The Mall of America is the largest mall in retail space in the United States, with more than 40 million visitors annually. Less than two years ago, it created a Facebook page which saw 5,000 fans in its first day, more than 15,000 in the first month, and now has over 130,000 fans. The Mall expanded into Twitter, Foursquare and other services to communicate with its visitors. Its online presence now interacts with the Mall’s visitors continuously and has become part of the mall-going experience. We chatted with Lisa Grimm, Digital PR Specialist with Mall of America to get the behind-the-scenes scoop.

Go East: How do you grow a major following on Facebook?

Lisa Grimm: There are a few crucial elements that allow a Facebook page or other social media tools to be effective in forming an online community. The first is being a great product, service or experience. Second, a company culture supportive and conducive to being transparent and serving its customer base well. Third, talented staff that is skilled in strategic communications, marketing as a service and understanding technology and its uses for business (or the ability to select strong partners that can assist).

GE: I saw a deal the Mall of America did on Facebook that was exclusive to those that hit “Like.” How effective has that been?

LG: We’ve only done this once and it was a coupon for 100 free minutes of ride time in our indoor theme park, Nickelodeon Universe, to celebrate reaching 100,000 fans on Facebook. Our decision to require a “Like” for the coupon was two-pronged: if we posted it for the world to see anyone could print it off, and we wanted to reward our loyal Facebook fans and encourage those that were not yet fans to become fans. Upon posting the offer, our page experienced significant growth that week.

GE: What tools do you use to monitor what people are saying about the Mall of America and its stores?

LG: Currently, we use TweetDeck to monitor a number of search terms and conversations we have. Foursquare and Yelp also provide us a glimpse into tips and review specific guest comments. Additionally, we have a media-monitoring service that pulls Mall of America mentions in a number of mediums, including blogs.

GE: If you were limited to using only one form of digital media, which would you pick and why?

LG: Twitter. While Facebook currently trumps all in terms of users, Twitter has revolutionized how we communicate in a much different way than Facebook, message boards and blogs. The character limit, ability to share multimedia content and location within a status update, along with the ability to connect with like minds, is the right combination of everything. It allows a global network of folks to develop meaningful relationships, curate and share amazing content – sometimes profoundly influential. Love it, hate it, or if you don’t care what someone had for lunch, Twitter is one of the most amazing communication tools to which humans have ever had access.

GE: How often do you interact with your audience when they’re physically inside the mall?

LG: One of our main objectives is to be helpful in real time and also mine information that can help us build more robust guest service programs, online and off. We’ll direct guests to a particular destination, clean up a mess quickly, or even help get an escalator functioning properly. The fact that people share information in real time – positive and negative – helps brand managers understand who their customer is right now and get them to the point of purchase and contentment easier than ever before.

GE: Get any bizarre requests?

LG: We are asked almost on a daily basis if “Camp Snoopy,” the original name for Nickelodeon Universe, the theme park inside of Mall of America, is “coming back.” Sometime’s it’s just a straight-up declaration that it will always be Camp Snoopy.

GE: What’s your favorite place in the Mall?

LG: Of all the questions you’ve asked, this one is the most difficult. They’re all food related. I love Twin City Grill for either their prime rib dinner with a side of broccoli, or prime rib sandwich with no onions and a side of creamy horseradish. Doc Popcorn is an amazing popcorn shop with all-natural flavored popcorn (I love the Sweet Butter and Triple Cheddar combo). It’s dangerous. I’m known to go to Cinnabon and Starbucks pretty regularly as well. As far as stores, I enjoy Nordstrom and H&M. I also love taking laps in the Mall as it is a never-ending learning process: I’m able to see the faces of our guests and understand what joys they experience, as well as any challenges or obstacles they have to achieving those joys.

GE: Anything annoying about your job?

LG: I wouldn’t say there’s anything particularly annoying. Since I was little, my natural curiosity about people and my surroundings has put me in very public facing roles: receptionist, fine-dining server, public relations and now digital public relations specialist. I would say that the most annoying thing is being just one person. There are many inquiries to service, discussions to be had and the organization of those interactions to build cool systems that make the process easier, but one person can only do so much. That’s why it’s great to have such an amazing team of professionals to work with at the Mall.

Follow the Mall of America on Facebook and Twitter, and follow Lisa Grimm at @lulugrimm.

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I am often asked what makes a good password, and my answer is the same every time: The best passwords are the ones that neither a person nor a computer would ever be able to guess.

Good passwords are important here, as a breach could mean someone from the outside stealing trade secrets and intellectual property — even if it’s not the assets themselves but emails and calendar events that reference them. I’ve worked with a few vendors and agencies that are comfortable sharing their passwords, which allows us to exchange artwork for projects. Yet, by giving me their level of access, they are probably giving me too much access.  That doesn’t fly at Go East.

Secure passwords are just as important for employees that have limited access. If hackers gain privileges to a company directory or internal procedures, it could help them gain control of another account with higher access.

For many agencies, and small- to mid-sized organizations that don’t have large IT departments, this kind of organization-wide security is often overlooked, but when you’re working with Fortune 500 companies, your security needs to be just as good as their security.

I think one of the least secure aspects of online accounts is the use of “security questions” in addition to your password. Yesterday I was quoted by WCCO’s Jason DeRusha on his “Good Question” segment:

Aaron Landry, IT Manager for Go East in St. Paul, said “I argue that those ‘security questions’ actually make accounts less secure. I mean, what’s the point of having a super secure password if all you need to know is someone’s birth date, the name of their dog and their mother’s maiden name?” 

