I was reading the online version of The New York Times last Sunday and came across a story titled, “In New York, a Rivalry Shifts Into High Gear.”
In short, the story was about two cycling studios that are strong competitors with one another… but that’s now what I’m writing about – today we’ll focus on the art of “listening.”
I’m an avid cyclist and have been looking for somewhere to spin this winter so I opted to look up the two studios (SoulCycle and Flywheel Sports) and see what the hype was about.
While looking at the SoulCycle website I noticed they are on Twitter so I sent a tweet saying,
“@soulcycle Just saw your studio mention in a NYT article. Going to give you, and Flywheel, a shot. Been looking for a good place to spin.”
They responded with a DM saying thanks for the message and let me know the first class would be at a reduced price (typically around $30 per class so this has value).
But wait, there’s more.
Moments after I received the DM from SoulCycle, their fierce competitor Flywheel (whom I’d not messaged yet) sent me a tweet saying,
“@ryanshell Cool! Glad the article motivated you & we’d love to have you for a ride. Come check us out! http://on.fb.me/bfLmTg”
Flywheel was “listening” to conversations taking place on Twitter – fantastic! We had one more public exchange before taking the conversation to DM… where they also offered a nice incentive to try one of their classes.
I love the fact that Flywheel is monitoring Twitter mentions and proactively reaching out to consumers. This is a very simple example, but it’s something that a lot of organizations could learn from.
