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.

I am a voracious consumer of the written word. I frequent many news outlets, keep a keen eye on my twitter feed and enjoy a robust discussion on current events. After talking with a peer, he suggested I checkout www.netvibes.com and boy was I impressed. I’m trying to step-up my blog reading (and writing, but that’s for another post) and this website will definitely help my cause. Netvibes provides a basic (free) or premium service for professional monitoring and analytics. You create a personal dashboard and load up on the content you want to monitor. It could be friends, an RSS feed or your favorite websites. The customization is really endless. I currently use Netvibes to organize the many different industry websites and blogs I like to keep up on in addition to my personal interests. I think this falls somewhere between Twitter and Pinterest, and because I enjoy both of these social media tools, why not add a third?

What digital tools do you use to help access and organize the content you want to read? Is Google Reader #1 on your depth chart? How about Zite, your personal magazine?

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

It seems like second nature these days to hop on Twitter to find out what’s going on in the world. Why watch the weather forecast on my TV when I can get the 5-day forecast by following my favorite meteorologist’s tweets?

For travelers in the Dallas Fort Worth airport, tweets about the weather came as a comfort during Tuesday’s severe weather which caused several tornadoes to touch down near Dallas. According to an article by Mashable, “the Dallas Fort Worth Red Cross and Dallas Forth Worth International Airport used Twitter to reach out to followers and ensure they were taking the proper precautions.”

One tweet by the Red Cross read, “Heads up everyone: SEVERE THUNDERSTROM WATCH 132 is now in effect for the entire DFW Metroplex. Main threat is large hail. #dfwwx #txwx”

The Red Cross also posted on their blog a list of storm safety tips to aide those in the path of the storm.

While I don’t think Twitter will be replacing other conventional storm warning systems, it sure is a comfort to know that weather authorities and others are looking out for the well-being of those impacted by severe weather, no matter the medium.

With 340,000,000 Tweets per day and 140,000,000+ active users I’m not certain how one can identify The 140 Best Twitter Feeds of 2012, but that is what TIME’s social media editor, Allie Townsend and social media associate, Amy Lombard have done.

The 140 feeds that are allegedly “shaping the online conversation in 2012” are divided into 8 categories; Experts, Culture, Sports, Art, Style & Photography, Humor, News & Information, Tech & Geek and last but not least, Politics.

Some of the 140 were predictable. Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich were hardly shockers on the politics list.  However, Dolly Parton listed as an “expert” and in the same company as NASA Astronauts, seemed questionable, even if she is “one of the best-selling female country artists of all time.” The great and powerful Google made the Tech & Geek list, but noticeably absent was Facebook. They only have 974 tweets and 3.1 million followers on Twitter, but that is 369 more tweets and 1.5 million more followers than Dolly Parton. Just saying…

In my humble opinion it doesn’t seem that the list represents Twitter’s users around the world (Twitter is available in more than 20 languages). Nor can I determine what Townsend and Lombard’s methodology was for deciding on the top tweeters or twitter feeds. But I am interested in hearing how you’d determine who should be on the 140 Best Twitter Feeds of 2012 and who they missed?

Source for Twitter Stats:
https://business.twitter.com/en/basics/what-is-twitter/