Now that 2012 has officially arrived, some of you might be working to open up a new business venture. If you are, you are probably looking into your marketing strategies as well as realizing that you need a website and a presence on social media. Knowing and realizing that ahead of time is really a great advantage because you can plan accordingly. First, it is important that you make your website domain something that is either directly associated with your business entity or your branded products/services. Once you find the available domain name, I highly recommend that you see if those related usernames are available on today’s more popular social media platforms. Additionally, you might want to look into less popular social media networks if they are more aligned with your brand’s target market! I highly urge you to lock in your desired usernames as soon as possible!

But… WHY?

Well, there are a few simple reasons why you should do this sooner rather than later.

1. Better Chance of Getting Your Best Username! With so many businesses out there today, waiting to lock in your desired username is simply too risky if you want to be highly competitive and first in mind of your customers. Plus, if you have yet to incorporate or decide on your business/brand name, it is advantageous to first check to see if your desired (brand’s) name is available on Facebook and Twitter!
2. Improved Chance of Consistency! If you already have username abc123 on Facebook [Pages], it is very advantageous to have username abc123 on Twitter. So, if somebody has liked your Facebook Page but wants to look you up on Twitter, chances are that they will attempt to search with the same username in mind! Have a universal username across various sites simplifies much of your marketing efforts because your customers and target market only need to remember one username versus trying to remember many.
3. Reserved for Future Use! So, maybe you do not think that you need to use a specific platform like foursquare, YouTube, or Twitter right now, but it is a great idea to lock in that username now so that you help put your brand out there. In addition, it will help you build your presence with the username that you desired (as I mentioned above) much quicker when the time is right. Lastly, on networks like YouTube, for example, it tells your viewers when you joined that network, and showing that you joined earlier tends to give you a little added consumer trust and validation than if you just signed up right when you needed the network.
4. Reduce Risk of Cybersquatting! So, you have a brand and are starting to tell people about it. Well, if you do not have a presence online, there could be some people who want to attempt to make a quick buck or two. Sure, cybersquatting is not legal, but some people will still attempt it and try to use loopholes in order to bully you into either buying the domain that you really wanted or the social network profile/page that you should have already locked down long ago. It is best to lock all of that down early on; in many cases, it is best to secure the online entities before you make big marketing pushes using your brand name, etc. Being proactive will save you a lot of headaches!
5. Procrastinating Doesn’t Pay Off! Again, be proactive and lock in your desired usernames! If you wait until tomorrow, you never know what might happen. You might have lost a potential customer or accidentally invited someone else to claim the username(s) that you most desired for your brand or business.

So, take a minute or two while you are forming your business or brainstorming about your brand to check the availability of the usernames that you are thinking about using in the future. Make sure that you align them with your brand and your domain name to better reach customers online!

Tim Tebow is a well-known, highly-popular second-year NFL quarterback for the Denver Broncos. Before that, he was the star quarterback for the talented Florida Gators NCAA football team. After being drafted into the NFL and spending much of the year getting accustom to the NFL demands, the Broncos were in a tough spot. With the season considered a waste and unsuccessful, the public started to demand that the team start Tim Tebow to see what he could do. While the team won once and lost twice, Tebow added a great burst of energy that the team truly needed. Of course, this added to the debate during the off-season; divided, one side scrutinized Tebow as not fully being ready to take that next step and pointing to his technique and stats to prove their point and the other side appreciated the spark of energy and felt that it was important to give their new first-round draft pick (Tebow) a legitimate shot to see what he was made of. That led to this season and many trade rumors. In essence, you had the Bronco’s management team reminding everybody that Tebow was not fully ready to become their starting quarterback while the public saw things differently. In fact, a few fans expressed their distaste of the quarterback decision (at the time) and their persistence to effect change by renting a roadside billboard!

Broncos Are Not Alone

Like the Broncos, many other businesses are faced with public opinion, each with its own fair share of opportunity costs and complexities. Contrary to how many politicians may publicize and denotate, opportunity costs are real, extremely real. In essence, there is a struggle. In the Broncos’ situation, the management team is faced with an outcry from their fans, but their fans are also their customers. Without the customers, the business busts; without a formidable business, the NFL moves out of Denver. Yet, if the team management bows down to their fans (aka customers) without rational thought and consideration for all plausible options, the team will continue to lose, causing fewer fans to come to the games and ultimately affecting the profit margins.

