Walmart's sustainability index launch

Unless you've been unplugged for the past week, you've likely heard that Walmart launched their much anticipated sustainability index. The content of the index has been covered extensively in the blogosphere and the MSM, so I won't go into detail here. One of the more knowledgeable recaps was posted by (no surprise) Joel Makower.

What particularly interested me was how they used online and social media to launch the index. Of course, there was the obligatory press release, but Walmart also made the "Sustainability Milestone Meeting" available for anyone to watch online. That site also included a live twitter stream from Christi, the PR manager from Walmart who was at the meeting. Her final tweet linked to the Walmart web site, where surfers can find additional information on the sustainability index and archives of the presentation.

You can even see (and embed) videos from the sustainability summit they held in Brazil last month:



However, if you're like me and don't speak Portuguese, it won't do you much good.

It was a particularly good effort on their web site, but other facets of social media could have been better. Even though they were on Twitter, no use of the #Walmart hashtag was used and it didn't appear that they answered many comments or questions. In fact, I couldn't find anywhere that they were engaging the public or seeking feedback. With the large audience this launch no doubt drew, I think they missed an opportunity. According to another tweet from Christi, Walmart CIO Rollin Ford pledged that they would "stay connected to our customers thru social media." It will be interesting to see how they plan to do that.