Website Marketing Opportunities and NOT
June 29, 2009 by Mary Ellen · 1 Comment
“We’re going to switch our URL. I don’t like the name.” (NOTE to self on hearing this: Check the stats to see current traffic patterns and make a recommendation.)
“Nobody has really signed up for our forums; maybe we should cancel them.” (NOTE to self: review the topics and check what response they’ve had in other arenas.)
“My business is just too big for me to care about social media.” The sole proprietor said this without a trace of a smile. (NOTE to self: This sounds like wish.)
Unfortunately, on the web as in other arenas, focus can be a bit myopic:
What’s convenient for me?
How can I make my business run more smoothly?
What do I want?
What can I cross off my “to do” list today?
What sounds good now?
The norm:
Doing business on the fly
Moving fast
Over-commitment
Choosing the easy path
Following recommend of a friend
Content marketing, the art of attracting customers with quality information, means thinking about your customer, listening to your customer and planning to satisfy your customer. How will you fit that into your schedule?
Customer Service with High-Risk Quotient: Bold, Honest Communication
June 18, 2009 by Mary Ellen · 5 Comments
Values like sincerity and authenticity grow more important in a tough economy than in a growth situation.
This is the story of risking vulnerability to ask the customer for inputIt’s the story of a customer-centric approach to business. Granted, it couldn’t work for everyone. On the other hand, how would the world look if we all approached our business from this perspective?
My kudos go to Bea Doyle, a local businesswoman who risked putting herself “out there.” (Disclosure: Bea is a friend, supporter of AIBA and WESST)
E-mail #1:
Subject: Brainstorming for the continuance of Bhava
Dear Devoted Bhava Students, Teachers, and Friends,
I’m inviting you to a meeting this Sunday, June 14th, 11:30-12:30pm, to help me brainstorm on how to keep the doors of Bhava open to the public.
The short story is, very sadly, that I am not eligible to borrow any more money, and Bhava does not have the funds to continue in it’s current incarnation. As I am in this crisis mode, it occurs to me to reach out to you who care most about the success of Bhava.
Agenda:
Where we’ve been and how we got here.
Where we need to go.
How can we get there?Tea provided. Please RSVP to this e-mail.
Love,
BeaP.S. If you know someone who should be at this meeting, please invite them. I don’t have e-mails for some students who may want to be there.
Bea Doyle, Director & Instructor
Bhava Yoga Studio
520-A Central Ave. SE
Albuquerque, NM 87102
505.842.1080
www.bhavayogastudio.com
Email #2: I like the fact that Bea reported back to her original list in a prompt manner. In her subject line she thanked participants. The ‘nice’ factor continues to keep on working.
Subject: This morning’s meeting + Thank you
Dear Bhava Students and Friends,
Thank you so much for your presence and contributions at our brainstorming meeting this morning. For those of you who couldn’t be there, thank you for your ideas and supportive thoughts. I knew that I couldn’t do this alone.
I have read all of your suggestions that you have e-mailed, and have minutes from the meeting. If you have not yet e-mailed your ideas/ suggestions, please do so as soon as possible. We’ll be looking more carefully at all of your suggestions this week. I’ll be getting back to you to ask for your help in implementing some the ideas that we move forward with now in this short-term, and with our plan for the long-term.
Special thanks to Elissa Breitbard, Sara Berger, and Keith West Harrison for your insightful, knowledgeable, and professional help in running the meeting.
Thank you again. We’re not stopping….we’re GO-ing!
Much Love,
Bea
Because I continued to think about this approach this week, I asked Bea for permission to share it with you. She responded in kind:
It’s so good to hear from you, and yes, please do use my e-mails on your blog, and feel free to use Bhava’s name. I would be really happy if it can help others and it’s true that the approach is focused on the customer….which is the community, the breath of Bhava.
I feel very supported and we have a lot of work to do!
Wow. Keep us posted on the rest of the story, Bea. Meanwhile, thank you for sharing your story. Good luck!
Tweeting? Book Outlines Twitter 101
June 13, 2009 by Mary Ellen · Leave a Comment
Twitter Power: How to Dominate Your Market One Tweet at a Time by Joel Comm wins my vote for social Twitter 101 training. I’ve been looking at resources to recommend for a continuing education class at UNM and reviewing them here. One of the best reads to date is Twitter Power.
Twitter beckons. The thought of being left behind worries. Comm manages to avoid the fear motivator and use instead the seduction of easy social media to sell his book. According to him, you need only 80 followers to join the top 10 percent of Twitter. (NOTE: I’m not there. I’m only at 45.)
Clear commentary and frequent examples make this an easy book to digest. The 30-day plan at the end of the book could lure you into the project by itself. (NOTE: Again, I’ve not begun the 30-day plan.) Comm sprinkles plenty of solid adivce and tips throughout.
Get directions on setting up your Twitter template, advice on which applications to use for consolidating your tweets, and suggestions on how to find followers, throughout the book. For example:
Don’t just say: “Heading to the library” or “About to take a nap.” Also say what you think about what you’re doing or explain why you’re doing it. That makes the tweet so much more interesting.The benefit of these kinds of tweets is that they let your followers follow you through the day. That’s the idea of Twitter. It’s a bit like reality TV, but you can choose from millions of lives to follow instead of the odd people the producers cram into the Big Brother house.
Just telling people exactly what you’re doing then can be interesting, but talking to your followers about what you’re doing is a little like stepping into the video booth and taking them into your confidence. It has a much more powerful binding effect…
Or, another suggestion:
If you are using Twitter to reinforce your personal brand, feel free to share your thoughts on anything that comes to mind. Tell people what you think of something that affects your industry. Tell them what you think of something that’s happening in the news. Tell them what you think of something someone else posted. Use tweets to tell people what you think about anything, and you’ll be putting your personality into timeline.
Twitter Power’s conversational style and “paint-by-numbers” approach attracts me. it’s impressive growth encourages me to get on board and make sure I can talk intelligently about it with my clients.
I liked Comm’s discussion of how to use Twitter to build your brand, or to build following for a particular project. In fact, I’m now contemplating that challenge.
Meanwhile, sign on and follow me. We’ll tweet together.
Bridge Social Media Skills with Clara Shih’s Book
June 10, 2009 by Mary Ellen · Leave a Comment
Reading up on social media? Consider: The Facebook Era: Tapping Online Social Networks to Build Better Products, Reach New Audiences, and Sell More Stuff by Clara Shih.
This book gets high marks from me and variety of others. (See the fan page.) It’s realistic, clear and on target. Shih’s advice is consistent with good business strategy, i.e., everything needs to relate to your customer. She explains the why behind her comments, thus making it more helpful for business owners who haven’t yet climbed on the bandwagon. Here are just a few examples:
When someone new becomes interested in engaging with your brand, the barriers to do so on Facebook or MySpace are very low. Instead of having to visit a new Web site and sign up with all their information, people can just go to your community page and join with one click. Very few brands can sign up 150 million of their own registered users. (YouTube, with 100 million, is the only one I can think of that even comes close.)
Social networking sites give people a semipublic forum surrounded by friends where not everyone has the same interests and affiliations.
Especially in today’s crowded marketplace—the average American is exposed to over 3,000 advertising messages each day—social distribution from customer to customer rather than from vendor to customer is by far the most affordable and effective way for brands to stand out. Among the social networks, Facebook has been the clear leader in social distribution.
Facebook News Feeds, which broadcast members’ recent activity to all of their friends, have transformed how messages spread by automating social distribution of information. What would have been isolated incidents before become highly publicized updates on Facebook.
The new mantra is don’t advertise to people, advertise between people. Recommendations and referrals from known and trusted friends can be powerful influencers of purchase decisions.
Facebook Friend updates have made word-of-mouth marketing easy, thoughtless, and automatic. Every time anyone on Facebook updates a status message, writes on a wall, sends or receives a gift, RSVPs for an event, makes a comment, becomes a fan, or plays a branded game, people find out.
Instead of requiring me to provide a proactive update or endorsement, Facebook enables word of mouth to be passive.
The challenge for small businesses who plan to implement social media may well be the commitment involved. It’s not a campaign. Some of the business objectives Shih suggests considering include:
- Conducting market research
- Improving customer satisfaction
- Promoting additional products and services to existing customers
- Expanding into new markets
- Recruiting new employees
- Establishing or evolving your branding and positioning
Shih suggests picking two or three goals, prioritizing them, and developing your strategies and decisions from there. In addition, she acknowledges other social networks besides Facebook and suggests you look at the one(s) appropriate to your product/service. An index at the back of the book provides resources.
If you’re not already in the social media fray, The Facebook Era will solidify your resolve to get there. If you’re there, this book can help you define your strategy and hone your message.
Groundswell is an overview of the real thing
June 7, 2009 by Mary Ellen · Leave a Comment
My stack of reading remains at an all-time high in spite of the progress I’ve made during my recovery. (As a result of a broken humerus bone, and given the challenge of typing with one hand, I’ve added a number of fiction and non-fiction books to the completed list.) In the coming days I’ll review some of those resources for you.
I’m exploring social media strategies in preparation for a class I’m presenting as well as better usage for myself and my clients.. One of the first books I tackled was Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies by Charlene Li, Josh Bernoff.
An easy, fast read, Groundswell would be most helpful for someone in a corporate environment or dealing with corporate clients new to social media. Why? It’s structured, comprehensive, and offers statistics, graphs, and case studies from large companies. For those who are looking for a solid foundation/explanation of social media, Li and Bernoff, Forrester Research analysts, provide it.
As a prep or research text, Groundswell fits nicely. Its messages urge companies to become consumer-directed. (NOTE: Since when is this new?) What makes the strategy meaningful is the call for concentration on relationships, not technologies.
So when evaluating a new technology, ask yourself the following questions: Does it enable people to connect with each other in new ways? The groundswell is about making connections. If a tool makes those connections more interesting, more varied, or more frequent, it has good potential for adoption-because that’s what the groundswell is looking for. Furthermore, such technologies spread virally, as existing participants recruit new people to join them.
I was particularly intrigued by the discussion of branding from Ricardo Guimaraes, founder of Thymus Branding in San Paulo, Brazil.
After running a big Brazilian ad agency for a long time, Guimaraes started his consultancy to spread a new way of thinking. He says brands belong to customers, not companies. In his words:
The value of a brand belongs to the market, and not to the company. The company in this sense is a tool to create value for the brand … Brand in this sense lives outside the company, not in the company. When I say that the management is not prepared for dealing with the brand, it is because in their mind-set they are managing a closed structure that is the company. The brand is an open structure-they don’t know how to manage an open structure.
Li and Bernoff coined an acronym, POST, to describe the integration of social media: people, objectives, technologies and strategies. In spite of few small business examples in the book, it offers an overview of social media for someone who wants to study it.
Solve problems, exploit opportunities. Start small. Pick strategic battles. Tap into customers’ enthusiasm with ratings and reviews. Above all, join the conversation. Become part of the Groundswell and use it in a meaningful way to move your company forward.
