Thursday, Jun. 18, 2009
Getting Social
What does the Strand bring to the world's largest cocktail party?
In October, Franchising World magazine’s Ken Colburn defined social media as “a general reference to the various Internet resources that allow anyone to participate and share in an open, conversational community that relies heavily on connecting people and resources. It’s transforming the Internet into the world’s largest cocktail party and any discussion about any topic will find interested participants.” The fact that the quote is coming from a business journal under the umbrella of Entrepreneur Magazine is merely one of many indications that social media has been grabbing more and more attention in traditional media and is no longer the domain of hipsters and students alone.
Social media sites such as MySpace and Facebook are seeing a surge in signups from folks well into their thirties and beyond, sometimes to the chagrin of their children or grandchildren – looking to find old chums and stay connected and perhaps to keep tabs on the same children, grandchildren and extended family. Social media is a busybody’s wet dream. Imagine what “Bewitched” character Gladys Kravitz could have done with this technology.
And if one can get to the point in 140 characters or less, then Twitter is the de facto platform for such brevity. Thanks to the likes of Oprah Winfrey and Ashton Kutcher, Twitter has exploded onto the world stage. A flutter of condolences for the late David Carradine came across the Twitter transom in the form of “celebrity tweets” from the likes of Rob Thomas, Margaret Cho and Kirstie Alley. And Elizabeth Taylor is said to have utilized the same service from her hospital bed – attempting to smuggle in her new puppy and to let her fans know she was all right. It is common knowledge that the Obama camp integrated many social media components to enhance campaign efforts and Obama himself is now the first president to keep a Blackberry close at hand.
Twitter, along with MySpace, FriendFeed, Facebook and countless other communities, has become a useful tool for businesses to connect with savvy consumers. Hyundai Corporation, for one, has added a cash incentive to new owners who spread the word about their cars in cyberspace, although many of these consumers see that as simply a repositioning of existing manufacturer rebates. As we shall see, businesses must tread lightly on the social media landscape or risk losing credibility.
But what of the Grand Strand? Join us as we take a decidedly non-technical look at the social networking phenomenon on the local level – what works and what doesn’t and why more and more folks are plugging in and getting connected. We turned to well-connected local sources for help, and have included their Twitter user names for fun. We’ll also help you get going on Twitter in the accompanying sidebar on page 12.
RANDOM STREAMS
“Facebook is social. Twitter is narcissism,” quips Facebook user Marc Sparks, owner of Creative Sparks Productions, a video production company in Flagstaff, Ariz. At first glance, entering information into the “what are you doing” field at up to 140 characters at a pop for all of your online friends to see might be construed as narcissistic. What to say? Is “going to the bathroom” acceptable? Do we really need our friends to know what we’re up to at every moment?
Local artist and blogger Rocky Dohmen signed up for Twitter shortly after its inception in 2006, primarily so he could snag his @rocky username. “When it first started, I didn’t really get it,” says Dohmen. “It seemed like a stream of randomness. I didn’t look into the mechanics of [Twitter].” It was only after he developed and placed an application with Apple for the iPhone called Wake N Play that he started “tweeting” in earnest. “I found a bunch of local geeks to befriend and actually met them on the local level.”
Dohmen calls it a community where everyone can feel like they won’t miss something – especially in regard to local events or meet-ups. “Print is fine, but if you miss a week of a local paper, you might miss a whole bunch of events. If you are following somebody on a social network – you can know what’s happening tonight or tomorrow. You can plan your week out more and where you are going to spend your money. You can see where an event is – and you’ll know if your buddies will be around. You can help keep getting the word out – and if visitors see that stream, they will know where to go where the locals are hanging out.” When it comes to using these services from mobile devices, the appeal is strengthened. “It’s like, ‘I’m here – let’s hang out’. People can come and find you.”
Dohmen cautions against dishonesty. Because most media outlets utilize user or viewer generated breaking news, the temptation for some to lie can be irresistible “Some people say they are on the scene when they are not – like the Mumbai attacks – people were saying they were there but they were really in Los Angeles.” He frowns on collecting online friends or “follows” for the sake of sheer numbers. “It’s the same as those MySpace whores that always want to have a million friends,” he says. That takes away from the human element and becomes competition with yourself or another friend of yours. The whole point is relationships with people.”
Indeed, making connections with this human element seems to be the basis for social media’s mass appeal.
