By Carla Jean Whitley
The strategist: David Griner is Luckie and Company’s social media strategist.
What is it? Griner develops strategies for the full-service advertising and public relations agency’s clients, using social media tools like Facebook, Twitter, iPhone applications and blogs to bring a client’s message to the consumer. While the company doesn’t recommend social media as a replacement for traditional advertising and PR campaigns, it can be a vital element of both.
“You can have as much great stuff as you can imagine on your website, but it’s much more valuable to take the message to people where they are,” Griner explains. “We help you fish where the fish are.”
History: After he was hired as a copywriter in 2006, one of Griner’s first projects at Luckie was The Five Day Weekend, a tourism campaign for Asheville, N.C. The faux-political campaign drew on social media services, including blogs and YouTube videos, to engage people and draw them into promotional rallies. “People really took ownership of it, even though they knew it was a tourism thing,” Griner says. A group in Atlanta even organized their own rally. “We learned the power of enabling people to take ownership of this on a social level.”
The social media aspects of Luckie’s work increased until every campaign they proposed included social media elements. In August 2008 Luckie dubbed Griner its social media strategist, and Social Media Planner Whitney Sides Mitchell was hired this spring. Early on, Griner explained to clients why social media mattered; now nearly all of Luckie’s accounts include a social media component.
What makes it unique? Social media consultants are popping up, and buzz agencies targeted solely at social media have developed. But Luckie is in the rare position of offering social media services within a full-service agency. “We’re lucky to be a part of the oldest and most established agency in Birmingham—yet it’s so forward-thinking,” Griner says. Because businesses are still figuring out how to use social media and how to measure a campaign’s success, Luckie’s experience is an asset. “We’ve been doing this probably as much as anybody and we know what to expect.”
A day in the life: Every day brings new challenges. While an iPhone application might make sense for one client, another client might better engage its public through Twitter. Campaigns are developed after a lot of research, and Mitchell says implementation is easy after the research is complete.
Staff size: Griner and Mitchell comprise the department, but creative individuals in all of Luckie’s departments contribute to their success. “I can walk down the hall and get one of the best designers in the state of Alabama to design a Twitter background,” Griner says.
What’s ahead: Griner expects continued growth as more companies recognize the value of social media. “Every job we finish will open up three more jobs,” he says.
