Bridging the Gap in Communication: Consumer Voices Being Heard

In the news, we are constantly hearing about customers who have used social media as a platform to voice concerns or disappointment with a company’s product or service.  The way that company responds to to such a situation can makes or break their reputation, both online and in the real world. I’m going to review three situations that received notable press coverage and discuss how the companies dealt with the customer’s complaints.

1. David Caroll vs. United Airlines

Backstory: David Caroll, a Canadian Musician, was traveling on United Airlines from Nova Scotia to Nebraska. He checked his $3,500 Taylor guitar which he saw being thrown onto the tarmac while he was looking out the window of the airplane. When he found that his guitar had been broken (the neck snapped off), he filed a complaint with United Airlines only to be told that he was not eligible for compensation because he failed to make the claim within the company’s required 24hr time period. As a result, Caroll made 3 videos about his experience. The first one, titled “United Breaks Guitars” (below) aired on YouTube July 6, 2009. The video has received over 8 million views to date.

United’s Response: The video received 150,000 views by the end of its first day online. This led to United Airlines contacting Carroll, despite having ignored his previous complaints. They first conveyed their sincere apologies and requested the use of the video for staff training purposes.  It wasn’t until the second video aired that United offered to compensate Caroll for his broken guitar – at which point Caroll said he would rather see that money go to a good cause, as guitar-maker Taylor had already donated two guitars to him (incidentally- Taylor capitalizing on this is an excellent example of using social media for positive brand management and customer service.)  Caroll’s experience and United’s poor response (delayed reaction and lack of initiative made it seem that they were disinterested in their customer’s issues) cost United shareholders approximately $180 million – as just four days after the video’s release, the company’s share price plunged by 10%. If that isn’t enough encouragement to take social media and customer service complaints seriously, I don’t know what is.

Learning from Mistakes: United probably won’t ever recover the dent in their reputation created by a single customer and a YouTube video. It’s a lesson in taking the possibilities social media offers to the mass public (your customers) seriously and acting quickly to resolve any negative feedback. You can read more about the incident and it’s backlash on the wikipedia article created for Caroll’s song.

2. Kevin Smith vs. Southwest Air

Backstory: Kevin Smith, a renowned and award-winning film-maker was thrown off a Southwest Airlines flight for being too overweight and posing a safety and security risk. Smith, who has more than 1.5 million followers on Twitter, began to tweet about his experience immediately after being ejected from his flight. His first tweet on the subject was simple and direct:

“Dear @SouthwestAir — I know I’m fat, but was Captain Leysath really justified in throwing me off a flight for which I was already seated?”

Southwest Air’s Response: While Southwest apologized via the same vehicle that Smith used – Twitter – they received a barrage of criticism from Smith’s fans who felt he was a victim of prejudice. With several tweets back and forth between @thatkevinsmith and @southwestair, Smith decided to use another social media platform, his podcast, in order to fully explain the situation and why he was so upset about it. Southwest argued that historically Smith has always purchased 2 seats for his flights. Smith’s response was that his historic use of 2 seats was rooted in a desire for comfort and to avoid socializing with other passengers, not out of a necessity because of his weight. While he acknowledged that he is indeed overweight, his problem was being removed after being seated and that being removed in front of everyone as if he were a “shoe bomber” was humiliating. Smith later boarded another flight and sent a picture along with his tweet:

“Hey @SouthwestAir! Look how fat I am on your plane! Quick! Throw me off!”

Smith continued with several tweets criticizing Southwest Airlines, ensuring that the internet would pick up on his story:

“The @SouthwestAir Diet. How it works: you’re publicly shamed into a slimmer figure. Crying the weight right off has never been easier!” “Hey @SouthwestAir! I’ve landed in Burbank. Don’t worry: wall of the plane was opened & I was airlifted out while Richard Simmons supervised.”

Smith’s plan worked and his story was picked up by many news outlets- including an interview on the Daily Show.  While being interviewed, he tweeted to Southwest Airlines, telling them to bring the same row of seats he was removed from to the show. He stated that if he failed to fit in them in front of the studio audience he would donate $10,000 to a charity of their choice, but if he was successful (and as such, not “too fat to fly”) they would have to admit they lied and change their policy/retrain their staff to be more humane in their dealings with overweight customers. Smith’s blog post about the incident is here, and Southwest’s public apology blog post is here.

