Keeping up with the Zappos

Reading through the possible story ideas for this month’s newsletter, a common theme quickly emerged: e-commerce, e-marketing with a little more e-commerce and a sprinkle of Twitter. The digital world is no longer something people talk about and only a few are doing. Now that everyone is doing it, its about who is doing it better and faster. (And the crazier the better!)

In a recent blog, we talked about retailers needing to think outside the box and diversifying offerings in order to get and retain customers. The longer the recession goes, it seems that retailers are using e-commerce, e-marketing and social media as the avenue of choice to get shoppers attention.

Take Jack in the Box's six-week "Hang in There Jack" campaign: a 360-degree social media event that utilized the power of YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and Flickr. "Along the way it leveraged irony to the breaking point with "viral" cellphone and faux-paparazzi videos, ring tones and texting. Among the crowd-sourced content were 27 get-well videos from fans, some quite brilliant," sourced from an LA Times article.

Or Sears with “ShopYourWay – Where Shopping Revolves Around You 24/7" campaign touting their multichannel retail capabilities which combine Web site, catalogs and other marketing vehicles to showcase services such as the ability to buy online and pick up in-store, mobile commerce and in-store Web shopping kiosks.

Or even Coke who owns the second largest fan club on Facebook second only to O'Bama's. Interestingly enough, Coke didn't even start the page. A fan did. Click here to read more.

Our monthly newsletter, tekREVIEW, featured two other articles on e-marketing and Twitter proving only that if you are not currently playing in this arena, you are behind and missing out.

I leave you with last night's Tweed from zappos CEO: Impromptu tweetup in SF! Free tastings of Haamonii Shochu at 119 Utah St. 630-830 PM tonight, stop by for a drink & say hi!

How many of of his 255,000 followers do you think showed up?