Posts Tagged ‘social media’

I don’t think it is a coincidence that we are seeing a plethora of monotone-style designs over the last few years. Simplicity, depression-era styles, a harkening back to our comfort points, denim, cotton, blues faded.  All reminiscent of hard work, pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, a more wholesome time.

What is the recession teaching us?  We don’t need as much stuff, flash, we can recycle, reuse, scale back.  Ralph Lauren is at the forefront of this movement. When watching his Spring 2010 fashion show last fall I saw uniquely American themes emerge.  It was a reminder that we can be as resilient as our grandparents.  That denim is yummy again.

And this seems to be the design that has emerged out of forced budget cuts, looking to save money in any way possible.  Orange on orange, green on green, different shades of gray.  All of this means a 2 color process when printing, instead of a 4 color process.  It means adaptability.  I find I am most creative when I am told to come up with something but I have to abide by major constrictions.  This is how inventions are born and great ideas come alive.

Um…how is it the end of the week again, let alone the end of the month?  Oh, well.  Time to round up what we’ve noticed in the realm of marketing, social media, and brand strategy the week of January 25:

Hyperlocal:  I finally gave in and joined Foursquare this week, amid a huge buzz around the growing power of hyperlocal social media applications.  This coincided nicely with Twitter’s (Denver-snubbing) rollout of local trending topics,  Yelp’s rollout of sundry cyberstalking technology for its app, and an extremely thought-provoking article by Andrew Hyde on the implications of this technology (and why he’s opting out).

Hyperhyped:  In case you were in a remote cave this week, I’ll break the news…Mac announced its iPad technology on Wednesday  to great hubbub and furor.  Cue the inevitable Mac/PC mockery and bickering between me and Juli (a Mac evangelist who eventually bemoaned the technology’s lack of camera and lame failure to properly use the space of the tablet).  And cue rabid fanboys, drama about its ill-conceived and poorly-tested name, and users delighted (hey, maybe it will improve AT&T’s sucky service!), bummed (wait, it won’t save print media?), and confused about various features and prices (or lack thereof).  Which all begs the question…isn’t the hype kind of the point?  Success or failure, the iPad controversy/expectation/spin machine has people talking, speculating, and refreshing their favorite sites.  Oh, for an audience of millions.

Hyperhelpful:  As websites cut the b.s. and pare down the heavy Flash and SEOverload for more nimble, flexible content management and simpler messaging, we’re encouraged to see more focus (and buzz) about helping others.  More and more, the businesses who catch our limited attention and keep it are ones that have honed in on the ways in which they serve their customer bases.  When you get away from service, you get away from your voice and your value…and even worse, you risk alienating your base.  Here’s a great article on how the helpful effect actually boosts credibility in the social media sphere (via today’s excellent SmartBrief on Social Media, one of the must-reads in my crowded inbox).  Want some ideas on how to leverage social media and Web tools to the advantage of all?  We’ve got your back.

What’s your favorite story of the week?  Let us know!

It can be easy to drown in the news surrounding marketing, social media, and brand strategy.  This week, we dredged through the good, the bad, and everything in between to bring you what we think is the most interesting marketing, social media, and brand strategy news of the week of January 19:

Social Media For Good:  With the destruction of the Haiti earthquake only beginning to be uncovered, social media and viral marketing played a huge role in fundraising and awareness-building for Haiti.  It’s been a bad week for the world, but a great one for social media, which is only just starting to live up to its potential.  Mashable points out five social media lessons from the Haitian relief effort. One writer urges us to “focus on impact, not shiny objects.” In a media void, organizations like the BBC are planning on offering podcasts in Creole to Haitian individuals and news outlets.    And the “Hope for Haiti” telecast will be available on the Web tonight as well.

Take the Tablet:  Rumors are swirling about Apple’s mysterious tablet computer.  All over the Web, Mac whores and interested ancillary parties discussed what it will look like, how much it will cost, and whether it’s already played out.  Can it cook dinner for you?  Help broker world peace?  Break the longtime AT&T monopoly on Apple cellular devices? We shall see.

Big Changes Afoot:  No matter what side of the political spectrum you fall on, you’re bound to be affected (and soon) by the recent Republican victory in Massachusetts, the closure of influential talk radio station Air America, and the Supreme Court’s landmark decision to open up campaign financing by rolling back corporate spending limits.  Expect to see huge changes in the health care debate, fueled by evolving marketing tactics on the part of both smaller interest groups and big business.  Our prediction:  the landmark shift in social discourse that began with the contentious 2008 election was just the first step in a new marketing climate that relies on niche and multichannel tactics to mobilize and organize constituents and influence decisionmakers.

Got great news to share?  Let us know in the comments below!

You’ve heard about the 90/10 rule, right (or the 80/20 rule or the 96/4 rule or one of its many incarnations)?  In Jack Humphrey’s excellent blog post on Twitter networking, he lays out the 90/10 rule so:

90% of what you share on Twitter should be made up of personal insights and thoughts along with a heavy dose of helpful links, while 10% should be made up of messages that more directly benefit you.

By keeping your “buy from/benefit/look at me” Tweets to 10% or less of your total content, you don’t lower your skeeze factor…you create a great opportunity to use your social networks to promote others.  and isn’t community what it’s all about?  Here are 10 easy ways to share the social media love:

Join the conversation:  Social media is no fun when it’s one-sided.  So get active and start conversing with your community!  Just engaging in conversation is a great way to attract attention to the worthy causes and businesses of others.

Retweet:  RTs are a great way to point your network to people you know and love.  So find relevant tweets, and pass them on!

Attribute:  Nobody likes to pass on an insight or link, only to be disregarded when it comes to attribution.  So take the time to link to the blog, Facebook page, or Twitter handle of the person or company you’re citing.

Interview:  Ask your favorite colleagues and connections for a quick interview on your blog, website, or newsletter…and remember to include their contact information.

Guest spot:  Better yet, invite contacts you love to guest blog, sharing their insights and expertise in their own words.  They just might ask you to return the favor (and at the very least will drive traffic and goodwill your way).

Follow Friday:  The #ff tag is de rigueur on Twitter these days, and for good reason:  you can generate tons of goodwill by taking just a few seconds to identify follow-worthy friends to your Twitter tribe.

Recommend:  Take a few moments to give a concise, eloquent LinkedIn recommendation or Yelp review to colleagues and service providers who have impressed you.

Star and save:  Like someone’s blog post?  Take a second and star it on Google Reader or save to your de.licio.us account.  Your recommendation will doubtless drive a bit of traffic their way.

Share plans:  Do you plan to attend a colleague’s new networking meeting or seminar?  Publicize your plans to attend and share links where applicable.  There’s nothing like showing up to an event your friends and connections have helped make successful.

Follow through:  It can be tempting to treat backscratching and cross-promotion as a short-term gig.  But remember…consistency is the enemy of mediocrity.  Follow through on your commitments and consistently promote others.  You’ll get a great feeling in addition to those elusive brownie points.

Let’s get this out there:  writing is hard.  Writing about your business?  Even harder.  As I help clients refine their communications, I am reminded again and again of the importance of voice.  Unfortunately, many business owners either never think about voice, or assume that their own will do just fine.  I’m here to challenge those assumptions.  Here are six ways to find your voice:

Know what you’re looking for.  What is voice, anyway?  It’s the sum total of your words, the impression left by your word choices, grammar, sentence length, paragraph structure, and style.  Hard to define, but easy to recognize, voice creates expectations and delivers information in a unique, recognizable way.

Go back to basics. What values and goals are behind your business?  Your voice should reflect them consistently, religiously.  If you’re committed to simplifying your clients’ lives, why are you bombarding them with complex sentences and long, droning copy?  Get clear about why you’re talking, and let voice flow from there.

Be unique.  Take a look at what others are doing…then dare to be different.  If you don’t understand what makes you stand out from the pack, how can you be sure that others will?  Take some time to brainstorm the qualities that make your company and approach unique.  Look at the list before you write.

Kick assumptions to the curb.  It’s easy to assume that your clients will respond to a certain writing style…until it turns out that they hate it, or are turned off by it, or don’t get it.  It’s even easier to assume that your writing won’t pass muster.  Question those assumptions at every turn, and chuck the ones that are getting in the way of your communications.

Trust your reader.  Writing creates relationship, a subtle give and take between reader and writer.  Resist the temptation to overtell or oversell.  You’ll overwhelm your reader and cloud your voice (two major no-nos).

Chill out. It can be scary to commit to a particular identity for your business, but guess what?  Everything is impermanent, and you’re allowed to tinker, waffle, even change your mind.  So relax…better to try and fail than do nothing.

