Social networking has all but taken over the web in the past couple of years. Sites like MySpace, Facebook and Twitter are grabbing more and more main stream attention because millions of people visit them every day. Social marketing is now almost as ubiquitous as social networking, marketing companies are scrambling to capitalize on the opportunity to place your product prominently in social channels. This is all a passing fancy, right? Let’s look at some example of social marketing and see how this is shaping up for companies, large and small. Below are 10 social marketing success stories.

1. FreshBooks – I’m going to start with my favorite example. FreshBooks is a web application that helps with invoicing for small companies. They created a Twitter account and began interacting with their clients and the Twitter community there. One night one of their customers tweeted that she had been stood up by a blind date. A FreshBooks employee saw the tweet, recognized that she was a customer, looked up her address and sent her a bouquet of flowers with a note that FreshBooks will never stand her up. The girl was so affected by this gesture that she told all of her friends, blogged about it, tweeted about it, shared the message via every medium that she could. People listened, and took note of FreshBooks. A year later they have an army of devoted supporters answering support questions and comments for them. Calls to their customer support line have gone down, saving them thousands of dollars each month. FreshBooks takes social marketing seriously and uses Twitter as a direct line with their customers, and its working for them. They have brand evangelists to show for it. Does your company have such fanatical support? If not, when was the last time you sent flowers to a client?
   
2. Dell – Dell computers has also had some Twitter success. Recognizing that Twitter was gaining momentum, they created an account to announce specials appearing in their outlet. They kept these specials separate from other marketing endeavors so they could track how Twitter is working for them. A year later they had produced $1M in sales through their Twitter account. This may not be a lot of money for one of the largest technology companies in the world, but keep in mind that the Twitter account didn’t cost them anything other than time. Do your customers know when you offer specials?
3. Attorneys – Let’s turn our attention away from Twitter for a little while. Last summer Michelle M. Friedman recommended to the other attorneys in her office that they connect with other professionals through LinkedIn. As soon as they started connecting with clients and associates new cases began coming in with little effort. They also bring in new business through answering questions in the answers section. How well are you connected with clients and professionals in your industry?
4. Masi Bikes – Tim Jackson is the sole marketer for this small, niche bike manufacturer. Working with a limited budget, he decided to start a company blog with podcast. Within two years sales doubled and Tim is now recognized as one of the people to keep up with in his industry. Even shop owners that don’t carry his brand read his blog because it is entertaining and informative. Do you keep up with trends in your industry? Do your clients and competitors?
5. Ford – Wanting to rebuild its name among young web savvy car buyers, Ford selected 100 people with YouTube, Flickr, Facebook and Twitter accounts, gave them the new Fiesta to them free for six months with the stipulation that they share their experiences online. Here’s the kicker, Ford asked them to be honest about their experience, no boilerplate, no censoring, no editing. This certainly has the potential to blow up on them, but if successful they’ll have gone a long way toward establishing themselves as a quality brand among America’s young connected car buyers. So far its working in Ford’s favor, apart from the positive buzz about this marketing tactic the reviews are honest and favorable. Do you believe in your product or service enough to solicit public feedback?
6. Gretsch Guitars – Gretsch wanted to do something different to celebrate the company’s 125th anniversary. They decided to meet their customers where the were, on MySpace. They created an unsigned artist contest on the community site. The contest was a success. The Gretsch website earned an additional 55,000 visits within a couple of months, and fans have created their own Gretsch MySpace layouts, strengthening brand recognition. Would a contest stimulate interest in your brand?
7. Viewzi – Viewzi is a visual search engine. I could try to explain what that means but its easier for you to just click on the link, plus their site it unique enough that its worth seeing at least once. Social media guru Giovanni Gallucci was hired by the company to help with promoting the new brand. As Gallucci was going through his efforts, an acquaintance asked him a couple of questions about the site as well as for permission to write about it. Turns out the acquaintance regularly contributes to CNN, the very next day Viewzi was featured on CNN.com. That effort lead to feature stories on Wired, TechCrunch and several other prominent news sources. Within six months of launch the new company has a healthy stream of organic traffic and it is still growing. Are you connecting with everyone you can to spread the word about your company?
8. Zappos – This online retailer has been blogging and using social media sites like Twitter and Facebook almost since the company started. What’s interesting about Zappos is that while they openly embrace these social mediums, so much so that their employees are trained on how to use them, the executives don’t consider this a marketing effort. They call it a more personal connection with people, whether they are employees, customers or just fans of the company. This company doesn’t want to control the message, they want to connect with people. How refreshing! Zappos now has a fanatical group of brand evangelists, just as FreshBooks does. In your social media efforts are you more focused on selling something, or connecting with people?
9. CoffeeGroundz – This is a Houston coffee shop. Wanting to learn what social marketing was all about, the owner created a Twitter account and began having conversations with people there. One day a customer tweeted that he’d like to pre-order breakfast so that he could zip through the drive through. This one transaction got a lot of coverage because its recognized as the first to-go order on Twitter. The owner recognized the potential and began accepting orders via Twitter. This prompted even more attention, and today the coffee shop regularly hosts Houston Tweetups. This coffee shop used Twitter to double their clientele and generate a lot of buzz about the business. Would your customers feel comfortable asking for a new channel of communication? Would you respond if the did?
10. Southwest Airlines – This is a company that has followed its own path from the start, and this strategy has always worked for them. The company started its corporate blog in 2006, and since then has fully embraced social media with accounts at Flickr, YouTube, Twitter and Facebook. They also have a weekly podcast. Each of these mediums requires effort, but the net effect is that their customers have many ways of interacting with the company. Customer initiated conversations have led to the company evaluating their position on boarding flights, assigned seating, advanced scheduling and other facets of their business. These are genuine conversations between decision makers within the company and the customers that value their service. This level of communication shows that the company is committed to their customers. Are your customers letting you know what’s working and what isn’t? Are you inviting that conversation?

Above are ten examples of companies that have directly impacted their bottom line through the use of social media. Small companies like CoffeeGroundz and independent attorneys are benefiting from social marketing as much as national brands like Ford and Dell. The bottom line is that there are as many ways of succeeding in social marketing as there are companies in America, and none of them have to cost a lot of money. In fact, in this list of examples it seems that creativity and genuine connections are more important than big budgets.

Don’t sit on the sidelines. Find someone in your company that loves and understands social media and ask them to help you connect with your clients. If that person doesn’t exist, then Red McCombs Media can help you.