Times are tough out there just now for our customers and for convenience stores as well,” says Nadeem Qurban, who owns Nisa High Station Falkirk. “Most retailers are long standing, they’re well known in the community, and I think it’s important to push that point home on social media – that they’re here providing a service… and that customers can just nip into their store.”

It’s also a vital tool to flag up how your store helps local people, he adds. “It’s not just about business; there’s also the community aspect of what the store does. If you’ve given to a food bank, if you’re raising money for the homeless, people need to see the human side of the business. These things would get lost in the noise before social media. Now you can really put yourself out there and show how you make a difference.”

Social media is a digital shop front, claims Jamie Lile, Creative Director at digital marketing agency, Empros Retail, which specialises in the convenience sector. “You know this is where your customers are. It’s the same audience; we’re just hitting them when they’re not in the shop. It’s the easiest way to reach your local customers, to tell them what’s going on, engage with them, and make them build that attachment not just to the store, but to the people that work there.”

Amy Bennett, supervisor at Baba’s Kitchen in Bellshill and SLR’s Above & Beyond Awards Up and Coming Star for 2025, concurs that a strong social media presence is powerful. The store’s Facebook page has amassed an impressive 5.8k followers thanks to the efforts of Amy and her team and its success is clearly reflected in sales.

“On the computer I’ve got a line chart of the sales over the last year and a half and it’s just an upward trajectory,” she says. “It’s to do with people’s connection to the store. It’s not just about who’s the cheapest. They know that the quality of the product is good because they’re regularly seeing that we’re creating new stuff and the personality of the staff all plays into it.”

Target your neighbourhood

Lori Watson, Digital Marketing Officer at CJ Lang & Son, claims that social media should be written into c-store’s business strategy. She reckons Facebook is the best platform for convenience retailers as it enables them to interact on a hyperlocal level. “You’re speaking directly to your community, people within a one or two radius within your store, the people that come into your store, so it’s great for them to see familiar faces online that they can resonate with and when you mix that in with promotions, your NPD, then they’re more likely to come in when they see that.”

While the Spar Scotland Facebook page is well established, Watson has recently led the launch of hyperlocal Facebook pages for 30 company-owned shops, which store staff can update.

“We highly encourage the staff to make their own content,” she adds. “I don’t want to flood them with generic assets. I want them to be themselves, be the people that they are when their customers are in the store and almost replicate that online.”

She runs a league table to encourage competition between the outlets and claims that stores in Erskine and Denny are the top two trailblazers. “The week before the Spar Scotland trade show, we had 80,000 impressions across all 30 pages and that’s with no ad spend behind them,” she adds.

Watson also launched Spar Scotland on TikTok last month. “Facebook works with our demographics, that’s predominantly where our audience is, but they won’t always be there,” says Watson. “We’re looking to bring in a new, younger audience, so that’s why we’re putting that at the forefront – not making the shift over there but making sure that it gets nurtured just as much as our Facebook and Instagram does.”

It’s early days, but the account is already a resounding success, having achieved more than 140,000 views and over 400,000 impressions across multi-channel mix in its first 12 days.

This is in no part down to the hilarious antics of CJ Lang & Son Demand Planner, Shaun Fleming, who has been given the additional role of Digital Content Creator.

Videos have seen Shaun don a fur coat and pledge his appreciation of Irn Bru’s new Winter Bru to the festive soundtrack of East 17’s Stay, as well as dressing up as Elphaba from the Wicked movie to promote Robinson’s new Wicked-themed flavours.

Spar Scotland TikTok has over 15,000 likes and Lori’s goal is to hit the million mark next year.

The Baba’s Kitchen team has also embraced TikTok in recent months, with a host of comedy capers. Skits include supervisor and Above & Beyond hero Reece Beattie mixing up a messy Buckfast Bucky Bramble cocktail and a ‘day in the life of a manager’ video, starring manager Umar Majid donning shades and dodging any work that comes his way.

Think first, film later

But content creation isn’t all fun and games. “It’s actually quite tiring,” concedes Watson. “There’s a lot of thinking beforehand. People maybe don’t appreciate that. They think you just go out and film, but it’s got to be strategized somehow. We can’t just go out and be really daft – there are products to sell at the end of the day.”

She spends a day a week on content creation and posts videos on a near-daily basis. “I’ll plan on that Monday what we’re going to do on the Friday.”

Many of her posts focus on products or special offers. “We know our products may be two months ahead because [Spar Scotland] promotions work like that, so that’s a good aspect of it, but the actual planning of what that video is going to be centred around needs to be pretty close to the filming date.” This is due to the fast-moving nature of social media, and particularly TikTok, where Watson says a trend could last as little as a day.

Amy agrees with Watson that there’s a lot of planning behind the madcap videos. “The girl that used to be in a lot of our TikToks, Hayley, was such a natural on camera, but she’s recently left us to go to uni, so we’re finding that we’re having to be a bit more creative in terms of making up scripts and things like that.

