Imagine getting these results from your social media advertising:
– 4,911% one month traffic increase
– 144,843 video views with 162 comments
– 1,500 tweets
– 120 blog posts in one month
– Tweets from Guy Kawasaki, Kevin Rose, and Jason Calacanis
– 7 national TV mentions
What was the company that accomplished this? Grasshopper, a company selling 800-number services for small businesses. How did they do this? They created an inspirational video with nearly no self-promotion, and they sent out a package of chocolate-covered grasshoppers, along with a link to the video, to 5000 people they felt were influential.
The idea was so unusual and so counter-intuitive (snail-mail packages in the era of instant Internet communciation?!) that it got attention. Lots of attention. There’s no indication of how it impacted revenues, but it’s hard to imagine it not making a difference.
Social media can be powerful, but it can never compare to sheer creativity. Put them together, however, and interesting things can happen.
(Information via Mashable)