Do You Know Who You're Talking To?

This morning I encountered, for the xillionth time, a pitch for a great new product. There is a clear niche it could fill, and no one else is doing it, the pitchman said - so why aren't people jumping on board?

This person had the answer to the number one question start-up advisers say needs to be answered: What problem does your product solve?

But he didn't have the answer to another, extremely important question: Who are you talking to? This question is the corner piece of any good communications strategy.

If you have a solution to a problem that only affects a very small audience, it's going to be much, much harder to gain traction, even if the product is an excellent idea.

And, if there are any other near-solutions already embedded in the industry, even if they aren't as perfect as your solution, you're going to have to be that much more convincing to pry people away from tried-and-true methods.

So, before you start your new Social Media campaign for that exciting new product, take a second to decide just *who* you need to be speaking to. Do you need to get your industry on board first? Or your peers for review? Perhaps it doesn't matter and you need to get end users first and foremost.

Then map out *where* you intend on speaking with these folks and *how* you plan on bringing them into your fold. Fans do not typically hang out in the same spaces as industry peers - and they rarely use the same language. Match your communications to the venue and the audience

Have a plan for engagement. "Hi everyone, I have a great idea!" is often the tone taken by companies when they appeal to their consumer base. Great ideas are everywhere. What you need is a great plan for execution.

Then, lastly, have a clear, concise way to measure commitment. Know what it is you are trying to achieve - perhaps your first step is simply getting people to sign up, then you hope to convert a percentage to the paying model. Know this first, so you can be honest about your success or failure.

Who you plan on talking to is a critical corner piece of your business' puzzle. Get that organized and you'll find that the rest of your plan will begin to come together neatly.

Social Media is Customer Service - Do What You Say

For any business owner, business development is personal. Whether you have a BD department, or pay someone to do your marketing, ultimately you reap the rewards and it's you who cleans up the mess.

Communicating with people always leaves openings for misunderstandings. Today we'll touch on a few key points to help keep customer communications smooth.

1) Keep Everyone Informed

From the Head of Business Development right down to the kid who comes in three times a week to help re-stock, it is critical that everyone in your organization is on board with development processes, tools, tactics and campaigns. Imagine the potential cost to you if the kid who stocks is headed out the door, and meets a family of five who asks him, "Is this the week when children's shoes are half price?" and he has no idea that the sale is going on. "Uh, no...?" he replies and that family walks away.

This is the same scenario when your Foursquare account tells customers that they get a free appetizer for checking in, but the wait staff has never heard of any such thing.

When companies get a bit larger, it becomes easy to send out memos about critical tactics and assume that they have been read and understood. To avoid gaffes of miscommunication, make it a priority to communicate that today is special, because...to everyone in the company.

2) Be Prepared to Fulfill

Companies that do a lot of promotional campaigns are used to customers walking in with a variety of coupons that may or may not be mixed and matched. When your company offers a deal through Social Media, be prepared to carry through with exceptional service and the deal as described. Even if it's not what you usually do.

3) Don't "Explain," Communicate

When you get on Facebook, are you ready to hear what customers have to say, or are you closing off the Wall, so you can stay blissfully unaware?

Explaining *why* a situation get ugly, or a customer was denied isn't half as powerful a business development tool as making sure the customer gets what they were promised.

The better your communication lines are - responding to general inquiries, knowing what people are saying and not covering your Social Media ears when problems arise, the better you can learn from one BD tactic to another.

Listen to what you employees and customers are saying, then follow up with both. Don't leave employees dangling, don't leave customers unhappy.

Do What You Say and Say What You Do to effectively maximize your Customer Service and Social Media.

Social Media Ranking - Popularity Polls or Tools to Take Control of Your Social Media?

I had an epiphany this week. I was speaking with someone on EmpireAvenue, a new platform that reflects your Social Media Influence as a "stock price." EA tracks your Social Media activities on other platforms, as well as EmpireAvenue itself,  scores you on the individual platforms and assigns you a rising or falling overall "stock price" score.

This is gamification of Social Media in a nutshell, and I was having a hard time really seeing the overall value, even as I was participating (and my "stock" is steadily rising, just so you don't assume that it's sour grapes! ^_^)

Klout is another overall scoring system. It tracks your interactions on certain Social Media platforms, just as EmpireAvenue does, but it presents the data in one overall score, breaking it out by amplification, reach, scope and the like. It does not provide you with separate scores for each of your platforms, just the one overall score.

It's very tempting - and very easy - to use the absolute scores  as measurements of overall value. After all, on Klout I am a "Thought Leader." That should account for something, shouldn't it? But it was the separate scores on Empire Avenue that made me realize I was not really taking a holistic look at my use of Social Media. Sure, I had a Flickr and LinkedIn account, but was I using them to my advantage? Was I focusing my energies more exclusively on Twitter and neglecting my Facebook Fan page? What was the meaning of me being on Quora (which is not tracked)? Was I just scattering my energy, without focus or purpose?

Klout and EmpireAvenue each track different platforms and they weigh each platform differently. A blog post here might mean more to one score than the other. The score is not the point. The meaning behind my actions is the point. The lazy might point to a SM score as a fast way of deciding whether a person is worth their time or money, but for those of us using Social Media on a regular basis, our scores are a great way to see where we need to expand our efforts, tie our communities together and create our whole image out of a series of disparate pieces. It's up to us to understand the meaning behind these apparent popularity rankings and make the changes that will grow our sphere of influence in the healthiest way.

