Enterprising Company Sends Dead Grasshoppers
And gives back to future entrepreneurs
Meryl K. Evans, Editor, B2B Social Media Digest
Grasshopper Group is the company behind the 5,000 campaign, a rebranding campaign that included sending five green chocolate-covered grasshoppers to 5,000 influencers. The company used FedEx to create a sense of urgency and authenticity. A glossy white bag with an attached hangtag appeared inside each envelope. The hangtag had a URL leading to a video about the power of entrepreneurship.
Chocolate-covered grasshoppers may not be an American delicacy, yet the campaign compelled influencers like Guy Kawasaki to tweet about the campaign. The result: The switch from the GotVmail brand to the new brand of Grasshopper worked. Who thinks of GotVmail after receiving grasshoppers in the mail?
Social media strategy
Grasshopper Group helps start and grow businesses. The startup company began growing its own product and moved on to help other entrepreneurs — then added a few more products.
Grasshopper aims to create a fun environment for employees. Since many of them already interacted with social media sites for personal reasons, it was natural for the company to take an official step toward social media and encourage employees to meld personal and work life online.
“We thought that employees could take their already strong online influence and act as proud company ambassadors,” says Stephanie Bullis, ambassador of buzz at Grasshopper Group. “Since our original plunge into social media, things have become slightly more organized; however, we have zero and never will have any sort of social policy,” she says.
The company saw that customers, the entrepreneurs using its products, were already engaged in social media. This compelled the company to join the online conversation to ensure that people could find the company and interact with employees.
Since Grasshopper focuses on entrepreneurs, a group that tends to be technically savvy, the company knew it’d be a wise move to adopt social media and tools with the following strategies in mind.
- Use social media as a way to communicate a cohesive message across multiple platforms.
- Make connections with customers, media, influencers, etc., that may not otherwise be possible. Start by building relationships online that later translate into more powerful offline relationships.
- Connect as real people. Bridging from business to business (B2B) to peer to peer (P2P) provides a more personal identity for the corporate brand.
- Share relevant information such as articles, tips, infographics, resources, events, etc.
- Empower 1 million entrepreneurs to succeed, by providing them with invaluable tools for their businesses.
- Support entrepreneurs beyond a product suite.
- Educate entrepreneurs that Grasshopper Group-like products exist. People start businesses every day that need affordable solutions to get up and running.
Building the business case
Sometimes, social media doesn’t make sense for businesses. Grasshopper knew it could find its main audiences on social media, where they collect information and connect with others. Social media makes it possible to engage with customers on a more personal basis.
Grasshopper Group employees find that it’s easier to track social media than traditional marketing efforts like radio and TV ads. Allison Canty, social media coordinator with Grasshopper Group, says, “You see the conversations happening about your brand, and you can influence them.”
People will talk about your brand and ask questions whether or not your company appears on social media. Better to be there as a resource, or others may negatively influence opinions of your brand.
Measuring success
Grasshopper looks at its connections, which is the number of people following the company’s Twitter account, subscribing to its blogs or “liking” the Facebook page. However, these numbers mean little if no one interacts. The company studies interactions through retweets, mentions, shared-information Facebook status tags (when people “tag” the company on their walls), and comments on blogs and wall posts.
Another important factor is influence based on the company’s reach through its posts — who talks about them and where. Of course, conversion is the fourth element of measuring social media success. Conversion is based on sales, revenue, referrals, and traffic driven to company and product sites.
In monitoring Twitter for specific keywords, Bullis saw a tweet from someone asking about a virtual PBX solution. Rather than just responding to check out Grasshopper, she also provided two Twitter IDs of customers using the service. One tweet led to a phone call and the person became a customer. Not only that, but also the customer had an online radio show and invited Bullis to be a guest. He also acts as a Twitter referral whenever someone asks about Grasshopper and its products.
When Twitter’s “fail whale” (for the uninitiated: a picture of a whale appears when Twitter is down) keeps showing up as people attempt to connect to Twitter, they grow frustrated and spread that onto other networks. Oh, the irony. Grasshopper has turned technical difficulties — something that can happen to any company — into a positive experience thanks to social media.
For example, during a brief outage with the company’s phone system, the staff hopped on the social networks to provide regular updates on the outage. Customers knew exactly when the service was back up. A company that doesn’t join conversations could easily experience a publicity nightmare. Because the company provided consistent information and updates, customers never had a chance to become frustrated and instead saw a company that provided fast, thorough customer service.
