Mar
27
Courtesy of our friend Mike Geraci of Base Camp Communications is this video from Alex Bogusky of advertising agency titans Crispin, Porter + Bogusky. Good stuff. It’s short. Watch it.
Dec
29
Social Media Primer for Bike Retailers
Filed Under Blogging, Interbike | 11 Comments
Here’s a cop-out post from me today so I don’t finish up the year with such a long posting drought. Been going through the annual holiday season blogging doldrums here. I’ve had some fleeting topics for posts over the last few weeks, but between the work of getting things going in earnest for 2009, the drain that the holidays themselves can impose and continuing allure of the 140-character-limit Twitter as an easy networking and communications tool have all conspired against this now seemingly long-form medium.
Now it’s a cop-out only in the sense that I didn’t craft the content. Having been somewhat ‘offline’ since leaving for Christmas, I was catching up on what’s been going on in the Twitter bike world and saw a post from Chris Matthews about a “gift” he made for Bike Shops during his spare time. Chris works in the marketing department at Specialized Bicycles and writes an insightful blog on issues related to “bicycles, business and the bicycle business.” He put together a nice brief, yet thorough, introduction to social media specifically geared toward bicycle retailers. As a fellow believer in the opportunities that SM can provide a business and brand, I created the Web 2.0 and SM seminars at this last Interbike for the same reason that I assume Chris wrote this.
In preparing for the seminars, I struggled to find a retailer taking advantage of SM to participate in the panel. The online communities are obviously populated with many active cycling enthusiasts. Members of the media also seem to be early adopters of these relatively new tools, and manufacturers are not too far behind for the most part (with many notable absentees). Retailers, though, are few and far between and they have so much to offer the cycling community online. As Chris writes, with the challenged economy that’s upon us, retailers really owe it to themselves and their businesses to use these free marketing tools to help weather the storm and thrive:
I noted recently that there are very few bike shops that are taking advantage of free Social Media marketing that’s available to them. This is stuff that ANY bike shop can and should do, and in times of scaled back marketing budgets, the practicality of it makes it extra sensible. However, if you’ve never used it before, it can be rather intimidating.
Here’s how he wraps up his primer and sums up the benefits of SM:
Through the strength of active and passive referrals, by becoming involved in the daily lives and conversations of your customers, and by extending the reach of the activities you’re already investing time and money into, Social Media can offer your bike shop an absolutely free way to grow your tribe, and remain strong so that you’re there for your tribe when they need you in the future.
Well said, Chris. Read his post and download the pdf of his “Social Media for Bike Shops – A How To Guide” at his blog, “Chris Writes”.
Retailers?
Sep
10
Interbike 2008 News & Updates Via Twitter
Filed Under Attendee News, Blogging, Events, Exhibitor News, Interbike | 4 Comments
So, do you Twitter?
Without going too deep into an explanation of the Twitter concept, it’s basically like a group instant messaging system. Once you have your Twitter account set up, you select the people whose posts (“Tweets”) you chose to follow. Others will do the same and some will even choose to follow your stream of tweets. Each time you post in the system, each of your “followers” will receive it in their Twitter home page. Likewise, your home page will show all the posts from the people you have chosen to follow. Simple, no?
Twitter suggests that you answer the question “What are you doing?” as the topic of your tweets, but as long as it fits within the 140 character limit that they impose on each posting, anything goes. One of the basic ideas of Twitter’s micro-blogging platform is to give people a better insight into your day to day life – things that may not appear in a more profound blog posting. (You do blog, don’t you?) Take a look at Common Craft’s “Twitter in Plain English” for a simple overview of Twitter.
Twitter is another in the line of social media technologies that provide a way for people to connect and stay in touch with what others are up to. That last item is where this post comes into play. I’m not here to evangelize Twitter, but it has allowed us to do something that we’ve tried to set up in the past through cell phone text messaging: For 2008, we will be using Twitter to send out Interbike 2008 event reminders, updates and news throughout the show. The reason we’re using Twitter? 1. It’s free for you and us, 2. you can sign up to receive tweets on your cell phone, 3. you won’t be giving us your cell phone number and 4. it’s fun.
Here’s the plan. We have set up a Twitter account called Interbike2008. If you don’t already have a Twitter account, go create one for free. Once you’re set up, search for “interbike2008″ or visit twitter.com/interbike2008 and click on the “Follow” button. That’s it. Oh, you can also set up your account to work with your cell phone so that you can receive tweets on your phone via SMS text messages. If you have an iPhone, you can just access it through Safari or any of the new Twitter apps that are out there. As a matter of fact, you really don’t even need to sign up for an account to read the updates.
For those of you that I Twitter with already under the “Interbike” username, why create a new separate account? Well, after talking it over with fellow Twitterer David from our PR firm, we felt it would be useful to keep the current voice of Interbike as me. For updates and news, that will come from the new account.
I’m really looking forward to participating in and reading the conversations that will go on during the show and I’ll use my current account to do that. I saw a few of these exchanges at our recent Outdoor Retailer show and we should see much more from the more connected and early-adopting bike industry. Twitter has become a very popular way for show attendees to communicate onsite at events in the tech industry. If enough of you choose to sign up for this, we might actually even end up with a nice little community online that will all be in touch post show, as well. Good for the industry, right?
Who else from the industry is on Twitter? You can take a look at the list of people I’m following on my Twitter page for a small idea. I’ve tried to limit the accounts that I follow to those related to the bike industry in some way. You’ll recognize a bunch of familiar names and logos there. VeloNews tweets news items. Pro teams Slipstream, Rock Racing and Type 1 post race updates. Jonathan Vaughters was even twittering from the team car at the Tour this summer. Obviously, the industry’s vibrant blogging community is active online. Talk of Lance’s comeback has been the topic of many posts over the last couple of days.
