Hello my Internet friends.
Particularly those of you who are in some sort of media/advertising/PR/marketing field (or just love it and stalk it).
About two months ago, I was asked to guest speak in a college advertising class about social media, marketing and networking, specifically about Twitter and blogging. Obviously, these are things I am familiar with as a user because it’s no secret how ridiculously addicted I am to both.
However, now that it’s crunch time, I’m racking my brain trying to remember the perfect discussion points and topics for an engaging and compelling discussion this weekend (yes, I waited to the last minute. Shut up, it’s always been my study style and it’s paid off just fine thank you).
I know mommy bloggers made quite a splash when Motrin released an ad that they felt insulted them.
I know that Barack Obama utilized social media and networking in an unprecedented way on the campaign trail.
I know Comcast boast an entire customer service platform via @comcastcares on Twitter.
But what else? I need to be able to be top-line and showcase specific case studies.
How do you use Twitter? How has it connected you to your friends, your community, your services, and brands? I know Erica recently raved about Second Act‘s social media presence and how it ultimately impacted her purchasing decision.
Personally, it connects me personally to the 20sb community (the bloggers with the most to say!), locally to my Twin Cities community (via a variety of writers, bloggers and local pubs), and breaking news I’ve decided I want to follow on an up-to-the-minute basis.
Obviously, we’re a powerful community.
But help a girl step back a little and see this a little more birds’ eye view – how would you explain not only the functionality of Twitter to a class of college students, but it’s relevance, importance, and ultimately – the role social media will play in their lives as they pursue communications and marketing careers?
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Your former colleagues at CM are using Twitter to extend the life of the H&R Block Super Bowl ad – @taxguymurray
Oh, and I know this local blogger who got on TV because she has a relationship with a reporter via Twitter.
I twittered about a pair of boots I wanted that were available on zappos.com. Zappos twitters and helped me out. I couldn’t afford them at the time, so they let me know how many were left in my size. I bought from them because of their great customer service.
Whole Foods is a very engaging twitterer. They give tidbits of info, specials, info on food and their stores. I like their tweets. Same with the Wedge.
Common Roots Cafe keeps me up to date with how they are doing good things for the environment, lets me know when their menu and beer changes and does a good job making me interested in their products.
Here’s a case study on how I used twitter as a journalist. Here’s a presentation I did that showed how Wellstone Action got coverage via Twitter. Augsburg College also is mentioned in there. This is another nice example where @perfectporridge got the UPDATE for a client into my blog because of a relationship we have on Twitter. He DM’ed me the info.
SBUX uses Twitter a lot, actually. I’m not sure how I feel about it as a partner.
When talking social media, I think it is important to bring up development API's (F8 and OpenSocial). Basically, I am talking about applications on Facebook and MySpace.
Through applications, businesses have been able to make impactful contributions to existing social networks utilizing the user database. One case study of note is Sony using the Vampire App to promote a new movie. http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2008/01/29/cas…
@TraderJoes – they always RT Tweets about Trader Joe's foods. And it never fails to make me crave TJ food. GREAT marketing.
@Starbucks (and their other Twitter names) – I've gotten a Gold Card from them on Twitter!
@WholeFoods – interesting. And they also give out prizes.
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