Hopefully your situation is better than the one that Chad Mitchell, Walmart’s senior director of digital communications, found himself in about 18 months ago. Employed at the world’s largest company by revenue, Mitchell saw that the brand’s interaction on social with customers was wanting. Its vehicle was an old site that felt even older since it was updated roughly twice yearly.
Mitchell and his team acted quickly, transforming the moribund site into Walmart Today, a sprawling news operation patterned on the digital newsrooms of other Fortune 500 brands, such as Coca-Cola. Accordingly he added digital staff and charged it with telling the brand’s story with new content weekly. The stories ranged from items about the company’s global operations to features on its 2 million+ employees. In about one year on the job, Mitchell's team has seen the site gain 1 million monthly uniques. Even better, the brand has boosted its reputation with stakeholders.
Mitchell, who will be the keynote speaker at PR News’ Big 4 Social Media Summit Aug. 10 in San Francisco, shares insights below about transforming brands into storytellers, as well as other digital tactics.
PR News: What can brands can do to transition to strategic reputational storytelling?
Mitchell: First and foremost, you have to understand your audience. Not even a brand as big as Walmart can boil the ocean when it comes to audience. So you have to ask questions like, “Who wants to hear from us?” or “Who needs to hear from us?” and then build a content and channel strategy that’s tailor-made for those folks. We really pride ourselves on being platform-agnostic; that is, we will optimize our storytelling for whichever platform or environment our audiences are most comfortable in. We also want to make sure we have an agreed-upon “true north” for our storytelling and voice. Branding the content is only the beginning.
PR News: Tell us about the thinking and strategy behind the relaunch of Walmart’s site.
Mitchell: Ultimately, we’re trying to tell stories at the intersection of Walmart’s values and those of our key audiences. Walmart is such a big organization that we’re playing in almost every space. But most people don’t know about the work we’re doing on issues that matter to them (i.e. re-shoring American jobs, improving retail wages and training, etc). In these stories, Walmart isn’t so much the hero as a facilitator or convener of awesome folks—associates, suppliers and customer alike—doing big, important work in the world.
See the complete agenda and speaker roster for PR News' Big 4 Social Media Summit and Visual Storytelling Boot Camp, which will be held Aug. 9-10 in San Francisco.
PR News: We found the Ripple Effect video series about employees intriguing. Share a bit about how this series fits into your social media strategy.
Mitchell: [Walmart founder] Sam Walton was fond of saying, “Our people make the difference.” And he meant it. Our associates are what make Walmart special. The Ripple Effect tells stories of how associates are seizing opportunities inside Walmart to grow their careers and do great things for our company and our customers. More than 70% of Walmart management started in hourly positions. Our CEO Doug McMillon started as an hourly truck loader in a Walmart warehouse back in 1984. He may be the ultimate example of the “ripple effect” and the difference our people—no matter their role—can make in the lives of our customers.
PR News: What's unique about Walmart's approach to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat?
Mitchell: As I mentioned, we’re platform-agnostic. We want to be where the audience is, sharing content that is optimized for each platform. For our core customers, Walmart uses platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Pinterest and Twitter to help our customers save money and live better. On the corporate side, we’re using some of the same platforms to tell great stories about what’s happening behind the scenes at the world’s largest retailer. Our leaders are even getting into the game. Doug McMillon recently joined Facebook and went live from our shareholder meeting, bringing hundreds of thousands of our associates and customers into the conversation as never before.
Follow Chad Mitchell: @cmmitchell4
Follow Seth Arenstein: @skarenstein