For the second straight year, Legendary Whitetails, a Slinger hunting and outdoors website, has advanced to the national competition of The Business Journal’s Social Madness.
Legendary Whitetails joins two other Milwaukee-area firms that have advanced to face off against companies from across the country. There will be five rounds of competition on the national level, and the overall winners will be crowned Aug. 20. Those are the companies that will be awarded $10,000 for the charity of their choice.
For more information, check out our special Social Madness page by clicking here.
Over the next several days, we will be publishing Q&As with our three winners to find out some of their social media secrets.
For today, Jared Poppert, social media manager for Legendary Whitetails, answers our questions
Q: How important is social media to your business?
A: “Very Important. We have found that, due to the passion our audience has for hunting and the outdoors, we are able to leverage social media as way to increase brand awareness and promote cross channel engagement with our followers.”
Q: How do you use social media to promote your business?
A: “We are able to consistently drive traffic to our ecommerce website, as well as our newly developed community site, through the use of social media. This traffic is made up of new visitors and returning visitors who keep coming back due to the promotions, contests, sweepstakes, and frequent postings found on our social networks.”
Q: Can you give an example of how social media has helped your business?
A: “Through the utilization of social media, we have been able to acquire new fans and turn them into loyal customers. We have also been able to grow our house email file, liquidate old inventory, and generate previously untapped revenue sources for the company.”
Q: Any advice, suggestions for other businesses on using social media?
A: “Social media is not just the future, social media is the present. If you don’t have a presence now, create one. Then strive to create a community, not just a page for advertisements. Interact with your audience. That is why they are there, after all. Be personable and humorous from time to time. Be a friend, not a TV commercial. Finally, do not be afraid to be a little risky in your posts. By no means post anything that might damage your brand, but ‘controversial’ content tends to gain ‘virality’ more often.”
Q: If you win the national Social Madness competition, who will you donate your $10,000 to and why?
A: “To be determined, but we are looking at a few organizations that promote outdoor education and/or conservation. We feel that it is imperative that people, especially our youth, are educated on the importance of the conservation of all of our natural resources and how ethical hunting plays a role in that effort.
“We also see the amazing benefits of how some organizations use hunting as therapy for some of our wounded military veterans. It will be a tough decision to make, but we are confident that, whichever we chose, the donation will be going towards a great cause. Just like Theodore Roosevelt, we believe strongly that if the American character was forged in the wilderness, it also needs to be renewed from time to time in the wilderness.”
