Talk about a beer buzz.

In barely four years of existence, Ninkasi Brewing Company of Eugene has grown into Oregon’s seventh-largest brewery—no paltry feat in a state where icons such as Widmer, Deschutes, and Full Sail cap a roster of some eighty beer producers.

What’s more, the upstart brewery’s Total Domination IPA is the top-selling twenty-two-ounce bottled beer in the state.

And in the Eugene-Springfield area, Ninkasi products are available on draft or in bottles at almost 90 percent of the businesses where beer is sold, according to the brewery.

“One of my goals was what I call the ‘Chico-fication’ of Eugene,” says co-owner Jamie Floyd ’94, who studied sociology at the UO. “You go to Chico [California], and Sierra Nevada Brewing Company is part of the identity of the people. If Bend and Hood River and Newport are all going to have these big regional breweries, too, it’s cool that we can provide that for Eugene.”

But the hoppy hubbub that radiates from the Whiteaker-neighborhood brewhouse also has spawned burgeoning beer sales across Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Alaska. Along with Total Domination, Ninkasi’s Believer Double Red Ale and Tricerahops Double IPA are among the top fifteen in the nation in the category of new bottled craft beers, according to supermarket scan data.

Floyd and partner Nikos Ridge have bucked the odds in an industry saturated in competition for tap handles and shelf space, but on their side is a buzz-marketing machine that pumps out swells of growth.

“What we do best is get in on the grassroots level, build brand awareness on the underground, and use that as leverage to bring product to people’s attention,” Floyd says. This brand-building approach involves extensive use of social media sites such as Twitter and guerrilla tactics that include using a Batman-style light projector to cast a towering Ninkasi logo onto prominent buildings.

All the touting, twitting, and bat-lighting have helped propel Ninkasi’s production growth from 2,200 barrels in 2007 to 7,800 barrels in 2008, then to 17,000 barrels in 2009. Floyd expects output to reach 30,000 barrels in 2010, and the company is building a facility with 90,000-barrel capacity.

Brian Butenschoen, executive director of the Oregon Brewers Guild, describes Ninkasi’s ascent as “phenomenal . . . A number of other breweries have opened up in the last ten years, but none that has grown like Ninkasi.”

As a result, “we’re seeing sales and marketing teams at other breweries trying to copy us,” Floyd claims. “That’s the biggest compliment we can get at our young age, that the big dogs are afraid of us.”

In a small office next to a new tasting room, James Book and Winter Gibbs ’09 spend their days brewing buzz via Facebook, Twitter, and rock ’n’ roll.

Book, Ninkasi’s marketing director, tasted the rock-star life as bass player in his former band, The Flys, which scored a top-five hit in 1998 with “Got You (Where I Want You).” Today he owns topsecret, a record label and production company. At a studio in the brewery’s new offices, Book also will record, produce, and promote Ninkasi-sponsored bands.

Working with Book is Gibbs, Ninkasi’s viral marketing specialist, who has a degree from the UO School of Journalism and Communication with an emphasis in creative advertising.

“Not that many breweries have a computer geek on staff specifically for social networking,” says Floyd, who used MySpace in the brewery’s early days to connect with pubs, music venues, bands, and fans.

Today Gibbs continuously nurtures Ninkasi’s expanding online neighborhood, whether at his office computer or on the road with his iPhone. “I use Facebook as my base platform, and I have it set up to post back to Twitter,” Gibbs says. He also receives alerts when anyone writes about Ninkasi on those sites or elsewhere on the web. “Some people don’t even know we have a Twitter feed, and I can go directly to them, answer their question, and get them in the loop.”

Almost 6,000 people are fans of Ninkasi on Facebook (www.facebook.com/ninkasibrewing) and some 1,600 follow it on Twitter (twitter.com/ninkasi). They receive updates regarding new beers, tasting events, concerts by sponsored bands, and more.

Sometimes Ninkasi mobilizes its followers to wield influence in the real world—say, to ask en masse for its beers at a certain bar—and in cyberspace. Last November, fans helped convince blogger Jay Brooks (brookstonbeerbulletin.com) that Ninkasi belonged on his list of the past decade’s top ten new breweries.

Social networking yields tangible marketing advantages for the brewery, too, such as the detailed fan demographics in Facebook’s weekly “Insights” report. “When we enter a new marketplace, we can track the relative consciousness and vibe,” and use that to decide when to invest in print advertising or sponsorships, Floyd explains.

“We started our business right around the rise of social networking . . . and there’s an argument that there’s no way we could have broken the 15,000-barrel barrier in under four years without this sort of tool.”

