When Mr. Brooks, owner of 10 Qdoba restaurants, noticed that Dan Bylsma had become a regular visitor at one of his restaurants, he decided to capitalize on the situation. Dan Bylsma, the Penguins coach, had a superstition to come into Qdoba to enjoy a BBQ pork burrito before every game to further his winning season. And of course, as the “magic burritos” were causing the Penguins to keep winning, many of the players also joined in on the ritual. When Chad Brooks called his advertising agency with the story, they immediately went to work to publicize the success of the Penguins through Qdoba. So a Facebook and Twitter page were launched that night, and within 3 days the page had over 1,000 fans all tweeting and posting comments on the wall. From all of this success, the media caught on, resulting in local TV news and radio coverage, along with ESPN.com, New York Times, and USA today all buzzing about the “Lucky Burrito Campaign”. Dan Bylsma played along, doing his part posing for pictures, taking part in TV interviews in the restaurant, and signing autographs for fans. Mr. Brooks’ rewards on this largely viral campaign were amazing: 20% same-store-sales gain during the two-week promotional window. Orders for “Coach Dan’s Burritos” were going through the roof; some stores had their biggest sales days ever during this promotion. This campaign did more than just deliver a profit, it resulted in major brand awareness, and a connection with the community and support of a home team, and it was all from advertising a local story on social networking sites.

http://adage.com/abstract.php?article_id=137441

Want to know how to tie in your business with social marketing but can’t quite figure it out? Social marketing is such a big part of businesses that Social Networking San Diego is offering a free weekly Webinar to educate anyone interested in “Social Networking 101”. Social Networking San Diego services local and global clients to help them completely wrap their heads around social networking and media, and how to then take that knowledge to another level. This new class focused on up-grading your business development and marketing tactics helps you learn how to generate prospects from on-line tools, how to get more clients from the social networks, to understand the internet and overcome the competitor, and more. This class being offered with such enthusiasm just goes to show once again how much social networking sites like Twitter, Linked-In and Facebook have such a great business value that needs to be taken advantage of. Social Networking San Diego suggests attendance from Marketing Managers, Business Owners, Entrepreneurs, Vice Presidents, Business Development Managers and Sales Professionals, joining everyone in the mix with one easy online sign up sheet. This is a great class to take advantage of for those who are struggling with the concept of the value of online marketing. Because unless you really know what you are doing and how to fully engage with your contacts, you probably wont be seeing much progress.

To sign up for this free weekly webinar, please visit http://www.socialnetworkingsandiego.com/free-webinar/

In just seven short weeks, over a million users have downloaded the free course to learn all about iPhone applications. Students are going crazy over this new class, learning all about the applications, and trying to create there own, so they can “make it big”. On iTunes U, a feature that has over 100,000 educational video and audio files available to the public, they are reaching a new world of learning. We already bring our laptops, mobile devices and iPod with us everywhere, so why not have an educational tool at our fingertips at all times? It’s just that much easier to learn new things and further your education, for free, and from an accredited University! It really doesn’t get much better than that in terms of easy and available education. Some Universities make their applications private, and only accessible to those who attend the school, but many offer the app. to anyone and everyone to enjoy and learn, the only thing is you usually can’t receive credit unless your enrolled as a student of the University. But this is free knowledge were talking about here. Free, accredited University classes which usually would cost a fortune. And, to some the lack of these courses is the downfall of IF you even get the opportunity to obtain a college education or not. This tool is a key to an up and coming way to have school lectures and educational video at your fingertips – literally, and I feel it will be spreading quickly, through both schools wanting to contribute to iTunes U, and through the opened mind of the learners.

http://news.stanford.edu/news/2009/may20/million-052009.html

Social marketing really has become the new medium. If the Pope has joined Facebook, who hasn’t? Pope Benedict XVI not only has a Facebook, but a YouTube channel, a H2O news application for iPhone and iTouch, and his own website called Pope2You, which links his followers to all of his social WebPages. What a mouthful! To me, this is the pope reaching out to the people and trying to expand the belief in which he stands for past the doors of the church, and into people’s everyday life. Trying to become a daily highlight, just as exciting as following your favorite celebrities or even your best friends, now its just as easy to follow the Pope, and learn more about him. As Pope Benedict XVI expands his social marketing campaign, the more he becomes, and is viewed as, “just like one of us.” I think this is a great idea for the Pope to be viewed as more of an equal, a man that uses Facebook and YouTube on an everyday basis, just like most of us do. It makes more of a personal connection between him and us, instead of viewing him as more of a “God.” Overall, Kudos to the Pope for realizing that in this day and age you need to be where the people are to get anywhere and be heard, and to market yourself, your values, and your beliefs.

http://mashable.com/2009/05/22/pope-benedict-on-facebook/