Nov
22
2009
Communicating
I like to think I’m a good communicator, and then I watch Chris Brogan.
This, he says, is his favorite keynote he’s given. That means quite a bit. It’s only 10 minutes, and well worth it.
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Oct
13
2009
Back to Basics: How to “listen” to social media
(Image by ky_olsen)
You’ve heard a lot about social media. You know you should get involved. You’re just not sure you have time/not sure you know how/not sure you want to jump in just yet. That’s fine (for now). What do you do now, then? Ignore the conversation? Pretend no one is mentioning your brand because you’re not there? No way!
Whether you have profiles on every site, are waiting to jump in to social media or never plan to get involved, you should know what is being said about your company. Here’s how to do that.
Set up Google Alerts on terms you want to keep track of across the Web (your company name, your own name, brand names of your products or services, and– for best results– other terms related to your industry). Be sure to click Comprehensive! You can have these delivered to your email (in a daily or weekly digest, or as they occur) or to an RSS reader. (This step is really an absolute necessity. If you do nothing else, at least do this!)
While some tweets will eventually show up in your Google Alerts, for the most real-time results you should use Twitter Search. If you want to do this daily, you’re welcome to; but the easiest way will be to search the terms, then click Feed for this Query and subscribe in an RSS feeder.
In order to use Facebook Search, you’ll need a Facebook account. It’s worth signing up for, since anything within Facebook will not show up in your Google Alerts. If the mentions you see through Google are showing up in blogs, subscribe to search terms in the blog siteTechnorati. You might also search regularly through Alltop, a topic aggregator.
Once you have a good idea of the conversation happening about your brand (or related topics), you’ll have a chance to decide where you want to go from there. Do you want to set up profiles on existing networks, or try to start a community around your brand? Do you want to blog or just chat? Is there an educational gap surrounding your product? After listening for a while, you’ll know where the gaps are– and you can figure out (or get help figuring out) just how you want to fill them.
Without being active on the Web, you’ll have a hard time responding if you hear something about your brand getting out of hand, but at least you won’t be blindsided by something that arises “behind the scenes”. (Remember: Your customers have access to search engines and are usually on at least one social media site. It’s not behind the scenes for anyone but you.)
Oct
9
2009
Back to Basics: 10 Things You Can Do with Web 2.0
It’s very common for me to have a conversation with a potential client that starts something like this:
“I know I should be on social media; I keep hearing that. But I don’t get it. What can I use it for?”
Let’s start with how you do business already– there’s no need to totally reinvent the wheel.
- Host a town meeting or focus group– via UStream, Twitter or another chat service.
- Host an educational seminar (in this case, a webinar)– use UStream, GoToMeeting, or another service.
- Publish educational content– via a blog (WordPress, Blogger, Facebook or another platform) or as multimedia (on YouTube, SlideShare, etc.)
- Provide top-notch customer service through Twitter, Facebook, or any number of forum or chat platforms.
- Send a newsletter– use ConstantContact, Emma, or the bevy of other products available. (By permission only, please!)
- Distribute informative literature by posting it on your website, Facebook fan page, or other platform.
- Send invitations or spread the word about events– store openings, special sales, educational seminars, campaign rallies, whatever! Use MeetUp, Facebook, Evite, or a range of other options.
- Distribute coupons, discount codes, or event tickets individually via email or generally to online fans/followers.
- Organize volunteers to political events, community service opportunities, or other causes (MeetUp, Facebook, Evite, etc.).
- Make announcements or distribute press releases. You can do this through regular communications on platforms like Facebook and Twitter, on a section of your website, or officially either through direct communication with reporters or by using a service like PitchEngine.)
(PS – This video on the social media revolution is worth seeing.)
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Sep
29
2009
Back to Basics series
With new small business clients I often get questions like
“Yeah, I know I should be on social media. But what would I use it for?”
“I don’t have a lot of time to devote to this, but I want to jump in. How can I start?”
“I’m not ready to set up a profile anywhere. Is there a way for me to dip a toe in another way?”
These questions, and others like them, will be answered over the next few weeks.
I’d love to get everyone’s input and look forward to further discussion.
Apr
13
2009
Handling Crisis: Advantages of Social Media
This morning, thousands of people in Florida and Georgia awoke to “SOS Only” service on their AT&T cell phones. While only a minor annoyance for some, for others (like me) who use the phones to run their businesses and/or have gotten rid of their land lines, this constitutes a major problem.
I called AT&T and sat on hold for fifteen minutes. A customer service representative told me they were aware of the outage and it would be fixed within 24 hours. 24 hours?! That is a long time to be without cell service. I asked if this service interruption would be eflected in my bill. I was put on hold again, and then was told I would be given a 48-hour credit ($4.79). That’s good, but doesn’t really address the larger business problem I’m encountering by being without cell service!
I began searching Twitter to see whether others were having this problem. Many were. Soon local station Central Florida News 13 was talking about it on Twitter, getting lots of responses and starting a hashtag for the event: #attfail. The Orlando Sentinel picked up on the story too, and began live blogging the updates they received from AT&T’s spokeswoman.
Facebook isn’t searchable in the same way, but news about it has definitely been going around my newsfeed.
AT&T was nowhere to be found. As far as I can tell there was no acknowledgement of the problem on their website (although the system was so clogged I couldn’t log in to my account online), and no use was made of their Twitter account to respond to the growing number of people making this problem very public.
Etan Horowitz, an Orlando Sentinel technology journalist, wrote a blog that the outage had been confirmed by AT&T and began actively updating the blog entry and Twitter (even @-replying to each complainant he found via a Twitter search) to keep people informed of AT&T’s official response. In short, he was doing precisely what AT&T ought to have been doing!
If your company ever has a service crisis like this, how are you equipped to respond? Will you rely on a local newspaper reporter to assure your customers that something is being done? (Are you willing to trust the media to communicate as well as Etan did with your customers?)
If you are not active in social media (especially Twitter), you are not set up to control your own message through a crisis. That’s a dangerous place to be.
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