My husband and I love to reminisce about our youth. We grew up in a time where MTV ruled the TV, everyone owned a Walkman and home computers weighed about a 1,000 pounds (I’m kidding – but they sure were heavy) and featured a dot matrix screen.
Back in the day if you wanted to connect with your favorite brand you had to write them a letter or pick up the phone and give them a call. Does anyone do that anymore? Does anyone even write personal letters?
I remember when I was in school we used to get lessons on how to write a business letter. We were asked to pick our favorite brand or store and write them a formal letter. It was never mailed out to them. It was only to teach us how to write business letters.
Fast forward to today. If you want to reach out to your favorite brand all you need to do is hop on their Twitter or Facebook page and send them a message or post on their wall. These days you are instantly connected with the brands you enjoy the most. You can even connect with them via your smartphone.
About a year or so ago I posted on my blog’s Facebook page about an incident that happened with a popular Pizza delivery company. My Facebook posts are automatically tweeted out. Within minutes of my post a representative from the company e-mailed me, apologized for the inconvenience and offered to send me a coupon for a free pizza. WOW! If this was 10-20 years ago such a response would have taken weeks, if not months.
Following your favorite brand on Facebook and Twitter is also a great way to keep up with new products and promotions. For example, GalaBingo frequently tweets out bonuses for followers. And I Crave Freebies tweets out links to places where you can sign up to get free samples. I follow Coupons.com on Twitter because they tweet out some great coupons that my family can use.
I think Facebook is one of the best ways to engage with your favorite brand. Unlike Twitter which limits you to 140 characters, Facebook lets you say a little more. Not all brands let you post on their walls, but those that do usually take the time to respond to comments and feedback. When a company representative takes the time to acknowledge something that I posted about them, on Facebook and/or Twitter, I tend to purchase their products more often. I look at it this way, if a brand cares enough to respond to a company then they are the type of company I want to purchase products from. Any company that doesn’t allow you to post on their wall, or doesn’t take the time to engage with their followers, doesn’t sound like a company I want to patronize.
I really like it that some brands have even taken to Pinterest. Some brands like to devote boards to just their own products. Other brands have a nice mixture of boards about their products and other boards not specifically geared towards the brand.
Many brands that sell food products tend to have a lot of recipe boards on Pinterest. Those are my favorites. I’ve found many delicious recipes on Pinterest via my favorite brands.
So much has changed in the past 20+ years. It makes me wonder what it will be like 10-20 years from now and how we’ll connect with the brands we love. Do you think there will be an even better way than Facebook and Twitter? I can’t imagine what it might be.
Do you engage with your favorite brands on the social media sites? Feel free to comment and tell me more about it.
Kimberly
Denise Taylor-Dennis says
It is pretty amazing the impact Social Media has had on the World and for social media brands.