Related posts:

1. Change Management for Social Media Success
2. Social Media Survey Results – A Report on the State of Social Media in Northeast Wisconsin
3. One Minute Social Media

The One Minute Manager discussed a few principles – One Minute Goals, One Minute Praisings and One Minute Reprimand – that we’ve adapted to social media.  Read on…

Social media can certainly suck up all of the available time that you allot.  You can Facebook, Tweet, Blog and watch YouTube videos until, well, there seems to be no limit.  On the other end of the spectrum is a more disciplined approach to social media. Most people can spend less than 20 minutes a day and be very effective with social media. That said, a full enterprise-class social media strategy will dictate spending more time than 20 minutes a day.  I get that, and this is not exactly for that audience.  If you’re a solo-preneur, think about how you might be able to work you social media into the “One Minute” paradigm embraced by the millions of One Minute Manager readers.

One minute goals: Sit down and write out your expectations and goals for your social media efforts this week. This will help you to confirm your desires for social media and will minimize the confusion about what to do, where to do it or what to say.  Take another minute and think ahead to what you might be working toward this month (or next).  These one minute goals will help you engage more efficiently in social media without getting discouraged that you’re not Tweeting like a mad man.

One minute engagement: Using tools like Hootsuite to manage your Twitter replies and NutshellMail to keep track of everything on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn via email will allow you to engage more efficiently and stop the ‘water cooler effect’ that happens when you get caught up aimlessly in the social media distraction of your choice. Sit down, bat around some conversation with peers, answer a question or two on LinkedIn and move on.  You could have several of these interactions throughout the day, but keep in mind that your goals should dictate your movements here.

One minute insights: This involves capturing your blog post and other ‘heavy content’ ideas and working on framing them up for later writer.  Having a place (I have a Google doc that I perpetually ad to) where you can capture and incubate your ideas is a great way to keep the content flowing…a minute at a time. Sure, you will need to spend some time actually writing things out in long form, but often times the best insights come as flashes during the day – make it a point to capture them and write enough to give you some context on the idea (I really hate it when I have a great article title that I write down with no context on how I came up with it…).

One minute responses: Being attentive to those seeking your help through social media, your blog or any other social network is a trademark of those who are considered effective in this space.  Take a moment to check all of the social media outposts in your life, respond as necessary and move on.

Social media is not just a quick-fire, one minute operation, just like management is not a one minute affair either. Nevertheless, building the one minute disciplines outlined above will make your a far more effective in your social media activity than most anything else you can do.

Related posts:

1. Ten keys to social media success in 2010
2. Social Media Revolution 2.0
3. So, What is Social Media, Really?

The folks over at Logo Design Love have a great post on The art of interviewing your client that’s well worth a read:

Gathering these insights requires a crucial bit of give-and-take — not as easy as it sounds. Like being a good investigative reporter, a great designer is dogged and determined, yet pleasant, empathetic, and challenging. I’ve come to believe that the best creatives are equal parts artist, therapist, and journalist: generating ideas, giving and receiving feedback, and communicating the results well.

Read the rest of The art of interviewing your client…

Related posts:

1. Word of Mouth Supergenius Interview on Blogging

"Advertising looks fun and easy to do. So does playing the piano, Until you try it."
– Stavros Cosmopulos, Advertising Luminary

Strategy is the New Creative…

Perhaps the subject here is a bit of red herring (still love that term from Marketing 101 textbooks). Strategy may not be the new creative, but it drew you in the conversation! Then again, it’s 2010 and there are still some who would like to argue whether marketing is more art or more science. I’m straddling the fence on this one. It’s both.

A recent article in Newsweek entitled The Creativity Crisis is getting a lot of buzz. The authors state that American creativity is declining and there’s something we need to do about it. Perhaps – but what about strategic and critial thinking in a world where creativity alone just doesn’t cut it anymore. (and really, has it ever?)

As marketers, we all get exposed to A LOT of ideas. Some great, some not so great and all creative in their own right. Where creativity was once the hallmark of a great marketer, the next generation of super-marketer will be the strategist who knows how to employ creativity, and not the other way around.

In a world where we’re able to understand, define and target micro-audiences at any point in the revenue cycle across a growing myriad of channels we have not just an opportunity but an obligation to strategy. Creativity is now the price of entry. Sound strategy is the price of success.

Q&A | QUESTIONS & ACTIONS

Got a creative idea? What’s your strategy look like?

Related posts:

1. Is Your Marketing Innovative or Just Creative?

Four Main Elements of Consumer Behavior:

1. Cultural elements
2. Social factors
3. Personal factors
4. Psychological influences

Read the rest of Marketing In A Recession? How Consumer Behavior Tips Can Bring In Bigger Profits Despite The Economy

Related posts:

1. Webinar Replay: 30 Ideas in 40 Minutes to Reject the Recession & Profit in 2009!

Feb 15 | Help Your Customers “Do Their Job”
Think about each client or customer that you encounter and ask “what job am I here to help them do?” Then get down to helping them do that. I’ll be you that you’re the only one thinking this way and really looking out for them.