Social Media scores can be more than just a popularity rank - it's up to us to use them as effective measurement tools to understand our impact in our networks.

(Thanks to DDALES for helping me to see the light!)

Your Brand and I Are Not Really Friends

Today on Momeo magazine, Carla Young wrote a genius post on how to get people to be incredibly enthusiastic about your brand. Ironically, I had spent last evening and most of the morning wrestling with customer service of a large brand - that I like! - that left me feeling much less than enthusiastic. The worst part of the experience was that I genuinely like the product, and wish I could recommend it to...well, anyone. But I can't. Because the company doesn't understand that it and I aren't friends.

So often in peer groups, there is one person who doesn't *quite* get that you and they are not really friends. You have to work with them, go to school with them, meet them at the club, but you don't really think of them as a "friend." Well, companies of America - you are that person.

Brands want *way* too much of my personal information. I can see giving you my phone number if I wanted to talk with you, but...I really don't. Ideally, if the product you sell works as it is supposed to, I never will. And if I do have to call you..I'll call you. Real friends don't make us register with a ton of irrelevant info, just to ask if we can get together. A real friend doesn't ask me my birthday or "express service code" every single time I call.

Brands make us repeat ourselves. If I had to give you all my info to get to talk to you, then you HAVE my info. Making me give you the same info over and over and over means you obviously have no idea who I am or why you should care. Friends know why they should care.

Brands want access to my Facebook account. You know, I have a lot of real friends on Social Media Profiles and not one of them has ever demanded access to my information. Real friends understand that.

Brands talk at me, but aren't willing to listen to me. If a friend and I sit down to lunch and the next hour I hear all about the person's drama, without getting a word in edgewise, I don't go out to lunch with that person anymore. Your brand sends me emails from DONOTREPLY@. Friends listen.

Brands ask us to buy into their wacky schemes. When someone comes to me with a great idea that's gonna be awesome, friend or no, I'm skeptical. But I have to listen to you go on and on about new colors/flavors/irrelevant features/overcomplicated contests for who knows what...and you never shut up. How nice you have a new whatever. Go tell someone who wants to buy shares in a gold mine.

Brands never friend us back. When I call a company, the fact that I'm a current owner or subscriber never seems to make the damnedest bit of difference. I get stuck on a long phone queue and disconnected "accidentally" multiple times. There's never a call back (although I have repeatedly given you my phone number.) What friend "accidentally" hangs up on someone without an apology? I have to follow/connect/like you to talk to you, but never get anything in return. No friend treats me that shabbily.

Brands lie to us. We want a product for a reasonable price, that works well, and good service. You tell us all the time that you can give it to us, but...you never do.

Companies, it's pretty obvious that to all of us that your brand and I are not really friends. Stop acting like we are.

Social Media is Your New Front Desk - Who's Answering The Phone?

For fourteen years, I worked at an advertising agency that was, for many of those years, voted the most-respected agency in the field. This agency had the world's most amazing receptionists.

The two women who answered the phones were the most professional receptionists I'd ever encountered. When I arrived for my interview, they knew who I was supposed to see and when. In my years of working there, I saw them memorize clients names, the account representatives they belonged to and even family members. As a client, you were greeted by name, the person you would want to speak with was known - and their whereabouts were confirmed for you. "Oh, John, hi! Jane is out of the office, but she'll be back by 1. I'll have her call you." You were never told to call back - you would always be called.

I have never again encountered receptionists that good. A colleague recently told me about their new receptionist who, when asked to transfer a call to a department in their company replied with "I don't work for that department." As it happens, she was not only inappropriate, but she was also wrong. Sure, she was corrected, but what damage had been done? A potential client was turned away...or a current client was stonewalled. What message does that send?

The same holds true for Social Media. In many cases, your Social Media profiles are peoples' first contact with your company.

There is a company in my industry with a problematic Twitter feed. The tweets are full of factual, grammar and spelling errors. A recent April Fool's Day joke was tasteless and potentially actionable. The joke among industry peers is that we shouldn't bug the poor, unsupervised intern. There is a high likelihood of this being the truth about this Twitter feed. Clearly, no one is watching them, training them, editing or vetting these tweets. And if this is not the truth, what does it say about the company?

Think of Social Media as your front desk. Do you put your best, most dedicated employees out there to make first-line contact? Would you put an uninspired, untrained intern on the front desk?

You know who answers your phones - know who is responsible for your Social Media. Give them clear, specific rules of interaction so that every time they interact with a client or potential client, you put your best foot forward. Your new Front Desk is waiting for a fantastic receptionist.

The Uncanny Valley of Social Media

You know it the moment you see it. You get an email, or a Direct Message, and it's friendly, outgoing...and wholly automated.

"Hi /Your Name/!" It says in imperturbably cheerful tones. "Here's what I can do for you!" Build your website presence, advertise your business, get more friends/followers/contacts, whatever. When you don't know that person and you don't need that thing, you just dismiss it as spam and move on.

But it feels even weirder when you do need that thing, or know that person and are creeped out by the lack of real connection between you, that person and the message you're reading. Who is it for, you wonder? Why am *I* getting it?

