Firebelly’s Duncan Alney had the opportunity to speak with John Jantsch, author of Duct Tape Marketing, about his new book The Referral Engine while both were in Dallas, TX to speak at the Social Media Optimization Summits. Below is their interview:
[Video URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaTFoRSy_H4]
Chad Richards is the Social Program Manager at Firebelly Marketing. Find him on Facebook | Twitter | LinkedIn
Challenge
Firebelly was engaged to consult Boogie Burger on using Twitter best practices for business.
Approach
Firebelly developed two one-hour hands-on consulting sessions to answer questions and cover Twitter etiquette and best practices with Boogie Burger staff.
Firebelly also helped Boogie Burger create a Twitter account and set up their page. A button that links to their Twitter page was also added to the Boogie Burger website.
Results
Boogie Burger has become a proficient “tweeter” that engages with followers and fans on a daily basis. The owners are excited about the businesses it generated, saying that approximately 10% of their followers come into their restaurant on a regular basis. They are hosting their first “tweetup” for followers in April.
Challenge
Firebelly was engaged to help J.C. Hart Apartment Communities increase the number of residents who are fans of their Facebook page.
As part of on overall Internet marketing strategy, the J.C. Hart Facebook page is used primarily as an “online playground” for residents with special offers and promotions.
Approach
Firebelly developed the Show The Love Sweepstakes campaign to run during the month of February. Residents could enter for a chance to win an 8GB (PRODUCT) RED iPod Nano. The sweepstakes was seamlessly built into a custom tab on the J.C. Hart Facebook Page using a Facebook-approved third party application.
The entry form included a “Become a Fan” button that allowed those who were not already a fan of the J.C. Hart Facebook page to become a fan instantly. Entrants were also informed that they must be a fan of the page in order to be eligible to win.
Firebelly also created a custom email template for the Show The Love Sweepstakes that was emailed to all existing J.C. Hart apartment community residents informing them of the sweepstakes.
Results
Over 400 people entered the Show The Love Sweepstakes and J.C. Hart more than doubled the number of the fans on their Facebook page with a 102% increase.
Optimization Summits was nothing short of fantastic. Tami Siewruk and I were talking last November at Brainstorming about how she wanted to attend a social media conference that had a mix of presentations and hands on sessions. We commiserated about how there really isn’t a conference like that in the social space – especially when it comes down to what matters – making social media work for business (the theory and the idealism can be discussed in other spaces by other people). Tami said “That’s it I’m going to put this conference on in March (4 months away at that point) and I’m going to focus on giving people a hands on experience. Hence the tag line – see it, hear it, and do it – which is based on the concept of how people absorb information in learning experiences.
Opt Sum had some of the best people in the social space discussing case studies, providing specific next steps, and conducting hands on training that I’ve ever seen. Panels are great but there is a huge audience that wants meat and potatoes (metaphorically) in the form of training. And that’s just what Optimization Summits was. There’s cool and trendy food – see indo-chine noodles or Franco-Viet bistro fair – but what people really want is meat and potatoes. And Opt Sum delivered.
From Geno Church‘s inspiring presentation on integrating the online and offline experience to Team Juleen’s (Mark Juleen, Brent Williams, and Charity Hisle) deep look at a myriad of tools beyond Facebook – there was so much content that Mack Collier tweeted “Conference organizers: Force attendees to make a tough call on when session to attend at every time slot. Leads to WOM in the hallways”. Kim Cory put it best “I wanted to clone myself”.
Opt Sum started with a live video chat with some of the session leaders and I’ll be bringing this content to you as soon as it is available. There were extended intimate chats over dinner and karaoke that would contest the best Korean experience (in my opinion there isn’t a Korean who can’t sing – sue me if you disagree). From a speaker standpoint, this was a speaker friendly conference – speakers were excited to attend a new style of conference bringing in many well known speakers from different industries for the first time. There was an immediate and welcome sense of freshness, relevance, and excitement everywhere.
Highlights included Jason Falls strategy presentation, John Jantsch‘s generating referrals presentation, Erica Campbell‘s hands on learning on how to optimize your image and video assets, and Andy Beal‘s hands on presentation on social media monitoring. Social media is far beyond the hype cycle. The conference focused on lots of every day realities with running social media programs and integrating traditional with new media marketing.
