Q&A with a Corporate Blogger: John Andrews and Suraya Bliss, Walmart

Have you ever wondered about the real people who run the biggest corporate blogs? This week, we’re sitting down with them to get their thoughts about the broader issues and landscape of social media at the corporate level.

John Andrews, Senior Marketing Manager for Emerging Media for Walmart
Suraya Bliss, Senior Director of Associate Communications for Walmart

Describe the key social media efforts at Walmart
At Walmart, our goal for social media is simple. Engage consumers around their passion points using saving money, easy shopping and quality products as a filter. With more than 140 million people coming through our doors each week, this extends far beyond the internet to mobile, the Smart Network our in-store interactive platform and virtually anywhere that our customer would like to interact with us.  Along with our customers, we are also finding new ways to connect with our more than 1.4 million associates about the issues they care about through the channels they want to use.

How would you summarize your roles?
To connect and serve as interface between customers and our marketing, PR, information systems, walmart.com, samsclub.com, the corporate intranet, and operations communities to help provide customers and associates better experiences at every touchpoint.

What do you love most about your jobs?
Working with teams across the company that believe in the power of new media and who are willing to do what it takes to bring ideas to life.

What is the biggest challenge you face with social media?
With 1.4 million associates and 200 million million customers in the US alone, it can be difficult to align goals and projects.

What advice do you have for marketers just beginning to utilize social media?
1. Hurry up.

2. Be willing to take risks and be willing to make mistakes.

3. Don’t think you can control the medium; your job is to leverage it.

What are your three favorite blogs?
From John:
Occam’s Razor (Avinash Kaushik)

Groundswell (Josh Bernoff)

Web-Strategist (Jeremiah Owyang)

---

Meet John and Suraya at BlogWell on October 28 in San Jose, where they will be presenting a case study on social media at Walmart entitled “Connect and Share with 200 Million of Your Closest Friends.”

Get practical, how-to advice, a lesson in disclosure and corporate social media responsibility, and loads of ideas and examples – all for $200.

BlogWell is presented by GasPedal and the Blog Council.