Kim Sheehan, professor of advertising in the School of Journalism and Communication, coauthored a 2008 book, Building Buzz to Beat the Big Boys, with Steve O’Leary ’69. In it, they advise small business owners how to harness the power of word of mouth.

Consumers today want more information, control, and choice, and businesses can serve these needs with an online community that fosters dialogue, the authors note.

Engaging customers in this way has boosted Ninkasi, Floyd says. “We benefit from the honesty of it, and people feel like they have played a part in our growth. The beer is good, but we’re involved in their lives.”

Sheehan and O’Leary also urge business owners to take certain marketing risks to ferment positive word of mouth for their brands.

Floyd and his agents of buzz face some risk as they slink around darkened cityscapes, fire up a portable generator, and use their spotlight to turn night to Ninkasi. “We’re not invading anybody’s space, but there’s a certain amount of ‘could we get thrown in jail for this?’ We’re gonna darn well find out,” Floyd says, laughing. “We’re going to stay as creative as possible in our marketing techniques.”

Inspired and persistent marketing tactics, write Sheehan and O’Leary, are like “bonfires that you build to light the way to your store.”

Soon, a giant “N” might slice through the night and land on the side of San Francisco’s Transamerica Pyramid, lighting the way to Ninkasi for a new Northern California customer base. And anyone passing by with an iPhone will be able to tap the buzz with the latest in mobile Ninkasi-fication—the official Ninkasi app, new for 2010.

I am thrilled to welcome Lisa Peyton to our team as Vice President and William (Willie) Crane as Community Manager.

Lisa originally comes from the east coast and has lived in Portland for over 15 years.  Before  teaming up with Bonfire, Lisa ran her own social media consulting company, Peyton Media, and brings years of experience to our team. We welcome her as our VP of Operations. Lisa will be the glue that keeps us all together and the fuel that keeps the engine running (no pressure). We are proud to have her on-board.

Willie Crane comes to Bonfire with a copywriting background. He graduated with a BA in Journalism/Mass Communication from Seattle University Cum Laude and has been working as a  freelance writer. Willie is highly proficient in CRM, MSFT Office, Adobe and website database systems, which fits perfect with what we do at Bonfire. Willie will be our new community manager and research assistant to Lisa. We are thrilled to have him on our team.

Please help me in welcoming our new A-Team to Bonfire!

I completely understand why they are jumping aggressively into the info streaming game. Facebook is gobbling up their eyeballs for ads and search because Facebook uses Bing. Their entire strategy is to be the advertising source for all websites in the world. That works when people make personal blogs, but when blog creation slows because Facebook profiles are easier to maintain, those ad dollars disappear. Furthermore, Facebook’s ad system allows marketers to target demographically, geographically and by keywords, whereas Google only allows for geographic and keyword targeting.

Another reason could be because Facebook is about to launch “Open Graph” which will allow for business to build websites using a highly integrated version of Facebook Connect. It kind of reminds me of Blogger, but much more socially integrated. This will further reduce Google’s online ad market, but that complex subject is for another post.

Personally, I’m a Google Fanboy that loves almost all products they produce. I have been a Gmail user from the beginning, use Google Voice daily, have tried Wave (meh for now), use Docs regularly and even run all company emails through their App system. This is the first time that I have seen Google jump on a “me too, but not as good” wagon that Microsoft is so good at. In it’s current state, Buzz will have a hard time gaining traction and I have already moved on until changes are made.

1. Don’t pay for SEO on Bing (or Yahoo)
2. Don’t pay for SEO on Google
3. Start a facebook page (they are free)
4. Start a Facebook CPC (cost per click) campaign. They are very easy and cheap to set up. For an example of one that has been done pretty well, look at http://www.facebook.com/SunriverResort ($50-$100 per month)
5. Start a CPC campaign on google adwords. This is a little more complicated, but very effective. ($100-$200 per month)

Product and services should be priced and managed using yield management on the ads. For an example: advertise an early week special price for early bookings/purchases and then if there is still inventory, have a close out price ready to rotate in on thursday and friday. the trick is a perceived value in the price, so think about raising their price to discount it easier.

SEO with Google and Bing are based on:
1. indexing webpages – you can submit theirs to both engines here: http://www.google.com/addurl/ and http://www.bing.com/webmaster/SubmitSitePage.aspx

2. How many pages are pointed back to them. .org and .edu carry more weight than .com and .net.

3. How old the website is

4. How often it changes.

There are several areas that can grade a website’s “juice.” This is my favorite: http://grader.com/

They might also think about getting involved with sites such as this: http://www.packlate.com/ (here is an explanation: http://techcrunch.com/2010/02/12/packlate-funding/).

