By Lindsey Goodwin

Social networking

Most sources shied away from social networking tools like MySpace and Facebook for reasons such as incongruent demographics and duplicated Web site content. Mighty Leaf’s vice president of e-commerce and operations Bliss Dake said at best they could be used as aggregators for a company’s online marketing approach and ways to remind fans of sales and events.

Conversely, Tavalon co-founder Chris Cason said he uses social networking instead of spending $200,000 a year on a search engine optimization (SEO) expert. Cason targets college-age customers with a Facebook page, which he differentiates from his Web site by providing Facebook fans with an interactive, behind-the-scenes look at his company, including photos, text and video. He said it builds community and encourages customer loyalty and feedback. However, Cason did warn that Facebook is in a transitional period and recommended Twitter more highly.

Ilya Kreymerman, chief technology officer at Adagio, takes social networking a step further. He set up features within Adagio’s site to allow social networking features, like adding friends, sending messages and customized pages based on user preferences and friends’ activities (such as a prominent page placement of a friend’s review or custom blend). Kreymerman also implemented a Signature Blends program in which customers add text, photos and video to the site to promote their custom blends to other customers for points that can be exchanged for tea.

Adagio also increases its Page Rank, customer affinity and brand awareness through interactivity on its sites TeaChat, TeaChef and TeaMap, and encourages viral marketing by sending customers an unlimited number of $5 coupons for their friends.

Photo and video

Dake called photo site Flickr a “visual branding storehouse” that provides interaction and immediacy for customers who enjoy photography.

Other companies are also using photography as a marketing tool (notably Samovar, whose new site has views of all its teas), but the hot topic now is video. Cason said, “YouTube searches have risen almost to the level of Google searches. People don’t want to just read about how to steep tea. They want to see it.”

His first webisode was on the Gravity Teapot. He sold 75 within three days of posting the video. Similarly, Kreymerman largely credits a 75 percent increase in Signature Blends sales to video reviews Adagio posts, which get about 1,000 views each. Each month, Samovar founder Jesse Jacobs gets about 10,000 unique page views for his podcasts, which he said create buzz, build community, educate consumers and drive online sales. Sources gave these tips for successful videos:

• Keep it very short.
• Think about what customers want to see.
• Post videos on YouTube, FaceBook, MetaCafe and other sites.
• Remember that videos can be relatively low quality – just include strong educational content and personality.

Other methods

Sources also suggested businesses consider doing the following:

• Imbed Web 2.0 tools like Digg and StumbleUpon into your site.
• Offer RSS feeds on specific topics, such as green tea.
• Include real-time reviews on your site.
• Respond to reviews on sites like Yelp and Citysearch. (Jacobs politely responds to every Yelp reviewer with a coupon, which he said increases loyalty and causes 80 percent of the negative reviewers reverse their reviews.)
• Launch specific, targeted, unique Google Adwords campaigns. (Lawrence went from all organic traffic to 75 percent search engine traffic after doing this.)
• Encourage viral marketing.
• Post on community message boards, related informational sites and blogs to increase backlinks.

Web culture

Above all, sources warned that all these are only tools for connecting with customers. They don’t work unless used properly, so establish an Internet marketing strategy, provide valuable content and make meaningful connections with customers.

Kreymerman warned against buying into buzzwords without understanding the technology and community you’re working with, and sources said that transparency is essential.