A Twitter phenomenon

DOWNTOWN TOLEDO - Social networking can be great to catch up with old friends, but Twitter's become a way of business and a way of promotion.

The Twitter phenomenon's hit a home run so far with the Mud Hens. They have over 2,000 followers.

"If we can interact with people, then that's the way we go, and what we've learned our last several years is that it's very powerful," said Joe Napoli, Mud Hens President and General Manager.

"It's surprising how quickly people have taken to Twitter and how many people are following us," added Nathan Steinmetz, the Hens' online marketing manager. "People are interested in the sports teams here and this is a great way to follow them."

"when Bret Michaels came to the ballpark, for example, we had sent tweets out about that and that spread like wildfire across Twitter," Steinmetz added. "We were able to monitor it and we were able to see that thousands of people were reading our story that we posted on our Web site."

Steinmetz leads a Twitter army of about a dozen who tweet, at various times, for either the Hens, Walleye or Bullfrogs.

"It's a way for us to get our message out," Steinmetz said. "It's a way for us to interact with our fans and it's a way for us to listen to our fans."

A prime example of this came during Walleye opening weekend against the Florida Everblades at Lucas County Arena, where fans not only packed the stands, they also packed the Internet superhighway for updates. But they wanted more.

"Fans were wondering where the shots on goal statistics were on our scoreboards and it's something that we did not have on the first night of the games," Steinmetz said. "But through Twitter, we were able to hear their feedback and respond to it."

And there's more, much more, that Steinmetz sees, in the organization's future relationship with Twitter.

"Photos are a big part of it," he said. "Video is just coming around where fans can take quick videos."

So if you ever have a problem getting to a game, and you're not around a TV or radio, never fear, Twitter's here.

And it's only, just the beginning.