Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Hires Social Media Manager - New Position at the Grocer

Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market has hired Nicole DeRuiter (pictured at top) as its corporate social media/public relations manager, a new position at the El Segundo, California-based fresh food and grocery chain.

DeRuiter will be responsible for the strategy, coordination and management of the 172-store chain's presence in social media, as well as coordinating social media use within the various departments at Fresh & Easy.

Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market currently uses a company blog, Facebook page, Twitter feed, YouTube channel and Flickr.com photo-sharing site as its primary corporate social media outlets.

The retailer's public relations and marketing staffs also conduct social media-based outreach campaigns to a group of foodie and mom-bloggers, regularly sending them free packages of store brand products, asking the bloggers to write about the items in their blogs and post about Fresh & Easy on their social media sites. 

Fresh & Easy also invites the bloggers to various food and wine-oriented special events, where it "wines and dines" the bloggers and social media-users, in the hope they'll help get the word out and create some word-of-mouth buzz about the grocery chain.

Prior to joining Fresh & Easy, Nicole Deruiter was an account executive a Matrixx Pictures.

Before that she was a manager of emerging media for online florist Teleflora and a senior account executive at marketing-public relations firm PCGCampbell.

In addition to her background in the public relations field, Deruiter has prior work experience in radio and television production.

Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market's new social media maven is a graduate of the University of Southern California's Annenberg Program on Online Communities, a 12-month graduate program focused on web-based social/new media skills and program management at the university's Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism, where she earned a Masters of Communications Management degree. Ms. Deruiter has a bachelor's degree in broadcast and public relations from Central Michigan University.

To date, social media duties at Tesco's Fresh & Easy have primarily been a shared effort between the grocer's in-house marketing and public relations teams and one of its outside public relations agencies, APCO Worldwide.

Sallie Boorman, an account manager who works out of APCO's Sacramento, California office, has been a key player in helping Fresh & Easy establish and maintain its social media presence, particularly on Twitter and Facebook.

In 2009, Boorman also stepped in to help bring back to life Fresh & Easy's corporate blog, which was suffering from extreme infrequent posting neglect at the hands of its creator and at the time only poster, director of marketing Simon Uwings.

Today Boorman, Wonnacott and Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market staffers Stephanie Patryla and Gary Turner each post semi-regularly on the company blog. [Read - March 29, 200: Things Are Improving Over at the Fresh & Easy Corporate Blog: Perhaps They've Been Listening to Us?; and February 17, 2009: Getting By (Much Better Now) 'With A Little Help From My Friends:' New Talent On Board the Fresh & Easy Corporate Marketing Blog One Year Hence.]

Before being hired as Fresh & Easy's public and governmental relations chief last year, Wonnacott worked for APCO Worldwide, where he was a manager. He's been Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market's corporate spokesman since 2007. However, he did so as an APCO Worldwide employee, until the Tesco-owned grocer hired him last year.

Fresh & Easy began advertising for the social media/public relations manager position early this year. It's a part of the grocer's efforts to beef-up its in-house public and community relations team. That process began with the hiring of Wonnocott last year.

According to our sources, Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market created the new social media-focused public relations manager position and has made the new hire, in large part because the grocer wants to better connect with customers and potential customers via cyberspace and its various online social communities.

For example, Fresh & Easy, taking a page from the marketing playbooks of popular grocers Whole Foods Market and Trader Joe's, has beginning earlier this year increased its use of storytelling - telling stories about the makers of its private brand products, for example - as a way it hopes will help it to better build the overall Fresh & Easy brand.

As an example, Fresh & Easy has increased it's use of brief videos and other forms of storytelling as part of this strategy and practice, featuring the stories in the fortnightly online promotional missives it sends to members of its e-mail-based "friends of fresh & easy" group., along with in other communications venues. 

One of the missions of the new social media manager will be to use social media in an integrated way to help communicate these stories as part of the grocer's increased efforts to build the Fresh & Easy brand.

Reader Resource

[Readers: Fresh & Easy Buzz has written extensively about social media and grocers over the last three-plus years. For a selection of those stories, including many focused on United Kingdom-based Tesco and Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market, click on the following links: grocers and social media,  Grocers on Twitter, social marketing, social media, Twitter,  Fresh and Easy on Twitter, Tesco on Twitter, Fresh and Easy corporate blog, Social networking sites, Facebook, Philip Clarke.]

Two Weeks On: Tesco Launches New @UKTesco Twitter Feed Today

The Insider - Heard on the Street

Tesco, which owns El Segundo, California-based Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market and is the leading food, grocery and general merchandise retailer in the United Kingdom where it's headquartered, today launched its @UKTesco customer care/customer service Twitter feed, which is something that should be of particular interest to Fresh & Easy Buzz readers who follow my columns.

Here's why: In my March 18, 2011 column - The Twitter Agenda: Tesco CEO Philip Clarke Meets With the Troops About Social Media - I talked in general about new Tesco CEO Philip Clarke's decision to make social media, particularly Twitter, an important part of the global retail chain's communications strategy.

In the column I also offered some specific discussion about a Twitter feed called @TescoStores, incorrectly reporting it was the property of Tesco, something I corrected in a follow-up column on March 22, 2011, which you can read here: In Twitter Veritas: Tesco CEO Philip Clarke Sets 'The Insider' Straight Via A Tweet.

In my March 18 column I also offered a prediction, saying Tesco would start posting tweets on @TescoStores no later than two weeks from March 18, 2011. Although I was incorrect about the still unknown ownership of the @TescoStores feed, I was right in terms of the timeline I offered in my prediction: Today's launching of @UKTesco is one day shy of two weeks from March 18, 2011. Launch date prediction: right on; name of Twitter feed launched, incorrect.

The story begins on March 18 when I wrote about a meeting CEO Philip Clarke, who took over as chief executive early this month from retired CEO Terry Leahy, held with executives and staffers at Tesco's UK corporate headquarters to discuss the increased use of social media and social commerce at the company.

As I noted in the column and in the March 22 follow up, since taking over as CEO Clarke has made the use of Twitter at Tesco and by Tesco executives a centerpiece of his first month as head of the third-largest global retailing company in the world. Fresh & Easy Buzz first reported on the development in a story in February. See - February 24, 2011 Dormant No More: Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market CEO Tim Mason is Now Tweeting on Twitter.

The social media focus by Clarke, who launched his own Twitter feed in November 2010 and prior to taking over as CEO this month was head of Tesco's corporate information technology and European retail operations, is a good move by the Tesco chief in that, among other pluses, it serves to distinguish him right our of the gate from former CEO Terry Leahy, who although was far from anti-technology wasn't all that keen on using social media at Tesco, although the retailer did begin using it under Leahy's tenure.

