Author Archives: Dan Gershenson

Don’t hail a cab. Tweet for one: @ChicagoCabbie

I love stories of how everyday people stumble into innovation for a traditional business model when they aren’t even looking for it.

Jacqui Cheng has a great article at Arstechnica.com spotlighting Rashid Temuri, who goes by @ChicagoCabbie on Twitter.  When I was standing outside freezing the teen temperatures the other day, I thought, “Wouldn’t it be great if I could tweet a cab and then get one fairly soon rather than hoping I get lucky by one seeing me?” Glad to see Temuri picked up on this idea, whether intentional or not, using social media to address a common problem – getting a cab to come to you when there aren’t any in plain sight in your location.

Obviously, using social media tools like Twitter to tweet locations has worked out well for everyone from food trucks to municipalities (Newark Mayor Cory Booker is the King here).  Why not cab drivers? One point that I think is going to potentially get lost here besides the story about Tweeting for customers: Good for Temuri to offer extra perks other cabbies don’t to enhance the experience for tech savvy customers who use his services such as free Wi-Fi for iPhone/iPad users and discounts for social media users. Especially since I gather that he won’t be the only cabbie after this to use Twitter to get customers.

I don’t think Rashid Temuri set out to do something dramatic from a marketing perspective as much as just using existing tools to open up the lines of communication a little better. Yet, fortunately, he opened up a nice opportunity for himself along the way.

The takeaway is that you don’t always have to be a person who wields code and builds a cool new app to change perceptions about your business. Sometimes if you take a step back, there are ideas from other industries that you can adapt and integrate into your traditional business model. How? Don’t say “We need to be on Facebook doing ____” Start with the consumer problem first. Think about their biggest pains. What they’ve told you and what you’re hearing. Then you can go about identifying what existing tools you need – existing or custom-made for you – to address that problem. Who knows? The next step forward may be a lot more simple than you expected.

Do you have a similar story where you unexpectedly stumbled into a new revenue stream or product/service line just by trying to solve a common business problem? 

5 Cheap Moves Your Brand Can’t Afford

There’s savvy spending and then there’s cutting corners you don’t need to make at the risk of looking shabby in front of others. Avoid these moves to prevent yourself from making a really cheap first impression.

1) The non-company e-mail address

When I see someone with the email address of @aol.com, @gmail.com, @yahoo.com, etc., I have to wonder. It’s perfectly fine to have personal email accounts with something outside of your company name, but it’s not OK in a company email. Do you do this in your spare time? And even if you do, do you want to give that appearance?

No. You don’t. It’s not expensive to get an email with your company name, tagline or some variation. Reserve one and start using it. Now.

2) The off-the-shelf logo

I can appreciate budget-consciousness. But you can differentiate without spending a fortune.

When you buy clip art or off-the-shelf logos from a company, you’re defeating your brand’s ability to stand out before you get out of the gate. It’s important to strive for a look that feels original, not like other brands you’ve seen. You don’t get the attributes of that other brand by association. You look like you wish you were them instead of who you are. Not a good move.

Consider working with a logo designer you can sit down with who has been referred to you from someone you trust. You know – a human being. Not a website that doesn’t understand your goals. When you’re upfront about your budget, you might find some flexibility on their end. Especially if you can be flexible in terms of number of logo options you get.

3) The dime-a-dozen business cards

While your business card may not tell the whole story of you, there’s no reason to go cheap on it. If you give out a card that has a unique texture, shape, embossing and hear them say, “Wow, cool card,” you’re laying the groundwork for a solid first impression – no small thing.

I’ll bet you don’t get that kind of response when you order 5,000 business cards for $50. If you’re getting a whole lot for a little, there’s a reason for it. So you’ll have your cards, which I suppose is better than absolutely nothing, but the opportunity to impress won’t happen. Better to invest more in your business card than less.

4) The static direct mail “explosion”

Oh good! That printer is offering you thousands of direct mail postcards for next to nothing.

But wait.