“Twitter lets you start new relationships with people you don’t know in a wonderful organic way,” asserts David Benardo [@benardo] of Pinkerton SouthBrand Advertising [www.pinkertonsouth.com]in Myrtle Beach. “What I love about it is that it’s very light. It doesn’t give you time to beat around the bush,” he says. “What you say in your little tweets [should be] true about your personality.” Benardo maintains that he has learned more from people he has already known simply by interacting on Twitter. “These are people who I never thought would be on Twitter. That defies any preconception you may have had about it.”
Benardo was invited to attend an event in New York this week called 140 Characters Conference – a two-day Twitter throw-down covering every imaginable aspect of the ever-evolving service. He is responsible for a fictitious character with more than 2000 followers, and actually won the event’s online “I Am a Character” video contest. “Twitter is wide open for so many unique ways to use it – so I am ready to be hit over the head with new concepts.”
After doing a presentation about Twitter last March for members of AAF-Coastal Carolinas, a local advertising organization, Benardo came away slightly perplexed. “Out of the 20 people who hovered around our table afterwards, only one lady signed up for Twitter and started following me. It’s just not there.” Benardo blogged recently that “Twitter is still a featherless little chick waiting for mom’s waffle fries” in relation to the business community on the Grand Strand – the implication being that the community has not yet fully lived up to its potential in regard to the use of this service.
TWITTER AND LOCAL BUSINESS
“Twitter is my new bestfriend,” enthuses Becky Billingsley [@RestaurantGal], freelance journalist and CEO of the Food Syndicate, a group of companies covering the food and restaurant industries on the Grand Strand, including daily online restaurant news through Myrtle Beach Compass [www.myrtlebeachrestaurantnews.com], an annual print publication, The Top 100 Grand Strand Restaurants, and Grand Strand Culinary Tours. “Twitter gives me such an immediate result to what I have always been after – an audience – and I like to be brief when I am making statements to the world. I can practice my craft when I am writing an article, but to get the word out about my articles, I love the brevity of Twitter.”
Billingsley, who has been utilizing Twitter for less then a year, says she can see an immediate bump in page views after she tweets a headline and links it. “The Compass people are implementing a sidebar on the home page that will link to advertisers’ tweets, and they are going to put my tweets on there too.” A symbiotic relationship comes into play here, to be sure.
The fact that so many local businesses do not have a Web presence here is mind-blowing to Billingsley. “I think there is no excuse for it, actually – because the price is low enough where you can have your own Web site for less than $200 a year,” she says, adding that Myrtle Beach Compass boasts a Yellow Page index, offering businesses a Web presence that way along with SEO – or Search Engine Optimization – to make sure the business is easily searchable.
“What do you do if you’re hungry for something and you’re new in town? You do a Web search for seafood restaurants and see what pops up. People who are not taking advantage of that are clueless, I guess.”
Because her passion lies in the culinary realm, Billingsley actively sought out chefs when she first got started on Twitter. “It was fascinating to me to know what the special was going to be in Piccadilly and a bistro in Paris or a little seaside café in Spain – and then there’s a chef down in Australia that I follow regularly. You see a pattern emerge on what the trends are in the whole culinary world. It’s fascinating.” We can see the inherent value, especially for a food journalist, to have one’s finger on the pulse. “That’s a new thing,” she says. “What did we have to do before this? We had to depend on Gourmet and other publications to tell us what the trends were. Now we can see it happening before our eyes.”
Billingsley echoes Benardo’s sentiments about whether the local business community is coming into its own with regard to social media. “It’s just barely scratching it. The big players, the hotels and restaurant groups and a few savvy small restaurants are grasping it, but the day-to-day ‘do-you-tweet/of-course-I-do’ – no, that’s not happening yet – but I’m trying, I’m trying – to spread the word.”
As an example of the power and immediacy of Twitter, Billingsley illustrates: “Let’s say it’s a slow Tuesday night and you need butts in the seats. You can tweet ‘Anybody reading this tweet who makes it into our restaurant and mentions twitter within the next 90 minutes will get a free appetizer.’” Restaurant/brewery chain Gordon Biersch frequently adds points to Passport Rewards Club member cards exclusively on Twitter.
Benardo reminds us about Tony Hsieh, CEO of online shoe juggernaut Zappos, who tweets constantly. “I read that he was going to be in a certain bar in San Francisco and tweeted that he’d buy drinks for everyone who came in with a “Z” on their forehead within a certain time. He bought 37 people a drink.” The philosophy is to make real connections in interesting and compelling ways.
TECH DOG
Last year, local entrepreneur and software developer PaulReynolds [@bakersdog] teamed with Tracy Johnson of Bone Appetit Pet Bakery and opened The Baker’s Dog in Myrtle Beach, which their Web site lists as a retail store and pet bakery offering all-natural dog treats. Customers can have their dogs’ pictures printed on product labels, customized on demand with no minimum order requirements.