You are looking at the Uncanny Valley of Social Media.

Automated Social Media seems like the most obvious and helpful tool. One message across all your platforms will reach the most number of people with the most efficient use of your time. But this is where the Valley lives. In the same way that Advertising works better when you invest money in it to saturate your audience with your message, Social Media works best when you invest time to make your interaction with people authentic and relevant.

Your audience will be able to identify automated Social Media Marketing instantly. You, your business and your message go right into their mental spam filter and not only have you missed your opportunity to connect this time, you've blown it for next time too. Depending on your industry, this could be anywhere from minimally damaging to massively so. A website designer is going to have a harder road to hoe to make a connection on the second try than someone who is selling, say, chocolates.
Your "efficient" form of communication may be perceived as even creepier than you intend it to be. Watch this:



In the above video, you know *exactly* the moment you can see that the face is human, and when it is not. The video was created to study what factors people use to understand when a face looks alive. You can understand instantly when that face is an animation and when it is human. Even knowing that you are watching a simulation, it's hard not to be creeped out by it. Equally, even when I sign up for your newsletter, the tone of your communication might indicate to me that there is no one in there. Like eyes, words are incredibly powerful. Sending generic messages, spammish offers of business development help and automating one message across multiple platforms are dead giveaways. It doesn't take a sophisticated user to identify when a communication is fake.

To avoid the Uncanny Valley in Social Media focus on messaging that is actually relevant to your audience and addresses their needs directly and individually. Take time to get to know your audience, otherwise, you're just another 'bot.

How Social Media Sent Me To Japan

I often see requests for case studies on how businesses use Social Media effectively. I offer up a recent experience I personally had as an example. I want to be as honest as I can about this - there is a trick in this story. I'll tell you the trick at the bottom of the article.

I write another blog, Okazu. It's a blog attached to my avocation, the promotion, creation and publication of Japanese comics. To be very specific, I promote, create, publish and review Japanese comics and animation with lesbian themes. I state this only so you can understand how small the niche I'm positioned in is. My blog is the oldest in the world on the topic and I bring a fairly unique perspective to the issue.

There is a series of novels from Japan that are pretty popular there and mostly all but unheard of here in the West. Recently, a live-action movie was made of the first of these novels. Of course I wanted to go see it, but didn't expect to be able to.

I was on Twitter, discussing it with a friend from Japan. He originally emailed me because of my blog. We've stayed in touch by Twitter and email.

My friend let me know that he had purchased one of the commemorative tickets to the movie for me, so I could get the extras that came with them. Of course I thanked him and immediately started to look up prices for flights. My friend was in a particularly silly mood that night - everything I posted on Twitter, he relayed again, in Japanese. I commented that I would come for the movie, but that flights were more expensive than I was comfortable with. Actually, what I said involved the phrase "highway robbery." He cheerfully translated that I felt the airfares were too high. And then he started to tease me - if only one of your fans would fly you to Japan to see the movie! I posted back that I would certainly go, if someone flew me over...

...and a fan of mine tweeted that she would sponsor me.

Which is how, not two months later, I was able to stand on line in Osaka, Japan and see that movie.

I am not joking about any of this, or making any part of it up. But I did say there was a trick.

The trick is...the story starts almost nine years ago.

Nine years ago I started Okazu. I have been posting reviews, news, opinion pieces, discussions guest columns there for nine years. For nine years, I've been building a readership, a following, a fan base and, for good or bad, a reputation.

The trick here is that Social Media is about building relationships and developing them over time. I met both my Japanese friend and my benefactor a few years ago and we have communicated through email, Facebook, Twitter, sometimes phone, ever since.

This is not an overnight success story - it's not a story about ROI. This is a story about how Social Media really works.

P.S. - The movie was excellent. (^_^)b

Social Media, Not Intrusive Media

Q: When does a "foot in the door" become a "foot in your mouth?"

A: When you fail to take into account the relationship between you and the other person.

There is a kind of person who can't stop themselves from pitching their business to everyone they meet. You've met them, the person on the train who strikes up conversation and ends up handing you their business card for custom candies with your logo on them.

On LinkedIn you encounter them in the Groups and in the Answers. Not the folks who answer a question with their elevator pitch no...the really smart ones ask a question and when you answer them, they thank you with their pitch in your Inbox. "what can I do for you?" they ask in their email and you think
"What? Nothing. You were asking me for help."

You see them on Twitter all the time. "Hey," shows up in your Mentions, "We have some product that was tangentially related to a conversation you had that we didn't actually read, so how can we help you?" (In a recent case I know they hadn't read the conversation because it was about how much I *disliked* the thing they were trying to sell me.)

And on Facebook, you "Like" a business or person and the next thing you know, you're pounded with invites to Pages, Causes, Specials and Events. Um, I "like" your sandwiches, I don't feel the need to donate to your charities, attend your events and vote Sandwichian. Thanks though.

You know that one uncle? The one who - no matter what the conversation - always brings it back to whatever obnoxious topic he rants on about? (It's always an uncle and we all have them....) How everyone in the family has a ten-minute tolerance and you all would just let it drop, but one person *always* has to get into a fight with him? You're sitting there trying to eat Thanksgiving dinner and you sigh and wish they wouldn't be so intrusive about it. When you bomb everyone you meet with the pitch, that's what you've become. Intrusive.

