Simon Salt's Blog, page 2

SXSW From The Sidelines

This is the first year I haven’t attended SXSW in seven years. I’ve attended badged, unbadged as a speaker and as an attendee. This year I was in both the fortunate and unfortunate position of being swamped with work. I was very tempted when a big brand offered me a free ticket and transportation to and from the event but at the end of the day I had to do what was right for my clients, my business and myself. So I stayed home.

That all said it has been interesting to watch SXSW via social media and news outlets and to get a sense of how those on the edge or the outside of the tech/social marketing industry view it. This post is in part inspired by an article I read on CNET and posted about on Facebook. As I mentioned in my Facebook post I was surprised by the tone of the article. The writer seemed to be taken aback that SXSW has become increasingly a brand showcase. Obviously they haven’t been attending SXSW very long.

I, along with many others have berated SXSW organizers in the past for letting the conference become too big and too dominated by brands. This year I have changed my position. What I believe SXSW has become is a Brand version of CES. It isn’t limited to tech brands – Pepsi are a major presence, CNN have grown their presence each year, even Oreo’s all had a major presence this year. So why fight this direction. Rather I’d like to see SXSW actually embrace it. Every industry has it’s showcase. The automotive industry has events like the International Motor shows that take place in LA, Detroit, Dallas, Geneva, London and countless other cities. CES is the consumer electronics industry’s show case. Why not marketing?

SXSW could easily be repositioned as that, an opportunity for the smartest of the smart digital marketers to show off what they have done and what they are planning to do in the coming months. Along side this the other changes I would make would be to scrap the sessions. Yes I know that is sacrilege, after all what is SXSW without content – well actually SXSW without content is pretty much what I have already described, a digital marketing show case. So why do we need the content? A lot of the content is repetitive, derivative and some just ridiculous.

Rather I’d like to see a series of education sessions around the city paid and produced by Brands. This allows for a much needed and greater level of transparency than we currently get in sessions. When you attend a session, unless the speakers are completely honest, you have no idea who paid for them to be there, who they are promoting (either overtly or covertly) and what their angle is. If you were to attend a session or group of sessions clearly sponsored and produced by a Brand then you know, going into it, that the speakers have some form of association with the brand – and that, by the way, is totally ok. As a professional speaker I get paid to speak at events which means someone somewhere paid my speaker fee, travel and accommodation. Usually that is an event sponsor, which means at the very least I am going to give them a thank you from the podium.

In the format I am proposing the audience already knows the connection so there is no wondering. You can pull the curtain aside and simply enjoy the content. What is more, there would be a direct measure for brands in terms of ROI at SXSW. Instead of simply counting the number of people who stopped by the booth and took some of the swag, butts on seats and the ability to follow up with those people is much more rewarding.

So what do you think? Is this a model of SXSW you would attend?

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Why Online Real Estate Matters for Your Small Business

Today A Guest Post from President and COO of www.reputationchanger.com, Mike Zammuto.

Have you ever gone to sign up for a new URL for a company website or blog — or perhaps to activate a company Twitter account or Facebook page — and been disappointed to find that the account name or URL you hoped for had already been claimed by someone else? This is, of course, hugely frustrating — because once those pieces of online real estate are claimed, there is really nothing you can do to win them back! Losing out on these key online properties is not just a source of frustration, however. It is also seriously bad news for your online branding and reputation management efforts.

Consider these two facts. For one, the domains associated with your branded terms — i.e., YourCompanyName.com — are the ones that are likely going to show up when someone searches for your small business on Google or Bing. Naturally, you want to make sure that the page is filled out with positive information about your brand! Second, it is far from unheard of for rival companies and even disgruntled employees to seize these online properties and use them for purposes of online defamation and embarrassment; to avoid “phantom” URLs or Facebook pages, operating under your brand name, it is imperative to snatch up these online assets as promptly as possible!

Considering Your Branded Terms

The first question that a small business owner faces is simply this: Which online assets do you need to obtain? Here it is important to think through all of your branded terms. Obviously, you want the domains associated with your company or brand name. If your brand is something somewhat generic — if you own a Chinese restaurant called China Buffet, for example — you may also want to register some geographically specific online assets (i.e., ChinaBuffetNYC.org, or ChinaBuffetAsheville.net) in order to distinguish yourself.

