Businesses that use social media wisely use it to build relationships

When embracing social media, focus on that first word: social.

Many businesses that have added Facebook, Twitter and other social media to their marketing toolkit regard it  “as simply another corporate megaphone,” said Joe Hodas, senior vice president of brand communications for Colorado Springs-based advertising agency Vladimir Jones.

“With many, you’ll see that all of their Twitter feed is, ‘We just put out this press announcement, we just won this award.’ It’s just a one-way avenue to speak about their brand in very corporate terms. That’s a mistake.”

Businesses that use social media simply as a way to blast the online world with sales pitches will turn people off, said Kevin Knebl, owner of Colorado Springs-based Knebl Communications, which specializes in online and offline networking skills and social media training. It’s about building relationships with current and prospective customers, he said — and thus increasing your “like, know and trust factor.”

Here are some local businesses that are using social media to do just that:

BRISTOL BREWING
Laura Long, as Bristol Brewing’s “Beerocrat,” directs the Colorado Springs brewery’s presence on Facebook and Twitter. For Long, it’s all about having a conversation.
The challenge, she says, “is being able to pick out the things that you really feel define you and that you think your friends and customers are going to respond to, and then steering the conversation in that direction. I guess that’s kind of the heart of branding: It’s saying, ‘Here’s who we are. Like us.’”
And that conversation isn’t only between the Beerocrat and customers, she said. “We’re creating almost a community, a forum, where our customers can talk to each other.”
Long looks mostly to Facebook to build that sense of community.
“I do get some retweets and direct responses on Twitter, but I see most of the sort of interaction that we’re looking for on Facebook,” she said.
Hodas sees Bristol Brewing using social media “to talk to a very specific audience and give them kind of the inside scoop. That makes for inclusivity, that sense of we’re in the know.”

THE BROADMOOR HOTEL
The five-star resort jumped on Facebook and Twitter about a year ago.
“We wanted to have a chance to reach out directly to the people who are interested in the property, and be able to tell them about packages and specials, and let them know about the history, and just open up a dialogue,” said Allison Scott, The Broadmoor’s director of communications.
And The Broadmoor is reaching out to plenty of people. It has about 1,500 followers on Twitter. More than 3,000 people “like” The Broadmoor on Facebook. (The “like” category has replaced “fans” on Facebook.)
“I think they’ve done a really good job of extending their brand and their visibility with social media,” Hodas said.
Twitter provides a way to quickly get information out, Scott said, as in spreading the word about a 72-hour sale earlier this year. “To have it retweeted and responded to really made a difference in reaching our goals for that sale.”
Scott regards Facebook as a community board “where people can comment and we can answer back.” On Facebook, The Broadmoor has a main page, along with pages with narrower focuses, such as Broadmoor Tennis and Broadmoor History.

ENT FEDERAL
CREDIT UNION
Ent’s presence on Facebook has evolved since it began about two years ago. The company turned to Facebook after becoming the official financial services provider for the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs.
“We started our Facebook page really to interact primarily with the students on campus as a way to hear what their needs were, how we could serve them better,” said Victoria Selfridge, Ent’s director of marketing. But over time, the audience has grown much broader than that, she said.
As a result, Selfridge said, “we really had to adapt our strategy from talking primarily about things that maybe the Gen Y audience might be interested in, like learning to borrow for your first car or maybe financing your first home, to really talking about things that would have a broad interest area.”
Ent maintains a friendly but professional tone on its social media platforms.
“We have a joke that we use here within the marketing department: We say we are not fun,” Selfridge said. “We are not going to be into the latest lingo, the slang; we are kind of a play-it-straight kind of organization. We are managing money for a lot of people. They want someone who is steady and reliable.”

MY LENDER
Amy Cavender of Simplified Mortgage Solutions “rocks Twitter.” That’s the opinion of Carrie Isaac, who maintains the SpringsBargains blog and is active on social media platforms.
Go to Cavender’s Twitter page, Isaac said, “and you’ll think, ‘She’s not using Twitter for business — there’s nothing about mortgages on here.’ But, in reality, she’s been very effective at using Twitter to connect with both Realtors and clients.”
Cavender, who has about 6,600 followers on Twitter and has sent out more than 11,500 tweets, says she builds business by building relationships.
“I feel like we are, from all different aspects of our lives, just bombarded with, ‘Here’s me, I’m selling me, here’s what I do, use me.’ And that tactic for me is a compete turnoff.”
At the same time, it’s not like she keeps her profession secret.
“With a user name like My Lender, it’s not hard to figure out what I do for a living,” she noted. My Lender comes out of her name: aMY L cavENDER.

R&R COFFEE CAFE
Social media is basically a “virtual coffee shop,” Ryan Wanner, co-owner of R&R Coffee Cafe in Black Forest.  “It’s a natural extension of the whole coffee industry.”
Wanner got on Twitter, and later Facebook, to raise awareness of his business. R&R also maintains a blog on its website.
“The biggest catch with being up in Black Forest is we’re kind of hidden from the city,” Wanner said. “Using social media, we’ve managed to really start to draw people from the Springs.”
In promoting the cafe, such as highlighting new menu items, Wanner is not just making a pitch but starting a dialogue, he said. An example was when trumpeting a new sandwich recently.
“We got some comments, ‘Why don’t you add this? Why don’t you add that?’ … It’s just a constant interaction.”
Isaac says R&R “is great at connecting with people and sharing information about what’s going on behind the scenes at their cafe.”
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Contact the writer at 636-0272.

BEFORE YOU
POST OR  TWEET
What, you’re still not on Face-book? Before jumping on the social media bandwagon, here are some things for businesses to consider:
• It’s not for everyone.
“Companies and organizations make the mistake of thinking, well, first of all, it’s free, and secondly, everyone’s doing it, so I need to jump in,” said Joe Hodas, a senior vice president with ad agency Vladimir Jones. “I’m of the opinion that it’s not necessarily the right platform for everybody — not for every company and not for every situation.”
• Define your goals.
“The first step for a company is to take a second, take a deep breath, and say, ‘OK, what are we trying to accomplish here?’ If they don’t define a strategy or mission or a goal, they’re going to get sucked into this and wonder why they are doing these things,” said Kevin Knebl of Knebl Communications.
• Don’t be afraid.
Some businesses shy away from social media because they’re worried people will make negative comments on their pages, Hodas said. Others shut down their Facebook or Twitter presence as soon as they’re faced with such comments.
“You’ve got to realize that social media is an open dialogue and you don’t have control over the information,” Hodas said. “It’s how you respond to it that really identifies who gets it and those who don’t.”
People can say bad things about you anywhere, said Allison Scott, director of communications for The Broadmoor. By using social media, “at least we have a chance to talk to them.”
• Keep it going.
Companies often underestimate the time and resources required to keep their Facebook or other presence thriving, Hodas said. A business that rarely updates its Facebook or Twitter presence, or doesn’t engage with visitors, runs the risk of being perceived as either not caring or not having enough to say, he warns.
Bill Radford/The Gazette