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One of the best parts about living in a city like Richmond, Virginia is the vast number of local businesses, organizations, and restaurants to support. In the past few years, in addition to their presence in local newspapers, magazines, and bulletin boards, I’ve watched as these local businesses begin to embrace the social media revolution one-by-one.

For many, this adoption allows for a degree of customer interaction not typically possible by traditional means. Deep Groove Records, for example, my favorite local music store, posts their recently acquired records almost every day to their Facebook page. For music nerds like me, who are constantly searching for that “impossible-to-find” 10-inch single, these updates allow me to know EXACTLY when to rush off to the store.

At other local stops, however, the proudly displayed “Follow us on Twitter” sign next to the register is merely an invitation to view a dormant, un-updated page only followed by the person that created it, and filled with automatic posts from their Facebook page.  Experiences like this demonstrate a clear illustration of the fundamental differences between simply being “on” Twitter and actually “using” Twitter.  For newbies to social media, here are some tips to creating a meaningful community:

Visualize

Your social media presence is not necessarily about supporting your core mission — or the purpose of your business or organization. It may more likely be about supporting the vision of your business or organization — what you are reaching for –  your inspiration, hopes and dreams for your business. It’s not about what you do, but about where you want to be.

Two examples:

For our client Arlington County Commuter Services, we didn’t create a Facebook fan page with the organization’s name on it.

We created a page that supports its vision of a car-free community. “Arlington’s Car-Free Diet” is the easy, fun way to live a car-free lifestyle in Arlington County, Virginia. So its Facebook community is all about helping residents, employees, and visitors easily ride transit, bike, walk or telework.

For our client Foothill Transit, we didn’t just create a page promoting the use of public transit; we created a page that supports the entire community that Foothill Transit serves.

We call it Foothill Connections. Foothill Connections enables people to connect with cool people, places and things to do — right in their neighborhood.

Strategize

The most successful social media campaigns are clearly thought out from day one. A social media plan should include a regular calendar of updates for 3-5 postings/tweets/uploads a week, as well as specific phased out approaches and enhancements for each social media outlet. Remember that you must use each platform (Facebook, YouTube, Twitter) to the best of its strengths and don’t cross-connect your accounts. Keep them separate, but equal.

Actualize

The difference between an active social media strategy and a mere social media presence rests in how much you are truly reaching outside the walls of your business. Odds are, your organization already has a website. Therefore, your social media outlets shouldn’t merely be another platform to post that same information. As obvious as it seems to point out, social media is about being social. As you start to gain friends, followers, and “likes” give them a reason to return to your page. One way is to ask them to enter a contest or a sweepstakes as we did for Foothill Connections.

Another way is to offer value-added content like applications integrated into a Facebook Tab. The Car-Free Diet Calculator app enables you to see how much money you’ll save, CO2 you’ll reduce, and calories you’ll burn by going on Arlington’s Car-Free Diet — and to share those results with friends on your wall.

Ask and respond to questions, share the success of others, and encourage dialogue like we did with former Car-Free Diet Skeptics — and current Car-Free Diet believers — Ross and Todd.

All strategizing aside, it’s important to remember that crafting your business’s social media presence should first and foremost be fun! Your customers are looking toward these outlets not as a dry source for information, but rather as an exciting and dynamic extension of your brand personality. Whether they are on your street or online, welcoming personalities are at the heart of good communities. Be a part of yours!

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to get to the record store before someone else gets there first.

The Challenge

As an advertising agency specializing in transportation, we spend a lot of time thinking about how to make public transportation more accessible and user-friendly in order to fill seats on trains, buses, the metro, and by promoting walking, biking, bike sharing, carpooling and vanpooling.

For our client Arlington County Commuter Services (ACCS), we created a campaign called the Car-Free Diet in order to encourage residents and visitors of Arlington to reduce driving alone and use alternative forms of transportation. The Car-Free Diet is branded as such because it is just that – a diet – when you go on a diet, you don’t stop eating, you just curb your eating habits. The campaign aids in branding ACCS’s products and services and demonstrates how easy it is to go car free in Arlington.

