In his BlogWell New York presentation, Walgreens' Online Community Manager, Chris Catania, shares how they use community management strategies to build relationships, support culture change, and engage employees. He gives a detailed summary of their four big challenges starting out, how they overcame those challenges, metrics from the 6-month program, and how they intend to improve moving forward. Watch the video of this presentation here: https://vimeo.com/66653506

1. Chris Catania
Using Community Management
Strategies to Build Relationships,
Support Culture Change, and
Engage Employees
This video is from
BlogWell
San Francisco
June 20, 2011
socialmedia.org/blogwell
SocialMedia.org
Case Studies
This presentation is from
BlogWell
New York
April 17, 2013
socialmedia.org/blogwell

2. Using Community Management
Strategies to Build Relationships,
Support Culture Change and Engage
Employees
Chris Catania, Online Community Manager
4/17/13
©2013 Walgreen Co. All rights reserved.

3. As We Travel Down The Path
 How we got started
 What we’ve learned during
the first miles of our
internal social journey
 How we’re evolving our
communities and social
eco-system through
strategic community
management
©2013 Walgreen Co. All rights reserved. 2

4. Our Challenge
©2013 Walgreen Co. All rights reserved. 3
 Analyze, understand and organize the current Walgreens internal social
eco-system
 Develop and manage the existing employee communities while preparing
for a social intranet rollout
 Begin demonstrating the business value of employee communities
 Live out the Walgreens Corporate Communications charter: “Connect
people to the business and each other”

5. Keys To Overcoming The Challenge
Raising The Bar: Measure with Data and Get Smarter with Strategy
“Without mastering data, you’re simply working in the dark. Without
data, you’re not a professional. Without data, you will never become
better than you are right now. You can’t optimize your activities. You
can’t proactively develop your community.”
“Strategy is, by far, the most important and most high-value work.
People who strategize well combine profound understanding of
community development with advanced project management skills...”
- Rich Millington, Buzzing Communities
©2013 Walgreen Co. All rights reserved. 4

6. Our Vision: Communities With A Purpose
©2013 Walgreen Co. All rights reserved. 5
 To produce tangible examples, stories and business use
cases that achieve the goals and objectives of our Social
Playbook.
 To develop, test and evolve the social intranet user
experience and community management strategy
 To continually demonstrate how our Social Playbook and
community management strategy supports the
Walgreens Growth Objectives.

7. How We Got Started
Executing Our Community Management
Strategy
 Created a “1-9-90” pilot community to test and
experiment with social strategy
 Listened and then engaged with the “1-9-90” within
current community ecosystem
 Asked for their “3 interests”
 Hosted one-on-one meetings and offline community
meetups
 Modeled desired community behaviors within internal
social ecosystem
 Connected members within the community and during
mini-meetups
 Conducted internal divisional and department road tours
©2013 Walgreen Co. All rights reserved. 6

8. Other Important Stuff We Did Along The Way
 Continued to refine our Social
Playbook, and align it with our
external social media policy
 Created community editorial content
calendar and connected each piece
of content to company strategy
 Regular reporting and meeting with
executive sponsors
 Engaged business units and created
cross-functional work stream teams
 Began creating framework for Center
of Excellence and Social Media
Council
©2013 Walgreen Co. All rights reserved. 7

9. Success Stories

10. ©2013 Walgreen Co. All rights reserved. 9
Our communities are helping team members to feel more
connected to the company
“This pilot experience has shown me how our community gives us
the opportunity to be more engaged and motivated while at work.
Contributing to discussions about product ideas and customer
experience has made me think more about how what I do every day
is connected to and impacts company strategy.”
- Help Center team member, shared during community Meetup
Connecting Team Members To The Business

11. Solving Problems & Saving Resources
©2013 Walgreen Co. All rights reserved. 10
Our communities are helping team members save
resources and quickly find subject matter experts
“This year, I was able to post my macro problem and
leverage the community to solve our annual macro problem.
Had I not had access to the community, it would have had
cost implications for our division as well as the company.
Our community allowed me to connect with an expert
community, allowing my problem to be solved much more
quickly and cost effectively.”
- Finance Team Member

12. The Value of SMEs & Timely Feedback
 287 comments on blog post about new Paid
Time Off policy
 78 specific responses by PTO SME
 Overwhelming positive feedback from
community on quality and timeliness of
responses
 Educating employees before the official PTO
announcement was made
 Key business use case for SME program
©2013 Walgreen Co. All rights reserved. 11

13. The Results
©2013 Walgreen Co. All rights reserved. 12
During a six-month pilot we…
 Exceeded community success metric goals:
61% Email invite accept rate
60% Profiles complete
63% Active Users
37% Participating
Self-moderating emerging and only one TOU issue.
Over 4,000 total actions, high engagement from the “90%”
Over 300 unique conversations (75% business related)
 Identified more than 20 additional business use cases and strategic community
opportunities

14. Keys To Engagement Success
©2013 Walgreen Co. All rights reserved. 13
 Hosted one-on-one pilot member meetings,
offline meetups and divisional road tours
 Engaged all segments of the “1-9-90”
 Applied consumer engagement tactics to
content and invite strategy
 Modeled and highlighted desired community
behaviors and posted regular community
updates
 Consistent and compelling business-value
storytelling
Bigfoot Risk Analysis Adds Value

15. What We’re Aiming For Next
Our Goal: demonstrate the business value of employee
communities and strategic community management.
Key actions we’re taking:
 Ongoing executive and stakeholder education
 Continue to unify and nurture our employee
communities
 Regular reporting and business value storytelling
 Continue to align our community goals with company
cultural beliefs
©2013 Walgreen Co. All rights reserved. 14

16. Thanks!
Chris Catania
chris.catania@walgreens.com

17. Learn more about past and
upcoming BlogWells
socialmedia.org/blogwell
This video is from
BlogWell
San Francisco
June 20, 2011
socialmedia.org/blogwell
SocialMedia.org
Case Studies
This presentation is from
BlogWell
New York
April 17, 2013
socialmedia.org/blogwell