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.]

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.]

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

Since Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market is a British creation (Tesco is based in the United Kingdom and has brought many of the ways of British food and grocery retailing with it across the pond in its operation of Fresh & Easy), and since -- as we've written about in a number of posts (see the links at the end of this piece) -- Fresh & Easy has a site on the social networking site Twitter.com (here), combined with the fact that Fresh & Easy Buzz has its own site on Twitter, we're going to make an editorial assumption and judgement that our readers might have some interest in two things -- the United Kingdom and the Twitter social networking site.

Now having made this assumption -- or as some might be want to suggest having merely attempted to find a Tesco Fresh & Easy and Twitter angle because we just want to share something we've recently became aware of with our readers -- we would like to introduce you to an interesting new Web site we recently discovered via a post in the Springwise newsletter.

The new Web site, 'Tweetminister," describes itself as "the place where real life and politics 'tweet.'" The Web site is a clearing house for members of British Parliament who "tweet," Twitter-talk for making real time posts about what they are doing, where they are, what they are reading, ect. on the micro-blogging, social networking site.

A potential problem: Twitter limits "tweets" to only 140 characters, which has us thinking it must be extremely difficult for the politicos to compose a "tweet." After all, if you've ever watched Britain's MP's in action in Parliament, you know brevity isn't something they regularly practice, as is the case with members of the U.S. Senate. But something tells us many of the PM's staffers are doing the "tweeting" for them.

We won't go on about the "Tweetminister" site. Rather, take a look at it here. It communicates all of the "twittering" MP's "tweets" in real time, which is an interesting feature.

Not to be outdone, Britain's Prime Minister's (Gordon Brown) office has its own site on Twitter, "10 Downing Street," here. Come to think of it -- "Tweet" actually sounds a bit British, but Twitter is based in San Francisco, California USA. [Note to the Obama White House: Why in the world isn't there a "White House" Twitter site yet. After all, social networking sites (including Twitter), which you folks used so well, played a huge part in the successful "Obama For President" campaign? Is Gordon Brown more social networking savvy than Barack Obama?]

The American side of the pond: 'Tweet Congress'

Now, speaking of those U.S. Senators we mentioned above -- did you really think we would leave the American angle out of this equation, that special U.S.-British relationship and all? --there's also a fairly new Web site called "Tweet Congress," where you can track what those members of the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate who "tweet" are "tweeting" about, and do so in real time, just like at "Tweetminister."

For example, as we write this, Republic Congressman from Southern California Dana Rohrabacher "tweets:" Just got out of Afghanistan; met old friends who worked with me in past battles against Soviet invaders and Taliban lunatics." Who would have know the Congressman was out of town, were it not for Twitter.

And Congressman John Boehner from Ohio, who also happens to be the Republican Majority Leader in the House, has recently posted about the Employee Free Choice Act legislation and its "Card Check" provision, legislation that likely will be debated in the House of Representatives later this year "tweets:" Support for 'card check' dips as public awareness grows@ http://tinyurl.com/desjv3 .

Yes, Republican House Leader Boehner opposes the Employee Free Choice Act and "Card Check." [Read a recent piece we wrote about the Employee Free Choice Act, "Card Check" and organized labor and the food and grocery retailing industry at this link: Labor & Food Retailing: Kroger Co. Chains Sign New Contract With the UFCW Union in Vegas; What Happened to the UFCW Tesco Fresh & Easy Campaign? ]

You can explore "Tweet Congress" and all it has to offer here.

If nothing else comes of it, creating the "tweets" for the members of the U.S. Congress will be much more enjoyable for the scores of college-university student interns who work in the Capital Hill, Washington, D.C. offices, usually without pay, of every member of the House and Senate each year, compared to the normal, mundane tasks of opening mail and answering phones usually given them. And of course, we bet those members of Congress who have created some of their own "tweets" rather than delegating completely to staffers and interns are, like most Twitter users, hooked on "tweeting."

E. Pluribus Twitterdom: Grocers, politicians, citizens and all

At the end of this post (below "Reader Resource") we include links to a few of the recent pieces we've written and posted about the micro-blogging, social networking site Twitter.com. In those posts we've discussed, among other things, how Twitter is a template in which different users -- individuals, businesses (including grocers), governments, non-profit groups and others -- can adapt the site to their specific needs and uses.

