This round of America's Most Social Small Business — our March Madness-style challenge presented by Capital One Spark — ramped up in intensity, with each remaining brand bringing its best game-face to the competition.
See also: 9 Ways Social Media Marketing Will Change in 2014
To narrow it down to the Final Four, round three of the challenge focused on how each brand utilizes visuals storytelling in their social efforts — everything from the images they post on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to the videos on their YouTube channels and their pinboards on Pinterest and quirky content on Tumblr. Visuals are an integral piece of the puzzle when it comes to a quality presence on social media, making this round a key determinate of which businesses are truly the most socially savvy.

Image: Mashable Composite
We also want to thank all of our participants for an amazing showing of sportsmanship up through this point in the challenge — we've been impressed by the level of camaraderie and the spirit of friendly competition evident in many of your exchanges Twitter. But there can only be one business to win it all — here are our choices progressing on to the Final Four.
Legendary Whitetails vs. Blue Bottle Coffee
Winner: Blue Bottle Coffee
Legendary Whitetails has a custom and often text-heavy visual strategy, with high quality, branded images — they also encourage follower engagement by asking users to contribute to their Instagram feed with branded hashtags. The brand has a solid Pinterest presence, showcasing everything from its products to "Legendary Tattoos" and user-generated content. The brand's YouTube account offers helpful hunting tips and informative videos showcasing expert hunters and fun facts.

Blue Bottle Coffee takes the win for a commendable effort with creativity and cohesive brand identity in its use of imagery that goes far beyond simply beautiful photos of morning lattes. We're big fans of Blue Bottle's hand-drawn style images, which the brand utilizes on a variety of platforms. The company's blog is chock full of visually heavy content. On Instagram, the brand hosts contests and giveaways to gain traction among its followers, features customers in the store, give behind-the-counter glimpses into the company's culture, includes videos — and of course, there's plenty of artfully crafted images of Blue Bottle products.

Blue Bottle's visual strategy perfectly captures the artsy vibe of a bustling coffee shop. "We're careful to make sure that our imagery, just like the experience of our social media, is an extension of our retail stores' elegance," the company tells Mashable. "The goal is to put forward an experience that's equivalent to conversing with a friendly, knowledgeable, and humble barista in one of our cafes. In some ways, their professionalism makes it easy for us on social. We're just copycats." With the perfect mix of subtle product promotion and aesthetically gorgeous imagery, Blue Bottle progresses on to the final round.
Sevenly vs. KicksonFire.com
Winner: Sevenly
KicksOnFire.com certainly has an impressive Instagram following with nearly 685,000 followers. The magazine publisher focuses almost exclusively on products, showcasing user submissions and highlighting the hottest new "sneakerhead" trends. More product visuals are laced into the brand's Facebook and Twitter accounts, and the visuals garner high levels of engagement on almost every platform. We have to give the company major props for its huge online audience — the product-heavy strategy clearly works for the brand.
Post by KicksOnFire.com.
We're impressed with Sevenly's overall visual strategy — the brand has a strong presence on a variety of platforms, including Instagram, Tumblr, YouTube and Pinterest, featuring cool how-tos, Sevenly product art and logos, behind-the-scenes glimpses of photo shoots, inspirational messages, time-lapse videos, photos and videos showcasing the various charitable causes the brand donates to, and even giving shout-outs to other companies that work with charities.

Sevenly engages its audience in conversation via imagery, asking followers on Instagram for their opinions on which charitable causes mean the most to them, since Sevenly works with a new cause each week. On YouTube, Sevenly further delves into its cause-oriented mission and "People Matter" mantra.

A spokesperson for Sevenly says, "Imagery is very important for a business like Sevenly that runs a new campaign every week. Every Monday we start from scratch and inform and educate our audience about the cause we're supporting. As an e-commerce only business, it's also very important to show our customers our products, especially since our line of cause apparel changes every week."
Grado Labs vs. Beekman 1802
Winner: Beekman 1802
Grado Labs utilizes highly stylized, beautiful photos on its social platforms — while there's plenty of product promotion, it's executed with elegance. The brand's Tumblr account features GIFs, user-submitted photos and giveaways. On Instagram, an account managed by Marketing VP Jon Grado, there are product shots and glimpses behind-the-scenes into the Grado family's personal lives. "I’ll spend hours and hours on one shot to make sure it’s worth sharing. This company is my family, so I like to show them in the best light. Unless it’s an ugly sweater party," Grado tells Mashable.

Grado simply can't compete with Beekman 1802, however — the "Fabulous Beekman Boys" have a gorgeous Instagram stream that showcases life on their farm. Scroll through and you'll get a sense for the beautiful simplicity of farm life, complete with plenty of "aww"-inducing animals.

Beekman promotes user engagement on Pinterest with challenges, product posts and behind-the-scenes looks into daily life on the Beekman farm. They feature a number of videos on YouTube, giving more behind-the-scenes looks as "just for fun" videos such as this blooper reel.


Plated vs. Serengetee
Winner: Plated
This match-up was possibly the most difficult to determine of the challenge so far. We're sad to see Serengetee go in this round — the brand has a commendable mission, a great social presence, an extremely loyal fan base and incredible branding and giveaways. Serengetee features photos from all over the world, often submitted by fans. Though Serengetee often showcases its products, the branding isn't overly promotional — and the focus is on the company's "Wear the World" messaging and community of global citizens. It's a feel-good strategy that works wonders.

In the end, however, we just couldn't pass up Plated's expertly executed visuals, with a strong YouTube and Pinterest presence and beautiful Instagram images. The brand does a great job with community challenges, incorporating the hashtag #platedpics with giveaways and contests to encourage user engagement. Plated goes beyond the typical "food porn" visual strategy (though there are plenty of mouthwatering images on all its social accounts) to give insight into company culture and includes YouTube videos featuring cooking "tips and tricks," recipe ideas and more. It positions itself as a lifestyle brand, rather than simply a food provider.

It's clear that Plated employs a customer-oriented strategy — not only do they post images, but they also ask for fan and follower feedback and suggestions. With a down-to-the-buzzer decision, Plated will progress on to the Final Four, along with Blue Bottle Coffee, Sevenly and Beekman 1802:

Image: Mashable composite
Round 4: Brand voice — we'll look at how each brand has developed its online voice, including cohesiveness, humor, engagement, uniqueness, etc.
March 13: Most Social Small Business National Championship Game announced
March 18: America’s Most Social Small Business crowned
Follow along with the competition with the hashtag #SocialSmallBiz.