Chewy's social media strategy: Commerce, Community, and Competitive Gaps
Updated: Feb 21
In the U.S. pet retail market, social media functions as both a brand-building engine and a conversion channel. Chewy operates with a fundamentally different digital logic than Petco and PetSmart. As an e-commerce-first retailer, Chewy's social media strategy is designed to drive repeat purchases and strengthen customer lifetime value.
Instagram and Facebook: Emotional commerce
On Instagram and Facebook, Chewy is posting the same content that falls into four main buckets: product showcases, user-generated pet content, seasonal campaigns, entertainment memes, and brand message. The brand integrates pets naturally into lifestyle narratives while keeping products visible and shoppable. Reels frequently demonstrate the interaction with pets, toys, or accessories in use. This reduces purchase hesitation and reinforces social proof.
Chewy has emphasized interactive conversation, seasonal messaging, and customer engagement in the past two months. The brand responds actively to comments, reinforcing relationship marketing principles. This channel supports retention and loyalty. Taking the Christmas season as an example, Petco and PetSmart both put around 25% promotion content. However, Chewy's strategy is positioning itself as "Chewy Claus", posting UCG pet videos and photos to show its empathy to the animals in shelters. There are many warm, positive comments responding to these videos. Chewy successfully conveyed its brand message that it cohorts humanize pets and treats pets as family members.
Millennials and Gen Z, the largest groups among its customers, respond to nurturing and "pet parent" narratives that reinforce responsibility and care. Meanwhile, they value authenticity and relatable miro-moments, which user-generated pet content naturally delivers. By combining emotional warmth with light humor and subtle product placement, Chewy positions itself not just as a retailer but as a companion in the pet ownership journey, which strengthens brand affinity and long-term loyalty among these digitally native segments.
TikTok: Discoverability with Limited Creator Scale
TikTok content centers on short-form humor, pet reactions, product-in-action videos, and light educational tips. The tone aligns with platform culture. Videos are optimized for awareness and reach rather than detailed product education.
Chewy performs adequately on TikTok. Petco does not involve a lot in this social platform, they only have 12 videos in the last two months. PetSmart is much more active than the other two brands. Compared to Chewy, PetSmart has a higher frequency of posting short videos. It presents more content on product promotion and educational videos. While the content for Chewy seems funny and engaging, it is less instructional and less service-driven. Chewy leverages entertainment and relatability to drive interest, whereas PetSmart leverages expertise to build trust. Strategically, PetSmart's higher posting cadence and educational positioning strengthen top-of-funnel awareness and authority. Chewy's approach is more tightly aligned with e-commerce conversion.
Strategic Evaluation
Chewy's strategy is sound and aligned with its e-commerce model. It leverages the awareness-to-conversion funnel effectively. Instagram and Facebook drive engagement and purchase intent, while TikTok supports discovery. From a performance marketing perspective, Chewy behaves like a leader in social commerce.
However, there are gaps. The brand underutilizes influencer partnerships and experiential storytelling. It lacks the offline narrative dimension that strengthens Petco and PetSmart. While Chewy excels at selling products, it could deepen its emotional brand community.
If I were running the brand, I would invest in a structured creator ambassador program. I would expand live shopping formats and introduce recurring community series focused on pet milestones. I would also connect social engagement data to customer lifetime value metrics to optimize content investment.
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