BeConnected

Ignoring Blogs Can Create and Propel a PR Crisis

More and more businesses of every kind are discovering the importance of their Google ranking. Some are even learning how blog posts and comments can positively or negatively effect their rankings. The reaction to this discovery is often more bad PR for them. This is exactly what is happening over at the Accordion Guy's blog. Seems a friend left a comment stating his opinion and experience with a business in Toronto. The business discovered the comment as the number two result for them on Google. They tracked down the blogger and threatened him to remove the comment. He checked with his friend who left the comment and verified his comment. Then promptly blogged the whole story. Now this story is the number one result when googling the name of the business. I predict a name change for the business.

Handling a crisis of bad (or good) blog based PR is increasingly important these days. This in not just a good reason for businesses to have their own blog to participate and shape conversations about them, it's also a lesson in how not to handle these types of situations. Without experience and understanding of the blogosphere errors of response (being too quick with the legal threats) can only make the situation worse. It's a good reason to consider outsourcing your blogging with experienced bloggers who know the blogosphere and have some experience dealing with these kind of PR situations.

Read the whole story here: accordion guy gets into hot water and think about how you would react if it was your business.

Technorati Tags: PR Crisis | Google | Googling | emarketing | marketing | BeTuitive | interactivity | customer insights | blog | PR | WOMM | customer communications | Accordion Guy | word of mouth

Tip for Finding Relevant Blogs

You may have read my interview with Sarah Eaton about blog stats from the July issue of the BeTuitive monthly Newsletter. If you haven't you can find it here. In the interview we talk about techniques for finding good relevant blogs to add to your daily/weekly reading routine.

One technique that I use that I didn't include in the interview is to use blog search engine tools like Technorati or Pubsub to create watchlists of relevant keywords, tags and phrases. These watchlists are usually available by RSS feed. Adding these feeds to your reader will bring you a wide selection of posts that contain your watch terms. Many of these posts will be relevant while the blog may not be relevant but you will also find new blogs that talk about your relevant terms. It can be a bit of a needle hunt but your hay time can be rewarded with some fantastic discoveries.

For example you may want to set up “word of mouth marketing” as a watchlist. Everyday you will receive numerous posts from a wide variety of blogs. Scanning these posts and clicking through to explore the source blogs may lead you to discover blogs focused on the current trends for word of mouth marketing.

Technorati Tags: BeTuitive | newsletter | PubSub | needle in the haystack | Sarah Eaton | Technorati | watchlists | WOMM | word of mouth

Tom Peters: WallopWalmart16

Tom Peters recently offered this list of strategy points for smaller businesses competing with the big guys.

Here's my WallopWalmart16 list of “musts” if you are a “little guy” (one-person accountancy, restaurant, community bank, etc) out to eat the Big Guys' lunch:
*Niche-aimed. (Never, ever “all things for all people,” a “mini-Wal*Mart.)
*Never attack the monsters head on! (Instead steal niche business and lukewarm customers.)
*”Dramatically different.“ (La Difference ... within our community, our industry regionally, etc ... is as obvious as the end of one's nose!) (THIS IS WHERE MOST MIDGETS COME UP SHORT.)
*Compete on value/experience/intimacy, not price. (You ain't gonna beat the behemoths on cost-price in 9.99 out of 10 cases.)
*Emotional bond with Clients, Vendors. (BEAT THE BIGGIES ON EMOTION/CONNECTION!!)
*Hands-on, emotional leadership. (”We are a great & cool & intimate & joyful & dramatically different team working to transform our Clients lives via Consistently Incredible Experiences!“)
*A community star! (”Sell“ local-ness per se. Sell the hell out of it!)
*An incredible experience, from the first to last moment—and then in the follow-up! (”These guys are cool! They 'get' me! They love me!“)
*DESIGN! (”Design“ is a premier weapon-in-pursuit-of-the sublime for small-ish enterprises, including the professional services.)
*Employer of choice. (A very cool, well-paid place to work/learning and growth experience in at least the short term ... marked by notably progressive policies.) (THIS IS EMINENTLY DO-ABLE!!)
*Sophisticated use of information technology. (Small-”ish“ is no excuse for ”small aims“/execution in IS/IT!)
*Web-power! (The Web can make very small very big ... if the product-service is super-cool and one purposefully masters buzz/viral marketing.)
*Innovative! (Must keep renewing and expanding and revising and re-imagining ”the promise“ to employees, the customer, the community.)
*Brand-Lovemark* (*Kevin Roberts) Maniacs! (”Branding“ is not just for big folks with big budgets. And modest size is actually a Big Advantage in becoming a local-regional-niche ”lovemark.“)
*Focus on women-as-clients. (Most don't. How stupid.)
*Excellence! (A small player ... per me ... has no right or reason to exist unless they are in Relentless Pursuit of Excellence. One earns the right— one damn day and client experience at a time!— to beat the Big Guys in your chosen niche!)

You can be all of this and still have the problem of communicating all this ”coolness“ to clients and prospects. Tom's advice is right there. ”Sophisticated use of information technology.“ That of course would be the use of Blogs and Email Newsletters to tell your stories.

Good stuff that.

Tom Peters: WallopWalmart16

Technorati Tags: Walmart | design | innovation | competition | emarketing | blog | Tom Peters | excellence

Sew, What to Blog About

So, if you are a world class tailor and you are using blogging to spread the word about your industry and your own expertise what kind of information are you going to provide on your blog? Sewing Tips, of course.

Even if you pay £2000 for a suit, the sad fact is that buttons do fall off, even the ones sewn on by hand by the best Savile Row tailors.

