There are myriad reasons that business social media initiatives fail. If your company’s social media program is not working, perhaps it is for one of these reasons:

1. You’re pushing marketing information at them. News flash: Your prospects already have all the marketing information they need or want. In fact, as the classic book “Guerrilla Marketing” (not to be confused with “Gorilla Marketing”) reminds us, “Marketing is not about you; it’s about them”. This is even truer in social media where they must decide to Like, Follow, or Subscribe to us. Make it about them in a way that draws them into a relationship with you and both parties benefit.
2. You’re not being a real person. Read the rest of this entry »

As featured in TEQ Magazine:

Have you noticed these things called Quick Response codes (or more commonly, QR codes) like the one to the left? Suddenly they’re everywhere. I see them on the front page of our local newspaper, on the sides of buildings, in magazine ads, on T-shirts, on bottles of wine, and even on people’s bodies as tattoos, some of them apparently permanent (a little scary; as Jimmy Buffett says, “It’s a permanent reminder of a temporary feeling.”).

What are these QR codes for? In short, they bridge people from the real world to your on-line presence. If social media is a conversation, what better way to engage folks?

Last week, a woman handed me her business card. On the front was a QR code. Scanning it with my iPhone took me to a landing page on her company’s website. Now that’s how to take a prospect to the next level!

This is not new technology. QR codes were invented by Toyota in 1994 and have been popular in Japan for some time. Here’s how they work: First, get a Smartphone, either an iPhone (my preference) or an Android. Read the rest of this entry »

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If you run a business in this social media world, you ignore the social conversation at your peril. What our peers tell us is five times more convincing than what you tell us. (Who measures this stuff?)

I don’t know if anyone knows who coined the term “word of mouth” but we’ve always understood its power. In this social media revolution, author Erik Qualman says we’re now in a “world of mouth”.

Last night, when my wife and I arrived at the Hilton in downtown Miami, we were completely unfamiliar with the neighborhood and we were hungry. Read the rest of this entry »

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When I was young, the one super power I deeply desired was extra sensory perception — ESP. I wanted to know what people were thinking. Now, thanks to Twitter and other social media services, I’ve acquired an ability that very closely approximates it.

It took the Twitter team three years to figure out that this version of ESP is the most interesting thing they created. As a result, they’ve redesigned their home page to focus on it. When you go to site without signing in, there it is: The most popular topic this minute… this day… this week. As I write, I’m certain that Tiger Woods is praying for the next big event to knock him out of public consciousness, at least until the start of golf season. And David Letterman is so thankful that Tiger Woods came along.

Twitter search is ESP because 50 million times a day, people share their thoughts in 140 characters or less. Read the rest of this entry »

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Nobody wants to be sold to. Instead, they want to buy from us if we solve their problems. In order to truly understand a prospective customer’s problems, we’ve got to talk to them. Well, not talk “to” them, but talk “with” them… openly.

Side note: One of my favorite sales rules: “Remember, you have two ears and one mouth; spend twice as much time listening as talking.” (Frankly, 10-to-1 would be even better but how much of this behavior can you really expect from extroverts?)

The goal of the conversation is to discover your prospect’s “pain”. Before they will share that, you will have to establish rapport. With rapport, you have the opportunity to build trust. With trust, you have the opportunity to make a sale.

Social media helps you establish rapport in so many ways; just pick you favorite.

Rapport building idea #1:

Before meeting with any new prospect, review their LinkedIn profile to identify potential connection points. Look for a shared college, hobby, sport, past employer, industry association, professional acquaintance, or almost anything else (avoiding, say, shared former spouses and the like). Read the rest of this entry »

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I’m writing this post for the first time directly on my iPad. I’m using this device in places I’ve never used a computer before: On my sofa reading The Wall Street Journal, in my bed streaming NetFlix movies, and presently propped comfortably on my Southwest Airlines tray table flying from the ‘Burgh to the windy city (an allusion to Chicago politicians more than the weather, although tonight 65,000-foot cumulonimbus clouds delayed us for hours).

You don’t have to be a social media expert to know that Southwest is an entertaining airline. Many of their flight attendants are comedians, singers, and rappers (see YouTube for the best safety briefing ever; note to the FAA – it’s something people actually listen to). They’re not at all like United. Ten million people know that “United breaks guitars”.

So to the point of this column: Since buying my iPad, I’ve been increasingly frustrated by having to turn it off until reaching 10,000 feet. What a dumb rule! Since I no longer buy USAToday, The Wall Street Journal, or The New York Times in paper form, every time I fly I’m bored out of my mind for 10 minutes during both takeoff and landing.

If an iPhone or iPad could bring down a jetliner, the terrorists would have already won, right? Who’s the spineless bureaucrat responsible for his policy?

I’ve been contemplating using Twitter or Facebook to start a revolution to demand a policy change. We the people make the rules. We need our iPads 24 x 7. Are you with me? Read the rest of this entry »

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In today’s crazy, noisy, hyper-accelerated social media world, your choice is to be known for one thing… or none. Social media is fabulous in that, in contrast to your email blasts, newsletters, and direct mail, Google sees your blog posts, Tweets, and Yelps. That helps your business get found at the very moment when someone goes searching for exactly what you offer.

But if you’re Yammering about something different every time you check-in, thousands of other businesses will appear higher in the Google results than you do. Even just a dozen or two above you means that you’re an Internet footnote destined for obscurity. Only Google’s first page, and maybe sometimes their second, has value in attracting customers.

Yes, you could bid for Google Adwords and pay from $0.25 to $100 per click-through (pity the lawyers chasing mesothelioma victims, one outrageously expensive click). Or you could learn to dominate “organic” search by attracting clicks for free. The trick is to talk about one thing early and often; the one thing in which you’re a world expert.

The key is to find a phrase that balances quantity with quality. Select a term too general and few of the myriad people searching for it will be looking for what you do. Choose a term too narrow and few people will be searching for it at all.

To use a real example, I’m currently working with Linear Corp, a company that has developed a new audio-equipment-interconnect-standard called Digi-5. This standard allows different vendors’ equipment to play beautifully together (like a symphony) in an interoperable, whole house audio system.

Read the rest of this entry »

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On Saturday, April 3, 2010, at 9:00 AM, Apple released the iPad into the world. By 10:00 AM, I was experiencing mine ($599 for the 64GB version). By the end of the day, 300,000 had been purchased. Or maybe “friended” would be a better description. Or “married”. The world has definitely changed.

My first impressions:

The iPad has far greater potential for business than I expected. For one, it runs Apple’s Keynote app ($9.95). To call this their version of PowerPoint would be like calling the Great Wall of China a fence. And because it has an optional VGA connector (yes, I bought that too) and impressive audio, I’m contemplating leaving my beloved MacBook Pro at home in favor of traveling light – as in 24 ounces lite.

An iPad app called LogMeIn Ignition ($29.95) makes this infinitely more practical. It turns my iPad into my MacBook, or even into my Windows 7 PC, through the magic of screen-sharing. It’s unbelievable. Read the rest of this entry »