Last Thursday, I attended a Triangle AMA event, which happened to be the only stop in North Carolina for Scott Stratten’s Unbook Tour. The entire event was awesome, but I’d like to focus on a story Scott told about tweeting with a business.

Scott was introduced to an online scheduling service—Tungle.me—by a friend trying to schedule a meeting. He decided he loved Tungle when he discovered that he didn’t have to register with them to complete his end of the scheduling process. This convenience not only led to his registering for an account, but also to a tweet praising the company with an @ mention.

Tungle responded in six minutes. Their following interactions developed into a relationship, and now Scott has shares in the company. From one tweet to part owner. This is the power of social media.

I have a story. It’s not nearly as cool as Scott’s, as I’m not in any way an owner of the company with which I interacted. But a few days ago, I had an encounter of my own. I’ve been getting down lately about trying to buy books on my Nook and finding that they’re only available for Kindle.

The other day, I tweeted about it mentioning the official Nook Twitter account (@nookBN). By the next day, they had responded asking me which book. I told them, and they tweeted me back that they were working on it. Then they sent me a link to request any other books I couldn’t find for my Nook.

It seems small, but it’s incredibly cool to be mentioned on Twitter by a company account. It’s like the entire Barnes and Noble Nook team is watching out for me. Like they care about my issues and Nook happiness. I retweeted the link and sent out a tweet talking about their customer service win. And then they thanked me.

I love that social media is giving us this way of connecting with businesses. I love that if I have a problem, or if I want to tell a company how awesome I think their product is, all I have to do is go over to my TweetDeck and say it. If they’re present—and using social media properly—it’s likely I’ll get a response.

Have you been mentioned in social media by a company where you’re a customer? Did you think it was cool?

Photo by SMBMSP