OKO Embraces Facebook – on its bike…

We are not exactly the first manufacturing company to embrace social media – but having seen many others’ efforts (on Facebook in particular) we are reminded of the party to which nobody came. Typically, companies take on an office junior to ‘do social’, and a Facebook page emerges – probably joined by Twitter, Instagram and maybe Pinterest – all without significant interest from anyone other than staff and their obliging nearest and dearest.

Sooner rather than later, the junior has departed and the pages languish, unloved and untended.

However, we have noticed a change coming – in many countries, customers are more used to searching Facebook than Googling for website addresses. OKO Distributors (who are the ones servicing the end user) have often responded to this demand.

Mobile rules

Another important trend is the rapid move towards mobile devices. Most B2B (business to business) operations like OKO Global are finding that more and more visitors to their websites are arriving from smartphones. OKO is ahead of the trend: the latest week’s figures show 54% coming from mobiles, compared to 47% in the last 12 months. The rule of the desktop is over.

Given that people are more likely to log onto social media using their phones, switched-on businesses need to have a presence there.

We looked at our various vehicle markets. In many of them – Agriculture, Construction, Mining, Waste Management, Trucks, Buses, Public Service commercials – OKO supplies bulk quantities of sealant, and the products are sold through business contracts and long-term supply arrangements with fleets. The public rarely sees our involvement in safeguarding the tyres from punctures and making them last longer. Our website is mostly aimed at commercial users.

Bikes – the public sector

It’s different in the case of bicycles. Here, sealants are discussed openly by riders and are known to have a critical role to play in bike road safety and in helping race users to finish and win. Retail branding is important. OKO’s bottles are sold on dealer shelves and on webshop pages.

This has led us to open our @OKOBike Facebook page specifically for OKO Bike Tyre Sealants: https://www.facebook.com/OKOBike/

It was an experiment at first, but in the opening weeks we have been delighted by the increasing reach of our posts (up 198% this week), and the enthusiastic support of our specialist bike distributors and dealers around the world.

Check us out for the latest news, images and videos, including exciting material shared by our UCI World Cup Mountain Bike, Cross Country and Downhill teams – who have come over to OKO Magic Milk™ from the traditional American tubeless tyre sealant purely on performance grounds.

So thanks to:

Habitat Mountainbike team: based in Netherlands and sponsored by the wonderful charity Habitat for Humanity – competing in MTB and XCO

NS Bikes Factory Racing team: based in Switzerland, supported by the Polish NS manufacturer – competing in Downhill

David Rosa, 8-times Portugese XCO Champion and Olympic competitor, racing with the Tropix team

And if you are a bike rider, like and share us – we aim to keep you interested, informed and entertained!