I got this link from Twitter via @thepowerofsmall author Lynda Thaler and CEO of  The Kaplan Thaler Group.

We are working on all sorts of digital projects these days—many of them are contests—with the plan to build a fan base, so they can begin to engage and connect with their clients one-on-one. As we continue to guide and educate our current clients with social media strategies and execution – we are always trying to sell new clients who have yet to really get engaged. As a women owned and run business – I always use the analogy that social media is a natural for women. It is focused on how we communicate. We like to tell stories and share our ideas. If we have a great experience we want the world to know and when we don’t we want the world to to know that too.
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The best way to show our readers that a serious, planned approach to social media as a key marketing channel can lead to success (when integrated with offline channels), is to provide case studies or corporate examples of triumph and prosperity.

Today’s post is going to do just that. In 2008, Starbucks (YES, I am one of their devotees ) found themselves in some serious hot water. Sales were down, there were major corporate management changes (which included Starbucks former CEO Howard Shultz returning and some management being let go), store closings, and some of the rapid rate expansion was slowed so that the company could go back to basics. The challenge? “How do they get back their relationship with their customer — the one they had when they first began?” Shultz claimed that, “Starbucks had lost its soul.”
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I think for many now jumping on the social media bandwagon, one area of measurement is based on the number of fans that one has. In some cases, it’s great to have hundreds of thousands of fans—IF you can lead them to click throughs on your site or directly track them to retweets of products and services or sharing via Facebook (from all of your friends to their friends and so on…). But many are, as in life, “fair-weather friends”: they come, look around, sign up…but don’t really engage or connect. Especially when you don’t have a strategy that is going to ensure that you connect with them for a direct call to action. Yes. You want a call to action. One that includes a mutual passion for the give and take that is going to be SHARED by your business and the friends/customers you are going to friend and follow.
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It is social media week in Toronto as well as New York City. Two of the cities for which I have spent half of my life thus far. Yesterday I spent the day in a all day seminar of speakers called Case Camp. Thank you to Eli Singer for putting together such a great event. I met some wonderful new friends and learned alot about what some very interesting companies – are doing in the world of social media.
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Much of the work we have been doing in our company, SHARE, has focused on social media and finding ways to leverage engagement for clients and their customers via Facebook and Twitter. Many want low cost ideas that will engage their potential friends and followers in ways that are meaningful to them. Of course, they want the ideas to be unique, out of the box and promise a gazillion friends. Many of these companies don’t plan for or strategize how they are going to keep those friends when the campaign or promotion is finished. How are YOU going to keep those friends—that collected their coupons for free offers of your products or services—from ending their relationship when your campaign ends?
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I was at lunch last week with a new friend and he asked me what is social media? I said to him it is a form of networking that is leveraged using social media tools online such at Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Linkedin and so on. Yes—all things that most of us know!
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I know I promised I was going to use Fridays and Mondays to post more thoughts that were strictly mine—without sharing the posts of others—but this is just too good. In the digital creative agency business, our best asset is   to be able to show how technology innovation works. The idea is about finding ways to get people to SHARE your brand and make it theirs—to sell products and services. THAT is what our goal and commitment is for our clients and partners.

This Youtube video from Ikea shows you a viral campaign that leverages Facebook and how they were able to build friends, engage people in a contest and promote Ikea product. A perfect trinity! We love when this happens and love having the opportunity to do this for our clients.

Enjoy the video. Time for you to kick it out of the park!

Best Nicole