How to make Twitter really engaging: 1 lime, 2 ounces of Cachaça, lots of ice cubes, copious amounts of sugar, a muddler, and your Caipirnha is ready to go. This Brazilian gem is good for just about any occasion. Tweet about it, tweet while drinking one, drink one out of a glass in the shape of a Twitter bird, etc. However it’s accomplished, your Twitter profile will thank you for it.

According to an eMarketing report compiled from a Sysomos survey, Brazil has made a significant leap to become the second most popular destination for Twitter usage. Closing in at around 9% total usage, the Brazilian Twitter phenomenon rose from their previous ashes of 2% usage in a matter of 6 months. Compared with the dominant Twitter popularity in the United States comprising of almost 51%, the leap does not seem relevant on paper. Yet, consider that the U.K. is lagging behind Brazil and you can slowly see the relevance that a trend can have on either simple conversational tweets or marketing a siesta novelty such as a Caipirnha.

Let’s say you are opening up a Kansas City neighborhood bar and have the food, spirits, and guy-who-plays-guitar-on-Wednesdays covered. The food is your average pub essentials and the spirits themselves are pretty status quo as well. The crowds are pretty tame for the beginning months and you have run out of solutions on how to make specials enticing again. What to do?

Dust off that laptop and start chirping! By throwing yourself out there looking for that one drink to rule them all you come across a successful Caipirnha bartender in São Paulo. He tells you about the sweet goodness inside each drink, the powerful kick to jolt your customers onto the dance stage, the numerous nicks from cutting limes and the evil pains from lime juice seeping into those nicks. It’s all there for you. Aside from that message resonating with your bar, the recipe skyrockets to every bar owner engaged in Twitter. Whatever invention you can muster to bring in customers will create viral conversations inside and outside your establishment. A social marketing plan such as this one will give your business that added spice to become more desirable, more noticeable, and the freedom to seek out more interesting recipes from Brazil and beyond. Who knows, by the time you’ve gotten the recipe for a Caipirnha memorized, Japan’s Twitter marketing could present the next big Sake. You’ll never know until you get out there.

I was at the grocery store yesterday having an in-depth conversation with my 8-year-old son about what kind of “meat” must be in those jarred spaghetti sauces in the pasta aisle – you know the ones I’m talking about? How is that OK to just sit out on the shelf like that? What must be in there?

Anyway, in the middle of our speculation I registered the intercom saying from overhead something to the effect of, “…follow us on Facebook and Twitter for more deals – something, something, food.”

“Apparently, the grocery store has a fan page,” I told my son, and he chuckled a confused chuckle asking, “What?”

Mmm, so I stowed it away and after dinner remembered to look up Hy-Vee Incorporated’s Facebook page… juuust to see what kind of action was being dealt on, again, a grocery store fan page. At work we’re constantly talking with clients about how to use this whole social media thing to engage and draw in customers, and yes, we’ve had to get creative more than a couple times, so this intrigued me.

And there it was, Hy-Vee was putting on a clinic how to use Facebook as a marketing tool. There are videos, there are pictures from an event they sponsored, they’re a company with over 55,000 employees and they’re actually interacting with fans on their wall! Sure, there are a couple spots that could be better and/or updated, but I was happily surprised, so much so I joined their throng of followers… yes, I am now a fan of my grocery store.

Just last week good ol’ eMarketer released a report comprehensively and long-windedly titled the “Reasons for Friending or Following Companies Through Social Media According to U.S. Consumers, December 2009”.

As you can see from the report, though people are most interested in getting the first word on deals and specials, they’re also seeking a bit of that personal touch by getting a sneak peek at new products and services. So, what does a grocery store have to offer? Why, the aforementioned food preparation videos, a little interaction with the fans by answering questions – that personal touch that shows they’re listening to you.

I suppose the question now is: what’s your social media plan? Can you compete with your local grocer?

This is my first entry on the Adcuda blog. My name is Jennifer (though much to my dismay everyone seems to call me Jen) and I am the Accounts Director at Adcuda. In my role I collaborate with companies to develop a targeted plan to sell more online. One of my favorite things about my job is to hear other peoples stories. I am a sucker for a good story. Tell me about how you named your company after your great, great grandmother or how your dog’s smelly breath inspired your new line of luxury pet mouthwash and I’m in. I’m hooked. Lucky for me people love to tell their stories. Good, bad and indifferent people want to tell their tale. They are talking about their experiences everywhere — in line at the grocery store, at the little league game and online.

Social media is making it so easy for people to share their opinions, musings and outright rants with the world.