If you spend some time going through Twitter, you will discover this fact in no time flat. People from all walks of life use the site. Businesses ranging from convenience store chain 7-Eleven (and Tesco's Fresh & Easy), to mom and pop dry cleaners, are using Twitter. Newspapers, magazines, blogs (like Fresh & Easy Buzz) are one of the fastest-growing user segments of the micro-blogging social networking site. Add to that non-profit groups, community and neighborhood organizations and more. And individuals are the biggest users of Twitter.

This is the template aspect of Twitter -- all kinds of users, using the site in different ways. It seems like each week we discover people using Twitter in new and different ways. It's a template in which an ever-evolving combination of existing and new users are creating unique ways to adapt the site to what they desire. And among the fastest-growing user segments of Twitter is business, which is using the site as both an informational-communications space as well as for marketing purposes.

As the two sites, "Tweetminister" and "Tweet Congress," demonstrate, Twitter also is a force for greater citizen participation in government. Who would have thought just a couple years ago that British PM's and U.S. Members of Congress would be letting their constituents know in real time what they are up to, and what their thoughts are? And in times like the present, with the global recession and financial-credit crisis, citizens need to know more than ever what their representatives are up to. Increasingly you can ask them via a "tweet," as long as you use Twitter.com. Of course, some might say it's all TMI -- too much information.

We call this new phenomenon -- the direct communication between legislators and citizens via Twitter -- "Tweetocracy." And thus we suggest the U.S. and the UK are on the road to becoming "Tweetocracies." We also use "Tweetocracy" in the larger sense, as suggested in the post title, for how Twitter is democratizing numerous aspects of life, including business, politics and more. Remember you read those two terms here first. (And, if you have seen the terms used used in print before, do let us know. We couldn't find any such usage of "Tweetocracy" in our search to see if the term has been coined yet.)

Reader Resource:

A selection of recent, related posts from Fresh & Easy Buzz:

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

>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

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

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

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

In 2008, Fresh & Easy Buzz wrote and published a number of posts about Tesco Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market's corporate marketing Blog, published by the retailer's marketing chief, Simon Uwins, and how the Blog would go for weeks, and even months, without being updated with new content-posts, along with the fact that seldom if ever reader-customer comments on the Blog were addressed and answered.

We likened the situation to a retail store -- of which a corporate marketing Blog is an extension of in the case of a retailer that uses one for such purposes -- that is neglected, seldom updated in content and merchandising, and where customers' (that's what the Blog's readers are, along with others being potential customers) questions are seldom answered. A corporate marketing-oriented Blog is an extension -- a digital store-front minus actually selling groceries -- of a grocery chain's brick-and-mortar stores. Plus, marketing and customer service is "everything" a retailer does, from how store employees dress to its Web sites and Blogs.

It's our analysis and opinion that when a grocery chain or any other type of retailer uses a company Blog for marketing purposes it then needs to keep the content (regular posts say at least once a week at a minimum) of that Blog fresh, just like it must keep merchandise in a brick-and-mortar grocery store fresh.

And just like store employees are required to (and want to) answer customer questions and inquiries, so to should whomever is responsible for publishing a company marketing Blog do the same. It's just basic and good customer service.

We also think retailer company Blogs should offer customers and potential customers important information about the retailer and its stores, as well as marketing-focused information. Done well, both general and marketing-oriented communications can be achieved, often times in the same post.

Whole Foods Market, Inc. does this well with its "Whole Story" Blog. Wal-Mart does it in an interesting and informative way as well with its Web site-based "Buyers Blog," as does San Francisco Bay Area (Northern California) multi-store independent Andronico's Market, with its "Buyers Blog," to offer three grocer-retailer examples we think are worth taking a look at.

Below are links to the posts we made about the Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market corporate marketing Blog topic and issue in 2008:

[January 21, 2008: Click! Click!: Who's Minding the Fresh & Easy Corporate Blog?... February 14, 2008: It Looks Like Somebody is Minding the Fresh & Easy Corporate Blog A Bit Better of Late... March 29, 2008: Things Are Improving Over at the Fresh & Easy Corporate Blog: Perhaps They've Been Listening to Us?.]

As you can see by the post titles above, after publishing our January 21, 2008 piece, in which we identified and pointed out the problem, there was some improvement at the Fresh & Easy corporate marketing Blog, an improvement we attempted to reinforce in a positive manner (Fair & Balanced as one cable news network likes to say) with two posts -- one in February and another in March.

