Growing Local Impact
Through Social Media
Role
Digital Marketing Intern
Shaw’s + Star Market
Timeline
Summer 2025
16 Weeks
Scope
Instagram · Facebook · TikTok ·
X · Sprout Social · Content Strategy
Building a divisional social media system that made New England's favorite grocery store feel authentically local, and delivered measurable results.
Shaw's & Star Market, New England's regional grocery banner under Albertsons, had a fundamental content problem: divisional posts were unscheduled, inconsistent, and getting lost behind national campaigns.
Over four months as Digital Marketing Intern, I built the content infrastructure including a content calendar, workflow, approval process, and creative output, that turned divisional storytelling into the top-performing content on the channel.
This work resulted in +871% impressions and divisional content ranking in the top 48 of 50 organic posts that summer.
Overview
Local grocery shoppers have a different relationship with a regional brand than they do with a national chain. The opportunity was to build a divisional voice that felt authentically New England and prove that local storytelling converts better than national content.
Create a centralized content calendar system to align divisional and national posting schedules
Develop a community-driven content strategy rooted in local events, partnerships, and in-store moments
Test and optimize content formats (reels vs. static, text overlay vs. caption-only) to identify what drives engagement
Build a scalable, repeatable workflow for post-internship sustainability
Objectives
Process
Analyzed existing Shaw's/Star Market social performance to compare divisional vs. national content
Conducted competitive analysis across other regional grocery banners and Albertsons divisions
Attended weekly ad meetings to connect upcoming promotions directly to content opportunities
Audience + Platform Research
Built a comprehensive Google Sheets content calendar (Below) tracking daily posts Friday–Thursday, aligned to ad week cycles. The calendar included concept, content type, caption, hashtags, status, and approval columns becoming the single source for all divisional social activity while tracking the national content plans as well.
Developed two content production workflows: collaborative briefs with the RRD design team for graphics, and direct in-store content shoots for Reels and event coverage.
In-store Photos and Reels
Seasonal product spotlights; one post drove a 61% increase in ID sales
Community events and local partnership features
Content Planning + CreationAfter finalizing creative and copy, posts were scheduled through Sprout Social for approval and publication. Each step followed a structured workflow:
Finalize Creative & Copy: Tailored captions, hashtags, and alt text per platform, logged directly in the calendar.
Add CTA Links: Inserted campaign-specific URLs as direct links in Facebook and X captions, or "link in bio" references on Instagram.
Target & Boost: Coordinated with digital media partners to target key demographics and promote high-priority posts.
Tagging: Applied labels like "Division Promotion," "Seasonal Moments," and "Boosted/Organic" for analytics tracking and reporting.
This process streamlined collaboration with the national team while providing full visibility into post performance, engagement, and content categorization across platforms.
Content Creation + Execution
A complete divisional social media system: content calendar infrastructure, approval workflow, cross-platform posting cadence, and a quarter's worth of community-driven content.
The system aligned national campaigns with local storytelling, created accountability across teams, and produced results that validated the local-first approach.
Testing revealed that Reels consistently outperformed static graphics, reaching up to 3.6% engagement on Instagram, with video text overlays o improving completion and retention rates compared to caption-only posts.
The Deliverables & System
+871% impressions
+1.1k% engagements and +148.7% engagement rate
+1.7k% link clicks
Top 48/50 organic posts as divisional content outperformed national posts
61% increase in ID sales following a floral promotion post
285+ divisional posts worked on
Outcomes + Metrics
Local content outperforms national when it's rooted in real community moments, the data proved that authenticity is a strategy, not just a value
Building the system matters as much as creating the content: the calendar and workflow infrastructure made everything else possible
A/B testing mid-campaign isn't optional, it's how you justify creative decisions with data instead of gut feeling