This might sound like an unorganized way to approach your marketing efforts but for people like Scott Wise, Scotty’s Brewhouse owner and social media guru, it’s a common practice. Obviously, it’s not going to be as easy and simple as it sounds.

Recently at the Indiana Innovation Awards kick-off event, I was privileged to be able to sit and listen to one of Indiana’s own discuss innovation and how it doesn’t necessarily pertain to new gadgets and gizmos. Wise showed how he transformed a locally-owned restaurant/bar into a “must visit” in Indiana using social media platforms. Innovation can be defined as taking something that currently exists and simplifying it. It’s great to see how someone can take a basic concept like customer service and flip it upside down with innovative marketing efforts.

Utilizing Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare and QR Codes, Scotty’s provides every visitor an opportunity to share their experience and receive coupons in real-time. This isn’t a new concept, but Wise takes it a step further by personally handling any issues. This innovative way of utilizing social media for customer service and advertising shows how throwing it against the wall can be worthwhile.

How many have heard the statement, “social media is the free platform for advertising?” Anyone who knows anything about social media knows that it takes time and effort to create anything of substantial significance. Wise may have started his social media empire using Facebook, Foursquare and Twitter, but have you heard of a thing called MySpace? This was Scott’s original platform that was the inspiration for his efforts today. The reason that he has been successful is the fact that he’s transparent to the end-users of his product. That is the invaluable advantage of using social media. The key is to realize that this is a conversation platform, and people aren’t going to want to interact to someone that doesn’t hold a conversation.

Who’s to say what’s next? Pinterest? Flickr? Google+? Wise believes you need to put yourself out there and listen. It’s not about how loud you say something, but more about, what you say.  So, you’re not ready for social media? I think getting out there and listening is the key to know where to throw your message.

Here at Willow we challenge each other to do better and meet our goals. For our 20th Anniversary, we’ve tasked ourselves to push our social media presence and adhere to the advice we often give our clients on a consistent social media presence.

As ironic as it may be, we are using our chalk board wall to physically track our accomplishments in Facebook, Twitter, From the Roots: The Willow Blog and Pinterest. We’ve set goals for each month and keep track with tally marks.

How do you maintain your momentum to keep your social media presence a priority?

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Missed any of our posts this week? Be sure to check out the Weekly Wrap Up below for our industry insight and brain power.

Tech Corner: Secure Search and SEO
Let’s Chat: Requesting More Privacy Online
Marketing 101: Four Clicks or Less, Don’t Rest On Your Laurels: What Member-based Organizations Can Learn from K-Mart’s Marketing Mistakes
In Marketing News: Facebook Fans: How Millennials are Interacting with Organizations on Facebook
Creative Inspiration: Defining and Finding Inspiration

A recent survey including 414 participants between the ages of 18-29 from three university campuses, asked participants about their interaction with organizations on Facebook.

Photo credit: The Measurement Standard

The results showed that while 86 percent are visiting Facebook every day, they are not on there to learn about brands. Their reasoning for not connecting with brands on the social site includes being annoyed by repetitive posts, sales pitches and the fact that a lot of brands don’t interact with fans via comments or posts.  (Which we realize can easily turn into a PR nightmare, but that’s an entirely separate post.)

The goal is to get millennials to like your brand on Facebook, ultimately to drive traffic and increase brand awareness with a pretty influential demographic. To do so, you have to keep them interested. Luckily the survey tells you what that demographic seems to be looking for, Millennials say they are more likely to like an organization/brand/company if their Facebook page:

• offers discounts
• offers product samples
• sends event invitations
• sends personal invitations
• incorporates games or “fun” applications

Some good news for a large sector of Willow’s clients however, 75 percent of those surveyed are continuing to “Like” organizations on Facebook, while only 45 percent “Like” brands. The types of organizations most “Liked” are:

• sororities and fraternities
• non-profits
• sport teams
• local organizations
• college organizations
• bands

The take-away message from this research is ultimately a brand or organization’s Facebook page needs to be interactive and informative to have a good following. Having a happy balance between not enough and too much contact is key. If a brand is not keeping an active presence online then it is easy for followers to see no reason to stay connected to them.

Check out The Measurement Standards full four-part infographic on the research for more information.

I’m guessing by now, you’ve heard the phrase “Kony 2012“. If not, I’d be concerned that you may live under a rock. By noon last Wednesday “Kony 2012″ was flooding our Twitter and Facebook feeds and if you are like me, you wondered, “What in the world is this?”

Curiosity got the best of me and I had to check it out. I discovered that Invisible Children launched a video aimed at making Ugandan rebel Joseph Kony “famous” in the interest of capturing him. The group’s goal was set at a half million YouTube views by the end of 2012. To date, they are up to over 76 million.

When the video was over I thought to myself, “What an incredible use of social media.”
The video was released on YouTube, tweeted by celebrities and within hours was trending on Twitter.

This is a perfect example of viral marketing at its best.

Previously we would have read about this story in the newspaper or possibly even seen a short clip in a “special” story, but by the time the video hit the news on Thursday it was almost “old news.”

Now social media is being used to push out news information to the masses at incredible rates while traditional media is trying to keep up.

Social media has become quite a powerful advertising tool.  According to eMarketer, U.S. marketers will spend $3.08 billion to advertise on social networking sites this year, much of which will go to Facebook. The firm estimates that Facebook generated $1.86 billion in advertising in 2010.

What social media tools does your company use? Are you making use of Facebook’s paid advertisements, or do you stick to the free options?