Aaron Weiche

Dan Gustafson of The Social Media Weekly show on KRWC AM 1360 in Buffalo, MN interviewed me last week for a segment.

• Link to the show file

We talked about social media in general, my Punch Pizza post on their social media promotion, Facebook's new design and the Local University seminar I attended last week.  I always enjoy talking anything web and look forward to chatting with Dan again on his Social Media Weekly show.

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Nothing comforts a broken heart like food. Punch Pizza, with seven Twin Cities locations reached out to passionate Vikings fans on Sunday on various social media sites offering a free pizza the next night to help them deal with the devastating NFC Championship loss to the Saints.

The result was nearly 10,000 pizzas given away (number from Punch Pizza), customers lined-up out the door, local TV news coverage and thousands of mentions on the web. Genius.

Few restaurants in the Minneapolis / St Paul area have been as savvy or active with social media as Punch Pizza and their latest interaction produced some incredible results. 

Let’s look at a few of the ingredients to Punch’s most recent online success (they’ve had a few).

The Method:  Punch has been socially active on the web for some time now. They use Twitter, Facebook, Blogging, Flick and their website. With over 5,000 Twitter followers of @punchpizza and 7,000 Facebook fans, Punch has plenty of customers to interact with. 

Timing: I loved the fact that they were prepared and jumped into the mix at a time when social sites were busting with chatter from the game.  Overtime has just ended, fans were crushed and Punch offered a small bit of light. Timing matters, Punch knew this.

The Offer:  Punch was ready to roll with 2 offer options, one to celebrate a Vikings win, the other to comfort the masses with a Vikings loss.  The Vikes lost and so Punch sent out a tweet and posted the offer to their Facebook page, free pizza was the cure.

The offer/coupon was posted to their Flickr page. All you had to do was print or show it on your phone to get a free pizza for dinner on Monday night.  Punch has carried out multiple marketing campaigns that integrate all of their social tools together, which is always a great move.

Conversation Effect:  Punch leveraged their community, network and customer base to turn a ripple into a wave.  One offer, one tweet and one Facebook update created well over 3,000 clicks to their coupon.

This Twitter mention graph from Squawq shows how they generated over 370 tweets in 2 days, a massive spike form their normal mentions and activity.

Their Facebook status update gathered interaction from a few hundred in the form of “Likes” and comments. See a few of them below, wouldn’t you love this conversation about your business?

You can also factor in they gathered new followers and fans on these accounts thanks to the mentions and interaction.

Traditional Coverage:  I haven’t been able to pin down from Punch Pizza if the local media was contacted or they picked up on the buzz from the social networks themselves, but Punch was featured on the 10pm news on KARE11.  30 seconds of air time showed sad Vikings fans getting cheered up waiting in line at Punch Pizza locations. (photo below from Kare11)

As one Vikings and Punch fan shared on camera: "I am really sad about yesterday because I thought this was the year and the pizza will definitely help because there is no better pizza. So, I'll get over it real quick and we'll put on our purple for next year," says Tere Haas as she waited in line in the cold.

Outcome: I don’t know how you could ask for anything more out of a promotion like this.  Social interaction, branding, traditional media coverage and 10,000 pizzas in the hands of your faithful and newly found customers is a huge win.  I think you can measure this social media marketing and I'd bet they are pouring over the data generated past what I've outlined. ;)

Punch Pizza and their marketing minds (agency and/or internal) are commended for putting together a great social promotion. My only issue was that I wasn’t able to get to the Wayzata location last night and get my free pizza.

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Here's a small, basic, but fun example of building a bit of social media ... literally.  Employees at Walmart in Baxter, MN built a great display of Pepsi products to support the Minnesota Vikings quest to reach the Super Bowl this Sunday vs. the Saints.

Where it get's social is they then uploaded the photo the StarTribune.com's user submitted photo area ... which can then lead to someone else sharing it, blogging or tweeting about it or more.  Yup, that further sharing just happened.

I have no idea if they added the photo anywhere else on the web, but it sure was easy to add on more exposure after it was built.

Any retail business could have a little creative fun with their product or store display and then push it to a few social networks.  Social media doesn't have to be complex, you just have to take many basic things a step further and share.

I'd like to see the display come true. Go Vikings.

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Gary Vaynerchuk put out a great video looking at social media interaction from brands today and how it may be an expected interaction in the future.

The video has great examples of how things like free shipping, post holiday sales and social media interaction from athletes and big brands have produced a "Wow!" in the beginning, but grow over time to be expected by the consumer.

Some great food for thought. Is your brand ready for the expectation of personal interaction?

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When you follow hundreds of great people that are constantly putting out valuable tweets, links and conversations, of course you want to try and stay up on as much of it as possible.  For most of us, our Twitter stream is more like a raging river.  For that reason I use the favorites tag, mostly when I'm on Tweetie on my iPhone to tag tweets and links that I want to make sure and read later.

It's my own must read or "to-do" list. The feature serves as a great tool for me, helping me build a list I can get to later. When I'm done writing this post I'm going to catch up on 3 different tweets regarding Foursquare, all caught my eye earlier today.

