In the third installment of our ongoing series of video profiles of cool local entrepreneurs and businesses, we decided it was time to tipple. So who better to call on than Eddie Crane, owner of The Drop on Martini Corner in Kansas City’s Union Hill District? Drink up, and leave feedback in the comments.

Direct YouTube link.

Previously featured: Scott Fitness, Indigo Wild. To suggest a profile subject, e-mail jason@lockerpartner.com or hit us up on Twitter @lockerpartner.

It’s a David-and-Goliath tale of refreshingly zesty and kosher proportions.

An enterprising young lady named Coral Cripps has created an amazingly viral movement-within-a-Facebook-page dedicated to answering the question Can This Pickle Get More Fans than Nickleback? (As you’ll find if you dig back a few days’ worth of entries, the band’s name is misspelled intentionally due to Facebook copyright policies.)

And chances look good for the dill one. Since appearing on February 3, the courageous cucumber has amassed nearly a quarter of a million fans.

But, Cripps quips, “Currently Nickelback has 1,380,820 fans. Can this dill pickle tickle your fancy and get more?”

So far, it’s tickled more people’s fancies than other Nickelback-hater groups, such as Not Listening to Nickelback (183,195 fans) and I Bet I Can Find 169,000 People Who Hate Nickelback (126,178 — alas!).

And it’s easy to see why it’s trouncing those other groups. Rather than just giving people something to hate, it’s giving them something to love.

A pickle!

Update: This is officially a meme.

One of the great benefits of Facebook is that it helps businesses, especially small ones, connect with customers. Shoot, given that the site just broke the 400 million user threshold, it helps you connect with pretty much the whole world.

As CEOs of big corps on down to mom and pops have caught on, setting up a Facebook fan page is the way to go — as opposed to a group (too limited) or personal profile (limited, but also outlawed).

But as I’ve been more actively seeking out my favorite local businesses’ pages the past few months, I’ve noticed a few things. Things like…

The weather outside is frightful, but our X is so delightful! Come in and try our X.

It’s Thursday! That means big savings on X!!!!

It’s great that so many businesses and orgs recognize the need to use Facebook to reach customers and keep them up to date. And we understand that hardworking proprietors don’t have time to put a lot of thought into their posts. Nor can they afford to pay a part-timer to monitor discussion on social platforms — much less hire an agency to develop a grand campaign*. They’re busting their humps to meet the bottom line and make sure that they’re doing everything they can to appeal to customers in person and online. I salute them for that. That’s exactly what they should be doing.

But the truth is, trickling out sales information and blurting proprietary updates is not the best way to connect. Maybe someone will be persuaded to grab five friends and head to your bar because you posted “HEY EVERYONE WE JUST GOT THE NEW X ON TAP SPECIAL TONIGHT $3!!!!!” (And if you can find that person, you should let her and all her friends drink for free.)

Most people seek out your business on Facebook because they want to interact with you. They want to look at photos and videos and hear what you think the best new X on the market is or how you like working in a city with so many great X’s. Most of all, they want to be heard. Not just by other fans but by you.

Don’t X out our eyes with whatever it is you want us to buy or do after we walk in the door. Listen to what we’re saying, then tailor your status updates accordingly. Jump into threads and answer questions.

Give value.

Ask questions.

And if we aren’t talking at all? If you’ve been posting your lunch specials every day for months now, you’re getting nary a “like,” and you’re about ready to ditch this Facebook crap?

Well, before you do that, put down the megaphone and have a regular conversation with your customers. That’s what we’re here to do.

*We’re cheap!

As more and more teens and young adults get online (we’re close to 100 percent, folks), usage habits are changing, with content creation in the form of blogging falling among both age groups and social networking activity increasing.

Or so it would seem based on a new survey on Social Media and Young Adults conducted by the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

Teens and young adults (followed closely behind by us still-remember-the-typewriter Gen X-ers) are the biggest Internet users. Survey says: “Nearly two-thirds of teen internet users (63%) go online every day – 36% of teens go online several times a day and 27% go online about once a day.”

