Whole Foods Market is a natural and organic grocery retailer founded in 1980. The company's focus on hyper-local social has yielded over 850 social media accounts across 400 retail locations in 12 regions across North America and the UK. We spoke with Natanya Anderson, Whole Foods' Director of Social Media and Community, for this episode of the Social Business Engine podcast to get some insight into how the company goes about managing such a huge social media presence. Anderson discusses the priority Whole Foods places on alignment of the company's core values with quality standards in the way that they engage in social media and how Whole Foods works hard to empower each store to represent itself uniquely in their local market through their own social media channels. Anderson's insights will inspire social media professionals to question how well they're portraying their values through their social media activities.
On This Episode You'll Discover
- How the core values of Whole Foods Market align with all aspects of their business
- How 'quality of standards' differentiates Whole Foods Market from other grocers
- How Whole Foods Market's quality standards are constantly evolving as new science on food emerges
- How Whole Foods Market sees themselves as a member of the local community and feels tied to them
- How stores in different areas are set up to match the community
- The recognition Whole Foods Market has received on their social strategy
- How Anderson's team is responsible for social at the brand level, CRM and customer care
- Whole Foods' 'hyper-local' approach; many stores have their own social media accounts
- The Whole Foods Market organization is divided into 12 regions; each with their own marketing functions
- How training is provided on a regional level by Anderson's team, and then dispersed to local stores
- How the Social Specialists and the store-marketing managers work together
- How Andrerson interacts with the local stores' social media managers through enablement, not through governance
- The social media guidance Anderson provides to the local stores to be complementary to the brand
- How Whole Foods Market empowers local stores by providing information and inspiration
- The timeframe of when Anderson's team gets assets out to the local marketers
- Why Anderson says it's not realistic to be active on every social channel well
- How Whole Foods Market is piloting a program with Periscope
- How Whole Foods Market decided to only do a brand Pinterest account, but not local ones
- Why the content shared on the brand's social accounts isn't simply replicated on local accounts
- The different types of posts that are shared on the local pages
- The types of posts that the brand level account shares
- How their customers enjoy sharing while shopping
- Why Anderson says there is no better marketing for business than someone sharing with their friends and family.
- Why Whole Foods Market has a very aggressive social listening program
- The opportunities a brand has available with the help of social listening
- Whole Foods Market's use of tools and technology
- Why Anderson says a layered approach is the only way to create scale
- Why Whole Foods Market's addition of paid media required local and brand to work closer together
Featured On This Episode of the Social Business Engine Podcast
- Natanya Anderson on Twitter
- Find your local store on Whole Foods Market's website
- Whole Foods Market on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest
- Social Business Engine podcast
- Bernie Borges on Twitter: @bernieborges
- Social Business Engine on Twitter: @sbengine
- The Social Business Engine podcast on iTunes