I found a bucket list of sorts that I made three years ago when I decided to launch my social media strategy consultancy. It consisted of several people I wanted to meet because I thought they would enrich my life both professionally and personally. They are also some cool people to meet on any level. I also had several things I wanted to do along with that.   I actually made some very strategic plans and took action on them to accomplish the meetings that I did.  I am happy to share both the bucket list and my social media heroes. Note: Updated 1/16/2012 (spelling and links added).

Thought Leadership Blogging and Social Media for Small Business

Chris Brogan – I started following Chris in 2007.  I was reading his blogs because he was an East Coast, New England guy ( I also hail from there).  He had an honest and realistic approach to social media and blogging. What he was saying and doing seemed doable to me.

I was lucky enough to meet him in person in Madison when American Family Insurance brought him in for a corporate event. Accelerate Madison and the  Social Media Club of Madison heard him speak and then got some social time. When he spoke to the audience of 300 social savvy and social info hungry Madison professionals, I was impressed.  He’s very down to earth and very smart beyond the social side.  He knows about the technology trends in social software.  I got some great video footage during the press conference and then after when we successfully convinced Oscar Mayer and the Wienermobile Crew to pick Chris up at his hotel and drive him to the airport for his flight. When was the last time you got to sing the “Oscar Mayer Wiener Song” with your social media hero?

Thought Leadership on Twitter and Social Media for Small Towns

Image via Wikipedia

Jeff Pulver – I had heard his name associated with Vonage before, but it didn’t at first click until I heard him speak.  This entrepreneur was working with Twitter on projects that could really make a difference to small communities and rural towns through his 140# Conference.

As Jeff states on his website:

The #140conf events provide a platform for the worldwide twitter community to: listen, connect, share and engage with each other, while collectively exploring the effects of the emerging real-time internet on business.

Our schedule will be unique and fast paced. It is our intention to provide a platform for as many people as possible to share their thoughts and engage in conversation with the attending delegates.

The take aways from this event will provide the attending delegates knowledge, perspectives and insights to the effects the real-time internet will have on both “we” the people, business and society.

I was lucky enough to meet him in Madison in July 2010 during a “driveby” tweetup event held at The Century House.  Jeff was on his way to the #140 Conference in Detroit and was stopping at various urban and small town communities explaining what the conference was about and how it was making a difference.  He invited us to come and I was oh so tempted. He does a great job in really explain the power of 140 characters.

Since then I applied and was accepted to speak at the #140Conference Small Town in Hutchinson KS, but due to a conflict was unable to go. Next year for sure I will apply.

Thought Leadership on Social Presence Management and Social Media Education for Business

Axel Schultze and Marita Roebkes image by Wendy Soucie

Axel Schultze  and Marita Roebkes – As the CEO and leader of the Social Media Academy, his approach to social business and strategy leadership in this area is a fresh approach. In the role of CEO of Xeeme.com he is leading the way in the social presence management and social capital arenas with a new way to look at what is important in the social space. He is also a successful serial entrepreneur, having launched 7 businesses. Including the most recent, Social Business Consulting Group, that I am a founding partner in as well. After taking classes that he taught and working with him on several projects, I wanted to meet him face to face.

I decided to fly out to Palo Alto in April 2011 to meet Axel and Marita Roebkes his “right-hand.“  Much to my pleasure, 10 other consultants took my visit as cue to also come so we had a big consulting meeting at the same time. Axel and Marita are both avid sailors and they took us out for a spin around San Francisco Bay. You could get used to California.  Overall, just the chance to sit and talk with them directly after almost 2 years via phone and video was the best present.

Thought Leadership for Global Branding and Social Media for the Enterprise

Wendy Soucie and Scott Monty at Chicago Auto Show - image by Wendy Soucie

Scott Monty – If you are interested in the corporate big company social media side of things, you would have to follow Scott Monty.  He sets the bar high on bring a personal brand to a Global brand in a way that is human and strategic.  What I really like is that he has a personality and the things he and his team are doing for an Automobile company. I had not paid much attention to Ford to purchase a car. Now I have to say, they have got my attention. He reminds us that “working for a global brand is an amazing honor.” I like his heterogeneous view on how social media needs to integrate with all aspects of a business and customer facing departments.