But... things went downhill over at the Fresh & Easy corporate marketing Blog once again soon after -- actually well before October, but we waited, just to be fair, as the posts linked below describe:

[October 13, 2008: 'The Promotional Pundit': Tesco Fresh & Easy Launches New $6-off Online Coupon Today; Post on Corp. Marketing Blog Remains -- Adding Insult to Injury... October 12, 2008: 'The Promotional Pundit:' More On the Online Coupon Fiasco: Tesco Fresh & Easy's Marketing Department to Launch A New Online Coupon Early Next Week... October 10, 2008: 'The Promotional Pundit': Keeping the Marketing and Promotional Eye On the Ball; Fixing A Promotional Fiasco Fresh & Easy Isn't Even Aware Of.]

Things got even worse over at the Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market corporate marketing Blog in the fall of 2008, when not one single new post was made from September, 2008 -to- the end of the year. Fresh & Easy Buzz was well aware of the once again neglected digital store-front but (that Fair & Balanced mantra again) decided to hold off, thinking perhaps the busy holiday season was the reason, therefore giving benefit to the doubt.

We were considering writing another piece about the topic when not a single new sentence, nor even a single word, was posted as 2008 neared its end in December. Even worse, numerous reader-customer comments in the form of questions on the last posts went unanswered, as they do to this day from those past posts.

We then learned that Mr. Uwins was out during most of that period on paternity leave -- the proud new father of twins. Congratulations on that wonderful event to him.

We learned this fact though -- and its explanation as to why there had been zero posting activity on the company Blog -- not from the Blog -- which one could reasonably expect (or if not, just a single sentence in the Blog saying: "There won't be any new posts in the Fresh & Easy marketing Blog until January, 2009) -- but rather from a response by SallieB (who works for Fresh & Easy's public relations firm) on the Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Twitter.com site she established and maintains in an excellent manner for the grocery and fresh foods chain.

Her "tweet" (Twitter-talk for a post) was in response to a question ("tweet") from a Fresh & Easy customer, Blogger and Twitter-user named Frankie, who was asking why there hadn't been a post on the Fresh & Easy company Blog since September. She had also left the same question on the company Blog but it was never responded to. There were a couple of additional consumer questions on the last (September, 2008) post on the Fresh & Easy corporate marketing Blog, in addition to hers, asking this same question, by the way -- question-comments that went unanswered.

Therefore, we decided to not write about the over three month lack of Blog activity at the Fresh & Easy corporate marketing Blog (digital store-front) for a bit, waiting to see if something might appear in 2009. (The benefit-of-the-doubt mantra again.)

And eventually it did. On January 2, 2009, Mr. Uwins wrote the post reprinted below (in italics) titled: "new year resolutions from fresh & easy." Of particular note are paragraphs number 9 and 10:

Friday, January 2, 2009
new year resolutions from fresh & easy

"Well, what an extraordinary year.

With all that's happened in the world, it's easy to forget that fresh&easy only had its first birthday in November.

From the start, it's been a business built by simply listening to what customers ideally want, and then trying to deliver it.

So in that spirit, I thought I'd share 3 resolutions for the new year.

We all know about the state of the economy. In talking to a lot of our customers, we hear about the various measures they're taking to cut down on their spending and reduce waste, in order to stretch their budgets. But we're also hearing the same concerns that we heard before, about the wholesomeness of food and the impact on the environment, though with a real sense of having to compromise to make ends meet.

So our first resolution is to find new ways to help our customers to stretch their budgets, so they don't have to compromise - from tomorrow, for example, we will always have 6 produce packs on offer at just 98¢ per pack, week in, week out, so our customers can count on it."

We've also had many, many requests to be kept informed via email of what's going on at our stores - whether offers, new products, meal ideas, etc.

So our second resolution is to do just that - you can now sign up on our website to be a friend of fresh&easy, receiving latest news and offers from us via email. It's quite basic at the moment, but we'll add features as we go (on the basis of feedback from our friends, naturally).

Finally, I've also had many requests to keep this blog going, and make it a bit more interactive - I'm very conscious that my last posting was in September (I had twin girls that month, which has kept me rather busy...).

So my third resolution, to uprate this blog. To help me, I've co-opted 2 web assistants, Gary and Sallie, who'll add things now and then, and follow up on comments. They'll always though use their own names, when they do.

