Bill Clinton famously said "It's the economy, stupid!". Well, I have always said about long distance catamaran racing medial coverage, "It's the internet, stupid!"
Back in 1998, when I raced the Worrell 1000 with Michael Yost, we were the first team to have an internet site. We did daily updates and found that we got a lot of traffic.
Then in 2001 and 2002, when I did the Worrell 1000 with Ian Billings, we once again ran an internet site for the team and we also introduced the concept of regular updates. The PI Sailing site soon became the go to location to find out what was going on in the Worrell. It was a big success.
With the Great Texas, we have continued the tradition. We started with our web site. We have posted pictures, updates, stories, and even video throughout our nearly 10 year run. We have also sent email notifications to followers of the race.
However, now, we are in the midst of yet another revolution on the internet and the Great Texas is posed to take advantage of this new front. It is the social media revolution!
The Great Texas started to move into social media over the past couple of years and the response has been outstanding. Our facebook page is well liked. Our Justin TV live streams were well watched. It is clear that there is a big opportunity to expand our presence on the internet and that our followers are hungry for it.
However, as we started our expansion into social media, we did it with no coordinated plan. We opened accounts here and there with no uniform naming structure. We have decided to fix this problem so that it will be easy to find the Great Texas on the internet.
So here is the deal, if you want to find the Great Texas on the web, all you need to know is greattexas300. You can find our web site at www.greattexas300.com, our facebook page at www.facebook.com/greattexas300, our live stream page at www.justin.tv/greattexas300, etc.
The nerve center of all of the information will always be our web site, www.greattexas300.com. However, if you wanted the most updates and the latest information hot off the presses, please like us on facebook at www.facebook.com/greattexas300 or follow us on twitter at @greattexas300. If you are not a facebook or twitter user, please sign up as a member of the google group www.groups.google.com/group/
Now, the short term pain. We will be slowly turning off some of our old channels such as our old google group (for emails) and our old facebook page. However, we expect everyone to make the change and we expect to see significant growth in these channels in the long run. Short term pain for long term growth.
We can't thank Andrew Burnard enough for his leadership in guiding us through this transition to greattexas300!
Yes, it is the internet, stupid and we are there for the long term at greattexas300!
Thanks, guys!
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