Get Connected

How social media helps motivate people all the way to the checkout counter.

2012 Supermarket Media Usage Study conducted by Livonia, Mich.-based media solutions provider Valassis predicts a rapid rise in social media usage over the next five years. Three-quarters of U.S. grocery retail executives said they'd be marketing with print media in 2012, with just 12 percent planning to use social media. Five years from now, however, 65 percent of grocery stores plan to use social media in their marketing, while just 17 percent expect still to be using print.

Carisa Miklusak, CEO of New York-based transmedia consulting firm tMedia Strategies, believes retailers would be remiss to abandon print altogether, affirming that the secret sauce of successful marketing is a blend of social media and traditional techniques. Nonetheless, Miklusak believes that social media is critical to effective marketing, because it's one of the essential tools behind the "evolution of communication." She elaborates on this strategy in the following Q&A:

Q: How does social media compare to traditional sales and marketing?

A: Social media is really not that different from traditional marketing, sales or customer service. We can use social media just like we do in traditional ways to motivate individuals from the beginning of the buying cycle all the way through to the checkout counter. The difference is that social media tackles many traditional motivators in a single strategy and creates additional opportunities along the way.

Q: What's an example of additional opportunities of social media?

A: In the Yakima Valley, there's a focus on local produce, and people are really tied to that first part of the supply chain. Recognizing this about their consumers, certain grocery stores there have started to partner with local farmers. If a particular farmer has a tremendous apple crop or a recipe, the farmer may go to the grocery store Twitter site and tweet that recipe. The grocery store simply retweets the farmer's tweet and adds that the apples will be at the store this weekend.

When the store retweets the farmer's tweet, the store leverages the farmer's voice. This humanizes the grocery store brand and leverages social advocacy so the brand starts to gain more trust, credibility and a higher brand perception, and this translates into share of voice and share of mind.

Q: Any tips for co-creating content with supply partners?

A: You don't want to co-create content with every single one of your partners, especially if you're a larger organization. Instead, you want to look for areas where the audience and customer bases overlap or the interests overlap, and then find maybe five places to start right away. We've seen a ton of success with the grower and the store co-creating content together, because it demystifies where the food comes from and how it gets to the store, and it really makes the consumer feel connected to the source.

Q: Can you give us a peek into the PMA Fresh Connections: Retail events you lead?

A: We focus on how consumer decision-making is changing and how that changing decision-making process is affecting your brand. We look at the opportunities to leverage social media's two-way dialogue. We do this from a conceptual standpoint, and we make sure there is some opportunity to build a tactical plan to implement in your business. The session is incredibly interactive. It's really a conversation, not about replacement or social media cheerleading, but rather about the impact on your industry, the evolution of communication, the new way consumers are making decisions, and how we can stay relevant amid all this and leverage these trends to make an effective bottom-line impact. The next event like this will be in San Diego on June 11-12, and people can learn more about it on PMA's website, www.pma.com.

Bryan Silbermann is president and CEO of the Newark, Del.-based Produce Marketing Association.

Five years from now, 65 percent of grocery stores plan to use social media in their marketing, while just 17 percent expect still to be using print.

"Social media tackles many traditional motivators in a single strategy and creates additional opportunities along the way."

—Cara Miklusak, tMedia Strategies