Whole Foods

Problem

With the economy driving profit margins down and jeopardizing marketing budgets, Whole Foods wanted to find a more cost effective way to stay in touch with its customers. Newspaper readers were jumping ship and TV was just too expensive.

Social Media Solution

Whole Foods decided to expand its Twitter presence and over time it built its "followers list" to over 1 million.

Whole Foods' social media specialist decided to mix a limited number of commercial messages and promotions with its ongoing program responding to customers' inquiries. Whole Foods also made sure that the conversations contained valuable and relevant content at all times so the relationship they were developing stayed current.

Success

Whole Foods was able to maintain its market share at a much lower marketing cost – by substituting social media in place of traditional media.