You know I suggested that to the CEO of a race production company when they were relaunching their business 3-5 years ago. I don't think anything came of it.

The problems with it are you need someone internal to track the posts. Most race production companies don't have the staff.

The staff is pulling double or triple duty bc they have a race that weekend setting up transitions, driving a vehicle around marking the course, entering people & bib #'s in the computer system, coordinating onsite the day before and again race morning with safety personnel, making sure coolers are clean, filling the coolers, positioning them to be placed out on the course race morning, making sure aid stations are stocked, trying to find the zip ties that someone dropped etc (true story ask me how I know), tracking down park personnel. During the week they are on the phone with various agencies pulling permits or talking about site planning or designing routes or talking to potential partners, or answering the 100's of dumb email questions people ask weeks before a race ask such as "what color is my swim cap going to be?" - true story btw. (FFS people think before emailing your RD a question(s), seriously)

Sure your race isn't for another 6-8 weeks but the race production company may have 6-20 races they put on and then they time another 6-40 races per year which involves setting out the boxes, the mats, setting up the finish/start lines etc.

Sure a huge race production company like wtc has a lot of staff/volunteers and this is easier. But a local company with 1-3 owners/employees and maybe a total set up staff of 5 people and now you're asking them to spend a few hours tracking down social media stuff.

They've got to go to twitter/Instagram/FB and type in someone's name into each platform and see what they've done. 3-5 minutes per person right there.

let's say you've got a 400 person race and I'd bet industry cx rates are at least 5-10% now you're spending 2-3 hours tracking down social media stuff. If I was an RD I'd rather roll your entry fee for a nominal admin fee to another race and be done with it. Yet even that costs me more time than the average triathlete thinks it does.

---

Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta