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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.]

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.

'I Taste Therefore I Tweet': Fresh & Easy Set to Hold 'Twitter (Wine) Tasting' Tomorrow Night

Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market has teamed up with the online wine tasting community Taste Live, and is holding a virtual wine tasting event tomorrow evening (February 9, 2010) from 7:00 pm -to- 8: 00 pm (Pacific Standard Time).

Fresh & Easy is calling the virtual wine tasting a "Twitter Tasting" because the event will focus on tasters' tweeting their evaluations of the three wines being tasted on the social media site Twitter.com.

Tasters will be sampling three of Fresh & Easy's proprietary wines during the one hour virtual and social media wine tasting tomorrow night.

The three wines are: Montcadi Cava Rose from Spain, which sells for under $6; Boro Hills Sauvignon Blanc (from New Zealand), which sells at Fresh & Easy for about $11; and Matuco Malbec 2007 (Argentina), which retails for under $10.

Tasters can buy one, two or all three of the wines at a local Fresh & Easy market for the tasting. Here's a brief description of each of the wine varieties.

Taste Live often holds these virtual wine tastings in partnership with various wineries like Kunde Family Wines and others.

Here's how the virtual "Twitter Tasting" works:

>Those interested in participating first need to register at Taste Live using their Twitter or Facebook account, or by creating an account at the tastelive.com Web site here.

>Once registered, event participants then need to RSVP their intended participation to Tesco's Fresh & Easy here.

>Tasters then buy one or more of the three wines being tasted during the one hour "Twitter Tasting" at a Fresh & Easy store.

Karen Fletcher, Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market's category manager for wine, is hosting the "Twitter Tasting" tomorrow night, according to Fresh & Easy.

During the one hour event Fresh & Easy will be tweeting at its @fresh_and_easy account on Twitter.com.

The grocer's social media team has created a Twitter hashtag - #FandEWine - which it wants tweeter-wine tasters to use after each of their tweets in order to be able to track the one hour "Twitter Tasting."

Such hashtags used on Twitter allow for users to search particular topics on the site by entering the hashtag into its search function.

Fresh & Easy wine merchandising & marketing

First, Fresh & Easy Buzz likes the concept of the "Twitter Tasting." We give Tesco Fresh & Easy's marketing team, particularly its social media folks, a thumbs up for giving it a try.

The reason we like it is because it's different, is a bit out of the box, and fits in well with the much improved job (since about mid-2009) the grocer's social media team has been doing using Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

We also like it because although it's virtual, it's also participatory - it brings tweeters and others together in a form of community around a common event - wine tasting.

Such uses of social media can over time build up a strong core of Fresh & Easy wine shoppers-consumers if done well.

It's using social media for marketing purposes but the event emphasises the "social" over the "marketing" aspect because of the focus on the wine tasting. Participants can be as critical as they want about the wines in their tweets, which means Fresh & Easy can't control the marketing message, like a retailer can do with paid advertising and the like.

One of Tesco's goals with Fresh & Easy is to build the Fresh & Easy retail brand in part through making its proprietary wines and wine merchandising program "famous." In fact, this is one of the charges the grocer gave to the marketing-oriented public relations firms it interviewed in March-April 2008.

Additionally, the fantastic success of wine sales at Trader Joe's hasn't been something lost on Tesco. It's no accident Fresh & Easy's wine and beer program looks very similar to Trader Joe's in terms of product selection, merchandising and marketing.

Fresh & Easy's wine program or wines aren't famous yet. But creative marketing programs like the "Twitter Tasting," combined with good product selection and merchandising, can go a long way in brand building, in our analysis.

Of course, key to tomorrow night's "Twitter (wine) Tasting" being a success is the fact that it has participants. The more tweets the better. Also, the more critical - not just pro the wines tasted - tweets during the tasting the more interesting it will be.

After all, when it comes to criticism (and even a bit of whining), some of the best involves wines.

[Readers: Click here for a selection of past stories from Fresh & Easy Buzz on Tesco Fresh & Easy's wine program, wine category merchandsing, and related topics and issues.]

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.]

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.]

Integrated Retail & Twitter Wine Promotion Rates Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market A Gold Medal

Wine & Beer Category Report: News/Analysis/Commentary

Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market today launched a full-line-drive, mix and match wine category promotion in its 159 fresh food and grocery stores in California, southern Nevada and Metropolitan Phoenix, Arizona.

In the promotion, which runs from June 23 -to- July 6, 2010, customers get 20% off the total of any six or more bottles of wine they purchase.

Additionally, Fresh & Easy is giving away a reusable cotton wine bag with all single-customer wine purchases of $25 or more.

In and of itself there's nothing particularly unique or special about the promo as grocer wine category promotions go, although we like the free wine bag addition. It adds an additional layer to the promotion, beyond just the 20% price focus.

But Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market is kicking off the wine promotion with a "Twitter Wine Tasting" this evening, starting at 7 pm pacific time.

