Amy Sandoz, Owner of Ready Set Go Kits, has been helping people all over the world prepare for natural disasters. Her website offers different emergency kits for different situations (work, school, home, car), there’s even one for pets! Amy’s learned some great strategies to spread the word on her life-changing kits. Her interview highlights why businesses use social media and how connections are made that would have never happened in the past.

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Who does your business help and why?

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Brian C.  Johnson is the man behind the local Portland magazine: Mix. Mix is a great mixup of food and drink, interviewing restaurants aimed at foodies, sharing recipes, and covering “what’s new” to consume. How does a magazine use social media to help broadcast its news?

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What’s your business?

MIX Magazine, Portland’s #1 Food + Drink magazine

When did you start using social media and why?

Began in the summer of 09′ primarily to reach out to those interested in the food + drink category, have dialogue with them and encourage them to read our
publication.

Has social media changed your business?

It has helped us as publishers to have a better understanding of our audience, so I would say it has changed it yes.

How to you envision social media changing in the future?

It will need to continue to be relevant to the consumer. This is the greatest
challenge for any media of our day.

Have a social media story you’d like to share?

We recently did a story on a particular cocktail featuring a local
distiller and a bartender who served this drink at a particular
restaurant in town. We posted the story on Facebook and the restaurant
told us they had so many new customers come in to order the cocktail
that they ran out!

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I was wondering when this fusion of social networking tools might happen. You can now update your LinkedIn status with your tweets.

It’s actually pretty easy, just login into LinkedIn and they sync up your Twitter account to your LinkedIn account. They also ask if you want all of your tweets on LinkedIn or just certain ones – you are able to sort out which tweets you want by adding a tag (#ln).

It’s that easy. Here’s some steps to help walk you through it

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I discovered Threadless after asking a few friends where they got their awesome one-of-a-kind t-shirts. I signed up for Threadless’ email newsletter and have been amazed at how entertaining and fun it is to shop at their site. They have a special formula – let me explain who Threadless is -

Threadless is a community-centered online apparel store that began in 2000. The business is primarily based on community voting – members of the community submit t-shirt designs online – which, by the way, are some amazing pieces of art.  The designs are put out to a public vote. A percentage of the submitted designs are selected for printing and are sold through their online store. Winning designs receive prizes of cash and store credit.

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Their marketing ranges from traditional – holding a “scary designs” contests for Halloween or using social media tools like Facebook,  dedicating themselves to interact with their customers and attract new ones. Here’s some of the ideas they have been cooking up:

• Fans can add items to their cart directly within the Threadless Facebook Page. After choosing your size and clicking “Add to cart,” you’re then directed to Threadless.com where you review your order or return to the Facebook Page and continue shopping.

• Under their tab “New Tees”, you are able to browse the new items of the week. You can post a comment about a t-shirt which then posts to your Wall and News Feed.

• Every Thursday, the company posts hourly videos, giving away prizes by spining on the prize wheel to random fans. Its like a short talk show with prizes and no celebrity guests.

Here’s another profile of Threadless with more examples of how they use Facebook . Who wouldn’t want to go and hang out on their Facebook Fan page? Sounds like fun

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Twitter lists are all the rage right now. Twitter lists are simply allowing you to list your followers into groups. You can visit that list and view the stream, but not necessarily follow these people. Very nifty solution that I think a lot of us have been waiting for.

For example, if there are people who you’d like to follow, but don’t want them in your main twitter stream, you can add them to a list and then check up on tweets. It’s a win-win solution and helps you consoldate information.

Your lists can either be public or private. One of the easiest ways to create a list is to go through the people who are following you and with the dropdown next to their profile, mark which list you’d like to add them to. Lists are limited to 500 people and each user can have up to 20 lists.

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1) Your peers or colleagues. I find it’s hard to keep track of my peers and it would be nice to have all of them in a list. Maybe they will start talking with each other too.

2) Twitter information folks you follow that provide useful tip, resources, information? Why not throw those guys together in a list. It’s a great way to share that prime knowledge and give credit to the thought leaders you are reading.

3)Specialty Lists – Want to keep a list of all your food carts you are following? Lists are perfect for those.

4)Employees – Get your employees tweeting with each other through Twitter      by creating a list for them

5)Targeted marketing & research – it’s good to keep up with the latest news of business trends and companies you’d like to track.

http://mashable.com/2009/11/02/twitter-lists-guide/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/catherine-ventura/new-twitter-lists-open-ho_b_346523.html

http://thenextweb.com/2009/10/16/twitter-lists-work/

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