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“It’s working really great,” said Wokal. He feels operators appreciate being able to know more about the person who supplies them products.

Wokal also uses Twitter. When he’s on the road and something crosses his mind, he tweets back to his Twitter page. The tweets also show up on his blog.

Wokal plans to continue blogging and tweeting because of the connection he feels it makes with customers. “It’s important to us to be close to our customers,” said Wokal, “I want everyone to feel we’re a family.”

SOCIAL MEDIA INCREASES SEARCH RESULT RANKING

Facebook, Twitter and blogging also have another advantage: increasing a company’s search engine optimization (SEO). Richard Smith, president of OCS Access, which specializes in providing ecommerce software to the OCS and ancillary market, often gets calls about improving SEO. “It’s a common misconception that you can throw a couple thousand dollars to Google ad words to get successful SEO,” said Smith. While he admits that’s often a piece of it, most users know what a Google ad or sponsored link is and won’t click on it. Instead, users focus on the Websites that come up in the first page of their results. Being on Facebook and Twitter can be a critical part of getting on the search page.

Smith uses the example of Keurig’s K-cups. Keurig owns the right to the term K-cup, so no operator can bid on it as a key word due to compliance rules. “But you can use ‘K-cup’ in a blog post or tweet,” said Smith. In simple terms, SEO ranking is based on how often a term someone is searching for is repeated on a Web page in meaningful context. That’s why blogging about something, writing about it on Facebook or tweeting about it can lead to higher SEO.

According to Smith, the real power of social networking sites comes from active posters. The more posts a site has, the more phrases there are for search engines to pick up, raising the SEO. A site higher in the search result ranks means more people see the site, and hopefully respond, or even better, repost about the service or product. If a fan republishes a post or blogs about it, anyone reading their site will see it. This marketing snowball is called “viral marketing” and has strong marketing potential, especially because it is free.

“Social networking and blogging and customer reviews are more important than Google ad words,” said Smith. He recommends paying someone dedicated to social networking instead of paying for key words.

“We’re seeing an increase in people doing it,” said Smith, who knows many companies successfully utilizing social networking sites. While Smith admits most of these are business-to-consumer sites, he argues there is plenty of opportunity for business-to-business as well.

Smith has seen operators increase sales because of social networking. “Tweeting about a seasonal coffee that comes out…can cause a flurry of activity on that product,” he said. The blogs and tweets can create demand even before the product is released, such as when Coffee People offered the Tree Hugger K-cup.