I finally met him at the Chicago Auto Show in May 2011 during the Ford Social Media Press Day.  I am very excited that he is going to be here in Madison to speak to the Social Media Breakfast Madison organization that I co-manage. Yes, I plan on a one on one interview ( and get the question answer about what a “consigliere” is before he leaves).

Thought Leadership in PR and Social Media for Strategists

Christopher Barger photo via Forbes Blog

Christopher Barger – A PR and Social Media strategist that worked for IBM ( instrumental in their social media program) and the Automotive Industry , most recently the social media lead for General Motors. Chris is a much different personality than Scott and doesn’t wear bowties – in fact I would guess that he never has worn one unless it was with a tuxedo. His articles and blogs are the kind that challenge the reader to think about what kind of perception they are creating – for themselves and the company.  He just came out with a new book called “The Social Media Strategist” which I am reading to gain insight on the challenge and surprises in taking a large company from zero to 60 in the social media ecosystem.  he should be on the author circuit soon but FIR.com  is doing an interview on Jan 27th.  He seems like the kind of guy you could have a good conversations with over a beer. I need to meet him in person and hope that he will sign my book as well. Besides he roots for the Patriots and I like that.

 Thought Leader in Social Community Engagement and  Social Sharing

Image via Wikipedia

Chris Heurer and Kristie Wells – I have helped start two social media groups in Madison. Social Media Breakfast and Social Media Club of Madison. It’s no easy task. This is why I hold Chris and Kristie (of Social Media Club) with such high regard. They started as one group in 2006 (San Francisco Bay Area) and now the organization is an established 501 (c) 6 non profit with over 300 chapters on every continent. This is quite an accomplishment. Building the evangelism and momentum as well as infrastructure takes lots of vision, time and dedication.

I hope to get our Madison club fully established as a chapter and invite the two of them to come and anoint us and tell us how to keep it going!

The To do List

Oh yes, here it is,  the things I hope to do:

Professionally -

• Speak at and attend a TED presentation
• Speak at and attend a TEDx presentation
• Speak at an International Conference on Social Media
• Speak at and Attend #140 Rural Small Town in Hutchinson Kansas (already have my presentation!)
• Keynote a significant Social Media related event.

Just gotta do it

• Bike for a week in a foreign country (Germany and France)
• Bike for a week in Wisconsin (because I love biking in WI)
• Ride across the US (not in a race)
• Hike the Ice Age Trail in Wisconsin (in sections)
• Complete the 4,000 footers in NH (something I started with my Dad when I was a kid – 23 done 23 to go)

 What is on your bucket list? Who do you want to meet in 2012 and how do you plan on doing it?

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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)
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• 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)
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• Pizza – the latest weapon of protest (guardian.co.uk)
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Can one Green Bay WI native deal with the heat and solve a business problem in Arizona? Picture this scenario – you provide a service that is not needed every

Loading patient on airplane for flight - Photo provided by Angel MedFlight

day, in fact, it might only be once in a lifetime. How do you educate the public about your service, gain trust and stay at top of mind? Would you consider using social media?

Who are you going to call for commercial medical transport?

This is exactly what Cassandra Graper, Director of Media Production, has been able to accomplish with a strategic marketing and integrated social media plan for Angel MedFlight located in Phoenix, AZ. Angel MedFlight, a 4-year old start-up,  provides hospital to hospital transport for critically ill or injured who need to be transferred but cannot fly on commercial airlines. They fly state to state, coast to coast, and country to country. Often their clients are travelers who are injured or become critically ill while away from home. Angel MedFlight uses fixed-wing Learjets, set up as a flying Intensive Care Unit (ICU), with a critical care flight nurse and paramedic on board to care for the critically ill or injured patient. They do not provide emergency response but will coordinate with other ground transport such as RVs with medical equipment.

Start with business goals and strategy

This company, with strong leadership, is savvy enough to understand the critical need to engage with their audience long before their clients have a need to call them. They built their approach to social media on a sound strategy to achieve its business goals. The business goals they are trying to achieve start with their customer. In fact, ‘customers first’ is the most important business goal they have. The goals they hoped to achieve are:

• Staying top of mind when the need arises
• Educate the public on medical transport service
• Gain the trust of the public

Social media first steps

Getting a better view for the next photo - Photo supplied by Angel Medflight

The company took its first steps into social media 2 years ago by just dabbling in social media with a half-hearted FaceBook page.