It is not just your brand name that you should consider. What would it mean for your company, were your key executives to become subjects of online defamation? Protect against this by buying the online domains associated with your most visible leaders. You might even register the assets associated with your products, if your products have specific, branded names — something like “iPhone” or “Big Mac.”

A Word About Exact Match Domains

It is important, here, to note that Google has imposed some regulations against the widespread use of “exact match” domains — which means that if you create websites under YourBrand.com, org, and .net, you may actually end up receiving search engine penalties. Even so, it is a good idea to buy all of these domains. You may not use them all, but simply stocking up on them will prevent others from using them against you!

A Checklist of Assets

Small business owners should begin this process by thinking critically about the branded terms they need to protect — but once this is done, it comes time to actually register for the appropriate online assets. Which kinds of online real estate do companies need to lay claim to? There are a few items worth noting.

We have already suggested that buying the proper domain names is important. You absolutely want to be the one to have control over what is posted to YourBrand.com, .org, and.net, and you want to have similar control over the domains associated with your products and your key executives.

Beyond that, it is important to consider the ways in which a potential customer or client might search for you on the Web. What if your company is called Sammie’s Widget Emporium? Is it possible that some clients will search for you under the name Sammy’s? If so, obtaining the domain associated with this spelling variant might prove helpful.

The geographically specific domains can also prove handy. Again, simply think through how people might search for your company. If Sammie’s Widget Emporium is located in Charleston, South Carolina, there is a decent chance that folks will search for “Sammie’s Widgets Charleston” — and as such, you want to make sure you, not your business rivals, have control over SammiesWidgetsCharleston.com!

More Items on the Checklist

Gaining control of these pieces of online real estate is important, but there are still further assets over which small businesses might lay claim. These are the social media accounts. Again, you may not use all of the social media accounts associated with your brand — but it is prudent to establish your control over as many of them as possible. Your checklist should include Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, and even Pinterest and Instagram.

Snatching up all of these online assets is something that may take a little bit of time — but it is time well spent. Obtaining these online properties effectively insulates your brand from online reputation assaults down the road. As such, it can afford small business owners some peace of mind about how their companies are portrayed on the Web.

Before becoming President and COO of www.reputationchanger.com, Mike Zammuto worked with a number of leading Internet companies. Reputation Changer offers a variety of online reputation management services.

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Metrics lead to improved customer experience

It’s been twenty years since I had to purchase diapers for either of my daughters, so it might seem strange that I am writing about diapers here, and actually I’m not, the point of this post is to highlight a use case in understanding your customers. What sparked my interest was seeing that Diapers.com has recognized that the traffic they receive to their website is coming from mobile devices and that traffic is increasing.

I’ve been saying this for years now in my presentations, use the metrics available to your organization to make changes that get you closer to your customer. Don’t make assumptions, don’t jump on bandwagons, look at the behavior of your customer and then help them get more connected to your brand in a way that makes sense to them. While other brands might think that it would be a great idea to start a pinterest campaign with a board full of cute baby pictures, this brand is focused on doing something that drives value to the bottom line (no pun intended).

According to Diapers.com their customers “.. have been steadily moving to shop via mobile and tablet devices -  in December 2012 40 percent of all Diapers.com traffic came from mobile and tablet devices, an increase of more than 100% from the year prior.” If you see behavior changes like that and don’t respond are you really connected to your customers? Probably not. So Diapers.com produced an iPad app that allows customers to shop for and complete a purchase from their iPad. Diapers.com is part of Quidsi Inc, Ron Feldman, director of Quidsi’s mobile and tablet group said “Our mission is to make shopping for baby essentials as easy as possible, and our customers have been telling us that shopping on a tablet is a key part of that.”

Not only does the app provide a mobile shopping experience but it syncs with the website so that a purchase started on a computer can be completed on the iPad later. Obviously recognizing that those purchasing diapers aren’t always in a position to simply sit down and tackle one task at a time, they are much more likely to be multi-tasking and something like diaper shopping, while essential, is also something that should be quick and easy.   Like other grocery apps the new Diapers.com app includes functionality to store frequently purchased items and select them again when they need replacing.