Tesco's El Segundo, California-based Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market has been using social media, including Twitter and Facebook, aggressively since early 2009.

As I wrote about on March 18 and March 22, Tesco has launched a number of specialty Twitter feeds (many in 2010) for its United Kingdom retail and related businesses, which comprises about 70% of total global sales, but had yet to operate a corporate or customer service type central Twitter feed. That's where @TescoStores came in.

But since @TescoStores doesn't belong to Tesco, as you can read about here, the company created @UKTesco to be its overall customer care/service feed for its United Kingdom operations.

And @UKTesco, although it's not @TescoStores, was launched today, one day under two weeks from March 18, 2011.

I'm told, without equivocation, that @UKTesco belongs to the United Kingdom-based retailer, as it says is the case in the very first tweet posted on the feed: "Welcome to the official Twitter account for Tesco customer care UK. If you've got any queries, let us know, we're here to help. about 6 hours ago via HootSuite."

But it probably wouldn't hurt Tesco to get the Twitter feed "verified" though, using Twitter's simple verification process. You know, just in case there might be a misunderstanding.

- The Insider

[Readers: Read 'The Insider's' past columns, including his news-breaking reporting and analysis on the Sprouts Farmers Market-Henry Farmers Market acquisition-merger, at this link - The Insider.

In Twitter Veritas: Tesco CEO Philip Clarke Sets 'The Insider' Straight Via A Tweet

The Insider - Heard on the Street

In my most recent column - March 18, 2011: The Twitter Agenda: Tesco CEO Philip Clarke Meets With the Troops About Social Media - I said the Twitter feed @TescoStores belonged to United Kingdom-based global retailer Tesco, which owns El Segundo, California-based Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market.

In the column I also asked the question: When will Tesco start tweeting on @TescoStores?

I asked that question because the only two tweets on the feed are from April 2009, when it was set up.

I then offered a prediction that the retailer would start tweeting on the feed no later than to weeks from March 18.

I was wrong on two counts.

First Count: The @TescoStores Twitter feed doesn't belong to United Kingdom-based Tesco, according to CEO Philipe Clarke, who said so in a tweet today.

Second Count: Since I was wrong on the above (the premise), it then follows that my prediction that Tesco will tweet on @TescoStores no later than two weeks from March 18, 2011 is also incorrrect.

Below is today's tweet from Tesco CEO Philip Clarke, addressing @TescoStores:



clarkepatesco



March 22, 2011:"Sorry been rather quiet last few days - family illness. Been asked why @tescostores not tweeted much: would you believe it isn't ours! about 9 hours ago via Twitter for BlackBerry®"

Being the competitor I am, I suppose at the least I still have a shot at the prediction part of my March 18 column being correct, if the person who owns @TescoStores contacts CEO Clarke post-haste and offers to turn over the Twitter feed to Tesco, on the condition the retailer start tweeting on it no later than two weeks from March 18, 2011. Come to think of it, if that were to happen, it also would serve as "column-extender" (think editorial Hamburger Helper) for 'The Insider.'

Silver linings

Despite being wrong on the two counts detailed above, it's good to know my column is being read by people close to Clarke, and that those folks, after reading my March 18 piece, asked the Tesco CEO a mere couple days later "why @TescoStores (has) not tweeted much."

Additionally I'm glad Philip Clarke addressed the topic of my March 18 column in his tweet today. Why? I'd rather make a mistake and learn the why rather than be right but never learn the correct answer.

Therefore I thank the CEO of Tesco for that, vis-a-vis his tweet today. And if the only entity that actually did the "asking" to Clarke was my Friday (March 18, 2011) column in Fresh & Easy Buzz, then I hope he got something more out of reading it, as I hope is the case for all who read it, than just my mistake.

Despite getting it wrong about @TescoStores belonging to Tesco plc, and thus having my prediction invalidated by the faulty premise, had I not done so it's possible we (readers and myself) never would have learned what we learned from CEO Clarke's tweet today.

So I'm actually happier than I normally would be to have been wrong in this particular instance because it's serving as a reminder or simple object lesson for me. That reminder: That as long as you're right most of the time, and in my columns I have been, then it's OK to be wrong every so often - particularly if you take a bit of a risk in being so - as long as you admit your mistake, set the record straight (which I'm doing in this column) and learn from the experience, even if its a minor mistake and experience like a column about Twitter feeds and related subjects.

After all, there's always a silver lining in life and in business, if you allow yourself to be open to discover it and learn from it. I want use that worn out phrase "teachable moment," however, even though I suppose I just did.

Meanwhile, to the owner of @TescoStores on Twitter, you can tweet your offer to give the @TescoStores Twitter feed to Tesco CEO Philip Clarke at: @clarkeptesco.

And to the owner of the Twitter feed, I ask just one favor: If CEO Clarke is interested, please make the offer to give him @TescoStores contingent on his agreeing to have Tesco post at least one tweet between now and no later than March 29 on it. After all, my two week prediction clock, which began on March 18, is ticking away. Let's be clear though: It's not like I'm begging.

- The Insider

Related Column: March 18, 2011: The Twitter Agenda: Tesco CEO Philip Clarke Meets With the Troops About Social Media

>Read past columns by Fresh & Easy Buzz's 'The Insider' columnist at the following link - The Insider

The Twitter Agenda: Tesco CEO Philip Clarke Meets With the Troops About Social Media

The Insider - Heard on the Street

As I write this column, Tesco's new CEO Philipe Clarke and his deputy Tim Mason, Tesco's new group deputy CEO and the CEO of Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market USA, are meeting with various members of the company's management team in the United Kingdom and one of the key items on the meeting agenda is social media and social commerce.

As we've previously reported in Fresh & Easy Buzz, one of Clarke's first initiatives since taking over from Terry Leahy on March 2 as CEO of Tesco plc is to increase the use of social media throughout Tesco's global operations, which range from the United Kingdom and parts of Europe, to Asia and the United States (Fresh & Easy.) [See - [See - February 24, 2011: Dormant No More: Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market CEO Tim Mason is Now Tweeting on Twitter.]

Tweeting with the CEO

One of Clarke's social media platforms of choice is Twitter, which he started using in November 2010. Under the new CEO's initiative, nearly all of Tesco's senior managment and numerous members of its mid-management team have been setting up Twitter accounts over the last few weeks.

Among these "tweeters" is Clarke's deputy, Tim Mason, who as we reported on February 24, 2011 [Dormant No More: Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market CEO Tim Mason is Now Tweeting on Twitter] has had a Twitter feed since 2009 but only recently started tweeting on it.

