Social networking gains credibility with businesses

Parker Bradtmiller tweets and makes online friends for Storm Smart Industries. Parker Bradtmiller sits at an austere glass desk that is bereft of the usual postit notes, comic strips and action figures you might expect at the IT guy’s station. There’s a Mountain Dew to the side and an energy drink directly in front of him. It is from here that Mr. Bradtmiller gives voice to Major Storm, the mascot for Storm Smart Industries, a hurricane shutter manufacturer in Fort Myers.

Mr. Bradtmiller spends about 20 hours a week creating blog entries, tweets, wall posts and signing up on social networks in an effort to create an online presence for the company. All the posts are written in the mascot’s voice, as if they were coming from Major Storm’s own snout.

For the uninitiated and the Luddites who still eschew becoming part of the hive collective that is social media, here’s how it works:

Deazzle.com is is relying on social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to deliver a solid customer base. Individuals, and increasingly, businesses and nonprofits, sign up to sites where they can post quick updates on their ruminations, pieces of advice and sometimes news. Other users of the network can choose to add users to their contact lists, which allows them instant access to posts by that user. Messages from people in one’s network arrive 24-7 into e-mail boxes, online and via their smartphones.

Southwest Florida businesses have a love-hate relationship with social media. Internet services like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and several other, more obscure, online services continue to gain in popularity as low-cost, post-modern ways to communicate with increasingly connected consumers.

Companies are expanding their social networking initiatives even as they simultaneously institute policies to keep their employees off those networks during work hours and despite the fact there is no good way for them to track how effective their social marketing efforts really are.

Mr. Bradtmiller tries to make it worthwhile for people to follow Storm Smart by making its posts informative. “I follow the information and tips and 20 percent is promotional,” said Mr. Bradtmiller.

Recently, Major Storm told followers of his postings that the company was giving away a TV set at a local expo. Another post linked to a site with a hurricane preparedness checklist. “I want high traffic to our Web site,” said Mr. Bradtmiller, “and hopefully that turns into conversions.”

Throughout Southwest Florida, businesses are posting online to audiences that are often made up of only a few hundred, or even dozens, of people. Bice restaurant in Naples posts deals on its Facebook fan page that offer things like 10 percent discounts. Recently, Fort Myers Toyota used its site to update customers about recalls. Although the audiences are relatively small for these posts, rarely topping 1,000 people, there is a pervasive and growing belief that social media is a required element of a thorough marketing plan.

Fawcett Memorial Hospital in Port Charlotte recently made the bold move of using Twitter to give generic play-byplay of actual live surgeries. It allowed patient’s family members to keep tabs while they were out in the waiting room or out of state. While just a few hundred followers are exposed to the hospital’s postings online, the initiative to broadcast surgeries was parlayed into widespread media coverage on TV and newsprint — cross-media pollination that is a marketing coup. Social media is also used by the hospital to broadcast information on health screenings and other activities.

The number of people connected to the hospital online hovers around 500 and continues to increase steadily.

All this free exchange of information exists despite the paradox where most organizations prohibit use of social media. At Fawcett, computers are locked out of accessing sites like Twitter and Facebook. Locking out the sites is a common practice throughout the corporate world where managers are dually concerned about lack of productivity and the risk that someone posts something harmful or disparaging while on the clock.

“If the boss sees you on Facebook, he’s not going to be very happy,” said Mr. Bradtmiller.

Even this publication pulled the plug on Facebook in the office. “We had to ban it,” said Executive Editor Jeff Cull. “It was getting out of hand.”

Facebook boasts 400 million active users worldwide. By the middle of last year, the online research company com- Score estimated there were more than 17 million Twitter users. The majority of those users are in the U.S.

Because of numbers like that most Fortune 500 corporations have elaborate social networking plans in place. Small companies and nonprofits are following suit.

Deaz - zle.com, a Naples-based Web site, hired C2 Communications to mastermind an intense social marketing blitz before its launch. The site offers local deals at retailers and restaurants to people who are registered with them. C2 created yet another mascot-character, Dilly Deazzle and started Twittering and “friending” people on Facebook. The company started attracting a fan base by posting community events and news.

“You can’t go on there and just advertise,” said Cyndee Woolley with C2, “People don’t care about that. They’re there to find something what’s relevant and interesting to them.”

Deazzle also bought ads on Facebook that targeted users within a 50-mile radius of the Naples/Fort Myers market. The site is on track to register 15,000 users by

th t eir official launch on March 1.

Admittedly, many so social networkers er have trouble de determining an ex exact return on th their investment of ti time. While there a are some tools that h help detect how oct often one’s name comes up in posts, the numbers aren’t e ntirely reliable. M ore than the

driving marketers’

efforts is the belief that the use of social media will continue to increase. Being among the first to capitalize on the phenomenon will set them apart from the pack.

“I think back to the ’90s with Web sites and companies that said, ‘I’ll never do that,’” said Murray Izenwasser, a social media consultant who occasionally runs seminars in Southwest Florida. “I don’t know any business now that doesn’t have a Web site. It’s just for the legitimacy factor now.”

Mr. Izenwasser says the biggest objection he hears from businesses, particularly small ones, is the time it takes to stay connected. “It is time consuming, but it’s going to become an integral way for companies to communicate.” ¦