REI LOCAL SOCIAL MEDIA:

DISTRIBUTED, AWESOME,

NOT EASY

Jordan Williams@jordancwilliams | @REI

Blogwell Seattle - August 2011

SOCIAL MEDIA AT REI (PRE-LOCAL)

WHY LOCAL SOCIAL MEDIA @ REI

• Members & customers shop at their REI

• Listen or not, customers are talking

• Increasingly online while they are in the store

• Regionality is important

• So much great local stuff going on

LOCAL SOCIAL WITHIN RETAIL IS DIFFERENT

Retail team members are not cube dwellers!

Hourly vs. exempt

Technology (lack of)

Inconsistent

incentives: Social = engage Retail = sell Both = serve

LOCAL SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY

Market-based

Distributed management

Drive participation Nationally + Locally

Localize content

Serve specific needs

SOCIAL MEDIA AT REI (POST-LOCAL)

SOCIAL MEDIA AT REI (POST-LOCAL)

By the numbers: 116-ish store locations 53 markets 126 new social presences

53 Twitter 53 Facebook

300+ practitioners

Growth: Over 4,000 new fans / followers

since 7/15 (when launch was “done”).

WHAT? WHEN? HOW?(practioners)

DO’S

• Emphasize the positive

• Pay attention to detail

• Obey copyright law

• Emphasize your community

• Be responsive

• Get to know other social media users

• Use links, tagging, @mentions to build relationships

• Have fun!

Social Media & Community (SMaC U)

DON’TS

• Don’t sell

• Don’t be careless with hot button topics

• Don’t be afraid of negative comments

• Don’t use content you don’t have rights to

• Don’t be a jerk!

HOW

• Coachable moments, not mistakes / trouble / smack-down / etc.

• Environment of trust:• We trust retail staff to interact with customers every day on the shop floor.

WHY NOT online?

WHAT? WHEN? HOW?(organizationally)

LOTS OF GROUNDWORK PRE-LAUNCH

• Change-management & planning = more than a year

• Retail teams (mostly) chomping at the bit

• It takes a village:• Legal• Public Affairs• Retail Operations• Human Resources• IT• Marketing• Membership Services (aka the Call Center)

ORGANIZATIONAL FLEXIBILITY BY DESIGN

• Practitioners were self / locally nominated

• Guidance only on how many practitioners

• Multi-store markets self-organize / distribute load

• Single-store markets organized based on available resources /

skillset / interest

MANAGEMENT TOOL A MUST

• Account layer between employee & social log-in/password

• Workgroups

• Delegation between stores and between stores & HQ teams

• Ubiquitous web access

• Mobile app

• Reporting

• Built-in URL shortcuts

HOW’S IT GOING?

WHAT’S BEEN TOUGH

• Huge spectrum of social media fluency

• Remote training a challenge

• Very limited technology available at Retail• One PC image• Old browser• Limited bandwidth

• Social media management tool vital, but imperfect

• We're hitting use cases not yet considered

• Market-level strategy might not mesh with Facebook product strategy

WHAT’S WORKED WELL

Organizational trust 

Traffic is building

Enthusiasm in the broader organization 

Enthusiasm at retail

Customers are super excited

Non-profit partners are already getting engaged

QUESTIONS?

rei.com/connect@REI

@jordancwilliams

Sara Lingafelter@theclimbergirl

THANK YOU.