Having worked with major brands over the years I can tell you that I know that some “Just don’t get it”.

Engagement doesn’t happen when you push out messages. It is also tough when the customer doesn’t know you or have a relationship with you.  I often tell my clients that people like to do business with those “They know, like and trust”. Sorry to say, but this doesn’t happen over night.

Recently I met James Clarke who is the Digital Marketing Manager at Maple Leaf Foods because his company was one of our conference sponsors. As part of the sponsorship package I made a point of monitoring sponsor tweets and retweeting when appropriate.

I have to admit that I was impressed by the relationships that I observed with the tweets James put out and received (is this twitter stalking???) .

From what I could see James has developed relationships with bloggers and business owners – his tweets were an interesting mix of foodie tweets, recipes and restaurant recommendations and a lot of fun banter mixed in. What I also noted was that his fellow tweeters went out of their way to retweet his messages when he needed help “spreading the word”. He now seems to be apart of a big supportive twitter family. I am sure it didn’t happen over night but it is clear to me from all the retweets that he is moving in the right direction.

The position James has at Maple Leaf Foods has will no doubt become more popular with other companies looking to develop an authentic voice in a crowd market space.

Now that is food for thought!