The problem with Facebook is?

Facebook is a complex ecosystem of individuals, creators, brands and advertisers. The problem is the only way Facebook has found to make money is by treating all entities on the site as advertisers and charging them to share their content.

Can one simple oversight bring our stock price down 8% in two weeks?

It is easy to underestimate the new power that consumers have in the digital world. Don't let it happen to you. Will it take a disaster to get our attention. Let us hope it isn't so. Now is the time to obsess about how our customers may point out our vulnerabilities.

Almost five years ago, I was sitting in the conference room of one of the world’s largest insurance companies, trying to push the idea of social customer relationship management to their corporate marketing team. I showed them the power of Twitter and Facebook, and painted pictures of how they could get closer than ever to their customers with these then-new touchpoints. Roughly 4 hours and 45 slides later, the CMO stood up, shook my hand, and told me how he realized going social and “being there” for his customers was important. And then he added that he just didn’t have the bandwidth for it. He explained why his company was just not ready to go social, and why he believed it would be far too risky to allow his customer service onto public forums or leave his brand open for user generated debate. About six months later, a tweet from an angry customer went viral and brought the insurance giant’s stock prices down by 8%. In a mere two weeks!

Read more: The Customer Support Hierarchy of Needs - Vikram Bhaskaran - Harvard Business Review

You're Doing Social Wrong. Your Teenager Does It Right.

It seems that everyone is freaking out about teens abandoning social media sites like Facebook. By "everyone" I mean advertisers. They’re racking their brains trying to figure out why it’s happening. If you’re puzzled too, read this lovely piece in Medium by Cliff Watson, who argues that the number one reason kids don't need Facebook is that they "literally don't need Facebook."

After running through a host of theories as to why, including the fact that parents (ew) and even grandparents are on Facebook now, he comes up with a much more reasonable reason: Young people are gravitating toward messaging services such as Kik, and in doing so, they’re recapturing the intended meaning of social: "Making contact with other human beings. Communicating. Back-and-forth, fairly immediate dialogue. Most of it digitally."

In other words, it's not a post; it's an exchange. Snapchat anyone?

How to Build an Online Cult of Customers

Speaking at Inc.'s 2013 GrowCo conference in New Orleans, Baratunde Thurston shared tips on how businesses can use personal stories online to attract customers, motivate friends and customers, and ultimately drive business results. The comedian, founder of social media consultancy Cultivated Wit, and author of the best-selling book “How to Be Black,” used examples from his own youth, his time running the digital arm of satirical news website The Onion, and from his efforts to sell and promote his book online using everything from Twitter and Facebook to live broadcasts of his open word processor as he wrote it.

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="300"] Baratunde Thurston[/caption]

“Tell your story. For any new business, that story is a big part of how customers will find themselves connected to you”

Here are highlights from his talk:

Use the entire animal. Don’t be afraid to multipurpose things you already have created. After he wrote his book, for example, Thurston created a spreadsheet of its funniest sentences, and then edited each one down to a Twitter-length message. “Don't be afraid to recycle,” he said. “I wrote 60,000 words, you think I need to write new tweets? They’re already in the book.”

Piggyback on a bigger story. The most efficient way to gain visibility for your product or service is to find a conversation that's already happening online, and join it. “There is very little value in going totally against the grain, creating extra work,” said Thurston. “How to Be Black,” for example, was published during Black History Month. “It just made sense.”

Start a cult. Or an army. To promote his book, Thurston sought help from friends, family, even “the people who used to rob me.” In one promotional activity he sent out advance copies of the book, asking the recipient to discuss the book over Thanksgiving dinner, and then report back on the book’s Facebook page. The promotion didn’t drive a lot of sales—but it did result in many 5-star reviews on Amazon.com.

Ask for help. “Specifically, make it easy for people to help,” Thurston said. “You already know them, you went to school with them, you worked with them...they are already invested. They really care.” Even if they don’t have money, there's probably something else they can do, Thurston said.

Are you leveraging the power of your influential nonprofit followers on social media?

So, you have a Facebook and Twitter for your nonprofit. Great, so does everyone else.You also post content and updates several times a day. Wonderful, so does everyone else.