Tesco's El Segundo, California-based Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market, which operates 169 stores in California, Arizona and Nevada, was out in front of parent company Tesco in using social media in general and Twitter specifically. Fresh & Easy, with the help of a social media savvy PR consultant, set up Facebook and Twitter accounts in early 2009, along with a Flickr photo-sharing site. Previous to that the grocer had a YouTube channel, which it continues to use as part of its multi-channel and multi-site social media efforts.

When will "TescoStores" go live on Twitter?

Fresh & Easy wasn't the only Tesco entity to set up a Twitter Feed in early April 2009. Tesco plc itself set up a corporate Twitter account, "TescoStores," which you can view here, on April 3, 2009. However, its first and to date only two tweets were made on that very same day, April 3, 2009. The two April 3, 2009 tweets:

>All Easter Eggs Half Price This Weekend Only - Hurry While Stocks Last! 2:33 AM Apr 3rd, 2009 via web

>Every Little Helps - Welcome to Tesco on Twitter! 2:33 AM Apr 3rd, 2009 via web.

"TescoStores," which is a "real" and not pseudo Tesco Twitter feed - it's followed for example by CEO Philipe Clarke, deputy CEO Tim Mason and other Tesco executives - has remained dormant since those first - and last - two tweets on April 3, 2009, despite the fact the corporate feed has 6,165 followers at the time this piece is being published. That's a good number of followers for a Twitter feed that's had zero activity for two years.

Since the corporate feed was set up in April 2009, Tesco has established a number of Twitter feeds that it's using regularly, one of the newest being its food-oriented "TescoRealFood." It also has separate Twitter feeds for Tesco Magazine, clothing at Tesco, Tesco digital and other specific categories.

When I heard this morning that one of the topics of the meeting led by Tesco CEO Philip Clarke today was going to be social media and commerce, I immediately thought about the "TescoStores" Twitter feed, since I've noticed that nearly all the new Tesco tweeters have been following it over the last few weeks but that it remains dormant.

One Tesco executive recently suggested to me in confidence the reason the Tesco corporate Twitter feed has yet to see any action post the two April 3, 2009 tweets is because no decision has been made on how to use it or even if to keep it, adding it would be a shame not to use it considering how many followers there are despite not being in use.

Perhaps one of the outcomes of today's meeting at Tesco corporate headquarters in the UK, where social media and social commerce are being discussed, will be a decision about how to use the long dormant "TescoStores" Twitter feed, which really is a no-brainier. It's a corporate feed - use it as such, just like Walmart and others do, adding whatever special emphasis and meaning it can to brand it as Tesco. And one of the great things about Twitter feeds is they're works in progress and can be fine-tuned in real time.

After all, using Twitter is something CEO Clarke has rapidly implemented within Tesco, the result being an explosion of new Tesco executive and employee Twitter feeds being set up over the last few weeks. Not all of the new feeds are being used though. And only a handful of the Tesco executives who've recently set up the new Twitter feeds are using them in any regular sort of way.

'Tweet me up' Philipe: Every Little Helps

CEO Clarke and Tesco should think about the "TescoStores" Twitter feed in this way: Hub-and-spokes. The Tesco corporate Twitter feed is the hub (or mothership) from which all of the Tesco specialty (Tesco Magazine, Tesco.com, Tesco clothing, digital, ect.) and individual (executives, employees, divisions like Fresh & Easy, Tesco Asia, ect.) Twitter feeds look to for information and inspiration, while at the same time providing grass roots (divisional and individual tweeters) information and inspiration to the hub, or mothership. The concept is similar to the hub-and-spokes wheel Tesco uses in its overall strategy planning.

After all, a dormant mothership, be it on Twitter or elsewhere, makes for an incomplete family. Therefore, decision or not at today's meeting, Tesco should either start using "TescoStores" or just get rid of it, as dormancy is something that's neither good for fresh fruit, grocery stores, or social media sites.

My prediction: Tesco will start posting tweets on "TescoStores" no later than two weeks from today.

From a personal and editorial perspective, If I'm wrong and Tesco doesn't do so, then I'm merely wrong on a prediction (which the editor hates me to make) as your humble columnist.

But if my prediction is wrong, from the wider Tesco corporate perspective it means Tesco is really wrong, because leaving the corporate Twitter feed dormant, which is analogous from a corporate social media perspective to leaving the storefront of a grocery store dormant and unattended - it's kind of like forgetting to turn the sign on the shop door over from "Closed" to "Open for Business" each morning. (Yes, it's a sort of a win-win then either way for your humble columnist.)

For a retailer, God, or the devil depending on your preferred usage, is in the details, both in its stores and in the social space it uses (or leaves dormant) in cyberspace. And like it's said by one major global retailer - Tesco - when it comes to its making sure each and every detail is just right: "Every Little Helps."

- The Insider

[Fresh & Easy Buzz Readers: Read all 'The Insider's' past columns in Fresh & Easy Buzz at this link - The Insider, including his news-breaking reporting and analysis on the Sprouts Farmers Market-Henry' Farmers Market acquisition-merger.

A Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Tasting of California Wines: Live Via Twitter

One of the 27 varieties of California-produced wines being tasted tonight at the Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market event at the SmogShoppe is Barrel Ranch Cabernet. Barrel Ranch is one of the seven proprietary brands the grocer has launched. (See the story linked below for the others.) Here's how wine taster-eater-blogger-tweeter @Oakmonster, who took the photo above, scored the wine via a tweet on Twitter after tasting it a few minutes ago: "@fresh_and_easy barrel ranch cabernet. Chugability: easy to drink, fav of the evening. #fesmog." Fresh & Easy Buzz likes "Chugability" as an evaluative criteria. Perhaps it should be used in all wine tastings and competitions.

On Tuesday we reported that Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market is this week introducing 27 new varieties of California wines under seven proprietary (or private) brands at its 167 fresh food and grocery stores in California, Nevada and Arizona. Read the story - March 8, 2011: Tesco's Fresh & Easy ♥'s California With 27 New Varieties of Proprietary Brand Wines From the Golden State.

On Wednesday, the PR department at Tesco's Fresh & Easy distributed a press release announcing the new California wines.

Tonight Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market is holding a tasting of the 27 varieties of California wine at the SmogShoppe in Los Angeles/Culver City.

The SmogShoppe is a former automobile smog-check shop that's been turned into a 6,500 square-foot, solar powered, plant-filled indoor/outdoor event space. It even has a verticle garden. You can learn more about the space here.

Tesco's Fresh & Easy has invited a group of foodie and mom-oriented bloggers and Twitter-tweeters to the wine tasting this evening. The tasters are currently tweeting their impressions of the various California wines as they taste the 27 varieties one at a time.

