Doug Tangwall and I work on a lot of things together including End Result Marketing where we find creative ways to integrate nurture marketing

The best place to go in Madison for pizza!

and social media for business clients. Doug is a nurture marketing strategist, market researcher and even better -  a gifted writer. When he said he wrote a post on his blog on the @IansonState happenings, and needed my review for social media context, I was ready.  After reading it, I just had to share it with my audience as well. This version is adapted and shortened from the original but go to  Pizza and Social Media Can Bring the World Together to read the entire story.  I added several picture embellishments from my last visit to Ian’s Pizza.

Doug Tangwall author:

Our international social media success story begins in Madison

Madison, Wisconsin is not exactly what I would call a metropolis. It’s the Wisconsin state capital, and it’s a college town. The hero of our little story is a restaurant named Ian’s Pizza on State. Ian’s sits at the head of State Street—the six or so blocks that connect the Capitol building to the University. This cross-section represents Ian’s livelihood: students at night and the lunch crowd, a good portion of which are public employees plus a mix of conservatives and liberals from the state legislature. So, you might say that politics is at the heart of this small business.

Since this post is about the business and marketing side of the story, I’ll brush over the political debate. Suffice it to say that roughly 100,000 protestors—mostly public employees and students—encircled the Capitol in mid-February, in the snow, right outside a small pizza restaurant. The passion of this protest spread via social media and connections were made across the globe—some of these connections were people who had been involved in similar struggles in their own cities, some wanted to express solidarity, and some simply liked pizza and wanted to help.

Bottom line: Within a few days, Ian’s had taken orders for pizza to feed the protestors from individuals in every U.S. state, 60 countries and Antarctica.

Cause Marketing or Just Because?

Can't get any better than the plain cheese "pie by the slice" at Ian's

How did it transpire that the restaurant would begin taking international orders to feed the protestors?” As I traced back through various posts, tweets and Facebook updates, I began to get a picture of how the events unfolded [according to Ianonstate]:

“On Tuesday night/Wednesday morning we took a late-night call from folks still over at the [Capitol]; they were wondering if they could have our end-of-night leftovers. Well, of course—we’re always glad to hand out food at 3:30am!”

“The next day we got a handful of calls from folks throughout the country, people who had heard about our late-night donation…Then a few more the next day, and next thing, fast forward to 5pm on Saturday when we were so inundated with calls—from over half the states in the Union and from international locales ranging from Canada to Denmark.”

Since the grassroots launch of the pizza ordered ‘round the world, Ian’s has organized a slightly more formal cause marketing campaign.

We’ve also been hearing that people cannot live on pizza alone (shocking news to us, but toothpaste is good, too, we guess). In the spirit of the protesters needing more supplies than what Ian’s Pizza alone can offer, here’s a link to help you better support them in many ways.

The reason our story feels so authentic is because it is…This was not a marketing plan that was executed. It unfolded in real time with real people.

Checklist for an International Pizza Ordering and Social Media Campaign:

1) Resourceful Staff, 2) Phone and 3) Chalkboard

It turns out I was also was wrong in my assumption that Ian’s Pizza used a slick online ordering system to capitalize on this opportunity. I found instead that the tenacity of its staff combined with a shoestring social media budget added up to overnight international recognition.

In fact, Ian’s shut down its online ordering system. This is the message on its website:

Call us at 608-257-9248, then press 1. As we have just three phone lines it may take a while to get through, and we apologize in advance for that.

The results: “Media coverage soon followed with articles mentioning us by name in newspapers all around the world. The followers on Ian’s Pizza on State’s Facebook page alone grew from 3,900 to almost 15,000 fans in one week.”

Add to that some great comments and tweets:

Manager Staci Fritz who handles the social media for Ian’s tells of the challenges of being a small shop during some unusual circumstances.

For the most part, I am responsible for coming up with our message, how our voice should be throughout and how the message needed to be conveyed.

It was pretty informal. When we had news, we wanted to get it out there as quickly as possible. Also, when someone posted something that struck a chord with us, we wanted to respond. I had some help from Adam May, a State Street employee who was able to step in when I needed to focus on other things. Let’s face it, the online stuff needs a lot of watching and I had to sleep sometime!”

Customer Service Is Important Even When You’ve Stopped Serving Customers
“[Our] normal business had to essentially be shut down so we could focus on feeding the protestors,” says Ian Gurfield, founder of the Ian’s Pizza by the Slice group of restaurants.

I advocate using social media to improve customer service, but in Ian’s case, the business needed to reverse-engineer the process to set expectations and explain why the restaurant couldn’t serve its typical loyal customers.

