Web 2.What?

Wal-Mart has been in the news a few times with PR firm Edelman for its social media disasters. First it was Wal-marting across America, next it attempted to create its own MySpace-ish social network, which was embarrassingly shut down only 10 weeks later. Next, it smarted up and tried using Facebook to reach its younger audiences, though that failed too.

Now, I for one would like to see Wal-Mart do well. Yes, they’ve got a bad rap in the past for mistreating associates and participating in child/slave labor, but honestly I think they’ve learned their lesson for the most part, now as the world’s largest retailer they are doing good stuff for charities, promoting local and ethical products, etc. I also worked at Wal-Mart at 18, and as a job to have while in high school/college, it was great. I was promoted to customer service manager in a few months, and I was making more than most of my friends working min. wage jobs. A far cry from perfect, for the biggest retailer in the world, they are at least doing some things right.

That’s why I was happy to hear they’ve finally got the right idea with social media. Which in this case, it is starting small and building long-term strategy into its approach. User-generated reviews are a fantastic and natural fit for retailers, and Wal-Mart was even smart enough to cross promote online reviews on in-store receipts. It goes a step further and even encourages shoppers to go online and read reviews on shelf fact tags before making a purchase decision.

Essentially what Wal-Mart is doing–which is key to social media and which many retailers miss– is that it is giving up control to consumers and providing avenues to make informed purchasing decision. Yes, telling people to go online and read reviews BEFORE buying while in-store seems like a backwards strategy–that is, the customer will leave the store without buying–it’s actually genius, because that person will probably be more loyal, and buy even more, long term.

I hope Wal-Mart tracks its success well, and that the results are publicly available. For smaller retail outlets this move might seem like a risk, but Wal-Mart continues to be the leading retailer, despite its epic social media failures, so they can afford to try virtually anything. I’ll be staying tuned…

PS-Thanks to @giggey on Twitter for tipping me off to this story…

While Facebook still dominates social networking, and LinkedIn/Plaxo for the professional world, as the excitement of social networking peters off (which may not be for a while) we’ll see Facebook slowly fade out, and niche sites slowly take over (though not as noticeably)

If you look closely, a lot of niche sites are already established. However these sites are driven by interests, not mass appeal, so unless you stumble across one, or hear about it from someone else, you may never find them.

One I found today that I’m already in love with is Group Recipes. It’s social networking for foodies and I love it for a few reasons:

1. It’s all about sharing recipes - something foodies love to do!
2. It allows you to not only share, but tag, rate and post your own recipes for a killer online recipe database.
3. When you sign up, you rate a bunch of different ingredients/food types to determine your tastes, that way the content you see is relevant to you.

I think Group Recipes will do well in the ‘foodie’ space. What niche SN sites do you love??