Are you opening a club or trying to establish a solid personal brand? Before you blanket the world with 5,000 direct mail pieces/flyers, consider this: If it’s a non-personalized piece (or a “static” piece), you may get a response that is less than 1%. So let’s say that takes you down to about 50 pieces that won’t get immediately thrown away. Then let’s say that you chose a broad list of addresses to mail to rather than something targeted around your ideal customer. That takes you down to about 10 pieces.

But among those 10, there are a bunch of variables – timing, budget, competing options and more. All before you’ve taken a first meeting.

This is where the “What have I got to lose?” mentality can take over where numbers and percentages are played, but don’t let it. What you’ve risked is the opportunity to form a first impression that’s customized, such as what printers can now do with personalized printing, even a web address on the piece that sends the recipient to a special landing page. These are the tactics worth spending more on, including list development, which leads us to…

5) The list of “anybodys” in your database

A lot of companies can promise you a list of prospect names for purchase, but be careful. All are not alike. The cheapest might not be offering you the best quality based on your specific criteria, such as a collection of names. How many of those names have been “scrubbed” or updated? And even if they are, are they the right names you’re trying to reach?

Your customer database can be your lifeblood and the less input you have on creating that database, the more you’re leaving to chance. And that’s hampering your efforts early on. When you cut corners by purchasing a list without knowing this information, you’ll not only hurt yourself with a less-than-ideal list, but you’ll also be impacting the things you use that list for.

Wow, the cost of being cheap sure can get expensive, can’t it?

6 Tools Better Than An FAQs Page

Picture that someone has just absorbed your home page and perhaps dove into your other pages. They’re crossing an important point where they’ve gone from ordinary visitor to more interested party. They may not be ready to BUY just yet, but it’s reasonable to expect that they’re moving toward having an initial conversation, right?

They just have a few questions they’d like to have cleared up, perhaps even before that first actual meeting takes place.

Perfect! They can just go to the FAQs page on your site and surely most of those questions if they’re common enough will be addressed, right?

Sure. And that’s the problem.

You can have your website answer the question and watch the lead potentially disappear by thinking about it or YOU can personally address the question by building customer service mechanisms into your site that are more advanced than a page of “Catch All” answers.

A personal answer leads to a conversation.

An FAQs page may go nowhere.

Imagine that you’ve just answered that prospect’s burning question. Now you get one of those cherished moments where the prospect says…

“You know, as long as I have you on the line…”

It’s this follow-up sentence that leads to moving the conversation down the tracks further. And that’s a lot less likely to happen with an FAQ. In that case, the prospect gets the answer they’re looking for, but there’s not much to build upon the answer. Many times in a conversation, thoughts and questions arise that you hadn’t considered before, which leads to more questions.

And in turn, that creates the opportunities for more answers. Customized answers.

Here lies another fallacy of the FAQ: Lack of customization.

You say you’re not a one-size-fits-all company but you’re giving common answers for all. I know, you’re just being helpful. But again, if you want to ensure an experience that helps the prospect get exactly the answer they’re looking for, even if it’s something that another prospect has asked, don’t you want to be sure by answering it yourself? No two conversations are exactly the same. This is a good thing.

Ah, but you may say the FAQs provide all the answers in one place.

Convenient? Sure. But let’s remember something about your website. It’s got to work hard to hook a person in and give you information about that visitor so the visitor converts into a more serious lead opportunity. You know more about them and you know they have interest in learning more about you. They’re no longer a data point. They’re Jim McGillacutty from Fayetteville, Arkansas who has a question about your services. If Jim browses an FAQ and leaves, you’ve gained little. If he opens a chat window to get the answer, you’ve gained tremendously.

But the customer doesn’t want to be sold, right?

So we’re assuming that every personal chat is going to be used as a blatant selling opportunity? I don’t agree. If you’ve trained your customer service team appropriately, the sell is very soft and the advice is very helpful rather than too sales-ish.

Sure, if your people leap into “How many orders would you like of that today?” right after they’ve answered a question, that’s a turn-off.

You can be personal without being pushy.

To help you feel better about leaving the FAQ page off your site, here are 6 mechanisms that I believe work better:

1. Blogging

Sometimes I hear, “Search engines like FAQ pages because they provide a lot of content.”