It's been an amazing year to be a part of fresh&easy, as we've built a brand from nothing.Who knows what 2009 will bring. But we'll just keep listening to customers, and trying to give them what they want.And that, surely, is how it should be.

If you read our January, 2008, February, 2008 and March, 2008 posts on the topic and issue that we linked above (eighth paragraph from the top of this page), you will see we offered as one simple solution to the problem being for Mr. Uwins to merely have one or more of the Fresh & Easy Buzz marketing and/or PR firm staff personal assist him with posting and responding to reader-customer comments on the Fresh & Easy corporate marketing Blog -- assisting with the operations of the digital store-front just as team members assist one another in the Fresh & Easy brick-and-mortar grocery stores.

Such teamwork also has the added benefit of getting fresh thinking from others. It's also plain old good delegation. We also suggested -- and still do -- that some of the Fresh & Easy category managers and buyers be invited to post on the Blog. After all, too many marketers on one Blog tends to sound like...well, too many marketers. Other voices add variety. How about a store manager (or employee) or two as well?

It took a full year, but it appears marketing chief Uwins agreed with our suggestion. And since we believe course-correction to be a good thing, we applaud the decision. Better late than never, right?

SallieB and Gary, a company marketing staffer, are now posting on the Fresh & Easy marketing Blog, as well as answering some of the reader questions left via the comment box. As mentioned, SallieB does an excellent job with the Twitter site, and it appears Gary has been posting on the company's Twitter site as well. Both have added to the Fresh & Easy corporate marketing Blog, particularly the simple fact that the posting is now more frequent. It could be a little more frequent however. A minimum of at least once a week seems reasonable to us.

Having SallieB and Gary posting on the company Blog also has an added benefit for Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market: both are or very close to the age demographic (about 18-35) which we've identified to thus far be the most enthusiastic about the Fresh & Easy small-format, convenience-oriented grocery and fresh foods store and retail offering. Combining the use of the Blog with social networking tools like Twitter is something both of them seem well versed in and comfortable with.

Fresh & Easy Marketing chief Simon Uwins has often mentioned his affection for the British band Radio Head, which was born in Oxford, England, in the corporate marketing Blog. But it appears that about one year since we first suggested it, Mr. Uwins has listened to the musical advice of another British rock legend, Joe Cocker, he born and raised in Sheffield, Yorkshire, England, and asked for a little help from his friends with the company Blog. As Mr. Cocker sings:

What would you think if I sang out of tune,
Would you stand up and walk out on me?
Lend me your ears and I'll sing you a song
And I'll try not to sing out of key.

Oh, I get by with a little help from my friends
Mm, I get high with a little help from my friends
Mm, gonna try with a little help from my friends

[Click here for all of the lyrics, and a cell phone ringtone as well.]

We look forward to watching how the Fresh & Easy corporate marketing Blog progresses now that the two new associates have joined the team. Of course, some might suggest that now with a team of three, particularly since the two new Bloggers are extremely talented from our observations, that the bar has now automatically been set much higher. We will let Fresh & Easy Buzz readers know if we think that bar has been met -- or even exceeded -- down the road a bit. [Hint: We like that SallieB and Gary have been posting at least one a week since January. That frequency sounds familiar.]

Waiting a year to bring in some help with the Blog was about 11 months too long though. We've heard from a number of the company Blog readers who didn't ever get their post questions answered, nearly all of them were Fresh & Easy store customers. Most were not very pleased.

Those we heard from also said they stopped shopping at the stores. We only heard from about six such people -- but that's six too many for a grocer to alienate when doing so can be easily avoided. And if six did send us comments, comments we didn't ask for, we can imagine there are more than six that felt they received negative customer service by not having their questions addressed on the corporate marketing Blog. And as all marketers know, word-of-mouth can be the best -- and the worse if negative -- form of marketing. It's a powerful sword that can cut both ways.

Course correction is good among retailers and marketers. We applaud it. But waiting unnecessarily too long to course correct when there's no need to do so can cause damage to a brand, not to mention contributing to a loss of customers. We suggest it did so at Fresh & Easy.

After all, there's never anything wrong with asking for a little help from one's friends -- in real time though. And can't you almost feel the sigh of relief when reading Mr. Uwins' January 2, 2009 Blog post about getting a little help with the corporate marketing Blog from his friends-associates?

