Texting Could be Your Last Word. Period.

Texting while driving? 

   

Was the message worth it?

     Is texting part of business social media?  Well, yes and no -- texting implies rapid back and forth conversations, while business social media should be well thought out campaigns conducted through social media outlets and email.
     However --
     Composing the text of your emails and etc. while driving is JUST AS DANGEROUS AS TEXTING WHILE DRIVING.
     A new study by the Texas Transportation Institute finds that reading or writing a text message while driving can more than double a driver's reaction time.
     Re-read those last seven words:  more than double a driver's reaction time.
     Researchers found that reactions times of 1 to 2 seconds while not texting slowed to 3 to 4 seconds while texting -- and here's something more to think about:
     The study found very little difference in response times between a driver composing a message and reading one!
     You might think a couple of seconds is no big deal, but a driver going 30 mph covers 220 feet in five seconds.  A driver doing 60 mph covers 440 feet in five seconds.  That means that if you're on the tollway, a freeway, or other road where the speed limit is 60 during rush hour and a vehicle suddenly stops in front of you, there's not enough time to react if you're glancing down at your phone.
     Additionally, drivers in the study were more than 11 times as likely to miss a flashing light while texting or reading.
     Currently, 34 states have texting and driving bans.  Organizations such as the AAA and insurers oppose texting while driving, and with obvious good reason.
     You've built up a great business through your business social media skills -- don't flush it down the toilet with one ill-timed text.

Caught in a Whirl

The Facebook Tornado!

     There's an old adage about business success -- it's called "location, location, location."  While it was originally intended to apply to real estate, it now applies to the internet and your business social media.  Let's face it -- a billboard that's not being read is no good to an advertiser, and if your social media isn't being read it's no good to you, either.  Ergo the adage, "location, location, location."
     So, where's the big location these days?  Well, Google Plus is beginning to flesh out a bit, but the place to reach people is with your page on Facebook.  Yes, you need a page on Facebook.  You need to have people 'like' your page on Facebook.  You need to talk with people on Facebook.  Given the recent spate of Facebook changes that have/are driven/driving people crazy, it's still the number one place to be on the net.
     According to Citigroup Interweb's analysis, Facebook accounts for a whopping 16% of all US time spent on the web.  Google is in second with 11% and Yahoo third with 9%.  Even more telling, Citi found little migration to Google Plus.  The story is here:  http://blogs.wsj.com/marketbeat/2011/09/26/facebook-sucks-up-a-ridiculously-huge-and-growing-share-of-our-time-wasted-online/
     Here's the kicker that should kickstart your business social media into having a lasting presence on Facebook: as the site continues to grow and evolve, it's going to grab up a greater share of the search and advertising dollars.
     Your signature on your tweets and emails should ask customers to "like" you on Facebook.
     Think of it as the vortex of a tornado; the more hits, the more customers, the more customers, the more hits, spinning around and around and around until...
     You're not in Kansas anymore, Dorothy!

Facebook Fracas, Part Two - You Will Be Assimilated

The Facebook Fallout continues unabated...

it's about the mechanics of change....

     Following yesterday's changes, Facebook is defending them, saying it makes for a better user experience.  Users, meanwhile, continue to deride them, saying it makes for a worse user experience.  I've already seen several defections among Facebook users to Google Plus and I imagine there will be more.

      What's it all about for everyone involved in business social media?   Are there lessons to be learned here and if so, what are they?  

      First of all, it's about change.  Change is inevitable...and as the Borg used to say on Star Trek: Next Generation, "resistance is futile."  Change is required to move forward, though, if it's done badly, it can move you backward.  A happy balance needs to be struck.  Yesterday I related the sad story of New Coke.  That was indeed change, but it was change done badly.  Business social media is a living, breathing organism and it's going to change, and Facebook is no different - but, as in New Coke, the more users/consumers you have who are happy with the product, the harder it is to do any sort of change without upsetting a lot of people.   For Facebook to survive, it has to change and grow, or else it becomes irrelevant and staid.

     For those practicing business social media, think about change in your operations or perspectives.  Maybe when you started out it was simply to get public awareness of your product or business.  Now, you are actively searching for customers, or offering freebies, or any of a thousand other things to drive business to your door through the medium of business social media.  That's change.

     Without that change, your business would no longer grow.  Unless an organism changes to meet current conditions, it fails.  Do you remember MySpace? How many of you are now operating your business social media through that network?

     Now for question two: Are there lessons to be learned here?  Sure.   First, you need to take into account your customer base.  Coke did test studies that led them to believe New Coke would be a hit.  I'm sure Facebook also did something similar (I hope they did, anyway).  However, test groups have been known to give skewed results.  In the past on this blog we've discussed the need to really, REALLY think something through, and that continues to be important.  