Going Mobile: Of the 75 percent of kids 12-18 who own cell phones, 66 percent text. 79 percent own an MP3 player. (And it looks like 72 percent of adults aged 50-64 still listen to the radio and buy CDs. Ha … ha.)

Taken with the Kaiser Foundation survey we reported on earlier this month, which showed that kids spend upwards of seven hours a day consuming digital media, this all paints a fairly definitive picture of neither trend nor fad but … dare we say it … human evolution?

At the forefront is social media. The Pew report shows that of the teens who go online daily, 80 percent visit social networking sites (SNS). 62 percent of teens who go online less often still visit social networks. The Pew survey suggests that social networking may even provide incentives for teens to go online.

Twitter, on the other hand, is not popular at all with teens — only 8 percent use the microblogging service. The decline in original content creation extends to blogging and to commenting on blogs. Both of those activities have declined among teens and young adults.

Interestingly, however, blogging has increased among older adults, due, no doubt, to the rise of blogging as a business tool. In the past, blogs were the primary means of personal self-expression and sharing web content. Now Facebook and Twitter (for young adults, at least) make self-broadcasting more effortless.

It seems, though, that kids are more interested in private transactions (the almighty text) than in public display. After all, when you’re in eighth grade, the here-and-now of cafeteria seating drama and locker gossip is way more relevant than whatever’s going on in the adult, *gulp*, world of public commentary.

Cookies, gay pride, football-game crowd formations, jack-o-lanterns, pirates, republicans …

The  logo that Sol Sender and his fellows at the Chicago firm VSA designed for Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign ended up in a lot of places. And Sender and co. were just fine with that.

Sender spoke last night at the Plaza branch of the Kansas City Public Library. The lecture was part of a series of events within the firs-annual Kansas City Design Week, a program meant to showcase the “talent-rich ecosystem of designers in Kansas City,” according to the host. Around 400 people turned out, many of whom probably had little working knowledge of graphic design.

After showing some examples of ways Obama supporters had used his company’s logo, including a site that allows users to create their own customized version, Sender explained that what was groundbreaking about the logo was not its composition but the way it was used.

Rather than simply plastering the logo as-is onto signs, cars, websites, and so on, Obama campaigners took the simple O-shaped, “rising sun” brand and did basically whatever they wanted with it.

It was the first stand-alone logo — a design that could convey concepts of change, hope, a new day, and also be identifiable as belonging to Obama without using any of those words or the candidate’s name.

How did Sender and his colleagues come up with the design? They read both of Obama’s books, looked back over the history of presidential campaign logos, most of them boring (by the way, this was VSA’s first political campaign client), and came up with a list of three criteria.

1. The logo must tell a simple, authentic story.

2. It must be stylistically relevant, contemporary yet timeless, patriotic yet with a “web 2.0 sensibility.”

3. It must be impeccably executed, communicating a lot with very few elements.

VSA came up with about eight workable designs. You can view them here. The three at the bottom were the finalists. The campaign eventually chose the flag-draped O.

Whether they intended for it to happen on quite the scale it did or not, VSA’s Obama logo went viral, and it’s clear how the simple yet meaningful standalone design enabled that spread.

Yet even without a snappy logo, Obama’s campaigners and grassroots followers made such effective use of online social media that the campaign itself had built-in viral loops (particularly in the form of collecting mass small-amount donations, but that’s another story). I would even argue that Shepard Fairey’s famous guerrilla-art HOPE poster was a more enduringly viral image from the campaign, complete with its own DIY imitation site.

In any case, it was a damn good logo.

But as Sender pointed out, the logo was only as powerful as the candidate.

Cookies baked by megpi.

Last week, we showed love for the 52nd Grammys’ massive We’re All Fans social media campaign. Quick refresher: In addition to loading up Grammys.com with social content, the Recording Academy’s marketers created wereallfans.com, an elegant promotional site featuring fluid displays of user-generated content.

Now that the ceremony is over and the numbers have come in, it looks like the push paid off in spades, proving that investing in social media marketing brings tangible returns.

On average, 25.8 million viewers tuned into Sunday night’s ceremony, making for the ceremony’s largest audience in six years. That’s a 35% increase over last year’s ceremony, which was promoted only minimally on social sites.

