Archives for February 2011

Are You Telling or Asking?

When was the last time someone asked you what you want? What you?d prefer to have, over what their perception thinks you?d like to have?

Are you looked after by the services you use on a regular basis? If not, why not ? isn?t it about time you were?

I?m a business owner, but I?m also a consumer and a customer. So why am I told what I need instead of being asked what I need, as a customer?

When I go to a store to buy goods or services, I?m offered AirMiles as an incentive. But if I don?t fly often, what good is that to me?

When I receive an email to fill out a business survey I?m offered Barnes & Noble gift vouchers, but I?ve never shopped there in my life. Are they really incentives?

There are countless communication methods to speak with your customers and ask what they want. You have mailing lists to stay in touch with your most loyal ? use them. Customer service questionnaires, website forms, Twitter, telephone calls ? make it your task to ask.

Speak to your customers and instead of offering non-essential incentives, and offer something they would use. How many of your customers drive? Wouldn?t a gas loyalty card offer with a certain level of purchase be a better incentive to spend money with you?

Frequent flyers part of your customer base? Instead of offering a discount at just a specific store within the airport, how about a discount in any shop within the airport? Leave the choice to your customer as opposed to making the choice for them.

Good business sense is all about listening. Where are your listening posts?

image: Dan Morelle

Common Courtesy? Yes Please, Thank You!

This is a guest post from Ingrid Abboud.

You’re at a dinner and someone compliments the outfit that took you 20 minutes to pick out. What do you say?

You’ve written an article which took you 15 minutes to research and another 30 minutes to write. Your friend likes it and shares it with some of his friends. What do you say?

Besides the Ghost Busters tune that’s now ringing in your head, err…at least in mine, do you get where I’m going with this?

Great, I had no doubt that you would.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not preaching on how you should live your life and this is NOT another post on Twitter Etiquettes.

Let’s face it, we’ve all read enough of those to conclude for ourselves that:

Although there are preferred tweeting methods and friendly guidelines – there is no specific, agreed upon, set of rules.
Your technique may rock for you and your twitterverse – but it may suck for others.
No matter what and how you tweet – you can’t please everyone.
Common sense and courtesy may not always be applied. But then again, you should already know that by simply being alive.

Common Courtesy

Speaking of common courtesy, how many of you say “thank you” for retweets when you think it’s appropriate?

“Joey put your hand down for Pete’s sake, this isn’t grade school! I know you do.”

“Troy, don’t think I haven’t noticed you cheers’ing me in the @mentions a few times .”

“And Danny, we all know that behind the badass facade, is the most genuine of nice guys who never takes his friends and readers for granted.”

Now, if you know me well enough, you know that I say “thank you” somehow.

I may miss a few here and there, and that’s okay. But I’ll be damned if I don’t try my best. Hell, I even say “thank you” for #FF’s, especially if someone’s gone the extra step and added a little something to it.

It’s common courtesy folks and it goes a long way.

If someone’s taken the time to read and RT an article of mine, I’m gonna take 5 seconds to thank them – either through a @reply or a DM. Although, I don’t know whether they actually read it or not, I do know that for whatever reason, they thought it worthy of sharing.

So what do I do?

@DannyBrown: Hey Bonsai Boy. Thanks a lot for the RT on my Bring IT! post. Have a great week. Cheers.

That took all of 5 seconds to type.

Was it painful? No! Was it polite? Yes! Does it express my gratitude? Yes! Will Danny appreciate it? Probably.

Now if you plan on arguing that some people get RT’d 700 times and that it’s hard to keep up then, sure…I hear you and I agree. But let me ask you this – how many of you reading this piece get their blog posts retweeted 700 times? 300 times?

Hmm…that’s what I thought; not many.

Unless you’re someone like Godin, Brogan, Clark or Rowse, I sincerely doubt that the twitterverse goes into “RT-mania mode” every time you publish a post. But in case it does, then spill your guts and tell me your potion, cause I’m jealous but I’m all ears!

