How a Local Grocery Store Found Success in Social Media

By Laurel Miltner | Posted Jun 22, 2010 | 2 Comment(s) | Filed in: Brand Marketing, Social Media

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Why would a successful, 80-year-old, family-owned and operated grocery store need to join social media?

For Northeastern Ohio’s Heinen's, the answer is extending the brand experience of its 17 locations online by sharing knowledge, providing excellent customer service and building lasting relationships with its highly targeted customer base.

Following is a Q&A with Liz Lewis, the eMarketing Specialist for Heinen’s. Liz’s responsibilities include managing Heinen’s social media accounts on Facebook and Twitter, customer emails and overall Internet strategy. 

When did Heinen’s first get started using social media?

Heinen’s made its first appearance on Twitter in July 2009 and on Facebook in December 2009. We’ve also worked with a few local bloggers who are publishing some great content — Cleveland Foodie and Live to Cook at Home.

What made the company decide to integrate social media into its marketing and customer service efforts?

Both Twitter and Facebook were started as ways to reach out to our customers on a one-to-one basis.

Before we joined, people were already talking about Heinen’s on Twitter and Facebook — asking questions, talking about favorite products, etc. We value direct engagement with customers and were already doing so via e-mail, phone, and live help in the stores, so social media was seen as an extension of that. It’s another way to build relationships and provide better service to our customers.

Was it difficult to get upper management on board? If so, how did you convince them that it was worth a try?

Overall, they were very supportive and eager to get on board. When they saw the conversations that were already going on without our involvement, they agreed that there was a great opportunity there to provide customer service.

What did you do before jumping in as far as planning and strategy are concerned?

A local agency assisted us in getting our Twitter account up and running. They did some initial research into topics of interest and where they thought we could make an impact. After handling the account for a few months, we felt comfortable bringing our social media efforts in-house.

Luckily, we already had a few customer surveys from our email efforts that gave us a good idea of the type of content customers wanted from us — things like recipes, entertaining tips and information on new products. Content-wise, that gave us a good starting point.

We also looked at case studies of what (and what not) to do. We looked for companies out there using social media, both in our industry and outside of it, to get a sense of what style, voice and approach we thought would mesh well with our customers.

That research gave us enough guidance to get out there and post items of interest to fans of food and wine in Northeast Ohio. We also listened to and watched the conversations around us, offering help where possible.

How did you learn how to use social media for business?

Other than looking at examples of best practices and case studies, we’ve been learning as we go! When in doubt, we ask customers what they want. Surveys and informal polls are great tools to better connect with customers via social media (and in general).

What are your goals in using social media? How do you track or measure its effectiveness?

Our primary goal is to provide superior customer service — the same as we have set for our stores. Some of the initiatives that support that goal are educating customers in food and wine, providing customers with access to the “experts,” whether that’s a local chef or one of our buyers, and just participating in the Northeast Ohio food community so we know what’s on the minds of area consumers. In turn, we believe these initiatives all add up to increased customer loyalty and the acquisition of new customers, including many referred by our current customers.

Tracking social media effectiveness is a challenge, and many companies are in the same boat. Social media for business is still relatively new, so tracking will likely improve down the line as social media tools become more advanced. We look at basic tracking — click-thru rates, interactions, page views, number of followers. We can also tie some of our initiatives — social media coupons, for example — to trends in shopping behavior, though that’s not as easy as it could be.

If a business uses their website to sell products or services, I would imagine it would be easier to provide a more concrete ROI for social media via link tracking, offer codes, etc. We don’t use our website for that purpose, though.

You mentioned that Heinen’s is active on Twitter and Facebook. Are there any other
social sites you frequent? Which do you find most effective in reaching your target audience? Do you see different benefits, uses or audiences through the different platforms?

Beyond Facebook and Twitter, I visit the Cleveland.com Food and Wine Forum and have answered questions about Heinen’s for the users on there, though we do not have an official company account. We’re currently evaluating Foursquare to see how we could successfully add that to the mix.

In terms of effectiveness and benefits of the different platforms, Twitter has become more of a customer service arm than it was originally. It’s a good medium for customers to submit quick questions. We’ll be contacted via Twitter for questions about whether an item is in stock, for example, or what a store’s soup choices are. It’s also a good method of posting quick news — links to relevant articles, for example.

Facebook, on the other hand, provides more flexibility in terms of content, so we’ve found that we can have more in-depth conversations with customers on that platform. We don’t have a blog and have therefore enjoyed Facebook’s “Notes” feature, which allows us to publish longer content easily. And customers share with each other on the Facebook page, creating a mini community of food and wine lovers! Twitter’s format makes that sort of group conversation more challenging, though it’s possible.

Another key difference we’ve noticed is tracking and analysis capabilities. Facebook can quickly put the demographics of your page right in front of you, which has been beneficial for us. It’s also easy to see the various interactions with your page. You can get to some of that information about a Twitter account, but it usually requires going to multiple sites and doesn’t always offer a complete picture.

So, I think Facebook’s a good comprehensive solution for businesses looking to get into social media — and it has the member numbers to make it worthwhile, at 400 million and growing — but Twitter is a good option if you’re looking to get started.

How did the relationships with Cleveland Foodie and Live to Cook at Home come about? Have you seen guest posts on these local food blogs as being effective in driving new business or increased customer loyalty?

As I said earlier, we don’t have our own blog but see blogs as a great way to reach people in the Northeast Ohio food community. We started talking to Michelle at Cleveland Foodie about a few sponsorships, as her audience and our customer base seemed to overlap quite a bit, and the relationship has grown from there.