What I really like about this use case is that it shows an organization that is striving to know its customers better, is responding to their behavior and is adjusting its purchase path accordingly. I’d love to see more brands adopting this type of focus on customer behavior instead of opting for what they think is a quick and easy solution via social tools. Knowing your customer and responding to their needs is the best path to increased loyalty and consumer advocacy.

What brands are you seeing that are being responsive to customer behavior?

image used under CC by Chesi


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3 Things Your Business Should Spend On Before Social Media

I have no doubt that you have already seen a dozen posts on the best Social Media tips and tricks for 2013, but before you start writing your must do list of Social Media I want to encourage you to spend money on three different things before you do.

Before I get into the three things you should spend on, I’m not saying that Social Media isn’t worth spending on, what I am saying is that it isn’t the priority that some Social Media “guru’s” would have you believe.

Customer Service

This should be a no-brainer and yet for some reason here we are in 2013 and still companies think that a great Facebook page or a fun Twitter competition will some how make up for bad Customer Service. I think we can all agree the point of Social Marketing is to tap into the “Word of Mouth” channel that already exists.

Businesses need to realize that the thing people talk about most is bad experiences and no where more than on Social channels. Investing in outstanding customer service will lead to happy and satisfied customers who are more than willing to recommend you. Zappo’s is often cited as a great example of a “Social Business”. I call BS on that, what they are is a superbly customer focused business.  Investing in Customer Service is investing in your customers and they will show their appreciation with repeat business and repeat referrals.

Employees

How many times have you had a bad experience with a brand because of the point of human contact you had. Even the most patient of us (I should exclude myself from that statement because I have very little patience) who try to understand that the human being we are interacting with isn’t the company, they just work there and they are probably just following instructions.

The problem is that a lot of companies don’t see the connection between the point of contact and the point of sale. The person at the cash register isn’t just the operator and receiver of customer money. They are the face of your organization. Whether it is a can of beans or a sports car, people buy from people. Investing in employees makes great business sense, but it also makes for great customer experiences. As I pointed out above, providing great customer experiences leads to great customer commentary – the same thing you are trying to achieve with that Facebook page, Twitter account, Instagram/Pinterest competition.

Education

A few years ago I was listening to Peter Shankman deliver a great session, he made one particular statement that has stuck with me ever since. He said that he was more than willing to pay for anyone who worked for him to take a writing course because communication is at the core of what we do.

He couldn’t be more right, but I would take it further. Invest in education for yourself, for your employees. Teach them skills that your business needs, give them the ability to do more for your business and you will retain them longer. Sure they will leave eventually and you will have to start again, but you’ll have to do that anyway. Investing in them will make them more invested in you. Don’t leave yourself out of the equation either. Many small business owners I have met have never held management positions, suddenly they have employees and beyond telling them what to do they have little or no knowledge about how to get the best from them. Taking a few personnel management/human resources courses at a local college will be an investment you won’t regret.

Those are the three things I would suggest you invest in before Social, what would you add to the list?

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Twitter Vine: A Product Going Nowhere

Last week the Social Media Guru’s were at it again, declaring the creation of the next big thing as Vine, the 6 second Video platform produced by Twitter. Only last week I wrote about Facebook’s Graph Search as being rolled out purely for those in the industry – a product that no one else would care about. Seems Twitter is doing the same thing.

Let’s not forget that short video has been done before, via the Twitter platform no less in the form of 12 Sec video, a platform that shut down two years ago. It seems that Twitter now feels it is in the right space to compete with Facebook. After the acquisition last year by Facebook of Instagram I am sure that Twitter felt the need to produce something that was visual. They already shut Instagram out of the Twitter API, so launching a visual product of their own was an obvious step.

The problem is that video and stills are not the same thing, not by any stretch of the imagination. Firstly Instagram, while not exactly making photographers out of its users has at least made better picture takers out of some of them. The use of filters has taught some Instagram users concepts like composition and lighting or at least some steps toward those elements of photography. Video however is a lot more complex than simply slapping a filter on an image to make certain elements “pop”.

Video has to be a lot more interesting to capture a viewers attention, even if it is for only 6 seconds. The fact that the video loops makes these videos look more like animated gifs than real video and that in itself is a problem, it reduces their value even further. Obviously Twitter is hoping that this platform will catch on with brands and marketers and will at some point be folded into their revenue generation efforts. Some brands are already using it. Take a look at this collection put together by Social Fresh. Not exactly Spielberg is it?

