I’m excited to announce the launch of theHB.tv with the first episode highlighting the Festival by the Sea parade.

TheHB.tv is a Internet television channel for the Holden Beach, NC community. We will be sharing video of local events, interviews, and lots more. This first episode highlights the first Holden Beach Festival by the Sea event, the town parade. We hope you enjoy.

Stay tuned for more festival coverage.

An old coworker from Digitas posted an great commentary on his blog regarding ESPN’s new Twitter policy for employees that I thought related to my last comment regarding Social Media being a platform for conversations, not a way to push messages.

In his post he analyzes ESPN’s new policy that doesn’t allow employees to post to twitter without approval.  Why was this a wrong move? Jon hits the nail on the head after the jump.

Jon Burg’s Future Visions: ESPN’s Twitter Fumble

I found this fascinating quote today:

The Council of Economic Advisers in the White House released a new report on the impact health insurance reform would have on small businesses. In an interesting use of social media the White House solicited feedback on the report from LinkedIn members using LinkedIn’s popular Question and Answers feature. CEA Chair Christina Romer answered some of the most penetrating responses in a live video online discussion at WhiteHouse.gov on Wednesday, July 29th.ducttapemarketing.com, Small Business Marketing Blog from Duct Tape Marketing, Aug 2009

You should read the whole article.

Last week I analyzed Walgreens’ use of Facebook and how they were potentially harming their brand through the current strategy.  Since then, I received a post comment from a Walgreens representative that was both thoughtful and honest–a comment that bodes well for Walgreens’ marketing department.  Here’s the comment:

_____

Josh-

Actually, the 2 Walgreens pages that you are discussing were created by actual fans. We’re thrilled! We absolutely see that our loyal fans want to engage with us and we want to join the conversation.
You make valid points about a big brand, like WAG, needing to have a centralized strategy and brand ownership. As we dip our toe in the social media pool, today we solicited ideas from our fans on better ways to interact with them through facebook, twitter, etc.
I’d love it if you’d weigh in also. You clearly have some strong opinions and great ideas.

Thanks,

Emily

____

First, to hear that all pages were fan created, is indeed exciting.  It certainly says that people connect with the Walgreens brand and want to be brand champions.

Second, it’s heartening to hear that Walgreens marketers are aware of the cultural shift in social media and are admittedly aware that they need to “join the conversation.”  That’s exactly what it is… a conversation.

The old methods for distributing a marketing message doesn’t exactly apply in the social media world.  How can you parse a set message in honest, real-time conversations?

Third, Walgreens is “[soliciting] ideas from their fans on better way to interact with them.”  A multi-billion dollar company is asking their online fans for advice?  Ding-Ding-Ding.  We have a winner folks.  THEY GET IT!

While they may not have the perfect social media strategy in place YET, it’s obvious that they understand the principles and landscape.  Now, it’s just a matter of planning and executing a strategy.  And, while many people think it’s all about the strategy and execution, I personal think it’s the ethos you must understand.  If you understand your “fans,” you will connect with them and they will respond in kind.

Finally, I think this is a bit of a lesson (at least for me).  It’s so easy to think a huge company like Walgreens is negligent in how they use Facebook because surely they know what I know, but just don’t care about their online communities.

But maybe, just maybe, they simply need a little advise from us geeks living on the cutting edge.

You can follow Walgreens on Twitter: @Walgreens

And visit them on the web: www.Walgreens.com

This is a quick video shout out to Table 16, an amazing restaurant in Greensboro, NC, that I posted to their Facebook page.  The vid pretty much sums it up.