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‘Eleven years ago, Walmart stores President and CEO Lee Scott announced the beginning of Walmart sustainability leadership. Scott laid out three broad sustainability goals for the company: Walmart would be supplied 100% by renewable energy, eliminate waste in its operations, and create more sustainable products for its customers’ (Kelsey Lindsey, 2016) Walmart customers depend on products that are affordable. Sustainability can enhance revenues and lower costs due to using resources more efficiently.
Walmart has the responsibility to manage sustainability because of their impact on environment, society, and economy. To meet the needs of their customers and the environment practicing sustainable chemistry, ‘Walmart would work with suppliers and the industry’ (Irimia R, Gottschling M, 2016) To reduce emission by 1 gigaton from the production that is ‘equivalent to taking more than 211 million passenger vehicles off U.S. roads and highways for a year’ (Global Responsibility Report 2017) Walmart also, ‘recognize that achieving this goal will require the collective effort of their suppliers, customers, associates and other stakeholders’ (Global Responsibility Report 2017) To get to this goals Walmart has use the social media to create advertising and marketing strategies. This social media includes Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter accounts for the company.
As we all know today social median is a big impact on our life and big companies use this side to stay on communication with their customers. Facebook is one of many social medians that Walmart use with ‘34,417,888 people like and 32,690,897 people follow’ (Walmart official Facebook page). Putting a huge effort to show how the brand has grown over time since it was ‘established in 1962′(Blank & Lutz, 2017) Most Walmart’s posts are just product suggestions, ‘as well as trumpeting its sustainability credentials'(Blank & Lutz, 2017)
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Communication is a benefit on our life using social media as a platform for sustainability makes the new media able to listen to and engage stakeholders. One of the biggest fear of using Facebook social media is negative feedback are unavoidable, consumers share their opinions by posting comments about the company or their products. On the official Facebook page, you can see more negative post from people and is hard to find Walmart post about their sustainability goals, also you can find a lot of unrelated posts.
Walmart has two Pinterest accounts; one aimed product ideas and one promotes green living, the green living account has over ‘2,000 followers.'(Walmart Pinterest) Went the product-focused account has more than ‘12,000 followers'(Walmart Pinterest), this numbers speak by them self. People would always choose products over green living. ‘By asking people to share images of any product that would help then to live eco-friendlier using the hashtag #WalmartGreen. In able to win a $500 gift card Walmart launch their first competition on Pinterest received hundreds of entries'(Walmart Pinterest), they would able to share their sustainability goals for the company, also bring more young people attention to their Pinterest account Green living.
Walmart ‘environmental news get shared with the help of social media bringing awareness to the wider public’ (Holland 2016) Walmart transparency on promoting sustainability on social media, has help them to get more people involve and follow their Pinterest account. Even knowing this social media is big on our society most of the people who care about our environment would not get the message the Walmart is sending about their goal on their sustainability, because older people don’t use Pinterest. Our senior people are who care most, and they have influences on younger people.
Walmart like any other company use Twitter to develop their strategy and deliver their content to the audiences and stakeholders. @WalmartGreen is their Twitter account for talking about sustainability. Walmar use promoted Tweets to help them to engage with customers. Walmart tweets are update daily including on the weekends, this tweet cover topics like special prices, donations, funds for victims of a natural disaster, and other that shared their sustainability goals. Some of the cons of using Twitter is that they should include inspirations quotes for their goal to bring more people to their page. Also, they need to tweet more to increase followers. Having a character limit, you can only share so much on your account.
Conclusion
One of the major reasons why Walmart has a huge sustainability communication on social media accounts is because customers believe on their lowest prices and the mission to help them save money and live better lives. Walmart as make a great job thinking about the Global impact that their products have on our environment. As a costumer and consumer, I feel I can trust any Walmart product because I know the process they follow to bring to their customers the best products by taking care of our environment, Walmart us committing to sell products the follow safety laws and regulations. Also, there are making their customer to trust on their brand. Many company’s face big challenges in become environmentally friendly is one of them ‘Walmart sustainability goal is to create zero waste and renew energy by 100% making this possible would help our environment”(Walmart 2017 Global Responsibility Report). If customers get the information they need to support Walmart goal, they would be loyal customers.