Check out these posts from the Welcome Page of Ian’s Pizza on State Facebook Page:

We are not advertising the online ordering process at this point, and it’s not because we don’t want to help you out; we really just don’t want to over-promise & under-deliver.

And it never hurts to be polite…

Everyone is thanking us, and to that we say, “You’re welcome.”
(After all, we are polite Midwesterners.)

We are still taking calls starting at 10am to help you feed the protesters, by the way (we’re not done yet!) but our business is back to normal, with both deliveries to the Capitol and to our regular customers. Thank you so much for all that you do!

A Balanced Approach vs. a Balanced Budget

I had assumed that Ian’s was taking a stand on one side of the controversy. But again I was wrong. Look at how elegantly the company balances its message in this heated atmosphere. (After all, its customers come from both sides of the political aisle.)

We rarely take sides on any debate unless you want to talk about food—fresh vs. old, delicious vs. yucky, Wisconsin cheese vs. California cheese (whose cows are truly happier?). But other than that, we really just want to serve you the best food we can, using the best possible ingredients, with the best possible customer service.

Yes, we’ve seen tens of thousands of people vigorously exercising their right to freedom of speech, steps from our front door. We’re not going to get too in-depth here (we are just pizza people, after all) but suffice it to say it’s been a rather unusual mid-February downtown.

[L]et me conclude by stating what will come across as obvious to everyone, but during these heated times, might be forgotten by some: Ian’s Pizza is not a political party. We stand in solidarity with anyone who shares our company’s values, but we don’t believe it’s our job to endorse a specific political entity. Despite the highly polarized political climate we live in, we feel food (especially pizza!) is something that brings us together regardless of political orientation.

I asked Fritz, “How do you see social media tying into your business objectives, especially in light of recent events?”

We are known for being friendly and for doing interesting things with pizza. We use Facebook as a way to get information to our “fanatics” and to continue a personable presence.

The social media is done at a store level. I am the person who very loosely oversees what they are writing and how they are writing it. In that role, I essentially make sure posts aren’t too full of typos and that the voice is similar to “Ian’s Voice.”

By and large, it’s a very “go with the flow” type of atmosphere. However, in these past couple of weeks, I have been primarily responsible for coming up with and writing the messages on Facebook. We were starting to get a lot of attention, and I wanted to make sure we adhered to our main message of not taking sides. We also encouraged staff to post but to be mindful that we were not taking any side and that they should keep their posts on a lighter note overall.

Lessons Learned in My Own Backyard
This story has all the components of  the American Dream: the freedom of speech that social media enables; the entrepreneurial spirit of a dedicated team from a small, main-street business; the delicate balancing act necessary to maintain our democracy; and, of course, pizza.

But, in the end, it’s less a story about marketing (or even simply running a business)—than it is about Ian’s doing what they do best: feeding people.

Ian’s Pizza deserves praise for rising to the occasion during extraordinary times. But the candor, grace and affection infused in the company’s social media messages hold lessons that go beyond business: These are lessons for life. (Politicians, are you paying attention?)

• Be transparent about your values
• Serve your customers (constituents)
• Take a balanced approach
• Show respect
• Be polite
• Do what’s right

Politics divide us. But if we follow Ian’s example, maybe we can all find a way to get along. It’s a simple recipe…Pizza and social media can bring the world together.

Maybe Ian should run for office. What do you think?

Tangwall is founder of End Result Marketing, a nurture marketing and social media company based in Madison, Wisconsin.

Note from Wendy: I think this story is worth sharing based on a company staying on brand, carrying that consistent message onto the very place they need to manage the social business relationship.  They continued to do what was right and rose to the occasion. How do you feel about this?  Please share and tweet about Ian’s Pizza on State.  I am objective about this since I eat gluten free so can’t really enjoy the pizza but I like the business ethics I saw portrayed over the past few weeks.

Related articles

• Cairo Lends Support to the Protestors in Wisconsin – With Pizza (newsfeed.time.com)
• World Buying Ian’s Pizza For Madison Capitol Union Protestors (dekerivers.wordpress.com)
• Blizzards + Social Media = Pizza (iowabiz.com)
• Support for Wisconsin unions pouring in worldwide–in pizza form! (dailykos.com)
• The New American Revolution: Are Wisconsin’s 100,000 Protestors A Sign of Further Resistance to Come? by Andy Worthington (dandelionsalad.wordpress.com)
• How Egypt inspired Wisconsin (salon.com)
• Feeding the Protest . . . (nylondaze.wordpress.com)
• Andy Kroll: Cairo in Wisconsin: Eating Egyptian Pizza in Downtown Madison (huffingtonpost.com)
• Pizza – the latest weapon of protest (guardian.co.uk)
• Free Pizza to Protesters in Madison – From Afar, Very Afar (mypetjawa.mu.nu)
• “Someone in Egypt Ordered a Pizza For the Protesters in Wisconsin” and related posts (nymag.com)