We believe that supporting blogs like Cleveland Foodie and Live to Cook at Home helps to educate our customers and grow the local food community as a whole. It has also been a great way to indirectly work with local chefs and get their knowledge — recipes, namely — in the hands of our customers. All of those initiatives are tied into our goal of improving customer service and, in turn, driving loyalty and growth.

How many people on your team manage or work with the accounts? How do you divvy up tasks effectively?

Primarily just one for Facebook and Twitter, so not much divvying! I am responsible for posting the majority of the content and serve as the first point of contact for customers. I’ve started to cross-train other members of the Marketing Department, though, as the social media efforts have increased, so there’s starting to be more of a division of labor.

Other Marketing team members work on the posts for Cleveland Foodie, post events on Facebook, design the social media coupons and more on an as-needed basis.

The store associates, the Customer Relations team, the buyers and merchandisers and others have all been extremely helpful in tracking down information for customers. They’ve always been willing to answer customer questions that we receive via social media and are great resources.

How much time do you devote to social media (both yourself and collectively as a team if multiple people work on the accounts) on a daily and weekly basis?

It varies. During an average week, I’d estimate 8-10 hours. However, if we’re running giveaways, or if there’s a news story that’s gaining interest, the time required can increase significantly. Promotions also involve more effort, as multiple people (graphic designers, buyers, etc.) are all involved.

How do you decide what to share/post?

We first consider the information from customer surveys on what interests them the most. The feedback we received was that they want recipes, information on new products, and details on local vendors, so we try to include that content whenever possible.

We also track the response to our posts. We’ve found that some of the most engaging are cooking tips from the Heinen’s chefs and, surprisingly, an open-ended question like, “What’s for dinner?” If something’s successful, meaning it receives comments or other forms of responses from customers, we try to keep that type of item in the rotation.

When in doubt, we test one or two posts and move on to something else if they don’t receive much of a response.

In my opinion, Heinen’s does an excellent job of simply using social media to expand its brand experience online. Do you feel this happened naturally right away, or did it take some time to find this voice?

Thank you! It took a bit of time to get a feel for the audience and how they prefer we interact with them —  and it’s challenging, because the audience is always growing and changing! However, much of it is simply based on how we, as social media users, would want to be engaged by a company or brand. If we wouldn’t want to get a heavy sales pitch or hear a company primarily talk about itself, chances are good that our customers feel the same way.

I think it’s natural for anyone on social media — brand or otherwise — to want to post whatever they’re excited about at that moment. As a brand or company, you really have to step back and think about what’s in it for the audience. So, we’ve tried to coach people to consider that perspective when they want to talk about a product, even if it’s brand new or a really great deal. We always try to ask what else we can include that customers would enjoy.

Have you ever encountered negative comments from “anti-Heinen’s” folks on social networks? If so, how did you handle this? If not, do you have a plan in place in case this comes up?

We’ve had a few, and I know this is often a concern for companies looking to get into social media, so I’d like to mention that 99.9% of the comments we receive are positive (or at least neutral).

If someone’s sharing a negative comment with us, that complaint would still be there whether they told us or not. So, by telling us, we have a great opportunity to address it and start repairing that relationship with the customer.

If a customer does not send it directly to us — which is really only relevant to blogs and Twitter — we will first reach out with an offer to help. Some won’t accept the offer, but we feel that making the attempt is important because we honestly want to make things right with the customer.

For those who send something directly to us, we start by acknowledging that the customer took the time to reach out and thank them for doing so. Again, we appreciate the opportunity to make things right. Depending on the situation, we may need to follow up after doing some additional research and will let the customer know if that’s the case. Occasionally, if the situation is too complex to handle with a quick response on Twitter or Facebook, we will ask the customer to contact us personally via phone or e-mail so that we can better address the issue. Some won’t contact us further, but we hope that the attempt at dialogue may lead to a better relationship in the future.

If someone keeps posting negative comments, which has unfortunately occurred but has been extremely rare, we keep responding with a public offer to engage in dialogue. Generally, if we’ve responded to every complaint with a request to discuss the issue further and a genuine offer of help, the posts have at least ceased even if the person involved never reached out.

Surprisingly, we’ve had other people who have seen the negative posts reach out via e-mail or phone wanting to discuss unrelated issues directly with us. If nothing else, those situations have allowed us to improve relationships with other customers because we’ve demonstrated that we really want feedback and want to improve.

What business benefits have you seen as a result of your social media efforts? Are you achieving the goals you set out to, or seeing new benefits you didn’t even expect?

Our goal was to provide customer service via social media, and we’ve been able to do just that. We’ve received a great deal of positive feedback from customers, and customers have recommended us to their social networks — one of the greatest compliments we can receive!

Personally, one of the biggest benefits I’ve seen is the way customers and associates have interacted directly with each other via our social media pages. It’s great to see how willing people are to step in and help each other out. Our social media pages are starting to feel like a community of people interested in food, which, as a social media user, is why I’m out there using social media to begin with. The more customers attracted to our pages because of that, the more opportunities we have to improve our relationships with them.

Thanks to Liz Lewis and Heinen’s for sharing their story.

 

Laurel Miltner is a consultant at PR 20/20, a Cleveland-based inbound marketing agency and PR firm. Follow Laurel on Twitter @laurelmackenzie, or connect on Facebook at Facebook.com/laurelmiltner.

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