Gautrain uses social media to spread its message

I was reading David Meerman Scott's The New Rules of Marketing & PR (2010), and there's something the author said which I found interesting. Scott (2010) says that prior to the Web, organizations had only two significant choices to attract attention: Buy expensive advertising or get third-party ink from the media. But the Web has changed the rules. The Web is not TV. Organizations that understand the New Rules of Marketing and PR develop relationships directly with consumers like you and me (p. 5).

So this morning when I came across this article from the Mail & Guardian Online - one of South Africa's major publishers - I immediately remembered the quote from Scott (2010).

According to the article, an organization that totally gets the news rules of marketing and public relations and is using it is Gautrain,a state-of-the-art rapid rail network in Gauteng, South Africa. Last march, the company sent out Twtvite to its over 1442 followers on Twitter to a Tweetup on the rails. The purpose of the meet was to explain the company’s plans to increase rail lines in the country to ease congestion.

About 200 excited fans gathered at the Gautrain depot in Midrand, South Africa. Clutching glasses of fruit juice and plates full of complimentary breakfast buffet food, they wandered around the demarcated area in the big storage shed, examining the models of four Gautrain stations that were on display, and taking pictures of each other next to one of the Gautrains. People recognized each other from Twitter or Facebook, and enjoyed the chance to poke and be poked in person.

The management of the company used this opportunity to explain the benefits of the program to the participants and to also allay any concerns the community might have. Of course, as the Tweeps listened and participated in the events, they were all the time Tweeting, which meant many more people could share in their experience and Gautrain's message was further spread.

So what Twitter had done was help Gautrain cut costs it would have incurred to print invitations and or posters to attract people to its event. Furthermore, the middleman role of traditional media - print or broadcast - was eliminated. Gautrain therefore had more control over its message. Ingenuous.

What I ask myself however, is this: what happens with the section of the population that does not use Twitter, but still rely heavily on the traditional media? So while the new media are definitely a good tool to use in our marketing and public relations campaigns, I believe there still is and should be room for traditional techniques in marketing and public relations programs.

http://tinyurl.com/2g7zldv