
Driving engagement and community connection through local storytelling of New England’s favorite grocery store, Shaws & Star Market
Growing Local Impact at Shaw’s & Star Market
Timeline: 4 months (2025)
Tools: Sprout Social, Canva, CapCut, Microsoft Suite, Google Workspace
Collaboration: RRD Designers, Marketing & Merchandising teams
Role: Digital Marketing Intern
Client: Shaw’s & Star Market (Albertsons Companies)
Platforms: Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, X/Twitter
During my summer internship at Shaw’s & Star Market, I focused on strengthening the company’s local presence through divisional social media strategy and content creation. By organizing a divisional content calendar, supporting campaign development, and producing original posts, graphics, and reels, I helped align local initiatives with national promotions.
The result was a data-driven, community-centered approach that led to a significant performance increase: +871% impressions, +1.1k% engagements, and +1.7k% link clicks, with divisional content ranking among the top 48 out of 50 organic posts that summer.
Shaw’s and Star Market are sister grocery brands operating under Albertsons Companies. While they maintain separate social channels, both banners work as one cohesive New England division. Albertsons supports each division by providing national campaign materials & creative assets to ensure consistency across all regions.
Summary
Challenges
Before I came on board, there was no established system to ensure that divisional content was being planned and posted consistently. While national campaigns brought broad awareness, local posts often went unscheduled or overlapped with other initiatives. As a result, divisional content that connects directly with the local community, lacked visibility and impact.
The challenge was to create a cohesive approach that aligned Shaw’s & Star Market with Albertsons’ national creative direction while allowing the division to establish its own authentic voice. Without an organized process, divisional marketing efforts risked being overshadowed by national content, leaving local events, partnerships, and retail focuses underrepresented.
The Strategy
Collaborated with the marketing, digital, and design teams to bring structure to divisional planning through a centralized content calendar.
Streamlined scheduling and alignment between national campaigns and local initiatives.
Highlighted community stories and divisional retail focuses through strategic, engaging content.
Established a consistent cross-platform posting process with clear tracking and approval steps.
Leveraged analytics and A/B testing to refine creative formats and improve engagement.
Research
Before developing any content, I began by analyzing Shaw’s & Star Market’s existing social performance to understand how divisional posts compared to national content. I also completed a competitive analysis to identify best practices among other grocery retailers and Albertson banners.
Ideation
To ensure divisional alignment, I joined weekly ad meetings where upcoming promotions and retail focuses were discussed. Then, I used these conversations to connect social strategy directly to the weekly circular and ongoing business initiatives.
Planning
We created a comprehensive divisional content calendar in Google Sheets, designed to organize content, track progress, and align divisional posts with the national team’s.
The calendar included:
Daily post tracking (Friday–Thursday) aligned to ad weeks
Columns for concept, content type, captions, & hashtags
Sections for status updates and approval tracking
Tabs for inspiration, upcoming holidays, and business priorities
Process
This calendar became the foundation for divisional social planning, allowing all teams to visualize how upcoming posts tied into both national initiatives and local retail focuses.
Key Content Types:
Once concepts were mapped out, I moved into production, developing content through two key workflows:
Creative Development Assets: Collaborated with the RRD design team, I drafted creative briefs in the Job Log and was responsible to reviewing versions of social media graphics, and additional assets.
In-Person Content Shoots: Captured photo & video content in store and at events like the South Yarmouth Grand Re-Opening and Boston 25 commercial shoot, then edited assets in CapCut & Canva.
These types of posts aligned with divisional priorities such as Floral or pre-packaged Ready Meals, highlighting the direct connection between social strategy and in-store performance.
EX: Following a floral promotion post on social media, we saw a 61% increase in ID sales.
After finalizing creative & copy, I scheduled posts through Sprout Social for approval and publication. Each step followed a structured workflow:
Finalize Creative & Copy: Tailored captions, hashtags, and alt text per platform (within calendar).
Add CTA Links: Inserted campaign-specific URLs like direct links in Facebook and X captions, or “link in bio” references on Instagram.
Target & Boost (I/A): Coordinated with digital media partners to target demographics & promote key posts.
Tagging: Used labels such as “Division Promotion,” “Seasonal Moments,” and “Boosted/Organic” for analytics tracking.
This process streamlined collaboration with the national team while providing visibility into post performance, engagements, and content categorization across platforms.
Scheduling
These results informed future creative decisions & guided seasonal promotions and upcoming divisional campaigns.
Content Type: Compared short-form reels vs. static product graphics, which showed that reels consistently achieved higher engagement rates (up to 3.6% on Instagram).
Copy Placement: Tested text on-screen vs. caption-only videos, revealing that adding concise text overlays improved completion and retention rates.
Influencer Integration: Measured influencer reels vs. static recipe posts, with influencer content generating higher impressions and stronger click-through performance.
A/B Testing
Solution:
Building a cohesive social media system that made divisional storytelling both strategic and scalable.
The foundation was the Google Sheets content calendar, which became the hub for every stage of planning, from concept to post. The system streamlined communication between the marketing, digital, and design teams, ensuring divisional content was consistently aligned with both national campaigns and local business focuses.
Overall, we created a seamless process that connected strategy, storytelling, and measurable performance. Designed not only to drive engagement but to reinforce community connection, we crafted Shaw’s & Star Market’s divisional voice to feel authentic and local, while still reflecting Albertsons’ national brand identity.
Deliverables:
Divisional Social Media Campaigns: Posts and reels highlighting regional initiatives such as floral promotions, farmer partnerships, and local events.
Event Coverage: Photo and video content captured and edited from major activations like the South Yarmouth Grand Re-Opening and Boston 25 commercial shoot, helping bring behind-the-scenes stories to life online.
Creative Development Assets: Designed divisional social media graphics in collaboration with the RRD design team, ensuring each piece followed brand guidelines while retaining local relevance.
A/B Testing Series: Conducted experiments comparing posts to identify what resonated most with audiences on each platform.
Results comparing impact of the last two periods
Divisional: 285 posts
+871% in impressions
+1.1k% in engagements
+220% in avg. reach per post
+1.7k% in post link clicks
+148.7% in engagement rate*
All (national included): 400 posts
+117% in impressions
+92% in engagements
+27% in avg. reach per post
+955% in post link clicks
+16% in engagement rate*
These metrics reflected how localized, community-driven content outperformed national posts, proving that audiences connected more deeply with divisional storytelling.
*The number of times users engaged with your content as a percentage of impressions
Key Insights:
Consistency drives clarity: The new content calendar brought structure and visibility to divisional posting, ensuring alignment with both national and local priorities.
Localization builds loyalty: Posts tied to community events, regional products, or in-store activations performed significantly higher than generic brand content.
Data links creativity: Regular performance tracking and A/B testing helped shape a more strategic approach to future campaigns, showing which formats (reels, carousels, and event coverage) generated the strongest response.
Reflection:
Through this experience, I gained valuable hands-on insight into how data and storytelling work together to strengthen a brand’s digital presence. From planning and creative direction to scheduling and analysis, I learned how to design a full-circle social process that brings people together around the joys of food, just as the brand’s mission promises.
Collaborating closely with the marketing and design teams gave me a deep appreciation for the balance between creativity and strategy. Every piece of content contributed to a larger story to achieve the goal of connecting communities.