Hi All! This is my Social Media Plan for Whole Foods that I completed for my Social Media Management class at the University of Florida.

1. Whole Foods
Social Media Plan
Georgia Greenlees
10/6/17

2. Table of Contents
• Executive Summary
• Social Media Audit
• Social Media Objectives
• Online Brand Persona and Voice
• Strategies and Tools
• Timing and Key Dates
• Social Media Roles and Responsibilities
• Social Media Policy
• Critical Response Plan
• Measurement and Reporting Results

3. Executive Summary
• Whole foods is a national grocery chain that supplies high quality food to
consumers. As a company, Whole Foods prides itself in being health-
conscious and as organic as possible. The chain offers a variety of options to
consumers who are looking for non-traditional grocery products.
• Target Market: 22-40 year old adults who value high quality grocery products
and sustainability. Many customers have a minimum of a bachelors degree
and are considered to be in the upper-middle class. More recently college
students have become more prevalent customers.

4. Executive Summary
• Our social media priorities for 2017 will be increasing
awareness of our retail product options by increasing
follows and engagement on social media platforms.
• Our main focus will be increasing sales of newly
introduced items by sharing captivating content while
enhancing customer relationships.

5. Executive Summary
Two Strategies to support the objective:
1. Regularly share content that promotes customer engagement
2. Increase the amount of posts that customers respond to best and stray away
from posts that are not as popular

6. Social Media Audit-
Social Media Assessment
Social Network URL Follow Count Average Weekly
Activity
Average
Engagem
ent Rate
Facebook https://www.faceboo
k.com/WholeFoods/
4,075,059 12 55%
Twitter https://twitter.com/
WholeFoods?lang=en
528K 13 32%
Instagram https://www.instagra
m.com/wholefoods/?
hl=en
2.4m 6 40%
LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.
com/company/15735
3/
209,773 1 14%

7. Website Traffic Sources Assessment
Source Volume Percentage of Overall
Traffic
Conversion Rate
Facebook 2,050 unique visits 12% 2.2%
Twitter 1,500 unique visits 18% 5%
Instagram 1.750 unique visits 10% 3%
LinkedIn 120 unique visits 2% 0.1%

8. Audience Demographics Assessment
Age Distribution Gender
Distribution
Primary Social
Network
Secondary Social
Network
Primary; Secondary
Need
45% 18-30 60% Female 60% Female 45% Instagram Healthy eating
supporting
sustainability and fair
agriculture practice;
more product
options
25% 31-40 40% Male 35% Facebook
15% 41-55 40% Male 55% Facebook 20% Twitter
15% 56-80 30% Instagram
15% Twitter

9. Competitor Assessment
Competitor
Name
Social Media
Profile
Strengths Weaknesses
Trader Joe’s https://www.instag
ram.com/traderjoe
s/?hl=en
Unique products,
credibility,
customer loyalty
Limited stores,
limited selection
Krogers https://www.faceb
ook.com/Kroger/
Wide variety of
products, low
cost, private label
High debt
Target https://twitter.com
/Target?ref_src=tw
src%5Egoogle%7C
twcamp%5Eserp%
7Ctwgr%5Eauthor
More locations.
one stop shop,
household items,
shopping
experience
Not as much healthy
variety

10. Social Media Objectives
Specific objectives:
1. Increase brand mentions on social media platforms by 30% in 6 months-
Increase brand awareness of Facebook with share functions and increase
the hashtag use on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter
2. Increase Twitter Followers by 1000 in 3 months
3. Increase comments on Instagram by 40% in 6 months

11. Social Media Objectives- KPIs and Key
Messages
• Number of Followers on Instagram
• Number of Shares on Facebook
• Number of weekly user-generated content tagged on all platforms
• Number of retweets on Twitter
• Key Messages- New products to discover, food made with you in mind

12. Online Brand Persona and Voice
Adjectives that describe our brand:
• Responsible
• Health conscious
• Novel
• Eco-friendly
• When interacting with customers we are:
• Friendly
• Informative
• Supportive

13. Strategies and Tools
Paid: Boost our most popular organic post on Facebook every Saturday. The
post must have a minimum organic reach of 60 and at least 100 likes and 30
comments. Great example of a post to boost:

14. Strategies and Tools
Owned: Begin weekly contest: user-generated content picture will be selected and
reposted. Participants are required to use hashtag and share to enter contest. There will
be a prize of a $50 Whole Foods gift card.
Promotional hashtag: #wholefoodsknowsfood
Print the promotional hashtag on store receipts
and have cashiers tell customers about
contest.
Example to the right:

