Social Media: Outdoor Product Companies Building Online Communities

Outdoor product companies are flooding the web to take part in social media in hopes of building online communities to build their brand, engage their customers and create new levels of brand loyalty. Unless you have been out on the trail or high in the hills for the last several years, this is old news. With the help of Twitter, Facebook and/or blogs, you have seen this take hold and evolve over in recent years. Below are some striking examples of how this medium is turning into a game changer for companies selling products to get people from behind their computers and into the great outdoors... ironic as that sounds.

- IF Bikes did a major site overhaul last year in an effort to better serve its customers and position itself as a clear leader in the custom bike world. So far, they have been successful in this effort. Their blog site that has garnered significant attention, as well. Just under half the number of total visitors to the main site visit the blog each month to learn more about the build process, see new bike pics and hear about where IF is showing up to promote their brand the cycling community. Most impressive.

- Tecnica and Blizzard are two well known international ski brands. They combined forces to create TecBlizzBuzz.com this fall. The blog was launched in early October the number of visitors has increased 25% in month two. This is off to a strong start as they create this new platform to communicate with their customers and dealers.

- While Cascade Web Development is not an outdoor product company, we too have put more attention to our social media efforts. As a reward, our blog traffic has increased 40% in recent months. We are finding that more like minded people and organizations are following us on twitter and facebook. And the most exciting result of all is the increased number of inbound inquiries for web solutions. Hard to argue with the merit of those results.

The rate of evolution in the social media realm is often mind numbing, but with results like these, its hard to argue the value of these efforts. We're all learning valuable lessons with each new post and review of analytics. One truth is that customers like to participate in the conversation. Its now up to brands to create and lead that charge. Stay tuned as the experiment continues...