Social Media Smackdown: Tacoma Art Museum vs. Cincinnati Art Museum

Posted on August 26, 2009 by amy mengel

The summer is winding down, the kids will be back to school in days if they’re not there already, and you’re looking for a last-minute diversion. Something that mixes culture with fun, that’s not too expensive, and that will enrich your life just a little bit. Maybe something like your local art museum?

Most communities are lucky to have a museum of some sort, but often these museums struggle to get by on a combination of donations, fundraisers, grants and endowments. A big marketing budget is usually never an option. Social media offers a huge opportunity for local museums to tap into a community and try to build up word-of-mouth about current exhibits and events and drive foot traffic to the museum.

For this installment of Social Media Smackdown, I selected two art museums in smaller cities: Tacoma, Wash. and Cincinnati, Ohio. Let’s get down to it and see who comes out on top.

Round One: Twitter

Each museum is active on Twitter: @TacomaArtMuseum and @CincyArtMuseum. I like how each museum’s Twitter handle is pretty obvious and descriptive.

Tacoma Art Museum: Following 304; Follwers 1,577; Tweets 644
Tacoma Art Museum has a really nice, even mix of original content promoting museum events, retweets of general art news and items of interest, and passing along local area happenings. They also do a good job of replying to people, despite the fact that they are only following back about 20 percent of their followers (which isn’t specifically a bad thing). It seems that one person manages the account, as it has a singular voice to it, but the bio doesn’t state who that person is.

Tacoma Art Museum seems to do a good job of promoting events using Twitter. For example, a recent tweet on a Friday afternoon let followers know about a local movie and subsequent lecture being given by the museum curator. Another tweet let followers know that kids would be admitted free through the end of the month. Following events, the museum often asks people to post and share pictures at its other social outposts.

Cincinnati Art Museum: Following 351; Followers 4,434; Tweets 363
Cincinnati Art Museum’s twitter feed is slightly heavier on the tweeted news links, but they still seem to manage good interaction with followers. And the links aren’t automated from a feed source, so they’re typically well-crafted “teasers” that take you to interesting parts of the museum’s Web site. For example, each Wednesday they tweet a “Work of the Week” which takes you to a photo of some obscure piece in the museum’s collection.

The account seems to have lagged on actively replying to followers lately, but going back just a few weeks I found replies thanking people for visiting, giving directions to nearby bus stops near the museum, and even responding to followers about the reduction in hours the museum made to save costs.

Both museums are doing a pretty decent job using Twitter to share news and get folks interested in their offerings. I think that while Tacoma does a good job mixing in other community events in its Twitter feed, it could even stand to do a little more self-promotion. Cincinnati has that part down, but it seems to have been slacking off on replies and interactions lately and needs to be careful not to become just a link feed. And both museums would benefit from adding the name the person or people behind the account to the bio so that followers have someone to identify. I also think it could benefit them to try and follow back more of their followers.

Point: It’s really close. While I like that Tacoma uses its Twitter feed to be a source of community info, I think Cincinnati does a better job of using Twitter to drive interest in the museum itself, which really should be the primary goal for these organizations. But Cincinnati doesn’t engage as much as Tacoma and in some ways is too focused on just tweeting links. I’m going to wimp out and call this a tie for now.

Round Two: Facebook

The Facebook fan page for Tacoma Art Museum has 325 fans. The info tab includes hours, public transportation information and directions, and links to all the museum’s social outposts. They’ve created an “Extended Info” tab that has links to all current and upcoming exhibitions and dates. The events tab is chock-full of events that range from simply admissions deals to community festivals, art camps and lectures. Tacoma Art Museum’s fan page only has a handful of photos, and with all the events they have you’d think they’d populate with more. They have also listed 21 other pages as favorites, many of them other museums or other popular places in the Tacoma area.

