Before planning a recent vacation, I put a question on Twitter using the name of the small Central American town by tagging it with a #-hashtag. I asked if anyone knew of any taxis that service the area that were safe and reliable. Within a few hours I had received a reply from someone who recommended a cab company and referred me to their Facebook Fan page. I immediately went and looked them up on Facebook and sent a Facebook email requesting if they could provide taxi service to our destination and the cost. Within the next 4 hours, I had a taxi set up. Now the question was, would the cab actually be there?

Upon arrival, I was greeted at the terminal with a sign. And not only that, the cab driver recognized me from my Facebook picture. The taxi driver informed me that Facebook had changed his business dramatically and that he had been receiving more and more referrals directly due to his Fan Page on Facebook. Once at our destination, I had a few excursions and set up everything directly through Facebook. I never picked up the phone one time to arrange for a cab in a foreign country in the middle of a rain forest.

For the companies that are on the fence about whether Facebook or Twitter have any real value, let me introduce you sometime to a cab driver in Central America that has a better grasp on social media than some Fortune 500 companies. Our cab driver made a couple of hundred bucks strictly on social media referrals.

Final Score

Social Media: 1
Hailing a Taxi in a Foreign Country: 0