Social Media Marketing Final

Conner Wise

Part 1:

Instagram:

Looking at Walmart’s recent posts, one of the main things I noticed right off the bat was

their target audience and how they are reaching them. Looking at some of their Instagram posts,

one thing I noticed was their use of organic posts. Walmart has strategically proposed to use their

Instagram page as more of an “aesthetic” page rather than shoving paid promotion posts down

your throat, or non – organic posts. These organic posts are supposed to visually appeal the target

audience rather than tell you to come shop at their store. While I do like this approach, I think

intertwining a paid promotion post directing them to the website would allow the target audience

to see what kind of deals they are currently offering while also getting more people to visit our

page. College students are always looking for deals so implementing this into their strategic plan

would allow them to get more impressions and engagements onto their webpage.

Twitter:

The Walmart Twitter page however is where I would make the most improvements on

how to approach the college student target audience. Recently, their Twitter account has been

very stagnant with what they post and is super interchangeable with the times they post.

Sometimes they will post back-to-back days and others they will wait a few days and then post.

Looking at the impressions they are getting on each post ranges from 30 to 700 likes. The

inconsistency is what I would focus on the most making sure that posts are not just random but

consistent with day to day posting. A scheduled plan of when and what to post is needed when

competing against Amazon and timing of a post is everything when trying to get consumers to
switch platforms. One other aspect I have noticed that Walmart could improve on would be

posting more memes and trends. Amazon is keeping up with the younger generation by posting

current trends on social media while Walmart has fallen back on. Posting more trending videos

and memes and applying to our marketed segment brings up competition to different companies

like Amazon.

Facebook:

Walmart has done a decent job at keeping a retention rate with their customers through

their Facebook account by doing seasonal updates. Right off the bat when looking at their page,

their header is “bring it on spring” which is challenging to the audience and a key aspect I like

about their page. Something I noticed however on their Facebook page is that they are targeting

an older generation. Walmart customers are usually older parents who are going grocery

shopping. The consumers however are the entire family for who they are shopping for. Instead of

only targeting the parents, throwing in posts that relate back to college students such as new and

upcoming deals would allow this audience to go out to their local Walmart and take advantage of

this. An example of this could easily be a post that states, “Come within the next few days to get

30% off on all of the snack isle.” Another example they could implement would be to have

college students interact with the post. Facebook is typically used by older generations so having

Walmart post something that gets college students to interact with the post such as commenting

and sharing for their chance to win something, would bring in more of these students to shop at

Walmart.

Tik Tok:

Walmart has had a strong impression on Tik Tok which is good because of the amount of

college students who use this platform; however, it is not as much as Amazon. Looking at some
of Walmart’s posts, a lot of their posts involve “how to” videos and “current trending ways to

use applications” basically showing the audience how to use their products and different ways to

style their applications. While I love this approach, it is going to take more to take Amazon users

and make them Walmart users. To do this, I would implement an influencer awareness program.

Influencers are always a good way to share your company and some of your products and with a

brand name and brand awareness like Walmart, you could get practically anyone you want with

the right price tag. Developing what kind of influencer, you want to promote your videos and

how you would like to utilize them is another aspect to consider. Going through the different

types of influencers, you have nano, micro, macro, and mega influencers. I would personally

utilize the mega influencer because Walmart is already a very big company so we could hire a

well-known celebrity such as a famous actor or singer. As of how I would use them, I would

probably start off as an affiliate marketing member who gets the audience involved by

interacting with the post with their chance to win something free. Not only would this allow

younger generations to engage with the post, but it would also set the difference between

Amazon and Walmart as they typically do not use influencers either. From there, I would

implement other influencer marketing strategies such as social media takeover, where they run

the account on a day in their lives, branded content, where the posts are directly linked to the

brand Walmart, and giveaways where people have a chance to win items and products.

Part 2:

The first step I would take to increase the mobile app users and make the switch from

Amazon users to Walmart users would be to post and push our new implementation of the

mobile app all over our social media platforms. One of the biggest challenges as a social media

manager of Walmart is going to be how to win over the Amazon users. To successfully
accomplish this goal, my biggest suggestion would be to implement giveaways as they use the

app and offering a point system. Similar to what Kroger has, the more items you purchase from

the store can be converted to points to allow you to get items for free or for a discount. When

customers and consumers hear about giveaways and free items, they are immediately drawn to

this and would allow the amount of mobile app users to create some sort of competition as to

who could get the most points. I would post this on all platforms leading to more downloads and

we can measure the success rate by looking at the analytics to measure who is looking and

engaging with our post which are listed below.