June 21 | Random Acts of Social Media
Captivated by the hype and the ease of implementing social sites, many marketers initially ignored proven marketing principles. Instead of developing a strategy to guide them, they launched their social media initiatives by creating blogs, Twitter and Facebook accounts without a plan or a purpose.

Feb 22 | Distinction is in the Details
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to create small, solid points of distinction that are recognizable and important from the customers’ perspective…because customers perceive that different is better. What are you doing today to be genuinely distinct in your business?

July 5 | Fewer Choices Lead to More Sales
The point here is to think about the default choices that people can make when purchasing your products or services (or donating to your cause). Do you make it easy for them? What is your default? Do you even have one?

January 25 | The Practice of Marketing
Take stock of your practice of marketing today. Deepen your engagement in your craft, seek feedback, reinforce your good habits and learn new ones (and then repeat the process all over again!)

Don’t recall these, or any other ideas? Well, check out the archives to refresh your memory!

Related posts:

1. Monday Marketing Moxie – The Social Media-ologies
2. 30 Marketing Ideas in 40 Minutes
3. NEW e-Book: 30 Marketing Ideas in 30 Days – for Entrepreneurs “Do It Yourself” Marketing Month

The days of an 800 number and email address being the sole communication tools for customer service departments are over. Today, social media has entered the scene, and as the early returns indicate, it’s a win-win situation for both customers and businesses.

If you think social media hasn’t provided a breath of fresh air in the world of customer service, check out what’s happening in the hospitality and telecommunications. Here are some pertinent examples of how businesses are dazzling customers and turning complaints into a golden marketing opportunity:

• A sales representative staying at the Orlando Marriott World Center had a room that overlooked some air conditioning units. He tweeted, “I have the crappiest room in the hotel.” A front-desk employee saw the tweet, and immediately upgraded the client to a room with a view of the pool.

• AT&T is ramping up its “social media customer care” division to respond to the over 10,000 mentions per day about AT&T and its products and services and “shape the online conversation”.

• A guest who moderates and edits a website about Blackberry news tweeted that he wanted “a cold beer.” A hotel employee picked up the tweet, and replied “Can I buy you a beer? Stop by the front desk.” When the guest visited the front desk, a bucket with 10 beers for the client and his friends was waiting.

• A hotel guest staying in the Bahamas was becoming frustrated by a lack of towels and the absence of a rollaway bed in his room. With no response forthcoming from the front desk, he posted a note about it on the company’s Facebook page. Within the hour, his towels and rollaway bed were delivered.

These examples clearly indicate that not only do businesses react to social media, but many customer have quickly placed a premium on their response.

But why? Isn’t it enough to simply pass the complaint to your staff and put them in the queue with other customer service issues? The answer is an emphatic “NO”, and for a reason that may surprise you.

Social media customer service is a marketing opportunity

When you consider that any complaint voiced in social media isn’t just a one-on-one conversation between you and your customer but rather a part of the entire online conversation about a brand, the stakes for organizations are much higher.

In the case of the influential Blackberry guest listed above, his extensive list of Twitter followers could see exactly how the hotel handled the comment. It was a tangible example of the hotel’s customer service staff in action.

Using social media for your customer service can effectively help you on a number of fronts. Here are the three reasons why you should make it part of your program:

1. Address customers where they’re at. Social media is within easy reach for most people and they expect you to respond. According to blogger MG Siegler who applauded Comcast’s efforts to reach customers in social media, "A lot of people complain about Comcast, but when they get someone person-to-person reaching out, a lot of people feel better, even if it doesn’t actually serve long-term problems."

1. Generate positive exposure with a vast audience. Simply showing that you’re quick to respond to issues and resolve customer concerns in social media can be worth more than any corresponding effort spend on advertising or marketing.

1. Use it for invaluable market research. The comments you receive can also give you a real-time indication of where you’re falling short. If you respond to those tweets and posts, you gain valuable insight to what’s really irritating and motivating customers.

Skeptics may shy away from the no-holds barred world of social media, but for the business truly focused on customer satisfaction, this is a golden opportunity.

You can prove yourself, market yourself, and better yourself all at once. It’s why social media has quickly become the norm among companies intent on providing innovative customer service solutions.

Related posts:

1. Got Social Media? Ask Your Customers!
2. What’s your customer retention strategy
3. Failure #2: Not creating a powerful guiding coalition for social media

"Committable Core Values. The key word is committable: you must be able to hire and fire for them. If you have the right culture, everything falls into place."
– Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos.com and Author, Delivering Happiness

Quick! How many of you have ordered something from Zappos.com? I’m betting that a bunch of you have, and that you’d probably do it again.

Last week I had the great fortune to attend a keynote speech by Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos.com and felt that a few of Tony’s insights and the Zappos core values might be some use to us marketers out here who are charged with delivering happiness to our customers.

The most poignant thing from Tony’s keynote was his emphasis on Committable Core Values, that is, to have core values that aren’t just a plaque on a wall but that you can really live out as an organization.

