To show you Social IMC work, I'm gonna give you a whole bunch of really great case studies or actual programs that are out there. One of the things I look for is the program something is running year, by year, by year, by year, and this one certainly fits that bill. Also, I want to make sure that it really is linked very tightly to the company, so that they know exactly what the people are buying. What their relationship is, and they're supporting it. But it also has have all the great parts of a Social IMC program. And Ridgid Plumbers Forum really fits that bill. This is a program that's been on for a long time. It's been quite a number of years it's one that is very, very effective and it essentially regenerates itself. Because plumbers recruit the other plumbers to come into the program because it is so good. It's really is a good way to see Social IMC in action. If you think about the life of a plumber it's interesting because what they do is they start by joining a union. They're sponsored by the union, and the union trains them on the skills necessary to be a really effective plumber. They then work through their different levels and as they get going they then join a company. And from there they're given a truck. They may be with somebody but they may be on their own. And then they basically have to go out and do their job. The problem was back in 2007 that it was kind of a lonely thing. I mean nobody was really supporting and they had questions they had to wait to call somebody or talk to somebody and so they are basically kinda lonely in there by themselves. That's a rigid tool recognizes and because this was one of their high value markets they wanted to do something to really engaged them and to help them with their cause which was how do I become a good plumber and learn all the things I need to learn? While in the background have it powered by rigid tool where they could buy and sell, where they could sell them tools. And so this is a Rigid Tool Forum. When you go to the forum you'll immediately see that in order to be a part of it you have to register which is up at the upper right hand corner. If you haven't registered, you can view it but you can't participate and what you see are a whole series of structured forum discussions, threads if you will, around different things. So they got the ASA plumbing experts for people like you and I if we just wanted to ask them a question. They have a professional plumbing discussion, they also are talking about different things that are of interest to plumbers. Over on the right side you see the total number threads, you see how active these things are. And as you see, they've been around for a long time, and they're very, very active. This is a great example. And I've given you the location of it down at the bottom. You can also just go out and look for rigid tool power tool forum or plumber forum and that'll get you to that. This one is the plumbing forum. As you see they have a wood working forum and a power tool forum. Which are the different key markets that they wanted to develop. So it's very easy to look at. You can immediately see what the subjects are, or the subject categories. And become involved in it. One of the things that they do is that as they go through it they also, at the bottom, do some things that are really, really smart in terms of building a relationship. As you see down at the bottom, you can immediately see, no matter what time of the day it is or night it is you can easily see who's online, because again plumbers want to talk with plumbers that they trust. If they see someone's online and they have a question. They can immediately get it answered. I also like the way how at the bottom they have the birthdays. In other words they make it like a community. They are here to support. As you go back and forth and you kinda look at this whole page you'll notice they don't try to sell rigid tools. They're not there to sell, they're there to empower the group to allow them to do the things that they need to do. Which is, talk to other plumbers. When you go down into one of the threads you're gonna see some very interesting things. First off the plumbers can have a profile where they can put up pictures of themselves or an avatar that they want or anything that they want to put out there that talk about them. And then you'll see over at the right-hand side, some key stats about how many threads have they answered, how long where have they been online, and so forth. One of the things this company does that's really, really smart is they gamify it. And what they do is you start as a novice plumber and even if your very experienced then you move up grades up to being a senior plumber based on a couple of things. First off the number of threads you answer and then the number of threads you start. And also the number of thumbs up that are given to you by your colleagues. In other words if you answer a plumber's question and they give you a thumb up that really moves you up in the rankings. And so what happens is you have plumbers and the neat part about this system is that if I am a plumber and I get an answer and it's from a senior plumber, I know that this is probably a very high quality answer. And so through gamification they essentially let you understand what level of expertise people that are answering your question have. And how easily it works. They also let you control the entire experience, you being the plumber. And so what you can do is you can go out there and set up whether you want to be on public things, or whether it's a private engagement. You can set up different categories of what you're doing. You can tell them about them. You could set up your own account, which is really nice. One of the smart things about this site is if I'm on there talking to a fellow plumber and the plumber says well, you need this specialty tool to do that with one click I can be on rigid tool, set it up, I could ask for the order. Then I could go ahead and click on it. And they will ship it to me overnight. And so with one click and able to take care of the need for the tool that was identified through the form. So that's the whole idea about being there when they are ready to buy. They just click on it and then they go. You'll notice they also have a section on reputation. Essentially that's the idea of the gamification. Here's how you get up in ranking. Here's how you move through. And so it's kind of a fun site, to where if you click on the help at the bottom, it'll bring up all the things that are in there for the plumber to do and to grow in the community. And so it's really smart the way they did it. So the key thing is, what makes this thing a really effective community? The first is it gives them control of the topics. They essentially are going out creating their own threads based on what their needs are and the things that they want to talk about. It's personalized, so it makes it fun. Even for a visitor, you can go out and do some things, but once you get into it, it's personalized to the individual and their relationship is highly relevant, and it's really a perfect connection for the isolated plumber. It's a way for them to get in with other people. And so, if you have a few minutes, go on and look at Ridgid Tool Forum, for the plumbers, so it's a plumber forum. And the key is that it's a really, really effective site. It's been running for a number of years and you'll notice they don't push Ridgid Tools they're just here to power the community but in doing that giving them this empowering tool that makes them the place to go when the plumber does need a tool. And the other key is that if your a competitor to Ridgid Tool you're not gonna get the plumbers away. And so one of the things that's really interesting is that this plumbing forum has grown every single year because plumbers go out and recruit the new plumbers to be a part of the forum. So it's just a self regenerating asset for the plumbers, but it's also a tremendous competitive asset for Ridgid Tools. Very interesting example of social IMC. And so the forums, Gamification, Community control and Powered by Rigid, is really the keys behind this. And so it's a really fun one you can go see. And get really deep into it to see how it all works. And it's a great example of a low cost but highly effective social IMC strategy because it is designed to empower the plumbers to do the things that the plumbers want to do which is engage with each other.