Clutter, Schmutter

Do “thank you’s” clutter a stream?

Well, if you’re looking at it that way, then everything is clutter. The noise is everywhere you turn. Twitter is one big chatter box and if you don’t like it then I suggest you consider a different “non-social” information network.

Seeing “thank you’s” in someone’s stream, only enhances it. It shows they’re human; it means they interact and care. Because if they didn’t give a whoop about their posts being retweeted, they wouldn’t have a tweet button on their blog now, would they?

In his panel discussion with Joe Hackman, Danny Brown said, “You’re only as influential as your audience allows you to be.”

How long do you think your audience will stick around if you don’t show them you’re listening or that you appreciate them? Granted, there are many other ways to do so.

That being said, I don’t hold it against you if you don’t thank me on Twitter. You’re probably doing something else that I like. After all, we all have our different ways or techniques that work for us.

Suh..weet Alternatives

So, if you’re not the “thank you” type of Twitterer for whatever reason – why not consider doing something else to show your appreciation?

Here are a few great alternatives which I sometimes use that work just as well.

Visit their blog and RT one of their posts
Leave a comment on a post I enjoyed
Subscribe to their blog
Link to a noteworthy article that they wrote
Give them an #FF shout out
Follow them back if I don’t already (if their Twitter profile interests me)
Vote for their blog post on SERPd
Stumble one of their blog posts
If I like their writing style, I can invite them to guest post for me (once I open my blog for GP’s)

Now it’s your turn to share…

Do you thank people when they RT your blog post?
Does it depend on who RT’d it?
What else do you do to reciprocate the gesture?

About the author: Ingrid Abboud aka ‘Griddy’ is a whole lot of things with a ridiculous amount of interests. For one, I’m a Social Media enthusiast with a tremendous passion for writing and blogging. I’m also a pretty cool Copywriter but a more serious MarCom Consultant. But most of all, I’m the proud owner and driving force behind?nittyGriddy.com – A Kinda Social Media Journal with entertaining SM ramblings, Net News & more. You can follow Ingrid on Twitter @nittyGriddyBlog.

image: NguyenDai

Questions to Ask Before Starting in Social Media

So you’re thinking about jumping into social media.

You’ve read a whole slew of blog posts, news stories as well as examples of how social media has helped businesses like yours cut costs and market more effectively. So now it’s your turn.

But have you really thought it through? Have you laid out the groundwork, reasons, measurement and more before you make the leap? Or are you just jumping in, because everyone’s telling you that social media isn’t for toe-dippers?

Whatever your train of thought, here are some things you might want to run through first before jumping in.

Why Are You Doing This?

Okay, this might seem like an obvious question with an even more obvious answer, but have you really asked why you’re about to start using social media?

Is there a bona-fide reason for your business to be on social media? Or is it because you’ve been told you need to be? And if you are on it, does it need to be active or passive? Do you need to take part or simply use social media as a research and listening resource?

Yes, for most business, at least some minimal social media use is better than none – but it may be that you’re about to jump in for the wrong reasons and on the wrong platforms. So you need to know why you’re doing it. How do you define your involvement?

That’s where a social media audit comes in.

Have You Carried Out a Social Media Audit?

One of the most important parts of any initial approach to using social media is a social media audit. This is something we carry out for every one of our clients, new and old, before starting a new campaign with them.

From first steps in social media to garnering intelligence for a new campaign, you need to carry out a social media audit. I won’t fool you into thinking this is a piece of cake, either – a proper social media audit can range from weeks to months to carry out, depending on how in-depth the next steps are going to be.

Some of the bare minimums of an audit include:

Using the right software. There’s a host of tools you can use to carry our your audit, from free platforms like Twitter Search, Social Mention and Monitter, to premium ones like Radian6, Sysomos and Beevolve, amongst others. Pick the ones that suit your needs and budget.