Image courtesy of It’s Holly

It’s been a day since Facebook overhauled its privacy policy, and if you’re anything like me, your news feed is inundated with complaints, confusion, and furor.  I’ve read a lot of misinformation as to what Facebook is up to and what those concerned about their Facebook privacy should do, so here’s a quick aggregation of what I’ve read and learned over the last few days:

What Facebook did: On December 9, Facebook began rolling out a privacy overhaul.  The evidence:  A recent letter from Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s CEO…and the banner that will appear on top of your page announcing the new privacy settings once the rollout reaches you.

What Facebook really did: Facebook’s new privacy settings are the social networking juggernaut’s entry into the world of public sharing.  The evidence?  More of your information is defaulted to be shared with “Everyone.”

What “Everyone” means now: NEWS ALERT – “Everyone” in Facebook now includes Google and the rest of the world.  I repeat:  “Everyone” really does equal “everyone.”  If information is tagged for “everyone,” that means that Joe Blow and his mom can read it…even if it’s a status update, photo post, or comment that used to be hidden under your Facebook veil.

Two other important privacy changes: Facebook has eliminated your option to allow applications to access or not access your personal information.  Using an application now defaults to allowing access.  In addition, Facebook does not give you any way to control access to pages you’ve become a fan of.  Hence, if you are a private fan of a pro-choice organization but present a pro-life face to the world, or would die if your mom found out you’re a rabid fan of naked Frisbee, expect that information to be loud and clear from now on.  Moral:  Friend, fan, and use applications wisely!

What you can do: If you object to any information being shared or indexed on Google, go ahead and set all of your privacy settings to “friends” or “friends of friends,” whichever level you’re comfortable with  (You can find these controls at Settings/Privacy Settings/Profile Information).  Don’t forget that Facebook’s new settings also affect your photos.  Also, you may want to uncheck the little check box reading “Public Search Results” under Settings/Privacy Settings/Search.

The silver lining (sort of): Along with these freaky, Big Brother-esque changes, Facebook has launched one long-sought-after tool:  the ability to determine what level of access you want to give to any individual piece of content.  Now, if you are planning a suprise party for a friend and want venue suggestions from other friends, you can block the birthday boy from seeing your post while allowing others access.  To make use of this feature, hit the little “lock” icon at the bottom of your status update box and choose accordingly.  Note:  this feature does not appear to be rolled out in its entirety yet, but stay tuned over the next days.

Still confused about Facebook’s new privacy settings?  Find good rundowns and rants at Mashable and the Electronic Frontier Foundation.  Happy (safe) socializing!

Image courtesy of ardenswayoflife

And here I thought Friday would be just another day.  Instead, it brought news of Vladimir Ponorovsky’s crazed e-mail tirade to employees of Paradou, his chichi Provençal restaurant in the Meatpacking District of Manhattan (warning: not for the faint-of-heart or the can’t-stomach-profanity crowd).

In a word: wow.

Of course the former waitress and restaurant employee in me cringes to read something like this, as does the foodie.  But it is my inner marketer who really starts to do some cartwheels when faced with an e-mail of such passion and drama.  Ponorovsky may be a successful business owner (for now), but it strikes me that he has much to learn about business.  Like:

• You can’t afford to treat subordinates (or anyone else) like poo. I worked in Big Law for many years in a supporting role.  I can’t tell you how many first-year attorneys I’ve seen crash and burn, treating support staff inappropriately, yelling and screaming, and acting like jerks.  Surprise, surprise…every single one of them experienced the inevitable “computer problems,” slowdowns, and dismissal of their oh-so-important projects by the same people who would bend over backwards to help more polite and thankful attorneys.  The result?  Pissed-off judges, incensed managing partners…and stagnant careers.  Ponorovsky has made a classic business mistake here:  underestimating the value of the very people who he needs on his side.  Terrible, terrible idea.
• Angry people are really good at spreading the news, especially on the Internet.  Back in the day, it could take years for bad news to travel around the country via Pony Express or smoke signal.  Today…not so much.  An email like Ponorovsky’s is easily disseminated with the click of a button.  And the Internet is a really good archivist.
• Respect matters.  People hem and haw about the decline of respect in a society that has condensed interaction down to 140 characters or less.  But the backlash against Ponorovsky demonstrates that people actually do value respect…to the extent that they’d log on to Yelp and give a one-star rating to a restaurant they’ve never visited just to get their point across.  By disrespecting his staff, Ponorovsky has dealt Paradou a terrible blow.  No matter how delicious their food, the restaurant will never be able to live down its reputation as a place that doesn’t respect its workers (or, by extension, its customers).  Inexcusable.
• Think hard before clicking “send“.  I’ve been guilty of this, too:  jumping the gun on a newsletter with typos or an e-mail that doesn’t quite hit its mark.  If the Ponorovsky/Paradou debacle has taught me anything, it’s to take a moment to pause before I shoot off anything that will represent me or my business.  Is a moment’s relief ever as valuable as your brand?