Learning from Mistakes: Smith’s issue with the treatment of overweight people struck a chord with countless individuals who have suffered similar humiliating situations. While Southwest’s avenues for response (using twitter and blogs, plus phone calls, emails and letters) are appropriate, their insincere apology ruined their attempt at a cleanup and launched a PR nightmare. Smith simply wanted Southwest to admit that he was removed from the plane for being “too fat to fly” – but Southwest made other excuses for removing him and in subsequent conversations insinuated that it was essentially Smith’s fault for not purchasing more than one seat. The lesson to take away here is that every time a company mistreats or embarrasses or upsets a customers, they are taking a big gamble.  One can never be certain what kind of social media following or network a customer has in place, and any transgression has the capacity to be broadcast to the world almost instantaneously.

3. Dominos Pizza vs. Consumers

Backstory: Two Domino’s Pizza employees from North Carolina posted a video of themselves doing disgusting and unhygienic things to customer’s food. The video (rather stupidly posted on the employee’s personal Youtube account) had an instantly overwhelming and astounding effect. The video received so many comments by disgusted YouTube users that the Domino’s location in which the video was made was quickly tracked down and a complaint filed with Domino’s corporate office. This led to the firing of the two employees mere hours after the video was posted. They claimed that the video was a joke and the food wasn’t served, but the damage to the Domino’s corporate brand  was already devastating, and their dismissal more than warranted.

Domino’s Response: Domino’s corporate headquarters attempted to clean up the damage done by having Patrick Doyle, President of Domino’s USA, post a video response on Youtube. In the video Doyle expresses the disgust that the Domino’s family feels for the actions of the two employees. He apologizes for the incident, assures customers that the North Carolina restaurant is being sanitized and then continues to describe the steps the company is taking to insure that such an incident doesn’t happen again.

Learning from Mistakes: Mistakes is actually a misnomer here; as Domino’s handled the situation just right.  They acted quickly, used the same forum in which the criticism was first made, they admitted fault and showed how they are learning from and building off of the mistake that was made. The CEO taking the time to create a message of just him talking shows sincerity, and his choice of language (the use of trust) reaches out to viewers. Sometimes the best thing to do is admit you’re wrong, apologize, and tell the world how you’re going to make it better.

The Moral of the Social Media Story

Why did these incident’s happen? It is because social media increases the reach of the average person, blurring the line between customer service and public relations.  Where before social media a person who had a bad experience would tell 5-10 friends about their experience, they now have at a virtual soapbox that not only increases the reach of their comments, but also increases the duration of their affect.  When one speaks a comment, it is gone as soon as it is uttered.  You write something on the web, it’s there forever. Companies that realize the impact of social media on branding are the ones that will swim while others are sinking (like United Airlines and Southwest Air.)  The biggest thing to take away from these three instances is how you can use social media to manage customer services issues, and that everyone who has a negative experience might just be a Kevin Smith or a Dave Carroll.

What Is Social Media?

In case you don’t have 3:44 to spare, Wikipedia (an excellent example of the use of social platforms in and of itself) defines Social Media as such:

use [of] Internet and web-based technologies to transform broadcast media monologues (one to many) into social media dialogues (many to many). It supports the democratization of knowledge and information, transforming people from content consumers into content producers.

How Can Businesses Use Social Media?

What’s Next?

By Mark Hayward – Follow him @mark_hayward.

Do you own a small business? Are you having a hard time understanding Twitter?

As a small business owner and social media user going on two years now, I can honestly say that initially I did not really see the point or power of Twitter at all.

However, after sticking it out passed the learning curve, picking up a couple of followers, and followingreally intelligent people, thanks to Twitter, I get to make connections and learn something new every day. In fact, at this point I feel like Twitter is a tool that all small business owners should use as part of their overall efforts to build a distributed social media footprint.

Nevertheless, if you are like many in the small business community who have tried Twitter without success, then you might be fond of saying, “I just don’t get it.”

For numerous small business owners (including myself at one point in time) who are new to Twitter, and social media in general, there appears to be a common misconception that as soon as you sign up customers are going to fall from the sky in droves and you will immediately be inundated with more business than you can handle.

Small Business Twitter Frustration
Amongst the business people that I discuss Twitter with there appear to be two types of discouraged small venture owners who give up on Twitter at rapid rate.

Frustrated business owner number one feels like Twitter is analogous to entering a large cocktail party or hotel lobby where she doesn’t know a single soul. Yet, conversations are happening all around her and rather than trying to ease into the discussion, she gives up without talking to anybody because the sheer numbers are overwhelming.

Disgruntled Twitter quitter number two is the complete opposite of number one. He will get on Twitter, see all of the conversations going on, and assume it is the customer “candy store.” This leads to the sending out of many spammy messages, which spew forth details about his great products and prices. He will typically stop using Twitter when to his surprise nobody follows him back and he doesn’t receive one @ reply.

Twitter Tips to Help Small Business Owners
Recently, a friend asked me to help him with that “Twitter thing” because he wants more customers for his niche jewelry business.

After our very long discussion and Twitter run through, I thought that perhaps there might be other business owners out there who are beginners on Twitter and could use some help. Here are the 20 tips that I passed on to my friend:

1. Twitter is first and foremost a place to connect, learn, and listen.
2. Define your goals if you have any (e.g. business promotion, socializing, etc).
3. If you’re confused about where to begin on Twitter, but are interested in learning, take a look at the previously done Twitip post that highlights key people for beginners to follow.
4. Twitter allows you to interact with individuals who you might not normally come into contact with. If you want to interact with a celebrity or a person with a huge following then send a simple @ message or comment on something they are doing. If you get a response you can then take it from there.
5. Don’t be offended if folks don’t follow you back. It’s not personal. (Even if it is, it doesn’t really matter.)
6. Use a photo of yourself or your business logo in you profile.
7. If you’re interested in connecting with someone you might want to try ReTweeting some of their messages before you introduce yourself.
8. It’s probably going to take a good 3 to 6 months to get a following.
9. Find out who the influencers are in your industry and see if they are on Twitter. If they are, follow them.
10. Always follow Jeff Pulver’s rule of giving 95% of the time and asking only 5% of the time.
11. Utilize a Twitter photo-sharing site like TwitPic or Yfrog to share cool photos from your typical business day, or while plying your craft, so that people get to know you. It helps to build social trust.
12. Use Twitter Search with keywords to find information and conversations that are relevant to your business. It’s also a good way to find out if anyone is talking about you or your company.
13. If you are not part of a particular conversation that concerns your area of business, but you would like to participate, approach with caution.
14. If you are sending DM’s to your followers with something related to your business, make sure to use your social capital wisely. Overwhelming folks with DM’s can result in a rapid loss of followers
15. Don’t Tweet anything that you would not want to see on the front page of a newspaper or wildly famous website.
16. Do interact and connect and don’t hesitate to @ message folks who have 10x or 100x the number of followers you have.
17. Employ sites like Digg, StumbleUpon, and Reddit to find, and share amongst your followers, interesting stories from your particular area of business.
18. Create connections don’t spam. You most likely would not just walk into a crowded venue where you don’t know anyone and say, “Hi my name is Bob and I replace window screens and have great prices.” This method does not work very well on Twitter. (Should be a given but you still see it every day!)
19. Twitter is only one area online where you can begin to build a distributed social media footprint for your business. Do NOT rely solely on Twitter as your social media business promotion tool.
20. It takes a long time to build up a following and develop trust, but it only takes one Tweet to alienate every one of your followers.

To be sure, on a daily basis we are all trying to figure how best to utilize Twitter effectively as a small business tool. Certainly, this is not a be all end all list, so your thoughts and input on how small business can better tap into Twitter are appreciated.

Social Media in Plain English

Some quick and easy tips that were tweeted to me about using twitter to promote your blog. Cross posted for your enjoyment:

5 Ways To Use Twitter To Promote Your Blog

by Zahid Lilani on November 12, 2009

Twitter is now more popular than ever. Anita Hamilton at TIME magazine said “While some people call it microblogging or moblogging, I like to think of Twitter simply as blogging for regular people.” She said that in 2007 when Twitter was a baby… it is now microblogging powerhouse.

Bloggers shouldn’t be disappointed because even though you might like to write more detailed posts and not be limited to 140 characters, you can still use Twitter to promote your blogs and keep in touch with your readers.

Here are 5 Ways To Use Twitter To Promote Your Personal Blog

1) Choose a reasonable twitter username that reflects your personality or your blog. If your blog doesn’t have a set topic, which is the case with most personal blogs, go with any name of your liking. It is recommended you use your real name if you are comfortable or a nickname. Avoid numbers, make it simple and easy to remember.

2) Create a background image for your twitter profile page and have the name of your blog in a prominent place or tiled through out the page. Make sure you have a nice left column that has your picture and a small introduction about you or your blog.

3) Every time you publish a post on your blog, send a tweet to all your followers. Use a URL shortner to make long ugly links smaller and less scary to click.

4) Use Twitter search function to find other bloggers and tweeters who have similar interests as you and start following them. This is also useful if you want to generate topic for your next blog post.

5) Instead of just talking about yourself and your blog, try to make conversation with other people. It is as easy as replying to a Tweet that you consider useful or have something to say about. That’s how you will make friends and get more followers.

Top Ten Things You Can Do To Get Blogged

1. Build a kick ass company. You can ignore everything else in this post (although you shouldn’t) if you build an awesome web 2.0 company that solves a real problem in an efficient manner.
2. Approach Bloggers Directly. Most bloggers have email and other contact information up on their site (email: editor@techcrunch, GoogleTalk:techcrunch, Skype:marrington). Use it to contact them directly with your thoughts.
3. Be Persistent. We are all busy. Emails get pushed down in the inbox and forgotten. Send a reminder or two and try to get a conversation going. Don’t be defensive when you are asked hard questions.
4. Start a Blog. This is important for multiple reasons. First, it is an easy way for bloggers to see what you’ve done over time. It is also a good way for bloggers to find out about new releases and milestones via your RSS feed. Most company blogs have only a few subscribers but don’t let this discourage you. Those that have subscribed are keenly interested in what you are doing. It is very likely they have a blog. Make it easy for them and they will post about you.You can also use your blog to promote bloggers who write about you. Other bloggers will see this and want to write about you too.Jeff Jarvis says
   

   In this new world, links are currency. Links grant authority. Links build branding. Links equal value.

   If you don’t have a blog, you don’t even have a wallet, let alone currency. Having a blog gives you a tangible way to say thank you” to bloggers who write about you.

   Encourage your employees to blog too. Go easy on the blogging policy in the early days.

5. Be humble. The more humble you are, the more outstanding I assume your product is. Showmanship often equals desperation.
6. Be confident. Find the right balance with humbleness. Don’t be humble to the point of mumbling or leaving important stuff out.
7. Be descriptive. Tell me what your product does immediately in crisp and interesting prose that is FOA (Free Of Acronyms). FaceBook is a social networking site for college students. Pandora is a music recommendation engine. See? I need more details down the road, but give me something to hold on to before you jump into the cool way you’ve implemented ajax into the FAQs, or whatever.
8. Tell a Story. Bloggers want to tell a story. Help them. Pandora is different because they break down music. Technically interesting! 60% of FaceBook’s users log in daily. wow! Writely is allowing people to visualize a world without thick clients. big story!
9. Don’t hide information. Put your location, contact information, team bios, faqs, blog and other important information up on the site in an easy to find location. Don’t make bloggers look up whois information or read your terms of service (for legal jurisdiction) just to guess your location.
10. Don’t be a Jerk.If someone just won’t write about you, move on to another blogger. Don’t heckle them. If someone does write about you and you don’t like what they say, deal with it by sending an email or leaving a clarifying comment. Don’t attack. Other bloggers will see it and avoid you like the plague.It’s hard to determine tone in a written blurb. Bloggers easily take offense. Think twice before you post something that can be taken the wrong way, and be very quick to apologize if you screw up. Don’t try to explain yourself – just apologize. If you are going to say something nasty or controversial, do it via email, not in a public comment.One example of this came up today. 9rules network has been adding blogs to their network and people have been writing about them. Paul Scrivens doesn’t like the fact that people sometimes refer to 9rules as 9Rules (capital R), and Mike Rundle wrote an arguably condescending post about it today on the 9rules blog that said:
    

    Since our company/service/network is getting links from everywhere nowadays, I wanted to quickly clear up some confusion regarding the name of what it is we’re doing.

    The company is “9rules, Inc.” and the network is “The 9rules Network” or just “9rules.”

    These capital R’s dropped everywhere are making our CEO cry in public, and believe me, that’s not pretty. Lowercase r’s are where its at. Uppercase is for suckers

    The post was picked up by TurboBlogger and BlogHerald and 9rules has been roundly trashed in comments.

    Bad idea. Don’t do stuff like this. Once you have done it, apologize immediately and sincerely.

    I won’t even bring up the Rollyo thing. Perfect example of how poor/hasty communication can hurt a company. Like I said, bloggers are touchy and I’m a blogger. The company handled this the right way and in the end everything was fine.

Twitter Apps for the Public Relations Pro

SAN FRANCISCO, CA (RPRN) 10/27/09 — Since its explosion in popularity, much has been written on the fate of Twitter—will it survive, will it make money and how, do users want to monetize?

While industry-insiders debate its longevity and surviving business model, the public relations industry is still experimenting with how to best use micro-blogging. Much like other forms of social media, the industry still grapples with how to best use the medium to create brand buzz and fully engage consumers.

There are a number of apps to help you tweet more efficiently and, thus, more effectively. First, if you publish press releases online, use all available social bookmarks available, including the retweet button. If you house your press releases somewhere on your own website, install a retweeting button like Tweetmeme. The Tweetmeme button not only let’s you or anyone else retweet your press release with a simple click, but also automatically shortens the URL and allows you to view retweets, allowing you to track the popularity of a story, sense reaction, view who is reading your press release, and to respond to any negative tweets.

If you don’t currently publish press releases online, however, FileSocial or TwitDoc allow you to upload and tweet documents—a great way to tweet press releases.

There are a number of apps that help you to automate your Twitter acitivities, including Twitterfeed that automatically tweets your RSS feeds—be it blog titles or your media feed. Tweetlater allows you to, among a number of other automatic functions, schedule your tweets. Queue them in the morning, and tweet them throughout the day. This app can be especially useful for event reminders and updates.

Twitter caused a stir when it unveiled its trending topics function that allows users to see what everyone is tweeting about. There are now a number of apps that help you do the same. Tweetnews tracks all news-related tweets. Twitter Search, however, remains the ubiquitous tool that shouldn’t be overlooked. With Twitter Search, you can quickly search tweets about your brand and other related keywords, direct from the Twitter interface.

Twitdir is a directory of twitterers, searchable by location, email address, and even aliases.

Tweet Deck is a great agency tool that allows you to manage several social media accounts and to tweet directly from your desktop or smartphone.

For those who manage several brands, thus managing several branded and personal Twitter accounts, there are a number of apps that help centralize your company’s Twitter activities. Hoot Suite allows you to manage multiple users over various accounts, track and analyze link statistics, and monitor your brands.

CoTweet is a platform that helps companies and agencies to engage on Twitter. With the interface, you can manage up to six twitter accounts, monitor keywords and trends with integrated Twitter search, assign tweets to colleagues, and receive email notifications when tweets are sent to your various accounts.

Overall, there are a number of simple rules to follow, but one fundamental rule remains: keep your followers interested with relevant, interesting, personalized tweets. Think of Twitter as a 140-character pitch.

Five Things You Can Say At a Social Event

It turns out that lots of people still don’t know what to do or how to connect at face to face social events (like conferences or meetups or family parties). I’ve got a few spins on what’s normally said, and how you can navigate those socially challenging waters. If you’re stuck for what to say to someone to start a conversation, here are five suggestions. Pick one or two that work for you and practice them.

1. “So, what are you into when you’re not hanging out at social events like this?” I use a variation on this often. It lets the person talk about themselves without asking the dreaded, “What do you do?” (I loathe that question. My answer? “I type.”)
2. “Do you ever wonder what Adam West is doing right now? Me neither.” A non sequitur accomplishes a few things. It sets a level of the other person’s sense of humor, their pop culture knowledge, and many other things. Just replace “Adam West” with whatever fringe character you want to use to identify what the person might share in common with you.
3. “I’m always unsure what to say at events like this, so I thought I’d start with ‘hi.’” You can’t get much simpler than this. It lets the other person know you feel just a hair awkward, but it’s straightforward and direct, and lets them know you’re hoping to say a few things. Follow this up with, “I’d love to know more about what you’re into.”
4. “You look like the kind of person who has a different opinion than the mainstream. What’s your take on this so far?” This sets yourself up for talking with the kinds of people who always offer the biggest value to your perspective.
5. “What were you doing three years ago?” This one sets a person back a moment. They tend to either answer with a wistful smile or a guarded “who wants to know?” You learn something from this exchange, too.

Note that in all cases, I didn’t ask what someone does. I didn’t ask about the weather. I didn’t give them yes or no answers (except in #2, and that’s a trick), and I didn’t let you stay stale. The goal is to get past the awkward and into the meat. Weather is not an option. “Hot enough for you?” is the kiss of social death.

What do you think? Do you have any others you like to use? How hard is it for you to try something out of the box like this?

This post comes from Chris Brogan, who has a plethora of knowledge on social media. I’d re-blog his entire blog if I could, I think his knowledge is spot-on, and everyone could benefit from it.

A Sample Blogging Workflow

Your company has decided to launch a blog, and you’re the lucky blogger. Maybe you’ve even asked for this pleasure, suggested it to the boss yourself. Only now, you have to deliver, and you have to stay consistent. It’s not always easy to keep up a steady blogging pace, and there are days when you might run into a roadblock or two that might keep you from delivering on your schedule. Here are some ideas on how to build and maintain a steady blogging rhythm, be it for your personal blog or your business blog. We’ll cover goals, tasks, tools, and some bonus secrets.

Goals of Your Blog Posts

Blogging with a purpose helps you stay consistent. My blog, for example, is dedicated to equipping you with strategy, tools, and knowledge, so that you can go off and do useful things with social media and networking software. That’s the main goal of the blog overall. Secondary goals are to maintain a presence in your mind, should you have business needs. Another goal would be to stay in the habit of writing, and working at improving my writing. Those are goals for my blog.

Goals for my blog POSTS (versus goals for the blog overall) are different from post to post. On top of everything listed above, some ways you might use specific posts are:

• Seek link traffic – I write certain posts (like anything with a big number) with a secondary goal of deriving links from you to the story. Why? Because that tells Google and Technorati that I’m doing good things over here, and that matters.
• Seek advice – I often write posts where I ask for your opinion. Why have a blog if you can’t start conversations?
• Establish thought leadership – When I write about something way off from the norm of what others are blogging about, it’s to show you that I’m not a “me too” blogger.
• Promote something interesting – This might be people or software or an event. One point about promotion posts versus other kinds: if you’re looking for comments, promotion posts rarely get them.
• Link love to others – Sometimes, I want to give other people the spotlight, or point out good writing elsewhere. It’s important to keep that in mind. Linking out promotes linking in.

Blogging Tasks

The frequency of blog posts you choose is important. Many posts a day is great, if you can keep it up. Once a day is probably ideal (but not as easy as it seems). Once every two or three days means your readers won’t know what to expect. Once a week might be enough, depending on how niche your blog is, and how authoritative you are to begin with. But no matter what you decide, make the decision and stick with the schedule. Within that schedule, here are some potential tasks to consider doing for every post:

• Read material first – Use your RSS reader to see what else is being talked about, in your industry, in your vertical, on friends’ blogs, and most importantly, from fringe places that aren’t related to you or your industry.
• Compose a blog post – If there’s research and links involved, open a notepad file to keep track of the links you’re intending to put in the post, or sources of the data you’re collecting.
• Consider pictures – Using pictures makes the posts pop. You can use Flickr photos marked with Creative Commons licensing, provided you cite the source of the original photo, and provide a link. Read more about this at http://flickr.com/creativecommons”>Flickr’s Creative Commons site. There are other places for photos. Want to leave your other sources in the comments section?
• Tag your posts – If your blogging software doesn’t have tags built in, consider seeking a plug in, or at worst, having a few scripted copy/paste details of tags you can add to the bottom of every post. Tags are important for searchability, for getting the occasional new reader by finding you via your metadata.
• Announce your best posts – If I have a post I’m really proud of, and think works well, I’ll send a link to it via Twitter, usually summing up what I’m talking about before the URL. I might also send info about it via Facebook, via LinkedIn’s status line, etc.
• Occasionally, bookmark it, too – If I’m really pleased by a post and want it to have legs, I’ll share it in Google Reader’s shared items (which sends it to other places), will Stumble it in StumbleUpon.com, might even Digg it, too. If you do this kind of thing, be sure to digg and stumble and bookmark other people’s stuff, too, when it’s merited, so that you don’t seem like a perpetual self-promoter. I do my best to maintain a balance. Hopefully, that shows through.
• Check traffic and logs – As the day goes on, check your stats reader of choice to see if the blog is having any kind of impact. If you’ve got a decent ego surfing mechanism set up, also see who’s blogged about your post, and try to add some value back to their write-up. Don’t just drop by and say thanks. (Further note: don’t be crazy about checking your blog stats. They’re just a way to measure how people are responding to your posts.)
• Get off your blog and comment elsewhere – Make sure you’re taking the time to comment on at least five blogs a day. Whenever you’re going to bother posting and putting out new material, others are doing the same. Be sure to respect them and give them comments and feedback where you feel it’s appropriate.

Tools

When you decide you have to maintain a blogging rhythm, and regardless of whether you’re doing this for business or your personal blogging goals, there are some important tools that you should consider. If you’re going to get into a flow, here are the tools you should have on hand:

• RSS Reader – I prefer Google Reader above all others because of several features, including its ability to rapidly scroll through information in list view, its search capabilities, it’s sharing capabilities (make your friends work for you), and all the other options. Starting your blogging habit by having a good blog consumption habit is the only way to fly.
• Picnik – If you need free, easy, web-based photo editing to make interesting pictures, check out Picnik. I find this tool very useful in sprucing up my pictures. If you use it to edit other people’s photos, be sure to check the permissions for whether you CAN edit their images.
• Skitch – Skitch is a screen capturing tool that’s very useful, and has all kinds of built in goodies.
• Summize – If you’re looking for what Twitter thinks is interesting, you can use Summize to ask about interesting links and the like.
• Calendar – Here’s one. If you use a calendar (like Google Calendar, you can make a new calendar to show what you’ve written about, and what you plan to write about. This is called an editorial calendar, and it helps you keep your writing on a decent tack. Thus, if you intend to have 2 interviews a month and five product reviews, and a weekly check-in with some project, you can be sure to track all this in a calendar.
• Notepad or text edit – I write my blog posts in a plain text file so that I never lose a post to a bad Internet connection. Further, if I have a few moments, like if I’m on a horrible conference call, I can jot notes, and occasionally write entire posts while offline. I do this a lot at airports, bookstores, and other places where the Internet isn’t a given.

The Bonus Round

I guess in some ways, I should’ve started with this. First off, if you’re not reading Copyblogger, you’re missing some of the best advice on what to write and how to write it. Brian Clark and team (he has more guest writers!) keep a decent pace on giving you writing ideas and inspiration. Now, let’s talk about some more ideas that will keep you going with blogging material:

• Go to the grocery store – there are more headlines and interesting WAYS of saying things right there in your face at the checkout counter than you’ll likely come up with on your own. (This was a Copyblogger tip that I love).
• See what makes the front page of Digg.com (or your industry’s most likely haunt) – learning by emulating is an important blogging skill. Don’t be a clone, but if you pick up some tricks from writers you come to admire, all the better.
• Don’t forget other media – with YouTube, Slideshare, and several other places full of free and interesting content, don’t forget to give people a taste of video and audio to go along with your text and photo posts. In fact, be willing to mix it up often, or on a schedule, so that people get a sense for all the ways you can keep them informed and entertained.
• Schedule posts – My all time favorite piece of advice. If you can, write more than one post at any given sitting. Take the second post, especially if it’s not time-specific information, and schedule it for the next day. If you do this enough times in a row, you can build up quite a store of posts, and never miss a day (or whatever your schedule is) due to a random issue. Note: you can usually re-schedule things, in case the mood strikes, or news breaks, or the like. Don’t feel pinned down as much as you might feel liberated for all the last minute conflicts this will help you avoid.

Does this help? Do these mechanics give you some ideas on how to improve your own blogging habits? I’d love to know if you have other advice to add.

The Social Media 100 is a project by Chris Brogan dedicated to writing 100 useful blog posts in a row about the tools, techniques, and strategies behind using social media for your business, your organization, or your own personal interests. Swing by [chrisbrogan.com] for more posts in the series, and if you have topic ideas, feel free to share them, as this is a group project, and your opinion matters.

20 Ways to Drive Leads Through Social Media

September 28th, 2009 Posted in Social Media Community, social media

What is it? What is it good for? Engagement.

One of the primary selling points of social media is the concept of engaging a potential customer or partner in your product or service. So how do you accomplish engagement on a personal level?

20 Ways to Engage a Potential Customer Using Social Media

1. Start a blog. This seems like an obvious one. This should be one of the first things you think about doing when contemplating using social media as a marketing tool. There should always be a hub where your contacts can interact. The so called “hub.” WordPress is a great tool to start blogging. Get on it!

2. Join Brightkite and Use it during the business day. Brightkite is a service that allows you to update your location to the people following you on a regular basis. I do not recommend using this tool after business hours (could turn a little creepy) but it can help your contacts get an idea of what you do on a daily basis. Even if you are just sitting in your office for most of the day.

3. Join LinkedIN and recommend your partners. Most of us are already using LinkedIN (if you are not click this link for great information on LinkedIN). When you start to recommend the people you love working with it will help spread the goodwill that your business partners deserve. What happens you spread goodwill? Ever heard of pay-it-forward?

4 and 5. Start an RSS Reader and Find 10 Blogs. It is important that you use an RSS Reader to help with the organization of the blogs you read. For more information on starting and maintaining an RSS Feed check out this link. By using a Technorati or Google BlogSearch you can find 10 blogs that are industry “blog leaders” in your dedicated profession. By following and commenting on the blogs you will start to engage other readers.