Are you using Social Media...or Intrusive Media? Do you treat every follow as a pitch opportunity, every person who answers a question as a new contact to add to your mailing list?

No one wants a constant stream of untargeted marketing ringing their doorbell, filling their mailboxes, or clogging up their inbox. A handshake isn't a marriage proposal.

Don't Be Intrusive. Keep it Social.

The Power of Social Media is the Power of Choice

Once again, I claim Twitter as the inspiration for a post here on SocialOptimized. Power Twitterer and really nice person Susan Elaine Cooper (aka BuzzEdition), wrote a post in response to people who demanded she Retweet a message they had sent her privately by Direct Message.

In subsequent conversation with her, Susan said to me, "I just need them to respect my right to choose..." And it occurred to me that that, in a nutshell is what is missing from so much of marketing. Choice.

Choice is an incredibly powerful selling tool. The best sales people let you choose your own way into a sale, by offering you two or three options, one of which will increasingly seem sensible to you. The more you reject other options, the more the one that you don't reject seems like a good idea.

For a number of years I sold swords at a Renaissance Festival during the summer. It was fun, and exceptionally challenging, as the items we were selling were 1) REALLY sharp and therefore utterly impossible to carry around and 2) INCREDIBLY expensive. These weren't replicas made out of stainless steel - they were hand crafted, in some cases hand-forged and all individual works of art. At average, a sword would run about $1000. Not an easy sell. The way we sold swords and knives was to offer a choice. "Of these two, which do you like least?" was a common phrase at the booth, followed by removal of the one that was less appealing. We'd offer another option, and ask the customer to choose. After a customer had chosen the same item three or four times, we'd stop extolling the virtues of that item and just listen. Listen to the decision-making process, encourage it, derail friends attempts to stop it. It always had to be the buyer's choice to buy.

On Social Media you have an unprecedented chance to provide your audience with choice. You can't *make* people care about your business...but you can offer people a choice to care. They can follow you, check in with your business, like, retweet and share. All of those are choices made by your audience. Once they've chosen, it's up to you to listen to them. What makes them care - what are they responding to? Offer them options to do more of that and less of this other thing. Being on multiple platforms allows your audience a choice of ways to communicate with you. Having multiple messages means your audience can choose what best suits their interests/needs.

Not everyone who came up to our sword booth bought the first time. In fact, the standard was that a person would come up three or four times - sometimes they would come back another weekend, just to convince themselves that their choice was the right one.

Forcing, insisting, demanding don't work on Social Media. No one has an obligation to care about your message and no one has an obligation to promote it for you. Offer them a choice and if they choose not to care or promote, it's time to walk away. (Throwing hissy fits is never a good business practice.)

The power of Social Media is the power of choice. Offer your audience the ability to choose; respect the choice they make and those that become your market will be that much more motivated to support you, since they have chosen to care about you.

Curating Healthy Relationships With Your Consumers and Avoiding Unhealthy Ones

Everyone says that Social Media is all about "building relationships" with your consumers. The problem is that everyone says that like it's a really easy thing to do - something that should somehow be obvious and intuitive.

Unfortunately, people are rarely simple, obvious or intuitive. Our graphical user interfaces are pretty communicative - smiles and frowns go a long way to communicating our feelings - but when we move to text, we're back in the old DOS days of human-to-human interaction. In other words, you can't really hear tone of voice or see a smile in text.

Here's a few thoughts on building, curating and managing healthy relationships with your customers:

A discount is not a relationship

Because humans are complex, building a relationship is rarely as simple as giving a discount. A discount might bring someone through the door, but only good service, high quality and/or perceived value will keep that person coming back. Of those, "perceived value" is the only one that will get someone to spread the word for you.


A new friend is not the same as an old friend

Old friends have stuck with you through thick and thin. They support you in times of need. Well-established customer relationships are like old friends. You can skip the introductions, the polite banter and go right to the meat of a message. New friends, however, don't really know you, your business or what their place in your network is. Take a little more time to listen, to respond, be a little extra patient, go out of your way just one more time for them. And avoid the pernicious habit of assuming that every inquiry is a sales lead. Not every comment, like or share is the same a request for more information.


The larger your business, the creepier and less sincere personalization is

If I stop drinking a particular major brand of cola, it would be beyond creepy and disturbing for me to receive a communication from them asking what had happened. On the other hand, if the local coffee place noticed I stop drinking regular coffee and had switched to decaf, it would be pretty normal for them to ask what was up.

Know what reasonable limits you can have on personalization. Keep to them. The bigger your business is, the less like a healthy relationship it will seem to your consumer if you know everything about them.


Pay attention to verbal cues

Once you have a relationship established with a consumer, it's critical to pay attention to their verbal cues. Signs of personal pride associated with your business is good. Signs of brand loyalty is good. When your consumer becomes your advocate, you'll see them talk about you without prompting. Respond anyway, so they know you're paying attention...and so that you can manage the message. No matter how enthusiastic your customer is - often because s/he is enthusiastic - your message will get garbled. "Telephone" is not just a silly kid's game. It's typical of the way humans communicate.


