The Online Presence of Foiles Migrators, Inc.

I began monitoring the social media presence of Foiles Migrators, Inc. two months ago. They build and sell world-class goose and duck calls, along with related videos, apparel and accessories.  The majority of their online presence is  through Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Vimeo and their own website, foilesstraitmeat.com, although their products are also sold on sites such as eBay and Amazon.  There are also a few pins on Pineterest. Their target audience is 25- to 64-year-old males, with the average waterfowl male hunter being 50 years old.

LARGE FOLLOWING ON FACEBOOK
Foiles Migrators, Inc.'s  largest online audience is on Facebook.  Within the last month they received an additional 852 likes to their site for a total of 9,610, but they only posted 6 times.

They have many photos in their photo files. Only two videos are posted in the files, though many are located within the posts themselves.

Their last two posts (Monday) were introducing new duck call products that just arrived.  The latest post regarding "crime scenes hats" garnered 177 likes, 12 comments, and 1 reply in just two days.  The reply was in response to a late-night post about a broken call and was made first thing the next morning offering information about where to send for a repair.  The other post that day regarding new "strait meat honkers" received 311 likes, 25 comments, and 0 replies.










Most comments by Facebook fans are positive, but there are a few scattered negative comments.  Those comments are not deleted, but usually replied to by other fans chastising them for their negative comments.



STRONG TWITTER FOLLOWING
Foiles Migrators, Inc. has a strong Twitter following.  You can see below that they went from 647 followers and 388 tweets on February 21 to 669 followers and 400 tweets on March 20.  They are following 11 Twitter accounts and that number did not change.

According to TweetStats (below), Foiles Migrators, Inc. tweets an average of 5 tweets per day and sometimes less.  Their aggregate tweets are also shown below. They tweet primarily through their Facebook account.

STRONG YOUTUBE SHOWING
Foiles Migrators has a good showing on YouTube.  They have a steady number of 115 followers and went from 106,072 views on February 21 to 106,680 views on March 20.

Their most recent video from March 3 (shown below) has 61 views.

This promotional video, "Fallin'Skies 7 Promotional" from May 2010 has 41,087 views.

The YouTube stats below confirm the demographics for Foiles Migrators, Inc. and shows how popular their goose and duck calls are.

ADDICT-O-MATIC
Foiles Migrators, Inc. continues to show up on Adict-o-matic always showing strongest on YouTube.

SOCIAL MENTION
Foiles Migrators, Inc.'s Social Mention numbers remained steady throughout the last month.

FOILES MIGRATORS, INC. WEBSITE

Foiles Migrators, Inc. created an interactive moderated forum "Community" section on its website where interested waterfowl hunters can buy and sell items, talk about hunting, talk about non-hunting subjects, post photos and videos, learn about Foiles Migrators, Inc.'s products and services, and ask the pro staff members questions.

There is a "Build A Call" section where it is possible to create and purchase a custom goose or duck call, a "Store" to buy Foiles Migrators, Inc. products, and a "Media" section to view Foiles Migrators, Inc. photos and videos.



Statistics for all areas of the community, including total number of visitors, is shown on the website (see below).

Foiles Migrators, Inc. has a "Pro Staff" section where visitors can learn about all the pro staff members.

 RECOMMENDATIONS
Foiles Migrators, Inc. is a small company that uses social media and its online presence to promote its products. They set up at hunting conventions and some of their pro staff set up weekend displays at hunting stores such as Cabelas.  I believe they can strengthen their online and social media presence with a few adjustments that are listed below.

Listening: Their audience is following them and responding.  There are many Facebook and Twitter followers, but Foiles Migrators, Inc. doesn't seem to notice that they have so many followers.