Reader Resource:

[The Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market corporate marketing Blog is here.]

[A couple past posts from Fresh & Easy Buzz about the Fresh & Easy company Blog but not directly related to the topic addressed in our post: April 6, 2008: Telegraph.uk.com: 'Tesco USA Slip Highlights the Perils of Corporate Blogging;' We Couldn't Disagree More With This Piece April 18, 2008: Fresh & Easy Marketing Director Talks About the 'Self-Service' Checkout Policy at the Stores in the F&E Company Blog.]

[Twitter.com: You can follow Fresh & Easy Buzz on Twitter here.]

Twitter Me This Batman: Are You Using Twitter? If Not, You Probably Should Be

The Fresh & Easy Buzz 'Sunday Supplement'

Last Sunday, January 18, we wrote and published this piece [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 the UK Telegraph's story about Tesco Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market's use of the social networking site Twitter.com. Fresh & Easy Buzz was the first publication to report in September, 2008 on Tesco Fresh & Easy's use of Twitter.

On Monday, January 19, the popular Southern California-based Web site Laist.com picked up our Sunday, January 18 story in the form of a post written by trend-maven, writer and Twitter-user Lindsay William-Ross. Read the Laist.com post by Lindsay William-Ross here.

A number of Fresh & Easy Buzz readers e-mailed us a link to the Lais.com post. So on Monday, January 19, we wrote and posted a follow-up piece about the Laist.com piece. Wait a minute, that's a form of social media networking, isn't it? Our January 19 follow-up piece: 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.

Fresh & Easy Buzz's Twitter site is here. The Web site Foodimentary - Twitter Grader, which follows, grades and ranks nearly 23,000 (and growing) sites/Blogs on Twitter.com, recently rated Fresh & Easy Buzz at the top of its list, with an overall grade of 98.7. Click here to view Foodimentary - Twitter Grader.com.

Grocers and Twitter

In our original story on the topic on January 18, we discussed the fact that numerous food and grocery retailers, in addition to Tesco's Fresh & Easy, are using Twitter as a social marketing and communications tool designed to talk (and listen) to customers and potential customers. We also listed a few of those retailers. We also suggested those grocers (and other retailers for that matter) that aren't currently using Twitter.com, or that have a Twitter site but barely use it, are in our analysis missing out on what is a very strong and super-inexpensive tool -- Twitter.

It appears others in the form of investors agree with us about Twitter.

New millions for Twitter, Inc.

Reports over the weekend say Twitter Inc. has reportedly raised about $20 million in new investments based on a valuation of the company at up to $250 million.

These reports come from the TechCrunch.com technology Blog and the Wall Street Journal's All Things Digital Blog. Both Blogs, which follow the technology inductry and sector closely, are citing unnamed sources that are saying that the San Francisco, California-based social networking and micro-blogging company has followed up on its previous $20 million in funding with a similar sized round that has yet to be announced.

Both Blogs are very plugged-in to what's happening in Silicon Valley and in San Francisco's new media business community. Therefore the probability that the reports are correct are high in our opinion.

In the summer of 2008 the popular social networking site Facebook.com offered to acquire Twitter for what was about half of its current $250 valuation. It looks like the young twenty-something founders of Twitter knew what they were doing by refusing the Facebook deal and remaining independent.

Twitter has been growing users faster than wild mustard grows in Napa Valley, California after a spring rain, followed by lost of sunshine. Therefore its no surprise investors want to put money into the micro-blogging company despite the recession, and despite the fact Twitter doesn't sell advertising on the site and therefore has no real revenue stream -- yet.

Twitter as a user template

Twitter was originally designed as a social networking tool for individuals to let each other know what they are doing in real time. In fact, one of the site's tag lines is: "What are you doing."

However, numerous companies, non-profit organizations, political campaigns, newspapers and Bloggers have in recent times adopted Twitter for various uses.

For example, newspapers like the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times and many others post news reports and features on their Twitter sites, as do trade publications and Bloggers.

The winning Obama Presidential campaign used Twitter to communicate with voters. Cable News channel CNN used Twitter as part of its coverage of the 2008 U.S. Presidential campaign.

Companies of all sorts -- such as grocery chains Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market, Whole Foods Market, 7-Eleven and others -- are using Twitter in a variety of ways, both as a social marketing tool as well as for other forms of communication. Corporate use of the site is new and evolving.

