2017 Social Media Strategy for Whole Foods by Katie Wigle

1. Social Media Strategy
Katie wigle
10/8/17

2. Table of
Contents
1. Executive Summary
2. Social Media Audit
3. Social Media Objectives
4. Online Brand Persona and Voice
5. Strategies and Tools
6. Timing and Key Dates
7. Social Media Roles and Responsibilities
8. Social Media Policy
9. Critical Response Plan
10. Measurement and Reporting Results
Wholefoods

3. ExecutiveSummary
Our major social media goals for 2017 will be growing our online presence with our
consumers and driving more traffic to our website from social media.
Some major social strategies that will support this objective include: 1.) Increasing
engagement, conversations and communication with consumers over social media
2.) Posting on social media pages frequently and making sure posts are relevant to
the brand.

4. KATIE WIGLE |WHOLE FOODS | SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY
SocialmediaAudit
SocialMediaAssessment:
SocialMediaAssessmentsummary:
As of October 2017, Twitter and Facebook has the highest follower
count and the most activity and interactions. Facebook has the highest
average engagement rate.

5. KATIE WIGLE |WHOLE FOODS | SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY
SocialmediaAudit
websitetrafficsourcesAssessment:
WebsitetrafficsourcesAssessmentsummary:
As of October 2017, based off of monthly averages, Facebook
and Instagram are the biggest drivers of traffic to Whole Foods
website. Although Twitter has a lot of followers, it does not
drive as much traffic to the website comparatively.

6. KATIE WIGLE |WHOLE FOODS | SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY
SocialmediaAudit
AudiencedemographicsAssessment:
AudienceDemographicsAssessmentsummary:
As of October 2017, the majority of the audience is female and
the median age is 47.1 years old. The majority of users closest to
this age range primarily use Facebook and Twitter as their main
social media networks.

7. KATIE WIGLE |WHOLE FOODS | SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY
SocialmediaAudit
CompetitorAssessment:
CompetitorAssessmentsummary:
As of October 2017, the top three major competitors are Trader Joe's,
Costco Wholesale, and Sprouts Farmers Market. Sprouts Farmers
Market is very similar demographically to Whole Foods and has a strong
presence on their Facebook page.

8. Social Media Objectives
Overallbusinessgoals:
SocialMediaobjectivestosupportbusinessgoals:
KPI's keysupportingmessages:
In 2017, the primary focus of our social media strategy will be to
expand our online presence with our consumers and to drive
more traffic to our website.
1.) Increasing the amount of engagement and interaction between
the brand's social media pages and consumers by 30% via:
-Increased use of brand hashtags across all platforms
-Increased responses to customers questions and comments
2.) Increase unique visitors from social properties to website by
30% in 6 months via:
-Increased brand awareness through increased mentions
Quantitative: Number of
unique visitors from
Facebook, Twitter and
LinkedIn
Qualitative: Analysis of
followers feedback and
responses from interactions
with brand on social media
Healthy Food, Quality
Ingredients
"Healthy" Means a Whole
Lot More

9. KATIE WIGLE |WHOLE FOODS | SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY
Socialmedia objectives
Demographicrepresentative:
Median age: 47.1 years
Race: 67.7% White
Gender: 56.8% Female
Median Income: $96,800
Education: 60% college graduated

10. KATIE WIGLE |WHOLE FOODS | SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY
Onlinebrandpersonaandvoice
Adjectivesthatdescribeourbrand:
Healthy
Quality
Organic
Natural
Sustainable
Trust-worthy
Community-centered

11. Strategiesandtools
Paid:
Every week boost most popular organic posts from the past week on
Facebook page
Owned:
Introduce the use of #HealthyMeans to company social media pages
Twitter and Instagram. Encourage adoption by customers and source a
minimum of 4 piece of user-generated content per week to retweet/shout
out on Twitter. Promote hashtag across all social properties, email
newsletters as well as printed promotional material in stores.
Earned:
Monitor Twitter for keywords and terms: organic, healthy recipes,
grocery. Offer 20 store coupons to warm leads/prospects over the course
of 2 months.

12. KATIE WIGLE |WHOLE FOODS | SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY
Strategiesandtools
Tools:
Approved:
Hootsuite
Twitter Analytics
Facebook Insights
Rejected:
Buffer
Existing Subscriptions/Licenses:
Tweetdeck
Owned: Example of hashtag being used by Whole Foods Instagram
Earned:Exampleof WholeFoodsTwitterresponding by
searchingkeyword'WholeFoods'

13. TimingandKeydates
Christmas
Thanksgiving
Easter
Hanukkah
4th of July
Earth Day
New Years
December 1-20th:
Christmas/Holiday
community food and toy
drive, gift card giveaways.
April 22nd: Earth Day
donations. Spread message
on all social platforms.
#HealthyMeans strategy
will run for 1 month total.
Peak time will be in around
the New Year to
incorporate new healthy
lifestyle. Developing
content should be
completed and done by
December.
Reporting will occur on a
quarterly basis and begin on
the 1st of every respective
month: February,
May, August and November
KeyDates: InternalEvents: Leadtimes: ReportingDates:

14. Social Media
ROles and Responsibilies
Social Media Director: Natanya Anderson
-Responsibilities: Responsible for aligning Whole Foods
core values across all social media platforms.
Social Media Associate Director: Lisa Grimm
-Responsibilities: Responsible for developing consistent
brand and encouraging follower and customer interaction
on social media platforms.
Global V.P., Global Marketing: Sonya Gafsi Oblisk
-Responsibilities: Oversee's all Marketing efforts (PR,
Advertising, Social Media) to ensure aligned and cohesive
brand.

