by Marvin Kane | Aug 24, 2011 | Social Media
Part Two in a Four Part Series: Common Objections to Social Media
Many companies have failed to adopt social media out of fear. They are afraid of what customers and employees will say about them. Not only are these companies missing an opportunity, they are ignoring a much bigger problem. Denying your employees the chance to speak freely about your company is a sure sign that there is something wrong with the culture of the workplace. If you’re a CEO, a boss, a supervisor or the person in your company empowered to make decisions about social media and fear is why you’re saying no, then put social media on hold and fix the bigger problem. Ask your employees the tough questions. Listen to the answers. Take appropriate action. Social media can be the best tool you have for identifying problems and fixing them. Imagine how your company would be different if you looked forward to reading what your employees were saying about it. Sound good?
Your Customers Are Talking. Are You Listening?
You can’t function in a vacuum. Everyone knows that. Yet there are many companies that are still trying to do just that. Another missed opportunity. The question is so fundamental that it seems ludicrous to ask it. But here goes. How do you know what your customers think of your product or service if you never ask them? See where I’m going? Social media channels like Facebook and Twitter are where your customers are. It’s where they are talking about you and your product. But if you’re not hanging out where your customers are, that is to say if you’re not using the same social media tools they are, you’ll never hear them. And if your product or service changes to meet the requirements of your customers, it will be a coincidence and not the result of a planned strategy. Can you afford that?
A Negative Comment is Better Than no Comment At All
You know the old Hollywood adage – negative publicity is better than no publicity. It’s true. You have nothing to fear from the customer who posts a critical or negative comment about you. Why? Because now you know what you have to fix. And once you fix it you have turned a critic into a fan – and perhaps into an advocate. Does that make sense?
Dont’ Be Afraid
Here is a quick summary:
- If you’re not adopting social media because you’re afraid of what customers/employees might say about you, you have a bigger problem.
- If you’re not listening to your customers through their tweets or facebook postings, how do you know how you are doing?
- See negative comments as a positive. A customer who takes the time to post a negative comment can be turned into your best customer
Are you with me? Are you using social media or have you been reluctant to adopt it?
Stay tuned to this channel for part three in the series: Common Objections to Social Media. Next week we’ll see why companies who claim to be just fine without it really aren’t fine at all.
Photo credit: Brian Lane Winfield
by Marvin Kane | Aug 15, 2011 | Social Media
Part One in a Four Part Series: Common Objections to Social Media.
I'ts not a fad. It's a cultural shift
No one can predict the future. But we can make educated guesses based on the evidence in front of us. So here is a bold prediction. Social Media, in some form or another, will last. The genie is out of the bottle. Social Media has given us a new way to do something as fundamental to human nature as breathing (okay, maybe not that fundamental): communicate!We are by nature social beings. We love to talk, to gather, to share. We’ve been doing this since we lost our tails and started walking upright. I think its safe to say we’ll keep doing it. Will the sun come up tomorrow? Probably. Simply put, the social tools at our disposal are making it easier to do what we’ve always done.
Aren’t a Visionary? You Just Need an Open Mind.
It’s easy to understand why blacksmiths in the early part of the 20th century desperately wanted to believe that the horseless carriage was a fad that wouldn’t last. Their livelihoods hung on that hope. Gary Vaynerchuk, in his absolutely must have book, The Thank You Economy, quotes a few less than visionary “visionaries” whose take on the latest trends of the day seem … well just plain dumb in hindsight.
- “This ‘telephone’ has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication.”
— Western Union Internal Memo, 1876
- “The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?”
— an investor in response to David Sarnoff’s push for radio, 1920
- “While theoretically and technically television may be feasible, commercially and financially it is an impossibility.”
— Lee De Forest, radio pioneer, 1926
Closer to my own world and our own time, I recall the day in 1995 when the IT Director of the company I was working for at the time asked me to investigate this new “internet thing”. I was not in the IT department. The thing was he couldn’t find anyone on his staff who was willing to take the time. They all thought the internet was a fad that wouldn’t last. I rest my case.