The point Artie Patel, VP of Business Development for Attentive.ly is making in this article is that having a social media presence and creating posts for existing followers is today’s baseline. Merely having a presence is not enough if you seriously want to further online advocacy campaigns and raise money for your nonprofit. It takes work and effort to do this, but it pays significant dividends for those organizations that are committed to actually devoting resources and time towards social media.

More here: Are you leveraging the power of your influential followers on social media? | GuideStar Blog.

Top Salespeople Use LinkedIn to Sell More

Steve W. Martin (Harvard Business Review) recently interviewed 54 top salespeople about how they use LinkedIn to research accounts, prospect for leads, and generate sales. All of the study participants sell technology-based products to the IT departments of mid to large size companies.

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="150"] Image via CrunchBase[/caption]

The study included three types of salespeople: 33% were inside salespeople who sell exclusively over the phone, 41% were outside field reps responsible for acquiring new accounts, and 26% were outside field reps who managed existing client account.

More: Top Salespeople Use LinkedIn to Sell More - Steve W. Martin - Harvard Business Review.

Why are we going online?

Americans are going online to pass the time more than they were just a few years ago, according to a new study.

A report from Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project found that about 53% of young adults ages 18 to 29 go online on any given day for no particular reason except for a diversion or just for fun. About 81% of people in this demographic said they have done so at least occasionally.

Is it productive to work at home or anywhere other than the office?

Certain subjects just naturally incite opinion wars. The big ones, like political preferences, or whether you’re Team A or Team B, are better left out of polite conversation. But when it comes to doing your job effectively, where do we draw the line? Should the nature of a person’s autonomy — or lack thereof — be at the whim of the boss, or the discernment of the employee?

The four corners of the Internet nearly came to blows recently when tech-world darling and Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer boldly put a stop to employees working remotely. Needless to say, people are a little upset.

I'm definitely in the let them work at home camp. Here is a pretty good infographic on the state of things.

Is it too early to think about 2013? Some questions for personal strategic planning

I know it may seem early but 2012 is winding down. Resolutions may not be the most useful exercise to go through. At least thinking through some really good questions might bring some focus to 2013.

It may not be all about planning but it could be about a better focus. Some of that could be thinks to stop doing. Here are some great questions to begin thinking about for 2013 via 4 Questions to get 2013 off to a roaring start | Escape From Cubicle Nation.

To do this exercise, I suggest getting nice and comfortable, and grabbing a paper and pen. Answer these questions:

1. I am at my very best when …

What conditions bring out your very best work? What kind of work are you doing when you are kicking major bootie? What people bring out your best work? Without overthinking it too much, brainstorm the factors that bring out your best work.

From this list, circle one thing that you will AMPLIFY in 2013.

2. These things drove me crazy in 2012 …

Have you been spinning around with the same annoying patterns in your head? Do you have any people in your life that make you nuts? Are you sick and tired of feeling sick and tired?

Brainstorm the things that have really made you batty this year.

From this list, circle one thing that you will ELIMINATE in 2013

3. I really want to make/do this in 2013 …

Is there an experience you are dying to have next year? Do you want to run your first marathon, write your first book, have your first baby or make your first product? Brainstorm the things or experiences that you would love to accomplish next year.

From this list, circle one thing that you will CREATE in 2013

4. Even during tough times this year, I appreciated …

Even the most optimistic life coaches have really crappy days. Life can be hard sometimes. If you had a whopper of a year, what are some things that you appreciated as the proverbial doo doo was hitting the fan? Brainstorm the big and small things that kept you grounded in 2012.

From this list, circle one thing that you want to APPRECIATE in 2013

 

Small Business Strategy: 10 Trends to Watch to stay on the disruptive edge

There is no doubt technology is disrupting the traditional business models. Customers are in charge and they are plugged in. No one of these may be right for you but you should be spending time researching which are the right ones and leveraging them. You can either disrupt or be disrupted.

 



 

So here is a good list to start with via Small Business Strategy: 10 Trends to Watch - Brian Solis..

 

1. Social Networks from Facebook to Twitter to Google+ and how they’re connecting to influencers and businesses (note: pay attention to nicheworks as well such as Path and Instagram.)

2. Geolocation check-in services such as Foursquare and Facebook location updates to share locations and earn rewards or opportunities for discounts

3. Crowdsourced discounts and deals including Groupon and LivingSocial and what’s valued and why

4. Social commerce services like Shopkick and Armadealo and how they create personalized experiences that are worth sharing

5. Referral based solutions like Yelp, Service Magic (now HomeAdvisor), and Angie’s List to make informed decisions and how shared experiences can improve your business, products, and services

6. Gamification platforms such as Badgeville and Fangager, and why rewarding engagement improves commerce and loyalty

7. How your consumers using mobile devices today and what apps they’re installing. Also, how they’re comparing options, reviewing experiences and making decisions while mobile?

8. The online presence your business produces across a variety of platforms such as tablets, smartphones, laptops and desktops. You must realize how consumers are experiencing the online presences you create and whether or not they deliver a holistic and optimized experience for each platform.

9. The consumer clickpath based on the platform consumers are using. Are you steering experiences based on the expectations of your customers? And are you taking into consideration the device or network where the clickpath begins and ends? Are you integrating Facebook F-commerce and m-commerce into the journey?

10. The expectations of connected consumers, what they value in each channel and platform, where they engage and how your business can improve experiences and make them worthy of sharing.

 

Related articles

• Small Business Strategy: 10 Trends to Watch (sazbean.com)


• Top Internet strategy, marketing and technology links for the week of November 10, 2012 (sazbean.com)


• Small Business Strategies: Seven trends you can't ignore (myculturalconversations.wordpress.com)

 

Do you need a multi-channel messaging strategy?

This is a very good blog on how disruptive social media has become for a business focus on the Customer. If you haven’t been convinced yet, this blog is for you.  The world has changed. Consumers have changed. We have to change to meet the needs and expectations of our customers. Are you ready?

Social media and smartphones are disrupting the established patterns and practices for B2C interactions. To be successful, businesses have to engage with customers through their preferred channels, whether that be mobile, IM or social networks.

The link between technology and consumers is, however, a two-way street. Take, for example, Facebook notifications (the auto-generated email or text alerts you get when someone posts you on your wall or comments on a photo). These alerts constitute B2C dialogue, though they operate under the guise of a C2C interaction.

The initial attraction of social networks like Facebook and other pioneers in the space was bringing groups of people of shared interest together on the web. Adding a messaging capability to the basic web presence extends the social experience beyond the website. Without notifications, you’d have to go online to Facebook to hangout with your friends. With notifications, your friends — and the Facebook brand — come and check in with you throughout the day via your inbox.

This kind of messaging lets businesses participate in, inform, and add value to the social interaction (wall post/sharing) without ever forcing users back to the site.

Why Businesses Must Adopt a Multi-Channel Messaging Strategy

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• 6 techniques to improve your SEO social indicators (raventools.com)


• UK Companies Exposed To Social Networking Risk (misco.co.uk)


• Facebook Testing Sound Notifications (blogherald.com)


• Stop Those Annoying Email-based Social Media Notifications With NotifyMeNot (makeuseof.com)

Social Media Update: 11/4/2012

6 Habits of Highly Successful People Using Social Media for Sales - Social media has revolutionized how companies handle sales responsibilities. The traditional approaches to reaching out to new customers have been upended in many ways as business communication becomes increasingly social, with sales teams and social media managers working together in a unit to drive customer adoption.

This Week in Social Media Law: Do Cyberbullies Have First Amendment Rights? - A regular roundup of interesting issues at the intersection of social media and the law, as written by some of the nation’s leading lawyers. Cyberbullies claim First Amendment rights to freedom of speech (and lose). Company learns that the best defense against CAN-SPAM Act violations is a good contract. California Attorney General raises the bar for company privacy policies (for all of us).

Top 10 Reasons You’re Not Blogging - Addressed to all the naysayers who have not yet put fingers to keyboard and started blogging, here are the author's top 10 reasons why he thinks you "have not yet embraced the manifold benefits of blogging..."

Is Your Content Marketing Keeping Pace with Your Buyers? - If buyer’s abilities to master content are doubling every year, is your ability to inform growing at the same rate? This is profound. Buyers exposed to static content for two years straight are bound to lose interest. Fast.

