Taking it to the streets

Nearly every day I hear from a small business owner struggling with the concept of using social media to market their business. The questions come tumbling: how, when, why, what for?  Inevitably, they feel shy, silly, even stupid as they poke around in the social media "nonsense."

I've been in the advertising industry for nearly three decades, and I admit, I had the same confusion. My Aha! moment came when I realized that social media has changed the very concept of how we reach our customers and how we engage them.

Let me digress. Traditional advertising is an interruption media. "And now, a word from our sponsors..." It claims that, while we have you as a captive audience listening/watching/reading what you enjoy, we're going to interject something we think you also will enjoy buying/ordering/using. The concept worked for a long time.

Aha! Social media is an engagement media. It says: I'm doing this and if you are interested, why don't you join me and we'll experience it together, or at least,  you can tell me about it and I will listen.

I just read an article quoting Don Shultz, a professor of integrated marketing communications at Northwestern. His studies show that only 4-5 percent of our customers make up the bulk of our sales and profits. The other 95% actually cost us. With that kind of margin, why wouldn't you touch this elite group singularly and specifically or "pick them up in a car and deliver them to your door" as Schultz suggests.

I suggest that part of our confusion is trying to stuff the big round peg of social media into the square of traditional media. It won't fit. Shultz suggests we need an overhaul in our thinking. Instead of delivering a message via media to your segment, find the customers and engage them there. (Four rules for media planning coming in the Feburary issue of Biz2Biz) 

Clear as mud?  Here are five ways Biz2Biz will be using social media in 2010.

1. To listen to our peers and community. By staying tuned in to the social media network we can hear what's on their minds. What/who are they talking about? What are their concerns? What are their interests? Where do they spend their time? With our listening ears on, we'll be able to deliver even more relevant content.

2. To introduce our stories and tips to those involved in the business community in Northwest Arkansas. Biz2Biz covers many different topics of business. Not all of them interest everyone the same. If you are interested in the topic, we're just a click away.

3. To find the movers and shakers and shine the spotlight on them. Our business community is full of professionals whose futures are so bright they gotta wear shades. Biz2Biz will spotlight every day small business owners who make up the backbone of Northwest Arkansas.

4. To introduce business professionals to other companies who have a wealth of product and industry information to share. Education is the key to good purchase decisions. With blogs, forums and email we can ask, answer and connect.

5. To expand the role of local entrepreneurship. Google for anything and you'll get a link. It may be for someone on the other side of the world, but it's unlikely it will be someone around the corner.  If 90% of all commerce is local,  90% of our contacts should be, too. That is afterall, where we find our best customers.

Well Hello 2010!

The New Year is a time for resolution. Like the Roman god, Janus, for whom the month is named, we face in two directions at once to look both at where we’ve been and where we’re going.

On a personal level our resolutions are the stuff we share with friends over a glass of champagne. It’s unlikely anyone will hold us accountable, now or later, as they’ve heard them before: our resolutions are our vices and bad habits.

In business, our resolutions are more wide flung. What we resolve to do better as a business affects many– our employees, our clients, and our community. Why not start the New Year with resolutions that steer your company away from its vices and bad habits?

I resolve to follow my strategic plan more diligently. I like to think of this plan as the surfboard I use to ride the waves of the Sea of Enterprise. I’ve created a quiver of boards to ride the right tool over the right wave. But, you can’t ride if you’re not at the beach.

I resolve to delegate more and accept the outcome. As small business owners we often see delegating tasks as the cash register ringing in reverse. The reality is, we can’t do it all ourselves and grow. And everyone brings something unique to the fray.

I resolve to spend more time listening to the stories. This business community is filled with wonderful stories about their experiences. Together we can learn from each other’s trials and tribulations. Together we strengthen the marketplace.

I resolve to share the love. We haven’t even begun to reach all the business professionals and decision makers in Northwest Arkansas.

I like to name each year with a quality I hope to see it bring. (Although it’s infallibly non-prophetic; a divine ’09 it was not!) Here’s wishing you a Perfect ’10.