Does a blog not have the ability to provide a lot of content? Does a blog not have the ability to answer a common question that prospective customers have? Could you not build certain keywords into it so search engines find it?

And if they come across a blog post that answers their question, wouldn’t it seem likely that they’d explore other posts and stay more engaged with the site beyond just one page of answers?

Seems to me that if you had a dozen common questions, you might have a blog post or two. Or 12.

  

2. Skype / Instant Message Windows

A few months ago, on a client’s behalf, I was evaluating a company that helps set up apps for Facebook contests called Wildfire. I give them props here because they handled my questions exactly the way I would need them to without an FAQ.

See, the problem with FAQs is that you run the risk that the prospect’s “Q” is not on the list. And that leads to frustration. Buh bye. Thanks for playing. Game over, man.

Instead, I was able to chat with one of Wildfire’s customer service reps via text chat in a convenient window on their site. I typed out my stupid question, which led to more stupid questions and I was able to get the app set up without too much difficulty. And I’m a content person, not a developer. Would an FAQ have answered my questions as well? No way.

 

3. Dedicated Twitter Handle

I’m not talking about your general Twitter account but a Twitter handle that is designed purely to connect and interact in real-time with questions about your business. Taking a cue from the hospitality industry, there are hotels that use Twitter as concierge to inform travelers to that city about reservations, things to do in town, restaurants, bars, concerts, you name it. Your business may be able to apply the same principle to your audience as well.

 

4. Private Message on Your Facebook Page
This is a feature that Facebook is rolling out and will become more and more prominent – business pages will allow fans to private message that business, which helps alleviate any concern you might have about asking your question out in the open for all to see.

Like Twitter, this provides a place where you can answer your prospect’s question and capitalize on the location they’re already living in, in the social media realm.


5. Google Plus Hangouts
Dell is a big fan of Hangouts for customer service purposes, as it plans to use the video chat service of Google Plus to help multiple users. As G+ continues to gather steam, how great would it be to host regularly scheduled sessions to help a group of people at once with similar questions, again, in real-time.

 

6. Question Box and Form
I like this avenue least, but it’s still an option that invites conversation – the question box. It’s less advance and less interactive, but it’s better than nothing. This is very, very important – make sure if you’re going to make them articulate their problem in a boxed area on your site that you guarantee when you’re going to respond back to them – definitely within 24 hours and preferably sooner.

 

Why can’t you do both?

If you must have an FAQ and chat mechanisms on your site, so be it. I would rather you try the best of both worlds than have an FAQ and nothing. The reality is that some have become so comfortable with FAQs and little else that if eliminating such a page makes you that nervous, keep it but make sure you’re building in other avenues that, quite frankly, I hope your prospects pursue before they even feel the need to visit your FAQ page.

Because if you build in the tools you need, they won’t need to visit the FAQs and your brand’s relationship with that person will be better off for it.

How To Take An Effective Social Media Vacation

Happy 2012 to you all! I’m excited about the possibilities this year brings as I hope you are as well.

Coming out of the vacation period in which many companies took time off for a week, I was thinking about how the last week of the year is probably the least productive one. Even beyond that week, I’m sure you can agree that we should be allowed to take a week or two like that off to recharge the batteries – even those of us heavily entrenched in social media.

Which is why I believe an engineer much smarter than me needs to invent a simple yet effective tool: For everything we do, every social media channel we’re on, there should be an applicable “I’m On Vacation” Button.

That way, our Fans, Followers and Connections would know there’s a reason we’ve gone silent for a little while. And while we’re at it, although I’m not going to be one more person who piles on the social influence measurement tools (i.e. Klout), it would be lovely if these tools factored in the common sense realization that we human beings need to take a break now and then, so we shouldn’t be penalized for doing so. The “I’m On Vacation” Button would allow everything to pause.

I suppose this is where some of my colleagues in social media will say that social media never stops. I agree. So if you can:

1.    Invite someone to guest post for you that week.
Guest posts are great to have anyway for getting new perspectives, so what better opportunity to have someone step in than when you’re away?