Give it a try – at the very least you’ll be able to stay on top of the events that are going on and know about any changes or updates during the show – whether you’re in Vegas or not.
Sep
9
Companies Still Avoiding Social Media Despite Benefits
Filed Under Attendee News, Blogging, Deep Thoughts, Events, Exhibitor News, Industry News, Interbike | 14 Comments
Courtesy of a Basecamp Communications Twitter post this morning, is this interesting article on a survey that was just released on the level of adoption of social media in the corporate world despite the documented benefits that it can provide a company (and its inevitable infiltration regardless of company policy).
The article is super timely since I’ve been working on our new seminar series at this year’s show that will focus on Web 2.0 and Social media for the bike industry. Actually had a great conference call (old-school, I know) yesterday with about half the panelists to get the conversation going (Mike Geraci from Basecamp is one of them, btw). This is going to be a great panel for everyone to attend whether you you think you know all about social media or whether you don’t know that you don’t know.
That last line is key, as we were discussing on the call yesterday: those that don’t know that they don’t know. I think that most us who have been using social media tools for their or their clients’ businesses for some time have seen what it can do whether it’s been a branding exercise, a customer service tool or has added new sales. Many, though, have had challenges in pitching social media to upper management as an important part of the official marketing strategy. Most companies in this day and age have a social media evangelist who “gets it” on the payroll. Maybe they’ve even launched some social media efforts on their own for the company – it’s “invading the workplace by stealth” as the article linked above describes it. Companies need to develop their social media strategies and how they fit into their company’s mission – and employees that get it need tools to help explain it and sell it to their management that may not. The article goes on to mention the ever present technological generation gap and how the next generation will be bringing social media with it to the workplace in a big way – regardless of how ready the company is.
Speaking of social media evangelists, long-time bike industry executive and consultant Rick Vosper, who will be on one of the panels, said he thinks they can be some of the best investments a company can make. I agree.
I’m going to be posting a complete list of the panelists in the next day or two, but they’re all accomplished members of the bike industry or of the social media world. I’m really excited to be working with all these great people and can’t wait to sit in on the talks. I’m really proud that Interbike, with the support of sponsors Sportgenic and our Nielsen BuzzMetrics colleagues, will be able to provide education on such a high tech and timely topic such as this. We’ve also got a survey out to the industry currently looking find out about the online and social media habits of the bike industry and will be presenting the results at the seminars.
The bike community at large has a truly large and vibrant online presence. The industry itself could use a little help in catching up. The seminars will be at 2:30 p.m on Wednesday Sept 24 and Thursday the 25th in Casanova room 601.
Going back to the original topic of the article that I mentioned at the top, how many of your companies have formal social media strategies or policies in place? Is your company’s social media presence by way of the “stealth” mode?
Apr
22
Sea Otter Video – Trek’s Women Who Ride Club
Filed Under Advocacy, Blogging, Exhibitor News, Interbike, Video | 1 Comment
More video from Sea Otter. This time I had the pleasure of sitting with Krista Rettig of Trek Bicycles. Krista is the brand manager for their women’s division and Sea Otter was her first duty back on the job following maternity leave. The tent we were sitting under was for their new “Women Who Ride” club program that they were launching in a few days time. From the jackets we’re wearing, you can see that the weather was turning a bit more Sea Otter-like on day two. Day three would bring a high of 52F.
The new club is designed to encourage women to overcome real or perceived challenges to riding by being a part of an online community of fellow women cyclists. Members can share stories and successes and follow the blogs of 5 women selected from a writing contest to describe their journeys in cycling.
Programs to encourage greater women’s participation in cycling are important to me not only as the father of a girl, but as the husband of a Cat 2 racer (semi-retired) who credits a women-only, season-long race series as getting her started in racing. If it weren’t for her racing, we never would have met on that Tuesday night training ride.
Along with their “One World, Two Wheels” advocacy program (which I called “Two Wheels, One Planet” in the interview), this new effort shows Trek’s continuing commitment to getting more people riding.
You can read more about the club here: www.trekbikes.com/women
Sep
6
Interbike Exhibitors that Blog
Filed Under Blogging, Exhibitor News, Industry News, Interbike | 5 Comments
Here’s something that I’ve been meaning to do for a while now: highlight some of the Interbike exhibitors that have official company blogs. This will be an ongoing theme as I try to catch everyone, ultimately. Feel free to comment or email with your blog if you’re an exhibitor and I haven’t posted about you yet.
This should be interesting as a study of how different companies use their blogs. Are they marketing/PR billboards? Community builders? Social commentary outlets? Crazy stream of consciousness ramblings? Brand builders? We’ll see. When I have the time, I’d like to set up a permanent page that will serve as an industry blog directory.
In the meantime, here’s the first round from what I have come across out there. There’s some good work being done out there. Give these guys a visit and sign up for the rss feeds. (Disclaimer: no guarantees that these guys have updated their blogs since the last Interbike…):
KHS Bicycles – The KHS Times – “Live the Ride, Ride the Dream”
Swobo – How to Avoid the Bummer Life
Trek Bicycles – Up the Road, Lime Life and King of the Mountain
Diamondback Bicycles -Diamondback Bicycles Blog
Masi Bicycles – MasiGuy
Surly Bikes – Surlyblog
SockGuy – The Life and Times at SockGuy
Kryptonite Locks – Unbreakable Bonds
Dirt Rag – Dirt Rag Blog
I also want to show some live to the blogging retailers out there that attend the show. I’ve got a list of a bunch them to come.