DALLAS — For supermarkets and the fresh foods they sell, the rise of social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter has been a bit of a blessing and a curse. On one hand, these tools offer the opportunity to reach out to customers directly. On the other, disgruntled customers can now instantly broadcast their dissatisfaction to everyone they know.

On Wednesday, May 2 at 4 p.m., at the United Fresh 2012 show here, Sonny Mayugba, executive vice president of AugustineIdeas, will be joined by Lisa Mowry, a Dallas-based food blogger featured in Rachael Ray magazine, to present “Driving Brand Loyalty with Social Media,” a seminar designed to help retailers and produce companies understand some of the opportunities and challenges that these tools present.

Listen to Your Customers Through Social Media

“The tools we have today — at our fingertips — marketers in the past would have killed for,” Mayugba said. He added that even negative responses to a product, store or brand can be turned into something positive, if a company learns to listen to their customers.

“In the old days, if someone didn’t like [a product], they just told people within earshot, and you never even knew they didn’t like it. Now they can go online and talk about how they don’t like it, and you have a chance to strike up a relationship and find out why,” he said. “You can potentially fix something that many other people don’t like. Now you’re a better company for it.”

It’s free and it’s simple enough to set up a corporate account on Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest, but Mayugba noted that companies should recognize that they need to make a time commitment to these accounts if they expect to extract any value.

“The cost comes in having the time to nurture relationships [with customers] and grow an audience,” he said. “So, how much does that cost? What should people set aside?”

How Much Social Media Do You Need To Maintain a Brand / Customer Relationship?

The “stock answer” that many social media experts give is one to two Facebook posts and three to five Twitter posts per day, possibly a couple of videos on YouTube each week, along with regular online contests or giveaways, Mayugba said.

However, he encourages brands to empower one to three people at their company to communicate their message on social media platforms. Post what you want, but always make sure it’s quality content.

To that end, Mayugba cited research indicating that 40% of people who “like” a brand on Facebook are doing so because they want promotions and special offers. This makes a good case for offering occasional contests and giveaways. But, brands should also have a bigger vision, thinking of themselves almost as a specialized media company that creates content for their readers.

“If I’m an onion grower, do I walk into a cocktail party and say, ‘Guess what? I’ve got onions, and if you can jump through this hoop, I’ll give you a pound. It’s a contest.’ Of course I wouldn’t. I would walk into the room and say, ‘Hi. Here’s who I am, and this is what’s going on in my world.’ … Think less about the commodity that you represent, and more about the lifestyle that surrounds it,” he said.

DoNapa.com Wins Judges Choice and Interactive Media Awards

ROSEVILLE, Calif. (March 14, 2012) – AugustineIdeas was awarded two ADDY’s® at the Sacramento Ad Club’s annual awards event held March 8, 2012, at the Woodlake Hotel in Sacramento. The agency earned the awards for the concept, design, development and launch of DoNapa.com, a website for its client: the Napa Tourism Improvement District and the Napa Downtown Association. The state-of-the-art, interactive website was part of a new branding campaign to encourage tourists and residents to “Do Napa.”

Award Winning Interactive Media Campaign

DoNapa.com and AugustineIdeas received the Judges Award for the website and a Gold ADDY® in the “Interactive Media Campaign: Websites, Consumer HTML/Other” category.

“This award not only recognizes the exceptional talent of our staff that worked on DoNapa.com, but also the tremendous relationship we have with the Napa Tourism Improvement District and Napa Downtown Association,” said Debbie Augustine, chief executive officer of AugustineIdeas. “The website was a collaborative effort to drive traffic online by engaging locals and visitors with all there is to do in Napa, increasing lodging revenue for the city. Downtown Napa is such an amazing and vibrant destination, and branding and bringing it to life through DoNapa.com was both exciting and rewarding.”

The website features photos, videos and a comprehensive listing of businesses, places to go and activities to do in the City of Napa. The site also keeps visitors up-to-date on events happening in and around Downtown Napa, giving users a snapshot of all the dining, lodging, tasting and shopping that the city has to offer.

To learn more about the City of Napa, visit DoNapa.com, like Downtown Napa on Facebook or follow it on Twitter.

About AugustineIdeas:

AugustineIdeas is a nontraditional, global integrated communications company with 15 years of experience providing creative services, interactive marketing, public relations, social media and retail programs to clients in a diverse range of industries. The firm is one of the largest and most competitive in Northern California and has more than 35 employees. For more information, visit http://www.augustineideas.com/ or follow us on Twitter at @AugustineIdeas.

The Project Manager will drive projects to deliver against predetermined schedules, escalate and resolve technical issues, and communicate project status toward goals among cross-functional teams. The ideal candidate is an experienced project manager, with prior experience in a heavily client-focused role, who will own the delivery of projects across all client and service teams including website development, digital media, social media and creative development.

Senior Digital Project Manager Position Description

Graphic Design & Packaging Knock Out Samples

Mike Mezzanotte (aka MrMezz) our newest addition to the Creative Dept really has been knocking out of the park with this corporate brochure redesign for Superior Farms. We started off this project with just designing their brochure and eventually snowballed into designing their packaging as well as some point of sale. Here’s a few sample pix to sink your teeth into. Enjoy!

Client Services Intern Description

Although it required long hours (getting up at three and four in the morning a few times), the results were worth it. More than 2,300 volunteers showed up to help more than 13,000 guests get access to free medical care, haircuts, groceries, job placement assistance and more. As a public relations professional, I was even happy with the 1.2 million people that saw our stories on TV. Hundreds of thousands more heard our interviews on radio stations like KFBK and KLOVE or read about the event in The Sacramento Bee and Roseville Patch.

Selected clips are available by clicking on the media outlets below.

KCRA

News 10

CBS 13

Good Day Sacramento

FOX 40

The Sacramento Bee

KFBK

KLOVE

Roseville Patch

I look forward to using some of the relationships I strengthened with local media to assist with other client events in the future and continuing to help community organizations throughout the Sacramento region.

“Social media guru in training.”

While the nearest mall might not seem the most inventive place, rest assured –it is a branding mecca and can conjure up ideas or simply clear space for new ones! I visit the nearby Anthropologie every few weeks and am continually amazed at how a switch in merchandising and color can revive my creativity, no purchase necessary. In a pinch, try flipping through their online catalogue.

Music is a must, whether you use Spotify, iTunes or Pandora. Try a new platform; it will force you to build new song lists, discover new artists and shift the background of your day-to-day.

We are proud to announce that AugustineIdeas was awarded a bronze award for Design of the Times at the Path to Purchase Expo (Shopper Marketing Expo) in Chicago last week for our innovative Lunchbox Winners program! This is big news, and we are honored to have received such a great award from a group that we admire and respect. Lunchbox Winners is a program that we designed to offer busy parents unique and healthy lunch ideas that their kids would love.

Shopper Marketing Purchase Expertise

Shopper marketing is a major area of expertise here at AugustineIdeas. Our shopper marketing team is always looking for new ways to influence consumers during the purchasing process (known in the industry as “path to purchase”), and we can’t wait to come up with the next big idea.

Steve Tsujimoto of Safeway and I pictured at the Fresh Produce & Floral Council luncheon featured in this month's Fresh Digest, an industry publication.

Steve and I celebrated winning the 2011 Marketing Excellence Award for our collaborative partnership with Lunchbox Winners, a national campaign that ran in-store at all 1500 Safeway stores.  The campaign featured Olympic athletes like Brandi Chastain, Seth Wescott and Dominique Dawes who encouraged kids to stay active and eat healthy during each month of the school year. Big time winners everyone!

-Margo Robinson