Batting Cleanup Thu, Nov 17, 2016

Today is typically Jeff's Loop day, but he's busy with, you know, running a mobile SlideBelts store at Sac's biggest mall a week before Thanksgiving, and stuff...

As of Monday morning we had 577 messages and comments across our Twitter, Instagram and Facebook accounts (down to 210 currently - woo!) A typical Monday morning might net 100ish. So my palms immediately got sweaty (knees weak, arms were heavy...) - not necessarily because of the comments, but because I decided when I took over in this role in January that I was always going to provide a genuine, personable answer, always going to address the commenter by name and always going to sign my name at the end of my answer so that people know there's a real person and a real voice behind our brand's @ handles. Whether we had 50 comments or 577 comments.

Brig has been testing new advertising methods on Facebook, and it's netted some big wins and new customers. The ads are drawing in a whole new group of people to SlideBelts, which is super exciting. The flip side of successful FB ads, unfortunately, is negativity. As anyone with a computer knows, the Internet can be a very negative place. It's especially so when people expect to be able to leave a horrible comment and drop it in the Internet black hole, assuming they won't get a response. I surprised lots of people this week with responses ranging from grateful to sarcastic *side-eye grinning emoji*

If I've learned one thing this week, it's the company-wide commitment to sustained excellence and adhering to the values that have gotten us here, even in the face of overwhelming numbers. Something that I'm very grateful Brig, Michelle and Rick have set as our foundation. *Shout out to the operations team, which consistently does an incredible job of this when massive rushes of orders come in (See: Holidays; Taboola)*