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The Only Way to Put Your Business in the Center of Attention

The Only Way to Put Your Business in the Center of Attention

The time to deny it, IS OVER, mobile internet rules the day.

If you question this, do the following:

  •  Look at any child with your iPhone or iPad.
  • Look at your spouse across the table from you.
  • See what people are doing on the train.
  • Check out what gets the attention of people in line at Starbucks.
  • what was the driver of that car that swerved at you on the highway today doing?

Ignore it at your own peril, the future is in the pockets of all of your customers. Is your marketing online? Do you give it the credit it deserves? Is your website usable on mobile devices?

If you are using flash, do not have a mobile ready site, or spend your time and dollars on offline marketing only, the answer is no, and you are losing out regardless of whether you feel it or not.

Mobile is an Opportunity not a Threat.

Can you deliver more than your competitors via online content, mobile access, and social integration? Are you ready to allow your customer to know you, the real you? If you are you will be the new king of your market before long, as the customers you seek will be found here.

Where is Here?

Here is everywhere now. Here is where ever they are when they think they need what you sell. Here is on the toilet. Here is on top of the Empire State Building. Here is in an airplane. Here is in a Doctor’s Office waiting room.

People buy diapers on Amazon from a bar at 1Am, and you don’t think they are going to search for an eyeglass shop while they wait for their coffee in the morning?

Ask yourself if you have done enough to put your business where people are looking for you. THEN DO MORE.

Find Me @spirocks on Twitter, I hope you enjoyed this pep talk.

I am Spirocks on Twitter.
Filed Under: Just Think, Local Market Strategy, Mobile, Tools Tagged With: , , ,
Influence based marketing

Influence based marketing

A realization:

A new breed of marketer shuns selling directly to a demographic, rather focuses on appealing to key individuals, influencers.

20110912-054739.jpg

This isn’t broadcast this is personal, open, prideful, and honest. It is about connections, and communications, and a community.

There is no way to spam your way through, no way to get attention with interruption advertising, no way to cheat.

Sure you can waste 100 to get 10 back, and you can swim up the Mississippi too.

Who is ready to start building an honest conversation, community, and network around their brand?

I am ready.

I am Spirocks on Twitter.
Filed Under: Just Think Tagged With:
Social Media Monitoring for Marketing

Social Media Monitoring for Marketing

Where are you when your potential customers are talking?

Social media provides a chance to hear things you would never hear before, find customers you would never find before, and make connections that lead to sales you would never make before. The key is to be there to capitalize on the thought, comment, mention that your customer makes, when they make it. You have to have the system in place to make it possible, your finger has to be on the shutter to capture the moment.

Are companies really doing that? Yes.

Here is an example from today that will illuminate the way companies are using social media monitoring to build brand awareness and make connections with proven customers. Earlier I stopped by Whole Foods to pick up some Burrata Mozzarella, a creamy fresh mozzarella that is one of a kind. While there I checked in with Foursquare and tweeted my checkin as shown here:

What Followed that Tweet was a Retweet by the brand that I bought. Notice I never mentioned a brand name, just the variety of the mozzarella. So how did the company know it was theirs? I uploaded a photo of the package with my checkin. That means the company was monitoring twitter for mentions of Burrata (they didn’t follow me prior to this) and were aware of my tweet and the fact that it was their product, they then re-tweeted my post. That all happened in 40 minutes. Not bad.

As you can see a subsequent conversation took place about their product and who knows how many people noticed and didn’t comment.

Social Monitoring used in marketing

 So how do you do this cost effectively?

You need to use tools that monitor the mentions for you. You can’t spend all day watching, and you can’t pay someone either, unless you are GM or Verizon etc. I use Spoke Social which I am involved in developing. Here is an example of the monitoring screen that Spoke has for setting up the keywords and other parameters:

Spoke Monitoring Set-Up Page

As you can see I set it up to monitor for mentions of Brunch or Sunday Brunch, within 25 miles of my restaurant Evenfall, as I am going to be starting brunch there in October. So now each time someone mentions that term within 25 miles of Evenfall I will be notified and able to message them an invitation. Will they all come? No. Will they have an interest in brunch? Likely. Will it cost me much time, money, or anguish to do it. Definitely not.

This is the type of Marketing Use that monitoring tools can have.  They are most often used as a customer service tool to make sure that any disgruntled customer taking to social media and venting about your brand can be contacted and the situation rectified.

If ideas and examples like this interest you, you can subscribe for free here: (It would make me happy too.)

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What do you think? Is monitoring interesting? It is not expensive, in fact it is one of 40 features that spoke has for $15 a month. I am here to answer questions for you, @spirocks on twitter or in comments below. 

I am Spirocks on Twitter.
Filed Under: Facebook, Google+, Local Market Strategy, Restaurant Marketing, Tools, Twitter Tagged With: , , , , , , ,
Business Communications with Google Plus

Business Communications with Google Plus

Google Plus for Company Communications

I thought I would share an example of the way that I am using Google Plus to strive for better communication with the employees of one of my restaurants. I created a circle in Google Plus and added all of the employee emails that I knew (I am hunting the rest as we speak), and set out to use that circle as a way to connect with everyone. When something new is added to the menu, when we run into and issue during service that needs to be addressed, when I decide to open or close for a holiday, and any other time that I want to contact the staff this will be the method. Of course I will still be managing verbally while I am present at the restaurant, but this is not a business where everyone is there from 9 to 5, Monday through Friday.