On the wall (which is the landing tab of their fan page), Tacoma frequently posts new content that often includes news articles about the museum and art-infused happenings other locations in Tacoma. It doesn’t seem that many fans are interacting with the page yet (very few likes or comments on the items), but hopefully the 325 fans are catching the fun tidbits that Tacoma Art Museum is pushing into their stream through its fan page.

Cincinnati Art Museum’s fan page, with 2,301 fans, has very basic info including location, transportation and hours, and they also have an extended info tab that goes into great detail (including images) of current special exhibits with descriptions, pricing, dates and links. It’s almost a little cluttered, though, and I wonder if that tab could benefit from less information overall and instead serve as teasers and send folks to a more detailed exhibit site. The page includes more than 100 photos from exhibit openings that the museum has posted, plus a couple from fans. On the boxes tab, there’s a feed from Flickr with more pictures. The events tab is also full of activities at the museum.

On the page wall (also the landing page), the content is primarily an automated feed of its Twitter account. I’m not really sure what purpose this serves, and it just comes off as looking robotic. It would be much more effective if a “real person” managed the page and selectively posted status updates and posts that allowed for more interaction among the fans.

Point: The pages are almost identical in type of content and structure expect for the walls. Tacoma wins here for keeping the wall posts frequent and interesting but not automating.

Round Three: Web site

I found the Web sites of each to be visually pleasing (which you would expect for art museums, right?) and relatively simple to navigate. I was specifically looking for how “social” the sites were: how interactive, innovative and how easy it is for users to share and save content.

The Web site for Tacoma Art Museum allows you to translate it into one of six languages from a flag icon on the home page. They’ve also installed the “Add this” widget to the home page to allow you to share the content to Facebook, etc. However, on subsequent pages the widget just appears as a tiny orange cross and I didn’t even realize what it was until I accidentally moused over it. I can imagine that someone less used to sharing content on the Web than I am would ignore this completely. But at least it is there as an option. The site invites you to sign-up for eNewsletters via a link in the sidebar.

One of the best sections of their site is the “Connect with us” area that alerts visitors about the museum’s social outpost. Icons at the bottom of the page invite visitors to become a fan on Facebook or follow them on Twitter. Separate pages detail the museum’s Flickr and YouTube account with an embedded slideshow of photos and video. The museum has free WiFi and they encourage visitors to share their experiences from right within the museum. However, this section is buried in the site. I think it would be much more effective to have a large “Connect” icon somewhere on the home page or even have social profile links right in the sidebar so people didn’t have to go searching.

Over on Cincinnati’s site, there appears to be a disconnect with social media. They do a few things well — an RSS feed icon in the upper corner takes you to a page where you can subscribe to events and news feeds and also includes a link to explain what RSS is and how to set up a feed reader — helpful. They also have some neat podcasts that they’ve produced that are available in the iTunes store and a video podcast that’s embedded on the site.

However, basically none of the content on the rest of the site is easily shareable. They have photos of thousands and thousands of the pieces in their collection cataloged on the site, but no one-click sharing option (to be fair, copyright may be at issue here). None of the events or exhibit pages have an opportunity to share, and despite sifting through their site I could not find any mention of their Facebook page, Twitter feed or other social outposts. Even the contact page was missing that info.

Point: Tacoma wins here for making visitors to its Web site aware of its social media presence (though not obviously) and for installing the Add This widget to allow visitors to share content across the Web. Cincinnati still has a very traditional site with little to no social media integration.

Round Four: Other social sites (Flickr, YouTube, etc.)

On Flickr, Tacoma Art Museum has both its own account/photostream and has also created a group pool that visitors can add pictures to. More than 385 people have joined the museum’s group pool and uploaded more than 1,700 images! On the museum’s own photostream, they’ve done something pretty cool — they uploaded more than 40 images of the museum plaza so that artists, architects and designers who were entering a competitive bid to redesign the space could visualize it and get a sense of the opportunity and hopefully capture it in their proposals.

