Will Wal-Mart’s newest Blogging Initiative Succeed? An interview with one of the Bloggers

Categories: Community Marketing, PR, Social Media, Sustainable, Web MarketingPosted on December 6th, 2007

Special Notes: I had previously published this post, but there was a mixup with the announcement dates and removed it. Detail here.

Social Media for Corporations: To build a better world
I’m somewhat sympathetic to large brands launching social media programs, having done it at Hitachi, and I stayed close to Dell during their launches, but I’ll have to admit, Wal-Mart/Edelman have had two major failures and it’s current Facebook initiative isn’t going as one would hope.

Situation
For many of us social media folks, Wal-Mart is a case study for doing it wrong, from Astroturfing fake consumer blogs, to launching a MySpace clone that closed after 10 weeks, trust is certainly not there.

All of the above is what I told Edelman folks who were reading my blog and interactive me in Facebook. They let me know that they are helping their client Wal-Mart launch a new blog, one that is to be transparent authentic, and written from actual Wal-Mart employees. I’ve seen a preview of this blog, which will be letting the buyers and purchasers of products speak directly to the world in a conversation.

Wal-Mart’s newest Social Media Program: Checkout
Although it’s not live, Wal-Mart’s latest blogging program will be called “Checkout”, I’ve seen the preview and it self-states that “This is a blog, simply, about a team of experts at Wal-Mart who have really cool jobs working with gadgets, wine, sustainability, fashion and more.”

You can find Wal-Mart’s latest social media venture at http://checkoutblog.com/

An Interview with Rand Waddoups, Wal-Mart’s newest blogger
One of the bloggers Rand Waddoups contacted me this morning, we had a brief conversation, and I probed him to make sure he’s the real deal, you see, I’ve become a hopeful skeptic.

I did some Google Searches on Rand, (interesting interviews on sustainability) it’s confirmed by others he is indeed a real employee, and he sent me an email as well.

I learned that Rand, who’s based in Arkansas has been with Wal-Mart for seven years, and first started out as a purchaser for Ice, (not that exciting huh?) then moved into buying snacks and then moved into the sustainability role. Currently as the Senior Director of Strategy and Sustainability, Rand insists he doesn’t know all the answers to how a company can buy green products but wants the community to help him move forward.

“Why Blog?”
Why blog? I asked Rand, “I’m new to blogging, its going to be interesting, but the main reason is I want to do better at listening to the market and learn. Sustainability has to be answered, and although there are other ways to learn, this is one of the ways”

“What concerns do you have?”
I asked Rand what are some of his concerns (I reminded him in detail of previous failures) and his responded “I’m new to it”. I gave Rand some advice on how to listen, using that feedreader (attention Edelman, please train clients how to listen), and suggested they use media like video and images, as those are very human mediums, and the trust of Wal-Mart blogging programs has been tainted.

Comments will be moderated by lightly moderated by Edelman staff, but just to weed out the nasties. Rand tells me his blog posts will not be filtered or reviewed, he can publish at will (a best practice), and he hopes to post twice a week.

“How is this different than previous initiatives?”
How is this different than previous social media efforts at Wal-Mart? I asked Rand, he comfortably responded that; “It’s an open conversation with people, its not about PR or Marketing, I want to better understand sustainability”

Feedback from the Community
As I wrote this post, I’ve asked my Twitter network (all 1000 of them) what they thought of Wal-Mart’s programs. I asked them to fill in the blank: “Wal-Mart’s social media programs are ________”

By the time I finished writing this post the following responses came in:

“… decided by executives who are too proud to let an outside consultant make *all* of the strategic decisions.”

“I loved their blogging across America campaign (joke!)”

“__disingenuous, insulting crap.”

“fake”

“….obviously social media programs.”

” Irrelevant to me.”

“sad, not getting it, using old techniques in new media, unfortunate, a good example for me to use as what NOT to do in my book.”

“Wal-Mart’s social media programs are nonexistent.”

Although their responses are public on Twitter, I chose not to publish their names, they can choose to self identify in the comments.

Summary
Wal-Mart has had a series of failed or half-willed attempts at Social Media, their credibility has been tarnished, I’m honestly wishing them the best in this latest venture. I and many others will be watching and from the sidelines, at some point, I hope to start rooting for them too, I really do.