This is part of the over all issue with Social Media platforms, it is leading not to the increase in creativity but to the dumbing down of marketing. Why bother brainstorming something creative when you can simply shoot a 6 second video of a bunch of staff dancing in the office and then post it in the hopes that “fans” will reshare it and it will go “Viral”.

Don’t be fooled by this platform, it will go the way of Chatroulette and other attempts to harness video by people who really don’t understand the visual arts at all. Some of Vine’s other critics have pointed out that it has become an hotbed for porn – really? Amazing an online video platform being used for porn, say it isn’t so! I think porn is the last of Twitter’s issues for Vine.

Have you tried Vine?

 

 

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Why Facebook’s Graph Search Doesn’t Matter

Last week Facebook launched another new feature, Graph Search. When I heard the name my eyes glazed over – it sounded far too like a high school math class to me. In many ways it is. There have already been hundreds of posts about the amazing new feature, how it will empower, enhance and otherwise improve the lives of those using Facebook. Except it won’t.

Facebook and other tech companies have, in recent years, fallen into the habit of solving problems no one has. Facebook Graph Search is yet another example of that. Of course marketers are all excited about the prospect of being able to find more people on Facebook, especially via their interests and those who make a living via networking and selling affiliate type programs are no doubt excited about the opportunities to plague more people with their messages.

But for the average Facebook user, those with that magic number of 130 connections or less, they could care less. Even the geekiest of them. My girlfriend is a geek, she is not only a geek but a math geek, she can do things with numbers in her head that I still can’t manage on a calculator. I often use a combination of her and a friend of mine who is the same age as me and only three months ago got an email account, as my acid tests for whether Social Media is progressing or simply becoming more “inside baseball”.

Let’s take my girlfriend first. She uses Facebook to stay caught up with family and friends, to post pictures that make her laugh that she finds on Pinterest, to stay in touch via Facebook messenger with my daughters (who knows what they scheme over in those messages!) but the one thing she isn’t looking for is to grow her network, she has no need to. If she wants to make friends with someone she does it in person. Now my friend with the new email account. He has looked at Facebook, his wife uses it in much the same way as my girlfriend, but he sees no advantage to it in his life, I doubt he will ever have a Facebook account. Personally I’ve spent the last six months culling connections from Facebook and have reduced the size of my network by almost 50% to absolutely no detriment. In fact the experience is much improved.

So who is Graph Search for? It is for those inside Social Media. That is the problem, Facebook, Google et al are producing products for people who are in the industry, not the average users. Those in the industry and by the “industry” I mean those making a living at least tangentially connected with the internet, are easily impressed by new features, things they believe will make their experience better, but that is because they spend the majority of their days on sites like Facebook. The reality is that the real majority of Facebook users don’t spend all that time on the site.

I’d rather see Facebook improving the mobile version of their site, making it something stable and useable than rolling out more “meta features” that serve only to feed the echo chamber of Social Media guru’s trying to convince the world that it can’t live without Social Media.

Are you excited to see Facebook Graph Search?

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Small Businesses Need PR lessons

As an author and writer I regularly use the service HARO (Help A Reporter Out) I’ve actually been using it for a few years now. If you are looking for sources, comments, ideas etc on a story you are writing it is, in my experience, the best service available – especially as it is free!

As with any environment like it, forums, blogs etc where people can contribute in an unmoderated manner you get a fair amount of unusable material. That comes with the territory. After all I’m asking people to share their stories with me in the hopes that I will use them as part of whatever I am writing and in return give them some kind of exposure. Free publicity isn’t free though. There is a cost to the person submitting, they have to take time to read the inquiry properly, decide if they have something worth sharing and then write a response. I get that. I appreciate it. I even do it myself.

However, it stuns me that many of the respondents have obviously become accustomed to the Social Media forms of communicating; a tweet, a blog comment, a Facebook status update.  They believe that this form is how PR is handled. I recently posted a HARO request for the book I am working on. I make it very clear in my requests what I am looking for and the type of information I am requesting and that it is going to be used in a book. My expectation is that if you respond to that request you would actually like me to consider using your material in the book and of course give credit to you for providing it.