Cincinnati has a group pool on Flickr with 38 members and 400+ images posted. It looks like the admin for the Flickr group has actively sought out images to add to the pool, and there are some really nice shots there. They also have their own Flickr account and have posted 195 snaps from exhibit openings and museum events.

Over on YouTube, both museums have dedicated channels (Tacoma’s is here and Cincinnati’s is here). Each has nearly identical number of channel views (3,200) and, haha, they are “friends” with eachothers’ channels on YouTube. Tacoma has posted 11 videos ranging from museum commercials to video depictions of how they actually install some of their exhibitions (like this Ship in a Bottle clip). They’ve added several related videos to favorites and have 78 subscribers to their channel. Their most recent video was posted seven months ago. Tacoma has also created a playlist of videos from a recent cinema competition that were shot at its museum.

Cincinnati’s YouTube channel has 100 subscribers but only three videos and the most recent one is a year old. They did attempt a video podcast two years ago that appeared to be in conjunction with an exhibition opening – it’s a 10-minute clip that contains an interview with an art fashion collector. It’s an interesting piece, but a bit on the long side and since there’s only one it appears that they abandoned the video podcast format. The other two videos are short promos for museum exhibitions.

Point: Again, it’s close, but I think I’ve got to go with Tacoma again. They seem to have kept a little more up to date with their Flickr and YouTube accounts and have more fresh and recent content. . I like how Tacoma does a good job aggregating other people’s content (like the playlist from the film contest)

The Final Verdict: Tacoma comes out ahead of Cincinnati in this smackdown. It’s great that both museums are dabbling in social media and seeing how they can get it to work (that certainly can’t be said for all arts organizations). Tacoma seems to be a little ahead of the curve on making sure that it is allowing visitors to share its content and avoiding automation of information, which can turn people off quickly. Cincinnati has made a good start, but could go much further by tying their Web site to their social outposts.

Previous Smackdown: Cannondale vs. Trek
Previous Smackdown: Columbus, Ohio vs. Columbia, S.C.
Previous Smackdown: Mountain Hardwear vs. The North Face
Previous Smackdown: Magic Hat vs. Bell’s Beer

Social Media Smackdown: Cannondale vs. Trek

Posted on July 1, 2009 by amy mengel

It’s the time of year when cycling-nerds worldwide turn their eyes to France, anxiously awaiting daily stage results, jersey changes and, uh, doping allegations. I watch the Tour purely for Phil Liggett’s commentary – and to remind myself to get my butt in gear and start riding more. It’s no secret that many TdF cyclists are active on Twitter (Lance even announced the birth of his son via a tweet), but far fewer bicycle manufacturers, especially high-end ones, seem to be employing social media tools as domestiques in their quest to influence the peloton and spur genuine engagement among brand fans.

OK, enough with the lame cycling analogies. Let’s get to it. This installation of Social Media Smackdown pits Cannondale against Trek, two of the world’s largest bicycle manufacturers.

(Note: I’m a loyal Jamis girl, so I really don’t have a dog in this fight.)

Round One: Twitter

Both brands have a Twitter presence: @RideCannondale and @TrekBikes. Each has roughly the same number of followers, but some vast differences emerge.

Trek: Following 1,032; Follwers 1,122; Tweets 158
The @TrekBikes account does a good job, despite just having started on Twitter, interacting with people and offering up useful information. A majority of its tweets are @ replies and range from helping with bike repairs, directing folks to their customer service e-mail address, sharing information on how their bikes are designed and offering encouragement to riders. The account also shares links to cycling stories on various races and events. My only real criticism is that the Twitter bio doesn’t identify who’s actually doing the tweeting for the account. It would be great to have a name to put behind the tweets. An excellent job. It also turns out that Trek has some additional accounts for its different audiences (@Trekmtb for mountain bike fans and @trek_ben for roadies).