15. SocialMediaPolicy
Whole Food's social media platforms are used it to highlight the company
brand of being a healthy, high-quality, nutritious, caring, and sustainable
source for grocery shopping. We also use our social media to send
messages, interact with consumers, and build trusted relationships through
social media. As an employee and representative of Whole Foods you are
expected and required to demonstrate and be professional, friendly, and
use proper etiquette and grammar when using social media. Employees
must remember to be respectful, respond in a timely manner, promote/ link
back to brand and/or website, and never use inappropriate behavior or
offensive language.
Only approved social media personnel will be approved and able to post
and interact on Whole Foods official social media platforms. All official
posts must be reviewed an monitored. In the event of a crisis, previously
approved strategies and steps must be followed by approved employees
only. Anyone not adhering to these rules will be subject to corrective
and/or legal action.

16. KATIE WIGLE |WHOLE FOODS | SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY
CriticalResponsePlan
Scenario1:Inappropriatetweetsentoutfrom@WholeFoodsTwitter
ActionSteps:
1.)Takeascreenshotofthetweet
2.)Deletethetweet
3.)ContactSocialMediaManager,
iftheyarenotavailable,contact
MarketingDirector
3.)SocialMediaManagerandMarketing
Directorevaluatereachoftweetaswell
asimpactonbrand.
4.)SocialMediaManagerdevelopedfollow
uptweet,orapology,whichisrun-by
Marketingbeforeposting
5.)MarketingDirectorhandlespressand
mediacontact
6.)Personnelresponsibleforthe
inappropriatetweetisidentifiedand
appropriatecorrectiveorlegalactions
aretaken.
Pre-approved Messaging:
No Pre-approved messaging for this scenario.
Responses will be evaluated on a case-by-case
basis, and appropriate response will correspond
with level of severity.

17. KATIE WIGLE |WHOLE FOODS | SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY
Onlinebrandpersonaandvoice
ExamplesofBrandVoiceinSocialMediaInteractions:
Friendly
Helpful
Cheerful
Polite
Responsive
Informative
Articulate

18. KATIE WIGLE |WHOLE FOODS | SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY
CriticalResponsePlan
Scenario2: Customertweetsnegativeexperienceto @WholeFoodsTwitter
ActionSteps:
1.)Takeascreenshotofthetweet
2.) HaveapprovedSocialMediapersonnel
findoutasolutiontotheproblem
3.) HaveapprovedSocialMediapersonnel
replybackdirectlytotweetaddressing
condolencesand/orprovidingsolutionto
problem.
4.)Remindcustomerthatthisisnotatypical
response/experiencetotheir
products/services
5.) Includeinreplylinkstofurther
informationforthecustomer,andaskif
thereisanythingelsewecando.
6.)Askcustomertoprovideadditional
contactinformationinaDMtofurther
discusstopic
Pre-approved Messaging:
"Hi @CustomersName! We are so sorry about that.
This is not a typical response to our product. Thank you
for informing us. We will look into it. Would you mind
sending us a DM with more information as well as your
contact information?"
Specifics on message can be modified to fit each
specific case and/or problem.

19. KATIE WIGLE |WHOLE FOODS | SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY
CriticalResponsePlan
ContactInformation:

20. KATIE WIGLE |WHOLE FOODS | SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY
MeasurementandReportingresults
QuantitativeKPI's:
SocialNetworkdata:
Reporting Period: 3 months
Data as of October 2017

21. KATIE WIGLE |WHOLE FOODS | SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY
MeasurementandReportingresults
Websitetrafficdata:
Resultsassessment:
According to the data as of October 2017, our follower account has increased the most on our Whole Foods
Facebook page at 15%, with our Whole Foods Twitter account coming in second with an increase of followers by
10%. In the last three months we have increased our average weekly posting rate on all of our major social media
accounts in order to have a wider reach and involvement with our audience. The rate of growth is consistent with
our social media objectives and goals of achieving a 30% increase in engagement and posting with a quarterly
measurement assessment. With these numbers, we are on track to achieving these goals.

22. KATIE WIGLE |WHOLE FOODS | SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY
MeasurementandReportingresults
Qualitativekpi's
Sentimentanalysis:
Futureaction:
An analysis of the interactions on 100 Facebook posts, 100 Instagram posts and 100 Tweets
revealed the following:
-Customer's mostly shared a sufficient amount of positive experiences with Whole Foods, and
the surrounding brand.
-Customer's enjoy interacting and following the brand for coupon savings, event information,
and recipes.
-Many customers who shared their negative experiences engaged in provided and suggested
resolutions and were pleased with the help and responses they received.
Continue social media objective of increasing engament with consumers and followers over
social media platforms
Monitor trends in social media as well as industry to stay on top of competition.
Utilize #HealthyMeans campaign to drive consumer involvement in brand resulting in
awareness and recognition.