Words To The Wise

If your brand or business is in a similar situation, it is essential to be transparent and listen to all sides of the argument. In many cases, the customer will appreciate your attention to their concerns and will respect your management team’s choice to make the right decision where appropriate. Ignoring all sides and options and merely rushing to judgment only to backpedal later is extremely ill-advised. Recently, while reading chapter ten of Dave Kerpen’s book, Likeable Social Media, he provided a great example of how an avid fan of Entenmann’s was truly upset that it discontinued its “banana crumb cake;” he was so passionate and upset about it that he began to write letters, create petitions, post related comments on their Facebook Page, and even begin to organize a boycott. In this case, Entenmann’s could have just caved in at first glance in order to avoid the controversy. Also, they could have merely and completely ignored this passionate fan. But, neither choice really solves this issue. If they bring back a bad-selling item only to appease one fan, it might not be a wise choice. On the other hand, if they ignore this passionate customer, it risks adding fuel to the fire and building a force of negative publicity for an otherwise great company; remember that social media and advancing mobile technologies allow these types of negative stories to go viral. So, what does Entenmann do? Well, they take a deep breath, listen to the fan, weigh their options, and then use the tools that they have to solve the concern. In this case, they used their Facebook Page to ask their thousands of fans if they wanted to see this product back or not. They told them that they would bring back the banana crumb cake if 1,000 of their Facebook Page fans would vote it back on the menu; again, they were transparent and honest right from the beginning with their customer. In the end, they found out that their initial figures were correct (that the banana crumb cake was not that popular), and, consequently, they affirmed their original decision to discontinue the banana crumb cake. However, by being proactive, by actively listening, and by weighing all options, Entenmann turned a potential no-win situation into a great solution and gained an even more appreciative and engaging fan base than they did before this mini-crisis.

Tips To Deal With The Backlash

So, how should you deal with public demand? Here are just a few tips:

-          Be proactive

-          Be honest and transparent

-          Be an active listener

-          Respect the public

-          Weigh all options

-          Engage the customer base

By following the six tips above, your brand can avoid the frustration and negative image that comes by rushing to judgment and ignoring your customers. Sometimes, your original decisions are correct; sometimes, they are not, but how you deal with the issue normally matters more than the decision that you ultimately choose. But, ignoring the problem or issue might have worked from time to time in the past, but doing so in these technologically-advanced days can be fatal. So, how should the Broncos have handled the situation? Can you think of any other great examples in current news where public demand was ignored?

We all walk this earth for a reason, and we all enjoy many different powers. Each of us has a power or influence over another person, and each of us is influenced by other powerful people. Most of us know many of the powers we have while others might not see some. Certainly, each of us see many powerful people throughout society and acknowledge the powers that they have earned, inherited, or gained in some other way. However, many misuse or take these powers for granted; many an individual, company, and organization have misappropriated these powers and abused them. Simply look at the newspaper or online blogosphere, and you will find numerous examples outlined and highlighted wherein some powers have gotten to people’s heads. In some cases, they thought they were invincible and impervious to demise. These various examples of power and potential misuse of that power can be observed in some many aspects of life – whether personal or professional. However, it is critically important that we all remember what Peter Parker (Spiderman) and Uncle Ben highlighted – “With great power comes great responsibility.” This popular quote seems to have been inspired by the Bible verse, “from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked” (Luke 12:48 NIV). Both are quite powerful reminders that we all should follow!

No matter if you are a CEO in today’s top organization, a powerful community leader, a strong family member, or a captain of a team, so many have great power and influence over others. However, for this power to be optimized, truly used for the greater good, and not squandered away, we all must be sure to know the responsibilities that come with the powers we have. We must step up and be a proactive leader because so many are relying on us to do right and do good things with the powers that we have. While there are always temptations to be greedy and selfish, we must turn away these temptations. If we do not, we could easily lose these powerful gifts that we currently possess. Lead the way and take your powers over others seriously. With any power comes a great deal of responsibility, and we all need to do our part to act in a right and moral way! Don’t be the next greedy business “leader,” politician, husband, father, or mid-level manager; instead, I challenge you to take the high road… the right road… and take your powers seriously!