You can view the taster-tweeters' wine note tweets in real time on Twitter here.

The tasters are being "dined" as well as "wined" by Tesco's Fresh & Easy, as evidenced by this tasty tweet from the @artmuse:

"@theartmuse: Beef & vegetable skewer, artichoke heart w goat cheese, shrimp ceviche, lobster ravioli #fesmog we approve. 3 minutes ago via TweetCaster."

The Lobster Ravioli (above) is one of the many foods the wine tasters are dining on right now. Photo live-tweeted by @dananner

And another taster, @OakMonster, appears to approve of the evening so far, tweeting: "@OakMonster @vianessa i approve of what is happening this evening." Word, girl. Word! #fesmog."

Numerous other tweets - all here in real time - suggest a pretty good time is being had by all.

We have just one editorial suggestion for the tasters - designated drivers please.

Dormant No More: Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market CEO Tim Mason is Now Tweeting on Twitter

The Changing of the Guard at Tesco

News/Analysis/Commentary

Breaking Buzz: Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market CEO Tim Mason (pictured above in a Fresh & Easy store) is tweeting, as in posting those no-greater than 140-character messages on one of the world's most-popular and fastest-growing social media and messaging sites, Twitter.com.

Mason himself, or one of his staff members, set up a Twitter feed in 2009 for the CEO, which for over two years hasn't been graced with a single tweet by the head of Tesco's El Segundo, California-based Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market fresh food and grocery chain, which as of today has 164 stores in California, Nevada and Arizona -- until now.

The CEO of Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market posted his very first tweet on Sunday, February 20, apparently shortly after enjoying a ski trip to Vail, Colorado, where he spotted First Lady Michelle Obama on the slopes. Tim Mason's first tweet on February 20, 2011: "Inaugural tweetThe first lady looking good skiing in Vail. Very cool in grey,same brand of ski jacket as my wife, I managed to get a photo."

The First Lady indeed was on a trip to Vail during the extended President's Day holiday weekend, as was announced by the White House and has been reported on by numerous national media outlets.

Mason looks to have enjoyed posting his first tweet on February 20; so much so in fact he followed it up with four additional tweets on the same day.

Two of those additional February 20 tweets involve a bit of lobbying Mason was doing at the California State Capital in Sacramento, including a visit with Assembly Speaker John Pérez (D-Los Angeles), who prior to getting elected in 2008 to represent the people of Los Angeles' 46th District was the political director for the United Food & Commercial Workers (union) Local 324.

The United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union, including local 324, has been trying to organize Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market's store-level employees since the first batch of stores were opened in November 2007, as we've reported on and written extensively about here.

Pérez was elected Assembly Speaker in January 2010. His career in the organized labor movement spans 15-years.

Here's what (italics) the CEO of Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market "tweeted" on February 20, about a visit he had on Friday, February 18, with Assembly Speaker Perez: "Friday in Sacramento,speaker Perez gave me a plastic duck. Grand office,large plastic duck collection."

Interestingly, a second (the fourth out of the five tweets) February 20 tweet had to do with First Lady Michelle Obama, once again on the ski slopes in Vail.

The fifth February 20 tweet is about starting the day off with coffee beans from Fresh & Easy.

Mason followed up his five tweets on February 20 with one on February 21, one on February 22, and one yesterday, February 23, for a total of eight so far. Mason's last tweet, from yesterday: "The talk of the Capitol last week.Gov. Brown has replaced the table in his office with a picnic table.I guess so he can say this ain't no..." (There is nothing more after the no... Perhaps it's coming today?)

There were no February 24 tweets at the time this piece was published. But if the current track record holds out...expect at least one later today.

If you want to read the tweets not included in this piece, you'll have to find Tim Mason's feed on Twitter.com.

Mason currently has 40 followers - and is currently following three of those 40 followers - the Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market feed, Fresh & Easy director of marketing Simon Uwins, who hasn't tweeted since October 1, 2009 and - most importantly - his new boss, soon-to-be Tesco CEO Philip Clarke, who's been "tweeting" since November 2010.

We're willing to bet Fresh & Easy CEO Mason's Twitter feed follower-count goes up a bit past the current 40-followers after this post is published.

As our 'The Insider' columnist reported yesterday - February 23, 2011: Incoming Tesco CEO Philip Clarke Visits America - And Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market - the Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market CEO's new boss, Philip Clarke, just recently spent 10 days or so, from February 6 -to- February 15, in the U.S., including at Fresh & Easy's Southern California headquarters with Tim Mason, who is adding the title of Tesco deputy CEO to his current one as CEO of Fresh & Easy.

Clark, who officially becomes Tesco's CEO in March but is already sharing duties with outgoing CEO Terry Leahy, comes to Tesco's corner office having held two senior executive positions at Tesco, which he joined in 1974 - head of Europe and Asia operations and chief of corporate information technology.

It's that latter position that makes Clarke a bit more keen on the Internet and particularly the use of social media that outgoing CEO Leahy was. And in November of last year, Clarke, who had been named Tesco's CEO-designate not long before that, started his Twitter feed, posting his first tweet on November 4, 2010.

As incoming CEO, Clarke is putting a greater emphasis on the use of social media, including Twitter, at Tesco, and among its executives, both those based at corporate headquarters in the United Kingdom and elsewhere around the globe.

Tesco UK has been using Twitter under Terry Leahy's charge. The retailer set up a food-oriented "Tesco Food" Twitter-feed last year, which its been using regularly.

In 2010 Tesco also started a couple special-interest Twitter feeds, including one focusing on clothing, which it sells in many of its stores in the UK, Europe and Asia. It's using the feed regularly at present.

Tesco has had a corporate Twitter feed, "Tesco Stores," since 2009. However, just two tweets, both posted on April 3 2009, have been made on the site despite the fact it has over 5,000 followers. We're told Philip Clarke plans to change that inactivity as part of his emphasis on the greater use of social media at Tesco.

Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market launched its Fresh & Easy Twitter feed in mid-2008 and has been regularly active on it since then, using it well in a number of ways, in our analysis.

Fresh & Easy CEO Mason's first tweet, on February 20, 2011, came a mere five days after his new boss, Philip Clarke, departed Los Angeles on February 15 to return home to the United Kingdom, according to 'The Insider's column linked above and published yesterday.

If the timing between Clarke's arrival and departure at Fresh & Easy headquarters in El Segundo California - February 10 -through-February 15 - and Tim Mason's beginning to tweet on February 20, after having his Twitter feed sitting dormant for over two years, isn't simply a mere coincidence, which sources tell us it isn't, then it appears incoming Tesco CEO Philip Clarke is a pretty good motivator when it comes to social media adoption and use among his key executives.

