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.]