What about you? Do you use the favorites tag at all on Twitter? Do you use another method, service or tool to file away potential gems?

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Headed into a meeting in Minneapolis I decided to check in on Foursquare as I walked into the Fifth Street Towers. Foursquare is a social game and mobile application that lets users "check-in" from where they are eating, shopping or visiting. Based on your check-in frequency you can earn points, badges, alert your friends and more. It's gaining popularity and hitting new areas like Des Moines.

Upon checking in I quickly noticed the "special nearby" alert on my iPhone.

The nearby offer feature is a great way for a business to introduce itself to a new customer and motivate them to stop in.  Bars, restaurants or stores that are near other attractions could easily sway a few more wallets into their business by using this and at the very least increase their exposure.

As with many offers though, the Restaurant Max offer was weak. I hadn't eaten lunch yet so a decent lunch special might have swayed me into their place.

Only offering a Birthday Special isn't going to appeal to very many customers.  This offer limits their opportunity to engage with someone to one week out of the year.  The offer does seem to have a big dollar value with a free bottle of wine, but they could really benefit from something more general or even by changing their offer during lunch times and dinner times (if possible).

As others have noted, there is marketing potential in Foursquare.  With social, game, mobile and loyalty marketing elements mixed together, it's one more way a business can create an opportunity with a consumer already in their area. 

In the end though, it still hinges on how strong the motivation is with your offer. Have you ran across a great Foursquare offer?

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Bring a visual and creative guy, I'm a huge fan of data and information communicated with more than a chart or via tables of stats.   This fusion of design and data is known as an infographic.  Webdesigner Depot posted a great collection of infographics and the Facebook vs. Twitter example really caught my eye.

 
View the full sized layout here. It was created in April 2009, thus not accurate with today's numbers.

This infographic also made me remember and miss the print magazine Business 2.0. It was a favorite of mine and always had solid infographics.

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The web and social media gave Dominos quite a headache earlier this year when a YouTube video circulated of a couple of employees "contaminating" a pizza at work.  A nightmare fully disclosed to the entire web is not a fun incident to address and correct.  It's not the type of buzz you want to garner online.

Now Dominos is back in the buzz of the social media world and this time they are controlling the vibe with a great campaign to reach current and new customers.  Dominos has released their Pizza Turnaround website addressing some of the often received complaints of their product. Here is a video that sits front and center on the website, addressing concerns and showing what they are doing about it ... creating a new pizza.

The video starts right out with highlighted Tweets, emails and focus groups dogging the pizza for it's crust, sauce and overall taste.

I think it's great to see Dominos just come right out and embrace this. The website also integrates a Twitter feed for any tweets with #newpizza or @dominos, bringin real-time feedback and conversation right to the mix.

They could of gone the "New & Improved" route without showing any of this, but they did and cut right to the chase. They are showing they are listening and interested in what their customers have to say. Simple, often missed, but brilliant.

The same way small business owners run into their customers on the street or the grocery stote and have full exposure to the good, the bad and the ugly; social media brings this aspect to the big brands.

This is where marketing is headed. The diminish of marketing spin and ignorance and the increase of honesty and transparency. I applaud the Domino's campaign and it's effort to interact with EACH customer, not just the target market as a whole.

Props to Dominos for their honesty and the time/money they are using to communicate it. I'm a big fan of it.

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One of my favorite aspects of my profession is when I get to talk, present or interact with a group on web design or Internet marketing.  I recently had the fortune of speaking with marketing profesionals of community banks in Minnesota that belong to the ICBM on social media.

I enjoy bringing my passion, experiences and ideas to those that may not look at things the way I do.  There are so many areas to discuss when it comes to conducting business online that you can explore numerous interesting and engaging topics. The biggest thing I strive to do is bring clarity to the topic by providing strong analogies and great examples.

Most often I'm covering 3 specific areas in my speaking events:

1. Web design, specifically good, usable web design

2. Search Engine Optimization

3. Social Media & Small Business

If you have a business group or organization that would like a 30 minute to 2 hour, engaging, thought provoking presentation on these topics or other Internet marketing related areas, drop me a line (aaron@fivetechnology.com).  I love talk it, teach it, create it and bring clarity to it.

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Say what? A recent post on Noupe.com highlighted where the web will be in 5 years and has 15 different ideas/predictions to consider. Social Media Optimization may become the focus of online marketing, not SEO.

All 15 of them are possibilities and the article provides a ton of links and additional information on each one. Here was one that caused me to ponder.

#12 - Search Engine Optimization Will Be Less Important - In a nutshell it introduces the idea on how Twitter, Facebook and other social media channels help answer peoples questions or point them in a specific direction.  So are we really looking at less Google searches and more "Does anyone know a ....?" on these platforms? Could be a big yes.

As someone who spends a lot of time on search engine optimization and the social media space, when will social media optimization be the buzz? The two already work together on a few fronts.

Many SM experts are already out there helping businesses of all sizes understand and navigate the social web. 5 years from now it just might be common place to be social media friendly if you want new customers. Sounds fun to me. You?

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