NEW YORK – BUSINESS – Chalk up another win for Walmart. The world’s biggest retailer also has the biggest social media presence as measured by consumer engagement heading into Black Friday, according to the latest figures from the Digital Engagement Index, a new MediaPost feature powered by ListenFirst, which tracks daily increases and decreases in engagement across major social platforms for top brands (as compiled by Redbooks 500).
Over the last week Walmart scored an average digital engagement rating of almost 2.6 million interactions per day, over ten times more than Target, second on the list in the retail category.
ListenFirst’s Michael Robinson noted: “While Walmart typically leads the big box retailers based on Digital Engagement Ratings, it’s clear that they’ve turned on the media machine over the past week, as their digital engagement is almost 800% higher than average.” From a content perspective, Walmart is engaging its customers with recipes, health tips, and how-to’s, distinguishing itself from the torrent of deals and promotions that fill consumers’ inboxes and social feeds. Their social program includes countdowns to special savings offers on Facebook, and a video on YouTube promoting their “1-hour guarantee,” promising consumers they will get the discounted item they want if they stand in line from 6 pm-7 pm on Thanksgiving Night.
Indeed, although e-commerce looms large this holiday season, Walmart remains focused on driving foot traffic to its stores, for example with in-store maps for navigating Black Friday deals posted on Facebook.
While the competition is leagues behind, in this cohort Target scored big with a Disney Frozen Photo sweepstakes, promoted on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, inviting parents and kids to post a photo of themselves with a Disney Frozen backdrop display for a chance to win a trip to the Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, FL.
In third place, Kmart increased its digital engagement by over 1,400% over the last week thanks to the #ShowYourJoe video, a Joe Boxer promotion in which a chorus of men play Jingle Bells on their rotund midriffs, which garnered over one million views on YouTube and quickly became Kmart’s most shared Facebook post of the week.
Eric Sass
Originally Published: Media Post ©2014
