Adam Lilly, Brand Director, Goose Island Beer Company discusses how to evaluate, execute and measure social media campaigns to boost business. Within his presentation you will get tips on how to turn online social interactions into earned media through word of mouth marketing.

1. Social Media
SEEN THROUGH
A GLASS

2. Underlying Themes
• The message is as important as the medium
through which you tell it.
• Resources structured around improving
storytelling capabilities can be changed
quickly to fit your business needs as well as
capitalize on evolving technology.

3. 3 Key Takeaways
• Make time for one-on-one conversations.
• Go behind the scenes.
• Celebrate your people.

4. Ideas to reject
• Social media is a no/low cost endeavor.
• Social media should be delegated.
• Leveraging new technologies alone will
provide you with social media success.

5. Pub mentality into
SOCIAL
STRATEGY

6. Background
The values behind Goose Island’s social media
strategy were learned during 24 years of selling
the original social medium – beer. To understand
how we view social media today it’s necessary
to understand why we did what we did way back
in 1988.

7. Goose Island
• Founded in 1988 in Chicago
• With a small brewpub on Clybourn Street
• Inspired by pub culture of Europe
• Where social drinking is the norm
• Families and friends connecting over beer

8. Early Challenges to Success
• “Craft” beer did not exist
• Beer knowledge was at an all time low
• U.S. beer drinking culture was stagnant
• Financial restrictions of a small company

9. Why the Pub Succeeded
• It showcased a story.
• It relied on word of mouth marketing.
• It celebrated beer diversity.
• It respected the customers.
• It was extremely nimble.

10. GI Social Media Strategy
Goose Island’s social media strategy
derives from the belief that social media
is a storytelling destination that – much like a
pub – allows for ongoing exploration of and in-
depth conversation about a brand story.

11. Why This is Relevant to You
• You likely don’t have a pub.
• But you do you have a brand story to tell.
• Your brand or business has people who care
about your brand story.
• You care about what people are saying about
your brand story.

12. Strategy applied
GOOSE & AB-INBEV

13. The Situation
• In early 2011 Goose Island founder,
John Hall, decided to sell to AB-Inbev.
• The craft beer community divided over the
sale. Discussion was heated and taking place
primarily on social media.

14. GI Social Media Background
• Highly active on beer community websites like
BeerAdvocate.com since early 2007.
• Year old Facebook page with 10,000 fans.
• Months old Twitter feed with 1000 followers.
• An assistant managing our daily dialogue on
social media.

15. The Fears of the Masses
• The sale would be a bad thing for Goose Island
and craft beer.
– The brewery would get shut down.
– People would get laid off.
– AB would strong arm the craft community.
– Recipes would get dumbed down.

16. The Real Story
• The sale was in fact a good thing for
Goose Island.
– We’ve been able to make more great beer.
– We’ve been hiring more people.
– We’ve have access to brewing resources no
other small craft brewer does and the beer
has gotten even better as a result.
– We’ve been better able to innovate.

17. We Needed to Tell a Story
• That couldn’t be delivered in an ad.
• That was credible.
• That was timely.
• That we could tell ourselves.

18. Social Media Allowed us to
• Consider our drinkers opinions
– By taking time for one-on-one conversations.
• Tell our story in depth
– By going behind the scenes.
• Highlight our people
– By celebrating the work that they do and the
community that they serve.

19. Announcement Tactics
• We got our PR story out quickly via our
existing social media platforms.
• Then we went relatively quiet on social media
for a week.

20. Why Go Quiet?
Our drinkers were entitled to have their
own opinions. We felt that letting them share
their opinions un-edited on our social media
platforms was the socially responsible thing to
do.

21. What Happened Next?
Hate and vitriol flowed unabated for a few
weeks. Then something we expected to happen
did in fact happen. Many drinkers began to say,
“I’ll wait and see.”

22. Making time for
ONE-ON-ONE

23. One-on-One
When drinkers asked a reasonable question
about our future or a choice we made sure they
got a response. Often times personally from a
senior level director at Goose Island. We took
time out for each person that cared enough to
care about our future.

24. Tactics
• We re-invested in a person to tell
our social media story daily.
– Shares information in a timely manner
– Triages questions and gets answers
– Flags high risk social media scenarios and
escalates to upper management
– Learned our story and our voice and knows where
and how to use it effectively

25. Who Should You Recruit?
It’s different for every company. Someone
passionate about your brand or business is a
good starting place. Don’t think of this person as
an administrator, but rather a storyteller. They
may already work for you.

27. Results
Followers Up by Post Feedback Up
9000 180%

28. The Importance of Going
BEHIND THE
SCENES

29. Behind the Scenes
We developed a plan to document everything
we produce as a brewery and share it on social
media in a creative and engaging manner. For
those who were waiting and seeing, they
immediately
began to see what was being made.

30. Tactics
• We developed our internal digital
documentation capabilities.
– Added a second staff photographer.
– Bought new AV/editing equipment.
– Gave our team time to learn to edit and gave
them projects that challenged their skills.
– Established weekly dialogue with operations.
– Established weekly digital content meetings.

32. Results
Views in 2011 Post Views Up
34,000 902%

33. Celebrate
PEOPLE

34. Celebrating People
The goal of social media is to connect people
with people. To counter the fears our drinkers
had about our continued local relevancy we
developed a plan to highlight the unique people
that we have working right here in Chicago. We
told their story and by extension our own.

35. The Tactics
• We rejected the premise that we could put
only a polished spokesperson on camera.
• We looked for people focused stories that
delivered themes of thought innovation or
community building.

36. The Results
• 50+ employees featured in
Social Media content in 2011
• 60+ community events recapped
on Social Media in 2011.

37. To Recap
A brand story expressed via social media
is a powerful force for change when the people
telling the story are empowered to create good
content, quality tools, and people excited in
sharing their passion.

38. Questions to ask yourself
• What story am I telling via social media?
• Who are my storytellers?
• Are they well equipped?
• Would someone be interested enough in our
story to listen long enough to finish a pint of
beer?