Now I don't think for a moment that the ladies and gentlemen who read English Cut are incapable of sewing a button on. But as with everything in life, there's a right way and a wrong way to do it.

Sewing a button on correctly is particularly important with the key button on a coat, the middle waist-fastening button (With Savile Row you only button the middle button; never the top or the bottom).

The secret here is to sew the button on with enough “shank” (the amount of space allowed by the thread, between the button and the coat). Ideally you want a quarter-inch shank. Anything more makes the button droopy, anything less can make the front of your suit look too tight, even downright awful.

Yes, even something as minor as this can create a serious problem.

Obviously the Savile Row tailors will have sewn on thousands of buttons in their time, so getting the right amount of shank is easy for them. But what if you're a novice?

sewing tip...:

Technorati Tags: suit | English Cut | tailor | Saville Row | blog | craftsmanship | customer communications | emarketing | lifehack | marketing | WOMM | word of mouth | writing

Success Webinar Tomorrow from BeTuitive

Plan to spend some of your Tuesday afternoon finding out more about spreading success all over your place.

From the BeTuitive Blog:

Catch Success Fever With Webinar Tomorrow:
What happens when author Susan Lucia Annunzio and editorial director Susan Fisher come together to discuss success? An aural spectacle the likes of which have never been heard! And that's a promise.

Actually, the two will go Susan-to-Susan in a discussion about Annunzio's book: “Contagious Success: Spreading High Performance Throughout Your Organization.” Fisher will interview her, and then you'll have a chance to ask questions, too, because--that's right--you're invited.

Since you already know the what and the who, here are the answers to the rest of your likely questions:

When: Tuesday, July 26th at 1 p.m. CST
Where: On the web and in your telephone
How: The magic of technology

Technorati Tags: BeTuitive | book | book club | Sarah Eaton | success | Susan Fisher | Susan Lucia Annunzio | webinar

Trade Show Booth Tale

Anybody in the marketing game is well versed in the ins and outs of trade shows and conventions. You've either staffed a booth or you are considering doing a booth at some upcoming event.

The visual image of your booth is important. The all important first impression for customers and prospects.

Fed up with the high costs and limited options available one software company engineer built his own with a few tools and lots of trips to Home Depot. Inspiration for some, cautionary tale for others.

Building a Trade Show Booth on a Budget

Technorati Tags: trade show | booth | marketing | promotion | first impressions

Let's Talk Blog Stats

Sarah Eaton from the BeTuitive blog points to a fun interview she did with me about understanding blog credibility and stat interpretation. It was a lot of fun.

Absolutly Something from the BeTuitive blog

The interview is from the July issue of the BeTuitive Newsletter. If you find it useful be sure to subscribe.

Technorati Tags: newsletter | BeConnected | emarketing | BeTuitive | Peter Davidson | marketing | subscribe | Sarah Eaton | blog | customer communications

Seth Nails Part of the Whole Non-Fiction Book Thing

Seth covers important ground in understanding the whole world of non-fiction(including business) book world. What needs to be added here is more information about pitching your books to bloggers.

Don't get me wrong. This is a must read as the principles that Seth points out need to be understood. He's right on the mark when he says:

If you don't promote it, no one will. If you don't have a better strategy than, “Let's get on Oprah” you should stop now. If you don't have an asset already--a permission base of thousands or tens of thousands of people, a popular blog, thousands of employees, a personal relationship with Willard Scott... then it's too late to start building that asset once you start working on a book.

Seth's advice:

Build an asset. Large numbers of influential people who read your blog or read your emails or watch your TV show or love your restaurant or or or...

Then, put your idea into a format where it will spread fast. That could be an ebook (a free one) or a pamphlet (a cheap one--the Joy of Jello sold millions and millions of copies at a dollar or less).

Then, if your idea catches on, you can sell the souvenir edition. The book. The thing people keep on their shelf or lend out or get from the library. Books are wonderful (I own too many!) but they're not necessarily the best vessel for spreading your idea.

Are you seeing this, people? You need to build a permission asset, an email list or a audience of subscribers to your blog. The only way to do that is to provide the highest quality blog or email newsletter that you can.

Seth Godin: Advice for Authors

Technorati Tags: BeTuitive | blog | book | book selling | book writing | marketing | permission marketing | Seth Godin | viral | WOMM | word of mouth | writing

Happy Moon Day

Today, July 20th is the 36th anniversary of the first manned landing on the moon.

How far we have come in technology in those 36 years. The computer you are using to read this has many times the computational power of those early space ships. Where will we be in 36 more years of technological advancement?

In honor of the occasion Google presents Google Moon. Nice easter egg if you zoom in all the way. Wouldn't be nearly as viral without it.

Technorati Tags: Google | Google maps | 1969 | easter egg | viral | July 20, 1969

Email Content: Potentially Lifesaving LifeHack

If you are writing an email newsletter you are probably always looking for good newsletter content. I have recommended before that you Open with a Lifehack. I still think it's a useful strategy for developing newsletter content. Anytime your newsletter can provide even a little useful information to your subscribers they will have new reasons to stay subscribed to your email newsletter.

Here's a good example. Seems an english EMT has started a campaign to encourage people to add an emergency contact entry to their cellphone address book. This way emergency personnel will be able to call your spouse or family member or anyone that you designate if you are too incapacitated to give your own contact info.

While you do this for yourself consider adding this tip to your next email marketing campaign.

Mobiles 999 contact idea spreads:

Technorati Tags: subscribe | cell phone | newsletter | mobile phone | contact management | emt | cellphone | customer communications | lifehack | productivity | emergency