Some of the responses I get, and I have to say they are all from small businesses, are stunning in their mediocrity. Either they simply cut and paste their business details into the response and send nothing else – in effect spam or they reply in such an obtuse manner that I simply delete them. For example as a response to one of my latest requests, asking for information about how people selected their home office space, I received a response that said – “Oh I have stories, want to hear them?” along with their contact details. In another, the person stated that they would love to be used as a source in my story and said they were available for me to follow up with them!

Firstly, HARO is a PR tool, it is just about the easiest way to get your name into articles, blog posts, books or even on the news there is. If you are going to respond to a PR request why on earth would you try and be cryptic. Believe it or not the reason I am using HARO is because I am a busy writer and it provides me with a way to gather additional material quickly. So no I am not going to hunt you down and ask you to elaborate unless you give me a really good reason. If you are a small business owner or responsible for PR for one please do yourself a favor and find a PR course at your local college and take it. Learn how to write basic business English, a Press Release and how to respond to a press inquiry. Better yet, instead of hiring that “Social Media Guru” hire a local PR professional to show you how its done.

Fortunately among the dross there are replies that are useful, informative and actually make me want to follow up with the person submitting. PR is crucial to all businesses at some point. It isn’t the same thing as Social Media, so do yourself a favor and educate yourself.

How do you handle PR for your business?

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Getting Personal With Your Social Marketing

Today’s post is a guest post from Anita Brady. Anita Brady leads the team at www.123Print.com. 123Print offers customizable print products for business and life situations, and has everything needed to market a business. A place where you can make your own business cards and design other promotional items that combine high quality and customization with an affordable price

On October 3, Facebook announced the U.S. launch of a new test program that allows users to promote posts by moving them up on their friends’ news feed. It costs $7 to promote and is currently only available to a limited number of users, all with less than five thousand friends.

This move seems to keep with the direction Facebook has been headed over the past several months. Companies are starting to use the site more for its intended purpose — socializing — as opposed to direct marketing. General Motors, for example, discontinued $10 million in advertising with Facebook this past May, though they stated that they will continue to use the service — minus their sidebar ads — because it is “a very effective tool for engaging with our customers.”

And that’s where business owners on Facebook have started to focus the majority of their efforts; on engaging with customers.

More and more, Facebook and other social media sites have become a place for businesses to interact with their customer base, as opposed to selling to them directly. In fact, constant barrages of promotions, sales and pushy posts are some of the top reasons businesses lose friends. And even though a large number of friends doesn’t directly translate to an increase in sales, building up good relationships with your existing customer base can go a long way toward spreading the word and driving up customer loyalty. It just takes some time, patience and the ability to interact thoughtfully and on a personal level.

Take a new barbeque restaurant, for example. To build up a customer base in a food-oriented town, the owner could start posting about where his pigs come from. Pictures of happy pigs in wide fields with lots of healthy food and a smiling farmer will appeal to customers who appreciate where their food comes from. Those Facebook friends who like the pictures will share them with other friends with the same ideals and so on, thereby driving up visibility and customer base. The chef can then share pictures of his first whole hog roast or his favorite recipe for a tomato-based sauce. He could even share tips every once in a while about the best places to find certain cuts of meat, or how a local farmer helped him come up with a great new side dish.

This type of promotion works well for creating relationships. The chef is sharing stories about himself and his passion for cooking barbeque. He’s offering advice and helpful hints and even sharing links to new businesses that his Facebook friends would probably like. He’s not trying to ‘sell’ his business; he’s relating on a personal level.

Another example could be a new clothing store. For her grand opening, the owner might throw a party and invite her personal Facebook friends. During the party she could take pictures of everyone enjoying themselves and checking out the new clothes, and then tag and post them on her new Facebook business page. The tagged photos would show up on her friends’ pages and then their friends would see it along with the name of the business that posted it. If she has regular events such as trunk sales, fashion shows or even just a fun group of friends come in, posting the tagged pictures would go a long way toward driving up her company’s visibility, while still working on a personal level.

Regardless of your type of business, there are tons of ways to relate to your customers without trying to sell them something. Just sharing tips about what you’ve learned through owning your own business or what television programs have inspired you to try new things, for example, helps your customers see you as not only a business owner, but a peer and a friend.