As storytellers, we wanted to create something worth talking about. In order to encourage trial of the diet, we developed an experiential social marketing campaign to reward participants with a unique real-life experience of what it would be like to live car-free for 30-days.

The Car-Free Diet Skeptics 30-Day Challenge is a contest targeting car loving residents of Arlington County willing to give car-free living a shot for the chance to win free transportation for a year. Applicants were required to submit a 2-minute video as part of the application process to tell us why they were skeptical about ditching their car keys for 30-days. With a combination of online voting and judging, two skeptics were chosen to take the challenge and they were provided with a SmarTrip card loaded with monthly fare value, a bicycle, helmet, and cycling gear, and a one month membership to Capital Bikeshare.

This user-generated contest enabled participants to use many different forms of new media and technology to document their experiences during the 30-day Challenge. They communicated via Facebook postings, Tweets, blog or vlog postings, YouTube uploads, photo postings, and checkin’s via Foursquare. The Skeptics were able to choose the media they preferred to communicate in based on their location – on the road, at work or at home – and how much time they had to do the update. Followers were able to get real-time updates on their progress during the Challenge and to become engaged with the process by posting comments on their postings, and by “friending” or “following” them on the Diet Dashboard at carfreedietskeptics.com.

During their 30-day Challenge, the Skeptics had many ways that they were able to measure their progress. This included the Car-Free Diet Calculator and Facebook Application that allowed them to get personalized estimates of how much money they saved, calories they burned, and CO2 emissions they reduced by going on the Car-Free Diet.

Season I of Skeptics featured Car-Free Todd who pledged to lose a shirt size, and Car-Free Ross who promised to sell his Mercedes Benz ML320 SUV. Season II featured Car-Free Kyle who vowed to use public transit to attend all DC United Home games, and Car-Free Matt who wanted to lose weight, save money on gas, car insurance, and parking tickets all while having a few laughs.

The Results

The Car-Free Diet Skeptics Challenge was promoted with a minimal advertising budget spent mostly through non-traditional vehicles. The Skeptics were followed three times during the 30-day challenge by a camera crew — before, during, and after the Challenge.

Season I

The 2010 Skeptics Challenge ended May 21^st on Bike to Work Day. Both Todd and Ross successfully completed the 30-day Skeptics Challenge. However, based on the judging criteria of frequency of updates, engagement and creativity, Todd was awarded the Grand Prize and Ross was awarded First Prize.

And what were their personal results? Todd committed to biking to work several days a week during the 30-day challenge, which enabled him to commute to work 12-miles each way while exercising and to lose seven pounds. He saved over $200 during the 30-day Challenge by using Metrobus, Metrorail and by biking to work. While his commute time averaged 10-15 minutes longer by bus or rail and 25 minutes by bike, he had more free time to read, listen to music, update his social networks, and even to get a work out in – all with much less stress. Todd also left a much smaller carbon footprint — by car it would have been 501 lbs of CO2, but by going on the Car-Free Diet, he produced 88% less CO2.

Ross came through on his promise within two weeks of the 30-Day Challenge and sold his car. During the Challenge, he saved over $50, traveled over 400 miles, burned 6,400 calories while commuting by bike to work, and eliminated 408 lbs of CO2 that he would have emitted while driving to work. His former commute took him about 35 minutes in the mornings and about one hour in the evenings to travel 14 miles. Biking to and from work took him one hour and five minutes, and he was able to add on a workout while commuting. Moreover, when he took the Metro to work, he saved 20 minutes round trip in travel time.