This is the grocer's second such "Twitter Wine Tasting," in which participants purchase the wines to be tasted and pondered in the comfort of their homes at a Fresh & Easy store, and then share their questions, comments and evaluations on the various varieties of vino via Twitter.com.

The first such tasting was on February 9 of this year. Read our story about Fresh & Easy's first "Twitter Wine Tasting" - February 8, 2010: 'I Taste Therefore I Tweet': Fresh & Easy Set to Hold 'Twitter (Wine) Tasting' Tomorrow Night.

Tonight's wine tippling tweeters will be tasting three of Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market's proprietary wines. The three brands-varieties are: Napa Family Vineyards Chardonnay, which retails for under $12; The Vine Yard Late Harvest Riesling, which sells for under $8; and Re del Castello Chianti Classico, which goes for under $10 at Fresh & Easy Neighborhood market stores. Fresh & Easy is featuring two of the varieties, along with a few others, in its "Friends of Fresh & Easy" e-mail promo which it sent out late yesterday. That's what we call "positive, practical, promotional merchandising integration," or PPPMI for short. More on that concept a little later below.

In order to participate in the virtual wine tasting event (virtual on twitter but real at home) people with a Twitter account - those who don't already have one can create one in a couple minutes - simply sign up at Taste Live, send an RSVP here, buy the three wines at a Fresh & Easy store, and then log-in back at Taste Live, at 7 pm tonight.

According to the grocer, Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market wine category manager Karen Fletcher will be tweeting, answering questions and following the tasters' evaluations at its Twitter.com account - @fresh_and_easy - starting at 7 pm. The tippling tweeters need only to use the Twitter hashtag #FreshEasyWines in order to be able to view the wine tweets of their fellow tasters on Twitter tonight.

Positive, practical, promotional merchandising integration

As regular Fresh & Easy Buzz readers are aware - and non-regular readers of the blog will soon become aware of - we're big advocates of integrated promotions that tie-in what happens on the store floor (merchandising and promotional merchandising) with various forms of media, particularly forms of interactive social media like Twitter, Facebook and the like.

We've been suggesting to Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market in our strategy session-oriented posts since about mid-2008 that the grocer needs to focus much more on doing integrated promotions across all categories. One of the Fresh & Easy's problems or challenges, in our analysis, has been a failure to integrate; to use multiple platforms, integrating on the store floor merchandising with various forms of media. For example, we liked this recent promotion at Fresh & Easy. But the grocer failed to take it beyond the stores; to integrate it with other media in a meaningful and significant way.

Merchandising and media-related promotions such as the wine promotion-twitter event, which tie-in the stores and the larger consumer world, are something Fresh & Easy needs to do more regularly in order to create excitement, drive sales into the stores, build brand, and create new, much-needed customers.

In terms of the various categories, in our analysis the best merchandising and promotional activity Fresh & Easy has done thus far is in the wine category.

Wine category manager Karen Fletcher has been in her position at Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market from the very beginning. Therefore we give her the primary credit for this development.
Fresh & Easy's wine and beer category has flipped-flopped between the directors of the grocer's two buying and merchandising departments, fresh and grocery - and not totally against Ms. Fletcher's objection - three times since 2007.

The wine and beer category was originally (and logically) under the grocery department. But it later was moved to the fresh department for internal reasons. Then in the summer of 2008 the category was switched back to grocery, under the supervision of Sean McCurley, who made a lateral move at the time from director of fresh foods to grocery director - and who recently returned to Tesco in the UK - replacing Charlotte Maxwell, who departed Fresh & Easy to return to Tesco in the UK, which she left the employ of shortly after. (Yes, Sean McCurley and Karen Fletcher had a strong working relationship. They both also came to Fresh & Easy from Tesco in the UK.)

Tweet, drink and be merry

While a Twitter-based wine tasting doesn't have the glamour and excitement of a live tasting, say at a Napa Valley winery, it certainly offers some advantages. Among those advantages include: being able to dress comfortably - although we don't want to hear about participants wearing boxer shorts or old sweat pants while wine tasting and tweeting tonight - relaxing on your couch at home with a laptop computer nestled close by or a smart phone in hand, and being able to stock the fridge with one's own choice of foods to cleanse the palate between bottles of wine.

From a marketing and merchandising standpoint for Fresh & Easy the tasting offers the grocer a chance to get people into the stores to purchase the three bottles of wine, and then hopefully buy additional food and grocery items. But much more than that, as we said earlier, it integrates what is happening at retail - the June 23 -to- July 6 wine promotion - with a wider social media-based promotion, thereby helping over time (with repetition and other different integrated promotions added on) to create a story around the wine category at Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market.

Doing this - integrating what goes happens on the store floor with media promotions and events - and doing it regularly, comprehensively and in a creative yet practical manner (need to sell product as well as create buzz) is what good merchandising and promotions are all about, as in creating and telling a good story, which in many ways is the essence of a potentially successful marketing campaign.

Salute! In 140 characters or less of course.

Readers: Click here to read a selection of past posts in Fresh & Easy Buzz on wine category merchandising and related topics.