MASI bicycles is a very small road bike company in the US with a 75 year history. They were almost on their way out when they were bought by Haro in 2004. Haro took on a steward for the brand in the form of Tim Jackson. Tim had next to no marketing budget. So because it was a relatively cheap way to promote the company he started writing his blog MasiGuy 6 months after he started the job and has never stopped.

The response to the blog has been amazing. By the end of 2008 sales of MASI bikes had increased by 400%. The number of visitors to his blog were up to over 1000 per day. Through the blog he has managed to develop both B2B relationships with vendors he buys from and also the retailers he sells to. He has quite a few blog readers in Taiwan who are people that he buys from. Some retailers have told him how they have a computer available in the shop with the blog open on that page. In other words the blog is being used as a frequently updated brochure to sell direct to customers.

Tim has now expanded their social media presence. He uses Twitter, they have a facebook profile, LinkedIN and a number of online forums. As Tim puts it I am a social media omnivore – I go wherever the conversation is. He uses the different media for different purposes – Twitter and Facebook are great for direct 1 on 1 interaction. This role of brand advocate is a key part of his strategy … in a sense Tim has turned himself into the face of MASI bicycles and it has really worked.

Tim’s blog is a great example of how to use blogging well. He uses it to covers trends and niche interests i.e. he doesn’t just talk about MASI but things of interest to the whole community. He also solves problems for his customers. He shares MASI’s news and successes. But most importantly the approach is highly personal.

This is a great example how using a simple tool like blogging can really build growth in a company whatever the size. Contact us if you would like some support in doing this yourselves.

The latest hype on the internet in the tech world seems to be around Google Wave. Google have been very clever in the past about the way that they build up the buzz around their products. They managed to hype up gmail before they delivered it. Google maps was also a real lesson in excellent Public relations. When it first came out it was reported on television news throughout the world. Of course on the whole they are promoting absolutely top notch “free” products to an audience who are completely behind what they are trying to do. However it is probably worth taking a look at what they do to tray and gain insight into how to create a “buzz” in today’s social media world!

For Google Wave the  first public relations exercise was to hold a developer conference last May in which they presented Google wave to an audience of 4000 developers for 80 minutes. They gave each member of the audience an account and password with access to the API. The talk was then  put up on YouTube – uncut with all the stammering and stalling of a buggy demo. This was an exercise is real openness and transparency, inviting the community right into the center of their development process. The buzz started right away!

The technology is fairly outstanding. As Google explain they wanted to rethink the basic constructs behind email. Email was designed 40 years ago before blogs, wiki’s, web sites, instant messaging, mobile phones or social media. It is an old robust technology. So with Wave they have rethought the concept into a new platform. The proposed platform is open source so any developer or company will be able to develop on it. Googles argument for creating it is that it needs to be done! Of course it will do absolutely no damage to their reputation as class A tools developers! This is reputation management at its highest level.

Google Wave allows users to create “Wave” documents which they can share with groups of people. These can be edited synchronously or asynchronously. In other words some of the group can be online, whilst others can be offline. A nice way to describe this is as asymmetric  i.e. not all users are in the same mode. Wave documents be turned into blog posts. In this way the creator can reply to comments from directly within their “Wave” client. Another lovely feature is that you can playback the creation of the wave document so that you can follow the discussion as it develops. In other words this tool merges email, blogging tools, IM tools, shared content creation tools.

Google’s next public relations step has been to offer invitations to 100,000 valuable users. They then allowed each of these to invite 8 of their friends and colleagues. Again building a network of feedback and buzz around the product. They are now starting to issue further invitations. My colleagues and I here at SociaLNK have signed up and are waiting for our invites! If the User Interface is any good this could be a new phenomena in social media.