BROADVIEW, IL, March 05, 2010
/24-7PressRelease/ -- While a lot of today's buzz in social media revolves around marketing and getting brands in front of the consumer, a recently launched Chicago startup decided to get social media involved in the very early stages of the business. The difficult economy and resource constraints prompted the team behind funsherpa.com to turn to social media channels such as, Twitter, Facebook, blogs, and Yelp to help them build a business around making it easy to buy fun things to do and experience gifts.
"We wanted to create a connection with our customers very early in the process and did not have the time nor resources to do market studies or thorough customer surveys" explains Anton Dy Buncio, one of the founders. "Seeing all the chatter on social media outlets, we instantly knew that we could tap the creativity of the masses to help us build the business - from spotting the fun experiences to identifying the appropriate marketing channels."
The team not only used Twitter to communicate with their customers, but also monitored it for the fun things people were talking about. "The chatter in Twitter gave us valuable information as to what people were doing" shares Ramon, a founding member of Funsherpa. "Once we knew what people wanted, we would turn to Yelp to find the provider with the best customer reviews, and pursued a partnership with that provider allowing us to give our customers what they want without charging a premium."
When the store beta launched to its most loyal fans last October, the feedback was overwhelmingly positive, and early sales included a Northwestern student giving a private sailing experience gift to propose to his now fiancee, and a lawyer tired of ceramic gifts opting to give a romantic French cooking class to a wedding couple.
The site is currently available in Chicago and only time will tell if their use of social media pays off.
About Funsherpa, LLC
Funsherpa experiences can be found at http://www.funsherpa.com. The site has over 150 fun things to do in Chicago, includes adventures such as scuba diving and ice climbing, relaxing days at the spa, tours of the city and many more. Experience prices range from $25 cardio tennis classes to $200,000 space flights.
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