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Burlington, Vermont - June 1, 2009
Magic Hat Brewing Company can't sell its beer over the internet, but it is using the internet to sell its identity.
"It's really transformed the way we look at marketing today," said Mike Hayes, who identifies himself as Magic Hat's wizard of wonderments and digital delights.
The company is using social networking -- interactive websites like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter -- to build buzz and its customer base. For example, Magic Hat has nearly 12,000 fans on Facebook who can talk about its products, both to the company and to their friends.
"We had a virtual tasting," Hayes said, "where people could log on to our website, watch a video, watch our brewmaster and he would sample them and people would sample them at their house and be on twitter commenting on it, writing what they thought. Either they liked it; maybe they didn't like it."
A conference at Champlain College Monday aimed to help other businesses harness the marketing power of social media.
"Social media is like Small Town, USA," said Rich Nadworny, a social media expert and founder of digital strategy company Digalicious. "We kind of lost that in our mass communications. We're going back to that now. When you hear someone talk about something, you trust it more than when someone's getting paid to tell you that same message."
Social networking is free -- costing more in time than in dollars. But experts say there are risks involved, since the company is no longer in total control of its message.
"You have to engage people who are talking negatively," Nadworny said. "Negative talk is not going to go away because companies want to ignore it. The most effective way to deal with it is to address someone who is complaining. The reality is they're people, they want to be addressed one-to-one."
Experts advised companies to first have the best product and website they can. Then listen to what their customers are saying -- because they are already talking.
"What I always tell people is, figure out who your customers are and then figure out where they're located," said C.C. Chapman of The Advance Guard, a New York City-based media consultancy. "Depending on what you're selling, they may not be on Facebook, they may not be on Twitter. They may be on MySpace. Figure out what demographic you're trying to reach."
Like all marketing, the goal, of course, is to sell more products. Magic Hat says it's tough to link its online presence to beer sales in the real world.
"It's pretty much impossible to correlate the two, but I think that's the risk you take," Hayes said. "It's paying off and more brands will start using social networks as they see brands on it doing so well. There's got to be a reason why they're doing so well."
Kate Duffy - Channel 3 News
