David Scott - The New Rules of Marketing and PR

Bingo . Murray came across lots of conversations related to his keywords, and if something sounded like a good fit for him, he took the liberty of introducing himself via Twitter. “Many times, the jobs had not been officially posted,” Murray says.

How cool is it that on Twitter you can express interest in a job opportunity that hasn’t even been announced yet? It’s like getting inside information!

Hired . It didn’t take long at all for Murray to land the ideal job. His example is of someone who had already established himself in his career; he was looking for a new job because of a layoff. But what about new (or soon-to-be) university graduates searching for an entry-level position?

When Lindsey Kirchoff was a graduating senior at Tufts University near Boston, Massachusetts, she started a terrific blog called How to Market to Me . 2In her blog, Kirchoff offers her opinions on how to market to millennials like herself. “The blog is my opinion,” she says. “It’s about the advertisements that ‘get’ me as a collegiate and 20-something consumer—the companies that understand my values, participate in my humor, and reach me when/where I’m most likely to need them. It’s also about companies that don’t do any of those things and how they can better reach me (and people like me) in the future.”

She used her comments on other people’s blogs, her Twitter feed (@LindseyKirchoff), and other social networking tools to share her ideas about how companies should market to people like her—a focus that also served to showcase her understanding of marketing.

At the time, Kirchoff was on the hunt for a job upon graduation, hopefully at a mid-to-large marketing firm with a strong entry-level program. Soon her active social networking led to discussions both online and in person with marketers at a Boston-based software company. Partly based on her solid understanding of social media as demonstrated by her blog and use of Twitter, Kirchoff was hired full-time and started working soon after graduation.

What Kirchoff and Murray both did was to show potential employers that they were available and ready to contribute. They put their enthusiasm and expertise out there to make themselves stand out from the other candidates, who would simply send a paper application or CV.

Some people might argue that this technique works only to find jobs related to social media and marketing (like Murray and Kirchoff did). While it’s true that social-media-savvy people are often the first to use these techniques, I’m convinced that they would work for many other kinds of job seekers. These days, Twitter is used very widely, and tweets like “I’m looking for an accountant to join my London office” appear frequently. You should be monitoring what people are saying in your field. Plus, if you’re an accountant, salesperson, or production manager looking for work, then you’re really going to stand out from the crowd of 1,000 resumes if you use social media to find a job.

As long as we’re discussing social media and job searches, here’s an important consideration: What comes up when you Google your name with the name of your most recent employer? Potential employers do that all the time. And you can influence what they see! Remember, on the web, you are what you publish.

As social networks become more important for organizations of all kinds, the challenge becomes how to integrate them effectively. Adagio Teas, 3a family-owned gourmet tea company founded in 1999, has used social networking to become the most popular online destination for tea enthusiasts. Social sharing and crowdsourced product creation aren’t “bolted-on” strategies at Adagio Teas. Unlike at most companies, social networking is a critical component for driving business.

I learned about Adagio Teas from my daughter, Allison. She’s a loyal customer and eagerly shared with me how the company works. As of this writing, Adagio Teas sells a remarkable 68,050 blends of tea. The vast majority of blends are created by its customers either for their own enjoyment (think private blends) or as a blend that is sold to others on the site. Creating blends via crowdsourcing is a brilliant strategy for driving social interaction, because people are eager to share their creations on networks like Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr.

“The idea of customer-created blends came from growing up in a Russian background,” says Ilya Kreymerman, chief technology officer and member of the family that founded and runs Adagio Teas. “Tea was always something that was in the house, and when my mom and dad had company over, they would always drink this blend of tea that my mom made herself. So the idea of having people create these unique blends was second nature to us. We found a way that people can not only make it but also share with friends, the same way that my mom would share it when people came over. The idea is not just making it for yourself but making it for yourself and for a large community.”

Avid tea connoisseurs can search the database for a perfect blend, or, as with Amazon’s bestseller list, browse teas based on popularity and customer reviews. That’s another important social aspect: Like popular authors on Amazon, those who create delicious blends build a following with Adagio Teas customers, driving sales with their ratings and reviews. If you like a blend, you can see what other blends that creator has made. Repeat customers can create a profile to keep track of teas they enjoy most, and they can also add teas they want to try.

For example, a top-ranked tea as I write this, Sherlock, is a blend by Cara McGee: “All at once exotic and mysterious and perhaps a little bit insane, with a lingering hint of smoke. Inspired by BBC’s Sherlock , which I am in no way affiliated with. This is created purely for my own enjoyment. Ingredients: Lapsang souchong, Assam melody, Oriental spice.”

McGee uploaded a video where she talks about the blend. There are also customer reviews and social sharing tools that include Facebook (with over 1,000 likes), Twitter, Tumblr, and Pinterest. The Sherlock blend is part of a theme that Adagio calls Fandom Signature Blends, which also include such teas as Avatar, Big Lebowski, Doctor Who, Harry Potter, and many more blends based on popular movies, TV shows, and books.

“A lot of what drives people to buy the tea is not really the tea itself—it’s this story around the tea,” Kreymerman says. “You take a pot of tea and infuse it with a character or TV show or video game and suddenly people have an attachment. You’re piggybacking on their love for a specific character. Instead of it just being a cup a tea, it’s now got all of this background and emotion baked in.” And people are naturally eager to talk on Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks about tea that has a connection to the books, movies, and TV shows they love.

Another social aspect kicks in when customers add friends to their profiles. If you log in to Adagio Teas with a Gmail account, you can instantly find out whether one of your contacts also has an Adagio Teas profile. Or if you’re reading a review and like someone’s taste in tea, you can friend that person.

With all the sharing going on with customers at Adagio Teas, it’s no surprise that the company itself is active on social networks. It has an excellent Tumblr blog 4(“The official blog from the people behind Adagio”), and is active on Twitter (@AdagioTeas, 29,000+ followers), on Facebook (72,000+ likes), and on other social sites.

“People historically have spent a lot of money to advertise products,” Kreymerman says. “But we never use traditional marketing, advertising, things like that because it’s incredibly expensive. You’re kind of shooting in the dark. I think the more interesting thing is to provide customers with value by putting the money towards a really interesting site or really interesting idea or making their experience better instead of just kind of directing them towards your store. We listen to the audience, and a lot of our good ideas come from listening to what people are talking about on Twitter and Tumblr. And once in a while, we hear the same question coming up over and over again and realize that we have to address it.”