Social media engagement for grocery delivery skyrockets

Dive Brief:

Grocery delivery services saw social media engagement soar more than 28,000% between March 1 and May 1 compared to the previous two months, international social media analytics firm Talkwalker found.
Talkwalker found that the five grocery delivery services it studied had 7 million engagements during the period, with 670,000 mentions of grocery deliveries, according to a press release. Instacart captured 85% of the mentions, or about 575,000 mentions, while Shipt garnered 65,000 mentions, accounting for 10% of the total. Walmart, Freshdirect/Foodkick and Peapod accounted for the remaining 5%.
There were 20,000 mentions related to getting a delivery slot during the March 1 to May 1 time frame, with Instacart accounting for 11,000 of them. Contactless delivery had 1,300 mentions over the past two months among all the delivery brands. Other trending themes on social media related to grocery delivery brands included delivery slots, shortages, wrong orders and delays.

Dive Insight:

Due to COVID-19, more people are buying groceries online than ever before in order to avoid grocery stores and as a result, more grocers and grocery delivery services are fulfilling a record number of deliveries.

According to Talkwalker’s findings, shoppers are turning to social media more than ever to share their grocery delivery experiences with other shoppers and in hopes of grabbing the attention of grocery delivery companies. But grocery companies are notorious for not being active on social media, partially due to the fact that prior to coronavirus, most consumers never interacted with a supermarket. A Produce Retailer survey from 2019 found that 82% of respondents have never interacted with a supermarket on social media.

Some grocers have worked on boosting their social media activity. Prior to the coronavirus outbreak, The Fresh Market played up the reusable bag it promoted during the recent impeachment hearings. More recently, The Giant Company turned to social media during coronavirus to encourage shoppers to stop panic purchasing.

Most of the digital engagement from shoppers, however, has been negative. The Talkwalker study found that most shoppers turned to social media to complain about their grocery delivery experience, which has faced challenges due to the sudden influx of shoppers. Grocers are adding workers and boosting fulfillment capacity, so it will be interesting to see if shoppers express more positive sentiments on social media in the weeks to come.