Winner: Tim Haran
Manager of Social Media Content, USANA
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Since launching USANA Health Sciences’ blog www.whatsupusana.com in December 2008, Tim Haran has continually found ways to tie in new and dynamic content that captivates readers’ interest rather than direct-selling them. When USANA began sponsoring the Olympics in 2010, Haran made What’s Up, USANA into an Olympic-information hub leading up to and during the games, providing a place for visitors to view exclusive content, including photos and video, about Team USANA—a group of nearly 100 USANA-sponsored athletes. The 50-blog-post effort coordinated by Tim resulted in then-record page views for a single month (nearly 25,000).
In 2010, for the first time at USANA’s annual four-day convention, attendees and non-attendees around the world received exclusive, behind-the-scenes content via the What’s Up, USANA. Through 28 blog posts and a dozen videos, readers and viewers experienced the event like never before, helping make August the highest-traffic month ever. Haran and his colleagues conducted two social media training stages at the event, drawing nearly 4,000 people. —CO
Key PR lesson in 2010: “Never before have consumers possessed so much control over brand messaging and management. What once was predominately one-way communication between a company and the customer (with the occasional private two-way conversation) is now decidedly public thanks to blogging and other social media.”
Honorable Mentions:
Todd Defren, Principal, Shift Communications
Started as a pet project in 2004, Todd Defren’s PR-Squared now ranks among the Technorati “Top 10K.”
Kerry Noone, Senior Marketing Manager, Sodexo
Sodexo’s approachable Career blog, managed by Kerry Noone, has helped lead to the company being named one of Working Mother’s Best Companies for Hourly Workers.