Additional Resources:

Wal-Mart could use an Evangelist (but not a Lionel of Dell, nor a Scoble)

Under Analysis: Facebook Deployment Wal-Mart’s vs Target (one is working and the other is stalled)

Case Study: Wal-Mart’s MySpace clone dies after 10 weeks

Case Study: Caught Astroturfing, Wal-Mart’s fake blog

Wal-Mart Watch Blog: I expect the Official Wal-Mart blog to engage this group

Update: On a related note, the Blog Council (A user group for corporations that blog) just launched yesterday, it would be interesting to see Wal-Mart align with some peers, to learn and share best practices.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, December 6th, 2007 at 8:22 am and is filed under Community Marketing, PR, Social Media, Sustainable, Web Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

[...] Update: After some time, the site is now live, and I published the post exactly as promised. [...]

Posted by Time Warp on December 6th, 2007 at 8:34 am

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Posted by The arrival of The Blog Council… : Community Group Therapy on December 6th, 2007 at 6:15 pm

Jeremiah,
I too wish every company well. After all, they create jobs for many people and offer valuable service to their customers.

But, if a company engages in labour practices that are broadly criticized, they should change their ways. Anyone who fails to “walk the talk” will be called out for their lack of sincerity and follow through. No communications strategy can counteract this.

Posted by Joseph Thornley on December 6th, 2007 at 8:02 pm

I tend to agree with Joseph. I think the failure of the company is not because it didn’t open its discussion threads on its Facebook group or anything else (although I am sure that these were a factor), but mostly because all the reaction the company is getting from the activists groups due to its questionable labor practices. I was listening to one of the MIT podcasts the other day, the podcast was on the Harry Potter Alliance which is one of the activist groups, the speaker was talking about the kind of initiatives they took against Walmart (after discussing Darfur, of course). So Walmart is right up there with Darfur… How do you beat that kind of negative press?

Posted by PaleFire on December 6th, 2007 at 9:03 pm

As if it matters, one way or another, people still shop in droves, getting some snooty-bloggers a showing up, isn’t exactly a big demographic. Lower prices, better quality and selection of goods, similar to a Target-like play, would be a better move over some new sure-to-fail (and rather pointless) “initiative”.

Posted by Christopher Coulter on December 6th, 2007 at 10:42 pm

For the analyst and enviro community, Wal-Mart’s sustainability blog is a great channel. Would like to see an investor relations blog a la Dell’s Dell Shares http://dellshares.dell.com/default.aspx

Posted by Derek on December 7th, 2007 at 7:15 am

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Posted by Goodness Gracious, Great Blogs of Fire! » The Buzz Bin on December 11th, 2007 at 12:51 am

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Posted by Second (and Third) Chances for Social Media and Corporations to Change » The Buzz Bin on December 12th, 2007 at 7:28 am

If one could use the social media to make change it would be a wonderful thing. My husband used to work at Wal-mart and was discriminated against due to a disability and age. After working 3 years he called in sick and was told he abandoned his job, wasn’t paid for his sick time, was told a week later he was being transferred and then another week later discovered his transfer was a termination.We were told to use Wal-mart’s open door policy for complaints, but were given wrong names and phone numbers! So much for their policy of respecting employees and being sensitive to there needs(concerning disability and being in pain). I don’t think the average wal-mart manager has the capapbilities to put constructive criticism to good use. They are definitely lacking in operational behavior management training and do not provide positive reinforcement for their employees. There is no follow through with complaints, jobs completed well, and checks on managers that they are implementing the values of Wal-mart. The store my husband worked at if one had a complaint or grievance the employer was told too bad, transfer if you don’t like mangement here. Wow! Has the wall gone back up! Are we in Cuba? This is most defintely another “big” corporate idea from upper management when there is so much lacking in the actual stores. One hand does not know what the other hand is doing etc. I have decided that I don’t need to buy cheap crap from China to survive. Consumers should look for a better market to purchase necessities..not a discriminting dictator-like store such as WAL-MART. Thank God we have choices in this country and can shop else where. Speaking of God my husband was written up for leaving early on Christmas to be with his family. The ONE religious holiday he asked to be able to celebrate and went in 3 hours early to assist. Is communism back in fashion? It is here South Florida. Shelley Fernande

Posted by Shelley Fernande on February 22nd, 2008 at 7:53 am

Web 2.0 best practices voor bedrijven: algemeen -2-…

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