Case Study - EPC Cigar, a Start-Up, Using Twitter to Build Buzz - NYTimes.com

• Case Study - EPC Cigar, a Start-Up, Using Twitter to Build Buzz - NYTimes.com

  In this NY Times article, we hear why DeVito/Verdi recommended social media over traditional advertising for cigar manufacturer E.P. Carrillo. Social media works for small businesses. 

  tags: smm, twitter, facebook, NYT

  • THE CHALLENGE To develop a cost-effective and efficient marketing strategy to promote the company and its new brand, E. P. Carrillo, while building on the family’s legacy.
  • Social media allow the company to communicate directly with cigar buyers, retailers, tobacco growers and others with whom it does business, according to both EPC Cigar and its agency. This is particularly important as the popularity of once-fashionable cigar bars wanes and public smoking bans proliferate.
  • The agency has encouraged Mr. Perez-Carrillo Jr. — and not his son — to use Twitter to build and communicate with the company’s following. It is Mr. Perez-Carrillo Jr., said Tyler DeAngelo, interactive creative director of DeVito/Verdi, who is “the face of the brand.”
  • While Mr. Perez-Carrillo Jr. posts Twitter messages almost daily, Mr. Perez-Carrillo III maintains the company’s Facebook page, where he posts articles and reviews and encourages fans to comment. There are also links on the page to the company’s Twitter feed, YouTube videos and Flickr photos. Similarly, there is a box that pops up from the home page of its Web site that lets visitors “follow Ernesto” on all four social media channels.
  • One unexpected benefit is that Mr. Perez-Carrillo III has been using Google Analytics to track how many people visit the Web site and where they come from. He has discovered that almost one-third of the visitors do not live in the United States. “I’m talking to foreign distributors far more quickly than I expected I would,” he said.

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