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September 29, 2009 By Susan Barr 2 Comments

The Social Web and Competition: Respect the Game

Traveling home from a soccer game with my son yesterday, we discussed a few incidents from his game. I noticed my son seemed to have a good relationship with the player on the opposing team who was playing mid-field against him. I observed a few occasions when they shook hands or exchanged a few friendly words after one or the other had a particularly good tackle against the other.

I asked my son if he knew the young man. He said he never met him but “that kid had sick skills, Mom. It was fun competing against him today.” We discussed another incident where an opposing player executed a slide tackle from behind one of my son’s teammates causing our player to be removed from the game with an injury and the offending player to be removed with a “red card” foul. When comparing the two incidents, my 16 year old son said, “You have to respect the player. You have to respect the game.”

Recently, I have been working with a few clients who are competing in a very tough market and trying to implement new social media marketing plans. In one case, my client has been the target of another local business that has been using the power of ‘anonymous’ rating services to make disparaging comments about my clients’ products and services on the internet.

In another case, a client became “a friend” with a rival through an online community only to have the competitor use their access to “friend” my clients contact list, misrepresent himself as an affiliate and then begin to market to his “friend’s friends” with competing products.

Colleagues have complained about having “competitors” disguised as “friends” market competing products that looked suspiciously like the same content without attribution (i.e. copied).

The openness of social networking can leave small businesses open and vulnerable to attack by opponents without the creativity to develop their own markets and products and who decide all is fair in business.

I love competition! I agree with the proverb “Competition is the whetstone of talent” and I do believe competition gives all of us as entrepreneurs an opportunity to innovate, to make our products and services even better for our customers. We live in an imperfect world so competition brings out the best spirit of innovation in some entrepreneurs while exacerbating the worst character flaws in others.

Henry Ford said, “The competitor to be feared is the one who never bothers about you at all, but goes on making his own business better all the time.” I agree with Ford’s statement but never turn a blind eye to my competitors, even while my main focus is on my customers and on my own plan for innovation. Monitoring your competitors prepares you to capitalize on opportunities and weaknesses, maximize your strengths and head off impending threats.

With that being understood, “Respect the player, respect the game.”

Filed Under: Get Connected Tagged With: small business marketing, social networking

September 15, 2009 By Susan Barr Leave a Comment

Got Social Media Strategy?

Social Media is no longer optional. Including video, audio, and communities along with interactive and sharable content within your marketing strategy is required if you want to remain competitive in this business climate. A social media strategy is not a plan for collecting 1000’s of friends on Facebook or followers on Twitter. It is a well-defined series of campaigns planned to meet the needs of today’s customers who are ever-connected, ever-social, and ever-engaged. A winning social media strategy leverages the right combination of technology and content to create a unique customer experience with “buzzability”.

It’s not about the technology. It’s all about the customer!

1. They Are Looking for You. 4 out of 5 buyers are using the web to locate business and product information before they make a purchase yet less than half of small businesses can be found on the web. The location options for web real-estate are numerous, including platforms such as Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, and a variety of other directories and communities. Your plan must ensure you can be found by your target market who wants to read and hear testimonials about your offer. Potential buyers are more likely to trust a business with customer generated reviews and ratings than one without endorsements. Your strategy must include a plan for generating fresh content with the purpose of educating the consumer and informing the buying decision.

2. They Want an Experience with You. You have less than a minute. Prospects will abandon your website or business profile within seconds if they are not engaged. Create engaging and informative content with the aim of evoking a response from your customers. Multimedia and interactive content such as pictures, video, podcasts and product reviews is affordable and easily created by businesses with modest budgets and minimal technical expertise. A planned series of campaigns which include a call to action and which integrate with traditional media (newspapers, radio, etc) will create a community of loyal supporters among your customers.

