I’ve Just Found an Advantage to Being an Oldster

For many people, getting their arms around social media is an important 2012 goal, and they’re lost. With FB on the cusp of a record-breaking IPO and an estimated one billion users logging in every day, it’s clear that this is a communication channel that they can no longer ignore.

I’m finding that I’m often the resident expert when it comes to social media, and I do have a fair amount of knowledge. I read and try to keep up, if that’s possible in a culture that undergoes significant changes every time Mark Zuckerberg gets a wild hair up his you-know-what. I’ve been hosting some hands-on workshops that get people acclimated and create the infrastructure to use social media in their businesses. My approach is pragmatic and customized; and I place a big priority on sustainability. Their strategies need to be simple and manageable, or they’re not going to work.

I like this new little business of mine and am finding it to be a pleasant little revenue stream. But here’s what’s really crazy. People are drawn to me because I’m old and reassuring. Most with whom I work are 40+, with an emphasis on the plus. A 25-year-old hotshot is way too threatening to these folks; I, on the other hand, am old and nonthreatening. They figure that if I can do this, so can they. I like that a lot.

Ask me about my social media workshops. Bring a laptop and we’ll customize a strategy that helps raise the visibility of your business. Prepare to become a junkie. You’ll begin to understand why people are checking their FB pages before even logging into their email because there is one very important intangible benefit of social media–it’s fun! We could all use a little more of that.

Stuck In Newsletter Hell and the Future Ain’t Lookin’ Good

I recently produced a newsletter for a client. We sent it to their entire mailing list that is representative of many years, clients and employee relationships. The list was a mess, and we decided that we’d use the mailing to help us cleanse it. We figured that we could just remove the bounces and opt-outs and we’d have a relatively good working list that we could continue to cleanse. Very bad idea, and we suffered a rather severe hand-slapping.

The vendor alerted us that we had exceeded the acceptable number of bounces/opt-outs (1 per 1,000, apparently the industry standard), so we needed to schedule a meeting to review best practices, then follow up with five assigned, randomly selected bounced names to get them to opt in. We cannot use the application until we complete this task, though we will continue to be billed. (Agreed. This seems a little draconian)

So what if we can’t find these people? Are we in newsletter purgatory, doomed to never again use this application but continue to pay for it? The problem is that even if we do get our designated five people to opt in, we could send our next newsletter to an ostensibly cleansed list and it is not unlikely that there would again be more than the 1/1,000 bounces/opt-outs.

Clearly, html email blasts are abused. We all receive more stuff than we like and probably didn’t formally consent to receive. When I go to a networking event, I exchange cards with a number of people. I fully expect that I will put them on my list and they will put me on theirs. We’re all looking for new business, and newsletters remain a great way to get in front of clients.

My recommendation is to suck it up; it takes a few seconds to delete or unsubscribe. I think this is the cost of doing business. I just wish I could convince my newsletter vendor to be as cavalier about this as I am.

Take a Lesson from the Big Guy

During the holidays, I was thinking about Santa and what a huge job he has every year picking out and delivering the right gifts to the right kids. His sales territory is vast and his timeline is aggressive.

Even with the help of his elves, you have to figure that he’s a pretty stressed-out guy who is juggling multiple priorities. Yet he meets the challenge year after year. He’s timely, meets deadlines, works efficiently and sustainably, minimizing environmental impact. Like the rest of us, Santa is an entrepreneur who has run his successful business for years. We could all take a page from Santa’s marketing plan:

• Listening. He listens to make sure that he fully understands what each child is longing for. As business owners, listening to our clients is the most important part of our jobs. Look for their pain rather than rattling on about your products and services. No one cares.
• Customer focus. Just as Santa looks forward to the cookies and milk that we leave him each year, we should be doing something to show our customers how much we appreciate them.
• Consistency and credibility. Christmas is about believing, and Santa does a superb job. He shows up every single year, regardless of weather, politics or illness. His brand is that of trust and reliability and as a result of that trust, he has successfully beat out his competition.
• Keeping up with technology. I don’t know how he does it, but Santa stays on top of the trends. He has Facebook and Twitter pages, and he knows that kids aren’t interested in Cabbage Patch dolls or GI Joes anymore when they can be playing with their expensive iPhones.

In the same way that Santa stands out from the crowd, we need to help our clients gain competitive advantage. Just like Santa, our goal should be building customer loyalty and accountability. The great thing is that if we’re successful at helping them grow their businesses, we also will be growing our own.

Google’s Search Your World: Time to Create a google+ Account

Looks like Google is doing another upgrade to everybody’s favorite search engine. They’re calling it Search plus Your World, and it will ostensibly allow people to search both privately shared content from friends and family and the entire worldwide web, rather than having to search twice using two different systems.

The downside? Search Plus Your World may cause some privacy worries by making private content more visible to friends and family than those sharing may have initially intended. Personal, Private, Public & Social United. The new format and features will also likely cause Google to come under renewed fire that it is leveraging its search engine to favor its own content and crowd out competitors.

Google searches will now include Personal, Private, Public and Social:

• Listings from the web
• Listings from the web, boosted because of your personal behavior
• Listings from the web, boosted because of your social connections
• Public Google+ posts, photos or Google Picasa photos (all of which are also listings from the web)
• Private or “Limited” Google+ posts, photos or Google Picasa photos shared with you.

Private content will now be visible in what seems to be a search across the entire web. Not surprising, people with Google+ accounts are going to be much more heavily highlighted in Google search. This might be a very good time to get started with google+.

2012: Forget the One about Losing 10 Pounds; Make Promises You Can Keep

Email: Sometimes it seems to replicate. I am finding this even truer now that I finally broke down and bought an iPhone, which has totally changed my life. Now I know why they call these SmartPhones–they have only a passing resemblance to my old BlackBerry. With my iPhone, I love checking Facebook and Twitter, which are sources of yet more messaging back and forth, and I find myself drowning in data.

A good way to cut down is to eliminate those emails that have one-word answers. “Agreed.” “You bet.” “Thanks.” These responses are superfluous. If you send an email to someone saying “Thanks”, they well may send one back saying, “Thank you”. Yes, it’s nice to be courteous, but thank someone in another email where you’re providing something substantive.

Back when I used to work in an office, I shared space with a bunch of developers who hated direct communications. They didn’t know how to have a conversation or talk on the phone. Every communication was via email, and I find that I default to this as well–it provides the opportunity to think something through as I write it. But there are times when actually having a conversation is much more efficient–being able to get an immediate response can be a real time-saver.

Eliminating one-word response emails is one promise that deserves a big commitment.

A Love Note to My New iPhone: Why Did I Wait So Long?

I bought an iPhone and can see what all the hype has been about. In the years since I finally capitulated and bought a cellphone (I was the last holdout–in general, I hate talking on the phone and don’t feel the need to be connected to everyone 24/7.) Like many people, I started with a freebie phone that I loved because it was tiny and could fit in my pocket. After a few years, I needed to be able to get email, so I bought a BlackBerry and learned to text.

The reason I finally broke down and bought an iPhone was simple: I lost the charger to my BlackBerry. Since I had to fork over $20 for a new charger, I decided the time was ripe for an upgrade. So here I am with a phone that makes my old Blackberry seem clunky, dated and totally inept. The sensitivity of my iPhone’s touch-driven keyboard is making me a bit crazy, but I’m quickly acclimating. Now I know why they called this a SmartPhone when it first hit the market. It’s not smart, it’s brilliant. Like every other happy iPhone user, I simply love this new tool. The only question I have is “Why did I wait so long?” Actually, there’s another question: “When am I going to get an iPad and Mac?” Soon.

It’s Not Just Social Media Anymore, but Social Journalism and Social Business

I was reading about a newspaper in the UK, The Guardian, that thinks of itself as a digital publication, but the bulk of their revenue still comes from print. This is where it gets interesting and makes you realize the power of digital communication.

If a story is in print, it’s immediately out of date. But if a breaking story results in an article being published to online applications, it’s immediate, organic and can evolve along with the story. This is an example of not just social media, but social journalism. Journalists can invite audience participation and it has the potential to reach a vast audience through search and viral marketing.

No wonder that no one (except me) is buying newspapers anymore.

If You Don’t Have a Contact List, You Don’t Have a Business

If You Don’t Have a Contact List, You Don’t Have a Business. I read this a while back and keep thinking about it. We’re living in a digital age, and companies are now spending just 15% of their marketing budgets on traditional print advertising and marketing. It’s over. It’s too expensive, it’s wasteful and it’s out of date the minute it’s printed.

Digital is dynamic. It’s also free or cheap. One of my early clients was a therapist. In this economy (ITE), therapy can be a luxury that people simply can’t afford. When people’s hours are cut or they lose their jobs altogether, therapy takes a back seat to paying the mortgage. Her practice had been decimated, and for some of her remaining clients, she had drastically reduced her fee. After 20 years, her practice was on the ropes.

One of my recommendations was to start doing a newsletter to keep in touch with her clients so that when they got back on their feet, they would know that she was still out there and accepting clients. I asked her if she had contact information for her clients, and she assured me that she did. She reached in her desk drawer and pulled out a ratty, dog-eared address book with names penciled in, scratched out, etc. Not an email address to be found.

