The internet is an amazing thing. A well crafted website can help a business, and on the other hand, failing to pay attention to what people are saying online can hurt the success of a business. One of the companies I work with is the Hangar Athletic Xchange (HAX), a basketball gym and training center based in Hawthorne, California. HAX has a web presence and the business has caught the eye of many current and aspiring NBA players. It is not strange to see southern California-based basketball professionals working on their skills and engaging in pick-up games at HAX during the off-season.

The thing that is amazing is that these players are doing their own beneficial promotion of HAX without charging HAX for said promotion. These players tweet to their followers about where they are working out and which other named players they went up against on the court that day. On average, HAX is mentioned on Twitter three to five times a day. Now I understand that those are not astronomical numbers for a large national company, but I think they are pretty impressive for a small, regionally based business.

Another example beneficial promotion on the web is the case of Toronto Raptors forward, Amir Johnson. Aside from coming to play at HAX, Amir has started a YouTube channel called Amir TV (http://www.youtube.com/amirtv). It is short video blog about what he is doing with his time. In the last two weeks, Amir has posted two HAX-related videos. One is entitled “Amir on the way to the HAX gym” and has been viewed by 987 people at the time of this post; the second post is a video of Amir and his Raptors teammate DeMar DeRozan sitting in HAX watching a basketball game. The second video has over 1,480 views as this time. So between the two videos that Amir Johnson created, both no more than 1minute and 30 seconds, HAX has been exposed to over 2,000 viewers without spending a dime.

Finally, Ed Davis, the aspiring NBA player from North Carolina, had the opportunity to be the Rome Correspondent on ESPN television’s Jim Rome is Burning. The show shot a segment on how Ed Davis is preparing for the draft. In the shoot Ed is working out on the machines at HAX and there are numerous long shots of the inside of HAX as he practices his shots. HAX was wise to give him a HAX branded t-shirt to wear during the shoot to promote the business. I do not know the ratings for Jim Rome’s television show, but I do know that it plays nationwide on the sports powerhouse that is ESPN. Additionally the video was put on the ESPN website for those who missed seeing it live to view. If you’d like to see the video, it is at http://bit.ly/9hmyYe .

Because of the internet, HAX was able to get wider exposure for their business for the cost of a t-shirt to Ed Davis. HAX didn’t ask for any of three videos now showing online to be shot at their facility, but HAX has benefited from the time both ESPN and Amir Johnson took to shoot the videos. When you add in the growing Twitter following, HAX is gaining momentum in the online marketing age by keeping and eye out about what others are doing online to promote themselves, and promote HAX while they’re at it.