I have been very vocal about my disdain for the MBTA, particularly over the past winter when they were significantly late nearly every day. When asked about why, they flat out lied to us about why they were late and we later found out that the conductors themselves were on a soft strike. To top it off, instead of trying to fix their problems with timeliness, they changed the schedule, basing it on the times that they could actually arrive. They did all of this without ever consulting or communicating with their loyal customers. They eventually resolved their labor issue and I (sort of) got over the fact that they wimped out and made changes to the new schedule that still, in my mind, works against people who need to get their kids to day care and then to the train.

Things have been going well until recently. You see, it has been hot outside. Our line, the Worcester line, uses CSX tracks. When it gets hot enough to bend iron outside, CSX puts speed restrictions on the tracks. This causes issues. MBTA’s normal strategy is to make an annoucement in the station that says that trains are delayed. There is usually no further communication until recently. The conductor on the 6:30 Framingham train has taken it upon himself to be more… social. Instead of just saying “The train is late. It’s CSX’s fault.” He uses a very warm and apologetic (for a dude with a wicked awesome Boston accent) tone.

“Well, we got you out of the station on time today. Looks like we need to stop here. We have a red signal. We are going to have to wait a couple of minutes for the Inbound train to get in. Not a huge deal. We should still have you home in time for dinner. Sorry for the delay.”

And that is essentially how you want to talk to people in the Social Media world. Use Facebook, Myspace and Twitter to be very transparent with your customers. If you use them to introduce a new product, remember that your customers are not going to Twitter to get spammed with product information. They are there to get the little tidbits of a person’s day that happen in between company announcements and advertisements. Give them something they don’t know. If you are beverage company, tell them that you are excited that you worked with Robert Graham on your new can design. If you are a clothing company, let them know that you expect polka dots to be prominent in your fall line and maybe give them some sneak previews via a Flickr gallery. Delicious little nuggets like that will get people talking and give them a warm fuzzy about your online presence. They may even forget that your are trying to sell them something.

I encourage you to check out the Twitter how Zappos (@zappos) behaves. They are a great example of building a rapport with their customers.