Managing Customer Service & Employee Privacy
After the LIMRA Social Media Conference in Cambridge, MA a few weeks ago, one of the attendees who downloaded the presentation deck used for the Customer Service Meets Social Media panel posted this question: “One of the points made in this panel is that front-line employees are often recorded (audio and video) and the results can be posted on social media sites immediately. How do I stop people from doing that? I could be held liable if one of my employees is photographed or videotaped without their permission.” In following up with the person who drafted the question, we found that Read More
Friday News Round-Up: Links Have a Short Half-life, Crowdsourcing at the White House & More Useful News
Here’s this week’s round-up of news stories that we think offer insights or lessons that can help multi-channel distributed marketing organizations. The “half-life” of links depends on where they are posted. Bit.ly, the link-shortening service, reported this week on the results of a study by Hilary Mason that shows how a link’s half-life is, depending on where it’s posted. Borrowing a concept from nuclear physics, Mason and her team looked at the patterns for 1,000 popular Bit.ly links across Facebook, Twitter and YouTube links. Half-life, in this case, is “the amount of time at which [a] link will receive half of the Read More
Repetition, Transparency, Multi-channel Communications Help Rebuild Trust
One of the daily challenges for marketing is building trust among consumers. It’s never been easy, but it’s gotten harder over the last two years. Luckily, multi-channel marketers have a clear path to reaching out to the public through web, social media, PR, and trusted local agents or managers. Building trust in difficult economic times is all about repetition, transparency, and multi-channel communications. Consider the three tables included in this blog post, all from Edelman’s 11th Annual Trust Barometer study, released earlier this year. Then there’s this table — where consumers look first for information. It may be a little misleading because Google Read More
Four “Old-fashioned” Marketing Tools That Distributed Marketing Still Needs
There’s been so much buzz lately about QR codes and social media that it’s easy to forget about some tried and true – even “old fashioned” marketing tools. But here are four that research shows should still be at or near the top of your distributed marketing checklist. Why? Because they work! Adding these four “old-fashioned” tools to your multi-channel distributed marketing mix may just be the lucky four-leaf clover you need to generate more leads and sell more products. Targeted advertising. Advertising was the #1 channel for marketers in decades past, and it’s still a vital lead generation tool for most companies. Read More
Why Distributed Marketing Needs Naked Conversations
Technology industry journalist Tom Foremski wrote recently that social media is not corporate media, and that the current gold rush among consultants and social media experts who are exhorting corporate marketers to turn social media into a powerful sales channel will ruin social media. The trend, he said, is inevitable and sad because as the corporate presence becomes more pronounced, social media will cease being a valuable source of naked conversations about companies and brands and become simply another channel for multi-channel marketers to use to deliver a message. When that happens, consumers will find another less accessible place to Read More
What to Do When Customer Service Meets Social Media: 5 Basic Lessons
In June 1984, the first online customer support forum for computer users sponsored by a computer maker opened its virtual doors on CompuServe on a Tuesday morning. Around noon on Thursday, the volume of inquiries was running about five times what the company planners had projected, and by the end of the day on Friday, it was over 8 times the anticipated volume. Although the volume has been going up steadily ever since, less than 20% of customer service inquiries were submitted digitally before 1998, and as recently as 2005, just 45% of technical support inquiries were submitted via email or landing page. Read More
Friday News Round-up: Tweet Success, Made-to-Order Marketing
Tweet Success = Right Tweet, Right Time – Social Media Today posted an excellent blog post this week on the best post times for various kinds of social media. The blog said that posting to Twitter at noon, 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. midweek and on weekends was optimal. For Facebook, Saturday morning is the optimal time for any post, although those posted around noon also get more traffic. As for blogs, Monday morning is the best time. The lesson for marketers: Social media (like email) has become a kind of adult homework. The optimal times match the times when Read More
Friday News Round-Up: Size Doesn’t Matter in Marketing, Facebook Takes on Telcos
Here’s this week’s round-up of “must read” news stories for marketers. What makes these stories stand out? They offer key information or lessons that multi-channel distributed marketing organizations should take to heart. Facebook Launches SMS Service – This week, Facebook launched Facebook Messenger, a free app that lets users access Facebook messages from their phone without installing Facebook Mobile. It’s the first time Facebook has unbundled one service from the rest of its services, and the media reaction has been mixed at best. Some love it, because it simplifies the process of checking for messages without waiting while your friends photos attempt to load Read More
Five Social Media Myths that Can Cripple Marketing
When it comes to social media, even the experts learn something new every day. Most CMO’s admit that developing the expertise they need to effectively use social media is a key priority. Unfortunately, there are a lot of myths out there that can derail almost any social media marketing plan. Here are five that come up often in talks with corporate marketing. Make sure you don’t fall for any of them! Myth #1: Social Media is free. Robert Heinlein’s famous motto TANSTAFL applies here, as everywhere else in life. (“There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.”) Yes, many of Read More
Drawing the Line Online: Recorded Webinar & Presentation
This morning’s webinar with Distribion, Socialware, and LIMRA went beautifully! If you missed it, you can download the presentation here, and view the recorded webinar here. There were so many questions that panelists Chad Bockius, Edgar Rodriguez, and Stephen Selby didn’t get to all of them, so the organizers are preparing a downloadable Q&A for those that weren’t answered during the webcast. A link will be posted here as soon as that is available. Registration is now available for the next webinar in the 5-part series the three organizations are sponsoring. Reaching Your Audience Effectively: The 5W’s of Digital & Read More