Advice to businesses
Many companies enjoying social media success have said this, and it deserves repeating: no company should dive into social media just because everyone is doing it. Social media takes time and planning to be successful in engaging prospects.
The two biggest hurdles Grasshopper Group faced in entering social media were finding the time to do it and figuring how much time to invest. The staff doesn’t have a rule for this, and like most people, some days they spend more time in social media than others. “Things happen very fast, and if you’re not constantly monitoring to some degree, you can miss out on important conversations,” Canty says. The more customer conversations that occur in social media, the more time staff spend engaging and listening.
Social media can open the door and cultivate relationships. Where the real value comes in is taking the conversations outside of social media using the phone or meeting in person to make a personal connection. “People trust you more and realize that you’re a real person and not just a corporate brand hiding behind a computer screen looking to make sales,” Bullis says.
Almost every company experiencing success in social media says it began by looking at its target market, where customers and prospects interact and set expectations before engaging. Canty says, “Determine what your communication with them will be (platform, tone, frequency) and what your communication will be from them.” The Grasshopper team continues to learn from companies that excel in social media and mimic their efforts while retaining the company’s own voice.
Social media elements
Goal: The company aims to spread three messages: “We are empowering entrepreneurs to succeed with a suite of products they love to use,” “We’re a brand for entrepreneurs” and “We’re a trusted resource.”
Social media tools: Grasshopper’s staff takes social media seriously and has fun doing it through these social tools:
- Twitter. The Grasshopper Group has various Twitter IDs to share information specific to the product or business, including @ghgroup and @grasshopper. Employees use Twitter to engage with their target markets for each Twitter ID because that’s where they can find and interact with their audience to share information and extend their reach. Founders and CEOs tweet with customers and prospects using personal Twitter handles and don’t hide behind a corporate logo.
- Facebook. The company has pages for Grasshopper Group, Grasshopper.com and Chargify. It uses Facebook for personal interaction with customers and fans and provides updates including new features, events attending, news, blog posts and anything else involving the company.
- LinkedIn. Grasshopper posts blogs on the company’s LinkedIn page as well as uses LinkedIn as a platform to connect with professionals, network, recruit, answer questions, join related groups and participate in discussions.
- YouTube. GetGrasshopper’s channel is loaded with how-to videos and caught wildfire with the company’s conceived New Dork video. It hired the Pantless Knights to create this video that helped generate brand awareness and fun for entrepreneurs.
- Blogs. Staff use blogs to tell customer stories, discuss related topics such as startups and entrepreneurs, host guest bloggers, and share information regarding products.
- Flickr. Photo albums show pictures of the office, events and outings.
All these activities help the company influence brand loyalists and encourage happy customers to want to talk about products. Staff gain input on how to do their jobs better.
Results: While Grasshopper sees comments on blog posts and content retweeted in Twitter, the company knows social media is working when customers report they chose Grasshopper over competitors because of its social media presence.
The company created National Entrepreneurs Day to recognize entrepreneurs and encourage others to sign a petition to compel President Barack Obama to recognize the day. This is a 100 percent Twitter campaign. Soon, the campaign grew on blogs and Facebook so much that Kaufman Foundation took notice and recognized the company in its Global Entrepreneurship Week.
Almost daily, Grasshopper staff sees tweets asking for recommendations for services or similar services. Thanks to Grasshopper’s brand loyalist customers on Twitter and its social media monitoring due diligence, it can influence these conversations and help people with buying decisions. People sign up for services based on the staff’s immediate responses and help on Twitter.
Because of creative campaigns and social media, the company has more than 35,000 customers and has empowered more than 100,000 entrepreneurs. It has accomplished what most would consider impossible for a company with zero sales representatives. “We get to know our customers, their stories and their passions. With this information, we can help promote their story to our entire audience of online followers and influential media contacts,” Bullis says.
About the interviewees
Stephanie Bullis is the ambassador of buzz at Grasshopper Group. She is passionate about fostering relationships with entrepreneurs and connecting with the startup community. You can find Bullis on Twitter @srbullis or via email at sbullis@grasshoppergroup.com.
Allison Canty is the social media coordinator at Grasshopper Group. She is responsible for managing Grasshopper Group’s online social presence and is passionate about Internet and social media marketing. You can connect with Canty via Twitter at @AliCanty.
About the author
Meryl K. Evans is senior editor at InternetVIZ and the content maven behind the Connected Digest, B2B Social Media Digest and Professional Services Journal. Follow her on Twitter @merylkevans, LinkedIn or Facebook.