Watch for Red Sirens and Blinking Lights

In a personal relationship, it's easy to see that your friend is becoming needy or detached. In business-consumer relationships, it's not quite as easy. One of the simplest cues to the fact that your customer and you do not have a healthy relationship is when they respond to your general communicatios as if you are talking personally to *them.* Avoid responding to this, unless you need to manage perceptions. General comments should remain general, personal conversations personal. Don't mix and match and don't allow the customer to mix and match for you. Boundaries are critical between you and your business relationships, just as they are in personal relationships.

Take time to address your relationships individually and you'll build healthy relationships with your consumers.

Social Media and the Art of Honesty

In sleight of hand we learn that most people can be manipulated pretty simply, by a fast patter and flashy misdirection.

Recently, I saw a major corporation try this tactic using Social Media. Instead of addressing a major problem, they used their Twitter feed to throw a shiny, meaningless reward at their audience in return for behavior that is, at the very least distasteful, at the most, debasing.

Social Media is not sleight-of-hand. I've said it before and I'll say it again - you cannot fake the "Social" part of Social Media. Either you are holding meaningful conversations with the people who care about your business, or you are not.

When you decide to engage your audience through Social Media, you must be willing to *engage* them. Boilerplate answers and cheesy misdirection will not only not help, they will actively hurt your reputation. And, whether you are on a particular Social Network or not, your audience is. Poorly conceived responses, sleight-of-hand PR, and any negativity will spread like wildfire. You cannot afford a hissy fit on Social Media, you cannot assume your audience are children and will be pacified with a cookie (as the major corporation above did.)

Good Social Media is the Art of Honesty. Talk about things you know about and love with other people who love them too. Be as real as you can, be as honest and upfront as you can. Consider how you would feel about being asked to do the things you are asking of your audience.

Take Responsibility for your communications and practice the Art of Honesty. You won't sway everyone, but you'll gain the respect and support of many - which is the true value of Social Media.

What Makes You Niche?

Niche marketing has been all the rage for the last few years. However, it frequently seems as if "niche" is an ever-moving target that is shifting faster than you can run. Only a few years ago, Apple was "niche"... now Apple's market capitalization has surpassed Microsoft's.

Your business might not be an Apple or a Microsoft, but knowing what niche you inhabit can significantly increase your return on your Social Media investment.


Let's say you own a sports shoe and sneaker store. What makes your store niche?

1) Location -  You might not run the *only* shoe store in town, but you probably run one of a very few. It's pretty unlikely that you're competing with three or four shoe stores with exactly the same stock in one town, unless that "town" is a city. You inhabit a niche - your town and the area immediately around it.

Your Social Media: Using location-focused advertising seems obvious. Consider involving your business with local events, local organizations. A table at a town fair or Founder's Day is still "social media." Your medium is personal interaction. Focus on a local network on Facebook, search for local key opinion leaders on Twitter, encourage locals to check in on Foursquare. Have a website? A blog about relevant items locally can be fun and informative - for instance, perhaps you sell barefoot running gear and a local marathon or fundraising run/walk is happening next week. Being part of the event works to everyone's benefit and you come off as knowledgeable, relevant to the local scene, and kinda cool for helping raise awareness.

2) Topic - Maybe you run an online shoe store. Now you're competing against many more companies, manufacturers, and local brick-and-mortar stores. You can't compete with Zappos or the local store on convenience, but perhaps you can on *relevance.* People who run are passionate. Long-distance, ultra-marathoners and other runners want good, personalized information. Casual buyers might want customizable shoes. Your niche can be owning a topic or set of topics in a way that a large online entity cannot.

Your Social Media: Obviously, a blog works well for this kind of thing. But if you don't have time for that, a newsfeed customized for your key audience, or a customized toolbar can provide you with Top of Mind Status, and your audience with targeted, fresh information. A Facebook or Twitter widget can bring your audience in direct contact with ongoing conversations about the topics that are important to them and you'll have a chance to interact with them directly. A forum or discussion group can be turned into a community space where your business sits in the center of the communications web.

3) Skill - Perhaps your store has state-of-the-art equipment to image feet and provide suggestions for the best possible shoes or orthotics. Or maybe you repair or enhance shoes. Every extra skill you have to share becomes a niche that sets your business apart from your competition. There may be three stores that sell shoes, but only *yours* can provide shoes for feet with issues.

Your Social Media: There are many specialty forums and groups on the Internet where people discuss their needs, whatever they are. A few minutes on a search engine using the special skills you possess as keywords can turn up spaces where people are looking for that very thing. Tell the people in those spaces how you can help them and you'll find that you'll make a splash in your niche. Then it's just up to you to carry it through with your skills!

4) Uniqueness - Special offers are not all that unique. Comfy fitting chairs, or a coffee bar might be a one-time draw for a person, but what make your business truly unique is...you. Your experience, your knowledge, your personality. These are things that cannot be faked, replicated or standardized. If your staff is incredibly well-suited to handle problem feet, or your staff contains a marathoner, a hiker and an Iron Man competitor, this kind of unique understanding and ability is the best and most authentic promotion money can buy.

Your Social Media: An Ask the Expert feature on your web site can show off your and your staff's unique perspective in a way that no advertising can ever do. Use Twitter or any other Social Network to discuss experiences, adventures and expertise with other people and with your potential audience. Use each network's search feature to find relevant conversations and encourage your staff - and yourself - to be part of them.

Once you've found your niche, inhabit it as largely as you can. Become the nexus for specialist information and skills and people will look for you, as a major player in that niche.