Graper arrived on the scene shortly after with a Journalism and Mass Communications background.  Not only that, she was a video producer for several TV stations. With a well-rounded social business sense and key Internet skills, she also brought creative marketing knowledge that she perfected at a promotion company. She took control by doing her research and then establishing a focused strategy for the social media channel before they took further action.

“As the Director of Media Productions, I use social networks, photographs and video to help share the true passion of Angel MedFlight with others. I also use creativity to develop unique ways to increase public and media awareness of the services Angel MedFlight provides.” Cassandra Graper

Building the social media plan

Since then Angel MedFlight has begun to use several key tools to achieve their business objective. I took a look at the obvious social footprints to provide my comments.

• Corporate blog for education -  The Angel Medflight Corporate Blog captures the client experience and extends the company story – using the WordPress platform and bringing in a feed from a Flickr (photo) account, the blog has a decidedly corporate business feel to it without any specific author indicated.  The blog has Technorati Authority: 1  and Rank: 104045 . The blog clearly is an education tool on defining the business and terminology around commercial medical air transport.  I was a little surprised at the lack of personality to the blog given so many videos and pictures that infiltrate all their other social web locations.  The author is not named, nor can you tell if there are multiple authors. I think if they created a stronger personal author/voice for the blog, we would  know the person behind it and that would strengthen the public trust.  After all we trust people not corporations!

• YouTube makes the stories come to life – Angel MedFlight has a custom YouTube Channel . As a video producer it goes without saying that video has played a larger role in Graper’s program than other companies who might just be starting in social media. These are not your everyday FlipVideos either. They are very professionally edited and produced.  From humorous coverage of things like the  Director of Canine Operations,  to the story of a very sick 7-year old girl who needed medical transport that will touch your heart, you can find exceptional videos on their custom channel. They have gained some great traction with over 77000 channel views and 92 subscribers.  I think they are doing a good job on educating and gaining the trust of the public with this channel.

• Tweeting trips and travels – You can find Angel Medflight on Twitter in a good way. This corporate profile account gives the latest reports on each important
  

  Angel Medflight Twitter Profile

  trip by tweeting where they are headed, mileage and integrating those tweets with FaceBook.  They really are on Twitter with 439 followers and actively engaged by following 439  people.  They have multiple posts a day  but in the several check ins I had on different days, Twitter is more of a broadcast channel than conversation channel as they post blog, news, activities (some foursquare posts), FaceBook links, Flickr updates etc. This is not pointed out as a negative, but it does appear that they are doing a solid integration between sites, while focusing on the story telling and sharing using Twitter to extend their reach for this news.

• FaceBook is for friends - The Angel MedFlight page on FaceBook that Cassie directs has a considerable following and seems to be one of the significant interaction sites for engagement. With 3432 fans/likes they have an active posting schedule 4-5 times a day.  On top of that they are listening as can be seen by the response time after people have posted questions.  They have a broader variety of posts and links here including sharing blog updates, news, and general issues that medical and emergency responders would be interested in.

What does success look like?

Tracking and measuring the success of these efforts is not lost on Ms. Graper either. Just like the rest of us – spread thin in our roles – Graper wears many hats and is quick to note that they have tried several different approaches but it is the tracking that helps her decide the success of each social media effort.  They can tell the reach of each video and what to do more of.  FaceBook Insights lets them know what  interaction that works best with the 3,400 fans as they are tuned in to what will bring their news into the home pages of each and every FaceBook contact and their social ecosystem.

Angel MedFlight Website Traffic via Compete.com

Over all the social ecosystem that Ms. Graper is developing has a wonderful mix of case study, stories of clients who used the services presented by the clients themselves, company events, and even funny ones about the company pooch – a handsome Labrador who apparently rules the roost back at the headquarters. These I think have all been combined to make a very serious business personal, real and also lets us see the inside of an operation that could be critical to anyone of us. Judging by Graper’s attention to detail I look forward to checking back with her after the first of the year to hear about her results.

What are your plans for 2011 for building a social media strategy? What do you think Angel MedFlight could do to improve?

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