Clif Bar & Company

This week I spent some time looking at a company called Zappos' use of social media.  I was quite impressed by what I learned.  For so many weeks here we have been focusing on all that is social media when all of a sudden I was listening to the CEO of Zappos talk about how much he dislikes the social media.  Now don't get me wrong Zappos fully utilizes different social media channels, they just prefer to be "real friends" with their customers first.  With all that I learned in mind, I set out to find a company of my own to evaluate.  I decided to follow Clif Bar & Company for the week.  I must admit, choosing a company at first seemed daunting, but then I thought about my own personal life and the things that I buy and use.  With my busy schedule I have come to depend on Clif Bars.  Clif Bar & Company is a leading maker of nutritious and organic food and drinks that help people do better in sports and lead healthy lives.  Here is a link to a good interview about the founder.

Clif Bar & Company Website


Through the Clif Bar & Co. website I learned a lot about the company.  The website itself is very well laid out and easy to navigate.  I wanted to learn more about the company values and philosophy so I first went to the "Who We Are" section.  There I was impressed to see their 5 aspirations listed:

1. Sustaining Our Planet
2. Sustaining Our Community
3. Sustaining Our People
4. Sustaining Our Business
5. Sustaining Our Brands

There is a very large personal presence on this site as they explain how the company came to be.  The company started on a bike ride when the founder Gary took a bite of an energy bar and thought to himself that he make one so much better.  The name of the company comes from his father, Clifford.    It goes on to describe how the Clif Bar itself was born in his mom's kitchen.  They were very smart to personalize things in such a way that will make customers feel more connected to them.

They have a page describing what they are doing in the community, for the environment and for food.  There are many ways that someone can become involved.  Their food philosophy is clearly explained.  I really enjoyed their website and think they did an excellent job putting it together.  There were links to follow them on Facebook, Youtube and Twitter so that is what I did.

Clif Bar & Company on Facebook

Clif Bar & Company's Facebook page has over 82,500 fans.  The first thing that I noticed was how very large and involved the page really was.  They are extremely interactive with their fans.  Just today I noticed that someone complained that they had a few "bad bars" lately and Clif Bar & Company responded almost instantly asking for his contact information.  They have their company mission clearly stated on the info page as well as a list of rules and guidelines to follow when posting on their page.  This is something that I have not seen before.    They seem to be very involved with cyclists and runners and that presence is very large on their page.  There are several video links as well that I enjoyed watching.  This was a very solid, well laid out Facebook page that clearly demonstrates the company's strong social media plan.

Clif Bar & Company on Twitter

Have I mentioned that I don't really like Twitter?  I know that it is not going anywhere anytime soon, but I just don't like the concept of it.  If I was obsessed with an actress and wanted to know her every move, I would be all about Twitter.  With that being said, Clif Bar & Company has their Twitter page on their Facebook page, something I did not know you could do.  I went through the normal Twitter site and found that they have a very large following on Twitter.  So much so that I think that I need to rethink my negative opinion of Twitter.  Throughout the week, they did not actually tweet that many things, mostly used the site to respond to others (which happened a lot).  There is a link to their blog there which is an idea that I support because you are so limited with what you can say on Twitter.  I feel that perhaps they could have tweeted more content themselves, but for the most part it was a very well maintained page which is so important in the world of social media.  With over 75,000 followers, I can imagine that they have a team assembled just to deal with Twitter.  It was clear to me that Clif Bar & Company is not using Twitter as a marketing platform as much as it is using it as a social maintenance platform which makes perfect sense to me.  I did take some time and explore their blog through the link on Twitter and can't even being to describe how well organized and complete it is.  

Clif Bar & Company on Youtube

The Youtube channel page was very informative and also very entertaining to explore.  There were videos about the environment and different project that they are involved in as well as office shenanigans that give the company a fun vibe.  I smiled a lot, which to me is a very important factor.  The page has been in existence since April of 2010 and has had over 635,000 total upload views.  I simply cannot find any fault in this page.

I will leave you with a few videos that I found very interesting and useful in understanding this company: