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Bridget Wright

Bridget Wright

Twitterers Share Their Micro-Blogging Tips

All you need is 140-characters, and you can see a difference. Perhaps a short daily blurb about business developments and changes is all it takes to make an impact.

Has your company embraced the Twitter craze yet?

No doubt that the Twitter craze has taken the internet by storm, but have you or has your company yet embraced what it has to offer? Or, are you still going to “wait it out” and see what the outcome is going to be? Don’t worry. Many others are waiting too.

A Loyal Following

A social networking force to be reckoned with, it certainly has positioned itself to be an extremely powerful tool for bloggers and corporations, harnessing the power it needs to propel itself to the next level of online marketing. With only 140 characters or less, the Twitter followers have made an impact on the web.

Today while I was perusing my followers and those whom I followed, I was able to glean a wealth of information and great links of information that helps me as a blogger and writer. There are a lot of knowledgeable people on Twitter, many of whom have internet-based jobs and use online tools like Twitter as their point of contact and as a business social tool also. How do you use Twitter? Is it working pretty good for you?

Work=Results

In the world of online trades and transactions, any marketer needs to be able to leverage the power of tools and resources and make it work for them. If not, then we are really all wasting our time, right? I mean, if we don’t take full advantage of every available, applicable resource, then what are we really doing but biding time? Twitter is like any other resource (but I am partial, of course) in that you only get out of it what you put into it. And, if you don’t put much into it, it can’t and it won’t work for you.

Many online marketers will beat their heads against walls, wondering why traditional methods aren’t working for them. They may change business goals even, just to get something to work. Why do that? Why angst? Just (effectively) use your available resources to work stronger and more powerful than just sit idle and do nothing. if you do, things will change and your business will grow. What can you do to make it work for you?

Here is a Youtube video where 100 Twitter share their all-important tips on how they make the micro-blogging platform work for them:

The Bully Media Want Bloggers and Online Journalists to Go Away

Why?

Because they are cramping their style.

Google has been approached by the mainstream media to give them preference in the search engines for content-driven traffic. Here is an excerpt of the story, drafted from the Ad Age site:

Major media companies are increasingly lobbying Google to elevate their expensive professional content within the search engine’s undifferentiated slush of results.

They want first dibs, first choice and to be recognized first with top stories, news and developments, entertainment, etc. – – you name it. It seems that the mainstream media do not feel that they have enough of the pie and they want more. They want the pieces that the bloggers have too.

Bloggers and online journalists have a pretty exciting job writing on topics that are of interest to sparse sections of audiences online. They have the unique ability to act as sort of “rock stars” in the media world. Bloggers who are pretty popular even have their own groupies and people who hang on their every word, doing or trying whatever they say. Almost cult-like in a way. Right now, it’s pretty darn cool to be a blogger because your opinion, well-researched and fleshed out of course, can rank you right up there at the top of a Google search result. These rankings are giving the mainstream media a virtual headache. Why? Because they feel like since they are the “real” media source, that they should of course be first. Kind of reminds me of my kids and that whole “line-leader” business.

Of course mainstream media does have the advertising dollars and the resources to rank wherever they want, but is that good for the online user? Moreover, is it good for the media companies? Sure, it’s great for Google’s purse, but what does that for the discriminating online user who’s looking not for the most popular information, but the most accurate information? Do online users want to read “paid”, biased content or do they want good reads? What would you want?

What I find disturbing about the whole thing is the bullying that the online media (as a whole) is doing by throwing their weight around and saying that they should be more recognized than a lowly blogger. Says who?

 “You should not have a system,” one content executive said, “where those who are essentially parasites off the true producers of content benefit disproportionately.”

Why, I don’t think I’m a parasite at all! I simply feel that the role of an online journalist is to further research and capitalize on the information that is already out there. Are we “taking” anything away from anyone by doing this? Does this make our work sub-par? Part of me does understand and agree with the big media folks in that there are content millhouses and lazy bloggers who will regurgitate what they’ve read and not bother to investigate or put their own spin on a story. Those types get no points with me either. But good bloggers aren’t doing this. Good bloggers are opinionated, well-read sources who offer their readers a direct light into a story without the fluff, the “paid spin” or the salesy type of material that you will read in some places.

huffington-post

Ariana Huffington of the famed Huffington Post runs quite a controversial blog on her site. There are many, many bloggers over there who deftly report and blog on politics, news, business and even gossip. Does that mean because the site is full of regular bloggers and not professionally paid journalists that they should not be recognized in Google’s search engine as much as a designer media’s name?

