thilly thenny

… and the award goes to…. Easy Lounge located on LakeShore near 580 in Oaktown!

I posted a entry about Emilie and Charlotte visiting a while ago, and yesterday, I get a comment for approval from no other than Kolin from the Easy Lounge.  Here’s what I love about the interaction:

1. No doubt he searched “Easy Lounge” on WordPress or Google and found that I mentioned it in an entry.  (I was there with M and Char but didn’t get to go in cuz it was under renovation.  Actually at the time, we just thought it was closed.)  But he (I’m going to assume it’s a he; please let me know otherwise) took the effort to know what’s being said about his venue.
2. Not only did he read the entry (or at least part of it), he posted a comment:

   Just so you know, our remodel is now complete and we’re back open! If you email me to let me know before you come down ( kolin_at_easy510_dot_com ), I’ll buy you a round on me.

   - Kolin (Owner, Easy Lounge)

3. The comment was relevant, offers me a free round for missing out last time, gives me contact information and tells me who the eff is talking to me.  It’s quick, simple and effective.  Plus it explains why they were closed in the first place.

Beautiful! (and thanks for the future free round btw.)

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Congratulations on this nominal award.  I know my company, SHIFT Communications, has been trying to spread the gospel of social media before they even came out with the SMR (Social Media Release), but not many companies are ‘getting’ it.  So thank you for understanding that’s its 1. good for SEO cuz you just got some link love from that comment, and 2. more importantly, it’s about talking with your audience.  All we want to know is that you care about us and love us and would only sell us the best product/service out there.  And that’s exactly what you’ve done.

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Rebuttal: I understand that larger companies, multinationals and conglomerates don’t have time to ask the president to go write on blogs everyday.  In that case, you can certainly contact the dominant bloggers in a niche, have a discourse and be happy to post it on your site or at least allow them to post the content.  This could be a video interview, a podcast or just plain Q&A.  For all the smaller bits of feedback and comments, hire a community manager, who’s sole job is to make sure a certain niche is happy.  We want to give you feedback, so why not use it to better mold and market your product?  No more one way ad conversations, please!