Small companies and businesses can sometimes feel overwhelmed at the idea of competing against big companies and their huge war chests of marketing monies. They wish there was a way to even the playing field a bit.
Enter social media.
Social media gives companies a way to reach customers cost-effectively. Instead of designing a mailer and paying postage to 10,000 customers at a cost of about $6,000, or printing a newspaper insert at a typical cost of $1000’s, a business can open a free Facebook or Twitter account, type a message and press the send button.
All you need is to know your audience, have some creativity, and make good offers.
A recent look at the number of Twitter followers and Facebook Fans of grocery stores by Pace Communications is a fun example. (see the chart at the bottom of this post)
In the grocery store battles, Walmart, Target, and Whole Foods have the most fans and followers by a large margin. We’d expect that, right? They’re big stores with big budgets able to hire the best and pay for the goods.
But I wondered about the number of fans or followers by grocer size. What if a smaller grocer is gathering a huge fan base while a much larger chain is not. If so, maybe the smaller chain is the one to watch for innovate, effective use of social media.
So, I took the liberty of tabulating Facebook fans per store and Twitter followers per store to get a feel for who is building an audience well. (see the full table below)
Per store, Wegmans (75 stores, 1,066 Facebook fans per store, 119 Twitter followers) is beating Walmart (2,906 stores) almost 2 to 1 in Facebook fans and 10 to 1 in Twitter followers.
Meanwhile, Whole Foods (279 stores) beats out every other grocer measured by more than 50 to 1 in Twitter followers per store. This includes beating out Walmart (2,906 stores), Safeway (1,486 stores), Kroger (2,470), everybody.
Whole Foods is attracting, on average, nearly 6,500 customers per store. That has got to help save on ad costs and bring in new business. Maybe there’s something we should pay attention to there.
So take heart smaller companies, social media may level the playing field. The continuing question is, how to use it well.
| Grocer | Stores | Facebook Fans |
Twitter Followers |
Facebook Fans/Store |
Twitter Followers/Store |
| Target | 252 | 1,605,920 | 30,478 | 6,373 | 121 |
| Whole Foods | 279 | 311,717 | 1,793,104 | 1,117 | 6,427 |
| Wegmans | 75 | 79,974 | 8,892 | 1,066 | 119 |
| Trader Joe’s | 333 | 234,587 | 4,823 | 704 | 14 |
| Walmart | 2,906 | 1,584,683 | 32,754 | 545 | 11 |
| Meijer | 191 | 77,228 | 6,803 | 404 | 36 |
| Costco | 487 | 134,023 | 4,909 | 275 | 10 |
| Price Chopper | 119 | 30,761 | 2,304 | 258 | 19 |
| HEB | 280 | 34,238 | 4,057 | 122 | 14 |
| Harris Teeter | 157 | 16,363 | 85 | 104 | 1 |
| Alberton’s | 237 | 23,926 | 184 | 101 | 1 |
| HyVee | 204 | 20,067 | 1,796 | 98 | 9 |
| Bj’s Wholesale | 171 | 16,646 | 446 | 97 | 3 |
| Sam’s Club | 567 | 41,611 | 3,456 | 73 | 6 |
| Safeway | 1,486 | 98,203 | 3,195 | 66 | 2 |
| Giant Eagle | 174 | 9,647 | 2,331 | 55 | 13 |
| Marsh | 104 | 4,225 | 345 | 41 | 3 |
| WinCo | 70 | 2,530 | 3,004 | 36 | 43 |
| Food City | 105 | 3,511 | 43 | 33 | 0 |
| Lowes Foods | 107 | 3,263 | 1,356 | 30 | 13 |
| Pathmark | 143 | 4,047 | 38 | 28 | 0 |
| Ingles | 202 | 5,514 | 1,840 | 27 | 9 |
| Food Lion | 1,604 | 34,221 | 2,221 | 21 | 1 |
| Weis | 165 | 3,475 | 219 | 21 | 1 |
| Brookshire’s | 155 | 3,153 | 443 | 20 | 3 |
| Publix | 1,012 | 16,957 | 63 | 17 | 0 |
| Kroger | 2,470 | 24,391 | 3,354 | 10 | 1 |
| GFS Marketplace | 117 | 1,071 | 380 | 9 | 3 |
| Save Mart | 244 | 2,171 | 1,050 | 9 | 4 |
| Big Y | 56 | 296 | 193 | 5 | 3 |
| Winn Dixie | 515 | 2,385 | 8 | 5 | 0 |
| Fiesta Mart | 50 | 129 | 44 | 3 | 1 |
| Bi-Lo | 308 | 501 | 2,847 | 2 | 9 |
| Super Valu | 252 | 356 | 302 | 1 | 1 |
| Aldi | 1,014 | 1,259 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| Market Basket | 61 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Schnucks | 106 | 0 | 563 | 0 | 5 |
| Bashas’ | 131 | 0 | 617 | 0 | 5 |
| Raley’s | 134 | 0 | 1,147 | 0 | 9 |
| Roundy’s | 154 | 0 | 15 | 0 | 0 |
| Stater Brothers | 167 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Smart & Final | 277 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| A&P | 408 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Houchens | 435 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