3. They Want to “Buzz” About You. Your customers want to spread the word! A growing number people on the web share content such as video, articles, audio, etc with their friends. Over 90% of people trust the recommendations of friends when making purchase decisions and less than 15% trust advertising so give them something to buzz about! Generate participation and enthusiasm. Create a call to action. When you create a buzzable social media strategy, prospects become customers and customers become loyal evangelists.

Creating a social media marketing plan is like creating a special family recipe. It is not accomplished with “out-of-the-box” solutions. Every social media marketing strategy includes a vision, brand message, web and social platforms, a content strategy, and a buzz plan. Be prepared to actively listen to your customers and allow them to co-create with you. Ultimately, creating a unique social media mix tailored to your customers will keep your evangelists buzzing and your business soaring.

Filed Under: Get Connected, Get Customers!, Prepare for the Upswing, Strategic Thinking Tagged With: small business, small business marketing, social media

August 31, 2009 By Susan Barr Leave a Comment

The Scarlet ‘E’ for Social Media Expert

Lately, the blogosphere has begun an outcry against the “social media experts”, mostly by other self-described “social media experts”. I recently found myself laughing out loud when one such expert claimed outrage in her blog, asking her readers to “out the fakes” by sending her their horror stories about fake gurus…an interesting approach to convincing others of her value, to say the least. Somewhere, someone is busy crafting Scarlet ‘E’s for the offenders.

I admit to having a natural skepticism of the words “expert” and “guru” – years of working in software engineering left me with a definition of expert which leaves few able to pass the threshold. In spite of my prejudice regarding use of the word, I think the current debate needs reframing. I find it more alarming to see such a preponderance of business consultants and experts who do not understand social media or worse, those who dismiss it as irrelevant to their consulting work. The issue is not whether there are too many experts. The real issue is that anyone who charges for products or services that affect the customer experience MUST be conversant in social media.

If you are a business owner, don’t ignore the debate about experts but don’t become dizzy over it. It is my belief that you should not hire any marketing professional or web professional who does not make it a priority to understand how your customers are using social media and how those same customers expect to interact with your business using social media. Such professionals must have a broad understanding of what is happening on the social web and how it affects consumers. Their priority must be on your customer and your business vision, not their obsolete process or proprietary solution.

How can a PR pro or an advertising consultant create an effective campaign for your business without consideration of social media? How can a website designer ignore how social networks can be utilized to drive web traffic to your site? How can a strategist create a plan for you without considering a content marketing strategy? In this day and age, ignoring social media is akin to professional malpractice.

So, how do you evaluate the self-described experts? Social media marketing is still a young field but most of us talking about it have a back-story. Before the advent of social media, what did the expert do? A resume should be available on their website or upon request. Are they bringing the perspective of an experienced brand marketer? A corporate executive? A successful entrepreneur? A technical website developer? A graphics or creative web designer? They must have more depth than a resume of 1000’s of Twitter followers or Facebook friends can avail.

Be wary of the expert who is selling you proprietary solution along with their social media expertise. There are countless solutions providers who mask “strategy” under the cloak of their proprietary software or advertising solutions. They ask leading questions which always direct you to their custom solutions with great promises of Google page rank. Local coupon sales, local ad sales, canned websites and FB pages, local online directories, software packages that “automate” your social media methods and new business networking sites are just a few examples of applications being sold under the broad umbrella of social media marketing. Such solutions should be investigated thoroughly to ensure the result applies to your unique business and whether other alternatives exist (possibly free), especially since many of the above require ongoing subscription fees or hefty up-front costs.

Keep in mind that profitable social media implementation is 80% strategy and 20% technology so make sure your strategy is well-defined before you sign on the dotted line. Stay focused on your goals and hire experts who share your commitment. Ultimately, the labels don’t matter as much as whether your goals are achieved by working with these folks.

Filed Under: Achieve!, Forward Momentum, Get Connected Tagged With: outsourcing, small business marketing, social media

July 7, 2009 By Susan Barr Leave a Comment

Facebook Land Rush: What happened to “Hello”?