Season II

Season II of Skeptics proved to be a more evolved version of the campaign as Skeptics Matt and Kyle embraced technology to an even greater extent. Both were provided with a Flip Cam to help document their experiences which nearly doubled the amount of videos produced for Season II.  Car-Free Matt created his ownmock PSA’s modeled off of NBC’s “The More You Know” campaign with amusing insights and observations into the benefits of going car-free. Car-Free Kyle conquered his fears and made bike commuting a part of his regular routine and took MegaBus to the Barbeque Festival in Charlotte, N.C. And both Skeptics participated in Capital Bikeshare’s Scavenger Hunt and National Walk to Work Day documenting their experiences via video and challenged each other to gain “likes” on Facebook and “followers” on Twitter.

The Skeptics Challenge made Car-Free Kyle healthier, wealthier, and wiser in his transportation choices. His former commute from Arlington to Chantilly of one hour was significantly reduced once his office relocated to Arlington due to all the transportation-friendly options in the area. He now uses his bike as his primary form of transportation for trips under five miles, which has made him more fit and has kept his CO2 under 100 lbs per week. Not only did Kyle sell his car and pocket all the money, he also saved approximately $450 during the challenge in parking, gas, car maintenance, and insurance.

In 30 days, Car-Free Matt became “thinner, richer, calmer and happier” (his own words). By walking and biking more frequently, Matt lost five pounds. He saved $175 in gas alone. Matt turned the Skeptics Challenge into an adventure by documenting missed and made job interviews, defective bike chains, and trips to meet friends and family — all with a personalized musical soundtrack and his own unique view of the world. Matt’s 30-days became more of a journey of self-discovery that ended with a new job, a Grand Prize trophy, free transportation for a year, and a new focus on making the most of life’s moments.

In the end, Todd, Ross, Matt and Kyle are ALL winners.

They took on the 30-Day Skeptics Challenge with gusto and made it into an adventure. We hope that their stories will encourage others to go car-free or car-lite by showing how easy it can be in Arlington.

Testimonial Campaign

In order to leverage the successful completion of the Challenge after Season I, a testimonial campaign was launched. The Car-Free Diet Testimonial campaign prominently features Car-Free Ross and Car-Free Todd telling the story of their car-free adventures and giving advice to “newbies” on how easy it is to use transit, walk, bike or telework. Ross and Todd were featured in a variety of media outlets including print, collateral, transit, and digital and social media.

Ross and Todd provided car-free tips via blog and Facebook content, website copy, and Youtube videos.They even staged a social marketing takeover by posting on the Arlington’s Car-Free Diet Facebook Fan Page and adding their own dueling posts to out-tip each other.

Ross and Todd continue to actively promote Arlington’s Car-Free Diet through personal appearances at local events such as the Arlington County Fair, Facebook postings to promote events and activities, writing blog postings on Arlington’s Car-Free Diet Blog, and appearing in videos for other promotions such as Season II of the Car-Free Diet Skeptics Challenge.

Additionally, Car-Free Todd was featured in a two-hour documentary on public transit for the NPR Series “Passengers” as well as in an article for a Virginia Megaprojects newspaper supplement about his experiences using Tysons Express.

The Car-Free Diet Testimonial campaign demonstrated the importance of creating brand advocates as a marketing force to energize your brand, create deeper relationships and community engagement, and to drive positive word of mouth. Ross and Todd, as advocates for the Car-Free Diet, continue to spread the word to others about the benefits of a car-free or car-lite lifestyle.

And for a second year in a row, with the successful completion of the The Skeptics Season II Challenge by Car-Free Matt and Kyle, the Car-Free Diet Skeptics Challenge has once again turned skeptics into believers and is helping to show how easy it is for Arlingtonians to go car-free.

If they can do it, you can too!

A Personal Story

The only way to truly understand what motivates behavior change in commuters is to experience it your self. People have different motivations for trying alternative forms of transportation from saving money and time to improving their health (reducing calories, weight loss) to helping the environment or because their employer offers transit benefits.

Most people have a breaking point. For me, it was DC gridlock with a five-mile commute that could take 30-45 minutes each way. The Metro is a one-mile walk from my home. The bus is one block away, but the bus gets stuck in the same traffic as the cars do. My solution was to try bike commuting.

