The great thing about twitter is how easy it is to personally connect with a company and get a response. A problem is that company can reach back at you, and try to sell you something whether or not you asked for it.
For example, this conversation I just had with a local ski resort. It’s kind of a hike for me to get there, but it’s one of the bigger mountains around I try to get there every Sunday night from 4 – 10pm, weather permitting. They tweeted that their season passes cost the same as they did back in 2010. I don’t know if they’ve recently discounted them or they’re just bringing this up as a random fact, but I took a look. They list weekday and weekend passes, but no evening passes, which is what I would be interested in. Below is our conversation.
Mid-week is a great deal? Did I ask about mid-week? Did I ask about which is the best deal? How do they know what would be the best deal for me? Let me explain this “deal” they’re telling me is so great and how it makes no sense for me.
A “Sunday night reload” ticket is $26, which is good from 4pm – 10pm, which is what I always buy. Now lets take a look at their mid-week pass cost, $379. $379/$26 = 14.5 visits, so round up to 15. Assuming I can go every Sunday night for the foreseeable future, that would take me to May 19th to just break even. Now if you’re not familiar with the east cost ski season, it does not go into May. Only a fool or someone who doesn’t have my interest in mind would see this as a “great deal”.
Ok, let me get to the point. Twitter is a great way to interact on a personal level with companies or people you wouldn’t have access to otherwise. When companies use it as just another way to push their products instead of viewing it as a way to interact with their customers as people, it totally loses its value.