Introduction to Woolworths
The report will discuss in detail about the company Woolworths which is considered as one of the biggest supermarket chain existing in Australia and comes under Woolworths Limited. The company was established back in 1924 with the first store being opened in Sydney. The opening line of the advertisement claimed that every city needs the company and therefore everybody was looking for a handy kind of space where all the good things become cheap. As discussed, the company is one of the biggest chain of supermarket in Australia and as time is moving towards virtual world, the company has also understood the importance and has been a socially active member in this space. Social media are being one of the fastest developing industries in the world. The statement is used a lot in the market since the popularity is increasing day by day, but with estimated rise of 25% yearly growth in next five years, it is for sure be the right time to initiate the investment process in social media if it is not done already. This is also very crucial for different companies and a traditional company like Woolworths is also making an active effort to be more on social media and interact with the customers through more and more mediums.
The retail powerhouse of Australia is strongly represented by Woolworths since it is one of the most popular medium to interact with people. It is the largest retailers in term of revenue in Australia and the brand is clearly has become more and more impressive with time to reach more and more consumers. The dependency on social media has also increased over a period. The company has recorded revenue of over sixty billion dollars in the year 2014 and it is also called as the second only mining organization where the company was declared as both largest retailer as well as supermarket. The company is spread all over Australia with 872 stores in various parts of the country which makes it a huge part of people lives with one store within 10km range. The ecommerce footprint by the company has been impressive so far and the company is thoroughly enjoying the sales of approx. or above one billion sales in online space and it is constantly rising with time. Based on per capita income based on far ahead with many online based retailers on international space. The company is further reinvesting more and more profit in digital space and the brand further has launched as a new online shop with a huge photo buttons which was clearly designed for mobile sake.
Before understanding it social media presence on social media it is important to understand about the website for number of clues related to social media and associated strategy adopted by the company. The website of the company is bright as well as quite colourful which is designed to grab the attention of people. In addition, the company also provides a lot of information that helps the consumers to feel more comfortable in shopping on many online portals. There is one more interesting characteristics that the company has put the Facebook like button on the main page of the website that too on the top. This like button was also very popular some time back however, it has further fallen out of number of favour in the recent time. The main reason for the same can be that the Facebook is very approachable for brands that are low now that most are no longer developing a following strategy for it on Facebook.
Social media channels used by Woolworths
On top of that, there are number of another social media network as well highlighted on the website. What is more interesting is that the website is completely missing the social icon which is a widespread practice on many other Australian web pages.
The strongest presence of the company is one Facebook since it is one of the largest medium available in the current time. The company has more than eight lakh followers with six percent of the country’s 14m users on Facebook which make the company a very popular presence on this network. It is also in line and within the reach of Macy’s in USA or Tesco in UK. Like many other Australian based retailers that can be analysed, Facebook becomes the home base for the brand. The company updates the page on daily basis and post the picture of the food along with exclusive offers and self-help or DIY videos and information based status are also shared by the company. The company is also very active community work which is also mentioned on the page. Most of the content or material shared here are very typical by nature however, the company’s engagement with the customer is very impressive by nature. There are most of the post that have hundred or even thousands of likes and a lot of shares. Some of the current mostly is accomplished by paying for the overall reach but what is unique is number of comments on the posts and get that is achieved from the fans. While analysing the shares and the pages gets different comment or a post after a fixed period in a day and many of them is going complimentary. The company is further clearly being doing something or the other.
It is also very challenging to discuss the exact motive but ultimately the company wants to provide a great level of customer experience at the store. This helps in creating a positive goodwill with consumers and Facebook is a place where the customers are free to return the favour. The change is sharp with other and varied brands as well and for whatever reason which have failed to provide a great level of experience in today’s world and further tries to make up for being more and more friendly on online platforms. The company will have to deliver as per the brand promise at each place and Facebook can take as a place where people don’t just complain but also take active participation with the company in a more positive manner.
The company is also relatively successful through its YouTube channel with more than twelve thousand subscribers. This is far smaller than the Facebook page however this medium followers or subscribers works very well for so many retail based brands. It is important to understand here that the seeing a brand based video in sometime seems to be a step that is too far from reality. What is amazing about this platform is however the company has the gadget based interface in YouTube which helps them to design the page like their websites. However, it was later discontinued in 2015 but all the users at that time were permitted to keep it until the year end. It is also very surprising that such characteristics are removed however it just not have been very popular enough for the page like Google to support. Further the content on the company’s channels is of very high quality and completely timeless by nature. The company has further put together some small cooking videos which happens to be great for the sake of social sharing. Some of them features as a part of a popular TV show namely Jamie Oliver and will have a long as well as social shelf life.
Website
The company has also created an Instagram page and further amassed more than twenty thousand followed with only three hundred and fifty posts in just eighteen months. However, there were wrestling with another page with similar name and less followers. At the same time, it is important to understand here that it is common to deal with it and other traditional brands that join the platform.
Lastly the company is also this social media as well. The company is putting a lot of efforts into creating a successful Pinterest and there is quality based content in addition to the beautiful food related photos and ideas related to gifts and other links for YouTube videos.
How each channel discussed above are being used by the business
The company has so many times proved how negative publicity on social media can turned into positive way to gain people attention. For example, a customer in 2013 complained on Facebook page posted on the page of the company with a feedback like an over ripen avocado. The customer expressed his disappointment and despair with the company.
