Bike Month Experiments with Social Media

News Release: April 27

Bike Town Races into the Digital Age with Tweets, Tags, Vlogs and More

Bike Month Participants to Share Experiences through New Social Media Technologies

Spartanburg, SC – In a new twist on celebrating one of the country’s oldest pastimes, Bike Town Spartanburg is asking spectators and participants to digitally share their Bike Month 2009 sights, sounds and interactions.

Fans of the Spartanburg Regional Classic, which will take place this Friday, and other Bike Month events are encouraged to use their favorite social media websites to share their photos, videos, blog entries, video blogs (vlogs) or Tweets related to Bike Month 2009: the race, the rides, the downtown ArtCycle sculptures and any other bike-related events.

The term “social media website” refers to communication outlets like MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, or Flickr.  A vast and varied number of people in Spartanburg already make use of these services to communicate with friends or to publish to a wider audience.  Bike Town intends to bring all of these people together by asking them to use to same “tag” wherever possible.

A “tag” is an easy-to-understand description of an item, like a name tag at a party that quickly clarifies who is who. On the Internet, tags are used to identify a piece of information as relevant to a particular topic.  Bike Town is asking people to use “BkTnSburg” as the tag for Bike Town Spartanburg events.

For example, anything relevant to Bike Town that is published on Twitter should include “#BkTnSburg,” and photos uploaded to Flickr.com should be tagged with “BkTnSburg.”  If everyone uses the same “tag” whenever they’re writing about or uploading photos or videos of Bike Month events, then Bike Town can connect everyone by linking to the resulting conversations from our website: http://BikeTownSpartanburg.org.

Whether documenting racers as they take “turn 4” of the Spartanburg Regional Classic course, or videoing elected officials as they bike ride through downtown at Pedal With Your Politician, Bike Town hopes to give Spartanburg, as well as the internet’s worldwide audience, an inside look at the local biking scene.

Keep an eye on http://BikeTownSpartanburg.org to see what happens. If you do not see materials that you have published online appearing there, send an email to info@biketownspartanburg.org.  For additional information about Bike Month events in Spartanburg, including the Spartanburg Regional Classic, please visit the website calendar or call 864.598.9638.