Shortly after I posted the blog entry and a twitter entry about Damn Good Jerky I got a direct message on Twitter from the user @houseofjerky. She saw my blog post and my tweet and found it interesting, she recommended that I take a look at her company's beef jerky, House of Jerky. I responded that the next time I was in the market for more beef jerky, I'd give it a shot. Since I'd just ordered 4 lbs of beef jerky, I wasn't exactly in need of ordering any more at this time. She soon after responded that she would send me some free samples.
Several days later I got 4-5 samples of beef jerky in a variety of flavors. It's pretty excellent beef jerky.
The point here is that while Damn Good Jerky is passively benefiting from my social media activity…so too are more proactive beef jerky makers, like House of Jerky. One company is capitalizing on Social Media opportunities, the other is not. The next time I order jerky, I may consider House of Jerky, I may not, the jury is still out. But I do appreciate that House of Jerky is being proactive and connecting with me personally. @HouseofJerky asked what flavors I like and what types of meats. She reached out and took advantage of the opportunity to authentically connect with someone with a self-expressed interest, relevant to her business. She brought value to me by sending me free samples. It's good marketing, it's also good PR as I'm now here sharing about it. This is the social web and these are the new rules of engagement to be successful in a world where anyone and everyone has a mega-phone.
If I was in charge of Marketing for Damn Good Jerky, you can believe that one of my first moves would be to have one person accountable for monitoring relevant keywords and hashtags on Twitter and the social web, because obviously their competitors are.