2 November 2009 - 11:05The Whole Tweet

Twitter, twitter, twitter… You can’t swing a digital cat in cyberspace without hitting a tweeter, but out on the streets, what would the chances be? Plum in front of the entrance of the Union Square Whole Foods store is a sandwich board telling shoppers to follow them on twitter. So we took a peak.

Weighing in with 1,544,264 followers, the global @wholefoods account is a big hitter. The New York account @wholefoodsnyc is growing steady at 4,889 followers (at time of writing).

Where a lot of corporate accounts tend to drift between product dissemination and pleasant chatter, Whole Foods adopts more of a real time discussion forum approach, inviting followers to request refunds or make inventory suggestions. It may be a little dry for some, but as a grocer that caters to special interest and needs of consumers, twitter is an ideal platform to interact with these customers and, ultimately, build great relevant content for the brand.

For Whole Foods, twitter is like 24/7 customer service hotline + food information source + special alerts for local stores with just enough whimsy without being cute, so interacting at street level is important. It’s a reminder that the online and the offline are not mutually exclusive.