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Are you an event manager or promoter looking to use new tools to more effectively get the word out on your next event?  The Social Media Club of Madison recently played host to Chris Brogan who, in the social media channel at least, is a guru and

thought leader.  We had several components of the total event to promote and looked to social media channels and tools to do the promotion and word of mouth extension.  I had a vested interest in making this work both as a social media consultant and  personally because Chris Brogan is my go to thought leader and has provide significant guidance for me on the path to being a trust agent.

Creating an event with a twist

For the benefit of anyone thinking of some type of social media campaign integrated with traditional efforts, I thought I would relate the activities that the Social Media Club Board Members,  the Madison social media community, and a few individuals did to promote this event.  Over all we engaged the community, shared user generated content, and created dialogue. We had a relatively short period of time to work with – just 6 weeks.  I would certainly recommend more planning and more time to promote such an event. More time would also allow the media distribution across various channels move a little more than it did.  That being said, we accomplished a lot in the time we had-using primarily social media tools and word of mouth.

The kernel of thought

Chris Brogan was brought to Madison by American Family Insurance to present an internal social media related training. The date was slightly in flux from last October, as to when American Family would be able to have Chris Brogan speak.  Part of their contract negotiated a separate presentation to the public. The decision was made to offer this program to Accelerate Madison, as one of the leading technology focused professional groups in Madison, to promote. Accelerate Madison in turn coordinated activities with the Social Media Club of Madison who planned and executed the free Brogan After Dark After Party (with Chris Brogan) in attendance.

Create a game plan

Some time in the first week of May, with a finalized date confirmed, the first contacts were made between Accelerate Madison and the leadership team of the Social Media Club of Madison.  The SMC, which usually has Skype conference calls before events,  quickly scheduled a face to face  board meeting on May 15th to finalize the action plan for promoting the Chris Brogan Event. We implemented BaseCamp to provide a better resource for managing this project and the future events the club intends to sponsor. The main Social Media Club site also provides access to PBworks for consolidating notes, information, calendars etc and its has an RSS feed to allow updates to get to the right individuals.

Step 1:  Planning

TIMELINE: Saturday, May 15th SM Club Board Meeting – Monday, June 21, 2010 Brogan Presentation. 6 weeks.

• OBJECTIVES – Fill the 300 person auditorium reserved for this event.

• STRATEGY – Develop a campaign aimed at getting a broad category of individuals, large business, Small Midsized Business and education representatives to attend this event. Ensure that Accelerate Madison members, for whom the event was free, and Social Media affectionatos in the greater Madison area, knew about and had access to either event. Decide where “home” is and have all links send back to that location

• KEY MESSAGES – Focus on Madison being a technology savy community (think Google Fiber RFP) and ready to get a thought leader to speak. Active social media community – Social Media Club, Social Media Breakfast, Meetups and Tweetups ongoing, copious technology hardware and software groups. Share that this is thought leader  presentation, social media author, special event and fun.

• TOOLS – Email lists, Blogs, word of mouth, local calendar /event board postings, Pitchengine.com, local media resources, Twitter, Youtube, WordPress, IMBY.info, Slideshare, Event Brite, LinkedIn, Facebook, Foursquare, and yes picking up the good old phone.

• MEASUREMENT – #1 – total seats filled at presentation. #2 – total attendees at After party.  Planned to measure indirect and direct indicators of impact, including: Web site hits, calls and e-mails, comments, posts, pictures, video, and media coverage.

• COMMUNICATIONS PLAN – We involved board members of the Social Media Club of Madison, Social Media Breakfast, American Family, and Accelerate Madison.  Many of the team members were public relations professionals with  social media skill.   They provided ideas that were then assembled into a quick action plan.Members of all organizations were asked to pass along, RT, share links, digg news stories, stumble, and bookmark posts and images.

1. Registration landing page created – Accelerate
2. Eventbrite event page created with all details for After Party
3. LinkedIn Event setup (Presentation and After Party)
4. Facebook Event setup (Presentation and After Party)
5. Use a socialcrm tool like Xeesm.com to target key invitees, sponsors or promoters of the event
6. Plan Blog Posts ( at least 1 per week)
7. Plan Twitter Activity (use MadisonSMC account for event)
8. Post to all local digital and print calendars
9. Solicit After Party event SWAG sponsors
10. Collect questions and video interviews to drive awareness and excitement of event
11. Create Social Media Press Release for presentation and after party
12. Pursue interview at TV stations
13. Pursue print interviews/stories with newspapers
14. Create videos for Youtube promotion
15. Use and suggest  status updates out each week for connections
16. Get regular updates out on Twitter and ask for RT
17. Traditional word of mouth
18. Encourage people to bookmark, Digg, Delicious, and buzz any and all efforts.
19. Calls to Media outlets for story lines and press conference
20. Setup Press conference
21. Capture the event in pictures and video
22. Make arrangements for online streaming and recording
23. Get sign copies of Trust agent books and give away
24. Create followup blog posts to recap event (include link to recorded presentation)
25. Upload pictures from event  – tag madisonsmc
26. Upload video from event

STEP 2: PUT PLAN INTO ACTION

(TIMELINE: May 24 – June 21st)

1. Branding – make sure #MadisonSMC is mentioned in tweets and is used else where on events
2. WEB SITE (May 25)– the SMC site was updated for the event and two people committed to blog and post each week prior to the event.
3. Sponsors – if expecting 300 attendees, we needed 10-20 SWAG sponsors or limit bags
4. Event Calendars (By June 1)- IMBY, YourHomeTownbiz, Isthmus, InBusiness, Accelerate Madison Website, AmericanTowns, Personal websites,  Plancast, EventBrite, Facebook, LinkedIn, Personal but public calendars
5. Social updates on sites (ongoing) – LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, Slideshare (select the ones that are most appropriate to your audience.
6. Social Media Press Release (2 weeks out) – Pitchengine
7. Blogs – Social Media Club, Examiner.com, WISocialMedia, MadisonSMC.  If necessary to capture buzz and community after your event, consider creating an event blog (ie Ning or similar site)
8. Groups/Pages: LinkedIn group posting, Facebook pages
8. Involve third party stakeholders – standup at your professional business meetings and mention the event. Winning the support of  other groups and community organizations can mean the difference between success and failure as they have valuable tools in the form of newsletters, e-mail lists and Web sites that can help carry messages further. For example, Disney Institute promotes their local events with non profits trade and professional associations and Chamber of Commerce groups to get the word out quickly to business owners.
9. Materials – Determined what materials would be needed to help spread event messages. List included: key messages for internal use, program, FAQs, newsletter, membership info, Web site copy for stakeholders, and media materials such as press releases
10. Call TV station NBC 15 for interview

Step 3. Execution Day of Event

Chris Brogan Presenting at Accelerate Madison/Social Media Club of Madison Event

KICKOFF – An event can be an easy way to generate news coverage and buzz. A press conference to officially announce the campaign could make an impact. We got a press release out on Pitchengine.  We secured a news interview on Channel 15 the week prior to the event.

LOCATION & TIMING –  The press conference on June 21 was a little last minute as we did not get final authorization until late on Friday before the event. Due to the speaking program that Chris Brogan was contracted for, the time slot of 3PM did not allow for TV stations to attend, nor did it allow for newspapers to get any details for stories for morning papers.

SPEAKERS & GUESTS – Accelerate Madison personally called key journalists and representatives in the Madison and greater Dane county area about the press conference.

LOGISTICS – Needs such as A/V, seating, parking and catering need to be determined well in advance. This was well handled by American Family who did a wonderful job with the food preparations prior to the event.

MEDIA RELATIONS – To ensure media attention throughout the campaign, we solicited attendance at event, and on-site, interview and photo opportunities.

BEST UNEXPECTED EVENT – Getting Oscar Mayer/Kraft Foods to arrange for  a couple of Wienermobile Hotdoggers to take Chris Brogan to the

Chris Brogan goes first class to airport in Wienermobile compliments of Oscar Mayer

airport instead of a car.

Step 4 Assess the Campaign

MEASUREMENT – After all the hard work of planning and executing the campaign, we took stock of results to determine success:

• web site visits –  We did not do a pre campaign benchmark which I would suggest to anyone else.  total traffic since January 2010 start up is 8,173 views.  The highest day was 290 and during the Brogan effort we had a high of 179 views.
• We had  300 people attend the event at American Family Training Center

Chart showing view build up on Madison SMC blog/website for Chris Brogan Event

• Blog posts – A total of fourteen posts (that I counted) were made between 7 blogs.

1. Social Media Club of Madison (host site)
2. Accelerate Madison (host site)
3. Wendy Soucie Consulting (board member)
4. Networkmindshare blog (boardmember)
5. Examiner/Madison Edition (national online news)
6. Blog site for the Wienermobile Hotdoggers
7. Miri Mcdonald blog (attendee)
8. Miscellaneous  pickups from blogs event pages  (At least 4 posts were made as followup stories to the event.)

