In a paint and home decor store, social media has become a shop window in its own right. The challenge is finding the time to keep it running between two customer consultations in the showroom. At Nuances Unikalo in Orchies, France, Fanny looks after the showroom, paint and decor advice, and the store's social media. She has been using the Digitaleo local marketing platform for a year, logging in once or twice a week.
Let's look at how she has organized the store's local communication and what she gets out of it.
For the Orchies store, the goal is clear: win new customers, and in particular reach new online audiences. That is why Fanny manages the store's social media on a daily basis.
The main difficulty is not the tool but inspiration. She constantly needs new content ideas, has to keep an eye on what others are doing, and must stay appealing to an audience used to a continuous stream of posts. All of this alongside in-store activity, where serving customers remains the priority.
The first advantage Fanny mentions is simplicity. The platform offers direct access and is quick to get to grips with, whether she is creating a post or adding photos.
For Fanny, the scheduling feature is essential. In a store, available time comes in short bursts. As soon as she has a free moment, she blocks out time to create several pieces of content and schedule them for different dates.
"Sometimes I'm two weeks ahead. That gives me time to think about upcoming posts and create other things in the meantime."
From Digitaleo, the store publishes posts and stories on Facebook and Instagram. The cross-posting feature lets her share the same content on both networks in one go. This is a real advantage, because followers are not necessarily on both platforms: the audiences are different.
Fanny also follows the store's social accounts on her phone, but Digitaleo lets her see clearly which customers have engaged with the store's posts.
The strength of the approach lies in the balance between two content sources. On one side, Nuances Unikalo's head office provides ready-to-use posts, including product showcase videos. This content gets a lot of likes.
"I'm always pleased when I get content from head office, because they're experts."
On the other side, Fanny creates her own posts. She watches what works and what doesn't, and produces content as soon as a new decor product arrives in store. Decor ideas, such as wallpaper, are among the posts that get the best response.
This model is a good illustration of what local marketing means for a retail network: head office guarantees quality and brand consistency, while the store brings proximity and local news.
Over the last 28 days mentioned by Fanny, the figures confirm that social media helps the store reach well beyond its existing community:
Beyond the numbers, the impact is felt in store. Customers react to posts to compliment the decor projects, and many send messages directly on Messenger to ask whether the store is open or whether a product they saw online is in stock. Social media thus becomes a real driver of foot traffic.
Asked to describe Digitaleo in three words, Fanny chooses: interactive, accessible and innovative. To the brand's other stores, she recommends:
"For a retail brand like ours, it's a really easy way to share our content."
The Nuances Unikalo Orchies story shows that keeping social media active on a regular basis is well within reach of an in-store team, provided they have the right tool. Scheduling, cross-posting and content supplied by head office make it possible to post consistently without taking time away from customers.
With its Social Media module, Digitaleo helps retail networks manage their local marketing, alongside online presence management, customer review management and local advertising. Leo, the AI agent built into the platform, also helps each store find content ideas and optimize its actions.