Two years ago I needed to have my backyard deck stripped of paint and stained. I had been looking online and could not find any companies that wanted to do the work I was requesting. A good friend of mine works for a home and door company in my area, so I asked him if he knew anyone that could do my job. He gave me the name of a company that he worked with in the past that does decks. I contacted them, and they were able to recommend a company who could fill my need. The deck came out great, and I could not be happier. A few months later I decided to have my front porch replaced. I ended up using the same deck guy, and was very happy with how the front porch came out initially. Actually the the front porch came out so nice that both my parents and my in-laws hired him to do work at their houses, thanks to my glowing recommendation. Two years later, I have a leaking roof and two sets of unhappy parents. Turns out he took a few short cuts, and while his work looked great initially, it did not last over time. Now I have to constantly listen to both my parents and my in-laws complain about how the deck guy screwed them. Lesson learned; word of mouth is a two way street. In business, and life in general, you are responsible for the recommendations that you give, not just the service that you provide.
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Word of Mouth Is A Two Way Street
Baby steps
Over the past week, I have been watching one of my twin sons start to crawl. It has been an amazing experience for this first time dad, as I watch him grunt and struggle to just move an inch or so. He would get frustrated, take a break and start up again. He has not figured out how to use his knees yet, he is really just sliding across the carpet, but he can get where he wants to go now. His crawling is really exciting for me, but I would guess that you the reader really do not care about my son learning to crawl. As I watched him do it, the thought of SEO came to mind. There is no magic bullet for SEO. No matter how much money you spend , it is the time that is put into it that will make it a successful or unsuccessful venture. The strategy is not born overnight, it takes a lot of work, and trial and error to accomplish the goal.
Common Sense Social Media Etiquette
Over the past week, there have been a few incidents of poor Social Media etiquette by some famous tweeters. First Rashard Mendenhall shared is feelings about the death of Osama Bin Laden, then later this week, Reggie Bush made a comment about his time off during the NFL lock out, then when he was ridiculed by his followers, said it was a joke, and everyone should have known it. What is most troubling for me about these incidents are that I am sure that Reggie Bush and Rashard Mendenahall both have highly paid PR consultants, who should have given both a lesson on what is appropriate and what is not on Social Media. In today’s Social Media world, whatever information you put out, has the chance to be picked up pretty quickly, and could have major repercussions. So how does a small business walk the line between giving their opinion while not causing a bad public relations mark on the company?
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Update: Social Media Strategy
After my post yesterday, I found this case study on how not having a full thought out strategy can really be disastrous. In my opinion Pizza Hut came up with brilliant social media campaign in Ireland. They tied into the worlds biggest sporting event, World Cup which starts in a few days, with a fun way for their customers to use their passion to win free pizza. They did an amazing job coming up with this campaign. Except they dropped the ball, because it does not tie into their whole marketing strategy. They neglected their website, and lose much of the greatness of their campaign.
Read the full case study writen by Simply Zesty.
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Social Media Strategy
No matter how often I say it, or how loud I yell, I still get told everyday from customers, I want a Facebook page, so that I can increase my sales. Social Media is not a magic pill just like any other marketing tool that we use to increase our business, it takes hard work and lot of sweat equity. The nice thing about most social media is that they truly are built on sweat equity and not money.
Would you start your business without a strategy? Just open the doors and hope that people will stop by and spend their money. That sounds ridiculous. Yet according to eMarketer“One-half of companies have no social strategy”, they are just hoping that someone finds them. This is still a new medium and is a chance to get out and play with it. This eMarketer report is looking at big companies, what an advantage for small business to jump ahead of the curve. Sit down and come up with a strategy and you are ahead of many larger companies. Social Media is like the wild west right now, if you have no strategy it can be very easy to get lost in all the confusion. Look at each component and see if it is in your companies interest to get involved. Most importantly have fun! The most importan component of Social Media is to be social interact with your customers, you will gain so much information along with building a great reputation.