There are so many tools available to people these days that marketing can be very effective on a budget.

If anyone else has some simple and cheap ideas on this topic, we would love to hear from you in the comments!

Good Luck

First it is important to address your goals as a company in social media. Goals help clearly define a strategy allowing a company to understand the methods to put that strategy in action. Below are three of the main goals for social media marketing and examples of how they were put to use.

1. Awareness (need more customers)

Threadless.com wanted to have more awareness on social networks in particular Facebook. They knew in order to increase awareness on Facebook, they had to attract more fans to their page.  They felt that awareness meant attracting 50,000 fans to their Facebook page. Their method to attract fans was 3 fold:

1. Create a Facebook badge on the front page of their website that would link directly to their Facebook page

2. Add links at the bottom of their email newsletter and write an article indicating the Facebook page was up.

3. Being very active at predictable times on the Threadless Facebook page and clearly stating their goals to their fans.

- One example of activity was having a video blog featuring two energetic employees giving away discounts and items to people that became fans of Threadless, people that changed their profile picture to feature the fan with Threadless product and fans that commented on the videos that were uploaded. These videos ran every hour for 7 hours on Thursdays every week. Threadless understands people are conditioned for consistency (think TV scheduling) so they gave their video “spins for wins” campaign time to resonate with fans. Every week for 5 months they kept this 3-4 minute video giveaway going. They now have over 82,000 fans with no small part being attributed to their video show.

2. Customer Service/Retention Marketing (need to keep our customers)

Starbucks was seeing customers leave their brand. Sales were shrinking because of a number of factors and one was company perception. So Starbucks went to work. They honed their listening skills and developed several systems for responding to customer concerns. Goal: keeping customers loyal (customer retention)

1. Make a community - Starbucks made a very intuitive community that they moderated, but did not take down negative comments. The community (mystarbucksidea) crowd sources for ideas, then showcases good ideas that are implemented. Customers feel as though they are a part of the company’s decision making and creates a sense of belonging to the brand.

2. Utilize Twitter - Twitter allows Starbucks to monitor customer sentiment easily and in real time. Anytime someone mentions Starbucks over Twitter, a member of their 7 person team is alerted and then deciphers the nature of conversation.

3. Developing a dashboard to filter keywords - Starbucks utilized keyword aggregation software to  listen to the voice of the entire web. They want to make sure needs are addressed and customers understand their brand.

3. Relationship Target Marketing (Electronic PR and Creative Contacting)

This is the last and probably most difficult goals to build a strategy behind. The company must have the time, energy and compelling message to reach people in their industry that would talk about their product or service. A company must listen and find where these “mavens” are and build a mutually beneficial relationship over time.

An example used by David Meerman Scott in his book World Wide Rave is of Lisa Genova. Genova is the author of Still Alice, a novel about a young woman’s descent into dementia due to early-onset Alzheimer’s disease.  After writing the book, Genova could not find a publisher to bring her book to market. So she used the internet and her networking skills to team up with the Alzheimer’s Association to endorse her book and marketing it through her blog. Content on her blog and social networks tied back into her passion for Alzheimer’s awareness, which made her book all the more relevant.  Her book has sold over 250,000 copies and has reached the New York Times Bestseller list.

There are 3 main ways to tackle this more arbitrary form of social media marketing.

1. Reach influential bloggers and traditional media spokespeople - Bloggers and traditional media outlets are constantly looking for compelling content/products they can use. Getting them to use and review your content/products is all about relationships. Most of these influencers are using social media to communicate directly with their audience. Find the names of your industry leaders and reach out to them over Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Follow their conversation and see where your company fits into the mix. When the time is right to comment, be polite and if they have a problem, try to use your product as the solution.

2. Contact industry mavens and establish relationships – Non-profits and other groups are great sources for endorsements. They not only provide credibility to your product, but also open the door to all of their contacts. Find what is unique about your product that relates to these organizations and use social media to contact their decision makers for meetings. This can be very mutually beneficial as highlighted in the Lisa Genova example.

3. Monitor secondary market conversations for product tie-ins - No Product is an island. Every product works well with some other product without taking each other’s sales. If you are a clothing manufacturer, look for fashion events and the people that are running them. Or what other companies will be at the fashion show and look for their point people to develop a relationship with. The key to this strategy is to always keep your mind open to the opportunities around you and being bold enough to introduce yourself to the appropriate people.

Remember, on your approach, you must provide a solution to a problem. Think creatively and contact them with answers. You will only have one shot to get it right.