You have probably read about the “United Breaks Guitar” debacle in which United Airlines repeatedly refused to accept responsibility after damaging the guitars of Sons of Maxwell’s Dave Carroll. Dave ended up writing a song and creating a video (link below) about his negative experience and after some 6 million views the damage to United is immeasurable.

These days instead of calling your mom in Florida everytime you get upset about something you can post it to your blog, tweet about it and or produce a video that 6 million people watch.

Before you get too down on this “social media stuff” there is an advantage to all this talk — when we do something well people will want to sing our praises. Positive consumer experiences are amplified and often become the basis for our buying decisions. Amazon reviews are the perfect example this. If ten people have something great to say about that camera or newest gadget I’m probably going to buy it.

This idea reminded me of post on The Consumerist about a college kid whose $30 Adidas backpack and contents were ruined after being stuck in the rain. He contacted Adidas customer support and was able to provide a picture of the bag via email in place of the original receipt. He later received a big happy box that contained a $75 backpack. And what did he do? He told people about it. Good on ya, Adidas.

So I guess the take away is that your clients are talking about you whether you are listening or not.

Video

Consumerist Article

Hey, try saying that title five times fast.

Right, I won’t mince words: I don’t enjoy using Twitter. Maybe it’s my age, as I am very much on the downside of their pinnacle 20-24 year old core demographic. The grouchy, late 30 somethings make up roughly 4% of the user base and it slowly slides into oblivion from there. I’ll venture to guess that many don’t see how they could possibly say something useful in those 140 characters without completely breaking down into L337-Speak (if you don’t know “LEET”, then you may be actually less cool than me, and that’s really saying something… I’m sorry), which I would tend to agree, though I must make exception for business owners/marketing persons. No, you likely can’t fit a full description of your world-changing product/service into a single post, but you certainly can work in a link back to your own site that not only contains your glowing description but an opportunity for a quick sale as well.

Beyond content though, and without delving into the SEO possibilities, today I’d like to focus the ol’ stinkeye directy on Twitter’s, dare I say, crap user interface, and how you can easily clear that hurdle with the help of a totally free dowload called TweetDeck. Yes, it works for both Windows and Mac OS X, and it will make this whole micro-blogging thing less of a chore as it organizes everything from tweets, to @ replies, to your own custom-made groups, and in a tiny form of reputation management, all mentions of you from across the Twitter-sphere (as far as I know, I just made that up). TweetDeck truly unlocks Twitter’s potential for you, allowing for more and much simpler control over this necessary marketing tool.

If you’re already using Twitter, then this should be a welcome addition to your addicition, and for those who have spurned it in the past, as I too once did, I hope you’ll find this to be a breath of fresh air, or at least a patch of sorts. Because listen guys and gals, Twitter is fast chewing into the overall social media market share and if you don’t find some way to make these unpleasantries into opportunities, then you and your lithograph machine may soon find yourself left in the dust.

Increasingly, business owners are finding the value in publishing a blog on their website. The benefits range from building the trust of your clientele by openly interacting with them, to giving your site a boost in search engine results with the maintained flow of fresh content and keywords.

Another obvious gain comes in the form of repeat visitor traffic, giving you a good base to build on, but to keep them coming back for more you need a few things:
1. Clearly, you need to provide something to pique their interest and make them actually want to come back for more. You don’t need to create some Tolkien-esque universe and saga to transfix them, but how about news regarding upcoming events? Ask for customer feedback on a new item you’re stocking, brag about a cause you’re supporting, show off/pick on your employee of the month – whatever you do, be human, engaging, and…

2. be punctual with your posts. Decide if you’re going to do this daily, weekly, monthly, just be sure that whatever schedule you go by that you stick with it. If you track your readership you’ll quickly see a decline the first time you miss an expected post. It might seem excessive, but you will see it, no matter how reliable you’ve been in the past… those ungrateful so-and-sos…

3. Don’t forget to install an RSS feed! Sure, people might bookmark your site on their browser, but there will also be plenty who say to themselves, “Hmmm, this is an interesting site, I’ll have to remember this,” only to completely forget your address within two mouse clicks and a sip of coffee. The addition of that cute little RSS button is a call to action for your readers, and with a mash of the orange box you have a subscriber who will from then on be alerted every time you cobble together another masterpiece. This simple and so often overlooked addition will help prod return traffic to your site, translating to loyal customers, repeat business and untold wealth and fame.

At the very least it gives you the opportunity to publicly humiliate your employee of the month…