Impressions: Number of times your posts are seen by users

Engagements: Number of times your posts are liked, commented, or shared

Clicks: Number of times your post is clicked on to view your website

CTR (Click Through Rate): The ratio to clicks to impressions

CPC (Cost Per Click): This includes content costs and organic clicks

Shares: Who is sending the post to other people

Conversions: Customers who see the post then directly go to the website and make a purchase

After looking at the analytics of these posts and seeing how well they did would decide

where we go from there. One main concept I think that would also help Walmart grow their base

of Mobile app users would be trying to create some content that would go viral. With the amount

of Tik Tok followers Walmart has currently at 758.8 thousand followers, creating a viral video of

something funny or relatable to college students would really help them grow their base. Instead

of just posting how to videos and decorating styles, I would make a video that would make the
audience and college students laugh at. The more users who would share the video would allow

them to grow their base not only from parents but would give them a side that maybe the target

audiences have never seen before which can either hit or miss in come scenarios. Some of the

current trending funny videos on Tik Tok have gotten millions of likes and I believe if Walmart

did something like this out of their comfort zone, not only would it get a lot of recognition, but if

done correctly, would lead to a lot more conversions.

One of the last implementations I would need to utilize and take control of would be the

use of delivery to the customer’s house. Companies such as Kroger did this where you can have

your groceries ordered on the mobile app and they would have a dasher come to your door and

drop off your groceries. This has been a big switch in the grocery shopping world due to the

pandemic where people did not want to go into grocery stores and is now a new way of

shopping. Amazon is strictly delivery and where they have the upper hand on us sop to change

this, on the nee mobile app, there will be a deliver groceries option where wither Walmart

employees will be delivering the groceries in a certain mile radius, or a third-party vendor could

get into the mix with that company delivering the groceries such as “Door dash” or “Shipd”. One

of the greatest aspects of this is that usually at Universities and Colleges, students do not always

have the recourse to a car. When they want to cook something for dinner, they could easily order

it to their dorm within a couple minutes rather than having to find a ride to the store. Not only

would this be a great benefit to the company, but it would also save a lot of frustration form the

customer constantly coming in and having to grab different groceries leading to a successful

reputation. This would not only be put all over our social media posts, but it would also be on

our social media platforms bios so anyone who did not have our mobile app could still use it via

our social media platforms. From there, this is where the point system could truly make the
switch form Amazon users to Walmart users. Something that Amazon does not utilize on is the

giveaway option. Having our customers buy a certain number of products that would lead to free

products or sale options would build customer loyalty as long as we act accordingly on it. This

means that there are no hiccups with this process and what we say goes when giving out free

items.

Part 3:

When discussing brand awareness and reputation of a brand, one of the biggest key

factors is to make your audience, customers, and consumers feel comfortable with your

company. Implementing this into our strategic proposal should never be a problem if conde

correctly. To make sure our brand voice is consistent and clear, we will need a document stating

what Walmart’s core values and mission is as for our social media. This concludes what we post,

how we post it, and fostering our values around what we post. This does not mean that we have

to be strict with what we post, but there needs to be a reoccurring pattern with our posts that can

all be centralized into one core group of morals. If these morals are ever broken or inconsistent,

this can lead to a loss of customers and revenue and brand reputation which is the last thing we

want so being strict with what we post and how we go about it is extremely important to our

company.

Another key aspect that goes into this is being consistent with who is making our content

for social media posts. If we have multiple positions in our department writing on our social

media, there can be a vast difference with the way people word certain phrases which can throw

off our audience. Having the writing content itself be extremely consistent with only a few

people working on our actual wording of our posts is another aspect that needs to be done

perfectly. For example, if one person in the social media department wrote out a post for
Instagram and phrased it in a completely different manner than another director did, the audience

can look at this and tell that there is a difference which adds confusion to our segmented markets.

Making this as consistent as possible needs to be one of our top priorities. Going along with this,

since Walmart is trying to reach out to college students, it would probably be in our best favor to

have one of our content writers for asocial media being a college student or someone who is

close to the age or at least knows how we talk and conversate. Having a 50-year-old trying to

reach out to a 20-year-old to buy a product is going to be a lot more difficult than having a 20-

year-old reach out to college student telling them to buy a product. There are different languages

throughout ages and making sure that we are having the younger generations take control of

writing towards the younger generations is going to most successfully accomplish our object.

One of the last focal points of voice I want to focus on is the tone of our voice.

Depending on the current given situation that our company is in all has a different tone. For

example, the way our company would respond to a crisis or customer complaint would be

different than how Walmart would respond to a new product being released. Making sure we

have the right tone and phrasing for the given situation is key when posting on social media.

Everything needs to be done in a professional manner and if it is not, this can lead to a tank of

our sales and even the company if that detrimental. When talking to the media, it is best to talk in

an authoritative tone that is more confident. The best way to remember it is to be calm, clear, and

concise. The difference in posting on social media is that we can be a bit more playful using

emojis, exclamation points, and being overall more empathetic and compassionate. Keeping it

casual on social media is the voice that we are going for and what is to be, I believe, one of the

best ways to gain customer loyalty. Following these procedures would help Walmart soar above

Amazon leaving Walmart gaining college students and taking them away from Amazon.