Social Media - Time Well Spent, Money Not Spent at All

The Phantom Project.

Every business, every household has one.

You probably can instantly identify your Phantom Project. You know, the one you'll do when you have some time, or a little bit of money? That project. The one you'll never actually get to, because you'll never have enough time and money to devote to it and when you do, something else more critical and immediate rears it's head to fill the vacuum.

For many businesses, Social Media is that Phantom Project.

Talking on various Social Networks takes too long, or it cost too much to build a presence. Since time and money are the two primary currencies of business, there seems to be an insurmountable wall between you and effective Social Media. And so it becomes a Phantom Project.

Here's a few tips to taking Social Media off the Phantom Project list and moving it to the Priority Project list.

1) Social Media is only expensive if you want it to be.

The most effective Social Media presences are small companies in small markets that build a following by being unique, relevant and authentic. Whether you're a local sandwich shop offering deals to your followers, or a indie band mobilizing your fans effectively, you don't have to have a slick, expensive look. Just a unique, authentic message that is relevant to the people who might care. Fancy design is rendered pointless by the number of people checking their networks on mobile devices. Expensive design is expensive - being real is priceless.


2) In Social Media, your Time is worth more than Money

For a small business owner, Time is more precious than Money. You might be able to get more money, but there really are only so many hours in the day.

So how do you fit Social Media into your already full schedule? By giving yourself an allowance.

Every day you read the paper, watch TV, answer email. Add to that list - talking with people online. Maybe you only spend five minutes every morning. Check your Facebook group and ask a question, or respond to one. Talk to one, two, three people on Twitter. Check the folks who mentioned you on Foursquare, connect with one new person on LinkedIn. Do not exceed the allowance of time you've given yourself. You have ten minutes - spend ten minutes. Prioritize the networks you're on. You find one that brings in more customers? Start there. If that takes up your ten minutes, drop the others for the day. You can't be everywhere, you can't do everything. Allow yourself to focus on one network to the detriment of the others. If Twitter sucks away an hour, then avoid it unless that hour is worth your Time.

Make hard decisions about your Social Media, the same way you do about any other form of promotion or networking. It might be worth more to advertise in a local paper than to join the Chamber of Commerce. You won't do both if it's not worth it to you.

You don't waste your time and money off-line, don't waste it online either.

Bank your hours, give yourself an allowance every week, and you'll find that the interest rate will pay well, when you've developed meaningful relationships with your consumers, your vendors and your peers.

Many Ways to Get it Right, Even When You Got it Wrong

One of the concerns about Social Media that I rarely hear voiced among small and medium-sized businesses is the fear of "Getting it Wrong." While few people ever actually come out and say it, it's clear that many business owners fear saying something stupid and being branded negatively, as a result.

Let's get this out of the way right off - you can't make everyone happy. Not all the time, not some of the time...never.

No matter how carefully you behave in social spaces you're going to make a fool of yourself one day. Putting our feet in our mouths is a time-honored tradition of the human race.

So, how do you handle a negative situation? By remembering that, at the *very* beginning of your interaction, the other party has no anti-you agenda.

A person comes into your store and you are on the phone with something very important. Important enough that you simply cannot put it on hold, or talk around it. The potential customer waits, waits, waits. They walk around the store a few times, so clearly, there is something you can help them with, or they'd leave right away. And still, you really, positively can't get off the phone. You watch with increasing frustration as they try and signal you, or they start to look frustrated and eventually, after 20 minutes, they leave muttering.

That night when you login to Twitter, there's someone saying how you couldn't be bothered to help them, even though they were right there in the store! The person is angry and hurt and you are cast as the bad guy.

Yes, you could offer an explanation, but that probably won't solve the problem of the angry would-be customer. And explanations don't fix the problem. But there are ways of effectively handling the situation.

1- Prioritize your response

This person is angry for...what? Because you seemed to ignore them? Because you were on a phone call and didn't get off? Because they *might* have brought you business or because they *were definitely* going to bring you business?

If the person was just shopping around, they may or may not have actually given you business. Your phone call might really have been more critical. Could you have made/taken that phone call at a different time, or had someone else watch the front while you dealt with it?

Assess what, exactly, you are responding to.

2 - Apologize anyway

"I apologize - there was a terrible misunderstanding" covers a LOT of territory. Take responsibility for the situation. Don't try to explain it away at this point. It'll sound like an excuse. Own the mix-up, say it was on you. It shows that you get that there is a problem. Saying, "well there was mix-up, but there was a 'closed' sign on the door" still sounds like you want the other party to take responsibility but, from their point of view they did nothing wrong except enter your store.

Don't waste time assigning blame. No one cares. it doesn't help the potential customer to know that Jimmy the store clerk was at fault. All anyone wants is for the business to take responsibility and *do* something about it.

3 - Don't ask questions they've already answered

I once vented about a bad company policy online. The company asked me what happened. I explained that if they cared what happened all they had to do was look at my tweets - which they did not do. They then ignored the point of my complaint and offered to help me by "looking at my paperwork." This was a bad suggestion because 1) I had none, having left the store without a making a transaction - something they would have understood has they read the thread - and 2) because that is not a suggestion that any human is inclined to feel is meant to be helpful. By offering to "help" in a way designed to get them out of blame, they didn't "help" me feel any more inclined to give them money ever again.

