Target Community Relations

According to Target’s website, every time they build a new store, they bring their legacy of giving and service to the community around it through local programs and partnerships they support.

Target is constantly gibing back to numerous communities around the country. One of the biggest things Target does is provide educational grants to local K-12 schools to support educational field trips, early childhood reading programs, and participation in the arts. Target has officially reached their goal to give over $1 billion for education.

One of the ways Target gives back is through food donations to Feeding America. Target has been paired with Feeding America since 2001 to end hunger in the United States. Target donates millions of pounds of food every year to Feeding America. One program they do this through is Meals for Minds, which brings food to K-12 students and families in need. Not only does Target give to communities across the United States, but they also give to countries across the world. Target team members live and work in nearly 30 different countries, so Target launched their international Giving Program to support disaster relief and education programs for people who live in those countries as well.

Target is constantly donating their time to numerous organizations and causes they lose. In 2014 alone team members donated over one million hours to a wide arrangement of organizations.

Target also supports their communities through projects for the United Way. Target employees donate their time and money to their local communities as a part of their annual United Way campaign.

Another way Target gives back is through public safety grants. Target believes that creating safe and secure neighborhoods for their guests as well as their team members is very important. Target began its Target and BLUE effort in 1990 to form connections with law enforcement, public safety and criminal justice agencies and to share their programs, resources, and ideas. Target awards grant to public safety agencies and programs to prevent crime, train and educate law enforcement and support youth programs. Target also hosted approximately 250 events in communities across the U.S in 2015 through their annual Heroes and Helpers events. These events impact over 15,000 kids and their families.

Target is very involved in communities across the globe and is constantly giving back. Target is very involved with community relations and their team members are doing more than just selling and promoting their products.

Target's Social Media

Target is very active on numerous social media platforms. From Twitter, to Instagram, to Facebook, and even YouTube, Target makes its presence well-known.

On Twitter, Target is very active with its customers; whether it be informing them of sales, replying to their questions, or just conversing with them. They provide a friendly and entertaining way of tweeting, as they may quote people's tweets. The tweets they quote may not even tag Target in it, but just mention the name so the Twitter account can search it and see it.

They are very personable from their tweets and also tweet about deals they may be having in their store or online. They also do a good job of posting at relevant times. They tweet maybe once or twice a day, so they're staying active but they're not constantly clogging people's feeds.

On Facebook, Target posts about some certain promotions they have going on as well as pictures from large-scale events. For example, country singer Garth Brooks announced that he's making an album that will solely be sold at Target, so Target made a post about it on Facebook.

Target also uses Facebook to connect with customers. Oftentimes, customers will comment on Target's Facebook posts with related or even unrelated questions/comments/concerns and Target will provide a response to them. Their responses are very personable and makes the customer feel important, which is imperative to building relationships with consumers.

Target also uses Instagram as another platform of social media. On Instagram, they post creative images with witty, fun captions that are personable to the consumers. They post about some deals they're having without being so serious and blunt about them.

Lastly, Target uses YouTube as a form of social media. On Youtube, Target posts videos that are short and attention-grabbing and fun. The videos are about current promotions in the store or things that may be "in" at the moment.

Overall, Target does a great job and is very active on numerous social media platforms. They are very personable and responsive to consumers' needs.

Introduction

 To begin the first blog post of many, I would like to introduce myself! I am Vanilla Ice and I am a junior public relations major, marketing minor at Fairfield University. I am a passionate, driven student leader and I always chase my goals, no matter how big or small. This semester I have the amazing opportunity to intern for a non-profit organization, The Make-A-Wish Foundation of Connecticut. There is a special place in my heart for non-profit organizations, especially Make-A-Wish, as I have admired it since I was eight years old. I don’t know if I want to work in non-profit or corporate public relations, but hopefully between the corporate PR class I’m taking as well as my internship at a non-profit, I will be able to narrow it down.

The company I’ve decided to blog about over the course of this semester is Target. 

I chose Target because I am a loyal customer to this store and often find myself wandering in their aisles for what could be hours when I only came in for one thing. I may only come in to buy milk, vitamins, and shampoo, but I know I’ll walk out with those items, clothes, earrings, snacks, notebooks, and approximately another $35 worth of unnecessary purchases.

Target is currently one of the largest discount retailers in the United States. Target was founded in 1902 by George Draper Dayton and was first known as Dayton Dry Goods Company. The first "real" Target was opened in 1962 in Roseville, Minnesota with a focus on convenient shopping at competitive, discounted prices. Today, there are 1,795 Target retail stores and 38 distribution centers in the United States. There are also a few stores in Canada as well as a Target headquarter in India. Consumers can shop online at Target.com and can get their products shipped internationally. Target's current CEO is Brian Cornell, Jason Goldberger is the president of Target.com and the Chief Digital Designer, and the Chief Operating Officer is John J Mulligan.

Target's brand promise is for customers to "expect more, pay less". Since 1946, the corporation has given 5 percent of its income to communities through grants and a variety of programs, which equates to approximately $4 million per week, and also offers a store credit card where customers save 5% on every purchase at Target. The retailer sells a wide arrangement of products to its' loyal customers; ranging from food to toiletries to clothes to electronics to furniture to books to toys and everything in between.

Target has a reputation for being a "classier" Walmart, which is the largest discount retailer in the United States. People find that Target has better options, is a cleaner store, has better employees, and is classier than it's largest competitor. One event that has damaged the corporation's reputation was during 2013 holiday season when Target suffered a major hack. The hacker stole credit and debit card data from over 40 million accounts.Target said it would offer affected customers a free credit monitoring service and set up a telephone hotline. They also offered a store-wide 10% discount the weekend after the event took place. Target took action as soon as they were aware of what had happened. However, in 2015, two years after the incident, Target announced they would pay up to $10,000 to each customer who was affected by the hack. They did this to help boost their reputation and to let customers know how truly sorry they are for the incident in hopes to regain trust by shoppers.

Target uses social media websites, such as Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook to communicate with customers and inform them about new deals or promotions. On their official Twitter, @Target, employees respond to tweets that are addressed to their account in a friendly, personable way. No matter if the original comment is positive or negative, they try to make the response positive and help the original user the best they can if needed. On Instagram, fun graphics are posted to inform people about certain brands at the store as well as certain product promotions. On Facebook, the official Target page posts many photos or videos to inform about promotions the stores may be having. For example, in the middle of August, they posted a quick graphic about back to school shopping. When Facebook users comment on their posts with questions, concerns, or comments about their experiences or anything else, a representative will reply to the original comment with feedback and support to help the person. They do this to build a relationship with the customers and to let the customers know that their concerns are important to the corporation, whether their comments are positive or negative.

Overall, Target seems to have pretty good PR, especially on their social media. Their personable approach reminds customers that they are a friendly corporation. However, they may want to be a little more mature on some of their social media, and could consider taking away "emojis" from their responses on Twitter if they are deemed unnecessary. To boost their reputation, they could post a little more often as their social media presence isn't as apparent as some of their competitors.