The built-in buzz around Best-Album-winning Taylor Swift and Jacko-tributing Lady Gaga no doubt helped, not to mention everhot Beyoncé Knowles, who won became the biggest-winning female artist ever by taking home six awards. But we think the real buzz was online.

Mashable ran the numbers for the “We’re All Fans” campaign and found staggering results.

125,760 Facebook Fans
48,776 Twitter Followers
1,505,838 combined views on YouTube for the “We’re All Fans” campaign videos.
2,050,699 combined views on Grammy.com for the “We’re All Fans” campaign videos.
The Grammys were a trending topic on Twitter for more than four days.

Numbers = truthy.

Additionally, the awards ceremony itself reflected the ways in which social media has become an integral part of pop culture and everyday life. Nowhere was this seen more strikingly than in Imogen Heap’s mind-boggling Twitter dress. It was a dress. That tweeted. Crazy.

And there was also Stephen Colbert using an iPad to announce the Song of the Year nominees. Though not overtly social-media-related (and no doubt the result of an Apple product placement deal), the fact that Colbert whipped out an Internet-buzzy device on a mainstream-TV awards show — and got laughs — is pretty significant.

And lastly, on an unfortunate note, the Washington Post blog saw fit to point out how Swift’s cringeworthily off-key performance in her duet with Stevie Nicks echoed across the Twittersphere.

If art imitates life, social media reports it.

Imogen image courtesy Moritz Waldermeyer.

13 years ago, Emily Voth began selling homemade organic soaps and aromatherapy products out of a stall at the farmer’s market. Today, her Kansas City-based company, Indigo Wild, employs some 33 people.

Indigo Wild’s Zum (as in “some”) line of bath, body and home products is sold online and in 2,000 stores. You may have seen — or, more likely, smelled — Zum soaps, candles, lotions, room sprays, body rubs, etc., while cruising the aisles at your local Cosentino’s or Whole Foods.

We sure have.

In fact, we’d been fans of Indigo Wild for years without knowing much about this company, whose factory is based in the heart of midtown KC. We grabbed our FlipCam and visited Indigo Wild at 3125 Wyandotte last week and found a warehouse full of smiling faces and scintillating scents. And dogs, too. Lots of dogs. (It’s OK — the FDA approves.)

Without further ado…

Direct YouTube link.

This is the second in our ongoing series of hand-held, handmade, organic video profiles of local entrepreneurs and businesses who are making their own rules, creating rabid followings and using social media. The first was of John Scott of Scott Fitness. To suggest a company, e-mail jason@lockerpartner.com or hit us up on Twitter: @lockerpartner.

Sometimes old dogs can learn new tricks.

In fact, you don’t have to be a fan of that old Schnauzer the Recording Academy to be completely blown away by the elegant and compelling social media campaign it’s created in the run-up to the 52nd Annual Grammy Awards — it’s a virtual doggy ballet, in fact.

Rather than explicitly spreading the Grammys’ in-house branding, the Academy has embraced the notion of user generated content as a reflection of artist buzz.

To exploit this concept, Grammy marketers have created a dedicated site, wereallfans.com (or “we’re all fans” — the contraction is a bit awkward), that collects fan-created YouTube videos, Flickr photos and tweets related to the top nominees and places them in a beautifully miasmic visualizer. It might give you motion sickness, but it’s really cool.

Best of all, you can add to the party by clicking on “join the conversation” in the lower-left corner. Log in to your Twitter, Flickr or YouTube and whatever you post will float off into the fray. Or you can create your own fan portrait. Click on the “fanbuzz visualizer” for a slightly less vertiginous interactive graph showing each artist’s buzz.

Meanwhile, over at Grammy.com, the site’s been loaded up with social features: Facebook and Twitter feeds, community blogging and a free iPhone app, to name a few of the bells and whistles.

For anyone with the money to spend on a massive social media campaign, this is pretty much how it’s done.

Oh yeah, and: Leonard Cohen FTW!

Further reading: Billboard.biz interviews the marketers behind the campaign.