4 - Understand that the other person is angry

When you've been hung up on, you get angry. When the checkout person is obnoxious, you get angry. When your order arrives broken, you get angry. Understand that the potential customer is *angry.* Treat them the way you want to be treated if it were you. Anything else is disingenuous and will not help you. Presuming they have some kind of agenda and were out to get you in the first place is delusional.

And here's the money shot:

5 - Offer fair, equitable and open-handed options

If you have no options to offer your detractor do NOT respond to him or her. You cannot make yourself look better by saying "Sorry, oh well." If you really think their business is worth it - offer something fair to make it up to them. Don't be half-assed or underhanded about this. You might be angry too, but taking someone for a fool is unforgivable.

If you're not going to follow through all the way in this process - do not engage the person at all. You cannot fake being a reasonable, kind person with good business ethics if you are not *actually* a person with good business ethics. Either you put up - or shut up.

Bonus Tip

Never, EVER, reply to a comment about bad customer service with some boilerplate line about how your "customers are important to you" or how "you are working to serve the customer better." It's just about the most asinine thing you can say to a person who just received crappy customer service for whatever reason.

With every step you take towards resolution, you have many ways to turn situation around. Treat your potential customers with dignity and respect and even when you got it wrong, you have a chance to make it right.

The Value of a Relationship

You start a new job and you find that one of the folks you're working with clicks with you. You go out to lunch, you chat about your family, the two of you bounce ideas off of one another and share resources.

What's the quantitative value of that relationship?

You might be able to say to someone - "that person's been a colleague and friend for 25 years. We've shared a lot." Maybe you and that person have shaved time and costs off your work by pooling resources and sharing information. But is that *directly* measurable? Can you say, "I ate X number of lunches with Larry, and that translated to Y number of dollars saved?"

Today's post is not about how to measure the ROI of your Social Media Strategy, it's about how you can think differently about the value of relationships. And hopefully this post will encourage you to think as creatively as you can about the value of your relationships with your customers or clients.

Instead of regarding each relationship as a sale, perhaps you can think of your customers as a potential auxiliary marketing or sales force. Every time you you take a moment to speak with a person - face-to-face or online - you are recruiting a potential advocate.

If you have already made a sale, taking time out of your day to talk to that client could equal the value of another sale, when that client is impressed enough to bring a friend to you.

The people who connect with you online were at least motivated to click a button once. With every interaction, try to *at least* motivate them to click a button again. Digg, Retweet, "Like" "Rate this post" - each post you make, each time you talk, are people motivated to *share* that post?

The people who follow you are the people who can tell the world about your business.

Your Social Media Strategy should seek at every turn to turn those people loose on the world to talk about you and your business in the most glowing of terms.

There's no punchline here - the value of each relationship you form is as priceless as you make it.

The Learning Gap

If you're in Social Media, you've run up against The Wall.

The Wall takes on a number of forms. Here are few examples:

"But, I don't have time to do all this."

"Isn't there an easier way to do this?"

"Can't I just aggregate all my social networks into one list and send out one message to them all?"

The Wall is not made of ignorance, or greed. It's not made of impatience or need.

The Wall is built of Fear.

You are coming at the problem from the point of view that the tools are, in and of themselves, totally comprehensible and useful.

You are coming at this from the perspective that the more tools a person uses the better they can get their message out to people who want to hear about it.

Your client is afraid. They are afraid of the gaps in their own knowledge.

As adults, we live lives in which we must be instantly competent at everything we do, even if the technology or process is completely new to us. There is no ramp-up time, no learning curve for us. Maybe we're lucky and we take a training class, but that's it - from that point on, we're mostly on our own, until we reach out - at a cost - to a professional for guidance. And doing that is an admission that we have failed as adults. We fear this admission. We fear those things that makes us feel that way - and we fear the people who bring it to our attention, even when we ourselves have contacted those people to assist us.

This is the Learning Gap.

Before you Bridge the Technology Gap, You Must Bridge the Learning Gap

As a Social Media Professional, you must understand that to some people every page of every system is a whole new system to learn. It may be self-evident to you that Help is in the top right-hand corner of almost every page on the Internet, but it is not self-evident to a high percentage of users.

People do not know what they do not know. even after you've taught them, because they do not know how to Learn things. They may be convinced that they cannot learn this thing or that this is all too confusing. As a SM professional, you need to bridge these gaps first, encourage and reward your client as they learn - teach your client to learn...and teach them that failure is all right. No one will penalize them, there are no red marks if they get it wrong a few times. Encourage your client to play with, and then transition them to work with this new technology. Give them spaces in which they can fail without feeling stupid, or less than competent. Bridge the Learning Gap.

No one is going to look at you and say, "I'm afraid of my own ignorance - I'm afraid to try and Learn something new and I'm afraid that if I don't I'll lose business." But that, in a nutshell is the Wall.

So, when your client looks at you and says, "I don't have time to do all that," listen to what is really being said, and start Bridging the Learning Gap, first. Then it'll be easy to teach your client the Technology they need to succeed.

Social Media Without Delusion at ArtsCAP on 1/26

I'll be presenting the keynote speech at ArtsCAP's Electronic Media Bootcamp on January 26th in AsburyPark. I'll be talking about the Three Dimensions of Social Media.

