The best doctors are successful because they have immaculate bedside manners. Some of the traits of great bedside manners include:
These traits are second nature to good doctors. Maybe more business owners should go to medical school.
Halfway through my six month in-house contract with Maritz Canada, I’m still happy to see that the company continues to restore my faith in how larger corporations treats its employees, clients and more.
A perfect example is this year’s video holiday card, which captures the fun and people culture Maritz Canada has. It also shows their commitment to social equity and corporate giving.
Hope you enjoy the video, and would love to hear any similar stories about your company or business.
If my friends are correct, I’m pretty fortunate that I don’t live in the U.S., have an iPhone and AT&T as my carrier. When I speak to people like?Tim Jahn and Michael Schechter, they mention the crappy coverage and dropped calls they have to suffer on Apple’s baby thanks to the AT&T network, even though the fault may lie as equally with Apple as it does AT&T.
Being in Canada and on a BlackBerry, I guess this is something for me to be grateful for.
Yet it looks like AT&T has been listening to its customers, reading the blogs and social media feeds and actually wants to do something about their reputation. This comes in the shape of a new iPhone app that’s free to download.
Called “Mark the Spot”, the app allows users to report any problems they’re having at that time, from dropped calls to voice and coverage quality. Geo-tagging allows AT&T to pinpoint the exact area at that specific time, and should help them improve both service and coverage.
While it may not result in instantaneous improvements, the very fact that AT&T is actively seeking feedback is encouraging. With social media giving small-to-medium businesses a more level playing field with the big boys, larger companies are finally realizing they can’t ignore their customer bases in the way they used to.
This is evident in the way that Comcast have implemented a?customer care team, led to Dell posting sales figures of $6.5 million thanks to Twitter promotions, and Best Buy has its dedicated?Twelpforce team on hand to help with any issues.
It’s early days, and it may seem ironic that AT&T is using a mobile app to report issues on a mobile service – I’m guessing the reports will still get through in areas of crappy coverage? Yet it does show that they’re beginning to listen more.
And that’s got to be a good thing, yes?
Do a Google search for “emotional marketing” and you’ll find a whole bunch of views on what it is and how to tap into it.
One of the best examples I’ve seen recently was the one put forward by?Nick Desbarats at this weekend’s TEDx Ottawa event. Nick is one of the brains behind ChoiceBot and has some great ideas about how we make decisions, and how marketers can tap into that.
There’s no doubt that tapping into the heart and minds of customers is the Holy Grail for any marketer, and platforms like Nick’s are making it more of an exact science.
But imagine for a minute if we didn’t even need to make physical decisions – it was all captured subconsciously. This is where I feel what I call emotional marketing 2.0 has the ability to step in.
While there’s no doubt that the choices we make when presented with options gives marketers a clearer picture of what we want, it’s still semi-forced. By giving a limited amount of options, we’re saying to consumers they have to choose something from the path we’re placing them on.
The problem is, emotion isn’t a choice; instead, what we choose to do is based on emotion without limits and there’s a big difference.
The way we react to sounds; to images; to melodies; to voices; to stimulation – these are the emotional pre-actions that define where our actual emotions will take us next on the decision path. Not just choices to be ticked off, or eliminated by “Strongly Agree” to “Strongly Disagree” scales.
And this is where true emotional marketing 2.0 comes in.
Consumer electronics giant Toshiba has released a series of laptops that work on face recognition software. Fellow Japanese company OKI has technology that allows increased cell phone security thanks to eye scanning software.
Imagine the possibilities if you combined the two.
Imagine browsing the web and adverts or pages open automatically because your eyes sparkle when you smile, and your eye and face scanning-enabled laptop has recognized the change in the emotional picture of your face. Once the page is opened, it continues to open other sub-pages automatically depending on where your eyes are focused and the reaction from the iris.
Without doing anything but look at the items that attract you, your emotional profile is building your marketing profile.
And these are just the basic ideas. Suddenly, every single advert and promotional web flyer is tailored to you and your needs. All from the simple knowledge of what makes you tick emotionally.
Is emotional marketing 2.0 a future pipe dream? Perhaps. But the basis of the technology is already there – all that’s missing is the emotion. And that’s where you come in.
Ready to let your emotions do the talking?
Online rules of engagement are changing. Old school business approaches and methods are getting left behind for dynamic new mediums that offer more interaction and less broadcasting. Businesses and industries are realizing it’s no longer possible to simply say what you do – you need to say what you can do as well.
This is the dawn of social media as a true business outlet and there’s never been a better time to get in on the inside.
Look online at tools and applications like Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, Flickr and more and you’ll see both major and minor brands with a presence. With the amount of businesses taking a more active role in social media, it’s a fairly good guess that some of them will be your competitors.
So how do you keep up and make sure you’re not the one left in the social media wastepaper bin? How about getting to the HEART of social media?
There’s a lot of conversations taking place that you won’t even be aware of until it’s potentially too late. Perhaps it’s the amount of conversations taking place that’s kept you away from social media in the first place – too much to take in with too little time. But is it really too much to take in if you filter out the conversations that affect you? And that small amount of time now could mean the extension of successful time for your business. Hear what’s being said and react accordingly – the benefits will be worth it.
Once you’ve filtered the conversation to look after your brand, it’s easier to then engage the conversationalists. Listen to what’s being said and involve yourself – whether it’s in support of a positive comment or in defense of a negative one. Show empathy over exclamation – get to understand what the problem is and work with the audience to resolve. A negative experience turned into a positive one is worth more than any PR or advertising blitz.
The single biggest “mistake” that most businesses make when taking their first steps into social media is rushing in headfirst and using old business methods to try and establish themselves. This might work in certain settings – old school still has a little sway left – but for the majority of social media use, it’ll just come across as too much too soon. Look at what’s happening around you and maneuver your strategy around what’s working. See who’s being successful, use their guidance and always be open to new practices.
Think about your business and the reasons why it’s successful – I’m guessing one of them is because you reached out to new markets outside your niche and targeted them with your products or services. After all, without growth comes stagnation. Social media makes it even easier to find other audiences to talk to.
Just because they don’t use your brand isn’t to say their friend doesn’t – wouldn’t it be great to get a new customer because their friend told them you were on Twitter, Facebook or other social media sites and networks? Keep thinking one step ahead to grow your userbase.
You know the old saying, “Honesty is the best policy”? Take that with you into the social media arena and you’ll learn more and gain more than if you try being something you’re not. Your biggest fans are probably that because of how you’ve conducted yourself business-wise so far – why should you want to change that?
Be open, be clear, and be honest. False views have a way of coming back to haunt you when you least need or expect them to – truth and transparency are the perfect foils to any and every misquote. Keep it simple and keep it honest and you’ll find the respect of your audience, targeted and otherwise.
Most happy endings come from following your heart – why should it be any different for social media?
photo credit: HocusFocusClick
