Notes and Thoughts on Grocery 2.0

MyWebGrocer Client’s Launch New Social Networking Sites Targeting Parents

October 1st, 2008 Colchester VT: 66% of grandparents in the US live over a day’s drive away from their grandchildren. When a new mom needs advice where can she turn when her parents are so far away? MyBaby.com. MyBaby.com offers mom’s everywhere their own place to get advice, share, and discuss.

Retail grocers have taken notice of the social networking trend and MyWebGrocer’s customers are seeing up to 40% new customer acquisition with their social networking tool, MyBaby.com. Central Markets, Stepherson’s, Met Food, and Pioneer Supermarkets, have launched their co-branded MyBaby.com sites. These retailers will now offer an online community to their customers in a highly targeted loyal fashion.

Grocery customers are already on the internet; social networking sites make up for more web traffic than any other websites besides search engines. Launching these online communities reaches out to current and potential clients who are already online and involved in social networking. Retailers who launch this free site are also able to take part in an ad-revenue share program. With MyBaby.com, weekly targeted specials sorted by zip code are sent to customers allowing for open communication between retailers and customers. This communication enables the retailer’s message to be sent directly to their customers.

MyWebGrocer CEO Rich Tarrant, “Here we talk about making connections. MyBaby helps parents connect with each other to share information. The site helps parents and retail grocers connect so that parents can provide feedback and rate products, and these grocers can use the site to let parents know what child-oriented specials and activities are available at their stores. MyBaby.com creates the place for dialogue and connects parents.”

MyBaby.com is a value added feature for retail grocer’s customers. It offers customers an online community where users can discuss, share, and post items that they find important in today’s market. Targeted towards the highly influential groups, Moms, MyBaby.com can increase customer acquisition, brand loyalty, and product advocacy. 91% of moms prefer brands that other moms have recommended and MyBaby.com is an outlet where people are able to make these recommendations. Moms control 1.7 trillion dollars in US spending annually and 80% of all household spending.

Cheers!
Courtney

In a recently launched campaign created by McCann Erickson, Dentyne Gum urges viewers to “Make face time” by replacing online social activities with personal interactions. The advertiser links kissing with instant messaging, hugging with accepting a friend request, whispering with leaving a voicemail and other commonplace activities with those personal ones we supposedly do less of because of our addiction to technology. I love this campaign for its ingenuity, creative copy and relevance. But there’s a catch.

Dentyne’s campaign centers on a website, www.makefacetime.com.

Wait a second…Dentyne created a brilliant campaign to remind its core teenage audience that personal interactions cannot be duplicated online, yet they are hoping that it is being online that forces their target to interact with the brand? Talk about irony.

In a New York Times article discussing the advertiser’s strategy, Craig Markus, Executive Vice President and Executive Creative Director at McCann Erickson, acknowledges the disconnect. “There was a real paradox in that we want to have an online presence, but wait a second, we’re telling people not to be online. That’s where we came up with the idea of the three-minute web site.”

The site, unveiled last Monday, opens with a warning that in three minutes, the site will shut down. Messaging appears telling readers, “When people are surfing the Web, they’re missing the best part of life – being together.”

But having a self-destructing website doesn’t mean much since it’s still a website. And one which Dentyne hopes many young adults will frequent.

Zeynep Tufeki, a sociologist at the University of Maryland, says “This is a false dichotomy.” Tufeki, who studies the way teenagers use technology to socialize, says her research shows that the exact people Dentyne wishes to target are most likely going online to increase social interaction, update personal information and connect with friends. “In fact, they’re checking out these sites in the hopes that sooner or later it will end up in a hug or kiss,” she says.

It seems as if Dentyne’s messaging should read, “When people are surfing the web, they’re getting ready to enjoy the best part of life – being together.”

What do you think?

Rachel

Speaking of Olympics, Michael Phelps will be on the box of …Frosted Flakes. And Michael Phelps has a million fans on Facebook. How can you leverage your brand and the power of social networking?

Social networking is all about finding niche areas where people find others who share the same interest. People are already talking about your brand online; engage with them, find out how to improve your brand directly from your customers, find out what’s working and why.

Here are 5 tips to get started:

1. Set up Facebook, MySpace and YouTube accounts for your brand

2. Find fans who love your brand and friend them

3. Send out bulletins & blogs to your online friends about promotions or events they will be interested in

4. To have friends you have to be a friend. Be active, but don’t try to sell – instead inform and let your friends make up their own mind

5. Offer online specials to your social networking friends only – reward them for being your friend

Social networking is wonderful way to communicate with your customers. It is a two way street on communication, once you make the commitment to join a social network site, make the commitment to be active and engage with your customers on their terms.

Here’s to being popular!

~Rebecca

What is it? Social Networking is a structure of links between nodes(ie often people) that can be browsed or searched like a map to help you understand the respective relationships connecting these nodes/people together. LinkedIn, FaceBook, and MySpace are some popular examples.

Here is a good overview video from CommonCraft on Social Networking.

Why is Social Networking important in the Grocery industry?

We all want to understand, engage, and retain our customers better. Consumers increasingly are spending more time on social networking sites and less time using traditional media. A recent UK study found, “This gain in popularity(of Social Networking sites) comes from the expense of other activities and media. The main activities showing a decline in time spent…, watching broadcast television (-12%), reading print (books are -10%, magazines are -8%, newspapers are -7%), visiting other web sites, and playing games. Among teens, the decline is even more pronounced with -32% less time spent on homework/work, -21% less time spent on TV, and -14% less time spent reading books.”

Ok, so I understand that some of my grocery customers and many of my younger customers use social networking sites but how do I engage them?
Here are three things that you can do tomorrow to engage your grocery consumer in the social networking space.