Today Pace Communications released a breakdown of where most of the major grocery store chains in the U.S. stand with regard to total number of followers on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr.
The results were surprising in part because it painted a clear picture of how little this industry has invested in social, outside of major players such as WalMart and Target.
While the retail and food service industries have been quick to jump into social media, food retail (grocery stores, etc) appear to be more hesitant.
One of the side benefits of businesses using social media is that it requires some maintenance by actual human beings. For every business, this presents an opportunity. Whomever is managing your company’s social media efforts could become the face of your brand or company online.
The above screen grab is of Scott Monty’s Twitter account. Scott is the head of social media engagement for Ford Motor Company. Other than CEO Allan Mullaly, Scott is the the most recognizable “face” of Ford, because that’s how Ford positioned him to be.
Corporations and brands tend to be faceless organizations: The only humans that customers interact with are the ones they meet in brick-and-mortar locations, or via customer service. Social media presents an opportunity for companies and brands to humanize themselves. It goes towards perception, trust and ultimately, comfort.
There are a few really great social media visualization tools around, that really bring the experience of social media to life.
Instead of banging on about them all, I will talk about two of my favorites.
Earlier this week Kevin Rose, founder and CEO of Digg.com posted a tweet announcing the launch of his friends’ new site, fflick.com. This site was utterly new to me. I hadn’t heard any chatter, or read any analysis. Sometimes that’s the best way to come across interesting sites — on your own, without preconceptions.
The page loaded and almost immediately, I knew what it was and how potentially great it could be.
Using the tag line “Instant movie reviews from you and your friends. Is that $12 movie ticket worth it? Find out!”, fflick.com capitalizes on the fact that Twitter has become the go-to place where people give their 140-character reviews and reactions to movies they just saw, plan on seeing or just have a general opinion about.
Now that businesses are taking notice of social media and using it to engage with customers, there exists a need to look forward and understand what the next level looks like. The above image is taken from the 1991 book “Crossing the Chasm” by Geoffrey A. Moore.
In a fascinating blog post, Axel Schultze, CEO of Xeesm, founder of the Social Media Academy writes in CustomerThink that social business is about to cross “The Chasm” as illustrated above:
