The CEO and co-founder of Instagram, Kevin Systrom, will be joining the Wal-Mart board of directors in an effort to help the chain improve its online presence.
It is a clear attempt to try and compete directly with the number one online retailer, Amazon.com.
Wal-Mart’s online sales increased by 30% last year, reaching $10 billion, however, this only represents 2% of the retail giant’s annual revenue.
More and more sites are managing to pull in clients by using photo-sharing network sites such as Instagram.
Wal-Mart is far behind its competitors when it comes to its presence on Instagram though. For example, Target has more than 362,000 followers, while Wal-Mart only has 44,000 followers.
Target has recently implemented technology that allows people who ‘like’ something they see on the Target Instagram account and later purchase the product on the store’s website. On the other hand, Wal-Mart has nothing like that.
Social networks are helping retailers attract shoppers, with Facebook and Twitter already implemented “buy buttons”, that let fans easily find and buy a product that they have “liked” on the social network.
Instagram, which currently has over 200 million monthly users, was founded in 2010 and bought out by Facebook in 2012. Systrom remains to be the CEO of the company.
Systrom’s appointment to Wal-Mart’s board represents the second major spot being taken by a Sillicon Valley CEO – Marissa Mayer, at Yahoo, was appointed in 2012.