Where Should We Shop?
There may be a job opening in the social media department at Walmart. That’s in light of the Twitter blunder committed in the company’s name last Wednesday.
It started when U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri declared he would oppose the electoral college vote this week, and posted his statement about it on Twitter–including pointing out that Democrats in the Senate have done the same thing twice in the past two decades against Republican winners. Obviously when a high profile figure like a U.S. Senator posts something on social media, there will be those who respond against it.
One said, “Go ahead. Get your 2 hour debate. #soreloser.” Not a horrible response, compared with some…but this was from the official account of Walmart.
Hawley responded, by himself tweeting, “Thanks @Walmart for your insulting condescension. Now that you’ve insulted 75 million Americans, will you at least apologize for using slave labor?” And added, “Or maybe you’d like to apologize for the pathetic wages you pay your workers as you drive mom and pop stores out of business.”
The company quickly deleted the tweet and apologized…on a separate, corporate account–not the one used to criticize the senator.
Pretty easy to figure out what happened. One of those responsible for tweeting on Walmart’s behalf had the wrong account up on his or her screen, and responded from the company account instead of his or her own. That’s my guess at least.
But it does mean two things…either Walmart really does feel that way, in which case I’m not inclined to shop there…or else the person Walmart lets tweet to us about what a wonderful company they are feels quite strongly in their personal life in a way different from a majority of Walmart’s customers…in which case I’m also not inclined to shop there.
The founder of Walmart, Sam Walton, once said, “There is only one boss–the customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else.”
Looks like they’ve given us a chance to prove that theory.
