Chapter 1

Introduction
Something strange is happening. Your advertising doesn’t work anymore, at least not like it used to. 
You used to be able to buy some TV time or put an ad in a newspaper, but nowadays everyone  
has TiVo or a DVR and gets their news online. The conversations that took place under industrial broad-
cast media about your products happened in small groups, and their words disappeared as soon as they
were spoken. Now the conversations happen in front of millions of people, and they’re archived for years to
come. Not only is your brand no longer the host, most of the time you’re not even a welcome guest.
But it’s not all doom and gloom. You don’t have to try to outspend the biggest companies anymore; now
you can outsmart them with viral videos. You don’t have to spend thousands on sterile focus groups;
you’ve got your market’s pulse at your fingertips with quick Twitter searches. And you don’t even have to
do all the work yourself; the stuff that your fans create will blow you—and your competitors—away.
More than 250 million people are active Facebook users. More than 346 million people read blogs,
and 184 million people are bloggers themselves. Twitter has more than 14 million registered users, and
YouTube claims more than 100 million viewers per month. More consumers are connected than ever
before, and every second your company is not engaging them in social media is a wasted opportunity.
So, get on board.

What Is Social Media Marketing?

Social media is best defined in the context of the previous industrial media paradigm. Traditional media,
such as television, newspapers, radio, and magazines, are one-way, static broadcast technologies. For
instance, the magazine publisher is a large organization that distributes expensive content to consumers,
while advertisers pay for the privilege of inserting their ads into that content. Or you’re sitting down, watching

1
 Figure 1-1. Burger King’s Facebook application was so successful that it had to be shut down.

2
your favorite sitcom, and suddenly you’re interrupted by commercials (luckily, you have a DVR, so you can
fast-forward through them). If you disagree with something you read in the newspaper, you can’t send the
editorial staff instant feedback. And good luck connecting with your morning radio on-air personality.
New web technologies have made it easy for anyone to create—and, most importantly—distribute their
own content. A blog post, tweet, or YouTube video can be produced and viewed by millions virtually for
free. Advertisers don’t have to pay publishers or distributors huge sums of money to embed their mes-
sages; now they can make their own interesting content that viewers will flock to.
Social media comes in many forms, but for our purposes, I’ll focus on the eight most popular: blogs,
microblogs (Twitter), social networks (Facebook, LinkedIn), media-sharing sites (YouTube, Flickr), social
bookmarking and voting sites (Digg, Reddit), review sites (Yelp), forums, and virtual worlds (Second Life).

Big Brands and Social Media

IBM owns more than 100 different blogs, a dozen islands in the virtual world of Second Life, several
official Twitter accounts, and a popular forum called developerWorks. It publishes a machinima series
(a cartoon video made in Second Life) on YouTube, and several employees upload presentations to the
media-sharing site SlideShare.
Dell has tapped the power of social media with its hugely popular IdeaStorm website, where users add
ideas for new product lines and enhancements, vote them up or down, and comment on submissions.
Because of the site, Dell has started to ship computers with Linux installed, and has added community
support. Starbucks has also started to use this model to some success with its My Starbucks Idea site.
Burger King has made headlines time and time again with its innovative viral and social marketing
campaigns, most recently with the “Whopper Sacrifice.” The burger chain offered Facebook users a free
Whopper coupon if they would “unfriend” 10 of their social network connections (see Figure 1-1).

3
 Figure 1-2. Viral videos demonstrated how to pick Kryptonite bike locks with only a Bic pen.

4
Cable giant Comcast has begun to salvage its tarnished reputation with a customer service outpost
on Twitter led by Frank Eliason, Comcast’s “Director of Digital Care,” and his @comcastcares account.
Whenever someone tweets negatively about the company—and that happens a lot—Frank jumps in
to offer whatever help he can. This has led to some of the only positive press the brand has gotten in a
long time. The shoe retailer Zappos, which most people already love, also has an awesome customer
service presence on Twitter.
U.S. President Barack Obama has been called the first social media president, and a strong argument
could be made for the label. As a candidate, he had one of the most popular Twitter accounts and
Facebook pages, and his website contained a social media section where his supporters could create
profiles and connect with each other. The campaign was also present on YouTube, Flickr, LinkedIn,
MySpace, and Second Life.
Big brands have also faced embarrassment on social media. One example is shown in Figure 1-2. In
another example, two Domino’s Pizza employees posted a video to YouTube showing them defiling food
that was to be delivered to customers. That video was watched more than 1 million times in the first few
days, and was the subject of thousands of tweets.
Motrin released a commercial that offered its product as a solution to the pain women experience when
carrying babies in harnesses attached to their torsos. A day later, a small but vocal group of mommy
bloggers had made the commercial the most discussed topic on Twitter, mostly expressing outrage.
These moms made critical videos and blog posts and called for a boycott of Motrin. Eventually, the
company apologized and withdrew the commercial.

5
 Figure 1-3. Blendtec’s “Will It Blend” series was a social media hit.

6
Small Business and Social Media
As indicated previously, social media is a great equalizer: big brands can be outsmarted without making
huge investments, and small brands can make big names for themselves.
Blendtec was a relatively unknown company selling $400 high-performance blenders. After seeing CEO
Tom Dickson testing the machines by blending two-by-fours, Marketing Director George Wright had
a brilliant idea for a series of viral videos. He started to blend everyday objects—glow sticks, iPhones,
Rubik’s Cubes, and television remote controls—and posted the videos to media-sharing sites such as
YouTube (see Figure 1-3). The videos have now been watched more than 100 million times and have
garnered the company a ton of press and buzz.
A small specialty baker in New Jersey, Pink Cake Box, leverages nearly every type of social media that
exists to build a substantial brand. Employees write a blog that features images and videos of their
unique cakes. They post the photos to Flickr and the videos to the company’s YouTube channel. Pink
Cake Box has more than 1,300 followers on Twitter, and more than 1,400 fans on Facebook.
The software startup I work for, HubSpot, has invested a lot of energy in social media marketing with
some success. Our blog has more than 19,000 subscribers (fueled by appearances on Digg, Reddit,
and StumbleUpon), our company Twitter account has more than 16,000 followers, our LinkedIn group
has more than 34,000 members, and our Facebook page has more than 6,000 fans. We’ve launched a
marketing forum, and have a lot of fun making amusing (and sometimes serious) videos for YouTube.

7
 Social Media and You
Whether you are part of a small, medium, or giant business, or are an individual entrepreneur, your cus-
tomers are using social media, and there’s no reason you shouldn’t be, too. It costs almost nothing, it’s
easy to get started, and it can have an enormous financial impact on your business.
This book will teach you everything you need to know to pick the right tools and get started. While writ-
ing this book, I spoke with some of the most brilliant social media pioneers, including people from Flickr,
Yelp, Mashable, WebmasterWorld, Second Life, and Scout Labs. They shared their wisdom on how you
can—and should—be working with social media.
Your customers and your competition are already involved in social media. Why aren’t you?