The basics of good business have not changed over the years. In the end, customers want to relate to the people they do business with. So if you can’t interact with your clientele on a regular basis in person, social media is one of the best ways to build up those relationships.

This doesn’t mean that business promotion is out altogether; it just means that businesses should be careful about direct advertising via their social media outlets. Instead of just creating virtual billboards, find ways to engage customers. A shoe store owner could promote a new hiking boot by holding a photo contest where customers send in pictures of them using the boots on various local trails. The winning picture could get a coupon or gift certificate. An income tax preparation company could post a fun brainteaser, and the first customer to respond with the correct answer could get a discount on their next service.

What ways have you found to promote your business on social media without sounding like a sales pitch? What promotions have helped/hurt your business in the past?

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Did LinkedIn Just Kill Its Value?

LinkedIn introduced a new feature this week., endorsements based on keywords. On the surface this might look like a great idea. After all getting people to actually write you a recommendation can be difficult and time consuming but if all they have to do is click a button well that should speed the process up.

In fact this model seems to have been copied directly from Klout – the influence measuring site. Klout introduced +K months ago and while it too seemed like a reasonable idea at the time it didn’t take long for people to find the flaw in the system. The very same flaw that LinkedIn’s system suffers from.

The flaw is simply that any user you are connected to as part of your professional network can give you an endorsement for any category of expertise that you have added – great so far, but here is the catch, they can also add any that they think you have omitted. Yes, they can add anything they like. Now on Klout this is not an issue, because, while it’s proponents would want you to believe that it is a serious platform, it really hasn’t established the level of professional kudos that LinkedIn has up to now.

Take a look at the screenshot from a friend of mine – Eric Swayne – who posted this to his Facebook timeline. Now this was just a bit of fun between friends, but imagine if instead it had been less well thought through? Perhaps instead of Snorkeling he had been endorsed in “Strip Clubs” or “Douchebaggery” or something equally unprofessional. Sure you, as a user can delete an endorsement, but first you have to notice it. If you aren’t someone who reads all those emails from social networks updating you or you don’t hang out on LinkedIn regularly that could be out there for a while and let’s remember this is your online resume.

While I get what LinkedIn was attempting, I think this is poorly executed.

What do you think? Would you be annoyed if someone gave you an endorsement in Poodles?

Eric is holding a webinar on October 18th on “Measuring What Matters In Social” – Details here

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“Like Us On Facebook”:Why It Doesn’t Work

You’ve seen signs in stores, icons on websites and various other places – “Like Us On Facebook” they say, and they leave it at that. Not only is this bad marketing, it shows a complete lack of understanding of both your customers and Social Media. The trouble with Social Media is that it has been touted as a quick and easy route to customer engagement. Create a Facebook page, have thousands of people like it and bingo your job is done. This is why, so often Social ends up in the hands of the intern or someone equally lacking in basic marketing skills.

Social is still marketing. Yes there I said it. Despite what some digital guru’s and agencies will tell you Social requires basic marketing skills. Audience knowledge, copywriting, knowledge of A/B testing etc. Why is this true? Because you are still dealing with people. Marketing has and always will be about communication with people, the technology hasn’t changed that. So a message that has no call to action will fail, always. “Like Us On Facebook” is not a call to action, it’s a plea.  Reading this doesn’t make me like your brand, it makes me think you are desperate and needy. As a marketer it also makes me wonder what you are using for metrics – “Likes”, “Follows” etc? Sure those are numbers worth glancing at from time to time but they aren’t real metrics.

So does that mean you should give up trying to market through a Facebook page? No of course not. What it means is that you have to provide people with a reason. That’s what a call to action is. The trigger that moves someone from reader to engager. Below is a picture I took at a recent event I spoke at. I intended to share the same message with the group and this sign just happened to be at the entrance. The marketing team for the location already understood the difference between a plea and a call to action.

So what is great about this? Firstly they give me a reason to like them on Facebook – “For Instant Canyon Creek News” – so if I am  a member or interested in being a member of this club that is a good reason for me to like them on Facebook. Next they actually give me the URL of their Facebook page – they don’t expect me to do the work and search Facebook for their page. Two simple steps that take “Like Us on Facebook” from a plea to an actionable request.

Are you making a plea or a call to action?

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