5 Social Media Tips from Folbot, they get it!

Last night I Tweeterviewed David AvRutick, President of Folbot Inc. Folbot make foldable (and consequently portable) Kayaks. I chose to talk with David because of several posts I read about them and also a colleague in Sydney Sean Smith (aka @fatpaddler) who recently purchased one, and used it to do some fantastic paddles in Alaska.(View the whole Tweeterview)

The main reason for me to talk to David was to show how switched on businesses (in many in

dustries) are using practical social media and community engagement to bolster their business.

Self-serving? Yeah probably, but important. Why? Well there are already thousands of self-acclaimed social media gurus, most of who, apart from doing the talking circuit or eBooks, do not actually work in or run day-to-day bricks and mortar businesses. Most do not do what they recommend and most don’t really know the full scope of actually implementing long-term strategies in small to medium businesses.

A business of 10 staff will find it harder to allocate resources to long-term strategies that do not have a ROI guarantee sticker on them.
Note: a) there are plenty of practical consultants and advisors recommending good strat

egies

I wanted to discuss usage with a business owner, and not one in our client base.

Key things I learnt last night:

• Their forum has been going for 8 years. A long time to sustain and build a community before it was sexy!
• They have been successful using Twitter in just 7 months.
• They really do care about customers.
• They think very long term. Their whole business is based around the concept of sustainable competitive advantage through peer to peer selling. Their customers love their product so much they are constantly advocating their products. How many businesses today provide a lifetime warranty or provide free parts for worn items long term?

This message comes across from their online presence mainly through all the great posts you can find online about them and the depth of their forum.

David, the president, personally emails every new client.

He even offers to send photos of an individual kayak being made in their factory to the owner. Hard work? You would think so.

Engaging for both parties? Yeah, absolutely. It also shows how much they love their own products too.

This company really understands the whole process of engaging a customer. Unlike many of the latest fad social media campaigns though they have this whole principle fully integrated into their business. They take engagement to the next level. They don’t not follow you because you are not following them. They don’t just converse in their own small network.

They seem to instinctively get what real community building is about. They listen to their audience, adapt to it (making kayaks that are lighter and smaller for real inner city dwellers) and make sure they deliver the message far and wide.

Currently using Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Paddlefriends and numerous other sites they are, as David put it, showing their personality as well online.

These people are great users of Web technology; they use their developers to do the technical part, run their own content internally and obviously spend the budget to get the results.

Here are David’s 5 key things to using Social Media:

1. Know it IS key
2. Don’t hard sell. No one will listen
3. Your company’s personality is important – communicate it
4. Have fun with it
5. Understand you are communicating directly with a customer. What is more important than that?

This sums up in a nice simple way how to look at your social interactions. Of course they are being quite strategic about what they do, and have a plan. They do understand who they are talking to and the

y are deomstrating first hand that it works for them

I like their approach.

Well that’s what ireckon!

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