6. Place a Poll on Your Blog or Website. There are plenty of tools available for polling on your website or blog. Wp-polls is a great resource if you are connected with wordpress. Ask a question to your audience. How can I make my content better? What are you wanting to read or learn about? This will help in engaging your more loyal readers and followers.

7. Ask a Loyal Reader to Guest Post. There is a ton of value in having your loyal readers do a guest post for your blog. They will feed your link to their subscribers and it also gives them a pride in ownership of your blog. This allows for the strengthening of a relationship in the long run.

8. Identify Your Strategy. This should have been placed at number one because it is the more important of everything you could be doing online. If you do not have a strategy in place to lead the charge into social media you will be at a lost when it becomes overwhelming. A strategy allows you to measure success points in your social media journey. This only helps when it comes to YOU engaging THEM.

9. Focus. Really Focus on Your About Page. What is the second most read page on a blog? The about page. People want to know who they are communicating with. The last thing you need to do (and I am also guilty of this on my personal blog KyleLacy.com) is to create a boring about page. Spice it up. Add some details that will create the best about page you could possibly want! Also.. enable comments on your about page. Allow people to comment on yours likes and dislikes.

10. Use Twitter on a Daily Basis. Now this might be a little overwhelming to the young at heart in social media but Twitter is fast becoming the ideal means of online communication. For a detailed explaination of Twitter check out DiTii.com’s video.

11. Add Your Social Media Information to Your Business Card. I have written a ton about this in previous posts. If you want to truly engage with the people you meet offline… add your social media sites to your business card. I have my LinkedIN, Twitter, and Blog URLs on my business card.

12. Be open to collaboration. You may have run your small-to-mid sized business for years by yourself but social media is built on the art of collaboration. People will be giving their opinions on a daily basis and it is in your best interest to take those opinions with stride. Collaborate and join in on discussions surrounding ideas related to your industry and your life. Collaborate. Learn. Listen.

13. Start a Facebook Page and Add in Your Family Life. Facebook is an extremely personal tool that can be used to connect with individuals on an emotional basis using pictures. You have to be open in sharing some of your family life with the outside world. There is a reason why PR companies have used the idea of “family man” to save many tarnished CEOs. Add pictures of your family, your dog, your vacation. People will connect. (New to Facebook. Check out this link on getting started as a company).

14. Pick 4 Social Sites and Maximize. You will become anti-social if you become overwhelmed with the multitude of different social media sites in which you are a member. We teach a 4-touchpoint theory of choosing four social media sites to spend your time. With a limited amount of time you will find that 4 sites benefits you in two main ways:

1. You will have more brain “bandwidth” to communicate on a deeper level.

2. The same people will pretty much be on all the sites you choose. (I say this loosely)

15. When someone comments on your blog email them a thank you. I learned this from the famous Gary Vaynerchuk. If someone is joining into the conversation on your blog and adding content make sure you thank them for your support. The people who show a vested interest are key to growing your readership. Don’t be alarmed if you don’t have time to email people the moment they comment. It sometimes takes me weeks before I send a follow up email.

16. Write About Personal Experience. We talk a lot about this. Write about the way you see life. Write about the way you experience your business on a daily basis. TAlk about how you are helping people. Talk about how you are solving the problems on a daily basis. Use Twitter. Use Facebook. Tell stories on your blog. People engage in stories. They connect with stories.

17. Try to Keep Yourself Within 450 Words or Less on Your Blog. It is important to keep blog posts concise and to the point. If you have trouble writing this will help you in the long run. As you can tell by the post you are currently reading, it is not essential that you keep it to 450 words. If you have advice and knowledge to send out to the masses.. . please do so. If you keep blog posts short it helps to keep readers and that is the goal.

18. Remember Quality vs Quantity. Quality is always better than Quantity. I have always said that 100 extremely engage readers are infinitely better than 4000 quasi engaged readers. Quality allows you to truly form relationships with the people you are dealing with on a daily basis. You can build your base anyway you like but make sure you always come back to quality over quantity.

19. Monitor the Conversation around Your Brand both Personal and Professional. For more on this read: 25 Tools and Tips to Following Your Brand Online. Why is it important to follow your brand online? You need to be involved in all the conversations surrounding your product, service, or YOU.

20. DO NOT HARD SELL! I am going to repeat this again: Do Not Hard Sell. This means you are not sharing about sales and detail after detail about your company. It means you are concentrating on listening to the people who are investing in your writing and social media presence. Nobody cares about your 50% sale. They care about who will be greeting them at the door of your store or place of business. Personality rules and if you want to act like a used-car sales man… go work at one.