15. Strategies and Tools Cont.
• Earned: Monitor Hashtags- #love, #health, #vegan, #yum with relation to
whole foods content
• Message first 50 hashtags and give out $20 gift card for sharing their
experience
• Approved Tools- Hootsuite
• Rejected Tools- N/A
• Existing Subscriptions/Licenses- CorelDraw, Photoshop

16. Timing and Key Dates
Holiday Events- Major Holidays are peak buying times for whole food’s target market
• Jan 1st- New Years Day
• Feb 14th- Valentines Day
• May 17th- St. Patricks’ Day
• May 5th- Cinco de Mayo
• July 4th- Fourth of July
• Oct 31th- Halloween
• Nov 23rd- Thanksgiving
• Dec 25th- Christmas

17. Timing and Key Dates Cont.
Internal events
• Weekly wine and cheese, Trivia nights, and community events
• Reporting Dates- Once every quarter: February, May, August and November

18. Social Media Roles and Responsibilities
Integrated Brand Content & Social Media Director- Lisa Grimm
• Leads the Global Social Media Team at Whole Foods Market consisting of
over 10 million customers, fans and followers across 650 social channels
• Builds a customer-centric and social strategy that leverages CRM, paid social,
content, influencers/ partnerships and earned media to reach customers
• Source: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisaannegrimm

19. Social Media Roles and Responsibilities
• Executive Director of Marketing- Norma Quan
• Responsible for developing and implementing aspects of strategic and operational
marketing plans in support of profit and growth objectives.
• Create and lead the communication and messaging, branding and promotion
strategies, product selection and development process, digital, public and
community relations, events and sponsorships.
• Develop marketing forecasts and budgets
• Source: https://www.linkedin.com/in/normaquon/

20. Social Media Roles and Responsibilities
• Global Manager, Social Media at Whole Foods Market- Jeff Alexander
Giordano
• Manages multiple social media platforms to increase sales, engagement, and
brand awareness.
• Source: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeff-alexander-giordano-20000968/

21. Social Media Policy
• Social media at Whole Foods drives our sales, customer engagement, and
company image. We evaluate all posts to ensure they are appropriately
representing Whole Foods public image. We want to ensure all employees
understand all the policies set in place and have some guidelines put in place:
• Always be respectful, be professional, do not engage in heated discussions, do
not be rude, do not engage in politics or highly debating topics, be informative
and helpful, answer in a timely manner, no foul language, correct spelling and
grammar, do not bad mouth competition

22. Critical Response Plan
A distraught customer is mentioning Whole Foods on
Social Media about a bad store experience:
• Properly document complaint- screenshot
• Answer the customer immediately- apologize and offer a
helpful solution
• If excessive mentions continue- do not engage with
customer on public social media platforms

23. Critical Response Plan
Whole Foods has recall on products sold in stores
• Immediately post on social sites to make it known to customers the product
is recalled
• Apologize and offer helpful solutions
• Promptly answer angry customer and ensure trust in Whole Foods

24. Measurement and Reporting Results
• Quantitative KPIs- reporting every 3 months
• Data as of August, 1 2017
• Website Sources
Traffic Assessment
Source Volume Percentage of
Overall Traffic
Conversion Rate
Twitter 1300 unique visits
+ 5% grown
14% 2%
Facebook 4000 unique visits
+ 10% growth
30% 3%
LinkedIn 130 unique visits
+ 5% growth
2% .03%

25. Social Network Data
Social Network URL Follower Count Average Weekly Activity Engagement
Rate
Twitter https://twitter.com/Whol
eFoods?lang=en
600
+9% growth
16 posts per week
+12% increase
3%
Facebook https://www.facebook.co
m/WholeFoods/
7100
+27% growth
14 posts per week
+100% increase
6%
Instagram https://www.instagram.co
m/wholefoods/?hl=en
8900
+14% growth
7 posts per week
+40% increase
Avg interactions per post:
350 post
LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com
/company/157353/
210
+12% growth
1 post per week
+85% increase
2%

26. Sentiment Analysis
An analysis of the interactions on 200 Facebook posts, 200 Instagram posts
and 200 Tweets revealed the following:
• Numerous positive posts were posted after customers tried new products via
shout outs, user-generated, and hashtags.
• Negative comments were mostly due to costly products.

27. Proposed Action Items
• Continue #wholefoodsknowsfood
• Continue to monitor hashtags and giving away gift cards
• Prepare a content strategy for Facebook to increase brand awareness and
engagement