Only a handful of brands such as retail leaders Amazon, Etsy and eBay engage optimally with their audiences over social platforms, according to a report by Brandwatch, America’s leading social intelligence company.

Brandwatch released its Retail Industry report on Wednesday featuring social insights gleaned from the analysis of 43 high-profile retail brands.

Brandwatch's analysis found that consumers are in the driver's seat when it comes to engaging with retail brands on social, initiating an extraordinary 93 per cent of social conversations. Compared to other industries, Brandwatch found that retailers are fairly responsive to their audiences, replying to @mentions 40 times a day (on average) via Twitter. Comparatively, television networks respond to @mentions less than four times a day on Twitter, and automotive brands just twice per day.

Brandwatch also found audiences are not engaging well with campaigns and content retailers are distributing via social: just 10 per cent of audience conversation encompasses replies and retweets of retailers' content. This signals a clear need for retailers to implement a new strategy for reaching audiences on social platforms.

With Facebook's algorithm changes, it's no secret the platform is no longer the social marketing darling it once was. Still, retailers continue to leverage Facebook for its visual features. Photos dominate when it comes to pushing content (56 per cent) as they receive the most ‘likes’ and perform well on ‘comments’ and ‘shares’. Still, videos are the most ‘shared’ content format, even though videos account for just 13 per cent of retailers' Facebook content. Image links which direct traffic directly to websites make up 30 per cent of the content, but brands should use that tactic sparingly as audience engagement levels fall according to the data revealed within this analysis.

According to the report, Amazon, Etsy, eBay, Walmart and Target all scored highest in overall score, while RadioShack, RiteAid and Ahold scored lowest.

Sam's Club ranked highest in net sentiment with a score of 100

The report said retailers post an average of 63 tweets per day and post 1.45 times a day on Facebook.

The report found that while women do reign supreme on social media, men tend to be more active than women in retail social conversations around videogames, hardware and sporting goods. For example, men accounted for 55 per cent of the Twitter conversation around Home Depot and 65 per cent of the Twitter conversation around GameSpot).

“Although retailers struggle to accurately measure the effect digital has on their business, most recognize its critical place in the mix; most notably giants like Amazon, Walmart, and Target," said James Lovejoy, content and research manager, Brandwatch. "Brands that are lagging in the area of social engagement stand to lose more than just 'followers' and 'likes'; they're forfeiting deep insights and a good knowledge of their audiences - both necessities to raising the bar and supporting the business holistically."