How Publix Loves Their Customers in Social Media

Social Speed Dating

Social media can seem like a never-ending round of speed dating. Every day/hour/minute/second can be filled with new people with whom you need to forge a relationship from (near) scratch. Once that intro is made and the connection established, it has to be cultivated and sustained through product changes and launches, employee turnover, and a revolving door of seasonal trends in your marketplace.
This ongoing cycle can be a lot for any business to manage, let alone a franchise with multiple locations across the country. While it make seem easy to delegate this dating scene to each store, Kandi is here to show how and why it’s best to keep this relationship at home.
With stores spread across five states, Kandi has helped make Publix Super Markets an eligible find for super market social fans. She has helped grow their social presence to a whopping 2.5 million Facebook fans, 193k Twitter followers, and 13.3k Instagram followers in the span of five years. Her unique approach is customer-focused, research-based, and HQ-centralized which has spawned a growing community that generates sales, creates lifelong customers, and recruits high-level applicants.

In This Episode

• How centralizing a chain’s social media leads to deeper connections with customers
• Why responding publicly to a customer’s question doesn’t need to be terrifying
• How promoting technologically unskilled but teachable dedicated employees leads to the perfect social advocates
• Why properly handled but ultimately unsuccessful social posts don’t equal a failing social media plan

Quotes From This Episode

“Although we have over 1,000 stores, you’re still speaking to the people who are in charge of all of them. It’s not just your store manager.” —@KandiSteiner
“Take your people who really know the brand and put them out in front.” —@JayBaer
“This is our store, but online.” —@KandiSteiner
“When you have the entire team in there working together, you can really make some magic happen.” —@KandiSteiner
“You can’t put a value on a customer’s feelings about you.” —@KandiSteiner
“We want them to be excited to talk to us and know that when they come to us with an issue or a question, they’re going to get that resolution and they’re going to get it the Publix way.” —@KandiSteiner

Resources

• Kandi Steiner on Twitter: @KandiSteiner
• Publix Super Markets on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest
• My Publix Story
• “The NOW Revolution“
• Selection of novels by Kandi Steiner: “Palm South University,” “Black Number Four,” “Tag Chaser,” “Song Chaser“