Your Social Can Get People Into Your Stores - And They Actually Want to Go

For years, the story around retail has been that everything is moving online.

E-commerce would replace the high street. Younger shoppers would rather buy from their phones. Physical stores would become increasingly irrelevant as social commerce made it possible to discover and buy something without ever leaving TikTok.

Except that isn't really what happened.

People still really like going to shops. They want to touch products, try things on, browse without knowing exactly what they're looking for and walk away with something immediately. And younger consumers aren't abandoning physical retail either - they're increasingly discovering where to go through social.

That's where things get interesting for brands.

Social and physical retail aren't competing channels. Increasingly, they're part of the same customer journey.

Someone sees a creator visit your store on TikTok. They send it to a friend. They save the location. They go that weekend. They buy something. They post about the visit. Someone else sees that post and decides to go.

Social discovery → physical visit → purchase → more social discovery.

For brands with stores, pop-ups, events or other real-world experiences, social can do much more than generate engagement. It can get people through the door.

People actually want to go to stores

The assumption that convenience would eventually kill physical retail underestimated one fairly important thing: people don't only shop because they need stuff.

Shopping can be entertainment. It can be social. It can be discovery. And sometimes it's simply much nicer to see something in real life than stare at another product page.

Around 59% of consumers say they prefer shopping in a physical store, while nearly 80% will head to one when they want something immediately. Being able to touch, try and properly experience a product remains one of the biggest reasons people choose physical retail.

There's also something else happening.

After years of increasingly algorithmic digital experiences, physical spaces offer something the internet struggles to recreate: serendipity.

You can walk into a shop without knowing exactly what you're going to buy. You can pick something up because it catches your eye. You can talk to someone. You can discover something without an algorithm deciding you should probably like it first.

More than half of Gen Z and Millennials say they prefer browsing physical stores without algorithmic influence.

Which makes the idea that younger consumers somehow don't want physical retail look increasingly outdated.

But social is deciding which places are worth leaving the house for

Wanting to shop in person doesn't mean people are discovering places in the same way they used to.

The high street might be physical. Discovery increasingly isn't.

Social media is estimated to drive around 1.7 billion visits to UK high streets every year - more than 30 million visits every week.

Nearly two-thirds of UK adults have visited a shop or hospitality venue in the past year because of something they saw on social. Among Gen Z, that rises to 88%.

That's a pretty significant shift in what we should expect social to do.

For a retailer, success isn't necessarily someone seeing a TikTok and immediately clicking buy now. It might be someone seeing a TikTok on Tuesday and walking into your Manchester store on Saturday.

Social isn't only a digital conversion channel anymore.

It can be a footfall channel.

We've entered the era of the social pilgrimage

We've probably all seen it happen.

A bakery suddenly has a queue around the corner because one particular pastry is all over TikTok. A restaurant becomes impossible to book. A beauty pop-up attracts hundreds of people. Someone travels across London because they've seen a shop twelve times on their FYP and need to know whether it's actually worth the hype.

People aren't simply discovering physical businesses through social. They're willing to travel for them.

Four in five Gen Z consumers have visited an independent shop, café or restaurant after discovering it on social media. Among those making the trip, the longest journey averaged 95 minutes.

Ninety-five minutes.

That's not accidental footfall. That's a destination.

And it changes the role social teams can play within retail businesses. Your content isn't only communicating what your brand sells. It's helping decide whether your physical locations feel interesting enough to visit in the first place.

So how do you actually make people want to visit?

The answer probably isn't repeatedly posting your store opening hours.

If you want social to drive physical behaviour, the content needs to give people a reason to leave the house.

That might be something they can only buy there. Something they can experience. Something worth bringing a friend to. Something they'll want to photograph. Something limited. Something new. Or simply a store environment that looks so good they want to see it themselves.

The strongest social-to-store content usually answers one very simple question:

Why should I go there rather than ordering online?

If the answer isn't obvious in the content, there's probably more work to do.

Give people something they can't get from the website

Physical retail becomes much more compelling when the store isn't simply an e-commerce website with walls.

Exclusivity creates a reason to make the trip.

That could mean store-only products, limited drops, personalisation, samples, workshops, consultations, early access, creator appearances or experiences that physically can't happen through a screen.