My sympathies go out to those who have chosen to remain employed at Paradou.  And my hat is tipped, just for a moment, to a man whose very public gaffe may just help us minimize ours.

Photo courtesy of hans.gerwitz

It’s planning season, the most wonderful time of the year, and my clients are doubtless sick of me harping again, again, and yet again on the “consistency is key” message.

Confession:  I myself have been guilty of less-than-consistent marketing in 2009, as evidenced by this languishing blog.

The good news:  having confessed and accepted, I’m ready to change.

VOCO has scheduled its own brand strategy retreat for early December and is excited about the launch of its new, improved, more-helpful-than-ever-before (we promise) offerings and site.

In the meantime, what “no-duh” moments have you had lately?  What marketing advice do you know you should follow…but don’t?

One of my favorite Twitter truisms is “Don’t piss off the Tweeple.  They’re opinionated, easily convinced, and roam in packs.”  A few weeks ago, I saw a phenomenon that caused me to add “or online news site commenters” to the list of people not to mess with.

Observe this article about a local coffee shop opening a few locations in Boulder and Longmont.  What started out as a typically innocuous and celebratory Daily Camera feature quickly turns into a virulent dumping-ground for Boulderites’ venom against Vic, who apparently has a reputation for not treating his customers like kings and queens.

Treat your clients right lecture aside, this is a great example of why social media is so vital to reputation management.  If Vic’s had a Twitter feed for example, or, oh, a website, Vic himself would be able to guide the story and at least respond to his customers’ complaints and accolades in a public manner.  Instead, I assume he is glowering in private and cursing the Daily Camera for providing a forum in which disgruntled customers vent their spleen against him.

Moral:  You can’t control a conversation in which you take no part. Most of the time, simple communication trumps reputation management.  A bit of transparency goes a long way.

Spring 2009 is all about social media education, and Twitter is on the tongues of everyone from devoted power-users to confused newbs who can barely use a mouse.

Despite all the hype, news programs and even devotees haven’t quite hit their mark.  I keep running across the same question over and over again…why should I care about Twitter?  Who gives a hoot about whether you had a croissant for breakfast, anyway?

In lieu of writing a thesis on the subject (and if you really want to hear the advanced reasoning behind my use of Twitter, pretty please come to my new Twitter class June 25 and July 9), I’ll give some simple answers.

Why should you care about Twitter?

It’s all about conversation.  If you aren’t having a conversation with your potential clients and colleagues via social media, you’re missing the boat.  Twitter doesn’t just give you an unprecedented chance to engage with your base…it allows you to start, shape, and exert a degree of cotrol over the conversation that just can’t be achieved by a press release, a sound bite, or an advertorial.  And the options are endless:  you can talk directly to your base, ask them questions, gauge their opinions, solicit their feedback, be helpful and offer advice.

It’s happening.  Whether or not you like it, Twitter has taken off in a big way.  Does every business need Twitter?  No way.  But don’t dismiss it because it’s new, trendy, and admittedly overhyped.  The amount of creativity and excitement generated by Twitter is truly energizing and engaging…if you know how to use it properly.

It’s opportunity.  Opportunity to find out what your customers and your colleagues care about.  Opportunity to make mistakes, hone that brand, and get deep into voice and vision.  Opportunity to dip your toe into a huge conversation and watch it morph before your eyes.  Opportunity to be on the cutting edge before it changes into something else (just look at the evolution of hashtags over the past few months). And, yes, opportunity to get business.  I can count twenty or more instances in which Twitter has brought me business or allowed me to refer business to someone else in the last two months alone. Now that’s opportunity.

Sure, you may think you don’t care about whether your client had a donut or a croissant for breakfast…until you use that fact as the launchpad for a personal conversation.  Twitter can seem scary:  it’s immediate, vast, and fast.  It’s also vibrant, thrilling, exciting, maddening, and hilarious.  Go ahead…dip that toe in.

Readers, why do you care about (or shun) Twitter?

Photo courtesy of godsmoon