Canondale: Following 3; Followers 1,095; Tweets 79
Another newer account on Twitter, with only 79 tweets so far, @RideCannondale doesn’t seem to understand the engagement component to Twitter. They’re only following three people! None of the tweets are @ replies. I will give them credit though – it doesn’t appear that their tweets are automated feeds from a blog. At least it seems like there’s a real person behind the account and not a bot. Many of the tweets share information about professional cycling races (Cannondale sponsors Team Liquigas) and share links to product announcements or videos. It’s not overly sales-y, though. It has the potential to be a great presence for Cannondale on the Web – but they really need to start following back and engaging with fans to get real conversation going.

Point: Trek gains the maillot jaune here for a great combination of conversation and information sharing. Cannondale needs to engage more with followers.

Round Two: Facebook

Trek’s Facebook fan page has 3, 325 fans, but it doesn’t appear to actually be managed by Trek! There’s a Trek group that appears to be the “official” Trek presence on Facebook. The group has 2,445 members, 187 wall posts, and four discussion threads (all with minimal activity). The group has close to 300 photos posted and most are pictures of single bicycles with no people in them.

If you check out the Trek fan page, there doesn’t appear to be any input or participation from the brand. The page is pretty weak. No wall posts from Trek Bikes (or whoever manages the page) and no content posted. Trek’s missing an opportunity here. Even if they didn’t create the fan page, they could take Coca-Cola’s lead and offer to participate or help manage the page. As it is right now, Trek’s Facebook presence is fractured among groups and the fan page.

Cannondale’s fan page on Facebook has merely two posts since 2008 andthere’s very little content posted by the page owner. More than 7,700 Facebook users have become fans of Cannondale, so even if the brand didn’t create or doesn’t manage the page, they’re missing out on an opportunity to reach interested consumers. Fans have uploaded more than 500 photos of Cannondale bikes to the page.

BUT WAIT! When I went to Cannondale’s Web site, the Facebook icon at the bottom of the page took me to a completely different fan page! This one is slickly designed with spaces for videos, promotions and events. There’s not much content on there yet and only 406 fans, but Cannondale is sharing information on the wall, posting links and sharing race results. The trouble is, this page didn’t even show up on the first page of Facebook search results for the term “Cannondale”. Having a great fan page that no one can find won’t help much. A simple fix would be to post a message on the wall of the other fan page on Facebook (you know, the one that’s accrued 7,000+ fans?!) and direct them to the new page.

Point: I hesitate to give a point to either one here. Neither brand is really maximizing its use of Facebook. Cannondale has started building out a nice page, but how are they going to migrate fans to the “correct” Facebook page? Trek has a nice little group growing, but Facebook groups don’t provide the flexibility or reach that a fan page does. It’s a draw.

Round Three: Web site

Each site begins with a landing page that asks you to select your country, so I’m basing this evaluation off the US version of each site. I was specifically looking for how “social” the sites were. Yes, I expect that each site is trying to provide product specs and information, but I wanted to see how interactive each site was, how easy it is for consumers to link to and share information, and how the brands are integrating social media tools like blogs to attract and engage with potential or current bicycle owners.

Trek’s site doesn’t link to any social profiles from its home page. The page is dominated by a link to watch a video, which takes you to a page with several videos about the Livestrong team. The videos are documentary-style and follow the team as they train, test equipment and ride in races. All have links to share or embed and there’s a prominent link to Trek’s YouTube channel. The “Trek Life” portion of the site includes four blogs (road, mountain, fitness/rec and women). The road bike blog hasn’t been updated since March, but the others are fairly current and even have a handful of comments on many of the posts. It would be nice to have obvious RSS feed icons for all of the blogs. It also would be great if this portion of the site (or even the home page) had icons and links to other social media outposts.