In the meantime, here's my presentation from AsburyPop on "Social Media Without Delusion"



Thanks to Laura Gesin for putting this up on the VoxPop site and to John Kaplow for asking me to be part of this exciting ArtsCAP event!

Questions You Need To Ask Before Launching a Social Media Promotion

This series began with tactics to build, maintain and sustain a Social Media presence. In Developmental Tactics, we looked at some of the day-to-day tasks that would nourish a Social Media presence and bring it to maturity. For the purposes of today's discussion, we're going to assume that you are doing all those things as a matter of course and are now getting ready to launch something...something big. It might be a new website or your book, your band has a big gig, or your store is running a mid-winter sale...whatever it is, it's time to promote.

Before you create a promotional campaign, here's a few questions you must be able to answer in order to know what kind of campaign to run - and where to run it.

1) Who is this promotion for?

Is it for your established customers or are you trying to bring in new clients? Have you maxxed out the potential in one niche and want to focus on another? Is this promotion a way to bring old fans back into the fold?

Knowing who you are targeting in terms of where they are in their relationship with you, will help you craft a message that isn't obscure to newbies, or condescending to old friends.

One-size-fits-all releases makes sense if you are scattering your word widely across unfamiliar spaces and hoping someone there will be interested. In Social Media your network is made up of people and spaces that have a specific relationship with you and your business. Know who you're talking to to know what to say.


2) What's in it for them?

Once you know who you are talking to - and you may very well decide to have two or three different foci for you campaign, before you start choosing media, answer this - what is the benefit for the intended audience in what you are about to promote?

You know the benefit - the new website has more interactivity, or the collaborative tools will provide greater productivity, or the video or book is informative and/or entertaining. Can you make it interesting to your 12-year-old niece? (If you don't have a 12-year old niece, you can borrow mine. She has a finely tuned BS meter.) Look beyond the jargon and look honestly at whether you are selling snake oil or something solid. If you are working in a highly technical, specialized or professional field jargon is a requirement - but behind that, is there something real? If so, what? When you think about where to talk about your new project, think about what the benefit to your audience is, not the benefit to you. Sure - your new website looks nice, but if you have the same info as before, you'll keep getting the same bounce rate. Tell your audience what's in it for them, then deliver it to them.


3) What are the chances that they will watch/read/listen to/use what you are promoting?

Here's that moment that comes in every post here at SocialOptimized - the moment I ask you to step back and view your business without delusion.

Of course *you* are excited about the new book, site, sale or tool. You are happily trumpeting it everywhere you can think of. Take a deep breath and ask yourself "If it wasn't *my* business, would I care?" Be honest. In your enthusiasm, you may have slightly over-stated expectations for your ROI. Maybe your mailing list or FB page has 147 members, but you ordered 2400 t-shirts.

Engagement can't be forced - you have to offer your audience something of interest to them. A video-focused audience might not be as excited as you are about a whitepaper or a presentation.

Using your basic building and development tactics will ensure that your new endeavor reaches the ears of people who are interested - you've Found Your Audience. Ask yourself the above questions to help you create a promotion that will get them to to Engage with your business.

Don't Automate - Communicate

"Where can I find a one-click automated solution to all my social sites?"

I see this question constantly and, frankly, it sends up all sorts of warning sirens and flashing red lights in my opinion. The need to automate is a sign that a company is more interested in their time than mine.

Let's take a step back and look at the gap here.

Why do people use Social Media? They use Social Media to talk with friends, clients, professional and personal connections. In other words - they have conversations.

How do people use Social Media? They share pictures and videos, comment on each other's statuses, play games...in other words, they communicate with other people.

People do not join a Social Network to be advertised to. Yes, we're all aware that that pays the bills, and we're willing to tolerate it in return for a free experience, but - the moment you think the point of a Social Network is the advertising, you have fallen into delusion. This is why just having a "presence" in a Social Network has no real meaning and why people aren't jumping aboard your Fan page, or following you on Twitter.

The Keys to Great Social Media are Relevance and Authencity

How authentic are your communications? If you are automating one message across multiple platforms, the answer is - not at all. You're using a broadcast model, and not only are you not accomplishing what you hope to do, you're alienating the very people you hoped to engage. Essentially, you have turned your business communications into Spam.

How relevant are your communications? Do you post the same message over and over on Twitter? Do you "target" people by keyword, then reply to them out of context with a pitch for your site, product or service? Getting involved with a conversation about your area of expertise shows you can listen as well as talk. Communication is more than one-way.

Talking with people takes more time than talking at them. But it also provides your potential customer with the knowledge that you are more than just a faceless drone, spitting out press releases. And it assures them that you value their time as much as you do your own.

Be real - don't automate, communicate.

Why Companies Are Afraid To Talk To You

It was my sincere pleasure to be asked to write a guest blog post this week for Web Marketing Therapy. The topic is one I think about *every* day, as I try to find companies that treat me not as a "valued resource" but as a genuinely important part of their business. It's maddening to see companies treat clients, customers and consumers like animals in a cage, teasing us with bad sales tactics and beating us with terrible customer support.

Of course, after any bad experience we can't help but think, "Why?" And so, please join me on Web Marketing Therapy for Why Companies Are Afraid to Talk To You.

I'd love to hear your feedback - and your good and bad experiences with large companies and small!