“When we started the Baker’s Dog – we knew it was going to have a technology slant to it,” says Reynolds. “That’s when we came up with the idea of these custom photo treats. We do the packaging here at the store and make the treats. Online, customers upload their dog’s photo and can order a bag with the photo printed on it.” Reynolds, who wrote the software for the process, says this can only be done online. The on-demand aspect, with very little up front cost, is appealing to customers who don’t have to wait weeks for set up and printing.
Issues beyond their control kept Johnson and Reynolds from opening the store until December of last year, a dangerous prospect in Myrtle Beach – which is still so seasonal. “I told Tracy that it was going to be dead in the store and that I was going to spend most of my free time doing what I could online.” Reynolds set about building the online store from scratch, as well as working on the store’s Facebook and Twitter presence.
“That was the whole idea – that our online presence was hopefully going to offset the slow winter months. Our logic was that not every community is seasonal like ours, so if I could get a handful of customers from communities across the country, we wouldn’t have such a seasonal drop.”
Reynolds asserts that Twitter has been a boon for business. “I have just been very genuine on Twitter – I haven’t tried to be a constant sales pitch. I took notes on how I saw people doing things I liked or didn’t like on Twitter, and spent a lot of time with this. We have gotten a lot of direct sales directly attributed to Twitter.”
Is Twitter merely a tool to drive customers to traditional Web sites or marketing efforts?
“It’s not so much about trying to get people to the Web site. It’s more about being a presence, and I wouldn’t necessarily post links to our site all the time. My theory is that if I am an interesting person on Twitter – if I am a positive contributor to this little online community, people will take the time to find out what our Web site is. They will click on my name and find out more about us. I don’t have to shove the link down their throat.”
Reynolds says he has participated in Twitter-based events like contests and scavenger hunts and has sponsored online giveaways. “But we don’t necessarily send them to www.bakersdog.com. To me, that’s the older way of thinking – that you have to get a ton of traffic to your site.
On Facebook, Reynolds posts videos and photos. “We have done three podcasts as well,” he says.
Because Reynolds saw so many businesses making mistakes on Twitter, he developed an e-booklet (www.bakersdog.com/ebook) – a tongue-in-cheek guide to Twitter success, which he developed primarily for CreateSouth, a yearly creativity conference in Myrtle Beach.
“We’ve built repeat business from Twitter people, but not from casting a broad net,” says Reynolds. “It’s entertainment. It’s not marketing and it’s barely even PR. I couldn’t hire somebody to do this for me. You see people tweeting on behalf of other businesses. These old world media marketing people see this power – this huge audience and these direct connections and they are beating their heads against the wall, like ‘how can we harness that?’”
Benardo couldn’t agree more. “The thing about Twitter that the agencies here don’t understand is that it is incredibly transparent when someone goes Twittering or fake Twittering. They don’t get that because a lot of them are not actually using Twitter. They are throwing all this stuff out there like a billboard.”
But more and more advertising agencies and marketing companies are indeed seeing the value in Social media. On May 27, representatives from The Brandon Agency issued a press release announcing that the agency has launched a social media campaign for Crescent Bank “in an effort too engage potential customers and reinforce the bank’s brand message.”
In the press release, M.J. Huggins, president of Crescent Bank, said, “Having a Facebook page allows us to engage our customers and potential customers in a totally different way. The Brandon Agency has really pushed us to focus our marketing efforts online and adding quantitative analytics so that we understand what we are getting from our marketing investment. We look forward to the positive response our new page will bring.”
“Our agency is excited about the launch of Crescent Bank’s social media effort. Facebook is just the first step for Crescent Bank to use social media to create touch points and actively engage customers,” said Scott Brandon, president and CEO of The Brandon Agency, in the same press release. “Our goal is to use Facebook and other social media tools to reach people that we typically would not have reached with traditional media and to engage them in a meaningful way so that they will want to become a customer of the bank.”
FURTHERING THE CAUSE
Local life coach, speaker, radio host and author [“The Reverse Diet,” The Reverse Diet Cookbook”]Tricia Cunningham [@Tricia_2009] is no stranger to social media and is far from shy when it comes to standing up for what she believes in. As a spokesperson for HELP, or Help Eliminate Lousy Politicians, Cunningham has been very visible in local media in recent weeks, pushing for equal representation in Myrtle Beach through single-member districts on City Council.
