Updated:
10/19/2009 12:00:00 PM Buy a Digital Copy of Transport Topics
iTECH: The Business Case for Social Networks
Web Communities Help Trucking Companies Drive Sales, Hire Drivers
By Dan Leone, Staff Reporter
This article appears in the October/November issue of iTECH, published in the Oct. 19 print edition of Transport Topics. Click here to subscribe today.
Online social networking site Twitter hit it big when Oprah signed up this spring, along with millions of her fans.
Let the record reflect that the trucking industry beat her to the punch.
Less-than-truckload carrier Con-way, San Mateo, Calif., sent out a Twitter message — a “tweet,” for those in the know — way back in January.
Truckload hauler Swift Transportation, Phoenix, joined Twitter in March.
Online social networks, of which Twitter is but one, are a spur of the information superhighway so new that the tar is still sticky.
However, companies contacted for this article already agree on a key point, which one executive summed up succinctly: Social network sites are “rapidly evolving into serious business tools,” said Tom Nightingale, Con-way’s chief marketing officer.
He and other trucking industry executives see social networking as a ubiquitous communications portal to all the eyes and ears in the supply chain.
Trent Broberg, Swift’s marketing director, said such sites help “create partnerships with not only drivers, but customers and vendors.”
Beyond the appeal of the digital bullhorn, there is
chatter — if not always proof — of social media marketing’s power to drive sales.
So, what exactly is social networking?
It’s a lot like a cocktail party. Guests get name tags, pour into an open room, split into groups and start talking.
For full effect, swap “personal home page” for “name tag,” “Web site” for “open room” and “user” for “guest.”
Scores of millions of people are signed up on Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and the like.
Con-way’s Nightingale was especially keen on Twitter, where users “follow” one another and exchange typed messages capped at 140 characters.
One may wonder how to cram useful information into so few key strokes, but it’s not so difficult, as some in trucking already have learned.
In fact, each of the preceding paragraphs is small enough to fit verbatim into a tiny Twitter post. So is this one: Driver recruiting is big on Twitter.
Con-way, Swift, J.B. Hunt Transport, YRC Worldwide and
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