neck deep in the zeitgeist Archives | Page 10 of 124

Peter Shankman has a post today about an ill-conceived comment posted to 7-11’s Facebook page. I haven’t researched it to find out what their reaction is, but we can guess based on past experience. They will issue an apology, and someone might even get fired.

Peter’s blog is full of comments from people discussing whether the comment is offensive, whether we’re being too PC and what this slip-up says about 7-11’s social media policies and corporate voice.

The issue raises lots of questions, but as to the question of “How did this happen?”, I can answer that one:

A person made a joke in an effort to amuse other people. It didn’t work.

Don’t suppose that’s ever happened to you?

Folks, we’ve got to get used to this. If we want brands to use social media and be more edgy, more interesting, more topical and more timely, they are going to screw up every now and then. If every screwup becomes a new target for America’s favorite pastime of self-righteous indignation, brands are going to stop trying.

Do we want every company communication in social media to be boring, bland and homogenized? If so, then let’s keep attacking them for every misstep.

When I worked for a small independent record label and music distribution company, I accidentally sent a newsletter to one of our artist lists where I got the name of his most recent album wrong. I immediately sent a follow-up email apologizing for the mistake and blaming it on a long day.

In the interim, at least three people wrote back calling me some variation of an idiot who deserved to lose his job for this grievous error. One of them, on reading my apology, wrote back again. “I’m sorry,” he said, “I’ve had a long day, too. There was no need for me to be so unpleasant.”

What happened to change his mind? My first email, in his mind, came from a faceless company. My second came from a person, and he could empathize with the idea of a person making a mistake.

Keep that in mind the next time some corporate tweet or status update rubs you the wrong way. It probably wasn’t written by a committee, but by a person trying his or her best.

image by fireflythegreat

Some social media customer service tips for my contractor

neck deep in the zeitgeist

Dave15 April, 2011

We’re having a lot of work done on our house, including turning our attic into my awesome home office/aerie/fortress of solitude. I like our contractor very much, but now that the work has stretched past two months, it’s starting to wear me down. Earlier this week we were talking about the schedule and without thinking, I said, “I’m really tired of having you guys here.” His very reasonable response was, “Yep, it’s not a convenience.”

I started thinking about the many little ways that this experience has been inconvenient, and some of them could be alleviated somewhat with freely available web tools. So, if you’re a contractor, here are some things you could do that I’m sure your customers would appreciate. They may not all involve social media per se, but the general principles are there.

1. I never know who’s going to be here when.

Once or twice a week, usually when one of us is on our way out the door, the contractor will tell me the upcoming schedule. I don’t write it down, so I certainly don’t remember it. How about putting the schedule in a Google Doc and updating it daily? Or a shared Google Calendar? That would require some extra time at the end of the day on the contractor’s part to update all the schedules for all jobs, but it would be well appreciated.

You could also create a Posterous blog just for this job, and the contractor, subs and homeowner could update that via email. Or a private Facebook group.

2. I don’t know who all these people are.

In the course of our various endeavors, there have been roughly 1,012 tool belt wearers in and out of the house. I have been introduced to all of them, but I’m afraid I’ve forgotten a lot of their names. “Although, given that this is the Chapel Hill area, I’ve known a few of them for 15+ years and one is a guitar player famous in the indie rock world”.

Take a picture of the folks who are going to be working on my house with your cell phone, and post them somewhere. They could go on the Posterous blog or the Facebook group, too.

3. I’m not always here to answer questions, and even when I am, they don’t always get asked.

I spent 20 minutes talking to the painting contractor on Monday about what colors went where. On Wednesday his guys showed up without him, and painted one “thankfully small” hallway the wrong color. Again, how about a Google Doc with all the information that anyone can refer to?

4. How can I recommend you to my network if you’re not online?

Again, I’ve been very happy overall with our contractor. I would happily recommend him to my friends. If he had a Facebook page for his business, I would go there and like it, and leave a positive comment. But he doesn’t. I know, like everybody, he’s busy running his business and trying to have a life. But the hour that it would take him to set up a basic page would be time well spent, especially in this tech-heavy, relationship-oriented community.

There are lots of other tools that Google makes available for small and local business, and I’m finding I search for a lot more than just restaurants on Yelp. Plus, small businesses benefit from the Google juice they get from having searchable content on a blog or videos on YouTube, just like big businesses. There’s an electrician in town with a white truck that says www.chapelhillelectrician.com on one side and www.carrboroelectrician.com on the other. That’s a guy who understands the value of SEO to a local business.

But we’ll leave it at that for now. What suggestions would you have for local service providers that would make you a happier customer?

image by geishaboy500

I’m joining Radian6 as Director of Social Strategy

neck deep in the zeitgeist

Dave14 April, 2011

These career-transition blog posts seem to have a certain structure to them:

High-minded statement about the industry, life, careers, challenges, fulfillment, etc.
Something about how much the author has always admired a person and/or a company.
The reveal: Hey! Guess what? I’m going to work for that company!
Job description that highlights all the awesome stuff and ignores the mundane, and generally gives a sense that this new job is not only the best job ever in the history of jobs, but ultimately preferable to being a rock star, racing car driver, astronaut or independently wealthy.
Brief statement about how the author’s current job is awesome and how he or she loves it and is of course highly successful there, but the new job is just that little bit awesomer.
Onward, to the future!

You’ve already seen the title, so I’m going to skip to #3:

Hey, guess what? I’m going to Radian6, as Director of Social Strategy. I’ll be working with Radian6 customers to understand how social media in general and Radian6 in particular integrate within the enterprise. It’s a natural evolution of the work I did as Social Media Manager for SAS, and what I’ve learned working with clients at New Marketing Labs. Plus, you know, I did write a book about enterprise social media strategy.

And, as a bonus, I’ll be working with Amber Naslund, who has been not only a friend but also an exemplar of the right way to walk the talk, social media-wise. I can’t count the number of times I have referred to her and the community team at Radian6 when seeking real-world examples of effective community engagement for business.

I’ve had the chance over the last few weeks to speak with and meet quite a few of my future colleagues, and have been universally impressed. I saw them in action last week in Boston, at Radian6’s first-ever user conference. Not only was there a great vibe among Radian6 staff and customers, plus a lot of buzz about the Salesforce.com acquisition and announcements of new Radian6 features, but it was just a really fun, informative, worthwhile conference. I’ve been to a lot of social media conferences and a lot of user group events, and this one set a new standard for integrating what the customer wants to learn with what the company wants to share. And I still hate that I missed the party.

I’ve had quite an experience at New Marketing Labs and learned a lot. There are some great folks there and I will miss them. It was a great opportunity and I wouldn’t have missed it.

And now…

Onward, to the future!

image by NASA

If I love buying local so much, why do I buy so much from Amazon?

neck deep in the zeitgeist

Dave26 March, 2011

I am a huge fan of buying local. I got a warm glow at a coffee shop this morning when I saw the list of their local sources of ingredients. I pay more money for locally-made items because I want those businesses to succeed and stay in my community. Heck, I buy soap from Piedmont Biofuels. I know it’s a by product of something or other and I don’t really care, because it’s local.

But today I’m trying to buy a chair for my new home office. I did a Google search for furniture stores in my town and got a more-or-less useless mishmash of results. Only one of the stores I had in mind showed up on the first page of results, and it doesn’t appear to have a website.

Then I searched for a store by name. Its site won’t open. I followed the link to its Facebook page, but that has no useful information.

Ten years ago, I would have spent the day driving around to furniture stores. I don’t have that kind of time anymore, and I don’t think The Boy would enjoy it very much. “Or he would enjoy it too much: “Cool! A hundred beds to jump on!””

Local merchants, I love you and I want to buy from you, even if you cost a little more. Please, make it easy for me. Before I come to your store, I want to look at your website. And I don’t just want stock photos and your hours. It would be nice to know what brands you carry, but I also want to know what your prices are and if you have what I want in stock. Before I get in the car, I want to know there’s at least a reasonable chance I’m going to come home with what I want.

If I can’t get that, why wouldn’t I just order it from Amazon?

Image by me

My three words for 2011

neck deep in the zeitgeist

Dave2 January, 2011

I love a good meme as much as the next guy, and the “three words” meme originated by Chris Brogan has the advantage of also being a useful exercise in introspection and planning. So here are my three words for 2011:

Progress. Impact. Balance.

Progress

This is going to be a big year for me personally, and for New Marketing Labs. We’ve done a lot of thinking about the business we most want to be in and what our clients — and the clients we would like to work with — really need. The social media world is evolving rapidly, and mostly in ways that are predictable based on past experience with technology and the Internet. There are more social media agencies and consultants than ever. Now that everyone is jumping on the bandwagon, it’s time to focus on fundamentals. You can find a less enigmatic description in my “New Year, New NML” post, coming soon to the New Marketing Labs blog.

But the main point here is that I will be taking on new responsibilities and new challenges. In a rapidly-evolving marketplace, you don’t have time to sit still. In everything I do for NML and for my own development within my current role, it has never been more important to focus on progress. Is what I’m doing this quarter getting me, NML and our clients where we need to be? This month? This week? Today? This very minute? If the answer is no, I need to be ruthless and move on.

For me personally, this needs to be a year of progress as well. When i left SAS to go to NML, I left a great company that I truly respected. I’m working harder and on more interesting, rewarding and worthwhile projects than at any point in my career. My book with Mike Barlow, The Executive’s Guide to Enterprise Social Media Strategy, comes out next month. I’m meeting, connecting with and engaging with more people than ever. I need to check in regularly and ask myself if this is all taking me where I want to go. Part of that is making sure I have a clear vision of where that is. As I type that I realize that vision is only about 60 percent clear in my mind, and I obviously need to address that.

Impact

You can progress toward a goal, but eventually you have to reach it. That’s true for me personally, and for my work with NML. Visible signs of the success of your efforts are essential, whether you’re keeping yourself motivated or giving your customers tangible evidence that you’re providing them value. We’re refocusing all of our efforts at NML around providing — and demonstrating — ROI with our strategies and tactics. Any agency or consultant who can’t show that clearly will be looking for a new line of work in 2011.

Another way of looking at impact is the impact my work is having on my life and family. For one thing, I’m traveling a lot and The Mrs shoulders the burden of looking after The Boy when I’m gone “and she has a very responsible and demanding job herself”. I need to be aware constantly of the impact on them, thinking of practical strategies to mitigate it, and evaluating the personal ROI of all this. Which takes us to…

Balance

SAS sincerely values work/life balance, and makes it as easy as possible for employees to maintain. Now I need to find that balance for myself. For instance, it’s Sunday afternoon and I’m writing this on the couch with The Boy, watching cartoons. Am I ignoring him by working while we watch, or am I spending more time with him by writing this on my iPad instead of at my desk?

As for balance in the larger sense, I’ve frankly never been very good at it. I’ve always been an all or nothing kind of person, with work and personal interests and my health and fitness. It’s a continual struggle and I’m happy to find that the more of a challenge it becomes, the better I seem to be getting at dealing with it. But I still have a long way to go.

I also need to get better at saying no. Right now it seems the only thing I say no to is sleep, and that is clearly not sustainable.

And saying no doesn’t just mean the opposite of saying yes. If someone asks me for a favor, for instance, and I know I won’t be able to work it in, I have a bad tendency to ignore it, rather than explicitly say, “Thanks, but I’m afraid I can’t.” “If you’re reading this and waiting for a response from me on something you’ve asked me, my apologies. Feel free to ask again, but, well, I might say no.”

Progress, impact and balance. Good, solid, fundamental words for a year that deserves them.

Do you have three words of your own?

image by D Sharon Pruitt