Inside Walmart’s digital strategy
Two Walmart communications pros share how the retail giant is taking control of its reputation. Steal a few lessons from its playbook.
When your organization has thousands of stores worldwide, you’re bound to have some reputational problems.
Such is the case with Walmart, a brand that has battled countless rumors about the way it treats its employees, customers and the communities it serves.
“We know what the stories are,” Chad Mitchell, senior director of digital communications at Walmart, told a captive audience at Ragan’s Social Media Conference for PR, Marketing and Corporate Communications on March 28. “When you employ 2.3 million people and have 11,000 stores, you’re bound to have vulnerabilities.”
How can an organization not only squash those rumors, but ensure that the public’s perception of the company matches reality?
Mitchell and Dan Kneeshaw, senior director of global associate communications at Walmart, revealed the retail giant’s approach in a session titled, “Down to basics: The building blocks of a winning digital strategy.”
Here are their takeaways:
1. Create a functional structure.
Internal communications is dead. Or, if it isn’t, it will be soon, Mitchell said.
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