     Second, look at your competition, and we can't stress this enough.  What are they doing?  Are they really out in front of you, or are you still leading?  Trying to do a massive catch up from behind can cause more harm than good; you're perceived as being behind, or worse, perceived as being a leader who fell from grace.  For more on that angle, do a search on Research in Motion (RIM) and their disaster with handheld devices after being the industry leader for many years.

     So in the end, utilizing business social media correctly DOES involve change.  It has to, or you will fail.  Who knows which platform will be carrying your message next year or even next month?  If you are going to stay in the hunt, it's time to branch out and hit Google Plus  (www.plus.google.com) or try your wings on another platform.  The more you're out there, the more chances you have - you can't win the lottery without buying a ticket.

     And no matter what change you make, you need to recognize the change you need to make before you implement that change.  If Disney suddenly decided to crop Mickey's ears from round to little fox ears, that would be a change.  

     You decide if it would be a change Disney's fans could live with!

     

Sheer Genius?

     Every once in a while, as a consumer, you get one of those "what were they thinking?" moments.
     Recently, we've had two:  the Netflix debacle, and today the Facebook fracas.  Both lead you to wonder if anyone lucid is running the ship at either place.
     Yes, this is a blog about business social media, so we won't get involved in the Netflix marketing mayhem.  However, we will take a shot at Facebook, which is supposed to be the giant of social networking.
     With little warning, Facebook suddenly changes their page, throwing thousands, if not millions, of users into frustration.  Since you're reading this blog, we'll assume that you are also familiar with Facebook, and what happened today.
     There are three cardinal rules in dealing with customers.  First, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.  Second, customers (with the exception of all the Apple fans out there) don't usually like big changes or change for the apparent sake of change.  Facebook managed to break both rules at once.
     Interestingly enough, they not only broke both rules, but they failed to communicate adequately with their customer base about what they were about to change, nor really ask their customers about it beforehand.  Which leads to the third cardinal rule in dealing with customers:  you are flattering yourself if you believe you are smarter than your customer.
     Way back in the dark ages of 1985, a little company called Coca-Cola decided it was smarter than its customer base.  They decided to *gasp* tamper with the taste of Coke.  The new concoction was called, oddly enough, New Coke.  Coca-Cola flattered itself by thinking it was smarter than its customers.   Guess what?  It wasn't.  You can read the story of this disaster here:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7209828/ns/us_news/t/it-seemed-good-idea-time/#.TnooOHN9038

     So what was the crux of this failed and expensive experiment?  To quote from the article:

     Sam Craig, professor of marketing and international business at the Stern School of Business at New York University, pointed to what he and other industry observers have long considered a fatal mistake on Coca-Cola's part. “They didn't ask the critical question of Coke users: Do you want a new Coke? By failing to ask that critical question, they had to backpedal very quickly.”

      Since it's highly unlikely that any of the whiz kids at Facebook were even alive in 1985, should we cut them some slack for making the same mistake?  Or should we excorciate them for failing to do their homework?

     Be it social media, or business social media, the plain truth is - people get used to something first, then they use it.  

     If your business social media tweets or emails suddenly changed in a radical direction, say by adding popups to them, would people continue to read them?  I wouldn't.  I, like most people out there, detest popups in my email, or any changes to it that make it a) more difficult to use, or b) make me  take time out of my schedule to relearn something that, as pointed out above, wasn't broken to begin with.

     I'd be willing to bet the folks over at Facebook's new competitor Google Plus are laughing themselves silly right now.

     What do you think? 

     
     
    

Strategy vs. Reality

     Yeah, don't you wish it was that easy?  This is today's "Non Sequitur" strip by Wiley Miller.   Basically, the best intentions and hopes in the world aren't going to save you when disaster is reaching its paw into your aquarium.
     What is your idea of strategy versus reality?  I'd like to hear from you -- leave a comment at the bottom of the post.  In the meantime, while you think about it, here's a quote from the Harvard Business Review from February of 2007.  The article is written by Joseph Bower and Clark Gilbert.

    “What we have found in one research study after another is that how business really gets done has little connection to the strategy developed at corporate headquarters. Rather, strategy is crafted, step by step, as managers at all levels of a company—be it a small firm or a large multinational—commit resources to policies, programs, people and facilities.”

       If you want to pursue it in greater detail, here's a link to the article:  

http://hbr.org/2007/02/how-managers-everyday-decisions-create-or-destroy-your-companys-strategy/ar/1

            In the world of business social media, as in just about everything else, strategy needs to be tailored to fit the reality.  If you are a one person outfit, targeting Microsoft as the company you are going to directly compete against is probably a pretty wide divergence in the strategy versus reality model.