How to Effectively Listen on the Social Web [Infographic] - An easy two-step guide on monitoring and acting on social media conversations to uncover deeper meaning of social conversations.

3 Ways to Boost Your Brand Without Facebook - Now that we know Facebook is charging brands to reach their own cultivated fans bases, what's a brand to do? If you don't have a budget for Facebook, here are three ways you can boost your brand without it.

Why Most Corporate Culture Programs Fail - Tribes have cultures, organizations don’t — unless they are one tribe. Most organizations have many tribes — you may have a developer tribe, a sales tribe, multiple customer service tribes, a cost conscious tribe, an innovator tribe, a middle management tribe, or a tribe of Belgian-American wine drinkers. Having multiple tribes means that you have multiple cultures.

Link Building Strategies of Yosemite Sam Meet Google’s Disavow Tool - Much like the cartoon counterpart, Yosemite Sam the link builder lacks strategy and instead gallops into the far reaches of the internet in search of links. I picture the Yosemite Sam link building strategy is one with guns drawn, wildly shooting into the air while jumping up and down left to right yelling “Wahoo! LINKS! Gimmie‘dem links!” To Sam, a link is a link and he wants all of them. This was working for him until a penguin walked onto the set...

Do you suffer from Social Media FOMO?

Fear is real and we don't know sometimes the grip it can have on us. I hadn't thought of this, fear of missing out, but it is real.

Do you know FOMO? That’s not some fancy latte — it’s Fear Of Missing Out, and something that’s become a recognized thing by many social media users these days.

You’re probably familiar with the concept, if not the name. Here’s an example: It’s been a long workweek and you really just want to spend Friday night at home watching a movie. But then that old familiar urge hits, and you can’t resist grabbing your smartphone for a jolty fix of quick-burst information. One friend’s Twitter post mentions an awesome concert. On Facebook, someone else put up photos of a raging house party.

Suddenly, your mellow evening feels entirely inadequate and you wonder what else you’re missing out on. You put the phone down, only to pick it up again and again because you can’t shake the feeling that you’re missing out on finding out just how much you’re missing out on. The vicious cycle continues.

via Do You Suffer From Social Media FOMO? [INFOGRAPHIC].

Related articles

• SachsCenter.com Offers Treatment for Newly Identified Condition: FOMO - The Fear of Missing Out (prweb.com)


• Are You Missing Out? (chronicle.com)


• Say No to FOMO with MyLife.com (idaconcpts.com)


• The Silent Epidemic of Feeling Left Out (article-3.com)

Where's the walls now to your office? Not so clear anymore ... is it?

Walls to offices during the Industrial Age intended to guard leaders from the daily onslaught of activity and requests. Today, leaders are bombarded with Facebook requests, Twitter feeds, texts, IM pings, SPAM, an eMail from their boss demanding the most recent numbers in a report, and another eM just below the eMail from the boss ... from a friend sending a stupid "forward" eMail with cats in it.

Where's the walls now to your office? Not so clear anymore ... is it?

via Saying Goodbye to the Industrial Age | MAGsays.

We have moved to an "open world". Whether we want to believe it or not, the command and control world is now gone. It seems to me we have a choice. We can continue to ignore it. Where will that lead me? Or, we can embrace it. What would that look like?

Will Yahoo turn it around? Third quarter results are in

Yesterday afternoon, Yahoo! held an earnings call announcing third quarter results. The results modestly beat analyst expectations, but gave little insight about where the company is heading.

Revenue appears to have stabilized but shows no signs of growth either. Net income was extra-ordinarily high last quarter due to Yahoo’s sale of half its stake in Chinese Internet company Alibaba. Operating income declined 14 percent year-over-year though, giving a better idea of the state of Yahoo’s business.

CEO Marissa Mayer announced that her company will increasingly focus on search and mobile in the future and sees Yahoo! in a good starting position for the shift to mobile platforms.



http://www.statista.com/markets/21/internet/chart/669/yahoo-s-business-in-numbers/

Related articles

• Marissa Mayer reports Yahoo earnings (usatoday.com)


• Yahoo sees modest rise in profits (bbc.co.uk)


• Yahoo sees revenue and profit rise in third quarter (mercurynews.com)


• Yahoo's Marissa Mayer era begins with a lift as firm posts 'solid' results (guardian.co.uk)

How did being on-line change things for you so far this year?

We are all online now more than ever. So how did being online change things for you this year?

Here are some questions to help get the answers:

1. What business opportunities have you discovered through social media or other online channels this year?


2. What online tool did you start using this year that changed the way you work?


3. What online project helped you develop new knowledge or skills this year?


4. What is the most important business or personal relationship that began or grew online this year?


5. Which of 2012's entertaining online discoveries have helped you bond with friends, family or colleagues?

I would love it if you would share your thoughts on any of these questions. What do you think?

Related articles

• The Underestimated Power of Online Relationships and the Implications for Population Health Management (diseasemanagementcareblog.blogspot.com)


• Does Technology Change Relationships? (ou.uloop.com)


• Social Media in Learning and Education (SMILE) - 5 of 6: Internet Safety and Responsible Use (olliebray.typepad.com)


• Sociology and Social Media (compukol.com)

The mobile war, transforming customer expectations and business capabilities ...

The Mobile War CEOs should be aware of an approaching tech war -- because its outcome is going to change their customers.  As the Web becomes the AM radio of digital, the mobile App Internet will rise. This market will be dominated by two or three ecosystems -- semi-closed worlds built on a closely fitting set of apps, phones, tablets, computers, operating systems, and partners. An ecosystem owner will possess extraordinary market power -- able to dictate terms to content providers, customers, and application developers. It doesn't matter what you sell -- insurance, pills, cars, energy, bonds -- you'll be reaching many of your customers through these ecosystems in the future.

Social Media Has Transformed Customer Expectations At Every Step Of The Customer Journey After moving to a new apartment, do you need to get a new TV. The first instinct may be to gather information from a few sources. Do you browse online retailers to get an idea of prices, and look atoked at manufacturers' marketing content to understand the latest technologies like 3D TV. After all of that, you may turn to consumer reviews and discussions to get a feeling for whether you would actually find those features valuable. (For example, some customer reviews may help you confirm that you don’t want 3D TV.)

Where did you find those reviews? Everywhere -- there are star ratings and comments on product pages at retail sites (like John Lewis and Amazon.com), technology media sites (like CNET) and manufacturer websites. Interestingly – you get the feeling that the manufacturers still aren't entirely comfortable with the transparency that social media brings. They'd like to put a spin on the message, even if they can't entirely control it -- For example, Panasonic's UK site has a page that promotes "5 Star Reviews Of The Month". Can you think of a situation when you’d want a firm to guide you only to the most positive reviews of its products. Can you?

Business Capabilities Are The Strongest Foundation For Tech Strategy In developing a technology strategy for your organization, what will be your basis for deciding which technologies to pursue, when to pursue them, and how to implement them? In other words, what will be the foundation for your technology architecture and strategy? In considering this question, I assume we agree that technology strategy should directly support improvement of business outcomes, both now and over the long haul. To provide for the long haul, your technology architecture and strategy must be crafted to support a continuous stream of business change, both small incremental steps and large radical shifts.

What is happening in social media today?

Here are some updates from the exciting world of Social Media.

Social Media Marketing: Take Richard Branson’s Word for It Into the social breach steps Sir Richard Branson, the clear exception to the CEO social despondency narrative. Branson embraces social. He loves social. In fact, he owns social, using it as a platform to expand his personal and corporate brand influence and reach, honestly engage with his audience, and shape events within and without his industry space.

Social Media Intelligence Brief: October 15 2012 Today's Social Media Intelligence Brief includes stories from Major League Baseball, Red Bull, Fuji Film, and a social media campaign case study from the Bahamas.

Is The Federal Drug Administration (FDA) Embracing Social Media? When regulated companies participate in social media their activities are monitored, saved and archived. Though the FDA recognizes these companies are wanting to expand their use of social media, to date it has provided limited guidance.

Scaling Engagement Through Social Media Training Social media training programs are a practical way to scale engagement because they ensure everyone on your team has the same understanding of key concepts, best practices and the actual mechanics of the various social networks so they can work together to bring your message to a broader community.

Pain Relief: Your Prescription for Highly Effective Online Marketing Your readers have pain. Successful content marketers know how to expertly manipulate, talk about, and address their readers' pains and get them to take next steps. Have you jumped into the pain game yet?

The Present and Future of Content Marketing Top content marketing experts predict what’s ahead for the industry in the coming year by Skyword, Inc.

9 Social Media Fun Facts to Shock or Maybe Just Awe Most Americans still think they need Gym shorts for Foursquare. In fact, while only 3% have claimed to checked in this year, it is even down from the year before. The concept of “checking-in” will probably soon be replaced by “Opting-in” to share location data.

How to Make an Infographic in Five Steps Infographics are relatively new; new enough for the word "infographic" not to be recognized by my spellchecker. As with all things "new" on the interwebs their comes a near obsessive, cult-like following that insists that this phenomenal new thing will be the massive change to overtake the online world and alter the way we computer forever.

Exploiting Facebook's Newsfeed Algorithm You’ve read it many times: Don't post too often or you’ll bother fans, causing them to unlike or ignore your posts, which will, in turn, affect which posts FaceBook will promote in your fans' newsfeeds. Here are 3 key justifications for posting more often and still getingt fans to see your posts.

Social Media Is Not Your Job Perhaps, interacting with people, building relationships with them, creating emotional bonds, offering and getting feedback, answering private messages on Facebook requesting information, building brand perception...is actually your job.

Social Marketing: Don't Fall for Shiny New Tech, says author David Amerland. "It is easy to lose sight of the wood for the trees and go for shiny new toys here. The truth, however, is that social marketing is marketing."

Related articles

• Social Marketing: Don't focus too heavily on technology, says author David Amerland (forfreeblog.blogspot.com)


• The State of Social Media Marketing (bespacific.com)


• Infographic: Social Media Marketing Industry (marketingtechblog.com)


• How to promote business using Social network marketing.? (daniweb.com)

How valuable is Facebook to online retailers?

The question has been asked many times: is Facebook of any value to online retailers? For a publicly traded company, this is a pretty important question.  According to data recently released by RichRelevance, it is of value.

The e-commerce specialist analyzed 689 million shopping sessions between January and August with a special focus on sessions that were initiated through social channels.

Not surprisingly given its user base, Facebook drives significantly more traffic to retail sites than Pinterest and Twitter do: the world’s largest social network accounted for 86 percent of all shopping sessions that started off on any of the three sites.

What’s more interesting is the fact that shoppers coming from Facebook are more than twice as likely to make a purchase as those coming from Pinterest, a site much more visual appealing and product-focused than Facebook is.

In terms of average order value, Pinterest is far ahead of its peers, which is possibly attributable to the fact that Pinterest has a design-conscious high income user base.



http://www.statista.com/markets/21/topic/194/social-media/chart/643/social-media-channels-as-a-source-of-e-commerce-traffic/

Related articles

• How Valuable Is Pinterest To Online Retail Sites? (webpronews.com)


• Facebook Drives Most Retail Traffic, But Pinterest Drives the Big Spenders (webpronews.com)


• Facebook Drives Most Shopping Traffic But Pinterest Users Spend The Most Money [Infographic] (blogherald.com)


• What the Heck Is Pinterest and Why Should You Care? Let Us Tell You. (blogs.constantcontact.com)

Are you putting your career at risk by not building your social network?

This is powerful. Think 5 years from now. Not too hard to do in some cases. Or, think 2 or 3. Will you regret not moving faster? I'm thinking we will.

Let's move fast. Let's get with it.

Picture yourself as an Executive in 2017, struggling to make sense of how many of your peers failed to become social. Many of them pushed aside by their more savvy underlings who built up both internal and external social networks. Their large networks wield tremendous power, collective intelligence and the ability to influence both employees and customers. Many of the executives that didn’t adapt were caught in a type of ‘vocational innovator’s dilemma’; where they stubbornly refused to change despite the warning signs.

Welcome to the new world. It’s the same as the old – only faster, smarter and a bit more effective.

via SAP's CIO: You're Putting Your Executive Career at Risk if You're Not Social - Forbes.