How Sam’s Club Grew Social Media by 2400%

The Sam’s Club Deep Dive is a five-part series that puts social media at Sam’s Club under the microscope. Tune in as Social Pros interviews different team members over five episodes to find out how the busy team operates their social media strategy.
For 500 episodes, Social Pros has interviewed a leader from a different company each week. But social media has become so important and complex that summarizing an entire social program in 30-minutes just isn’t possible. It means leaving out a lot of important details, which is why we created Social Pros Deep Dives.
It’s a five-episode feature that looks at one organization and how they are using social across the entirety of their business. To kick things off, series one focuses on Sam’s Club, the much-loved wholesale membership club.

Investing in a World-Class Social Media Team

When done right, social media can have a remarkable effect on company growth. A great example of this is Sam’s Club, the popular wholesale membership club. Sam’s Club dramatically expanded its social media team from just two to 50 employees and has seen growth and engagement skyrocket.
In part one of five episodes in the Sam’s Club Deep Dive series, Social Pros speaks to Sabrina Callahan, Senior Director of Brand and Social Marketing.
Sabrina discusses what it takes to run a growing social media team and how she handles all the moving pieces. She describes how Sam’s Club structures its social team and campaigns, plus its future plans.
Sabrina also introduces us to some of the other cast and characters in the Sam’s Club social team, who will join the podcast over the next few episodes.
All five episodes are out now, so get ready to binge!
As this is a brand-new series, we’d love to hear some feedback on what you think of the Social Pros Deep Dive. Please share any thoughts you have by emailing Jay directly at jay@convinceandconvert.com.

In This Episode:

• 7:00 – Why Sam’s Club expanded the social team so rapidly
• 9:48 – The importance of having an advocate in your company for social media
• 11:25 – How the Sam’s Club social team is structured
• 19:10 – Sabrina shares what qualities she looked for when hiring the social team
• 24:25 – Why Sabrina focused on building the brand identity, then the social channels
• 27:54 – How a member’s experience differs between digital and brick-and-mortar shopping
• 30:15 – What Sam’s Club got right with its COVID-19 approach and messaging
• 35:54 – Sam’s Club’s primary social media goal
• 39:15 – How the pandemic affected Sabrina as a social pro
• 43:09 – Sabrina’s top tip for social pros
• 44:50 – Who Sabrina would love to have a video call with

Quotes From This Episode:

As part of our brand strategy, now we lead through humanity Click To Tweet
“You need to be able to see the full range of social and all of the moving pieces that come along with social.” – @sabscallahan
“From a hiring perspective, the more you know about social, the more excited a hiring manager will be to see your resume and want to bring you into their team.” – @sabscallahan

Sam’s Club Brand and Social Team:

To help you follow along, here’s an organizational chart of the Sam’s Club Brand and Social Team.

Resources:

• Get the new State of Marketing report for free from Salesforce
• Download Upfluence’s Brand Influence Ranking Report
• Download the Social Media Metrics template from Supermetrics