Fresh & Easy Buzz, which is on Twitter @FreshNEasyBuzz, welcomes Tesco deputy CEO and Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market CEO Tim Mason to Twitter.

And now that Fresh & Easy chief Mason is tweeting, we wonder if a new tweet will be forthcoming from Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market director of marketing Simon Uwins, who's most recent update was in 2009.

After all, if Philip Clarke can motivate Mason to tweet for the very first time, Mason, who is Uwins' boss and prior to moving to the U.S. to head up Fresh & Easy in California was in charge of corporate marketing at Tesco in the United Kingdom, might want to follow Clarke's example, and have a Twitter-chat with Uwins, one marketing guy to another, letting him know that incoming Tesco CEO Philip Clarke doesn't like dormant Twitter feeds. Just a thought. After all, marketers should set the example when it comes to social media and social media marketing, shouldn't they?

Related Stories

We've written extensively in Fresh & Easy Buzz about the use of social media, including Twitter, in the food and grocery retailing industry, by Tesco's Fresh & Easy, other retailers, and in general. To read a selection of those stories, click on the following links: Fresh and Easy on Twitter, grocers and social media, Grocers on Twitter, Twitter, F-E Gal, iKristen.

Our April 30 iKristen-F&E Gal Bag Story Getting More Attention -- Particularly F&E Gal's 'Beyond the Call of Duty' Dedication to Tesco's Fresh & Easy

Grocers and Social Media-Networking

Fresh & Easy Buzz's April 30, 2009 story about social network site-user iKristen's search for a Tesco Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market reusable shopping bag she spotted on Fresh & Easy's flickr.com page (the bag pictured at top) appears to be generating a lot of interest among readers and others -- and most of that interest being in the form of positive praise for the Fresh & Easy store employee and Fresh & Easy Buzz reader known only as F&E Gal, who read about iKristen's search for the bag of her choice and helped her find it, offering to buy one with her own money and to send it to her free of charge.

That's dedication any grocery retailing chain should celebrate in its employees.

Read our April 30, 2009 post here: iKristen Buys Her Fresh & Easy Bag(s) -- and It's Almost the Right One: A Tale About the Power of Social Media Sites For Grocer-Consumer Interaction. (Note the comments in the "comments" section.)

We first mentioned iKristen's unsuccessful search for the Fresh & Easy reusable shopping bag of her desire in this April 27, 2009 story: Fresh Buzz: Tesco's Fresh & Easy Adds A flickr.com Photo Page to its Social Media Site Portfolio; Now Using Twitter, YouTube and flickr].

iKristen spotted the bag she wanted on Tesco Fresh & Easy's fairly new photo page on the flicker.com photographic social networking site and posted a comment on the picture asking Fresh & Easy's corporate marketing and public relations team, the people who operate the flickr site, where she could buy the bag.

She also posted a similar comment (called a "Tweet") on the Twitter.com micro-blogging site where iKristen has a feed, as does Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market. [Fresh & Easy Buzz also has a feed on Twitter at www/twitter.com/freshneasybuzz.]

See the details of the story our April 27 post linked above, as well as in our April 30 post here: iKristen Buys Her Fresh & Easy Bag(s) -- and It's Almost the Right One: A Tale About the Power of Social Media Sites For Grocer-Consumer Interaction.

In addition to the numerous comments posted by readers thus far on our April 30 post, today the CBS, Inc.-owned CBS Interactive Web site's business Blog Bnet.com picked up on our story in the form of a Blog post by Mike Duff, who writes in his Bnet Blog about retail-related topics and issues. [There is a link to his post today at the bottom of the comments section of our April 30, 2009 story linked above.]

In his post about our story on iKristens search for the bag of her desire and Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market store employee F&E Gal's going beyond the call of duty in finding such a bag at the Fresh & Easy store where she works, Mr. Duff suggests, as we did in our posts, that F&E Gal should get a little positive recognition from Fresh & Easy's top brass for showing dedication beyond the everyday call of duty in her job as a store-level employee.

Here is what the author suggests in his post:

"Turns out that, even if they represent a business, social network participants can be pretty social. Responsible, too, even if they aren’t necessarily going to get any credit for their actions. But, thanks to another social networker, Mike the Food Broker, who commented on Bnet’s earlier Twitter-related posting, F&E Gal is getting a little recognition here. And hopefully, Fresh & Easy will extend some, too."

[Read the full Bnet.com Blog post, "Fresh & Easy Employee Twitters to the Rescue" here.]

We agree with the sentiment -- and do hope some positive recognition from Fresh & Easy's senior management comes F&E Gal's way.

Store-level employees are the backbone of any grocer's operations. And as we've written often in Fresh & Easy Buzz in the past, when it comes to Tesco's Fresh & Easy, the grocery chain's number one asset in our analysis and opinion are its store-level employees.

[Photo Credit: Canvas bag photograph at top courtesy Fresh & Easy Neighbohrood Market.]

iKristen Buys Her Fresh & Easy Bag(s) -- and It's Almost the Right One: A Tale About the Power of Social Media Sites For Grocer-Consumer Interaction

iKristen saw the Fresh & Easy reusable shopping bag pictured here on the grocer's flickr.com site and wanted it. When she went to her neighborhood Fresh & Easy market it didn't have her desired bag. But she bought two of the reusable bags pictured above at the store anyway. [Photo Credit: iKristen from Twitpic.]

Grocers & Social Media: iKristen and Tesco's Fresh & Easy

In a story this week [Monday, April 27, 2009 Fresh Buzz: Tesco's Fresh & Easy Adds A flickr.com Photo Page to its Social Media Site Portfolio; Now Using Twitter, YouTube and flickr] about Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market adding the flickr online photo-sharing media site to the portfolio of social media sites it's currently using, we highlighted the potential power of social media sites for grocers by including an exchange on flickr and on the micro-blogging social media site Twitter.com between iKristen, a user of both sites, and Tesco's Fresh & Easy, which has a feed on Twitter in addition to its page on flickr.com.

iKristen, who says she shops often at a Fresh & Easy market in her neighborhood, spotted a picture of a Fresh & Easy reusable canvas shopping bag she liked on Fresh & Easy's flickr page. She posted a comment on the picture at the Fresh & Easy flickr site, asking where she could buy the bag.

She also did double-social-media-site-duty by posting a "Tweet" to Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market's Twitter.com feed, asking the same question: Where she could get the reusable bag she liked.

A member of Tesco Fresh & Easy's marketing or public relations team responded back to iKristen on Twitter, suggesting how she could find the reusable bag she wanted.