And then there’s my former colleague, Darren Rowse who I had the pleasure of working with for a while when I probloggerblogged for b5media. The man is a gold mine of knowledge and information when it comes to blogging and making money from it. In the online world, he is the go-to person for whatever you need to know about professional blogging. Darren started his whole blogging gig as a hobby and has built it into a leading, multi-business online venture. Since he doesn’t blog for any of the mainstream media, should his opinions on “how-to” be ignored? In addition, should he rank lower in the Google search engines for “pro-blogging”, “online entrepreneur” because he doesn’t have the backing of media dollars and resources?

There’s a place for the mainstream media and there’s a place for the blogging journalist in the online world for both parties to be a cohesive unit together. There is a way for everyone to get along and be successful in whatever venue they choose to find their way into Google. It’s called competition, and it’s doing quite well, thank you.

If the mainstream media wants to really be recognized, then they should do what it takes to be recognized. Throwing their resource weight around does nothing but make them virtual bullies. In a healthy dose of good old-fashioned competition, the search engines will pick up content that is relevant, pithy, original and unique. If that’s coming from the media folks, great. If that’s coming from the blogger journalist, great again. But the media has to understand that they can’t be greedy, they can’t have it all with resources, money and paid rankings and search results. Play fair and let the “best” content win. Readers deserve that. Message to the mainstream media: You can’t have your cake and eat it too! It’s not that type of party.

How to Control and Protect Your Company’s Brand

All PR is good PR, right?

Maybe not.

Anything or any advertisement that brings attention to your business theoretically should be good for business, you would think. Just because your corporation is being talked about in the news because of the financial scandal that it was involved in last week, could be enough attention to bring in a few more customers, right? What about the “questionable” employment practices that your company embraces that got them a court summons to explain said practices – – you would think that the attention from it would be flattering for your company. Not so. No, all PR is not good PR and your company should take measure to protect themselves and their brand in any way or ways possible.

But, is it really even possible to protect your brand and your brand’s image without getting a few nut jobs that could out-do what you’ve worked so hard to mold? Oftentimes, years of hard work and playing by the rules can all be undone with a couple of poor choices and not well-thought out decisions.

The Coke brand was affected in a positive way by two Facebook users who weren’t satisfied with what they were finding on their favorite social networking site in the Coke venue and decided to start their own following…without the express permission from the Coca-Cola executives that is. But, this story has a happy ending as Coke actually embraced their proactive measures and wanted to (of course) capitalize on what the Coke evangelists had started. Although Coke “didn’t want to have anything to do with it directly”, they still worked with the two writers and seemingly didn’t have a problem with what they were doing.

But all stories don’t have such a happy ending.

The Smarties candy company ‘smarted’ about what some young folks were doing with their brand. More specifically, they were smoking smarties. Not so good for the Smarties company and not so good for this type of viral YouTube messaging to be such a popular place on the internet. Things like this is what can give your brand a bad reputation and a bad name. Since you can’t control what people do and other people’s behavior, what can you do to limit the instances that your brand is mentioned in a negative context? What can you do to make sure that your brand gets good PR and leave the negative stuff for losers?

1. Sing praises

No, not to the Almighty, but to your brand. Take all available opportunities to shed positive light on your brand. Whether that’s through the engagement of social networking sites (like the Coca-Cola evangelists) or through your marketing efforts, know that you just cannot say enough good things. A little conceited? Sure but who else is going to do it if you don’t at least spark it.

2. Acknowledge the defectors

Some would say you should ignore them, but I say don’t. People who try and hi-jack your brand (in the sense) are often just vying for attention, almost like children. Like in the case of Smarties smart-pants – – they wanted to show that they could do something that wasn’t right with the Smarties candies. My solution would have been to issue a commercial or even another YouTube message that shows the dangers of teenagers and smoking. Counter-balance the negative attention with a positive spin.

