@WAGSocialCare: Walgreens creates dedicated site for Twitter customers

DEERFIELD, Ill. — Walgreens on Friday launched @WAGSocialCare, a Twitter customer hotline that takes on complaints and praise from Walgreens customers via the social media site. The site is being followed only by 20 "tweeters" through Monday, as compared with the more-than 90,000 who follow Walgreens' corporate Twitter account.

However, there already is a celebrity sighting — the first celebrity tweet to be retweeted on the new @WAGSocialCare came from Tabatha Coffey, host of Bravo's "Tabatha Takes Over," who tweeted: "@Walgreens I'm [in] love with your 'Look Boutique' just went to my first one and sales girls were lovely."

Walgreens' activity in the social media space so far in 2012 has been substantial. For example, the company's exclusive partnership with LocalResponse went viral with a recently published Ad Age report. LocalResponse manages a new mobile advertising tool that delivers branded messaging to those consumers who just "checked in" at one of its locations. According to the Ad Age report, Walgreens in January pushed out more than 5,000 messages via Twitter with a Halls cough drops call to action: "Check out Halls' new cough drops in the cold aisle." Timely, given that January traditionally is a time when incidence of cold and flu begin picking up.

In addition, Walgreens successfully generated some back-and-forth between its patients and Express Scripts over Walgreens' exit from Express Scripts' pharmacy network. According to Walgreens officials, the amount of Walgreens pharmacy patients who chimed in on that tweet numbered in the tens of thousands, with a positive-to-negative ratio (regarding their experience at Walgreens) of 12-to-1. The move  drew the social media ire of Express Scripts, which countered Walgreens' sponsorship of #ILoveWalgreens with a series of six "facts" tweets.