Since Fresh & Easy Buzz uses Twitter.com we posted the April 27 piece [Fresh Buzz: Tesco's Fresh & Easy Adds A flickr.com Photo Page to its Social Media Site Portfolio; Now Using Twitter, YouTube and flickr] on our Twitter feed. [www.twitter.com/freshneasybuzz.]

And fellow Twitter-user iKristen saw and read our post in which she is mentioned.

In addition to being an avid social media site user, iKristen also has a Blog, "Mom of 2 Girls: It's complicated and It's simple,"which we just recently learned about.

After reading our April 27, 2009 piece in which we mentioned her exchange with Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market over her desire to find out where she could purchase the reusable bag, she decided to post a "thank you" to Fresh & Easy Buzz about our mentioning her in our story in her Blog.

[Read iKristen's April 28, 2009 post headlined: "I Feel Special" here.]

IKristen now informs Fresh & Easy Buzz via Twitter.com that she has bought a Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market reusable bag -- two in fact, she says. See her "Tweet" (Twitter-talk for a post) below:

iKristen@freshneasybuzz I got my bag 2 in fact! But I bought them :) http://twitpic.com/47zyu10:33 AM Apr 29th from TwitterFon.

iKristen's comment in her "Tweet" about "buying" the two bags has to with a suggestion we made in our April 27 piece that Tesco's Fresh & Easy should give her a free bag in return for all of the positive social media "word-of-mouth" awareness she created for the bag, and thus Fresh & Easy.

But sadly, iKristen wasn't able to get the original Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market reusable bag she liked and much desired on the grocer's flickr page. View that bag here (at the top of the page). The two bags she bought are the "Organic" version pictured at the top of our story and here.

The Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market store where iKristen shops -- her neighborhood market -- didn't have the version of the bag she wanted -- the original one from flickr.

Below are iKristen's "Tweets" to Fresh & Easy Buzz explaining what happened when she went shopping for her Fresh & Easy reusable bag:

1. iKristen@FreshNEasyBuzz the lady that worked there didn't seem to know what I was talking about lol. 6 minutes ago from TweetDeck in reply to FreshNEasyBuzz. (We had asked her via a "Tweet" a bit earlier why she didn't buy the bag she wanted. She had earlier "Tweeted" us a link showing the bag she bought.)

2. iKristen@FreshNEasyBuzz I bought 2 of the organic, I like those too. my F&E stores didn't have the ones from the flickr page. 6 minutes ago from TweetDeck in reply to FreshNEasyBuzz

Even though she couldn't get the original reusable bag of her desire -- the one she liked from the flickr page -- good Tesco's Fresh & Easy customer that she is, iKristen still bought two reusable bags from her neighborhood Fresh & Easy store -- the "Organic" version Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market reusable bag. (Pictured at top.)

But it just so happens that the Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market employee from the retailer's marketing or PR staff who "Tweeted" back to iKristen regarding her flickr and Twitter inquiries about where she can get the bag told her this:

@iKristen you can get the tote with the apple clock up where the rest of the canvas bags are sold (by the check outs). Its my fav bag too! about 9 hours ago from web in reply to iKristen.

But, not only wasn't the bag in that spot in iKristen's neighborhood Tesco's Fresh & Easy store -- it didn't exist at all in the store.

And since Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market concept is a "neighborhood" market, a customer should be able to get a bag pictured on the retailer's flickr page at her neighborhood Fresh & Easy store, rather than having to drive all over looking for it at other Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market units; and perhaps still not finding the bag. At least we think so.

Having to drive all over looking at other stores outside of her neighborhood sort of defeats the "neighborhood" concept of Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market for iKristen and other shoppers, after all.

Therefore, since the well intentioned advice to iKristen from the Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Twitter "Tweeter" was a bit of a bum steer (unintentional of course), and sense the bag also happens to be his or her "fav," wouldn't it be nice -- and good best practices marketing and customer service -- for that Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Twitter "Tweeter" to locate one of those reusable bags -- the one iKristen wanted to start with -- and send it to good and loyal Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market customer iKristen for free? We sure think it would be a good move.

iKristen isn't asking for a free bag (she has no idea we are mentioning her again in a post let alone focusing this one on her social media interaction with Tesco's Fresh & Easy). She bought two bags and appears happy.

But... it would be nice, not to mention good marketing and public relations, for the Fresh & Easy Twitter "Tweeter" marketing or PR person to do so. anyway. At least we think so.

And -- by the way, locating the original reusable bag -- the one that got iKristen excited to start with -- and sending it to her for no charge would also be......well, down right good neighborly.

Epilogue

We think the story is a cute and interesting one.

But it's not just about cute and interesting. We think it illustrates just how powerful -- and how much more powerful the phenomenon will become -- of a tool social media sites are and can be for grocery retailers. It's all about retailer-consumer interaction without a filter. A conversation. And in this particular case it even led to a sale for Tesco's Fresh & Easy.

With the advent of social media, it's no longer your grandfather's -- or even your father's -- food and grocery retailing world any longer. Stay tuned.

Grocers & Social Media: Related Stories-Posts:

>April 27, 2009: Fresh Buzz: Tesco's Fresh & Easy Adds A flickr.com Photo Page to its Social Media Site Portfolio; Now Using Twitter, YouTube and flickr

>January 25, 2009: Twitter Me This Batman: Are You Using Twitter? If Not, You Probably Should Be

>January 18, 2009: The UK Telegraph Reports on Tesco Fresh & Easy's Use of Twitter.Com; Since Fresh & Easy Buzz Was First to Report it, We Offer Some Added Value

>January 19, 2009: Sweet Tweets: Popular laist.com Web Site Picks Up Fresh & Easy Buzz's Buzz On Tesco's Fresh & Easy and Twitter.com; Adds A Little Buzz of its Own

>February 4, 2008: Social Media and Sense of Place: Phoenix, Arizona Fresh & Easy Market Site on Brightkite.com; 'Kissmecait' Does Some Retail Anthropology & Geography

>March 11, 2009: A Fresh Freebie: Tesco Fresh & Easy Offering Online Coupon Good For Free Reusable Canvas Shopping Tote Bag

>January 26, 2008: When Social Media Goes Bad - Maybe? Tesco and Waitrose Store Workers in the UK Use Facebook Sites to 'Diss' Store Customers

>February 18, 2009: Individuals, Society, Business, Grocery Retailing & More: 'Tweetminister,' 'Tweet Congress' and the Rise of 'Tweetocracy'

>September 10, 2008: Tesco Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market's Politically-Connected Public Relations Firm APCO Worldwide

[Follow Fresh & Easy Buzz around on Twitter.com at www.twitter.com/freshneasybuzz.]