Cannondale’s site is slick and visually pleasing, but not very social at first glance. There’s a tiny Twitter and Facebook icon at the bottom of the home page, but it was “below the fold” on my screen so I actually didn’t even notice it for a while. Most of the pages detail product lines (either bicycles, apparel or gear). It turns out there’s actually a fair amount of social interactivity on the site – but you have to dig a bit for it. The “Cannondale Planet” section of the Web site includes links to RSS feeds of videos, photos, and the “Ask Brad” blog. However, this section isn’t the easiest to navigate and a lot of the content isn’t that easy to share. The “News” tab takes you to some pretty cool sites that profile Cannondale’s various cycling teams, like Liquigas. This is where the site shines. It features videos from professional cyclists preparing for races, links and widgets to various cyclists’ Twitter streams, and links to news items and wallpaper images. I just wish that this cool content was more prominently featured and easier to find and share.

Point: Trek wins here for its use of blogs and video, but could take a lesson from Cannondale in making links to social outposts available on the home page. Cannondale has a lot of interesting content, but it’s not easily findable or shareable.

Round Four: Other social sites (Flickr, YouTube, etc.)

Trek’s YouTube channel includes 17 videos and these range from the Livestrong clips to product tours to TV commercials. The channel has 216 subscribers and some of the videos have 40,000+ views! The Trek Bikes group pool on Flickr has more than 264 members and close to 1,000 images, but I have no idea if Trek created and/or manages this group. There’s also a Trek Bikes profile on Flickr that includes a handful of promotional photos of bikes and gear, but it doesn’t seem as though Trek is doing too much with this photostream.

Cannondale did not appear to have a Flickr profile (but the name and many permutations of it are taken). There is a Cannondale group pool on Flickr with 200 members and nearly 900 photos uploaded. Again, hard to tell if Cannondale created this pool or if it was done by fans. On YouTube, Cannondale comes to life. Their channel is designed to match their Web site’s colors and theme. It features 70 videos that are sorted into playlists based on topic. The channel has 143 subscribers and has received more than 5,000 views. Brad, of the AskBrad blog, was uploading new videos as recently as this morning.

Point: Both are doing a good job utilizing video in their social media strategies, and both could take advantage of photo and leverage Flickr more. Even though Trek’s YouTube channel has gotten more views (having Lance helps), I’m going with Cannondale here. I love how they’ve designed their channel in the Team Liquigas colors and have Brad maintaining it for consistency with their Web site.

The Final Verdict: In a sprint to the finish, Trek is the winner. Cycling is a sport with a fanatical level of engagement, so it makes sense that social media is a great fit for these fans to tap into their consumer bases. Both need to refine their Facebook strategies a little more, and Cannondale would benefit from being more engaged as a brand on Twitter. But it’s a good showing, especially when many bicycle manufacturers aren’t participating at all.

Allez!

Previous Smackdown: Columbus, Ohio vs. Columbia, S.C.
Previous Smackdown: Mountain Hardwear vs. The North Face
Previous Smackdown: Magic Hat vs. Bell’s Beer

Images via Flickr users trekbikes and Celso_Flores

Social Media Smackdown: Columbus, Ohio vs. Columbia, S.C.

Posted on May 20, 2009 by amy mengel

Something a little different for this third round of Social Media Smackdown: I’m comparing how two cities are using social media from a travel and tourism perspective. Both have their namesake from Genoa’s most famous navigator and both are home to college football teams I love to hate. Let’s see how Columbus, Ohio and Columbia, South Carolina are cultivating relationships with fans through social media. Buckeyes or Gamecocks? Let’s find out:

Round 1: Twitter

Each city has a Twitter account; Columbus can be found @ExpCols and Columbia is @columbiasc and both claim to be the “official” guides to their respective cities. Twitter-Friends, which I’ve used in past Smackdowns to calculate metrics like Conversation Quotient and Link Quotient, was not functioning properly and kept giving me big zeroes in these categories for both accounts. So, I had to go through manually and eye up each Tweetstream to make a judgment.

