Monday, April 5, 2010

A Big THANK YOU!

When we sat down just over a month ago to start a baseball card blog we were excited, excited like little kids opening our first packs. We wanted to share that feeling of opening a fresh pack with anybody who had a few minutes to waste. Better yet, we wanted to give those cards away because getting mail rocks. Getting a letter from Grandma is cool but getting free baseball cards in the mail, well that will make your week. The response to our amateur effort has been huge. We’ve made new friends, we’ve gotten boxes of cards, jerseys, packs, and thank you cards in the mail. Best of all we get to talk baseball & baseball cards with awesome people.

A week ago we found ourselves in a social media “best blog” contest. We reached out to our fans, to our families, to our old high school and college baseball teams. We kept pumping out content for our blog, we kept giving away baseball cards and we even found time to swing by Fenway to be part of the #openingday hooplah - sox win! We also chose to stay out of the drama. From day one there was buzz about whether or not such a recent blog should be included in the voting and there was even a YouTube video questioning whether or not our “television show” was even a blog.

We kept our heads down and stuck to our social strategy, heck we both work in social media in Silicon Valley. We had viewers of our blog contact us with strategies that included getting their little league baseball teams to vote, getting their families to vote and getting their Facebook friends to vote. The support has been awesome, and honestly that’s what social media is about – connecting one-on-one with real people. We started by finding people to vote for us, we energized our most loyal fans and we didn’t waste our time trying to figure out how to game the system or belittle the competition. We saw some pretty awesome activity: tons of comments and tweets, over a hundred cards requested last week and even a few sent to us (thanks!), and ultimately over 1000 votes. Thanks to all of you!

We’re thankful for the opportunity UD created which has driven a lot of buzz about the card community online. Getting the most votes doesn’t mean we’re the best baseball card blog. It means we put together a social media strategy we are proud of and worked hard for votes one by one. We didn’t even know you could vote everyday, we just hustled and discovered that there were about a dozen of our fans who decided they were going to bust even harder than we were. For us this competition has been about establishing a deeper relationship with our viewers. You guys are the judge of our success.

We know we're not like other card blogs. We don’t know cards like many of these other blogs do. We’re approaching things from a different angle; we’re shaking it up.

Other blogs have accused us and belittled what we do, and we’ve found it a bit silly. We focused on baseball and baseball cards, we focused on having fun with our viewers and we focused on opening day. We’re still giving out free baseball cards, we’re still spitting sunflower seeds and we still have a ton to learn.

We’re sorry it became necessary to address all the drama and accusations with a written post. But after reading a few things that were said about us, we felt compelled to say something.

Thank you to everyone who cast a vote for Opening Day Cards and a big thanks to some crazy fans out there who hunted down voters for us. Enough with the banter we’ll be back with more baseball & free baseball cards to celebrate tomorrow.

Hang onto your baseball caps there’s a TON of excitement coming your way from www.openingdaycards.com.

Thanks!

Chris & Joe

8 comments:

kyle said...

Congrats guys! It was absolutely sickening to see others demeaning the great work you have been doing in such a short time with this blog. Not only have you been producing great content, but you have done an incredible job developing a dedicated fan base that is absolutely engaged, and more than willing to help spread the word about what you have going on here.

It is really sad to see that instead of looking at some of the things you guys have done as a source of inspiration and education about how they could improve the quality of their own reader engagement, and of the baseball and card-collecting communities in general, these folks have resorted to baseless accusations of cheating. In my own humble opinion, instead of displaying such poor sportsmanship, they would be much better served by looking at what you are doing so well to build such an excited and engaged community of supporters and promoters of your blog:

You brought us all back to a time when we felt the simple, yet intense joy of opening packs of baseball cards, and discussing/swapping them with our friends. You don't alienate us by turning card-collecting into a more complicated, inaccessible hobby that the vast majority of us will never fully relate to -- you remind us of our great childhood memories, and the happiness we found by following one of our favorite pastimes through the innocent act of purchasing, opening, and swapping simple baseball cards.

That may be just my opinion, but I think it's worth something...

Anonymous said...

Hey guys,

You truly have a very interactive website, blog, on-line video show, call it what you want, its engaging and entertaining.

I don't really participate in any on-line media social sites, but your site has got me checking everyday for the commentary and the free cards. If other sites are slinging mud, its because they are jealous that you have thus far been this successful in such a short time. I am sure you will continue to grow this web project of yours and will get even more creative with time.

You guys don't have to be hardcore card collectors to enjoy baseball cards, nor do you have to know every single baseball player in the bigs, you just have to be real and have a passion for the game of baseball to fuel this site.

Congratulations on your success thus far!

thomas said...

You guys got my vote and the votes of those in my collecting community. I've appreciated the engagement and your humble approach!

Anonymous said...

Congratulations. Well earned.

Unknown said...

You guys have earned it. There are blogs out there that know more about baseball and cards but that's not why I tune in. It's more fun to have a two way conversation and not feel talked down to. As a baseball card novice, I can share stuff and not feel like I am going to be made fun of. And as a baseball nerd, I can correct stuff you guys may say and know that you are not going to take it the wrong way. You guys are having fun, and whenever people see others having fun they instantly feel the need to crap all over it. I say let us have our fun and if we choose to treat cards as a fun distraction and not the all consuming job that others do, let that be OUR problem. Way to go Chris and Joe.

PS-Did you get the cards I sent you?

TheBrooklynMet said...

Hey guys, keep doing what you do. Congrats to Chris on a nice opening day win, and my condolences to Joe on a heart breaker (if only Tulo were several inches shorter).

ChiefWahoo said...

Congrats guys....I wouldn't have found this great site without the contest and was more than happy to vote for you after taking a look at everything you've done. You've got a new fan here in Cleveland!!!

Joe

Tkoz said...

YOU GUYS ARE AWSOME JOE CAN YOU GIVE ME AN ADDRESS A AUTO IS COMING YOUR WAY! TROY

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