Goose Island: Social Media Seen Through a Glass
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Goose Island's social media strategy is rooted in storytelling that fosters ongoing engagement and dialogue about its brand, emphasizing the importance of community connections. Following its sale to AB-InBev, the brewery faced skepticism from the craft beer community but used social media to communicate transparently, celebrate its employees, and document its brewing process. The results showed significant growth in social media engagement and a more informed audience willing to support the brand as it innovated and expanded.
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Goose Island: Social Media Seen Through a Glass
- 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.
- 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.”
- 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?