At roughly the same time Oklahoma City chef Ryan Parrott was home sick in bed, Saxum PR representative Lindsay Laird was wrapping up a call to a client extolling the virtues of social media, commercial photographer and brewery owner J.D. Merryweather was making plans for his new business venture, and business consultant Shelley Cadamy was asking for help lining up a glass shop to fix her vandalized windshield.
Four separate people moving in totally different circles. But all four knew what the others were doing and, to some degree, were a part of it, thanks to the latest social networking fad.
Twitter.com kept these four in touch, but it’s just one of many sites – Facebook, LinkedIn, Plaxo and Pulse – that keep people connected around the globe and down the street.
“It’s the current wave of PR, and not just PR – I think it’s yet another tool in a marketing toolbox that can be amazingly effective,” says Cadamy, who performs strategy development for start-ups and existing small businesses for Francis Tuttle Technology Center.
She recently held a seminar on social networking introducing clients to such sites. She has been a LinkedIn member for nearly two years, started using Twitter a few months ago, and uses Facebook to communicate with clients.
Twitter seems to be the hottest networking site right now with users posting small, 140-character-or-fewer notes that followers use to keep tabs on their daily activities.
“From a PR perspective especially, media sites like Twitter are just another way for our clients to tell their story and share their company culture,” says Laird, who notes that links to pictures and stories can be shared instantaneously. “For us, a strong social media program is essential to a well-rounded effective marketing and PR campaign.”
Parrott is co-owner of Iguana Mexican Grille Downtown. He also owns Seasons Catering and Table One, a fine-dining, single-table business for parties.
PUBLICITY
His initial goal on Twitter was to get more publicity for his eatery.
“I really started thinking I was going to use it for guerrilla marketing,” Parrott says. “What I’ve found with it is just by being present and ‘twitting’ and building relationships, it’s just happened that way. I’m not going on there to push the restaurant, but really just having fun with it.”
Merryweather admits getting caught up in the social side of Twitter is easy, but he maintains it’s also a good source of vital information for his growing Coop Ale Works. He routinely checks out beer vendor and microbrewery sites to get his fill of industry news.
He’s also a member of Facebook, Myspace, LinkedIn and Zoom, and updates all of them regularly. It’s Marketing 101 for the 21st century.
“I think traditional media, if they haven’t stayed current, they’re behind the curve,” he says. “I think if you ask people who run billboards and run print ads and TV ads, I think they’ve all seen a huge squeeze because they’re less effective as far as the demographic.”
According to Hitwise, a daily ranker of online traffic, the lion’s share of Twitter’s traffic (44%) comes from the 25-34 age demographic.
And while the teen- and tween-oriented MySpace allows users to post pictures and play music for visitors, Facebook is seen by users as a more “grown-up” version of online networking.
“I’ll be 40 in six months, and I cannot tell you how many people from my high school graduating class are on Facebook,” Cadamy says. “I’ll bet every woman I know in her late 30s to 40s is on Facebook, and I wouldn’t be caught dead on MySpace.”