Every company has core values, in fact, it’s one of the items on the checklist when we’re doing social media strategy – we look at an organization’s core values to assess their alignment with the fundamentals of social business such as ethics, responsiveness, transparency, honesty, commitment to customers and so on. The real challenge is whether or not those values are committable and I would add, believable from the customer (external) perspective and deliverable, in that employees are given the power to deliver on those values to customers each and every day.

All of the great strategic and tactical marketing efforts can be quickly washed away by a company who simply can’t commit to core values, deliver on them and inspire belief and trust from customers. BP is getting beat up enough, but if you look at their core values, and compare that to the incident in the Gulf and today’s announcement that their CEO may leave, clearly there was a disconnect from the core values.

Q&A | QUESTIONS & ACTIONS

Tony’s presentation is online for your viewing and I’d encourage you to have a look. It’s very informative, even if you weren’t in the session. To that end, let’s compare our own core values with those of Zappos.

• Can you really commit to your core values?
• Do your customers believe them (and believe in them)?
• Can, and do you deliver on them?

Zappos.com Core Values

1. Deliver WOW Through Service
2. Embrace and Drive Change
3. Create Fun and a Little Weirdness
4. Be Adventurous, Creative, and Open-Minded
5. Pursue Growth and Learning
6. Build Open and Honest Relationships With Communication
7. Build a Positive Team and Family Spirit
8. Do More with Less
9. Be Passionate and Determined
10. Be Humble

WHERE ELSE TO LOOK?

Delivering Happiness Presentation >> Gaspedal Supergenius Event

Notes from Tony Hsieh’s Keynote >> Gaspedal Supergenius Event

Recommended Books

Delivering Happiness >> Tony Hsieh
Peak >> Chip Conley
Tribal Leadership >> Dave Logan, John King & Halee Fischer-Wright
Four Hour Work Week >> Tim Ferriss
Happiness Hypothesis >> Jonathan Haidt

Click here if you’d like receive the weekly Monday Marketing Moxie e-mails from The MarketingSavant Group.

No related posts.

Failing to create a vision will send you into the ditch in a hurry.  You’ll never sell the concept, you won’t end up where you want to (but without vision, you don’t even know where that is anyway) and getting people to commit to the long-term strategy that’s required for social business success will be like pulling teeth…from an elephant.

In failed social media attempts (or any attempt to do something kick ass within an organization that falls outside the traditional bullshit) you’ll find a path littered with agendas, plans, memos, directives and other immature attempts at really taking the business into the social realm.  This isn’t something that just happens – you need vision, you need commitment and you need a team (see: coalition) of super-energized people who love what they do and don’t take “that’s the way we’ve always done it here” for an answer.

Let me put it to you this way. If you’re got a big ass think bind of data on social media at the ready to convince anyone who asks that your social media mission is a just one, well, you can just burn that binder and pull out a business card. If you can’t get your social media vision onto the back of a business card, when it’s not a vision, is it? (Hugh’s take on “quality is job one” comes to mind…)

Related posts:

1. Monday Marketing Moxie – Vision Without Execution
2. Change Management for Social Media Success
3. Failure #1: Not establishing a sense of urgency around social media (marketing)

Major change, the type required to embrace a more social business model and strategy, certainly needs support from the top, but it also needs support from each silo, department, line of business and functional area that will be affected by social media’s reach into the organization. Most situations that I’ve seen have involved anywhere from 8 to 40 people across an enterprise (depending on the size) and they all are in support of social media in one way or another.  It becomes a collaborative effort that everyone wants to see succeed.  Once you have skin in the game from the major players, it’s hard for them to back down from the charge.

If you’re looking to change the way you market, including the use of social media, here are a few thoughts on creating a guiding coalition:

1. The team needs to be comprised of leaders and front-line people from each functional department or line of business. If that means 4 people X 15 departments, then so be it.  If that means 5 people X 20 departments, then so be it.  There’s something to be said about small and lean teams, but if coalition is what you seek, now is not the time to skimp.
2. A guiding coalition can be comprised of many levels, but I’ve seen them include the CEO, senior management, front line sales people, members of the board of directors, customers, staff members from all levels of the organization and even strategic partners or vendors, when it’s appropriate.
3. Members need to be free to share, push and pull ideas and agree or disagree without feeling as though their boss is going to pull rank (which may happen anyway in the long run) to ensure that the ideas, concerns and perspectives required to help the project succeed are all on the table to fall to see.
4. A shared sense of urgency must permeate the group (see Failure #1 if you still need this) so that everyone gives this coalition the time, attention and energy necessary for it’s long-term success.
5. Carve out specific working times for the coalition. Some organizations will form internal or external retreats to learn about and strategize on social media while others will set a standing working group that meets regularly to push the organization forward.

Failing at the guiding coalition stage of change management usually leads to an overall neutered strategy which fails to penetrate the entirety of the organization and delivers far less than the original champions envisioned it would. 

Tomorrow we’ll cover the concept of “Lacking a Vision”…

Related posts:

1. Failure #1: Not establishing a sense of urgency around social media (marketing)
2. Chaordic marketing for social media success
3. Change Management for Social Media Success