Soulfood Books

Soulfood Books is "a house of dreamers, poets, musicians, mathematicians and world changers" whose goal is "to provide the community with a safe place to connect and journey out into the world to create sustainable positive change." They support local authors, independent music and offer really great organic coffees. Soulfood Books has become the meeting place of choice for many employees at my company.

Their website is simple, yet full-featured. The site features links to their Facebook and Twitter pages, a newly created Community Directory, an events calendar, a newsletter subscription page, and Soultribe TV. The TV channel streams live music and events directly from the cafe. They offer a Tribe membership at three levels which supports the local music and author scene.

They have a strong Facebook page with 2287 likes. They make daily updates, and many musicians and authors interact. The Facebook info tab is complete. They have a mailing list and a large photo album. Although the wall posts by friends are infrequent, someone at Soulfood typically responds the same day to any questions: "Are you open during the snow storm?" There is a link from Facebook to their Yelp reviews.

They have a Twitter page with 106 followers, daily tweets (mostly), and all tweets are duplicated on Facebook. They are positively reviewed on Yelp: 45 reviews with a 4.5 average rating, and the most current review was posted in November 2011. There are many videos posted on YouTube of live music performances from Soulfood Books. Videos are regularly uploaded, but viewership is typically small.

For the size of the business, they are a social media rock star because the employees are totally engaged in making the coffeehouse the hub of a thriving social network. Soulfood Books has no marketing budget, but five of the employees voluntarily maintain the web site and all social media efforts. They use an integrated approach so that content is cross-posted everywhere. The entire effort is cobbled together with "bubblegum and duct tape" according to one of the contributors, but they manage to create and maintain an enviable social media presence.