6 Ways Whole Foods Market Makes Social Media the Difference

When choosing to learn from others, it is always helpful to choose first-movers like Whole Foods Market. They have been successfully executing Whole Foods Market’s social media marketing campaigns for over 5 years, and their strategy has played a significant role in their growth.

Check out our thoughts on creative marketing.

It is a simple concept. People don’t read ads, they read what interests them. So if you are going to generate content marketing campaign designs, you are going to have to create an interesting copy. And, oh, by the way, it must be more interesting than the millions of other advertisements out there. Now that is a daunting task, isn’t it?

If you’re not familiar with Whole Foods Market, it’s a leading natural and organic food store with nearly 300 locations in North America and the United Kingdom.

Their social media strategy is built around their company website and 6 additional social platforms, including Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, their blog, and recent additions of Foursquare and Pinterest.

Their Twitter accounts are used primarily as a customer service tool … responding to individual customer questions and requests. They have several niche Twitter accounts for such special topics as wine and cheese, as well as accounts for most of the local stores.

Related material:  13 Remarkable Visual Content Marketing Examples

Their Facebook and blog platforms allow them to promote more of their product information, health, recipes, and cooking tip content … engaging as well as educating their customers. They also use both platforms to build their brand image. An example of this is an upcoming special film series “Do Something Reel Film Festival”.

This extensive 6-month series was a celebration of people who understand that small ideas can create big change. The festival’s objectives are to connect the brand with food and environmental issues and to inspire people to make a difference.

Can you change? Of course, you can. Everybody changes every day. But how versatile, agile, and quickly can you adapt yourself and your organization to stay relevant in today’s society?

Organizations are always evolving. What’s different now, is that we set a new speed record of change on a daily basis. Technology gives us unprecedented possibilities. And this sea of opportunities is pushing the traditional bureaucratic, controlled and hierarchical organization into an identity crisis.

There are six key reasons Whole Foods change and social media strategy is a successful difference-maker for their marketing campaign:

Whole Foods, while a large, international company, puts priority on the local component of its strategy. There is a community manager assigned at every store, who manages their customer engagement through multiple platform accounts. They focus on being where the customers are.

They maintain very loose control from corporate headquarters. They assist and collaborate, but the local stores maintain lots of freedom of initiative.

All of the efforts are continually focused on improving relevancy of customer engagement. They are not afraid to experiment to see what works and what doesn’t.

Each social media platform has its primary objectives – with some flexibility and adaptability maintained.

The strategy sets a goal of linking and loose integration of all the platform efforts.

They believe in letting customer engagement and conversation occur as naturally as possible. They listen, observe and apply new ideas from what they learn.

The bottom line

Our world is in flux.  There is no part of the consumer experience that is untouched. Digital technology is disrupting the marketplace, while changes in our understanding of the psychology of decision-making have overturned centuries of conventional wisdom. Even a brief summary such as this one can make the challenges seem overwhelming.

So what to do?  First, start somewhere.  It can be one place or the other, but at least start. The change will be unfolding for years and everyone else is as confused as you are.  

There are many ideas that you can take away from Whole Foods Social Media Strategy.

Which ones can you apply to your business? 

Need some help in capturing more customers from your social media marketing or advertising? Creative ideas to help the differentiation with your customers?

All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.

When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step. 

Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.

Are you devoting enough energy to innovating your social media strategy?

Do you have a lesson about making your advertising better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?

Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change.  We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way. 

More reading on social media platforms from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:

Facebook Statistics … Lots to Learn From Current Data

11 Updates to Starbuck’s Creativity and Innovation

6 Fantastic Facts about the Changing Social Media Landscape

Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of small business. Find him on G+, Facebook, Twitter, Digital Spark Marketing, and LinkedIn.