Twitter-Faced

Because of a couple of classes I took through the Chamber of Commerce this week, I feel immersed in the world of social media like never before. I used an AOL Buddy List in 1995 and signed "guestbooks," and now here we are in the explosion of sites that allow you to connect to people, businesses, causes and groups through posting, blogging, microblogging, liking, supporting, joining, friending, tweeting, commenting, tagging, on and on. I guess it's an identity thing. We now have more information about each other at our fingertips than we ever had before. No need to ask a person who their favorite band is, what their political views are, where they graduated high school, etc. if you can just access their Facebook page. Anyway, I'm not going to rant about it. I just want to start organizing my thoughts from a business point-of-view.

As soon as I can get a couple of hours with nothing pressing, I'm going to start writing a marketing strategy for the company I work for that takes advantage of these channels. I think about brands that I like to identify myself with that I'm loyal to, and I wonder, what will it take to get ABC there in the mind of somebodies? Some brands and companies I who's horns I don't mind tooting:

H-E-B
Google
Villa Montez
Hudson Printing
On The Border
Claussen (yes, the pickles!)
Honda

I follow H-E-B and Villa Montez on Twitter and have found them to have a good handle on it. I enjoy seeing their posts and have even get a useful one from time to time. The big thing that resonates with me is that these are local companies. I believe the company I work for has that exact same charm. I think it is a huge opportunity to give our loyal customer base a place to not only brag about us, but identify and take pride. I think we have already built a great foundation for that, we just need to encourage and provide an outlet for them to express it. What brands are you loyal to and why?