Months of plate-shifting hype made for a volcanic debut for Apple’s iPad yesterday.

As Steve Jobs descended from Mt. Cupertino, a mock-turtleneck clad Prometheus, bringing new digital fire to mankind, every tech blogger from here to Sparta felt compelled to weigh in on the supposedly revolutionary tablet computer doohickey. And I suppose, as this post proves, I am no different.

But as I’m tempest-toss’d upon this sea of speculation, I can’t help but wonder what the iPad will (or won’t) do for the music industry.

After some thought and a pot or two of coffee, I’m come to the following conclusion:

The iPad (or devices like it) is a boon for DIY musicians.

That’s not because of any new technology that comes on the device. As MusicWeek points out, Jobs’ presentation was largely devoid of digital-music talk.

The iPad will come with iTunes, the App Store, and whatever apps, such as Pandora or Last.fm, people use to consume music on their iPhones/iPods/etc.

Maybe Apple isn’t talking about music right now, but regardless, the change in size and format of the medium could make a huge impact on how people consume music.

Think about the change in physical music from LP to cassette to CD. See a pattern here? Computer … iPhone … iPad … anyone?

The iPad is clearly a better medium for the visual side of music — artwork, video, liner notes — and that’s really important. And with user-generated content sites like YouTube and Ustream, it’s going to be that much easier to get your music into people’s hands and before their eyes.

Also, for musicians on the go, managing one’s own content on a tiny mobile device requires some serious iPod-chi. I’m not sure how easy it is to store and access shared files (MP3s, PDFs, etc) on an iPad, but I’m assuming its laptop-mobile hybrid status makes it a little easier. Maybe not.

Best of all though is that the price is right. For musicians on a budget (i.e., most), the iPad could fill a serious need: cheap connectivity.

For planning a tour, this is huge. Unless you’ve got a manager, publicist and label doing all the networking, communicating and planning for you, it’s up to you to use some combination of your wits, the phone in your pocket and whatever Internet access you can hijack to make your way across the country without hemorrhaging cash and/or success.

The iPad ranges in price from $500 for 16G of storage, to $700 for 64G. Add $130 to the price tag plus $30 a month if you want to go 3G and not have to worry about finding reliable wi-fi hotspots everywhere you go.

For many indie musicians, laptops just aren’t in the budget. It’s expensive enough to pay the smartphone bill on top of the cost of gas, equipment, food, beer, unexpected medical expenses and so on.

In summary, for musicians looking to make it in the industry, devices like the iPad could mean cheaper, more effective ways of spreading content and managing business.

Thanks, Prometheus.

Though it began as a platform for broadcasting the answer to the question “What are you doing?” in 140 characters or less, Twitter has become so much more.

As a tool for self-promotion and marketing, it has rejuvenated careers. Just ask Shaq.

As a tool for citizen journalists (read: everybody) it has become an invaluable source of real-time news. (Hence the change last year of the question from “What are you doing?” to “What’s happening?”)

And for business as well as daily life, Twitter has become an invaluable tool for networking, marketing and finding out what’s going on in the wider world

Now, with the local trends feature that the microblogging service just rolled out, Twitter is becoming more relevant to its users in a local context.

So far, only about seven countries and a dozen or so cities are being tracked, but that will of course expand. As of now, our home base of Kansas City isn’t on the list — a surprise to no one here in this cowtown.

But when it does roll out everywhere, expect Twitter’s local trends to change the way you do business and, frankly, conduct your life.

Here are the three main ramifications:

1. Communication: By being able to see what people in your area are talking about, it will be easier to join conversations and network.

2. News: People seeking news about a major local event, such as an election or (*gulp*) disaster, will now be able to get pertinent information faster, without having to wade through what the rest of the web has to say about similar topics. Or wait for local professional news outlets to report it.

3. Business: Marketers will be able to use local trends to target their messages based on topics that are popular in their community. Businesses looking to develop or introduce new products can base their decisions on what people are most excited about.

Those are the broad strokes, of course. If we’ve missed any big ones, let us know.

Also, in what more specific scenarios could Twitter’s local trends be useful?