REI & Facebook

What business site on Facebook do you think does a great job and why?

REI's Facebook timeline prominently promotes their 

social media project "REI 1440 Project."

REI is one company that I believe effectively represents their brand and uses Facebook wisely to connect with their audience. As a result, they have great figures associated with their site (495,307 likes; 28,671 talking about this; 71,760 were here, pulled on 1/21/2013) that show they are doing their job well in the social media arena.

They mainly use Facebook and other social media platforms to create conversations and relationships instead of just using it as another way to solely market product. In examining their posts since Jan. 1, 2013, they conform to the 80/20 rule, posting 35 times with great information with great photographs that would interest or help their audience and posting 8 times with definite marketing offers (they actually followed a 19/81 rule!). I personally have hid posts from almost all companies I “like” from my standard view because of the overwhelming number of marketing posts that I receive. I left REI purely because of the content they post. It’s relevant, timely, and interesting, and it doesn't drown out posts from my friends that I am on Facebook for to begin with.

The REI 140 Project website allows users to upload 

their photos and time-stamp  them.

Aside from this, REI is unique in the social media field for how they use the platform. For example, there are two projects that they have employed lately that have caught my interest. One is their REI 1440 Project, which they promote heavily on Facebook. The purpose of the project is to “fill each and every minute of [the] “virtual day” (all 1,440 of them) with photography representing [their customers] collective love of outside.” I have posted several photos of my own to this site and enjoy viewing photos others have posted. The project is engaging and connects REI with the customer.

REI #giftpicks showcases and answers customer requests 

with video answers in real-time.

Another project they ran recently was to respond (almost) immediately to a customer’s request from Facebook or Twitter with a video specifically directed at that customer. In one case a customer sent in a request for “some good gifts for my son who likes mountain biking." REI responded with a video answer to that customer listing a few good ideas. They posted many of these on their YouTube site during the holidays. If this isn't the definition of a great customer experience, one that will spread by word-of-mouth to more people that most anything else, I’m not sure what is.

All-in-all REI does a great job of initially creating relationships with their online presence, on Facebook and elsewhere, not customers. They’re wise enough to know that the relationships they build will turn into loyal customers.