Bike commuting has some barriers to entry. You have to have a bike, biking clothes and gear, a pannier and bag to hold your computer and purse, a helmet, and a change of clothes for work. Bike lanes are not everywhere and riding on the street and even the sidewalk can be dangerous. Showers are not always available at work sites.

In spite of these barriers, a single bike trip changed my entire perspective on commuting to work. From the first day, I cut my commute time in half on the way to work.  I now average a 20-minute five-mile bike commute. The way home from work is all up hill, but my commute time rivals my driving home time and I get the added benefit of a workout DURING MY COMMUTE. After several months of bike commuting (read getting into shape and finding the fastest routes), I was able to reduce by bike commute time home from 60 minutes to 40 minutes. Not only that, but by biking to work I am able to save $12 a day in parking costs which adds up to nearly $3,000 a year.

A quick checklist my top benefits of biking to work:

• Saving time
• Saving money
• Improving my health
• Helping the environment
• Multi-tasking commuting + working out
• Improved attitude and stress reduction
• Gleefully passing the poor souls stuck in traffic

The other benefits are not as tangible. The feeling of camaraderie with your fellow bike commuters as you line up in the bike lane at a traffic light.  Waving at Joe Biden and his secret service detail as you whiz past his motorcade. Laughing at the Washington Nationals Racing Presidents visiting Embassy Row. Walking into the front door with your biking gear at the end of the day to three excited children who want to go back out to bike with you.

So can commuting habits change? You tell me.

A bicycle does get you there and more…. And there is always the thin edge of danger to keep you alert and comfortably apprehensive. Dogs become dogs again and snap at your raincoat; potholes become personal. And getting there is all the fun.
–Bill Emerson, “On Bicycling,” Saturday Evening Post, 29 July 1967

Have you ever watched that show where a group of eccentric personalities look at a whole bunch of junk, then judge it based on which part of it they think they can make the most money off of?

No, I’m not talking about American Idol. I’m talking about American Pickers.

Watch Mike, Frank and Danielle search the backroads of America for “rusty gold,” and you won’t see a ton of behavior most people would want to emulate. They frequently overpay for the (often literal) trash they buy from people, their rule for joke-telling seems to be “the cheesier, the better” and you know they can’t smell all that great at the end of a long day of dumpster diving.

But if you’re in the business of creating advertising, these dudes should still be your role models. Here’s why:

• They see things differently than most of us – That broken-down bicycle with the missing wheel? It’s a rare piece of Americana. That moldy-looking film all over this old trunk? It’s a patina – and it gives it some character! When you’re trying to tell an engaging and exciting story about your brand, a little fresh perspective like this is exactly what you should be searching for. If all your competitors are talking about their products in one way, it could be the perfect time to talk about yours in a completely different way.

• They’re not afraid to take risks – The pickers know a lot about their particular areas of expertise. For Mike, it’s motorcycle gear. Frank? He’s “an oil can guy.” But sometimes they’ll come across something totally out of their comfort zones, that they’ve never even seen before. Even though they may have no idea what something like that is worth, they’ll often take a chance on it and buy it. When you’re trying to come up with a truly breakthrough idea, it’s not going to look like anything you’ve seen before either. But if you can recognize the potential value in something bold, unexpected and new (and get your client to do the same), it could be the most rewarding “pick” for all of you.

• They never give up – Many times, Frank and Mike will spend hours digging through a dilapidated old barn without finding anything cool enough to buy. Or they may find lots of great junk, but just can’t seem to get the owner to make a deal with them. When that happens, the guys do a great job of staying positive. They “never give up on a pick,” since that one amazing deal they’ve been looking for could be right around the corner (or underneath that pile of rat feces over there). Ad professionals would be wise to do the same. If the “big idea” isn’t coming, keep digging – it’s in there somewhere. And if your client isn’t buying, keep trying – one breakthrough could be all you both need to start a long and wildly successful relationship.