Burned by the Bait and Switch

I'm loath to say something unkind about the wine dinner I attended last night at Ella's in Fayetteville. The food was fabulous and well paired with a delicious variety of wines from the Reynolds Family vineyard in Napa. Unfortunately, the final taste left on my palate was the feeling I'd been cheated.  I felt burned by the old bait and switch routine.

Here's what I think: If businesses are going to use social media to market to me, to reach right into my inbox and ask for my patronage, they need to be honest. They need take responsibility for their messages -- and craft them with care. They need to make sure they've communicated a clear message, and if they fail in that regard, it's their responsibility to remedy it.  If they want to "build a relationship" with me they should prove to be friend and not foe.

No doubt Ella's didn't intend to bait me with dishonesty. But what was marketed to me as a great deal ended up costing three times as much. A wine dinner advertised for $52.50 became $155. A discount that was offered by email wasn't honored and my request to have it remedied dismissed.

It was our first visit to Ella's. Will we be back? Maybe. If I can get the burned toast taste off my tongue. If I can replace it with the memory of that delightful ahi tun with maitake mushroom, or that yummy crisp Reynolds chardonnay. (The only chardonnay I've ever enjoyed. And now I know why, thanks to the winemaker's discussion on the different acids in the wine.)


Take what you will from this message -- a person whining about a wine dinner gone sour at the end; or a lesson to businesses using social media to market their wares. Snake oil and bait and switch tactics are taboo. Customer service is the most important thing you sell no matter what you are selling.

Naked! Naked, I say!

The other day I left home without my cell phone. You know how I felt. Naked! Like all those bad dreams about showing up for a job interview without a bra. Or giving a speech with your fly unzipped. OMG!

I spent the day reaching for it. Red light: I'll make a call. Not. Take a break: I'll play Scrabble. Not. Send a text: Nope. Get my email. NOT!

By the end of the day I couldn't wait to get home to my iphone and the world it connects me to. Can we even remember fishing around for a quarter for the pay phone?

So, I wasn't at all surprised to read today that "Four Out of Five Never Leave Home Without It." A survey just released from Synovate looked at global mobile phone usage. And, the word is: we are woefully attached. Some 82% of Americans say they never leave home without their cell phone and half of them claim they "cannot live without it." They even sleep with it nearby.

Here's a factoid: Of all the human beans on the planet, more own a cell phone than do not.

Aside from the "ubiquitous calling and SMS functions," do you want to know what we use our phones for most often? Alarm clock. Camera. Games.

We also lie 31% of the time about where we are or why we're running late when we text. We break up with significant others, get dumped by significant others, flirt with potential new significant others (and other's 'others') mobily, on the run, in 140 characters or less.

I chastised myself for being so shallow and fretting about my phone being somewhere I was not. Now I know. The survey says: The cell phone is our remote control for life. And our skin? Well, we won't leave home without that, either.

Thankyouverymuch should be no problem

I have learned a lot about business etiquette at chamber events. I've learned a lot from emcee Beth Stephens at the Rogers Chamber of Commerce, who does an excellent job of publicly acknowledging and thanking the businesses who support and sponsor their events. I don't know that I've ever walked away from a Rogers Chamber event and NOT known what companies put up the bucks to help make the event happen.

I appreciate that. For one, I like to know what companies are actively participating in the business economy in Northwest Arkansas. I like to put faces to names. I like to know what type of events they find alliance with, and at what level they want to connect with their community. Those are the businesses I want to do business with. And, when I'm one of the sponsors, I sure appreciate knowing that my company's involvement is being acknowledged and appreciated. For all the same reasons.

Today's PRSA conference at the John Q aimed at branding your company message and connecting to consumers. There was much twitter about Twitter and the on-going chatter of social networking. It may be that 'please and thank you' take up too many characters to express. But in all the talk of branding –personal and corporate alike – the bell that sounded loud and clear today in my head was this absence of appreciation.

I heard it from media panelist, Rick Bagley of Channel 5 TV, who shared a story about a PR event that left his reporters feeling used and abused. I heard it from keynote speaker and ESPN star Jim Dykes, who talked about how important those courtesies are when working with the media. I can count on ten digits the times I've had a subject of a story write to say "thanks for making me feel special and double thanks for making me not sound stupid."

If branding is on your mind these days, just remember that these simple courtesies should lead the way. A sincere 'thank you' and 'you're welcome' should be among our most common sentiments at work and at play. An organization that shows appreciation to its employees, customers and supporters is an organization that gets appreciated in return.

Remember Bartles & James? And thank you for your support.

Finding the Joy in the Junk

I'm the only one in the whole complex of some 200-plus apartments with plants on the patio. It makes me feel different from the norm. An outsider. An oddity. My need to garden on the concrete could be a flashback to my college days of pothos and pony tail palms. It is a way to stay connected to my land and home in Eureka Springs. Here I tend morning glories and herbs, tomatoes and geraniums, and a night blooming serius I hope will come out some full moon.

Yes, I miss my home in Eureka Springs and the constant parade of deer across my lawn. I miss the fox who hunts in the hollow and uses my land as his shortcut. I miss the birds singing in the morning and the owls and coyotes making their noise at night. I miss the trees.

When I look out from my patio here in Bentonville I see lots of blank balconies; people tucked inside their 900-feet of comfort and privacy, unaware and unconcerned about their neighbor across the way. They are as untouched by my existence as I am by theirs.

In the cool of the morning I sip coffee from behind tall umbrella trees and flowering cacti and contemplate what the day holds for this entrepreneur. Life in this saddle is hard. It's always an uphill climb. It's a hat rack holding a dozen hats I must wear at any given time. Some I wear well, others not so much.

I've worked for myself most my adult life to enjoy either feast or famine, but the entrepreneurial spirit drives me as surely as gravity holds us in orbit around the sun.

On some mornings I find myself questioning my motives and my sanity. Sometimes I question my talents, my timing, my luck. Today as I peered out, I spied a visitor to my balcony. I've never had more than the occasional bee stop by. But today– a humming bird. A spirit some native American cultures call "joy." Here a tiny little creature in a great big world was drawn to my oasis by a pot of red nasturtiums. Here, if only for a hummingbird moment, to tap it for what it would bear.

He was gone as quickly as he arrived, on wings that move so fast you can't see them. And in that instant I knew how tiny I am in this universe and yet how my being here matters. I realized being different is necessary for some of us. And necessary to others, too. Of all the air space that hummingbird covers, he chose my space.

It was a brief bit of joy. A reminder that all the clutter of our busy lives is mostly just junk. It's space junk floating in our minds, caught in the orbit of our thoughts. A reminder that whatever we do and however we do it, our true task is finding the joy in all the junk.

Dumbing it down for really smart robots

I'm reading a lot about SEO. Search Engine Optimization. Frankly, I don't like what I read.

It seems that in order to entice those really smart search engine robots, spiders and wanderers into giving your web pages good ranking in search engine results, you have to dumb it all down. You have to break all the good rules of writing.

SEO copywriting "secrets" advise you to search and find your most popular keywords and then pepper them, heavily, very heavily, throughout your copy. It seems that being redundant and repetitive is resourceful.

I have to tell you now, this is the arrow piercing this writer's heart. Redundant and repetitive are the stuff of first-grade primers. See Dick and Jane. See Jane run. See Dick run. See Dick and Jane run. That's good SEO copy, mind you.

As a professional writer for some 30-odd years, fine tuning my craft has been in the opposite direction. I look at words for their individual meaning and the emotion they extract. When I notice I'm using the same word as description more than twice, I head to the Thesaurus to hunt down a better one. I look for ways to capture attention and the imagination, describe events that project the reader into the story like a time machine or the Federation Starship's transporter. Beam us up, Scotty, you've got to give us some more intelligent conversation.

Engaging readers is hard enough– they'd rather watch the latest episode of The Bachelorette or Wipe Out. As our daily media moves more into web space, will we dumb down our stories to appease the SEO robots? Or write to intrigue readers? How ironic that a really smart media can make us so dumb.