Social media is great. Its not that hard to get started. Using it to send traffic to your blog is also good. But what do you do, when people respond favorably? How do you respond?
COWS - A Social Media Case Study
I had a great (social media) experience last week. On our travel blog, my wife (Dena) wrote about a recent visit to COWS (Canada’s Best Ice Cream: COWS) a premium ice cream shop based out of Prince Edward Island, Canada. It was a pretty simple post - a bit about the company, their ice cream and their quirky parody merchandise (YouTube becomes MooTube, Star Wars becomes Cow Wars: A long time ago in a pasture far, far away…) all based on the cow theme. My daughter loves it!
Anyway, I tweeted about the new post. Always works as a good way to bring in new readers and let our regular readers know about the new content. Here’s what the tweet looked like:
Canada’s Best Ice Cream: @CowsIceCream from #PEI #Canada http://ht.ly/6nBBg #icecream
Cows responded. That's not all that unusual, really. The tweet mentioned them, so any company doing anything online would have seen a mention about themselves. So they retweeted it. Standard stuff. Here’s what it looked like:
This is SO amazing! RT @GringosAbroad: Canada’s Best Ice Cream: @CowsIceCream from #PEI #Canada http://ht.ly/6nBBg #icecream
Then they tweeted again. This one is more unusual. Usually a RT is all thats done. Nothing wrong with just a RT. But here is what COWS said (Twitter status update)
@GringosAbroad Wow...thank you SO much for sending that! It's fantastic! Please let me know if you are still in Halifax!
Now that got my attention. I deal with social media companies, publishers and PR agents all day long and this approach is not common. Some people, such as Brian Gardener of StudioPress and Erin Bury of Sprouter are the active/interactive social media type. But this isn’t really that common. Twitter is most often used by listeners and spammers. Where are all the relationship builders and the conversationalists?
Unfortunately, we had already left Nova Scotia (where Halifax is) and arrived back in Ecuador when they sent the last tweet. But the friendly folks at COWS asked for my address and within a few days a package arrived. It was full of "cow goodies": two bags of chocolate covered potato chips (who knew?) and two large beach towels all wrapped in Holstein print gift paper. Why? Just to say thanks for the media coverage we gave them. Wow!
What We Learn from COWS About Social Media
- Listen. Don’t just listen for a chance to sell, or for a problem to solve. Listen for an opportunity to say “”thanks.”
- Don’t Just RT. Sure, every twitter user loves to have their stuff re-tweeted. But if they have given you good press, don’t just RT and walkaway. Re-tweet it, of course, but do more.
- Show appreciation. COWS tweet of thanks was genuine, not a cold, canned response. If you appreciate someones comment, tweet or post - tell them that. Tell them why. Influential social media users can see through any fakeness - don’t even try.
Don’t Gifts Taint a Bloggers Objectivity?
What about sending a thank you gift? If you feel appreciative, its a great idea. Its not bribery - the promotion is already done. It is truly what a “thank you” gift should be - one without any strings attached. Why not enjoy some of the perks in blogging?
Please note: The gift referred to was received outside of the About.com network, on a private project. To maintain objectivity and transparency, About.com has a strict policy regarding the handling of gifts, even those as "thank-you gifts". If you blog on a site other than your own, be sure to confirm what their policy is for receiving gifts and freebies.