Targeting the right searches. You’re a restaurant owner and you want new clientele. So you use keywords like “restaurants” and “good food”. But what about “local catering”, “locally-produced food”, “sports nights”, “corporate events”, etc? Think of the activities outside your niche search but that are perfect for your services.

Be there at the right time. To really get the right information, you need to get the right people. So make sure you’re online at the right time to get your intelligence. Many moms, for example, seem to prefer the hours between 5.00am and noon to be online. If they’re your audience, guess what time you should be running your tracking software?

These are three key pointers for your audit. There are many more; but the main thing is you carry out the audit and be sure of the information you’re after, and how to get it properly.

What Are Your Goals?

So many businesses jump into social media with a clear goal – to succeed in social media. Great – but what is that success? There are many ways to define success in social media, just as there are many ways to measure and react. So defining what your goals are is key.

While not limiting yourself, some success barometers could be:

More visitors to your online store.
More foot traffic to your brick-and-mortar store.
New loyalty program sign-ups.
Newsletter subscribers.
Active social network sharing of your services.
Brand awareness on certain niche communities.
Hard sales through social media exclusive offers.
Coupons downloaded and used from a vanity URL.

Again, these are just some pointers on how you could set up success barometers for your social media activities. You could also look at lowering customer service issues; saving costs on hiring people; saving money on print ads to re-invest in your business.

Decide what would be a successful entry for your needs, and then define what platforms (based on your audit) you need to be on to reach the audience that can make that success happen.

What’s Your Measurement?

When someone tells you that you can’t measure the ROI of social media, look them squarely in the eye and then laugh as you show them out the door. This is one of the biggest crocks that a lot of social media “consultants” will try and tell you. It’s usually to cover for their own lack of business acumen – don’t be suckered by it.

There are many ways to measure social media, and every single campaign, involvement or activity is trackable and measurable. All you need to decide is what you’re going to measure, and how that’s going to align with the time and financial investment on your end.

Questions to ask on your measurement should include:

What measurement tools will you use?
What’s your cut-off time for evaluation of your activity?
What numbers are you measuring – financial, social shares and awareness, or both?
What percentage of growth do you want month-on-month?
Do news stories count as success?
How much can you take a hit on (freebies, coupons, etc) to result in longer-term sales?
What are the most active/successful times of day?

Anyone can start a campaign – not everyone actually plans it out to measure, so you can react on the fly. Make sure you know what you’re measuring and what tools you’re going to need to do this with.

Your Starter for Ten

These are just three key questions everyone should be asking before thinking social media is going to be the golden goose for your business. There are many more questions that you should be asking too:

What other promotional integration are you using (marketing, PR, advertising, direct mail, etc)?
Will you be running a mobile campaign alongside your other activities?
How many man hours will you need, and how many can you realistically allocate?
Who will be running this for you – internal or external?
What’s your strategy for negativity and who will deal with it for you?
What’s your social media policy on what can be said and by who?

Again, the amount of questions that need to be asked will vary, depending on your business and your needs/involvement. But every single business needs to acknowledge that jumping into social media involves a little bit more than a Twitter account and someone who knows a bit about computers.

Is your business asking the right questions?

image: Bruno Belcastro
image: brandlyyours

Sunday Brunch – Customer Engagement

Welcome to a new episode of Sunday Brunch, where we talk about your questions on social media, marketing, business tips, entrepreneurship and more. It’s a little later today due to technical issues with my web host, so my apologies for that.

Today?s question is from Kevin Murray, who runs a family driven online marketing company over at WorkWithTheMurrays.com. Kevin asks:

?Other than running a sweepstakes or contest, what real campaign or Social Media Strategy can be run to promote not only followers but also the business, brand awareness and company mission??

Thanks for the question, Kevin, and I hope the video helps.

If you have a question, you can send it in via the form below. There?s also a file upload option, if you want to send in a picture of your favourite Sunday Brunch place.

Cheers, and see you same time, same place next week for some more Sunday Brunch chats.

This post contains a video. If you can’t see it displayed properly in your feed, you can view it directly here.

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