Maine Running Company's John Rogers helps you get started and stay motivated.
June 07, 2009
YouTwitFace
I was watching Conan O'Brien the other night when he said "in the year 3000, You Tube, Twitter and Facebook merged to form one company....YouTwitFace". The social network is consuming us and folks are on-line networking or just keeping in touch. I've heard from high school buddies, I haven't heard from in 30 years....
In November 2007, I was at a Brooks Symposium in New York, when Brett Lamb, from Fleet Feet San Francisco, mentioned that Facebook was a great opportunity to connect with customers and drive business. Not being the total tech geek, I came back, signed up Maine Running Company and then quietly left it alone. Six month's later, I decided to look on our Facebook Fan page and found 80 fans! Wow...80 people were actually connected to Maine Running Company and I hadn't touched a thing! I started to interact...reluctantly, but I still believe that new forums of communication are critical to connect with your customers. Today, we have over 300 fans and growing every day. Several connect daily and it's a great way to communicate and catch up on what is happening.
Twitter, the latest and greatest form of connecting and networking is something we added 4 months ago. The 140 character quick bursts allows you to let everyone know what is happening every second, of every day. Now, several MRC Facebook fans are crossing over and doing both. It seems every running related company is following MRC and the same people respond over and over again..
But really, here is the conundrum. How much to Twitter and "Inter-Face" without annoying folks? Well, I don't know the answer to that? Definitely new territory for me. However, irrelevant communication is a no-no. Are people just not busy enough and are so tied to their I-phones, laptops, netbooks that they can't wait to receive or respond to the latest MRC news? Does it make us better operators, by taking time away from managing the minutia that really keeps product available for our customers?
Well, here is the answer...Twitter and Facebook are here to stay. Other forms will come and some will go. However, what is NOT cool about spreading the word, connecting with a classmate from 30 years ago and connecting with folks that have an interest in your brand? Nothing, YouTwitFace...
Remember, Run Happy!
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You should communicate as often as you have something worth communicating. If somebody isn't interested, then they'll ignore or stop following you and you have optimally filtered somebody out that wasn't the best match for you anyway.
The rest of your fans are going to love you and build a deeper relationship with you the more that you interact with them as long as you are adding value to their lives (and why would you even run a business like MRC if you weren't interested in adding value to the lives of the people in your community?)
That's my theory and how I approach these types of tools, at any rate.
Posted by Blaine MooreJune 10, 2009 02:01 PM