And crucially, social should show those things happening rather than simply announce them.

There's a big difference between a graphic saying Join us in-store this Saturday and a TikTok showing exactly why you'd regret not being there.

Show the queue. Show the products. Show someone trying it. Show the reaction. Show the atmosphere.

Don't just tell people there's something happening. Make them feel like they're missing it.

Creators can turn a location into a destination

Creators are particularly powerful when the goal is getting people somewhere physically because they can demonstrate the entire experience.

A creator doesn't need to say, "Visit this store."

They can take their audience with them.

Here's how I got there. Here's what it looks like. Here's what I tried. Here's what I'd buy. Here's the thing you shouldn't miss. Here's whether I'd actually come back.

Suddenly, visiting doesn't feel like responding to an advert. It feels like following a recommendation.

And you don't necessarily need the biggest creator in the country.

If you're trying to drive people into a particular location, a smaller creator with a highly engaged audience in Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow or Bristol might be far more valuable than somebody with millions of followers scattered around the world.

For physical retail, proximity can be an influence metric too.

Make your stores content-worthy

There's another side to this.

The best physical experiences don't only receive traffic from social. They create content for it.

Nearly eight in ten people whose visit was influenced by social go on to share that experience in some way - whether that's posting, recommending the business or leaving a review.

That's where the loop starts becoming really powerful.

Social gets someone there → the experience gives them something worth sharing → their content gets someone else there.

Brands can actively design for this without turning every shop into an Instagram museum.

Think about the moments people naturally want to capture.

The product reveal. The ridiculous display. The mirror. The packaging. The personalisation station. The unexpected detail. The limited edition. The view. The food. The thing their friend immediately needs to see.

Your store doesn't need twelve neon signs telling customers where to take a selfie.

It does need moments worth talking about.

Don't forget the people already standing in your stores

Some of your best potential social content creators might already work there.

Store teams see what customers ask about, what they pick up, what sells out, what people misunderstand and what suddenly becomes popular.

They're sitting on an enormous amount of content insight.

And, when the brand and employees are comfortable with it, bringing those people into social can make physical locations feel considerably more human.

"Three things everyone is buying in our Oxford Street store this week."

"What customers keep asking us about."

"Come with me while I set up tomorrow's new drop."

"We've finally got this back in stock."

That content connects the digital brand with an actual place and actual people.

Suddenly the store isn't a pin on Google Maps. It has a personality.

Use social before, during and after the experience

One of the biggest mistakes brands make with physical activations is treating social as the announcement channel.

The event happens on Saturday, so the social team posts about it on Thursday.

Job done.

Except the opportunity is much bigger than that.

Before an experience, social can build anticipation, introduce what people can expect and give them a reason to attend.

During it, creators, customers and the brand itself can turn what's happening in one physical location into content for thousands or millions of people elsewhere.

And afterwards, that content can extend the life of the experience - while also creating demand for whatever happens next.

A two-day pop-up shouldn't necessarily produce two days of marketing.

Done properly, it can produce weeks of it.

Measure more than clicks

This shift also requires brands to rethink what successful social looks like.

If someone watches your Reel and visits a store three days later, a traditional last-click attribution model might tell you social did absolutely nothing.

The customer would probably disagree.

Store visits, offer redemptions, QR codes, location searches, Google Maps activity, footfall changes, creator codes, social listening, post-purchase surveys and geographic campaign testing can all help build a fuller picture.

None is perfect on its own.

But if social is influencing offline behaviour, measuring it exclusively through online conversions is going to miss a fairly important part of the story.

Your physical spaces and social strategy should be designed together

The most interesting opportunity here isn't simply using social to advertise stores.

It's designing physical and social experiences as one connected ecosystem.

Social creates discovery.

The store delivers an experience that can't quite be replicated online.

Customers turn that experience back into content.

That content creates the next wave of discovery.

And people don't seem reluctant to participate. They actively want physical experiences, while social increasingly helps them decide which ones deserve their time.

So perhaps the question for retailers isn't whether social can get people off their phones and into stores.

It already is.

The better question is: when someone discovers your store on social, have you given them a good enough reason to actually go?