Fresh Buzz: Tesco's Fresh & Easy Adds A flickr.com Photo Page to its Social Media Site Portfolio; Now Using Twitter, YouTube and flickr

iKristen saw the Fresh & Easy reusable canvas shopping bag (pictured above) on Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market's photo page on flick.com -- and she liked the bag. She used Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market's flickr page, along with its feed on Twitter.com, to inquire about where she could buy the bag. She did so without having to leave her computer, or perhaps even using a smart phone while on the go. See explanation below. [Photo Credit: Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market. Photo copyright Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market.]

Grocers, Social Media, Marketing and Communications

Tesco's Fresh & Easy has created a "Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market" photostream page on the popular social media photo-site flickr.com, adding flickr to the grocer's portfolio of the social media sites it's using to help it communicate about and market its small-format, convenience-oriented Fresh & Easy combination grocery and fresh foods stores in California (Southern and Bakersfield), southern Nevada and Metropolitan Phoenix, Arizona.

In addition to using flikr.com for photographs, Tesco's Fresh & Easy has a page on YouTube for company and store-related videos, and it has a feed on the super-popular social media micro-blogging site Twitter.com, as Fresh & Easy Buzz was the first publication to report in this September 10, 2008 story: [Tesco Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market's Politically-Connected Public Relations Firm APCO Worldwide. Also see - January 18, 2009: The UK Telegraph Reports on Tesco Fresh & Easy's Use of Twitter.Com; Since Fresh & Easy Buzz Was First to Report it, We Offer Some Added Value.]

Fresh & Easy's flickr page currently has 29 pictures posted on it by the El Segundo, (Southern) California-based grocery chain's marketing and public relations department.

The images range from pictures of the retailer's reusable canvas shopping bags and inexpensive synthetic reusable "Bags for Life," to photographs of various Fresh & Easy store interiors and features, its huge solar panel array on the 800,000 square-foot-plus Fresh & Easy Riverside County California distribution center, pictures of store employees doing volunteer work in the community, and more.

[View the Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market photostream page on flickr.com here.]

Tesco Fresh & Easy's use of flickr.com is a good idea for many reasons, in our analysis and opinion.

For example, It costs nothing. There's no charge to create a page on flickr. That's as low cost and high-impact as a marketer can get.

Additionally, the site offers a way to put visual images of Fresh & Easy, its stores and its employees online (a picture can be better than a 1,000 word press release at times) for "all" to see. It leverages the Fresh & Easy visual image beyond its stores and controlled forms of media -- advertising, brochures and the like.

The flickr.com site has millions of users. A decent percentage of those users are in California, Nevada and Arizona, the three states where Tesco has its current 119 small-format Fresh & Easy grocery and fresh foods markets.

The flickr.com photo social media site also allows users to post comments on every picture on the site -- that's the social media aspect of it.

For example, iKristen likes the Fresh & Easy reusable canvas shopping bag pictured at the top of this story. In fact she wants to buy one. So she posted a comment on the photo at the Fresh & Easy photo-page on flickr.com earlier today. Her comment: I really like this bag, Where can I get it? Here is the photo and her post on the page.

iKristen covered her bag-desire-bases using Twitter, just in case. She "tweeted" (posted) her bag question to Fresh & Easy's Twitter.com feed, asking: @Fresh_and_Easy Where can I get that tote bag with the clock on it? about 10 hours ago from TweetDeck in reply to Fresh_and_Easy.

And Fresh & Easy replied back to iKristen on its Twitter.com feed regarding her bag question, "tweeting back": @iKristen you can get the tote with the apple clock up where the rest of the canvas bags are sold (by the check outs). Its my fav bag too! about 9 hours ago from web in reply to iKristen.

The iKristen-Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market social media site exchange is a nice illustration of what we mean when we talk about the direct communications and marketing power of social media sites for retailers -- and for consumers.

Suggestion to Tesco's Fresh & Easy: Send iKristen one of those F&E reusable canvas bags with the clock on it as a freebie. She deserves it for all the positive publicity given on Twitter and flickr. And as a good social media networker, she will tell others about getting the bag for free.

Tesco's Fresh & Easy also has a note on each photograph on its flickr page that gives permission to third parties to use (for non-commercial use) the photos, as long as they credit the particular photograph(s) to Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market.

This is a good idea because the flickr page could for example serve as a central visual image "clearing house" for editors, Bloggers and others looking for photographs to use.

Additionally, cities that have a Fresh & Easy store coming to their respective town can also go on the site and use one or more photos if they want to post a picture of a Fresh & Easy store or anything else related to the grocer on their Web sites to accompany a write up or press release about Fresh & Easy coming to town, for example.

But most important, using the flickr.com site allows an additional social media-marketing venue for Tesco's Fresh & Easy. A number of grocers, like Whole Foods Market, Inc., have been using flickr.com for a long time. In Whole Foods' case, doing so has worked well for the natural foods grocery chain. Whole Foods' also uses Facebook, in addition to flikr and Twitter.com

There are also strong social media and marketing synergies for Fresh & Easy and any other grocery chain using flickr.com in conjunction with other sites like Twitter, YouTube or Facebook. The sites can be linked, for example. And content can be shared by a grocer across however number of social media sites it uses.

Tesco's Fresh & Easy links its flickr photo page, as well as its Twitter feed and YouTube page, on its "Talking Fresh & Easy" corporate Blog, on its Web site. This is something numerous other grocery retailers are doing as well. Doing so can be a social media force multiplier for a retailer.

Social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, flickr, YouTube, Brightkite.com and others offer food and grocery retailers (and others) an opportunity never before presented to not only communicate with customers and potential customers for minimal cost but to do so in direct ways that advertising and traditional public relations methods -- going through third-parties like newspapers and other media -- can't achieve.

More and more grocery chains and independents are discovering these social media sites and others. And grocers that have been on the sites for sometime are discovering in many cases new ways to use their res[ective pages or feeds on the sites.

For example, Whole Foods Market used its Twitter.com feed, linked to its "Whole Story" Web site Blog, to provide real time updates on the recent peanut butter product recall, to the hundreds of thousands (nearly 528,000 as of this afternoon) of followers of its Twitter feed. It did so again just recently when some of the pistachio nuts it sells in its stores were recalled.

Colorado-based natural foods chain Natural Grocers and Portland, Oregon-based New Seasons Market did the same thing.

Fresh & Easy uses its Twitter.com feed for a variety of things, including to announce in advance when it is opening a new store in California, Nevada or Arizona, to offer online store coupons [March 11, 2009:A Fresh Freebie: Tesco Fresh & Easy Offering Online Coupon Good For Free Reusable Canvas Shopping Tote Bag] and to ask followers for suggestions.