Don’t Make it About the Tools
We focus too much on the tools of social media. That’s why we’re skeptical. If we make it about the tools, our belief system is shaken every time a new one emerges. And there will be new tools emerging all the time. Today its Facebook and Twitter. Next month it could be something else. We need to focus more on the objective, on why we are using these tools in the first place. So what is the objective? Okay, here it is. Ready? It’s all about building and maintaining authentic, meaningful, caring relationships. Once we commit to that, it becomes a simple process to determine which tools best serve the goal.
Are you with me? Do you agree or disagree with anything I’ve said. What are your thoughts about the role of social media in our lives?
Stay tuned to this channel for part two in the series: Common Objections to Social Media. Next week we’ll look at why companies are afraid to incorporate social media into their marketing plan and why they shouldn’t be. (Hint: maybe they should be).
Photo credit: Brian Lane Winfield
by Marvin Kane | Aug 1, 2011 | Business, Design
Choose Wisely. Avoid nightmares
For those with limited resources, short time frames and no desire to get their hands dirty, web design services offering a quick, easy and cheap template driven solution may be the right answer. But beware! Make sure you know exactly what you’re signing up for so down the road what looked convenient and easy doesn’t turn out to be a nightmare.
It’s Your Domain Name. Own it.
Working with a company that “takes care of everything” for you may be fine but when it comes to registering your domain name, make sure it is being registered under YOUR name and associated with YOUR contact information. Why is this important? Consider the case of Acme Plumbing [names have been changed to protect the innocent]. They hired a “we’ll take care of everything” company to design their website. The sales rep registered the company’s domain name under his own name and contact information. When the domain name was several months from expiring, the renewal emails were sent to the sales rep. See where this is going? The sales rep left the company. Acme Plumbing had no idea their domain name was expiring until they were unable to access their website. Nightmare number 1.
Can Your Website Grow as Your Business Grows?
Sure it’s tempting to get your three page website up in 24 hours. Especially when all you have to do is email your content to the design company and voila! There it is. Your shiny new website. But if your business plan calls for growth – and if it doesn’t why are you in business – make sure you understand the process of growing your website to match your growing business. Will your web design company add pages for you as part of your original contract? If not, how much will it cost? How quickly will they get to it. How much control do you have?
Another Nightmare Scenario
World’s Best Electricians [again, names have been changed to protect the innocent] went with a “one stop shopping” web design service. The company registered his domain name, built a three page website with stock photos of their choosing, and hosted the site on their servers. Joe, the owner of World’s Best, didn’t have to do anything. What a deal. Except Joe’s business started growing. He wanted to use real photos of his work. He wanted to add testimonials. You get the picture. Not part of the deal said his one stop shopping company. Joe has decided he wants a brand new website but needs to get the domain name transferred to his name. Problem. His sales rep, apparently the only person with any knowledge of his account, has left the company.
Nightmare number 2.
Conclusion
I am not condemning the template driven, one stop, quick and easy web design companies. They offer a valuable service. What I am saying is make sure you understand very specifically what the company will and won’t do for you. It is important for your business to understand the following:
- make sure your domain name is registered to you
- understand your web design company’s policy about updating your site, i.e. adding pages, etc
- make sure the company is reputable and has a measurable track record
- try to find out the average life span of the company’s sales personnel. If there is frequent turnover ask why. Be suspicious.
Chances are you’ve spent a lot of time thinking about your business. Perhaps you have a three year plan, a five year plan or even a ten year plan. Keep that in mind when deciding who will build your company’s website.
Photo credit: fuzzysaurus
by Marvin Kane | Jul 29, 2011 | Design
I was leaving my job at a cable advertising firm on Newbury Street in Boston one Friday afternoon and saw a UPS truck with the characters www.ups.com printed directly under the phone number on the truck’s rear panel. Pretty unremarkable except for one thing. It was 1994. Now I’m not normally known as a prophet but I turned to my wife and said “someday every company is going to have one of those website thingys.” I don’t remember her exact reply but I think it was something about how only the bigger companies would be able to afford one. It all seems pretty funny right now doesn’t it? But as luck, or fate would have it, the very next Monday the IT Director at my company (it was called MIS back then, remember?) asked me if I wanted to “investigate this internet thing”. I was not on the IT staff. I was a temp doing administrative work to bolster my less than illustrious musical career. Turns out no one on his staff believed the “internet thing” would last. DOHHH!! I said sure, they sent me to an HTML class and, to quote the most overused cliche ever, the rest is history.