Traditional leg work has resulted in signing up hundreds of new members at local HELP booths. “Volunteers spend hours educating potential members and registering new voters for local, county, state and national elections,” she says, adding that social media has made a definite difference. “Now that our Web site is active [www.helpformyrtlebeach.com], we have been able to reach a much broader number of individuals locally and around the country.”
Cunningham created a HELP fan page on Facebook which hosts 600 members and counting – and like Billingsley, says Twitter is her BFF (Best Friend Forever). “There are hundreds of news media, friends and more following me personally on Twitter. I post our news, local activities, events and locations on a minute-to-minute basis. If we get a call from a business wanting us to set up a table for happy hour – we post it and they are there.”
Cunningham advises the community to use Twitter wisely: “Remember your followers and others are seeing all that you are posting and sometimes what you post can make or break you. No one wants to know if a business owner is plucking her eyebrows at three in the morning or just stepped into a massive puddle in the front yard. The best advice is – if you have a question whether or not to post – don’t post.”
IN DEFENSE OF MYSPACE
Local musician Phil Fox has been a part of the local music scene for years, most notably with his band, Wicked Gift, which isstagingits play/illustrated concert, “Down For The Summer” at FreshBrewed Coffee House in Myrtle Beach on June 27 and July 11. Although the band already has a MySpace presence, a new page was created specifically for this event.
“MySpace has far and away been our most effective resource for getting the word out so far. As you can imagine, we’d already built up a respectable friends list at the Wicked Gift MySpace site, so it’s merely been a matter of creating www.myspace.com/downforthesummer, and inviting all of our friends over with a brief informational note.” Last week, Fox saw membership at the new site grow from 24 to more than 150. “While that doesn’t necessarily translate into ticket sales, it does ensure that everyone in the MB underground scene (our primary target audience) at least is now aware it’s happening.”
While Fox is also on Facebook, he believes that for music or art projects, MySpace still appears to be the best way to go. “The ‘post your show’ feature has been a valuable integrated feature from the very beginning. Every show we’ve played since we first set up our MySpace site several years ago is on record there. Likewise, they make it easy to upload your songs and track how many times they’ve been listened to. And when we have special events coming up, posting a blog and tracking blog hits is a highly effective way to judge just how well the word is getting out to our fans.’
“My TV died a month ago, and I still haven’t gotten around to replacing it, but I couldn’t last a week without my computer, and MySpace is a big reason why,” he says.
CREATIVITY, CONNECTIVITY AND COMMUNITY
Andre Pope [@ahhyea777], co-owner of 803 Labs, Inc. [www.803labs.com] and co-founder of CREATE South [www.createsouth.org], an annual conference with an eye to promoting the creative spark in individuals – is pleased with the growth of the conference, which has taken place twice in Myrtle Beach.
“One of the main goals of CREATE South is to motivate – to show a correlation of wanting and doing,” he says. “And showcase a set of tools collectively known as new media technology that can help you accomplish your creative goals. It’s about building a community whether it be online or at your back door.”
Pope says this year’s attendance was doubled from last year’s efforts. “This year we had the unique opportunity to partner withHorry-Georgetown Technical College. The conference philosophy and the foresight of HGTC go hand in hand. We look forward to nurturing that relationship for years to come and proudly welcome them.” Next year’s conference is slated for April 17.
Pope doesn’t believe the Grand Strand business community has yet come into its own with regard to social media, but says that this isn’t a bad thing. “The online world is ever-changing and it’s a constant battle to keep up. Social media has been around in some form since the advent of the Internet – AOL, message boards, MySpace and Facebook. Twitter is just the evolution of the beast. The online world is still trying to figure it out, and if the Grand Strand is behind the curve, that’s OK.”
Pope maintains that openness and honesty factor heavily into the proper use of Twitter. “Be a part of the conversation. Don’t try to dictate it.” Pitfalls include the use of new media technology with old advertising ideas.“You have to reinvent how you look at advertising and the matrixin whichyou record results. It isn’t about how many followersyou have; it’s about the quality of your brand. At 803 Labs, we help businesses see the value in their brand and not in numbers. It’s about a two-way conversation where you are not always right. This is an exciting time in new media technology, but we need to make sure we are responsible about how we use it.”
In the spirit of blending traditional marketing methods with new media, The Food Syndicate’s Billingsley thinks you have to grab people’s ever-shrinking attention: “Twitter is Headline Writing 101 on steroids. You have to entice people to click on your link, to take that extra step beyond just moving their eyes to read the story below a normal headline on a page. The new catchphrase for this generation isn’t “made you look!” it is “made you click!”
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