Walmart: It’s Okay to Not be Target

Lisa Braziel | August 10, 2007 | View Comments

Yesterday I read an article in Reuters that stated “Wal-Mart Using Facebook to win back-to school sales”.

According to the article , the clumsy retail giant has ventured once again into social media – this time targeting Facebook. Why? To encourage students heading to college to design their dorm room with Wal-Mart products. The article states, “Facebook users who join the Wal-Mart group will be able to take a quiz to determine their decorating style and get a list of “recommended products” they can buy at Wal-Mart to mesh their style with their roommates.”

I will also add that a Wal-Mart spokesperson actually stated, “We realize this is an audience that we need to be talking to, and this is a channel we need to be on.”

How nice. Wal-Mart, once again is using social media to “tell” its customers to buy their products. This further affirms my thought that Wal-Mart STILL doesn’t get social media, even after failing at it with “The Hub” and “Walmarting Across America”.What they don’t seem to get is that talking to an audience is not what social media is about. That is what advertising is about. Social media is about talking with customers. Engaging in a conversation.

If Wal-Mart embraced this they would clearly see that instead of “recommending products” to its audience, it could open the discussion for students to recommend products to one another. How about allowing other students to reveal real-life storage solutions that work with a 5 X 10 dorm room? Or having users rate the products they find most useful?

And if they understood their customer perhaps they would finally realize that it is okay for them to not be Target. As a customer , I don’t think of Walmart when I think of design. But I do think of Walmart when I think of function. College students will always need to have a box fan, those 3M hooks that can hold anything, and a cable cord that reaches. Sure, these aren’t glamorous, but neither is a college dorm room.

This is a classic example of what companies are doing wrong in social media – speaking to customers and missing the boat entirely. There are lessons to be learned from this that I may expand on at a later date. Until then, feel free to share your thoughts.