“I tend to do all my planning and scheduling on a Sunday and get the weekly schedule up for the following week. Then I spend between two and five hours a week working on social media, just between scheduling the posts and doing any filming or editing.

In addition to funny footage, new products and services make for good content, as do food-to-go products being prepared. “I’m always looking for new products that have come in, especially in our kitchen, and I’m always getting the staff to tell me when they’ve made something new so I can get photos and videos.”

Photos really do have to be picture perfect for Amy’s socials. “The quality of the photo is a massive thing,” she says. “No one’s going to buy something if it’s shot in bad lighting or it’s blurry. They’re always going to go with the item that looks the most appealing, especially food-wise. I’ve warned Bella, our chef, that she needs to have a garnish on everything before I take a picture.”

She aims to publish one post a day for Facebook and Instagram, and one a month on TikTok, due to the time-consuming nature of creating video content.

Call in the pros

If you have a member of staff who is skilled and willing to spend time on social media, then it can be a great way for them to drive business, whilst encouraging creativity. But some retailers are opting for outside help.

Asim Iqbal, who runs Premier Roslin Convenience Store in Midlothian, has partnered with Empros Retail to boost his social media. “Before it was us doing the occasional post – a couple of times a week,” he says. “I was spending about an hour or two at best. Now, we spend the same amount of time, but we get more content out of it. It takes a burden off your shoulders with manual posts.”

The store now posts several times a week on Facebook and TikTok, with most videos featuring Asim himself promoting special deals.

“Anyone can go on social media and post, but with regards to how you’re communicating with your audience, the time of day you’re posting, what you’re posting in the morning, what you’re posting in the evening – all these different things clump together and come into this strategy,” says Empros Retail Director Ross Lile.

A more strategic approach is clearly working for Premier Roslin. Between January and June, the store had amassed 1.2m views across Facebook and a 470% increase in followers, as well as a 145% increase in Snappy sales. “It’s just going up and up and up and up,” beams Asim.

Nadeem has also worked closely with Empros Retail. “Before, our social media was a bit hit and miss,” he says. “Day-to-day tasks would get in the way and I wouldn’t know how to navigate certain tasks on Facebook.

“I’m a slightly older chap and, while I know my way around social media, it is not my natural way to communicate with people, I’m a face-to-face person. So we decided to bring these guys on and what a change!”

While Nadeem films all the content, Empros helps him with ideas and video editing, as well as social media advertising management. “They have a great itinerary that they have me follow with videos and promotions. I don’t spend a huge amount of time on social media now, Empros does the hard work for me. I can’t really shout about them enough. From where we were and where we are now, we’re night and day.”

His Facebook following now stands at 3.9k and sales have rocketed. “We look at the response from our social media customers on our posts, and we also look at how Snappy Shopper sales have grown over the last year. We’re up 100% from last year. It’s been a combination of things – obviously promotions, our performance on Snappy and customer service, but the social media aspect is really important.”

Empros handles stores’ social media under its basic package, while its premium service includes managing social media ad campaigns for retailers who are willing to invest.

“We’ll speak to a retailer and they’ve got 1,000 followers, but they’re lucky if they’re getting a handful of likes and comments on each post,” says Empros Director Fraser MacDonald. “The paid advertising campaigns are a massive driver to actually generate results both online and on the in-store foot traffic side of things because there’s a lot you can do there with regards to targeting your local area, different interest demographics. And, if you are on a delivery platform, we can also use the data from there for people that have previously been on the site before and purchased, so you can actually re-target essentially on the advertising front.”

Tick these boxes

He claims that there are “four boxes you really want to tick”, the first being the retailer providing good content. “The second is building community engagement because Facebook’s algorithm will reward you for that,” he says. Next, he claims that advertising spend makes a big difference. “The last thing is actually having good offers on so that you’re actually pushing them to an offer which is worthwhile for that customer at that end point.

“If we can tick all of those boxes, it’s not uncommon for us to drive the delivery sales increases of between 50 to 60% over the course of just a short few months.”

He claims that the rewards are sweet for retailers who want to take the leap. “We had a few stores that had started in June under this premium package and since then the majority of them are up over 60% in their delivery sales already and that’s not stores that have gone from £1,000 to £6,000 per month. A lot of the time that’s stores that have gone from £80,000 to £130,000 a month within the space of just a few months.”

Whether you want to experiment with organic growth or work with a third party to send your socials skyward, there’s no doubt that getting on board with social media is an opportunity not to be missed.

Says MacDonald: “You’re essentially standing out with a megaphone, shouting out to your local community – it makes a massive difference.”

If you would like to find out more about Empros Retail, then please visit empros.co.uk or telephone 0131 210 0159.