Columbus, Ohio: Following 1,853; Followers 2,775; Tweets 3,217
Columbus is VERY active on Twitter, posting updates several times a day. Most of their tweets include a link to its CVB blog and there are very few @replies. They often add the #ExpCols hashtag to tweets, but it doesn’t appear that many others do. Essentially, Columbus’ Twitter account can be boiled down to an RSS of its blog (with more interesting teasers to accompany the links to the blog posts).

Columbia, S.C: Following 3,665; Followers 3,832; Tweets 1,140
This Tweetstream is much more interactive – a better mix of @replies and RTs along with links. It looks like the Columbia CVB has used Twitter to promote giveaways and take a thought leadership position in the travel/convention industry: many tweets are links about meeting planning in general. They also recommend other local South Carolina twitter accounts for people to follow and offer tips on things like local grocery deals and weather reports. They also use the #famouslyhot hashtag to identify some of their tweets.

Point: Columbia is using Twitter not only to push out its own content, but also to share interesting tweets and links from others. Columbus, however, uses Twitter more as a broadcast channel. Point to the southerners.

Round 2: Facebook

At first glance, this was a walkaway victory for Columbia, S.C. When I searched Facebook pages for Columbus, Ohio, the page I found first had 16,259 fans. However, the city didn’t appear to be taking advantage of the page very much. The only wall posts were by fans – Columbus didn’t seem to be interacting with them at all. Posts included “shout outs” like “Just visited The Short North. Pretty Cool! White Castle rock on!” Other wall posts by fans are advertisements for events or fundraisers in and around the city. On the photos page, there are a few profile pics and about 20 photos that have been uploaded by fans. There was only one discussion topic posted with no replies. It seemed like a big miss. But when I went to the “Experience Columbus” Web site and clicked the Facebook link from that site, it took me to an entirely different page. This one only had 525 fans, but was much more interactive. The page has Flickr and YouTube streams integrated into it, a feed from its blog, and several posts and links to the wall detailing all the goings-on in the city. But, when I searched “Columbus, Ohio” on Facebook, it didn’t even come up in the results. Searching on just the word “Columbus” revealed the site, but it was listed seventh or eighth in the results.

The Facebook page for Columbia, S.C., has just over 8,000 fans, but is much more interactive. The site appears to be maintained by the Columbia Convention and Visitor’s Bureau, whose staff posts events and news items about what’s going on in the city and invites fans to share their events. What I particularly like is a post on the wall (with a photo) identifying and introducing the Columbia CVB staff. It humanizes the page and lets you know that there are real, live people behind this brand! The photos page includes nine albums, like “Celebrities in Columbia” and candids from various conferences held in the city. On the boxes tab, Columbia has an import of its Flickr stream for more photos and feeds to three different blogs about Columbia. It also includes a .pdf of its meeting planners guide and more than 400 links posted to the page that relate to events, residents or news items about the city. A YouTube box on the home page links to a few videos about Columbia.

Point: Both cities have a good Facebook presence. I like how Columbus is a little less marketing focused. But because it’s so hard to find on Facebook, I think I have to go with Columbia on this one.

Round 3: Web site

Each city’s Web site is run by its Convention and Visitors Bureau. While Columbia’s starts out with a landing page that makes you choose among the Convention Center, CVB and Regional Sports Council sub-sites, Columbus’ home page is more traditional and in my opinion, easier to get pulled into.

On the “Experience Columbus” Web site, you are immediately presented with a scrolling visual of photos from various events around town, a sidebar of social links to six different online locations like Facebook, Twitter and Flickr, a hotel booking widget, a blog feed and an events calendar. Despite all this information being on the home page, it’s not too intimidating. There are links and tabs for meeting planners, the media, and then a series of links to dining, lodging and activities in the city. There’s also the option for local Columbus residents to become “members” of the site. The link to the site’s blog takes you to a nice platform that appears to have been posting since last October. The content is written by various members of the CVB staff and discusses local events and suggestions for things to do in the city. They even appear to have featured some guest authors now and then and have done a good job of embedding pictures and videos into the blog. Few of the posts have comments, but overall the blog does appear to be a good source of information for residents and visitors alike. The “IN” portion of the Web site for Columbus residents is interesting; it is basically a call to action for city residents to help share the good news about their city by inviting family and friends and identifying opportunities to host meetings and conferences in the city. Site members get access to special discounts at local merchants.