 3. Lower your expectations.

Yes, your brand is wonderful. Yes, your product is amazing. Yes, there is no other business anywhere else who can work magic quite the same as you. But, no matter what, people are people and there’s not a thing that anyone can do to change them. For you to think otherwise or to try and change them is a fruitless effort and can bring on unlimited frustration.

When you protect your brand and control your brand’s exposure, you are not going out and “getting” everyone who dares to speak against it. This can make you look like a marketing bully of sorts. But what you are doing is simply controlling and keeping under control the amount of PR attention, whether negative or positive is in the consumer’s faces. Instead of playing media police, become their friend and work towards the effort instead of against it. It should feel a whole lot better.

When it Absolutely, Positively Has to be…Twittered

The Twitter phenomenon is contagious and has caught on to the corporation at Federal Express. I recently found their link on Twitter and began following them so that I could keep abreast with their updates and developments. What I wanted to see was the type of information that FedEx would provide on Twitter and how they would interact with their followers.

Many companies similar to FedEx establish a Twitter account, but very often don’t know what to do with it. Should they follow everyone who follows them? Should they simply provide links to their online material only? What about any negative news that many develop…should they Twit it?

Twitter is really turning out to be an impactful social networking site for businesses and entrepreneurs. But what can often be misleading and elusive for many companies is the “why” when they do decide to create a Twitter presence.

Do they want to share information with their followers or just be there when something (possibly) develops?

Are they at all interested in following others to see what they have to say or are they just being polite?

Is the service or product they provide amenable to the benefits of the Twitter program? In other words, does the business’ personality fit Twitter?

Twitter is for sharing and dispensing information, period. But, it is also designed for readers to receive information, learning and educating themselves on their peers and competitors in business. When you start following someone on Twitter, you get a feed that dispenses their updates, links and 140-character “what are you doing” bites. It is a very cool tool to help you network extensively and share your business. But, I am finding that there is a slight tip on the scale with businesses that are followed and those that are following in terms of the information that is dispensed on Twitter and the value in it.

For instance, this press release provided by FedEx talks about their generous contribution of $1 million to the Teach for America organization and fundraiser talks extensively about their goal of contributing to this cause and making education a top priority. The release article is very detailed and thorough and the cause will affect many people and shed a positive light on FedEx’s image, no doubt. But what could have perhaps brought even more attention to their cause and goal from an online perspective was to perhaps interview the people that this action would have or could affect. There is lots of potential there for them to showcase the benefactors.

Teach For America is the national corps of top college graduates who commit two years to teach in urban and rural public schools and become lifelong leaders in expanding educational opportunity for all children.

Where are those prior top college graduates and how has this program benefitted them? Would it be valuable at all to hear anything from them? Perhaps so, perhaps not. But large corporations like FedEx can do extremely well by focusing on the nuances of their good deeds and maximizing them towards their advantage. Sure, Twitter can help them with this action, but it has to be utilized in order to be effective.

I would suggest that FedEx beef up their Twitter links a little more to give it more of a social feel. Perhaps hire a social manager who would work to brand the FedEx label in online circles and connect with the people who help shape their business. Because when it absolutely, positively has to be done, Twitter is the way to do it.

Should Consumers Believe Their Eyes or Ears? The Case of Shrinking Consumables

Customers know when they’re getting a bargain or when they’re getting something other than a bargain. Advertisers tell us what toothpaste is better, what detergents clean better, what food tastes good and even where we need to buy our cars. With all of this dependence on the media for our thoughts on shopping and bargain-hunting, is there any need for us to ever worry about quality…or even size?

Global economic conditions have made financial situations quite bleak, with the necessary budget-tweaking, numbers-crunching and overall cutbacks by both consumers and corporations. With all of the attention on money or the lack thereof, is there reason to give pause when we see that packages that hold our favorite foods or drinks are shrinking while the price for said packages is growing? What gives?

