Walgreens: Strategic Social Media Management

TL;DR: A longtime partnership to fuel strategic, creative community management and content creation that exceeded the client’s overall goals and expectations.

 

the concept

For over six years, Geben was a strategic embedded social partner and voice for Walgreens and its family of brands. Geben led all community management efforts and worked directly with Walgreens’ internal digital marketing while interfacing with their customer service, legal, HR, and operations teams on related matters.

In addition to daily management, Geben was tasked with supporting community management during Red Nose Day, a national fundraiser undertaken each spring to help lift children out of poverty. For Walgreens, a digital and social marketing effort was integral to the success of the company’s involvement — especially with the live component of the Red Nose Day event. Geben was brought in as a partner to create a compelling approach to community management and content, ultimately allowing Walgreens to reach more than 82 million fans across Twitter and Facebook through the Red Nose Day partnership.

the execution

As an embedded social media partner, Geben led and was responsible for: 

  • Creating social media content across all channels for all brands and business units

  • Conceptualizing and executing paid social campaigns and strategies for all brands

  • Providing insight, analytics and strategic recommendations based on social performance on a weekly, monthly, campaign and end-of-fiscal year basis.

In addition to the above, staffing Walgreen’s social media accounts everyday between the hours of 8am ET -10pm ET, allowed the Geben team to hop on engagements as they occur. For example, when Al Green shared a photo of a Walgreens sign that an artist turned into an “algreens” sign — our team immediately shared the Tweet with an Al Green lyric. The internet exploded with a positive response, moving up to #12 on national Twitter trends with 8.2k shares and 45k likes. 

 
Walgreens Al Green.png
 

We’ve worked alongside their team to develop metrics of success around their core social objectives – reach, community growth, and engagement. Since our relationship began, we’ve delivered consistent results that exceed their goals and expectations. 

the result

Throughout the entirety of our relationship, we delivered consistent results that exceed their goals and expectations. Notable results include:

  • 3.6% Twitter engagement rate (Walgreens goal is 1 - 2%)

  • 3 Billion & 7 Billion Facebook content reach & impressions (respectively)

  • 30,000 Twitter audience growth (+5,962% in the 1st month)

  • 290,000 Facebook audience growth

  • 190,000 Instagram audience growth