      There is absolutely no need to set yourself up for failure by not tailoring your strategy to your reality.   Before you engage in any sort of business social media, before you take yourself to the public, you MUST have a firm grasp on your own reality and your own capabilities.  This is a very simple thing to do and is a lesson you probably learned as a child, though you didn't realize it at the time. 

      Remember when you played "Monopoly"?  The other players had hotels on Park Place and Boardwalk, owned all the railroads and the utilities, and held the property cards that you needed to complete your own monopoly so you could begin building houses.  Your strategy may have been to eventually build your own hotels, but the stark reality dictated that you conserve cash and just hope to stay alive to play another turn.

     The big takeaway here?  You must carefully pick the the items you are going to commit your resources to - be they large or small - in order to stay competitive!  

How Much Does it Cost?

   

How much does it cost?   How often do we ask ourselves that question?  Have you ever bought something without any idea of how much you were paying for it?  (If you answered in the affirmative, I have a couple of bridges in New York that you might be interested in...)  Of course you haven't.  So, why don't you bother to add up costs in your business social media messaging?

     In the world of business social media, "cost" has three meanings.

     1.  "Cost" as in how much it costs you to do something.
     2.  "Cost" as in how much it costs you to do nothing.
     3.  "Cost" as in how much it costs you to do something wrong.

     So - how much does it cost you to do something?  Well, that's based entirely on your overhead, isn't it?  If you are the single person doing your own business social media, well, it costs you your time.  You'll have to figure out what that comes to in cold hard cash.

     How much does it cost you to do nothing?  Difficult to quantify.  Perhaps by doing (saying, emailing, posting) nothing, you are doing yourself the biggest favor since Steven Jobs told someone he was starting a computer company and getting in on the ground floor would cost next to nothing.   On the other hand, doing nothing could also position you as either clueless, indecisive, incapable of action --- you get the idea.

     Finally, how much does it cost you to do something wrong?  A lot, depending on how much you have to lose.  The wrong response, the wrong message - it can easily wreck all of your hard work, and make it that much more difficult for you to regain your edge.

     Add up your expected costs on every single one of your business social media messages, including the ones you don't send.  You might find a big cost saving is literally at your fingertips!

A Sympathetic and Strong Shoulder

     Have you noticed it's been busy out in the real world lately?  Hurricanes...tropical storms...wildfires...earthquakes.    Makes you wonder....makes you wonder how you can apply these current events to your business social media?
     At the risk of sounding incredibly crass, you CAN do these applications - but you've got to tread very, very lightly.  No heavy handed stuff here; think of walking on eggshells that are filled with nitroglycerine.
    The key, as Jesse Stanchak reports in SmartBlog on Social Media, is to find "organic, relevant connections" to your audience.
     The full report can be read here:http://smartblogs.com/socialmedia/2011/08/26/how-to-use-current-events-to-create-content-even-when-youre-not-the-first-to-know/    The salient points are as follows:

     1)  Give people a gentle reminder as to why these events matter - to you and to them, as well.    Gently explain.  Don't adopt a patronizing attitude.  You've got to leave your audience feeling that they have more information on the subject - not that you're some great authority informing them of what happened.
     2)  Give your audience a viable second opinion.  Maybe everyone is endorsing one opinion - but there's nothing wrong with giving them a well thought out alternative;  well thought out being the operative phrase here.
     3)  Give your audience a tiny push.   Remind them of why your business or organization is in business, what you do, and why you do it.  Stanchak says the trick here is to make sure your customers believe you are helping them, instead of trying to sell them something.
     4)  Don't take everything so seriously!  You can use a current event as an analogy to explain something, but don't go overboard with it.   However, NEVER make an analogy out of a sad story, and like the song goes, "you've got to know when to hold 'em and know when to fold 'em."  Don't stretch a point to the point of distortion.
     5)  Build it up.   If you missed jumping on the bandwagon when the event happened, don't worry about it too much.  Take the approach of feeding ongoing information to your audience, and keep building on that cornerstone.
     6)  Involve your audience.   Maybe you're running out of topics, but you can bet your bottom dollar your audience isn't!  Encourage conversation and feedback.

     Sharing your opinion can, of course, boomerang on you.  You've got to be very careful of how you proceed.  In major events, people's emotions are all over the place.  Position yourself and your company as an entity that's  ready to help and ready to listen.  Position yourself as a source of positive information.
     Most importantly, position yourself as a sympathetic and strong shoulder that can be relied on during a time of crisis - and you'll certainly find you'll be the go-to business when things get better!