Inside Retail recently hosted a podcast with Gelato Messina’s social media manager Jake Rich, where he shared some insights into some key areas for debate in terms of media marketing.

Quality VS. Quantity

The debate of how often to post and whether to churn out more as opposed to taking time to do considered, quality posts is a tricky one. Jake says the scale is starting to tilt towards quantity, particularly for bigger brands, as once a brand is established the audience cares less about quality and more about keeping a conversation going. Of course, you still have to be smart about what you post, but it’s important to keep the conversation going, as your audience wants to know what you’re up to.

Unconventional Business Models

Social media has allowed social enterprise businesses establish themselves in the consumer retail space. Jake says if you’re giving the world something interesting or giving back to the community in a not-for-profit way, audiences will pick up on it. He adds there’s large scale Instagram accounts that have converted in to saleable entities, for example, The Fat Jewish, a humour account, now sells rosé. An Australian Instagram account, a bikini a day, now has it’s own bikini line. This kind of novel thing people or companies start with their own audience through social leads to consumer products more and more.

As A Marketing Tool

Jake says Social media can be more than a marketing avenue for retailers – it’s how the brand wants to use the platform. He says brands that are just a ‘one-way street’ and are just purely marketing won’t attract his interest and he probably won’t follow you. But, if you’re putting out something interesting people can use and you’re constantly innovating, then he would follow you, and is sure the audience would stick around. Then the marketing would take care of itself.