The Blog

This article forms part of a study on social media usage amongst FTSE 100 companies.

Each company in the FTSE 100 index was reviewed on its usage of such social media tools as RSS feeds*, blogs, online video, podcasts and social media platforms like Flickr and Facebook on its main website and on occasion, on websites of well-known subsidiary companies.

*RSS feeds are a simple way of delivering fresh versions of a website’s content to online readers automatically.

According to the Guardian.co.uk Business Glossary:
“The FTSE 100 index comprises the 100 most highly capitalised blue chip companies on the London Stock Exchange, representing approximately 81% of the UK market.”

Here’s how the shopping outlet Capital Shopping Centres (CSCG.L) stacked up.

Cap Shop Centres       No       No     No   Yes   No    No          No

………………

Online/Video Webcasts: No

Usage of Social Media Platforms: No

According to the Capital Shopping Centres website:

“Capital Shopping Centres Group PLC (CSC) is the leading specialist developer, owner and manager of pre–eminent UK regional shopping centres.

CSC owns 13 regional shopping centres amounting to 14.1 million sq. ft. of retail space and valued at £4.9 billion at 30 June 2010. The assets comprise four major out–of–town centres – Lakeside, Thurrock; Metrocentre, Gateshead; Braehead, Glasgow and The Mall at Cribbs Causeway, Bristol – and nine in–town centres including the prime destinations in Cardiff, Manchester, Newcastle, Norwich and Nottingham.”

My pre-evaluation expectation of how the company will fare:

I would expect that since the company operates in the shopping industry they would have a vibrant website, with lots of ways to communicate with their customers, including the use of various forms of multimedia.

Commentary:

The Capital Shopping Centres (CSC) website was how I expected it to be like when I first came on it, with a lot of vibrant colours and news updates.

However, when I went further in to the site my expectations did not live up, as I did not find any multimedia or social media being used. Although the website did not use multimedia, it did contain a lot of financial statistics. Upon inspection of their About Us page, I found out that the company focuses on providing returns to their shareholders. This made me realize that it may have been plausible to display this, as they are accommodating information for all their user groups [customers and shareholders].

Social media tools were not found on the site either. Since CSC is a global organisation and are focused on the financial sector one could have thought that they would be using social media tools frequently, to communicate with their financial partners and shareholders, as it is a more common and frequent tool used nowadays.  However I did find them on Facebook, could they therefore make this account more prominent by displaying it on their homepage?             

Along with the general contact page, I liked the way email alerts have been split into various sections in the News tab: Investors news, CSC business news and CR news. People can also choose what emails they would like to receive, from a list of news alerts. This is a better way of using RSS feeds, as it is not creating ‘information overload’ for the user or bombarding them with too much information.

Despite the site being very big it is easy to use and find information, as the pages are consistent and easy to navigate. Furthermore, having colours on the page that direct you to certain sections helps make the site more usable.

Recommendations

Using social media tools: Taking into account that the company operates in the leisure industry, using a lot of social media and making it prominent should be their main priority to communicate with people in their market.

Using RSS feeds as well as regulatory feeds: Using regulatory feeds for financial customers is good but is not always the information that the general public may want to find out. Therefore there could also be tailored ones for activities that are taking place in various shopping malls.

………………

What do you think?

Are you an employee of Capital Shopping Centres or maybe even a customer? Taking into account what sector the company is in do you think they need to have more multimedia and ‘socially-aware’ online presence? What would you like to see Capital Shopping Centres doing more of in terms of social media? Some online video? A CEO blog, perhaps?

I’d love to hear your comments. Please share below.            

Need help!

Do you work for Capital Shopping Centres and need some insight into some of the ideas published here?

Or perhaps you look after marketing for Capital Shopping Centres and would like a quick chat about putting some of these recommendations into practice. Contact us.

Related posts:

1. Social Media Usage in the FTSE 100: Company Profile – Man Group
2. Social Media Usage in the FTSE 100: Company Profile – Experian
3. Social Media Usage in the FTSE 100: Company Profile – Capita
4. Social Media Usage in the FTSE 100: Company Profile – Essar Energy
5. Social Media Usage in the FTSE 100: Company Profile – Diageo