The New York City-based Embassy for the State of Israel even used Twitter recently for a citizen press conference regarding its invasion of the Gaza Strip.

Meanwhile individuals remain the backbone of Twitter. And many refer to themselves as "Twitter addicts," posting such mundane messages (called Tweets) like announcements that they are at the grocery store or getting ready to go to bed. Twitter can be used via handheld personal communication devices as well as with desktop and laptop computers. But in many ways it is these mundane messages that make Twitter so interesting. After all, when was the last time a total real life (but not virtual) stranger told you he or she was getting ready to enter the grocery store or turning in for the night?

More grocers discovering Twitter - but most haven't yet

On the food retailing front vis-a-vis Twitter, we've recently found a few additional retailers using the micro-blogging site in a significant way, in addition to those we named in our January 18 piece. These grocers include: New Seasons Market, a chain of nine natural foods markets in the Portland, Oregon region; Elwood Thompson's, an innovative natural foods grocer in Virginia; Locali Conscious Convenience, the new hybrid grocery-convenience store that just opened in Southern California, and which we wrote about here on Wednesday, January 21.

Other food and grocery retailers using Twitter include: Wal-Mart; Wegmans, the New York state-based supermarket which was just-named as the fifth best company to work fro in America by Fortune magazine in its annual "100 Best Places to Work" ranking; and the Meijer grocery and general merchandise chain.

The folks at the retail industry consulting firm RetailNet Group have compiled a spreadsheet directory in which they list the Twitter sites of various retailers and retail-related companies, publications and other entities. Click here to view the RetailNet Group Twitter spreadsheet.

Keith Anderson of RetailNet Group says users can add the names of retailers that have Twitter sites but aren't listed as of yet on the directory. In other words it's a user-generated list, which in fact is an additional form of social networking. Anderson and two other staffers at the retailing industry consulting firm have their own Twitter sites. They are:

>Keith Anderson: http://twitter.com/keith_rng/
>Aaron Chio: http://twitter.com/AaronChio
>Tim O'Connor: http://twitter.com/timoc_rng/

They frequently post interesting information about the firm's research and other retailing topics, including in the food and grocery sector, at their Twitter sites. It's worth a look.

The vast majority of food and grocery chains, as well as independents, have yet to start using Twitter of other social media sites like Facebook, however. We think they are missing the consumer cyber-communications boat by not doing so. Of course, using Twitter and other sites is one thing -- using it well is another. Retailers and other businesses need to walk a fine line between using the sites too much for marketing, offering a blend of it along with useful and helpful consumer information. Also: making marketing-related communications useful and helpful, which they can be.

Infant Twitter: Human and social evolution

Twitter.com is only in its infancy. The site keeps getting deeper and richer -- and users keep finding new ways to communicate on it. In large part that's what makes the site so interesting -- that like the human organism and society it keeps evolving.

But then that's no accident. Fresh & Easy buzz believes that a major part of the popularity of social media and networking Internet sites is because they represent the latest stage of human evolution. Not to get too deep from an Anthropological standpoint but human and social development is all about groups: cultures, societies, voluntary and complex organizations and the like. Social media is evolving and in many cases redefining social organization.

It's no replacement for face-to-face interaction. But it is adding elements to social organization (both informal and formal) that were not dreamed of just a few years ago. And social media retains many aspects of the human experience, albeit via an electronic device and computer screen, which is why it attracts so many.

Social media also is starting to revolutionize the way business, politics and media is done. And it will do so even more. It will require businesses to be more transparent -- and already is -- and will allow businesses, if they use it right, to gain more and richer information and feedback from consumers than ever thought possible.

It's also starting to allow consumers to have far more influence over business, politics and media than has ever been the case. Bottom-up is becoming the new black. Top-down the new Edsel. These facets will only continue to increase as more people -- and companies -- use social media, and as new uses are discovered for sites like Twitter, Facebook and others. It's a brave -- but fun and productive -- new world.

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.]

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

James Quinn, Wall Street Correspondent for the United Kingdom's Telegraph newspaper, has a story in today's edition of the paper's Web site about Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market "becoming one of the first British retailers to use the Twitter.com social networking site to communicate with consumers." [You can read the UK Telegraph story here.]