As always, your feedback is very important and welcome. Hook up with us on Twitter (@ryanjlewis @bonfiremarkting), Fan us on Facebook or leave your comments below.

Lately I have been recognizing a trend of companies looking to hire an inside person to handle all digital marketing efforts. I have a fundamental objection to this practice, not because I run a marketing company, but because I believe it is vastly more expensive for the company.

Hiring someone to handle digital marketing for a small to medium size business internally entails finding someone that is competent and well versed in the proper techniques of social media, have a good aptitude for technical knowledge and have a high emotional quotient for proper social communication. On top of that, digital media marketing is not a full time job for a small to medium sized business. Ford only has 2 people handling the whole company. Although they do have several others working on strategy, the point here is the power of putting a highly skilled person moderating the conversation can be very effective (as I found out recently from Scott Monty).  Starbucks only has 7 people and they run a entire community, not to mention all the people pounding away on their computers in the shops.

Recently Marketing Sherpa issued a report highlight the effectiveness of hiring an outside agency to handle social and digital marketing.

What this highlights is how specialized this type of marketing is. Digital marketing requires a skilled expert that can tailor messages and company needs to reach people where they are most susceptible to messaging. Ultimately, we at Bonfire would like all businesses to take full control of their marketing, but right now that’s like telling a person that has never driven a manual car to parallel park. A good digital marketing firm  will get your business driving down the highway before turning over the wheel.

As far as costs are concerned, finding the correct person internally to handle your company’s digital marketing could be very expensive. A highly skilled person could cost over $3,500 per month not to mention benefits. Whereas utilizing a digital marketing company of record ranges from $900 to $5,000 per month depending on engagement levels. These marketing companies recruit for experience and personality, usually assign marketing managers based on individual campaign needs.

So at risk of this sounding like a negative rant, I will summarize this post with this: Do your research. Every business is different with unique needs. There is a wealth of information available to consume online and the social media community is very generous in giving away its secrets. I hope this helps and wish your company a prosperous Q4.

1. Useful, Everyday Posts

These are every day to every other day happenings within you organization or industry.

Examples of topics:
- New members and their products
- Advancements at your company
- Employee showcases and random musings

Posting Characteristics:
- 250 characters or less
- Hyperlinks to other internal or external pages
- One picture
- Should take no longer than 30 minutes to create

2. Redistributed Posts

The easiest posts to make are Redistributed posts. This is when the writer finds a compelling article with lots of media (aka, video, slideshow, scribd), writes a summary of the material and embeds the corresponding media.

Examples of topics:
- White papers
- Press Releases of partners
- How to videos
- Slideshows of relevant industry material

Posting Characteristics:
- 150 word introduction with hyperlinks crediting original source
- Hyperlinks to other internal or external pages
- Takes around 5 minutes on average to create

3. Discussion Posts (aka fire starters)

Discussion Posts are great for starting the conversation online. Some call them comment bait. Regardless what they are called, they need to be prolific with a topic and must relate to a current issue.

Examples of topics:
- “Is CRM based businesses in trouble?”
- “Is Twitter going to put Facebook out of businesses?”
- Usually will be slightly different view from a current trade publication posts.

Posting Characteristics:
- 250 characters or less
- Hyperlinks to other internal or external pages
- One picture
- Should take no longer than 30 minutes to create

4. Report Posts (aka White Pages)

Report Posts are usually an entry of an internal report or document that is relevant to the community at large. It is best to embed this material as a reader using Scribd,

Examples of topics:
- Reports and White Pages about quarterly stats
- Industry specific information

Posting Characteristics:
- Very short intro no more than 150 characters summarizing the report
- Hyperlinks to other internal or external pages
- Embed of report or reserved release hyperlink to a pdf download
- 30 minutes tops

5. Thoughtful Posts

These types of posts could be construed as a white paper, but are more of an opinion or opt-ed column style posting. These are once a week or once every 2 week posts and should have insightful ideas about a topic. Yes this is the most tedious posts, but they must be done every once and a while.

Examples of topics:
- Trends in the industry
- Ways and techniques for product marketing/sales
- Breaking news
- Captivating titles. Example: “5 types of business blogs”

Posting Characteristics:
- 250 words + (usually around 350-500 words)
- Hyperlinks to other internal or external pages
- Several pictures and bullet points
- Takes around 3 hours on average to create

We hope this is helpful and sheds some light on how easy blogging can be to boost your company’s marketing efforts online. SEO is an all important factor in converting eyeballs to leads and we have found no better/easier way to boost pagerank than by regularly blogging about your industry.