Posts tagged as:

Social Media

Can a Personal Brand Coexist Within a Corporate Ecosystem?

by Daria Steigman on August 9, 2011

personal branding, business, social media, Independent Thinking, Steigman Communications, llcLove it, hate it, or deny it exists, personal branding is a hot topic.  And it’s going to be THE topic today for #sm122, a weekly tweet chat around the business of social media.

Join me at 12 noon EST as I host a conversation around personal branding. We’ll explore:

1. Personal branding — good idea or bad idea?

2. Can a personal brand coexist within a corporate ecosystem? Can your stars be stars and keep your brand intact?

3. Is it okay for companies to ban their employees from blogging?

4. Should companies have a succession plan around star employees?

Before diving in, I recommend reading Jonny Bentwood’s excellent post on Forrester’s decision last year to ban its staff from having personal blogs.

Looking forward to the conversation. And, as always, feel free to leave your two cents in the comments below.

UPDATE: The transcript of the tweet chat is posted here.

Photo by J.D. Hancock (Flickr).

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3 Ways to Strengthen Customer Experience Online

by Daria Steigman on August 4, 2011

Customer Service, Social Media, Independent Thinking, Steigman CommunicationsI heard Linda Ireland speak last week about how to strengthen the customer experience on social media platforms. A key point she made during the MarketingProfs Webinar is that customers are demanding–to be heard, authenticity, speed, support, interaction, reaction–and you’d better be ready to meet their needs.

Ireland also walked through 10 tips for connecting more effectively with your customers. My top three takeaways:

1. Know which platforms work best when. A blog can be a great way to connect with prospects or to educate existing customers with ongoing or evolving needs, but it’s probably not the best platform for addressing customer service issues. The more you understand where your customers are in their buying cycle and how they interact, the more proactively you can plan where you should be engaging with them.

2. Customer experience is about what happens AND how customers feel. Ireland’s point: you (the business) impact both.

3. Focus on your customers, not your competitors. Ireland glossed over this at the end of her presentation, but I think it’s the most important takeaway. Too many companies are so busy worrying about what the competition is doing that they forget why customers interact with their brand in the first place. Don’t imitate. Instead, create your own customer experience.

What’s your top tip for strengthening the customer experience online?

Photo by lulu (Flickr).

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Why Google+ Circles Matter

by Daria Steigman on July 21, 2011

Google Plus, circles, LinkedIn, Facebook, social media, Independent Thinking, Steigman CommunicationsIf you’re read anything about Google+, the company’s latest foray into the social realm, then you’ve probably heard about Circles. Here’s my early take, which I shared via a LinkedIn answer on the topic the other day:

From my initial view of Google+, Circles are what Facebook needs but doesn’t have: a way to share based on real life versus the digital world.

You can create as many circles as you want–and share information across Google+ in multiple ways (public, or with one or more circles). As a result, this is the first platform that starts out with the premise that all people aren’t equal. So, for example, you might want to share an article that’s about politics with your family, a not-suitable-for-work cartoon with friends, and a great article about finance with your colleagues. I have, for example, set up a couple of broad categories around business/small business and communications/marketing. I can see people setting up circles around friends, colleagues, intramural sports teammates, book club members, etc., over time.

As someone who thinks that the private realm doesn’t belong online, I’m unlikely to share ANYTHING that I’m not comfortable with everyone seeing. But I think Google has been thinking about how people share. If they have any ambition of being “the next Facebook” (note: I’m not sure Facebook is going anywhere soon), being able to easily create “share” categories is a good first step.

Personally, I think Circles is just one of the interesting elements of what Google is doing with Google+.

Have you set up Circles yet? What do you think?

I actually have 6 business reasons I think you should watch Google+.

Sign up for my latest newsletter (sign up form in sidebar–or click through here if you’re reading this in RSS) to read my 6 reasons to watch Google+. As a bonus, I have five beta invitations to Google+ to give away to the first five people who sign up for the newsletter and then e-mail me your Gmail address and tell me why you want to test out Google+. (You have to have a Gmail account to use Google+.)

Photo by J Ronald Lee (Flickr). 

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Social Media Isn’t the Problem

by Daria Steigman on July 5, 2011

Social Media, NLRB, Social Media Marketing Day, DMAW, Independent Thinking, Steigman CommunicationsWould you fire an employee who badmouthed your business?

I had the pleasure of presenting at the Direct Marketing Association of Washington’s Social Media Marketing Day. Our panel was charged with talking about best practices. Did you know, for example, that Facebook now allows page administrators to mute unwanted comments? This has the wonderful effect of letting a person continue to see his comment in the stream–but no one else visiting that page can see it. (Hat tip to my fellow panelist, Heather Shelby, for that one.)

One audience question really stood out. Someone pointed to a recent National Labor Relations Board decision (which has to do with an employee who was fired after she posted negative comments about her company on her Facebook page) and said organizations have to be careful about disciplining their employees for their social media activities.

My response: Well, maybe. The facts and decision in this case have always seemed pretty narrowly defined. And it wasn’t about free speech, but rather labor law.

Plus, smart companies have social media policies that address what employees can and cannot do online.

But there’s a bigger issue. Maybe firing someone for whining about their job isn’t always the best move. But if an employee is seriously badmouthing your business, chances are they are a bad employee. I’m sure you can find cause to fire them for performance reasons–unrelated to what they’re saying about you in their spare time.

Besides, they were talking about you before. You just weren’t listening.

Photo by Tonamel (Flickr).

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Are Customers High Maintenance?

by Daria Steigman on June 20, 2011

Business, Social Media, Customer Service, Independent Thinking, Steigman CommunicationsI read a LinkedIn question the other day that asked whether companies should spend more time focused on their core business–and less, perhaps, on social media. While I don’t think this is really an “either/or” question (you have to do both), I also think it’s pretty clear that if companies spent more time doing what they do best, there’d be less need to be reactive online.

Being reactive, of course, isn’t an invention of the digital age. It’s a challenge that typically arises from limited resources, organizational silos, and/or a failure of imagination. Just as you don’t need a survey to know what good customer service looks like, it shouldn’t take bad press to know cutting corners is a bad idea.

So what’s changed?

In The NOW Revolution, Jay Baer and Amber Naslund suggest that:

“Possessing the time and information required to make sound product, pricing, operations, and customer service decisions is a luxury–a luxury that’s facing extinction.”

Yes–and No. Companies today get rewarded for excellence–same as they always have. But companies that have been coasting can’t get away with it (as much) any more.

I’ve heard some people say that, in this age of the real-time Web, customers are increasingly high-maintenance. As a customer, I think we’re empowered.

As a business owner, I see this as a good thing.

What say you?

Photo by Katherine Johnson (Flickr).

Have you signed up to receive the Independent Thinking newsletter? Now’s the time! Once a month I’ll send you exclusive, subscriber-only content highlighting interesting articles I’ve found, as well as tips on marketing, social media, and how to grow your business. Sign up today!

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