2.  Share the load internally across individuals or departments.
You shouldn’t be the only one in your company who “gets” social media. If you are, start training someone else to step in to handle your responsibilities for the planned and, heaven forbid, the unplanned. Do it now.

3. In my case as someone who handles this on the client’s behalf, provide the client with posts in advance with admin names and passwords for posting on certain days, if you are in a place so remote that it doesn’t have Internet access. Cruise lines aren’t impossible but they can be a challenge at times when you’re floating along the Caribbean.

4. Put mechanisms in place to re-post archived posts during your time off that still have relevance.
Obviously if it’s a post that speaks to really old news (i.e. how this hot new tool called MySpace is surfacing), you wouldn’t want to post it. But if it was a broad enough but useful topic back then, it’s probably still useful today.

Then there is a fifth option that’s more powerful than any of the above:

5. Create content so good you could take a sabbatical and return with
just as much Influence if not more.

Here’s my greater point in regard to stepping away from the computer temporarily and what it means for our overall Influence – we are so wrapped up in measuring the elusive metric of Influence that we must realize it really isn’t a day-to-day or week-to-week thing.

If Lady Gaga takes a week vacation, does she stop being influential? How about Warren Buffett? Jimmy Buffett? Guy Kawasaki? Seth Godin? How about any of the top 500 or so people on Twitter? How about other respected authors and speakers? How about sources that haven’t even formally existed for decades like Led Zeppelin and The Beatles?

Of course not.

They have influence that transcends the mini measurements of percentage points or number of Fans. For them, influence doesn’t die. Because they have pieces of content so impactful that they bridge the gaps of time. Through their books, their speeches, their videos, their songs, their presentations, their photos, their posts.

Wait a minute. If we created so much great content that people could chew on it and appreciate it for at least the week or so we’re in Tahiti (or whatever escape floats your boat), we might not even need a Vacation Button. We would be able to come back and see that it’s not the end of the world because people would be sharing a lot of what we have had to say anyway.

It must be nice to go on vacation now and then while knowing your content is just that worthy of being shared while you’re away from your desk.

Not a bad thing to aspire to, eh?

7 Social Media Resolutions for 2012

I won’t even bother with the typical exercise goals – I’ll start with the goals that are easier for me to accomplish in 2012 in the social media realm. I’ll bet you may want to take a few of these for yourself too. 

  1. Clean out the quiet people on Twitter.
    If they haven’t said anything in 21 days, they’re just listening. I respect that, but I’m here to have conversations. Quality of audience, not quantity. I would actually unfollow more than that but you have to allow that people do go on vacation for a week or two and want to completely disconnect from electronic contact during that time.
  2. Do less searching and do more Stumbling.
    StumbleUpon is a terrific resource for content ideas and inspiration. You get things within your area of interest, but you discover topics that surprise you at the same time.
  3. Focus more on the metrics that matter.
    In addition to the metrics of social media that have meaning, there are some glossy metrics that I find myself wrapped up in. The standard ones, really. I’m going to push myself harder to dig deep and not get distracted by the fluffy metrics that sound good but matter less.
  4. Watch 1 TED video per day.
    Not all from my industry either. We can spare 18 minutes to feel inspired. Pretty much all the TED videos do that for me.
  5. Look at social influence scores far less.
    I’m not terribly proud to look at my Klout, Kred, PeerIndex as much as I do. I don’t plan on dropping them yet, but I also know they aren’t why my clients make decisions on my services. And they never sum up the kind of person I am in my real world interactions. Planning on taking them with less than a grain of salt.
  6. View at least 3 SlideShare presentations per week.
    This is probably the most useful form of content I have ever gleaned insight from. I am thankful for the people who believe in sharing their knowledge on SlideShare and will try to return the favor by sharing my own.
  7. Remember that social media isn’t everything.
    It matters and it’s wonderful. I won’t let anyone tell me otherwise. But I have formed relationships this year with people in business networking settings that have proven to be abundantly fulfilling as well. Not to mention a few speaking engagements. To neglect that and be cooped up in an office online all the time would have been such a missed opportunity. So I plan on getting out there even more in 2012.

Got any you want to add? Let’s hear ‘em. I’d like to add to this list with a few ideas from you.