by Daria Steigman on August 18, 2010
In keeping with the time constraints of busy, always on-the-go workers, MarketingProfs has created a new “Take 10” series: short, 10-minute presentations with actionable takeaways. I was smart enough to take 10 minutes out the other day to get a LinkedIn 101 refresher course from Jason Alba.
Alba offered four “do it once” tips for setting up your profile and six “do regularly” tips for keeping your brand front and center on LinkedIn. The highlights of his “do regularly” advice:
- Pose a Question to your network at least once a month.
- Answer Questions whenever you have a few minutes of downtime.
- Join LinkedIn Groups Discussions, which let you reach an audience beyond your first degree network (or start a Groups discussion of your own).
- Use Advanced Search to find prospects.
- Use Company Search to gain competitive intelligence on your prospects and your competition.
- Update Your Status at least weekly. (I’d actually recommend doing this more often as long you have something relevant to share—be it a useful link, a blog post, information about that killer conference you’re headed to, and so forth.)
I’d add one final “do regularly” tip: Read status updates from your network. You can do that easily by pulling in the RSS feed of all your contacts’ status updates. This is a great tool for keeping up with who has changed jobs, is sharing good news, or otherwise has something worth commenting on. I tend to skim the updates (there will be a lot), looking less at who’s connecting with whom and more at who’s sharing news. See something interesting? Click through, leave a quick comment, and become instantly top of mind.
Photo by Mario Sundar (Flickr).
Tagged as:
Brand,
Jason Alba,
LinkedIn,
MarketingProfs,
Social Media
by Daria Steigman on July 26, 2010
Jeffrey Rosen has a terrific, thought-provoking article in last week’s New York Times Magazine about the end of privacy in our new digital era. In it, he writes:
We are only beginning to understand the costs of an age in which so much of what we say, and of what others say about us, goes into our permanent—and public—digital files. The fact that the Internet never seems to forget is threatening, at an almost existential level, our ability to control our identities; to preserve the option of reinventing ourselves and starting anew; to overcome our checkered pasts…
The truth is that, for a great many people, the permanent memory bank of the Web increasingly means there are no second chances—no opportunities to escape a scarlet letter in your digital past. Now the worst thing you’ve done is often the first thing everyone knows about you.
Rosen looks at the implications of this digital identify and explores potential legal and technological solutions to help us manage and protect our reputations. The article is long–but it is well worth taking the time to read.
Hat tip to Tim Taylor for alerting me to this one.
Photo by graphia (Flickr).
Tagged as:
Brand,
Privacy,
Social Media,
Transparency,
Web 2.0
by Daria Steigman on July 12, 2010
I’ve talked before about how picking up the phone is a key component to customer service. But that’s really only the starting point for building customer loyalty.
If you’re lucky, your best customers are evangelists for your brand. Here are four ways to earn that loyalty:
1. Be the solution. OneWorldHosting gets that most small business owners don’t just want a place to park their Web sites. We want (and need) tech support. So when a recent service upgrade messed up access first to my WordPress dashboard and then later to my ability to upload blog photos, I could make a call and get the problems solved.
RNJ Sports is another example. While lots of stores sell running shoes, RNJ sells peace of mind. I know that after watching me walk and run that they’ll recommend a shoe that will decrease the likelihood of injuries ranging from shin splints to hip pain.
2. Make it easy. Is it easy for customers to connect with you? I’m not talking about social media per se, just whether you’re socially accessible. If I have to jump through hoops to find someone who can talk with me, I’m going somewhere else. Companies that that have made it easy for me include Eddie Bauer, Dell, and (usually) Verizon.
3. Value me. I’m very loyal to my local GNC store because the owner knows me, remembers what I purchase, and chats with me when I stop by. Ditto for my local Robeks franchise, where the owner and employees know my name.
4. Be remarkable. You don’t have to be Zappos to wow your customers. When I mentioned to Lee Watts that I’d backed off slightly on my workouts because of ligament pain in my left tricep, he cleared time on his schedule that morning to bring me into his studio to tweak my routine. This is a guy who primarily trains elite athletes, but he made time for me. Not only does this go to #3, but he also created a wow moment.
What is your business doing to get talked about today?
Photo by PD Breen (Flickr).
Tagged as:
Brand,
Customer Service,
Dell,
Eddie Bauer,
Lee Watts,
OneWorld,
RNJ Sports,
Robeks,
Watts Performance,
Zappos
by Daria Steigman on July 9, 2010
Mike Greenberg said on ESPN Radio this morning that “you need to separate the decision from how it was done.” (He was talking, of course, about LeBron James.)
He’s absolutely right.
My friend Justin Goldsborough has a terrific post on James, Joe Mauer, and brand legacies in sports. His key point:
If he was still hoping to be the biggest brand in the world or the biggest brand ever, that chance is gone. In fact, he won’t even be the biggest brand in Miami. That’s Dwayne Wade’s team.
I agree, but I think–disappointment in Cleveland aside–we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that James made a business decision. And it was a fascinating one.
1. We’ve known for several years that James, Wade, and several top NBA players took shorter deals in the past in order to time their arrivals on the free agency market. It was a (then) subtle way to level the playing field a bit in a sports world dominated by team owners.
2. One man cannot be responsible for the economic well-being of an entire city. I’m very sympathetic to the people of Cleveland, especially the small business owners who have benefited from great pre-game crowds. But let’s step back and recognize that a business model dependent on one person, one client, or one product being an unending success is a bad business model.
3. One player cannot be responsible for an entire franchise. Plus Dan Gilbert’s classless response on losing his star player tells me he’s the last person I’d want to work for.
4. James is taking less money to work with people he likes and admires. (While we don’t know yet what he’ll earn in Miami, there’s no question it will be far less than the max contract he’d have had in Cleveland.) Isn’t this the type of decision we’d typically be applauding?
What do you think?
Photo by David Shankbone (Flickr).
Tagged as:
Brand,
Business,
Dan Gilbert,
Dwayne Wade,
LeBron James,
Miami Heat
by Daria Steigman on May 26, 2010
Often, it’s the unsung employee that can make or break your brand. Especially on days when everything is just a little off kilter.
I popped into my neighborhood Staples recently at the end of a very long day to get something printed out. Standing by the copy counter waiting, I observed three customer interactions:
- A man staring at the cheap plastic bowl holding a ballpoint pen collection asks where he can buy the bowl. He’s on his way to a networking event, and he needs something to hold company giveaway pens. The copy guy tells him to just take it, adding that “if anyone asks, I’ll tell them someone stole it and I was too lazy to run after them.”
- A woman walks in with her dog and says, “Dogs are allowed, right?” “They are now,” replies the copy guy.
- A customer asks to talk to the manager. The copy guy pages him: “Customer connection at the copy center.” I observe that it sounds like they’re auditioning for the dating game.
It’s been a week, and I’m still smiling (and telling people) about my wacky customer experience in that one store.
What customer interactions are you creating?
Photo by Migraine Chick (Flickr).
Tagged as:
Brand,
Customer Experience,
Staples