Manufacturers are feeling the crunch of these economic times in a major way and when they try to move their products, they may also see that what used to be a healthy bottom line with black numbers is slowly giving way to smaller numbers with twinges of pink in them, about to go red. What’s a company to do? What is noticeably being done is that companies are simply starting to put less content in our packages, yet still charge us the same price, if not more for the item(s). Consumers are noticing and they do not like it. (news story)

Then, to possibly frustrate the consumer even more, they’ve re-designed the packages, with brighter, bolder colors and font changes. There may even be new models on the box or a new background. This is all in an attempt to make the customer think that they’re getting more, or better, or different content. Essentially, and sadly, the consumer is getting the same thing, for more, in a different package with brighter words. That’s all.

Media advertising is a very tricky animal in that they know that customers purchase with emotion and they buy what they see and what makes them feel good. Think about your favorite brand of something and what you would do if they had a price increase or worse, if the item was about to be discontinued. Let’s say that you were held hostage and told that if you don’t pay slightly more for your favorite thing, that it may go away and never come back. With some manufacturers, brand hostage is happening and consumers are in the middle of it. We know that businesses are in business to make money and to be profitable, but at what expense. Should the customer be tricked or cajoled into paying more for less? Is it right?

ice-cream

Ben and Jerry’s ice-cream giants recently brought attention to a move that their rival competitor, Haagen-Daaz made by shrinking their packaging yet keeping their price the same on their pint-sized goodness. Ben & Jerry’s said that it was a “bad move” on the part of their competitor and that they would never, EVER do such a thing to their customers or with their products. They even Tweeted about it on Twitter saying thanks to their fans for their support and that

Apparently size matters to our fans as well. tinyurl.com/bjmeam Thanks for the support here & on facebook tinyurl.com/5acu3y 9:04 AM Mar 5th from TweetDeck “

Good for Ben & Jerry’s for making us aware of this! But what does Haagen-Daaz have to say? Apparently, they’re being genuine with their move and intention and go into detail to explain it here on their site. I applaud them for being upfront, open and direct and for involving the customer. The worst thing that a company can do to their customers is to insult their intelligence (is this package really smaller or is it just me), and then not offer any explanation about it (your favorite cereal just jumped up $0.75 more per box without any warning). In these economic conditions, that is not a good move and can lose customers for you quicker than anything.

Paying more for less is never a good idea, no matter what it applies to or what industry it’s in. Consumers want what’s fair and they want the value of what they’ve paid for. If you change your prices, tell your customers. Let them decide what they want to do with their dollars. If you change your packaging, tell your customers. Don’t make them wonder if their eyes are playing tricks on them or if they “thought” they saw something different. Consumers appreciate it more when you’re up front with them, like Haagen-Dazs was. Do I like that I now get less in my pint? Absolutely not, but at least I know why.

Too Much Teleprompter? Can the Crutch Dilute Your Message?

United States President Barack Obama has been criticized of late for his overuse of the teleprompter, the device which aids him as he offers his riveting speeches and ongoing campaign of change for America. Even in the midst of a jostled economy and uncertain end, there is still criticism and focus on those things that can be considered non-essential or mundane at best. Can a teleprompter really be overused?

Some of the greatest speeches ever given by U.S. Presidents have not been without the aid of notes and teleprompters. They are quite handy if the orator forgets his lines or train of thought. Not to mention the awkwardness that can result if he loses his place in his paper notes, having not given the teleprompter a chance. The actual device itself is quite useful but has many organizations and individuals in a quandary because they feel as if Mr. Obama relies on it too much. The feeling is that he is not really “connecting” to the American people and talking to them instead of at them. CEO’s and other heads of companies use this media tool quite effectively as well to convey their own messages. But is this little contraption over-used and over-rated?

The media wants to get the news and developments first-hand, when-they-happen and not miss one complete iota of information that can be beneficial to their audiences. They want fresh, natural and relaxed news that they can use to report the news and entertainment. Perhaps the teleprompter hinders that? Maybe they are used a little too much and make the person appear less than genuine or that they are delivering a “canned” message?

CEO’s can and should use notes, teleprompters or any other aids they may need to effectively convey their message, but never to a point where their messages may appear less than genuine. This is where they may lose their audiences interest and sometimes even their own credibility. Delivering a speech should be with facts of course, but always, always from the heart.

Does your company’s CEO use teleprompters or any other speech aids? Does Obama’s use of his teleprompter affect you in any way or make you believe him less?