• Presentations with photo collection – 1 posted on Slideshare.net

• Videos – 13 total, posted and tagged Madisonsmc on Youtube.

Final thoughts

I am not sure we used our member network as well as we could have. By breaking up the board members into groups focused on event setup and logistics, event promotion, member outreach, and followup, I think we could have used our members of both Accelerate Madison and Social Media Club more effectively. One thing I have found when I have been asked to buzz an event is that when I am given a list of 10 things to do, with concrete suggestions on places, wording to use and with deadlines to meet,  I do at least half of what is suggested – maybe in my own way, but I do it. Just asking to help out a bit is like asking someone to write a recommendation for you.  It usually happens quicker if you write a suggested framework first and let them (your recommender)  edit the document.

I also don’t think we effectively used Twitter. Next time I would define a stronger plan, created scheduled tweets to drive conversations mixed with promotion for the event.

You can see by the views of the website, the blog postings did generate traffic.  Next time I might do more outreach to members who have blogs and encourage them to post and link back at some frequency that they are comfortable with and one that would compliment the efforts of the main “home” blog.

There are certainly mistakes we made, but definitely a learning experience.  What have you done to promote an event using social media?  Please share your success stories and ideas in the comments.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Social Media: An Evening with Chris Brogan (slideshare.net)
• Chris Brogan On Social Networking For Business (blogs.forbes.com)

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Nonprofits by their very nature are in touch with the very human face of the

Kelli Parks Snider, ProjectGirl.org and Girls

people and public they serve.  Many grassroots causes are entirely dependent on volunteer efforts to get anything accomplished.  Finding creative and non-traditional funding sources is task one these days.  Considering “how” not “if” to use social media to stay connected  and find new funding sources should be the topic at the advisory board table.

Social media at its core is a two-way conversation using Internet technology that brings value to the participants through sharing knowledge and information.

If you are a nonprofit are you investigating the use of social media as a channel to connect with your audience?

Extending manpower and budgets

In the town of Lodi WI, the YMCA of Dane County runs a branch – managing the swimming pool operations, swim lessons, lap swim and providing swim lessons to students. They also run fun and increasing numbers of low cost programs designed for healthy living styles for children, adults and seniors. Clearly only a fraction of the programs would be in place if it weren’t for donations, fees recovered for programs, volunteer supervisors and instructors. At the same time, monies collected allow the YMCA to provide scholarships, such as the Strong Kids Campaign, to individuals and families that otherwise would not be able to participate.

It is important for the directors of any type of program to stay in touch with all aspects of the community at large including those who provide funding, those who participate in various programs and those who need to understand the benefit to the community. Creating a blog, an email newsletter and periodic print updates would be some nice communication additions, if they can either afford the time and/or the cost to do so. But can they afford not to do so?

ProjectGirl.org a grassroots nonprofit in Oregon, WI, was able to use social media (Youtube, LinkedIn, Blogs, Facebook and MySpace), email marketing, and Word of Mouth to generate awareness of a youth activism campaign sponsored by Best Buy.  The success of that campaign gained them over $100,000 for support of their curriculum which teaches girls self esteem and critical thinking using multi media technology, video and art to express themselves.

Today, leaders of nonprofits need to consider alternative sources of funding.  With the contributors of the past now out of work in many cases, recognizing that new partnerships and alliances will need to be formed is at the heart of accomplishing missions.   Social media can help possible alliance partners to find your nonprofit and cause.  It allows you to voice your needs and mission.  It also allows you to initiate conversations with supporters, volunteers and mentors.

Cause Marketing

Companies that join with social causes to sell products not only enhance their image but also improve their bottom line, say University of Michigan researchers. This certainly can help but it also benefits the company in terms of profits.

According to Uday Rajan, one of the Michigan researchers,

“Firms can use cause marketing to increase prices and profits, but should be aware of the implications of placing different products on cause marketing,” Rajan said. “For public policy officials and consumers who may believe that cause-marketing firms are more caring firms and are genuinely interested in helping others, it may be insightful to understand that cause marketing also allows firms to increase their prices and profits.”

Many corporations are seeking creative and unique ways to differentiate themselves beyond product and services. Employees develop greater loyalty to companies that support long-term good works. It’s also being taken into account in the lists for “Best Companies to Work For.”

A good way for nonprofits to start is with reviewing what other larger organizations have done.  The American Cancer Society has a policy developed to find the right match of partners.

Is your company doing any cause marketing? Has your nonprofit used social media to enhance its interaction with donors, volunteers and its community?

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