I disliked how immediately on Columbia’s “Famously Hot” home page I was faced with a choice. How am I supposed to know which of the three options to choose? Each link took you to an entirely different site. I ended up picking the CVB portion of the site. Each link took you to an entirely different site. It didn’t work (in either Firefox or IE). I kept getting 404 messages. I’m not sure if it was just my computer, but still after several clicks and refreshes (and even trying to access it on one of our four other computers at the house), I couldn’t get it to load. It appears that there are a few blogs on the site (their FB page had links to a few), but anything trying to resolve to the columbiaCVB.com site just wouldn’t fly. FAIL.

Point: Probably unfair since I couldn’t actually load Columbia’s site, but Columbus, Ohio, wins for its simple but effective presentation, obvious links to social outposts, ease of navigation, well-written blog and innovative focus on residents with its “IN” community.

Round 4: Other Social Sites (Flickr, YouTube, MySpace, etc.)

Both cities do a pretty good job here. Both have a Flickr presence, but while Columbia’s is heavily populated with more staged “markeing” shots and logo images, Columbus has its Flickr presence set up as a group pool where other Flickr members can add their own photos and tag them. There are 300+ photos in the pool and they give you a true sense of what the city is like.

On YouTube, Columbia has had a branded channel since 2007 and has 25 videos posted, with over 4,000 views. Columbus’ 13 videos have been viewed more than 2,000 times, but that’s in just two and a half months since they created their YouTube site. Again, the Columbia videos feel a little more produced and staged and focus heavily on meetings and conventions, whereas Columbus features clips on what it’s really like to live in that city (neighborhood profiles, e.g.)

Both cities had MySpace pages (Columbia actually had two). Both pages had about 1,000 friends, and both had integrated their other social outposts onto their MySpace pages. There was really nothing to truly distinguish them. What I found very interesting is the Columbus is using Delicious to bookmark articles and sites about its city and Northern Ohio. They’ve tagged and bookmarked articles from Bon Appetite, Style, and the Columbus Dispatch.

Point: The point goes to Columbus here. Although it was essentially a draw with MySpace and YouTube, Columbus’ more authentic presentation of its city on Flickr and its innovative use of Delicious to draw attention to news about the city gives it the edge.

The Final Verdict: It’s a 2-2 tie…but I think the overall win has to go to the capital of the Buckeye state. I really like how, despite the fact that the CVB is backing their online presence, Columbus, Ohio, is really trying to not be too heavy handed with the marketing aspect of it and trying to engage people and give a real portrayal of what the city is like. Columbia, S.C. does a good job having a presence and using some of the social media tools, but it just feels a little more forced somehow – more like the content and messages are being pushed out versus engaging with fans to create content and conversations together.

Plus, Columbia is home to Steve Spurrier, so they should automatically lose anyway. Go Dawgs.

Previous Smackdown: Mountain Hardwear vs. The North Face
Previous Smackdown: Magic Hat vs. Bell’s Beer

Image via Flickr users RatsOnParade and BridgeImages

Social Media Smackdown: Mountain Hardwear vs. The North Face

Posted on April 13, 2009 by amy mengel

It’s time for the second installment of Social Media Smackdown, and this time, I’m putting two Northern California-based purveyors of fine outdoor performance clothing to the test: Mountain Hardwear and The North Face. As an owner of several pieces of gear from these two brands, I can attest that I wouldn’t be as comfortable skiing or hiking without them. But how are they engaging with their fans online through social media? Let’s find out: