Social Media Examples and mini-Case Studies that will Make You Smile :)
Small to medium sized businesses like yours are desperate to know if social media will work for you. You stand at the edge of a huge ocean of uncertainty not even sure if you should wade, let alone jump in and go swimming. And while you hear success stories for corporations such as Dell, GM, Obama’s campaign, CNN, Comcast, Jeep, Student Loan Network, and many more, there are few examples of business like yours that don’t have a huge customer base in place to leverage your efforts.
Thankfully, there are risk takers who didn’t wade, but jumped in early on, reaped the benefits, and proved social media is more than a passing fad, but a way to reach out, converse, engage, and support your customers. Oh, and often times make money too.
Disclaimer: The following mini-case studies, examples, results, and/or facts were taken from other blogs. Items in block quotes are direct quotes from those blogs. Attributions are directly below each example.
Twitter Helped NameCheap.com Increase Sales by 30%
Michelle Greer works for NameCheamp.com, a business that sells domain names. She had been on Twitter personally and saw other companies such as Zappos using Twitter to connect with their customers.
Michelle set up a Namecheap Twitter account, and in December, to launch it, she ran a contest: once an hour, she posted a Christmas-related trivia question (she used TweetLater to preschedule the posts and a book to help her come up with the 600+ trivia questions). To win, you had to be one of the first three @replies with the correct answer. The prize was a credit for one-year domain registration; to receive it, you needed a Namecheap account.
Results:
- Follower count jumped from 200 to 4,000 in one month (as of 6/14/09 they are at 7,800).
- Site traffic increase by 10% in December.
- Sales went up by 20% in December.
- Sales increase by 30% in February when they ran a Super Bowl promo.
- Facebook Fan Page has 1,700+ Fans.
- PageRank went up.
Links: NameCheap.com, on Twitter, Fan page on Facebook
Source: Twitter Drives Traffic, Sales: A Case Study
CoffeeGroundz Coffee Shop Used Twitter to Double Their Clients in 90 Days
This was one of the first success stories that proved small businesses could use Twitter to increase sales – and the success happened because a customer asked if he could order something via Twitter:
Coffee Groundz responded with:
Because of this opportunity, CoffeeGroundz began taking orders via Twitter, and today, they credit Twitter for doubling their clientele.
What’s more is they now hold the Houston Tweetup, a group of 100+ Twitter users that meet at CoffeeGroundz on Sundays to hang out and drink coffee.
Links: CoffeeGroundz, on Twitter
Source: Twitter To Go: How one local coffee shop used Twitter to double their clientele. What’s YOUR story?
Balsamiq Developed Software, Blogged About it, and Made $100k in 5 Months
Looking for a story about: The underdog? The guy who came from no where? The company who didn’t “make it big,” but made it good? You’ll like Peldi Guilizzoni’s story then.
Peldi began blogging not only about his company, but his companies financial records. For instance, he shared that within 6 weeks of launching his new product he sold $10K worth of software. And after 5 months of launching he cleared $100K in sales (total revenue for 2008: $162,302 -$39,000 of which in December alone). Not everything is about money, how about:
- He only sells 1 product – Balsamiq Mockups
- 1,322 total paying customers (refunds given: 2)
- Over $100,000 licenses donated
- Top spot on Google for “balsamiq,” “mockups,” and “web office plugins.”
- 6 Interviews
- 1021+ products reviews (highlights: The New York Times, twice on ReadWriteWeb, and 3 times on Hacker News).
- 983+ Twitter mentions
Links: Balsamiq, Balsamiq Blog, Look Back at 2008 (post where facts came from)
Source: Man Writes Software, Blogs About it, Makes $100k in 5 Months
Pink Cake Box Uses Blog, Flickr, and YouTube to Drive Large Part of Orders for Custom Cakes
Jesse Heap, the owner of Pink Cake Box believes social media was a big factor in the success of his custom cake business. Through his blog, Flickr, and YouTube channel, he secured a number of interviews with People, Modern Bride, CNN, and several other prominent newspapers and publications. The blog sees about 120,000 visits per month and drives a large part of their orders.
In the interview, Jesse said, “I don’t think we realized how critical the web would become to our business.”
Links: Pink Cake Box, Blog, on Flickr, on YouTube, CNN video
Source: A Small Business Marketing Success Story: Pink Cake Box
Joffrey’s Coffee and Tea Company Reaches Out to Bloggers
This is one of the most well documented and exciting examples I have seen (if you know of more like this, please let me know).
Here’s the SlideShare highlighting everything you need to know.
Links: Joffrey’s
Source: A Case Study in Building Buzz in the Blogosphere: Joffrey’s Coffee & Tea Company