Mike’s Points

Facebook is where most every aspect of my life collides. There, my friends include people from grade school, high school and college; people I worked with at three of the five post-college jobs I’ve had; people who I have met via social media and some I have worked for as a contractor; and my immediate family and extended family like cousins.

My professional and personal lives.

Twitter is similar to Facebook in that the lines are blurred between professional and personal in who I follow and who  follows me.

But, hey, that’s social media, right?

So listen up all you companies: You can’t really have your employees tweeting, facebooking, blogging, etc., just about your company. Personal aspects will naturally flow into those messages.

And that’s a good thing. Sure, go ahead and have guidelines and policies to try to ensure that those tweets are not bashing the food you serve or other potentially negative social media mentions. But, do know and trust that it won’t be all business.

Because life is not all business.

Because life is social.

Because social media is, well, social and, as I just said, it’s life.

Social media is nothing more than a set of tools that, among other benefits, allows companies and organizations to add a very personal touch to their often cold aura. You can enhance your organization’s  brand, reputation, image — whatever — by making it more human.

And, by being more human, yes, it will make mistakes and look bad at times. But, people are forgiving so accept and move on. Ultimately, your organization will be better for it — or it will be if you listen and learn, and help your people be your company.

Okay, rant over. Move on with your day.

Thank you for taking the time to read. Please leave your feedback if it’ll make you feel any better.

-Mike

Image: “red lines” courtesy of Claudio_r at  http://www.flickr.com/photos/28571975@N08/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Value is an interesting concept, and has many sides to it. Among other factors like price and quality, social media plays a role in determining the level of perceived value in business, an organization, etc. Whatever it is or how you define it, ultimately, nothing is purchased unless high enough value is perceived in that product or service.

And, in relationships, you’ll really get no where — or you won’t get far — without contributing value to the personal and professional relationships you have.

So, being inspired by Charlie Wollborg’s own thought-provoking and inspiring videos, I offer up my own brief commentary on value and its connection to business and relationships. I am no way comparing my video thoughts to his — Charlie’s are more inspiring, more fluid, more entertaing and more informative.

As always, I welcome — and really want — your feedback. Thank you for stopping by.
-Mike

Early in my career, the need for continuous education of clients was impressed upon me. Since then, I’ve seen over and over and over yet again that there definitely is a need for continual client education.

And, internal, company/employer education as well.

In many ways, you can substitute selling when you’re talking about educating.

The need to educate or sell clients should be pretty evident. Clients need to have some understanding of what we’re doing for them and why. Yes, results need to be there. However, it’s clients’ understanding and eventual solid trust in us that produce long-term relationships and will keep clients from looking elsewhere for our expertise.

As with clients, there is the same need to educate internally — whether you work in-house or for an agency.

Of course, we need to educate down the chain — that is people we supervise and those new to the company. A smart sales manager for a former client said his job was to train his people so they could replace him. He was definitely a guy on his way up.

Equally important is the need to educate or sell up the chain. You know why a certain course of action needs to be taken, but don’t assume those who supervise you and higher up know. (Another benefit to educating up is that is helps those higher up in the chain to know the what and why of your role, responsibilities and the value you offer.)

But how? How to you justify a proposal, a new direction, a new approach?

Here are some ways to educate and sell your case:

1. Hard-core ROI. Whether you show actual numbers or a percent change, real numbers that show what your employer or client can expect are easy to understand.
2. Non-specific expectation. Okay, you don’t have hard-core numbers or percentages. You, however, can say that what you recommend should produce a significant, notable, slight, moderate — or other descriptive term — increase or decrease.
3. Case studies. Other companies or examples of what you propose that were successful. It’ll help your employer or client visualize what you propose by seeing successful outcomes of similar work.
4. Studies. Show that the best in class, successful, industry leaders or big companies are doing what you propose.

The first two items are good if you have prior experience in what you propose. The second two are for those proposals, etc., that you don’t have a lot of prior experience in but know — I mean know – it’s the right thing to do. So, you borrow from others’ positive experiences.

What other ways can we educate and sell ideas and ourselves?

– Mike

Joel Bittle over at GreenBuildingElements makes several good points about how builders should consider the reality of building green. That it can be less costly — at least the same as — traditional building.

While the energy part of being or building green can be easily seen — if you can save a few bucks to be green, do it — his points on health (the long-term health affects) and sustainability wouldn’t inspire me to focus on green. (Maybe health, but it depends on the issue. For many health issues, it depends on what it is and if/how close it hits home. Bittle made a good comment about it.)

The more conversation and debates there are around green, I think the more it’ll become more mainstream.

But, only if it makes personal or business economic sense. Bottomline, I’m not going to be green just to be green unless it affects my bottomline.

And, the bottomline for business is one that can steer business into awash of green washing.

Companies — and the marketers and PR people behing them, agencies included — too often and too easily jump on bandwagons if there’s a buck to be made or a product to be pushed.

Don’t.

If social media does nothing else, it forces a higher level of ethics and transparency. Sooner or later, now more than ever, if you are trying to pull something, you’ll get exposed.

So, go ahead and jump on the green bandwagon. Ultimately, if we can conserve our environmental resources and our financial resources, we’ll all be better off. Just be sure you’re focusing on both kinds of green and not just green backs.

-Mike

Control of branding and “the message” or word-of-mouth talk about a company, product, service, issue, etc., is a common theme in social media. It’s been written about in many books, on many blogs and, heck, even in person I’m sure.

And, it came up in a brief back and forth Twitter conversation I had with Geoff Livingston Thursday.

Maybe we’re talking about the same thing, but taking a different approach. Maybe it’s just semantics. Or, maybe we disagree.

As I’ve said in the past, businesses ultimately have control. Or, at least, the most influence.

Let’s start at the beginning: Essentially a company forms when someone sees a need in the marketplace and tries to fill it. (Yes, there are variances, like when a someone makes a product and then tries to find a need, but let’s stick with the basic premise.)

Before that company starts, there is no conversation, reputation or perception about it. It didn’t exist.

That company markets its products, so has contact with prospects, vendors and, ideally, customers via marketing communications, sales personnel, retailers, customer service personnel, etc.

Then, prospects and customers react to those “touch points” with the company — and have the opportunity to give their opinion of the touch point, whether its bitchin’ about a product online or giving rave reviews to the next door neighbor.

What online communication and social media — email, blogs, boards, etc. — have done is give consumers more power. More influence. More opportunity for our voices to be heard by a larger audience. Yes, more control over how ABC Company Inc. and its products are perceived.

But, remember, WOM is as old as history. (Just ask Adam about Eve’s review of the apple!) Companies have never been in total control of their brand or the WOM chatter.

Today, various tools and technology on the Internet give consumers more influence than ever before. Despite that, the ultimate influence of a company’s brand and the perception of its products and services is in the hands of the company.

The company starts all “conversations” via its marketing and other customer contact activities. We’re all just reacting to those contact points. And, we’re having a level of control or influence as to the positive, neutral or negative tone of the chatter — as we’ve always had.

But, ultimately, the company has the most control and influence because it initiated the chatter — via good or bad products, customer service, etc., — or it chose to heed the feedback of its marketplace.

Just like all good companies have done, and will continue to do.

– Mike