BizCoachDeb's BizBuzz -

Posts Tagged ‘Twitter’

It seems innocent enough: go head to head against your competitors by mimicking their campaigns, saying similar things and trying to evoke the same kind of sentiment from the unsuspecting consumer. But no, it’s not so innocent, and it’s happening right now, in small towns and cities across the country, even my own Boulder, Colorado. This sneaky assault is happening right under the very nose of each and every purchaser, shopper and diner nationwide. It’s called “local-washing”, and it basically means corporations dress and talk the language of “we’re doing it local”, but in essence, it’s just a ploy. You can read more about it here in an article by Stacy Mitchell in Indy.com, where she discusses how national corporations are co-opting the idea of “local” in an attempt to have consumers believe they are local in everything they do. Right. Sure they are. Tell that to the small businesses across America who have shuttered their windows when the Big Box chain rolled into town or the tiny downtown business districts that report record vacancies because their tenants couldn’t hang on during the worst recession of our generation.   The rest of the story...

In case you missed the most recent news, Mashable is reporting geo-groovy app Foursquare has raised $20 Million, taking its value up to $95 Million. I could not be happier. When companies get this kind of support and certainly this kind of buy-in, it means the market is listening and that smart people are seeing the bigger picture — and the great potential for such a clever application. Let’s hope the small businesses of the world are listening, too.  As I roll around Boulder, I’m still surprised by the lack of a good foothold it has with local merchants. I’m doing my part to change that, but it will take some time.

Oh, and one more key piece that makes me happy about this news? Foursquare owners decided to continue building, rather than selling themselves off to some larger company that could ruin them. Score one more for the little guys! That seems worthy of a special kind of Mayor badge.

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Recently I was involved with a terrific event put on by the Boulder Chamber of Commerce: Social Media 2010 – The Business Edition. It was a well-attended conference and colleagues such as Vococreative and Misty Montano really helped humanize a topic which can often be taken as the end-all-be-all to marketing. There is so much more to social networking and the use of social media tools which is unrelated to business and strongly woven into issues of personal use. Even during my own segment on the topic of “Geolocation: Foursquare for Retail Businesses”, I was only able to graze the other side of geolocation – that of the importance of personal safety. A couple of people in my sessions raised the question, “Aren’t you worried about people knowing where you are?” For me, it’s not as much a question of fear, but of common sense. Mine is not the first, nor will it be the last, but here is a short list of things to keep in mind when using your geolocation tool of choice:   The rest of the story...

Even though Twitter has recently enabled updates that can include your location, it’s pretty clear that applications like Gowalla, Brightkite and Foursquare are burning paths to your customers cell and smartphones. No longer are your customers tethered to their laptops, they are taking their purchasing power on the road – and letting their friends know more quickly than ever before.

And why should you care?

With mobile applications comes mobile decisions, remarks, feedback and more importantly, instant pack mentality.

Consider this: I’m going into Boulder on this sunshiney day to enjoy a margarita on the deck of one of my favorite watering holes. When I arrive,  my Blackberry updates me to tell me of a couple of my buddies who are already here.  My other friends that aren’t even there yet see an update saying that me, Mark and Chris are all at said watering hole, and guess what? We’ve just encouraged a couple friends who were at another place to come join us. Influence is one thing, but what used to take a few phone calls to orchestrate now just takes one “checkin”. The checkin can come to my phone and be sent to multiple social media touchpoints instantly. A social empire is emerging whether you’re using it or not.   The rest of the story...

Spurred by the annoyance of several notable brands (and some virtual unknowns) and their poor use of Twitter, this post has finally bubbled to the top of my consciousness. It’s my shortlist of things I view as pitfalls of Twitter usage. I know, I know, “It’s too young, there are no standards.” But let’s just assume for the sake of conversation that you are a brand (big or small) and you decide to dip your toe into the Twitter pool; whether you know it or not, much like every day conversation, there are some preconceived expectations of the audience you hope to enthrall. After all, you are using it to get customers to beat a path to your door, right? At least that’s what your wunderkind social media marketing guru must have told you: “Customers are on Twitter, we have to set up an account Pronto!” “James, that’s brilliant. I’ve heard about that Twitter thing on CNN.”

So, if have one iota of marketing or customer service sense, please listen up:   The rest of the story...