Tables, Drop Shadows and Scrolling Marquees, Oh My!
Several HTML classes later, and with just enough Photoshop knowledge to be dangerous, I developed my company’s first website. Its hard to remember this but it was so early in the game that Microsoft hadn’t entered the browser wars yet. It was Netscape 4 and that was it. This website had everything, and I do mean everything. Every graphic had a drop shadow, every button looked like an oval race track, every paragraph was a different font color and size, elements were placed in table cells to keep them from moving around, I even had a scrolling marquee going across the page. I was definitely a practitioner of the “kitchen sink” school of design where the answer to the question “why did you do that” is always “because I can”. But the real kick for me was that I had created something that anyone anywhere in the world could see. It didn’t matter that no one was looking. What mattered was that if they were looking, they would see something I created. Pretty powerful stuff!
When it Started Making Sense
I needed some direction. There had to be someone out there who was a thought leader in this new space. For me, and for many others at the time, that person was David Siegel and his seminal book Creating Killer Web Sites, circa 1997. Using what Siegel termed “guerilla HTML” I began to create more visually pleasing websites. David’s book seems dated now, but he has continued to be a thought leader. [Find out what he’s up to these days at Pull and the 21st Century.]
It’s been a fun ride. And with more and more people viewing websites on their mobile devices, the fun is just beginning.
Do you remember some of those early websites? What do you remember about them? How do you think websites have changed?
by Marvin Kane | Jul 11, 2011 | Social Media
Last May I explained why I don’t like to get paid in full and in advance noting that this usually meant the client was more interested in the tax write off than in building a quality website. I added that it was next to impossible for me to do good work when a client is simply not engaged in the process. In reviewing that earlier post it occurred to me that I sounded like a curmudgeon. (Okay, sometimes I am a curmudgeon). So in an effort to soften that perception, let me tell you what, in my opinion, makes an ideal client.
It’s About Engagement
We recently began to hear the catch phrase Web 2.0 – a clever term that signaled the beginning of a new, more collaborative, participatory web and whose fundamental rule, according to Tim O’ Reilly of O’ Reilly Media is that “users have value”. And that is the essence of today’s social web. It’s not so much about a web site as it is about a web presence. If your web site is your online home base, then your social profiles are your online outposts feeding vital information back and forth. But what’s really changed is the underlying objective. It’s no longer about businesses using the web to push their marketing message down people’s throats. It’s about establishing and nurturing online relationships. And like all relationships, listening is more important than talking. The web is a two way street now and smart businesses understand that it’s about using the vast array of social tools at our disposal to engage their constituents.
A Case Study – Victoria Station, Salem, MA
John Andrews, the Executive Chef and Social Media Manager at Victoria Station in Salem, Massachusetts, understands the importance of building relationships. That’s why it’s a pleasure to work with him. He actively posts new status updates, photos and videos to Victoria Station’s Facebook page. Vic’s Boathouse is the new lounge at Victoria Station and John uses twitter on a regular basis to let his customers know about special promotions, musical happenings and more. Victoria Station’s homepage features a Youtube video, a MailChimp newsletter signup form and a dynamically changing calendar of events. In the true spirit of today’s self manageable web, John uses Squarespace to maintain the Vic’s Boathouse website and picnik.com to edit and customize photos. John regularly checks in with his friends and contacts through foursquare, a social site that offers new ways to explore your city, earn points and unlock badges for discovering new things. He is, in a word, CONNECTED. But what really impresses me is the very visible link from Victoria Station’s homepage to its Yelp page. Why does that impress me? Because while the vast majority of what I see there are positive four and five star reviews, a few are less flattering. By letting me see those too, I get the message that Victoria Station is not perfect but that John is willing to listen to criticism and willing to improve. That’s how to build authentic, meaningful relationships. And meaningful relationships build successful businesses.
In his wonderful post titled The Biggest Secret of Social Media, Chris Brogan makes the simple assertion that “if you don’t like people very much, it won’t work very well.” John Andrews likes people.
How are you using social media to build relationships? What has been your experience? Is it working for you? Let’s talk about it.
