The Secret Sauce Project What can social media do for an old-school business? Follow Big Papa and find out.

The Big Idea

Social media is no flash-in-the-pan marketing trend--Facebook, Twitter and the like have the potential to amp up branding and drive demand like nothing before them. A study from Knowledge Networks and MediaPost Communications last November shows that these tools are as effective as TV for getting the word out for advertisers. So Entrepreneur put social media's marketing prowess to the test with an experiment that would measure exactly how much social media can help a business grow. Our subject? Big Papa's BBQ, a Denver-based restaurant chain and social media newbie. With the help of a team of creative thinkers and experts in branding and digital marketing, we set out to take Big Papa's from social media zero to social media hero--in 60 days.