He also suggests making up answers to those questions. 

Landry has several password tips he said he shares with his company’s employees.

“A good way to make passwords is to mix two separate things together. For example, use your spouse’s middle name spelled backwards with your zip code — or your child’s birth date mixed with the street you grew up on,” he suggested. 

Also, “Avoid using dictionary words — try swapping out some of the letters with numbers.” 

DeRusha interviews others with good advice as well.

One last bit of advice: The best passwords are completely random strings of letters and numbers, which most people are able to memorize in a couple days … oh yeah, and don’t tell anyone what your password is!

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When looking to leverage mobile messaging services and microblogging platforms such as Twitter, the Minneapolis-Saint Paul media serves up some examples worth checking out:

Twitter feeds from Fox 9 News and the Star Tribune are fully automatic streams of almost every news story they publish. I personally don’t think most people want that kind of a stream in Twitter, but it works for some. WCCO posts breaking news stories on Twitter almost exclusively, which is similar to CNN’s Twitter feed. Minnesota Independent, The UpTake and MinnPost post to their own stories, but also maintain a news dialog with others. The Saint Paul Pioneer Press’ feed is very conversational.

There are Twitter accounts for individual reporters, journalists and other media professionals as well. The advantage for the news consumer is being able to listen to what reporters are talking about before it’s reported, but the disadvantage is hearing everything else they may be doing or talking about that’s unrelated to the news. MinnPost’s David Brauer, Minnesota Independent’s Paul Schmelzer, Pioneer Press’ Julio Ojeda-Zapata, WCCO’s Jason DeRusha and MPR’s Bob Collins frequently converse about news as it happens and before their respective organizations publish about it. MPR has a number of Twitter users including Tim Post, Julia Schrenkler, Tom Scheck and Michael Caputo. WCCO’s Terri Gruca will sometimes poll Twitter for help on stories and American Public Media’s Jon Gordon uses Twitter to ask his followers for help on “Future Tense” segments.

The media’s Twitter use runs the gamut from straight news feeds to news conversation to stalking journalists, so it isn’t easy to figure out what’s the most effective to implement Twitter for your business or organization.

Do you want to communicate with a straight feed of your press releases or do you want to engage people with conversation? Do you want to respond to people that Twitter about you or do you think subscribers will be bothered by conversations involving your organization on their mobile phones? Does it make sense to have an individual representing you or an account named after your business?

Point being, figuring out if using Twitter is right for your business or organization isn’t as simple as signing up for an account and using it, it’s finding the right Twitter “voice” and usage that augments your brand. Either way, you’re no one if you’re not on Twitter:

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Photo by Landform Minneapolis

Tomorrow is PARK(ing) Day, a worldwide event that claims parking spots and turns them into temporary public parks. Paul Schmelzer with Walker’s “Off Center”:

I got in touch with Shanai Matteson, who’s organizing the event locally. She says she’s asked people to look for (or ask the city to put hoods on meters, for a fee) parking spaces in downtown Minneapolis. She’ll be greening up a pavement swath on Nicollet Mall and another one outside the Community Design Group on 3rd Avenue. While it all sounds so guerrilla, each team will be responsible for plugging the meters the entire time they’re there. For maximum exposure of the parking/parks idea, most participants are keeping their spots at least through the lunch hour.

Twin Cities Streets For People has more:

From 5-8pm you are welcome to stop by the new office of Community Design Group at 212 3rd Avenue North, Suite 515. A Park(ing) Spot will be up for folks to enjoy, as well as drinks and a slide show of images from Park(ing) Days past.

Solutions Twin Cities and Community Design Group are co-sponsoring this get together, which will be a chance to learn more about Park(ing) Day and to talk with other folks who are interested in reclaiming streets for people.

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This summer, the Minnesota Department of Public Safety started the transition to “digital” license plates (DLP). I’ve started seeing more of these on the road in the last few weeks. They aren’t exactly digital, per se, but the new features are purely technical and leave aesthetics behind. The license registration month is now part of the plate instead of a sticker and the embossed characters are gone — it’s completely flat.

The most noticeable change is the black type instead of blue. The argument on the color change is for contrast and visibility, but I find the black type on a predominately blue and green plate a bit jarring. The new Sesquicentennial plates are all DLPs and also feature black type on a predominately blue plate, but they have a special serif typeface.

I wish they would have spent time to make the “Support Our Troops” plates more readable, especially as the blue type over a red and blue flag, for me, give the plates the readability of a captcha.

Either way, the DLPs are certainly more “green” friendly as well as cost effective, despite my perceived appearance shortcomings. I’m also glad we don’t have a smiling sunrise or the new design of the plates in Texas. Whew.

There’s more information on Minnesota’s Driver and Vehicle Services site, including a listing of the specialty plates and how many are out in the wild (PDF). For example, there are under 100 people riding around with Disabled / Handicapped Motorcycle plates, only one Minnesotan with a Medal of Honor plate — and zero drivers with a World War I Veteran plate. Unsurprising, since any WWI veterans are now well over 100 years old.

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Four months of blogging about the Ampersand. As John Gruber writes, “now this is a focused weblog.”

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Blake Whitman from online video host Vimeo recently had a seemingly unsolicited “fix” to their logo submitted to him:

Ha. How many times have you wanted to fix other people’s logos?

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