The company immediately considered that matter and the team accountable for maintaining the social media of Woolworths account was appreciated for their immediate and funny answer. The case could have turned into major controversy or a fiasco but what happened was funny and remarkable way in which the situation was handled. The company want ahead contacted the customer privately and rectified the problem immediately. It is important to understand here that the incident has the potential to initiate a whole new wave of negative feedback related to the disappointment of the consumer’s experience with fresh produce which could have led to a lot of damage to the brand and the light hearted and on the point response resulted in applause on social media. Some customers even went ahead and created memes in honour of the company’s tack in addressing the complaint. The first post was further received closely to thirty-five thousand likes and more than two thousand and five hundred shares.
Twitter was absent from the company’s website from the list of icons and the company’s presence on the Twitter page was nil.
The company however managed to get its name listed on Twitter at least the company does not share any kind of content what so ever on it and the brand is on this platform since 2008. In addition, most of the other retailers in Australia are also using this platform in an active manner to converse and listen the consumers. It is important for the company to become more and more active on this platform since it is also a way to directly interact with people (Davis, 2014).
Buffer is a social media analytical tool, which can be used to aanalyse all the platforms of social media on the same dashboard, and update, manage, post the update, and also get the analytical reports like reach of the post, number of views or retweet, location based reach, the demography of the posts, the follows and follower counts, the likes and other such statistics. In the section below, a demo use of the tool has been provided, using twitter as a demo account for the testing.
The problem has been solved for the payments which was undertaken by Cuscal on the behalf of the financial provider. They also worked on the compliance with the PCI DSS.
As per the analytics from the social media, we see that there were issues with the avocados by the company handled the same very effectively and compensated the client with the fresh products.
As per the analytics, the customer service mainly relies on the customers to bring a change in the employment and how the schooled customers are complaining about the products. The company then worked on it and now it mainly tries to bring the best products for its customers.
Woolworths, like many other companies have clearly understood the significance of using this platform and it is crucial for them to stay relevant with the content they share with the people. The feedback on social media also shows that the consumers are having a positive experience offline with the company. Also, despite the upcoming movement in the platform, the company is consistently offering a great platform to share information and other shareable items with prominent level of engagement on these platforms. This further leads to concluding that many other similar brands that can learn something about the social media from the company (Kasian-Lew, 2014). While analysing the social media on ecommerce sites also shows that the state of things to look forward to. The company further can remove Pinterest and become more active on Twitter since it will help them to be more prompt with understanding the customer feedback and complains. Following are some of the recommendation for the company to handle any negative publicity on social media in a prompter manner: –
Act rapidly: the company’s biggest strengths are that it is quick in responding to any kind of possible disaster. The company responded as soon as possible and went through the procedure of getting all the negative publicity removed and does something which is certainly decreased the bad word of mouth promotion. There are several examples of social media being able to develop of sense of transparency. Customers are also holding companies responsible and people have not faced this before and it’s an appropriate time to evaluate the tool.
Listen: it is very important for the companies to listen to the consumer to respond to the feedback and further mitigate with any kind of possible or prospective disaster or catastrophes. There are a lot of brands that don’t pay attention to customers feedback since they don’t know or understand what is going on. Organizations further need to be all ears in a careful manner for the consumers and further try and workout around the basic as well as primary emotion as and when there is any kind of undercurrent. There are many situations for Woolworth where they could have gone ahead and realised as a part of the issue to sprung from the issues of any kind and introduce a place to react and act the poorly received product or campaign (Hobson, 2017). Companies should look at the current situation which is present under the surface.
Respond in a right manner: in addition, businesses should also respond on the level as well as platform of the consumers. There is absolutely no point in responding on one social media when the issue is on another platform.On a platform like Facebook, organization should respond in a manner that is less in terms of corporate then it is using to be. The users on Facebook are used to a more peer kind of communication, rather than performing in a corporate manner.
For many organization, any kind of investment in social media based marketing services can be recognized as the missed link that connect the company with the customers. At the same time, for many other who are still contemplating about varied options and dive into the concept of social media platforms and look no further than some relevant facts. Social media marketing further rises the brand awareness. There are approx. seventy eight percent small level businesses that use social media to gain the attention of many new customers. In addition, approx. thirty three percent of consumers have recognized the social media as how they must recognize newer brands based services as well as products.
It is important to understand that social media these days helps in marketing and validating the brand. An organizations presence on social media when done in right manner communicates with consumers that the brand is proactive and aimed on thriving on the process of communication with the customers.
Reference
Arli, D., & Dietrich, T. (2017). Can Social Media Campaigns Backfire? Exploring Consumers’ Attitudes and Word-of-Mouth Toward Four Social Media Campaigns and Its Implications on Consumer-Campaign Identification. Journal of Promotion Management, 1-17.
Davis, R. (2014). Social media branding for small business: The 5–sources model. Business Expert Press.
Feigin, L. M. (2016). The effects of protests and boycotts on a brand and its reputation: a case study on Woolworths and boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) (Doctoral dissertation, The IIE).
Meyer, S. M. (2014). Social media and corporate brands: a study of how the top 10 corporate brands in South Africa utilise social media content to strengthen their brand (Doctoral dissertation, Stellenbosch: Stellenbosch University).
Highfield, T. (2017). Social media and everyday politics. John Wiley & Sons.
Hobson, R. (2017). The integration of influencer marketing into social media strategies (Doctoral dissertation, University of Cape Town).
Matikiti, R., Kruger, M., & Saayman, M. (2016). The usage of social media as a marketing tool in two Southern African countries. Development Southern Africa, 33(5), 740-755.
Kasian-Lew, D. (2014). The Social Executive: How to Master Social Media and why It’s Good for Business. John Wiley & Sons.
Singh, A., Shukla, N., & Mishra, N. (2017). Social media data analytics to improve supply chain management in food industries. Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review.
Zhang, K., & Moe, W. W. (2017). BIAS ON YOUR BRAND PAGE? MEASURING AND IDENTIFYING BIAS IN YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA COMMUNITY.
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