Some Employees work two shifts a week, and it has been up to me and a few managers to convey all the changes to each member of the staff when they came in. Until now.

Google Plus employee communications

This is the first message I sent to the staff to introduce them to the fact that I am going to be using this tool to communicate with them. It is my hope that I will be able to create learning moments from any snag we hit during service by bringing it to everyone’s attention as it happens with the hope that I can prevent the rest from stumbling over the same issue before it is resolved.

With access to this circle via my mobile and desktop I will be able to communicate with the entire staff when the need or solution arises, and that convenience is something that I believe will allow me to be better at what I do. With two restaurants and a growing marketing company my time is in demand and having the ability to communicate like this is a godsend.

Why Google Plus?

Well the greatest reason is that I can create the circle with just their email addresses and whether or not they are using Google Plus already I can contact them. It simply emails the contents of my messages to them if they are not G+ users already. You can’t do that with the friend request format of Facebook, and though I love Twitter it’s short messages and lack of a true group messaging function eliminates that as well. So Google Plus races to the forefront. The ease of setting up a circle is very key as well.

In the future I anticipate the ability to incorporate other Google properties such as: (Google Calendar – Scheduling and Google Documents – Training Materials) With Photos and Youtube there really is little limitation to where you can go with this.

Waiting for an Invite? Here You Go

If you would like to receive updates to this process and other thoughts on driving your business into the future all you have to do is:

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I am Spirocks on Twitter.
Filed Under: Google+, Tools Tagged With: , , , ,

How to Use Twitters New Features for Business

Yesterday Twitter unveiled some enhancements to its service which have been just about universally welcomed. On the heels f its native photo service it seems that Twitter is intent on finally building on its simple but addictive base. I am going to go over a few of the ways that these new changes can and should affect your marketing.

What Do Twitter’s New Features Mean for Marketers?

The first change is the new @mentions tab, which not only lists the tweets that mention the profiles twitter handle but also shows any of its tweets that have been favorited, and the handles newest followers.

The ease with which this new tab allows you to track and respond to these things is a great improvement, and you should actively monitor the mentions already. If you have not been doing that, get on it now. Yeah stop reading this and start looking at who is trying to interact with you. That is what this is all about.

I think the greatest addition here though is the newest followers listing. What a help. Sometimes I get over a hundred followers in one day, like when I recently had a back and forth with @ochocinco.

 

I typically try my best to follow everybody that follows me and then try and form lists etc after the fact. But sometimes it is really hard to keep up with it, this new tab will allow you to know who is following your business on Twitter and allow you to start a conversation with them right off the bat.

Don’t Do This:

Please refrain from doing any of the following with new Twitter Followers, it is a horrible idea to:

  1. Send a DM thanking them for being a follower. Waste of their time, and so many people do it that it is not special. It is annoying.
  2. Ask them to Connect on Facebook Too. Right of the bat? You are connected, on twitter, talk to them there. Later they may find you on Facebook if you are compelling, or maybe not. Just don’t be one of the people that tries to get a like on facebook with immediately after getting followed… You can lose them forever right there, besides it’s Gross.
  3. Automated responses of any kind are generic so they sound generic. It is way better, way way way better to not say anything at all than to send an automated “Hi I strive to continuously help better the profit of your business. Need help?” message. Just don’t do it.

Twitter Activity Tab

The second change twitter made today is the addition of the activity tab, and this is brilliant because now we finally have insight into how others are using Twitter. The new Activity tab lists the latest favorited tweets from your Twitter Circle, the latest RTs, and new following activity.
What stands out here? To me it is the ease of having all three of these activities collected and curated for you under the tab, and secondly the new following activity details. Right off the bat the you can imagine how helpful this will be in learning more about the people you follow and their conversations on Twitter. A savvy business could monitor this new resource for conversations, retweets, and follows that may indicate a potential business opportunity.
In addition it provides a chance to learn from the greats, to better understand the way they use Twitter as a tool to succeed. I hear comparisons to the Facebook NewsFeed and obviously Twitter took a step in that direction by creating a feed of sorts, but I think you would miss out on some strategic implementation if you just thought of it that way.

Do This:

  1. Have a business that sells big ticket items? Identify the people you follow that could be customers, and pay attention to their conversations, offer help and advice when you can and start a relationship. When they are ready to buy, you will have a head start to get the sale.
  2. Getting up to speed at a new job, in a new market, or industry? Find those who are the most successful and pay attention to their connections, conversations, and overall activity. What they share, who they talk to, who they follow are all at your fingertips with this new tool. Use that info to excel and learn about the community in your field.
What ways are you using the new features for business?

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I am Spirocks on Twitter.
Filed Under: Twitter Tagged With: , ,
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