Fresh & Easy Buzz was the first publication to report in September, 2008 in this piece about Tesco's Fresh & Easy using Twitter. [Click here to view Tesco Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market's Twitter.com site.]

Fresh & Easy Buzz also has a Twitter site, so we hang out a bit in the neighborhood. [Click here to view Fresh & Easy Buzz's Twitter.com site.]

We received links to the UK Telegraph story today from a couple of the followers of our Twitter.com feed. Therefore, since Fresh & Easy Buzz was the first publication to report on the development five months ago, we thought we would add some information to the Telegraph's report.

First, 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 Worldwide. She works out of the firm's Sacramento, California office. SallieB also has her own Twitter site here, where she describes herself as a "Social Media-ette, PR/PA, West Coaster, and self professed nerd."

Additionally, there's a bit of a "Tesco" corporate mystery regarding Twitter.com. The mystery has nothing to do with the Fresh & Easy twitter site and feed.

The mystery: Either United Kingdom-based Tesco, which owns and operates Fresh & Easy neighborhood Market USA, or someone using the "Tesco" name has had a site on Twitter.com for a much longer period of time than its Fresh & Easy USA division has maintained a Twitter site for. However the "Tesco" feed has never been active. No updates have ever been given. "Updates" is Twitter.com lingo for the brief posts (called "Tweets" by users) users make on their Twitter sites.

The "Tesco" site does currently have two followers though, the UK-based supermarket industry trade publication Retail Week and yours truly, Fresh & Easy Buzz. [Click here to view the "Tesco" Twitter site.]

We have no idea if it's the "real" Tesco or not that put up the Twitter.com site. It could be though because some companies will "lock-up" their company names on social media sites either for future use or to make sure others don't use the name. We first discovered the "Tesco" feed about mid-2008. But to date nothing has been posted on it.

Twitter and food-grocery retailers

A few U.S. food and grocery retailers are currently using Twitter. But far fewer are using it than should be. The site is free, other than the cost of whatever amount of time an employee spends each day maintaining it, which need not be more than an hour in total on any given day.

Some of the food and grocery retailers using Twitter.com include Whole Foods Market, Inc., which has 19,119 followers. A couple regional Whole Foods' divisions, such as the one in Los Angeles, California, also maintain their own individual Twitter feeds as well.

Mega-convenience store chain 7-Eleven also has a Twitter.com site.

A group of fans of the specialty grocery chain Trader Joe's also have set up a site on Twitter. This type of Twitter site can be much more powerful than a retailer-maintained site because it offers the potential of positive third-party (consumer) endorsement for Trader Joe's, something the grocer gets a significant amount of on the Twitter feed. Of course, a group of people could set up a similar feed about a retailer and offer mostly negative comments in general or on a particular aspect of that retailer's business practices, as well. So goes the double-edged power potential of social media and marketing.

A number of other retailers, including E-commerce retailers, also maintain sites on Twitter.

Growing power of social media and marketing

Nearly 60% of U.S. consumers say they interact with companies on a social media Web site, and one in four interact more than once per week, according to the results of the 2008 Cone Business in Social Media Study, according to an October, 2008 story in the Natural~Specialty Foods Memo Blog.

The results come form the 2008 Cone Business in Social Media study.

The Cone survey also found that a whopping 93% of Americans believe a company should have a presence in social media, while 85% believe a company should not only be present, but should also interact with consumers via social media.

Those are rather impressive percentages -- the kind of percentages that should convince those food and grocery retailers currently not using social media sites like Twitter, Facebook and others to do so.

Twitter user numbers growing fast, uses evolving

The number of people, businesses and organizations using Twitter is fast-growing. Additionally, the types of uses people, businesses and organizations are adopting Twitter for are becoming more varied as well. For example, the New York City-based U.S. Embassy of the government of Israel recently staged what it termed a "citizens" press conference regarding its invasion of the Gaza Strip using Twitter. This was the first time the government of a nation has done something like this. [You can learn more about the "citizens" press conference here.]

Meanwhile, we suggest if the "Tesco" site on Twitter.com belongs to the "real" Tesco, UK-based Tesco PLC, that perhaps the company hire SallieB to maintain the Twitter feed, along with her doing so for the Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market Twitter site. After all, your two lonely followers -- if it's the "real" Tesco -- Retail Week and Fresh & Easy Buzz -- have been waiting many months for the first update.