Manna from heaven? - A social media miracle for a mom

This is the story of a lifetime. It is a story about the generosity of the furniture industry-even as we are facing the worst economic situation of our lives.

It is the story of one well respected blogger and his wife . It is the story of one Romanian badly abused Mom and her three children-one with Down’s syndrome- who had run out of options. It is a story of profound hope in the goodness of people-who have never met.

It is a social media story.

The initial characters:
David and Belinda Armano. David and Belinda currently live in Chicago, but are shortly on their way to a new life in Austin, TX. David has just accepted a new position as senior partner of Dachis Corp. and writes the very well respected blog Logic + Emotion. Belinda is his wife and the mother of their children and the one who has done much of the behind the scenes work to make this story possible.

Daniela and her three children. Daniela is a young mother of three children-one of whom has Down’s syndrome. She is from Romania. Her husband was and is extremely abusive-so abusive that she made the brave decision to get away from him no matter what it meant with respect to her living conditions.

CHAPTER ONE : January 6, 2009 David Armano sends out a post on his blog Logic + Emotion asking for financial assistance to help Daniela find an apartment, put down a deposit on it and pay the first month’s rent. He asked for 5000.00 in contributions from his blog’s readers. He and Belinda met Daniela through their church. He and Belinda offered Daniela and her three children their own home over Christmas.

See David’s original blog post here: http://bit.ly/3WhVP5

CHAPTER TWO: David’s original blog post was retweeted hundreds of times on Twitter. It went viral around the world in less than 24 hours. Total strangers who did not know Daniela and did not know David decided to help this abused Mom and, in less than 2 days, over 16,000 dollars was raised (when he had only asked for 5000.) Several local and national news outlets picked up the story.
Why? Why, indeed. See the insightful and powerful answer on this blog post by Scott Drummond: http://bit.ly/kke52

CHAPTER THREE: What did Daniela and her family need now that David and Belinda had secured an apartment for her? You guessed it, furniture.

Enter the incredible generosity of three people and two companies: And remember, as you read this, NONE of these people have EVER MET in real life-this IS a social media story.

Let me introduce the new characters to you, please. The ones who, while facing incredible business, time and personal constraints themselves (in the case of the retailers) decided to come forward and help this Mom whom they had never met.

Vicki Semke, owner of www.migandtig.com. A well respected independent retailer in Chicago.

Jerod Lazan, owner of www.mortisetenon.com A well respected independent retailer in Los Angeles.

Together, Jerod and Vicki own a new site called www.furniturelink.com
Vicki and Jerod do not sell furniture online. They do help retailers, consumers, and manufacturers connect with each other so everyone wins-their site is a “must” site for our industry to know about.

Happily, Ray Allegrezza has also recognized Vicki’s talent as a retail visionary and she is now writing her own column on www.furnituretoday.com. Please make sure to read it if you are a retailer. She and Jerod are going to change our industry.

I wrote a more detailed blog post about their business concept here: http://bit.ly/PtJlC

Back to our story..
Because Vicki had just donated a houseful of furniture to the folks at Extreme Home Makeover, she was not able to donate the furniture herself for Daniela-which would have been the easy route since the Armano’s, Daniela and Vicki all live in Chicago. Vicki picked up the phone, though, and called her partner, Jerod, and asked him if he would do it. Remember, his store is in the heart of Los Angeles on La Brea. He agreed-he had the inventory.

Now, you must be wondering- who picked up the tab to ship all this furniture to a Mom they’ve never met, a retailer they’ve never met, a story they barely knew anything about? The shipper that Jerod and Vicki always use? No. They declined.

Our knight in shining armor enters our story: Al Maruggi, President of Provident Partners and Senior Fellow in the Society For New Communications Research at www.providentpartners.net who has a social media client, www.manna.com who just happens to be the leading white glove delivery service in the country for delivering furniture and difficult to install items such as large screen TV’s and appliances!

Headquarted just south of Minneapolis, MN, www.manna.com has been in business since 1991. Linda Meehan, Manna’s magical marketing manager, decided to make it happen as she had hired Al’s company to help her craft a social media strategy in order to get the word out about their delivery services like www.schedulemydelivery.com which lets consumers schedule their own deliveries online when the furniture is already on its way.

Al came up with a great idea for her, too- a blog about furniture so Manna could connect more directly to consumers. A moving company with a B2C blog? Yes. www.roominations.net. Check it out. (Same idea, my social media client- BiOH polyols- is doing with www.experienceBiOH.com!)

(Pssst.. I really hope you will call Linda and let her know how much you appreciate Manna’s generosity-maybe even give her some business! They do lots of deliveries for big online retailers, too, if you sell online.)

What makes this story SO SPECIAL from a business standpoint? It shows the power of social media to connect people.

The people involved (with the exception of myself) only know each other through Twitter. David, Belinda, Jerod, Vicki, Al and Linda do not know each other. I have only met Jerod and Al in person and I only met AL as a result of Twitter. I have never met Vicki, David, Belinda or Daniela.

Why? Why did all these people come together to help Daniela?

Because David asked them to. That’s the power of social media. David delivers value to his readers every single day with the content he puts on his blog. He helps them. He gives information away for free that most people think he could/should charge for - and sometimes he does.

If there is one lesson about social media it is this: when you deliver value, when you respect your audience, when you go out of your way to help them, even when you help your competitors sometimes, they will go out of their way to help you. The golden rule-RULES!

The real lesson for all retailers about to enter into the social media space?
Become a deliverer of valuable content to your audience and help them reach THEIR goals-don’t broadcast a marketing message all the time. A little bit is ok, but you must build trust first. That’s the secret to social media marketing success. Daniela’s story is a perfect example.

Good luck, Daniela! I hope your kids are delighted with their new furniture and I know they are already loving their new pillows from www.NaturaWorld.com!
See Daniela’s empty apartment? http://bit.ly/DrZxv David started this blog for her and you can follow her story here. Thanks to Jerod and Vicki of www.yourfurniturelink.com and Linda of www.manna.com through Al Maruggi, it won’t be empty much longer. The furniture is being delivered Friday.