Aren’t social media and email more alike than they are different? Both seek to keep your brand top-of-mind with customers and prospects, communicating in a relevant, timely way that ideally is measurable and testable.
But the problem with email and social media is that too many people are positioning it as an either/or scenario. Several blog posts have foolishly been written about social media “killing” email. As my friend Jeff Rohrs from ExactTarget (client) says: “How can social media kill email, when you have to have an email address to belong to a social media site?”
And that’s the premise behind Flowtown, one of the most exciting new social media tools I’ve seen in months.
A Social Anthropologist, Hidden In Your Keyboard
Flowtown enables you to enter any email address, and the system instantly reports back where and how that address is connected on the social Web. Here’s the results for my friend and client Indra Gardiner from Bailey Gardiner in San Diego:
Amazing, no?
Social Outposts Without the Mystery
I’m often asked by corporate clients where they should engage in social media. “Should we be on Twitter, or Facebook, or Linkedin, or YouTube, or some other places?”
Flowtown gives you the answer in seconds. Export your email subscriber or customer database to Flowtown, and you’ll know in minutes what percentage of your audience is on Facebook or some other social outpost.

They also have a nice integration with Klout – the leading service to gauge Twitter influence – automatically including Klout scores for each person.
Isn’t that worth the 5 cents per contact that Flowtown charges?
But Wait, There’s More
Recognizing that knowing who your customers are, and being able to do something about it are entirely different, Flowtown also has a built-in email component. So, if you want to instantly send an email to only your customers that are on Facebook, inviting them to become fans of your brand there, you can do it in minutes using Flowtown’s existing integration with MailChimp.
The fee for up to 75,000 sent emails per month is just $99.97.
Tip of the Iceberg
Unlike enterprise-class social anthropology services like Rapleaf, Flowtown is incredibly easy-to-use, and is tuned for the do-it-yourself marketer. But, the current system is just the beginning.
“We want to be the mint.com of social marketing,” says Ethan Bloch, co-founder of the San Francisco based company. “We want to give SMB a complete tool to allow them to move the needle on the 20% of social media that matters.”
Features being considered for inclusion in new releases include CRM integration; deep analysis of customers’ social graph and content they’ve produced (keyword analysis of your Tweets, for example); and even semi-automated social media response mechanisms.
Not Perfect, But Useful
As with any data-harvesting service, Flowtown results aren’t bullet-proof. The more email addresses a person uses across the social Web, the less ideal the results. For example, Flowtown’s data on me isn’t particularly accurate, because I use several different email addresses.
But, the service goes a long way toward tying email and social media together in a coherent, actionable fashion, and is affordable for almost every company. I’m excited to see what these guys add next.
Thanks to my friend (and startup mentoring legend) Francine Hardaway for turning me on to Flowtown – she’s an advisor to the company.
If you take Flowtown for a spin (they have a free trial), will you please tell us all how it goes in the comments?




























US Speedskating Finds Fans In Social Media
Did you know the United States Speedskating team has won 75 Olympic medals, making it the most successful U.S. winter Olympics sport?
Into the breech stepped comedian Stephen Colbert, whose Colbert Nation is now sponsoring the team (in a wacky case of real people sponsoring real people through the conduit of a fictional character). However, the sponsorship only runs through February’s Vancouver Olympics, after which the team will be sponsorless once more. Gold level sponsorship is $300,000 a year for four years, which seems like a pittance in the sponsorship industry?
With the assistance of their agency Flint Group, the U.S. Speedskating team is using social media to connect with a new generation of fans, making sponsorship more attractive to potential partners. (disclosure: Flint Group is a Convince & Convert client)
Facebook As Home Base
I’ve written before about the potential of using Facebook as your social media home base, and in this instance U.S. Speedskating is doing exactly that. Facebook is more interactive and easier to update than the U.S. Speedskating Web site, and with 3-4 posts per day, and many of them photos or videos, the team is keeping fans engaged on Facebook. Wisely, they are trying to tie into the Colbert program as much as possible, without shifting the focus away from the athletes. Their recent Facebook program of having fans send in photos of themselves wearing their Colbert Nation caps is an example of this integrated approach.
You’d like to see more fans of the page (~1,200 as I write this), but I suspect interest will pick up as the Olympics near, and the program matures (the entire social media effort is fewer than 30 days old). They are also posting on related Facebook pages, especially those devoted to broader Olympics coverage, to make sure speedskating fans know the new team page is out there. This is good tactic that is often overlooked. As long as you don’t get spammy, posting on other Facebook pages about your page is perfectly legitimate. Just remember to keep it relevant. If it feels to you like it might be a little over the line, it IS.
Shine the Light on Others, and It Shines Back on You
I also like the way the team is highlighting bloggers. Using a custom Facebook tab called “Featured Bloggers” they are promoting blogs devoted to skating that have covered the team (as well as Colbert’s blog). It’s a good example of using their social graph to boost the social graph of bloggers that cover them. Smart.
Listen and Engage
While Facebook is the core, the team is also interacting with fans (and potential fans) in the wild, with a social media listening program that used an Olympics ticket giveaway as a rationale for interacting. (if you donated to the team, you were entered to win tickets).
Agency personnel are also commenting on blogs, providing contextually appropriate links to the Facebook home base. Note that Flint Group is not pretending to BE U.S. Speedskating, but appropriately says in the blog comment that they are helping with social media. A best practice.

Telling Stories With Video
As you might expect, there are some intriguing stories surrounding the team, including Simon Cho who came to the U.S. as an undocumented immigrant from Korea; Allison Baver, who shattered her leg in an accident last year; and of course Apolo Ohno, the most well-known U.S. speedskater, and Dancing with the Stars alum.
Most of these stories are being told via video, with a YouTube channel that’s cross-posted to Facebook. The team is trying to find the budget to send members of the Flint Group to Vancouver to live-blog and video blog the speedskating events, as well as produce live Facebook and Twitter updates.
Like Herding Cats Wearing Skates
The two biggest challenges seem to be not getting overwhelmed by Stephen Colbert, and operating a social media program where you have very little ability to manage the participants.
Corporate marketers, does this sound familiar?
The speedskating team has many strong personalities, almost all of whom have their own Web sites and social media outreach. Plus, creating social media content isn’t paramount in the minds of the athletes these days…something about having to train for the Olympics…
As with many companies where team members have their own personal brands, the U.S. Speedskating team has to work to integrate multiple outposts under an umbrella, while consistently making the case that supporting the team’s unified social efforts is as valuable as individual initiatives. The agency has built and distributed content creation guidelines to the skaters to help consistency.
So far, so good. While this integrated social media program doesn’t have a ton of eyeballs on it yet, I think they’re executing wisely.
What do you think?
Tagged as: Blog Commenting, case studies, facebook, Flint Group, Olympics, social media strategy, Stephen Colbert, twitter, U.S. Speedskating, YouTube
Leave Comment Below | Subscribe To This Blog | Sign Up For Our Newsletter
Share This Post: