Posts Tagged ‘Social Media’

Bad Press

July 7 2010

Social media is quickly becoming the norm for peer-to-peer communication and information dissemination. Now companies will have to join the fray. If your company hasn’t, it’s time to jump in. Consumers can make noise and you’ll need to respond faster to complaints or questions.

Michael Bush from Ad Age states, “By rewarding complainers with lightning-fast responsiveness, are marketers training consumers to publicly flog them rather than take the discreet and often-frustrating route of calling customer service?” Interesting point. Put another way, will consumers cry wolf to get a refund, save a buck, or game the system?

Does it make sense to train consumers to think the best way to get a faster service is to bash your brand, to tell every one of their friends and connections about a terrible experience, and do it all in the public domain. With the power of social media how will companies respond? Sometimes meeting customers where they are, in the social media centered world, is not the best venue for solving all of your company’s problems. But then again, maybe it is.

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Taking stock

March 8 2010

My name is Michael, and I’m an addict. From social media to web-based and iPhone apps I am guilty of a leap-then-look mentality. If you tell me you found a smoking hot iPhone app for 80’s trivia I will download it without giving it a second thought. Tell me about a great new time management application online, I’m there. Yes, I’ll register for inclusion in the industry specific directory of advertising movers and shakers.

Now I find myself in the ugly position of having no earthly idea what I’ve signed up for, how, why or when. What good are all these time management, SEO friendly, networking savvy applications if I don’t use them?

So many apps, so little brand loyalty

So many apps, so little brand loyalty


This post would be really awesome if provided a link applications that keep track of everything. I know the apps are out there, but if I sign up it’s just another login ID and password and URL I have to remember. Yep, I have a problem. Admitting the problem is the first step.

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Stop. You’re killing me

March 5 2010

There are a few marketing buzz words that make you cringe when you hear them. Here we are in March of 2010 and my gag reflex kicks in when I hear:

Social media expert: These are usually self-anointed and woefully under qualified. In fact, I have a blog, a facebook account, a linkedIn account, and twitter accounts (yes, multiple). When you add up all VLG’s followers, group members, friends and fans and mine, well heck, we’re social media experts.

Viral marketing: Can you compare a waterskiing squirrel to the more recent Old Spice “I’m a man, man” campaign. Viral marketing might be the pinnacle of web impressions and tough to measure. Isn’t WOM so much better? That’s what we used to call it in the days before YouTube.

Twitter: Actually anything that starts with “Tw-” triggers tinnitus. I applaud Twitter apps that come up with original names like HootSuite, Su.pr and Birdhouse. Tweety Bird tweeting on Twitter would probably send me over the edge, but if I were Warner Bros. I’d be all over that.
warnerbrothersrocks

I’m putting this post up on a Friday, because it’s a little risky and I need a slow news day to say things like “Tweety Bird tweeting” without wrecking my good name. Negativity is such a buzz kill. (Sorry, couldn’t resist.)

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25 in 5 Challenge

February 9 2010

rockpaperscissors

Inspired by Colin Alsheimer’s Social Media Challenge (follow @levelten_colin, #smschallenge) that encouraged all of us to stray from mainstream content and share a little more variety in our tweets, I have a somewhat related challenge to lay before you.

My wife uses Facebook and I’d guess spends at least and hour on the site spread throughout the course of a day. I don’t. Rarely do I use facebook to communicate with others. In fact I go days without even logging in. Despite having 302 Facebook friends, 261 LinkedIn connections and 177 followers on Twitter I probably communicate with no more than 10 people across all three media in a given week—so, not very social.

For the next five days I’ve decided to challenge myself and I encourage you to do the same. Whether you are a heavy user or passive participant in social media let’s put social media to the test.

The Challenge:

I challenge you to contact twenty-five people over the next five days that you’ve friended, connected or followed.

The Rules:

Only contact those you friended, connected or followed, but have not communicated with since that day.
Use only social media to make contact (e.g. post to a wall, send a LinkedIn message, direct message when you can).

Share:

We want feedback. Whether awkward or awesome please post comments here, on our Facebook page, or LinkedIn group. Tweet about it using #25in5 and suggest others you think we should follow. I’ll aggregate comments/thoughts on the blog next week and you can follow live action here:

http://twitter.com/mosimmons/twentyfiveinfive

If you’re a passive user of social media like me this will take you out of your social media comfort zone. Otherwise it’s just an excuse to check in with old friends, acquaintances or random people you friended on the Internet.

Ready, Go!

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Knowny

February 8 2010

For any of you that will or will not admit to answering email, tweeting, or texting while in the WC, might relate to this excerpt from The Colbert Report. Social media brings new meaning to the WORD ubiquity.

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14 blogs for 2 weeks

January 19 2010

VLG is signing up for the Social Media Challenge. We encourage you to do the same. Check out Colin Alsheimer’s blog post for the rules. We’ve gathered a list of blogs from the folks here at VLG. Below are the 14 blogs we’ll track and promote over the next couple of weeks. With any luck we’ll learn something original. Don’t forget to bookmark and read our humble opus, too.

1. Customer Experience Crossroads
Our favorite Canadian that has on several occasions bought our loyalty with profound words about our own Dialog Marketing. Susan Abbott makes it onto the VLG top 14.

2. Servant of Chaos
Gavin Heard represents marketers from down under in a sometimes disturbing, yet informative way. Don’t let the crazy eyes headshot on his blog fool you. Australians, as you know, are good people.

3. Church of the Customer
I’ve never seen Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba speak in public. I’ve never read one of their books, but they crank out a good blog post every now and again. (Any blog that posts a PSA staring the late governor of Texas, Ann Richards, deserves a nod.

4. The Big Fat Marketing Blog
Get in the heads marketers kind of like you as they post prose about our favorite topic, big fat marketing.

5. Gaspedal “The Blog”
Brought to you by the people that gave us tidy white papers, books and conference panels and speeches littered with word of mouth and social media that matters. This is a good blog for people that communicate.

6. Unleashed on Marketing
Gary Bembridge has two passions in life. Want to guess one of them? This Londoner mixes it up with commentary and links to EMEA marketing goodies.

7. Good Is
Collaboration is very Good. Go hear for an “Ah-ha!” moment everyday.

8. ILT
John really, really loves typography. It’s blog posts by a British expat in Japan, so it has to be interesting.

9. Just Stuff I Find
We all could start a blog like this, but we don’t. This blog will find stuff for you.

10. Kottke
Jason was named after Alexander the Great and has big shoes to fill, he says. Can’t believe he didn’t see the Empire Strikes Back on the big screen. Nice little posts on his blog.

11. 37signals Blog
This blog might not fit within the SMS Challenge rule book, but it’s pretty darn good at making you think strategically.

12. Design Mind
Three times a year you can get this content in print form. Frog design takes this blog stuff pretty seriously. Always harder to make anything look easy, simple and clean.

13. Dustin Curtis is a superhero.
Dustin takes it to another level. Hard to explain. You have to check it out on your own, because I don’t want to ruin the surprise. Tell him hi for us.

14. the tortoise initiative
This six person team pulls together interesting work, design, quotes, etc in one easy to read package, very simple package. Blogger template, “sacrilege!” they say. We say bully for you.

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My Social Media Flame Out

January 11 2010

In the dogfight that was the 2009 bust we didn’t cut marketing spend, but our contribution to a glutton of social media crashed and burned. I failed just when you’d think social media would offer a cheap alternative with perhaps greater results. Not so. Both my writing and my reading waned.

SMS text from Twitter? I cut those from following 25 to 5. Facebook? Rarely. I couldn’t get a status update posted weekly, let along daily or hourly. LinkedIn? My lips were sealed.

But… Somehow I don’t think this signals the death of social media, but a shift in how we think about and use it.

A litany of sources employed by Socialnomics generated a crazy list of reasons why you shouldn’t take your eye off the social media ball. I pulled some of my favorites from this post. Go check out the full list now. Don’t wait. Serious food for thought.

  • By 2010 Gen Y will outnumber Baby Boomers….96% of them have joined a social network
  • % of companies using LinkedIn as a primary tool to find employees….80%
  • What happens in Vegas stays on YouTube, Flickr, Twitter, Facebook…
  • 54% = Number of bloggers who post content or tweet daily
  • 24 of the 25 largest newspapers are experiencing record declines in circulation because we no longer search for the news, the news finds us.
  • More than 1.5 million pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photos, etc.) are shared on Facebook…daily.

I’m awake now. Social media has my attention.

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Work From Home

May 13 2009

At about noon yesterday (GMT-2) the Internet went out in our Bucharest office, so we sent everyone home where it was believed the Internet would be more reliable. And it was.

The outage was caused by a government initiative to crack down on illegal hacks into the nation’s cable television and high-speed Internet system. (Don’t worry, we pay our bills.) Luckily we have a second line unrelated to the first that kept me going long into the evening yesterday and again today.

There’s a lesson in here somewhere. If we can close up the office for two days and send everyone home, why do we have an office. Maybe I’d have more time to stumble across articles like this from Faustine in Tanzania if I was parked at my casita.

Some people are just more comfortable working out of the home.

Some people are just more comfortable working out of the home.

Face-to-face communication must have some value. In our business it can lead to creative break throughs. If travel weren’t so expensive, we’d spend more time sitting across the table from our clients. Creative reviews over the phone lose some of the pomp you get from a in-person pitch.

Not everyone has the discipline to work from home. Many are faced with distractions at home that make work there tough. I love my daughter, but “Daddy, hugs?” in the middle of that conference call can be distracting.

If the stars and incentives are aligned, a business might just be able to operative sans office. There are obstacles. It’s tough to build a car in your living room, but the majority of these stay-at-home jobs involve a computer. We employee a fair number of stay-at-home mom’s that tend to our fulfillment needs, but they are tech savvy and armed with computers and Blackberry’s.

One key takeaway for those of us in the Internet business is that the number of people working from home is on the rise. Many of them are sitting in front of their computers, which gives Interactive marketing firms just like ours something to smile about.

Eyeballs available. No bosses looking over shoulders. Yahtzee!

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Anyone else confused?

February 19 2009

All it took was one public relations professional and one social marketing hacker to spawn an honest, somewhat snippy discussion of the merits of expertise in today’s social media circus. Nicole is invited to attend a social marketing workshop. Giovanni is hosting the workshop. A self-proclaimed social marketing ninja, Giovanni uses considerable real estate on his blog to refute claims made by Nicole. So I go read Nicole’s take on the topic. A visit to KickingSand.com gives me Nicole’s side of the story–I had already soaked up Giovanni’s lengthy defense. Nicole quickly refers us to a rebuke of the social marketing carneys claiming superiority in todays’ topsy turvy marketing landscape.

Here are a few of the highlights should you want to skip the links above and move along to your next to-do item. Best to avoid calling yourself a social media expert. Any 20-year old with unlimited text messaging and a Facebook account is a social media expert, they just don’t know it yet. Meanwhile, public relations professionals seem quick to reinvent themselves and move the goalposts. After reading these posts it became very clear that even the pros are confused. If you’re confused, you’re normal. The lines between PR and marketing have blurred and the gap between marketing and sales is shrinking.

Back to work.

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