You know how it goes in a face-to-face networking event. Someone calls you over and says, “Sue, I want to introduce you to Tim. Tim has his own printing company and I have worked with him for years. He is looking for a business consultant to help him develop a new strategic plan.”

Then to Tim, he says, “Sue is a consultant and told me she is looking for a new graphics and printing company to replace the standard solutions from the Big Box retailer…”

What a nice introduction and endorsement!

The same kind of courtesies should be extended on online social networks. If you want someone to become a “fan” of a business, shouldn’t you introduce them first? Are you being a good “friend”, “connection” or “colleague” when the only communication you have with someone on your contacts list is to spam them with requests that they endorse or “fan” another business? How about an introduction first? A personal note?

In a hurry to claim their Facebook vanity url’s that began last week, many well-meaning online networkers have made Facebook look like one of the Land Rushes in the late 1800’s. It was truly wild. I was inundated with requests and my status stream was clogged with messages about new Fan pages.

I am more than willing to help all my colleagues and friends, those with whom I have relationships, by “fanning” their Facebook pages or writing recommendations. I know them. We are in groups together. We email and we chat. We have coffee or plan to meet when in the same city. We exchange leads and information to help each other’s businesses.

Becoming a “fan” has meaning. It means you endorse the product, service or business owner. It means if someone calls and asks you why you are a fan, you can give them specific reasons. It means you would recognize them at a live networking event and introduce them to someone else and have a depth of understanding of their businesses and issues. Becoming a “fan” is equivalent to giving someone permission to send you marketing and sales messages.

What is your endorsement worth?

Filed Under: Get Connected Tagged With: facebook, social media, social networking

June 22, 2009 By Susan Barr Leave a Comment

Reputation Management: Are Negative Reviews Good for Business?

Great read this morning by Matt McGee at Small Business Search Marketing, “Five Ways Negative Reviews are Good for Business.” Matt suggests the benefits of negative feedback are:

They create trust.
They provide honest feedback.
They can improve your SEO.
They help you make better business decisions.
They offer a golden opportunity.

Matt’s post calls to mind statistics regarding growth in social media participation by consumers. According to Forrester Research Study (October 2008) on social media adoption, consumers who classify themselves as “critics” (those who contribute to ratings, reviews, blogs, etc) increased by almost 50% over the previous year to 37% of those surveyed. Anecdotally, I suspect the number has increased substantially since then. Many recent studies indicate that between 65 -80% of consumers search the web for local businesses and actively read reviews and ratings as part of their purchase consideration process. Consumers are adopting social media at increasing rates across all categories.

I agree with Matt McGee and recommend the following strategies given trends in consumer behavior:

1. Make engagement a standard part of your marketing plan. Develop a social marketing plan that encourages your customers to provide feedback. Include tactics as simple as asking a customers to complete surveys or as complex as creating a product information and rating system on your website. The truth is that most reviews are positive so encouraging engagement only serves to improve your online reputation and customer loyalty.

2. Develop a web presence on social platforms where your customers hang out. If your target customer is on Facebook, create a Fan Page and develop a plan to engage them there. If your customer is on LinkedIn or Myspace, engage them there.

3. Create a pro-active communications plan to address the customer feedback. I recommend my clients use a simple decision tree process. Include decision points to handle situations such as :

a. Customers with verifiable complaints
b. Competitors planting negative feedback
c. Customers with incomplete information or distorted versions of the truth
d. Customers with positive feedback

Matt McGee is correct in suggesting negative reviews provide an opportunity to improve your operations. The beauty of social technologies is that they place inexpensive tools into the hands of a small business owner to form a more personal customer relationship. The functions of these tools play right into the strengths of small businesses that are already heads and shoulders above large organizations in personalizing the customer experience. Responding to the negative feedback in a positive way demonstrates your commitment to the customer and your desire to improve their experience with your business.

Would you rather use negative feedback to improve your operations and service or lose a customer without knowing why?

Filed Under: Get Connected, Get Profits Tagged With: customer experience, Local Search, online reputation, small business technology, social marketing, social media

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