I recently published the infographic illustrating the number of soical media followers for U.S. supermarkets and I've been following up with colleagues in social media land to ask their opinion on what they believe the numbers mean for the grocery industry.
Jim Spencer from JBS Partners, is a colleague from Boston who was kind enough to answer a few questions, here's the result:
John: What does this chart say about the state of social media adoption among large grocery chains?
Jim: The chart indicates that there is growing adoption that is very inconsistently applied across a range of mediums. Assuming that the content is worthwhile my hat is off to the four companies that are in the lead on YouTube. This is a much harder form of content to generate and video is where everyone will soon be following.
It looks like there are both corporate adoption and individual store adoption numbers recorded here, but I don’t know if this represents aggregated counts or just the mother-ship.
It would be fascinating to see the headquarters and individual stores plotted on a map and compare this to general social media adoption across the country.
John: Why do you think national chains have a more active social media presence than regional supermarkets?
Jim: National vs. Regional. My first thought is larger budgets and staffing levels. More people in the marketing departments allows more awareness of current trends and then more interest. They may also have an advantage in leveraging social media over a much larger audience. There may also be a larger budget so “trying something new” is not a big expense comparatively.
John: What's up with Whole Foods and their big TWitter presence? Do you think those numbers have anything to do with the celebrity status of the CEO?
Jim: The Whole Foods CEO seems to have been able to find controversy and thereby celebrity. I seem to remember a story about his blogging about a competitor just before buying the same competitor. Along with controversy come stronger opinions and greater engagement. So, yes. I can’t say I know of another grocery CEO in the news, at least that came to my attention. I don’t recommend that grocery CEO’s become controversial. Heavens no.
John: What suggestions would you have for grocery store marketers for YouTube?
Jim: YouTube
- Show me how clean the back of the house is
- Profile the staff. Sixty seconds each. Tell me something about them and make me laugh while supporting a key theme about your store
- Offer simple recipes
- Provide shopping tips
- Provide videos with customers providing tips
- Show me how to choose produce
- Run a contest
John: Lastly, for my future research, what analysis would you like to see of the industry in terms of social media?
Jim: Mapping social media adoption would be very interesting. It could be done using Google Maps.
- Staffing levels and tools used in the industry would be useful
- Are suppliers or vendors supporting social media in anyway? Providing tools, content or anything else?
John: Thanks Jim! Great insights..