Over the next few weeks, we’re going to be bring you content that recaps our experience at #Opt Sum. We’re going to act as curators and hope you can join the ride to make it that much better. Ciao for now!
-Duncan Alney
There’s always a lot going on in the social marketing space. I’ve scoured my favorite tweets from this week to present you with 5 news items or blog posts that I wouldn’t want you to miss:
1. How To Salvage Your Brand On Facebook: Lessons For Nestle
By Rohit Bhargava If you haven’t seen it by now, the Nestle brand* has run into a bit of a brand crisis on Facebook thanks to a combination of a coordinated attack from Greenpeace and missteps from the brand in communicating with consumers through the social media environment. This is another great example of the type of crisis that we have seen in many companies that ultimately helps to awaken their entire teams to the power of social media and how it may require a different type of thinking.
Firebelly Memo: It’s always a good idea to develop and include both a “proactive” and “reactive” response program as part of your social marketing strategy.
2. Facebook To Release A “Like” Button For the Whole Darn Internet
By Michael Arrington One of the new features we’ve been hearing about is the extension of Facebook Connect and the Facebook API to allow publishers to add a “Like” button to any piece of content on their site. Sound trivial? It isn’t. This is likely part of Facebook’s Open Graph API project that will incentivize third party sites to interact deeply with Facebook by sharing content and associated metadata.
Firebelly Memo: Don’t just focus on the social sites. “Socialize” your own website. Make it easy for visitors to bookmark, syndicate and share your content there as well.
3. Social Media: The Paradox of Choice
By Erik Qualman “What is the ROI of Social Media? We’ve faced these questions before, but with different semantics: “What is the ROI of e-mail?” “What is the ROI of Paid Search?” “What is the ROI of SEO?”
Firebelly Memo: ”Social media” is not a phase or a fad. It is a fundamental shift in the way people communicate. Sites may change and methods will evolve, but people’s desire to connect, share, and communicate online will not go away.
4. Q&A: Culture Shock, How Social Media is Changing the Culture of Business
By Brian Solis Social Media is not only changing how we communicate, we are also changing the culture of business from the outside in and from the bottom up. In doing so, businesses, of all shapes and sizes, will magnetize communities. As such, the intentional creation and crafting of a useful and meaningful culture in business will create a competitive advantage, giving people a reason to align and ultimately embody and extend your purpose and mission.
Firebelly Memo: Success is the social marketing space requires buy-in from the top. Make your social endeavors a part of your corporate culture.
5. Klout & Starbucks Team Up On Influential Twitterer Marketing.
By David Teicher Last night I received an email from Klout, the Twitter profile analysis tool and website, asking if I’d like to participate in a new program in which they pair big brands with influential Twitterers; specifically, the program is designed so that the particular promotion is directed toward – not just Twitterers with a large number of followers or those with many retweets and @mentions – but those whose posted content indicates a some sort of authority or influence.
Firebelly Memo: It’s important to remember that a user’s influence on Twitter cannot be based on their number of followers alone.
Have a great weekend everyone!
Chad Richards is the Social Program Manager at Firebelly Marketing. Find him on Facebook | Twitter | LinkedIn
I laugh every time I see the Motorola Backflip commercials on TV that feature the news anchor reporting tweets and Facebook status updates as news. While the examples in the commercial are funny, a lot of people really do get their news from Facebook, Twitter and other social sites – either by following news sources or by just reading news and information their friends have shared.
[Video URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NUMlYmrNXo]
According to the latest Retrovo Gadgetology study, 16% of social media users say that social media is the primary way they get their morning news. That number is likely to grow when you consider 42% of users check in with their social media portal or choice first thing in the morning – a sign, Retrovo suggests, that Facebook and Twitter could replace morning news for many as a source of information at the beginning of the day.
It’s not that far-fetched really. Twitter frequently breaks news before it even hits radio and TV airwaves and, in late January, Facebook began promoting itself as a news reader to users – informing them on how to create custom news feeds from multiple sites and share the information with other Facebook users.
How much of your news do you get from social sites?