I asked her if she had an electronic contact management system, but knew the answer would be no. One more try: I asked her if she had a bunch of business cards that we could scan in to create a spreadsheet to import into a newsletter application. Not a card to be found. Final effort–I asked what networking events she went to where she could collect business cards. She didn’t go to any networking events.

She called me later to tell me that she couldn’t focus on marketing because she was still grieving her mother’s death nearly two years ago. She was not prepared to make the changes that would help her rejuvenate her business. Lesson learned: you can’t help people who won’t help themselves.

Marketing: the French Version

We just spent three glorious weeks in France. We had a wonderful time, but what’s not to like about France? It may simply represent the best of everything: food, wine, architecture, style, grace and culture. A tiny downside: the exchange rate takes a whopping bite out of the dollar, and that’s probably not going to change anytime soon.

My years in marketing have left me fascinated by the way things are packaged and merchandised in other countries, and nowhere do they do this better than in France. My morning baguette was accompanied by adorable little individual jars of jam. The windows of pastry and confectionary shops are works of art, and those insidious boulangeries leave their doors wide open, torturing you with the smell of freshly baked croissants. I read somewhere that the French do not eat croissants every day, and my response is, “why not?”

In France, food is more than a passion, it’s a birthright, and people simply expect even modest cafes to serve fresh, seasonal and altogether delicious food. In France, it seems that a fresh baguette tucked under an arm is required by law, and wine is meant to be drunk, not sniffed or swirled.

The French don’t seem to be concerned about the deleterious effects of smoking, which is a little shocking since it has been a lifetime since we closet smokers were able to sneak an occasional cigarette without being banished to Siberia.

We Americans think we know everything about all things technical, modern and edgy, but we are only part of an international marketplace. There was a Guerlain store by our hotel on the Champs with a chic, sexy pop-up store next door. When Steve Jobs died, he was the centerfold in the morning’s LeMonde.

Starbucks has made its way to France, but happily, it hasn’t replaced the passion for hours spent nursing a tiny cup of espresso in sidewalk cafes. Europeans have always had narrow streets and high gas prices, so the roadways feel like bumper car races. There are breeds of tiny cars that don’t even exist in the US–does anyone remember when they stopped selling Renaults here?

Paris is all about je ne sais quoi, which translates to no slopping around in baggy jeans and sloppy tennis shoes. The uniform du jour is skintight jeans tucked into boots, interesting jewelry, lots of scarves, and leave your favorite baseball cap at home. You can’t help but notice that there are no fat people in Paris. It may have something to do with the fact that you’d have to be stark-raving mad to drive in in this gorgeous city, so people walk and take the Metro.

The French don’t seem to be enamored with escalators–when you do find one, it’s generally out of service, so you suck it up and take the stairs; the tradeoff is that the Metro is fast, convenient and easy to use. Transit advertising is very big in Paris–when you think about the fact that the Metro transports a stunning 4.5 million people/day, you are dealing with a significant captive audience.

Whenever I return from a trip abroad, I ask myself whether or not I could live there. Could I live in France? Yes, I believe I could. The French make time for friends and family without laborious negotiations to identify a date. They are not embarrassed by affection; friends hold hands and unabashedly exchange kisses.

While we rush from meeting to meeting, the French link arms and stroll. We’re a nation of workaholics that judges a person’s worth by the amount of money he/she makes; the French enjoy a month of vacation and a 35-hour work week as quality of life imperatives.

In the Bay Area, we talk about our high quality of life, but the reality is that we work so hard to pay for it that we don’t have time to enjoy it. C’est la vie.

Politics and the Importance of Short Memories

Political polarization is nothing new to politics. It has helped defined Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann and Hillary Clinton, but it’s not reserved for women–take a look at Newt Gingrich.

He’s been divorced twice and had an affair with a former congressional aide who is now his third wife. His career in Congress is memorable for the federal government shutdown, his censure and the loss of Republican seats in the House, and his resignation on ethics charges. Many will remember his Contract with America and his 100-day honeymoon during the Clinton administration.

But that was decades ago, and we thought it was over for Newt, that he was busy focusing on his high-priced consultancy business, so it came as a shock when he decided to run for the 2012 Presidential nomination. For a long time, he couldn’t gain any traction, but now he’s running neck to neck with Mitt Romney, the perennial candidate–make that two perennial candidates.

Most candidates struggle with name recognition, but this is not something about which Newt needs to be concerned–many people know him too well. What remains to be seen is whether the right-wing Tea Party types can overlook his indiscretions and low moral fiber and vote for him. He professes to have found the Lord and turned his life around, but will that be enough to convince conservative Tea Party voters that it is he who should be leading the country out of the recession and the foreign policy entanglements that have brought us to our knees. We’ll see.