The use of social media sites by food, grocery and other format retailers is in its infancy. Like social media itself, the grocer pages and feeds are evolving. It promises to be an important and interesting evolution -- and Fresh & Easy Buzz will be here to participate in it and write about it.
Related Stories:

>January 25, 2009: Twitter Me This Batman: Are You Using Twitter? If Not, You Probably Should Be

>January 18, 2009: The UK Telegraph Reports on Tesco Fresh & Easy's Use of Twitter.Com; Since Fresh & Easy Buzz Was First to Report it, We Offer Some Added Value

>January 19, 2009: Sweet Tweets: Popular laist.com Web Site Picks Up Fresh & Easy Buzz's Buzz On Tesco's Fresh & Easy and Twitter.com; Adds A Little Buzz of its Own

>February 4, 2008: Social Media and Sense of Place: Phoenix, Arizona Fresh & Easy Market Site on Brightkite.com; 'Kissmecait' Does Some Retail Anthropology & Geography

>March 11, 2009: A Fresh Freebie: Tesco Fresh & Easy Offering Online Coupon Good For Free Reusable Canvas Shopping Tote Bag

>January 26, 2008: When Social Media Goes Bad - Maybe? Tesco and Waitrose Store Workers in the UK Use Facebook Sites to 'Diss' Store Customers

>February 18, 2009: Individuals, Society, Business, Grocery Retailing & More: 'Tweetminister,' 'Tweet Congress' and the Rise of 'Tweetocracy'

>September 10, 2008: Tesco Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market's Politically-Connected Public Relations Firm APCO Worldwide

[Follow Fresh & Easy Buzz around on Twitter.com at www.twitter.com/freshneasybuzz.]

A Fresh Freebie: Tesco Fresh & Easy Offering Online Coupon Good For Free Reusable Canvas Shopping Tote Bag

Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market is offering a "Twitter.com exclusive" online coupon good for a free reusable canvas bag with a food and grocery purchase of $10 or more in its stores.

The offering is for a limited time. The coupon expires on March 31.

The online coupon can be downloaded at the link below:

[Link: Coupon for free canvas bag. http://budurl.com/x5s4.]

We think using Twitter.com to make surprise promotional offerings like the reusable canvas shopping bag offering is smart. Fresh & Easy needs to keep up this sort of online-gorilla marketing and promotion. This is a good start.

The canvas bag being given away costs only $1.00 everyday. But we think such giveaways still are a good idea since they create excitement and offer shoppers a deal they can choose to take advantage of or not.

Twitter is growing in popularity -- hardly a day goes by without seeing an article about or mention of the social networking site on television.

The micro-blogging site already has 6 million users. Tens of thousands are joining each day. It's what we call a low-cost, high-impact platform -- the only cost of using Twitter for marketing and other forms of communication is a computer, Internet connection, and the labor costs for the person doing the micro-blogging for a given company.

We suggest Tesco's Fresh & Easy use Twitter to make at least one, and even two, offerings each week that are special and exclusive to Twitter. These offerings can be coupons good for items like the free canvas shopping bag, as well as for food and grocery products (hot discounts on the item, "buy-one-get-one-free, ect.), a special "Twitter Sale Price" on a given item or three, good for say three days, and other related special "Twitter" promotions.

The only limitation is common sense and creativity. Change it up each week; create variety and surprise. The canvas bag offering is a good start to what could be a high-impact, low-cost niche marketing tool for Fresh & Easy if used well -- and regularly.

[Reader Note: You can follow Fresh & Easy Buzz around on Twitter.com at: www.twitter.com/freshneasybuzz.]

Fresh & Easy Buzz is an independent Blog. It's not affiliated with Tesco plc, Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market, or any other food or grocery retailer.

Sweet Tweets: Popular laist.com Web Site Picks Up Fresh & Easy Buzz's Buzz On Tesco's Fresh & Easy and Twitter.com; Adds A Little Buzz of its Own

Yesterday Fresh & Easy Buzz wrote and published this story [The UK Telegraph Reports on Tesco Fresh & Easy's Use of Twitter.Com; Since Fresh & Easy Buzz Was First to Report it, We Offer Some Added Value] about Tesco Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market's use of the social media and networking site Twitter. We mentioned in yesterday's story that we were the first publication to report this development back in in September, 2008.

The popular laist.com (as in Los Angeles) Web site today picked up our piece from yesterday. (Who says folks don't read Blog pieces posted on a Sunday?) The laist.com piece is written and posted by one of the Web site's most trend-savvy and top writers, Lindsay William-Ross.

Below is the post in today's laist.com by Lindsay William-Ross:

Does Your Favorite Grocery Store Use Twitter? Should They?
laist.com
By Lindsay William-Ross

An article in today's Telegraph.co.uk touts the recent adoption of Twitter by British-based Tesco's Fresh & Easy grocery stores. Although the article focuses on the rarity of a Brit business using what's more popular with American businesses, F&E's web-watchers Fresh & Easy Buzz point out that the Tweets are coming from California, not England:

"Fresh & Easy's presence on Twitter.com isn't being maintained by a Tesco Fresh & Easy company employee based out of its Southern California headquarters or by a Tesco PLC employee in the UK. Rather, the Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Twitter site is maintained on a regular basis by SallieB, who is a social marketing expert with Tesco Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market's public relation's firm, ABCO International."

Regardless of where the Tweets originate, the fact is, businesses using Twitter to reach out to consumers is becoming a popular trend:

Though perhaps not gripping correspondence, Twitter does help to establish loyalty by giving customers an active way of communicating with the company's management. [...]

This may be because the technology is in its infancy - the site only opened in 2006 - or because it started life with a different aim in mind - to enable friends to tell each other what they were doing by answering quick, simple questions.

Nevertheless, a recent survey - the Cone Business in Social Media Study - found that 93pc of those questioned expected to see companies online. What's the point, though, of grocery stores using Twitter? What do they talk about?

An article from August 2008 on What Makes U Click? posed the same question, and took a look at what people said on Twitter in conversation with Whole Foods Market. Mostly it's just shop talk--product talk, really--about what flavor of tea a Tweeter likes, or how great the salad bar was on a given day. From a business perspective, mining Tweets for corporate feedback is a wise thing to do; service reps can intervene and solve problems and answer questions and gauge how well a product is being received. And producing Tweets can alert customers to sales, recalls, events, or store openings.

So what local grocers use Twitter? Not Vons or Ralphs, and Albertsons' gets a big FAIL for their one-Tweet wonder. And Tesco--parent to Fresh & Easy? Nope. Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, and Fresh & Easy (and the unaffiliated Fresh & Easy Buzz), yes.

Do you follow any grocery stores on Twitter? Or should the whole idea just head for the checkout line?

[Here's a link to the original post at laist.com.]