Talking:  After sitting back and noticing how many followers they have, Jeff Foiles should talk more to the audience.  Foiles Migrators, Inc. can do that in several different ways.  First, they need to tweet more.  They already have 600+ Twitter followers while only tweeting an average of 5 times a day.  Imagine what would happen if they tweeted consistently.  They also need to post more on Facebook.  With over 9,000 likes, they also have a gold mine here. They already link some Facebook and Twitter posts so posts/tweets go out simultaneously, but they could be more effective if they created a plan and posted/tweeted regularly. They could utilize their 60 pro staffers, setting a rotating schedule for them to take turns posting and tweeting on behalf of Foils Migrators, Inc. in addition to posting and tweeting about Foiles Migrators, Inc. regularly on their own Facebook and  Twitter accounts respectively. They could also link the pro staffers' Facebook pages to their Foiles Migrators, Inc. website profiles.  They do have a good showing on YouTube, but here again, they could utilize their pro staffers, having them take turns posting videos.

Energizing:  Foiles Migrators, Inc. is energizing the groundswell.  One example is their monthly giveaways. Social media traffic spikes during the end of the month when the winner is announced.  They could post/tweet throughout the month reminding everyone of the giveaway, or have photo or video contests.

Supporting:  They already support the groundswell with their forum communities on their website and the forums are well attended.  I noticed that a lot of pro staffers photos are missing.  They should make sure all that information is up to date and complete.

Embracing:  This comes back to posting and tweeting more and involving their pro staffers more.  In addition to posting and tweeting more, they also have to make sure they continue to answer questions and comments and they should also re-tweet regularly.  They should also follow more people on Twitter, starting with their pro staffers.

The Future of the Groundswell is Now (reading reflection #3)

While I was contemplating a passage in the final chapter (12. the future of the groundswell) of groundswell, I received an email notification on my  iPhone.  How ironic and appropriate. The passage from 2008, "The net result of all this accelerating activity is that the groundswell is about to get embedded within every activity, not just on computers, but on mobile devices and in the real world." (p. 235), was foretelling what was to be arriving by email in 2013 on my mobile phone:  "LinkedIn Today-Top news for Terri: Five Ways Free Online Classes Will Change College, or Not."

Li and Bernhoff were imagining in 2008 how far online social media and the groundswell would go.  So far their guesservations have been correct.  Many of us are now receiving all sorts of notifications on our smart phones: by Facebook, twitter, YouTube, email, news feeds to name only a few.  Blogs and dashboards are commonplace, and many companies have intranets and wikis for their businesses. 

 Li and Bernoff conclude groundswell "with some advice, not on what to do but on how to be" (p.239).  They leave us with seven principles of groundswell thinking:

1. Groundswell is about person-to-person activity
2. Be a good listener
3. Be patient
4. Be optomistic
5. Be flexible
6. Be collaborative
7. Be humble (p. 240)

The wonderful thing about it is that everyone has access to social media and online marketing.  Small business like Foiles Migrators have just as good a chance at becoming successful as large corporations, such as Nabisco's (snackworks) Oreo, as long as they follow the seven principles of groundswell thinking and utilize social media marketing to its full potential.  

Foiles Migrators have become very successful using social media to create a following on YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook to promote their goose and duck calls at an expense of $0.

 

They created a community on their official website which keeps their customers coming back.  If they haven't read groundswell, I'd be surprised, because it appears that they are following the seven principles of groundswell thinking.

 

Personally, had I not become part of the groundswell during the last few months in this class, I would not have had the person-to-person activity and had the opportunity to read and learn from my class mates' blogs: I wouldn't have read Den's blog and decided to become more engaged on my LinkedIn account and have it feed to my iPhone.  I wouldn't have read Katrina's blog and decided to create a twitter account.  I wouldn't have read Eileen's blog and become more interested in Pinterest. 


The seven principles of Li and Bernoff are timeless principles to use in every aspect of business, social media and social media marketing.  I can't wait to see what the next five years bring for social media marketing and the groundswell.  Maybe we should ask Li and Bernoff.

This YouTube video shows Charlene Li speaking in 2010 to a group of journalists after her keynote at the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) conference about the future of social media and the groundswell.