So, I am sitting on the couch after enjoying some comedy thanks to Comedy Central’s Roast of Charlie Sheen, and I flip the channel only to hear that PETA is planning to build a pornographic site. What? Did my ears hear what I think they just heard? Wow! Apparently, PETA realizes that pornography is still a popular channel for many people in our country, and they are looking to channel that popularity in a way to gain more supporters and the better spread the message (no pun intended). After looking into this surprise a bit more, it appears that PETA is serious about offering a nude site but will not go so far as to add “hardcore” sexual content. Either way, I cannot see how this will help PETA in its cause, so I remain baffled.

Why So Terrible?

PETA is one of those organizations that many either love or hate. In an effort to attract more attention and popularity, it now looks to market a pornographic site, but I highly doubt people will be reading their pet-related content on the site. They claim that they will have animal-focused content in conjunction with the nude vegans, but how many people do they expect to read that content in order for them to consider it a success? Sure, some people read the articles in Playboy magazine, but that is not the case for the majority; even so, Playboy’s article-reading target market (if you can somehow say there is such a target market for Playboy) did not grow overnight. PETA is really treading in dangerous waters with this idea because it puts much of the focus on something not even related to animal rights. Plus, imagine how it will look if one of the nude models on the site is later found to have been an avid meat and non-organic egg eater (non-vegan) and who only took the photo shoot merely for the monetary gains; how will PETA look then? Having somebody who partially or fully stands for the opposite of what your organization represents on your payroll just does not look well. The risk appears to be quite tremendous. Sure, the press will continue to eat this up and give PETA more talking time on network news and attention in online channels like this one, but the focus will be much less on the mission and work of PETA and more on this unexpected publicity stunt. Their “any attention is good attention” approach is not something that works in the long run and will instead bring a negative light on their organization.

Certainly, time will ultimately tell if this prospective PETA campaign will be deemed successful by both their organization (internally) and by the general public. Until then, I encourage you to chime in with your opinion; is this bold move a good one for PETA or merely an act of desperation? Also, let PETA know what you think of their new marketing strategy.

In my area, I have three main grocery stores – Publix, Kroger, and WalMart, and each of them (in many of their locations) offers the option of using a self-checkout lane, an option that I like to have as a consumer in a hurry. However, this past week has brought news about the debate over whether or not the self-checkout lane is really all it is cracked up to be. It was recently reported that Albertsons is removing self-checkout lanes from many of their stores in an effort to make the customer service more personalized and human. Some experts find this move away from advanced technology a sign that many customers just do not like the impersonal approach that became popular five or so years ago. So, the debate begins with no clear winner in sight. I personally find the self-checkout lanes to be very useful and convenient, and grocers are able to fit more of them in a small area. I recently moved from one side of Kennesaw, GA, where the nearby Publix had recently added the convenient self-checkout lanes to the other side of Kennesaw wherein the two other Publix grocery stores do not currently have the checkout option, and I have found this to be frustrating, especially when I only have a few items to grab and am in a hurry. Instead, I wait in a longer line and become less time-efficient. Also, I have found that many of the WalMarts in my area do not have their self-checkout lanes open after a certain time at night, and I find this extremely frustrating, especially when they only tend to have one or two lanes available for customers to use. In both cases, I find these shortcomings to be customer service failures because I do not have the option of using self-checkout.

Of course, there is a little bit of consumer learning that had to take place when getting these self-checkout lanes first came into the mainstream, and there are some customers that take much longer to scan their own items yet who still use the self-checkout lanes, but at least I like having the option available to me. Plus, it is not as if the stores are forcing their customers to use these lanes nor are they leaving them completely unattended; I have found that most stores cluster these lanes into groups of four or six kiosks with one attendant standing by to serve and assist the customers. In addition, grocers are constantly looking for ways to keep labor costs down, and, if the recent reports about Albertsons’ plans are correct, it will probably cost them more to hire, train, and maintain a larger payroll if they are going to try to ensure that customers will not be adding longer wait times to their shopping experience. Self-checkout lanes have allowed some grocers to add more convenience into the checkout experience, and, so far, Kroger has found these lanes vital to their stores and have vowed to keep them in place.

Technology continues to push forward, adding new options to the shopping experience (ie carts that scan and total up the bill as the customer adds and subtracts items from their cart), but I feel that the self-checkout lane is still a store feature that adds utility and a competitive edge to grocers (large or small). I remain hopeful that I will not have to endure longer lines when I am in a rush and only looking to buy a few items, but this debate is building, and grocers are going to have to weigh the opportunity costs of either decision. So, what are your thoughts about these self-checkout lanes? Good or bad for business? Good or bad for consumers?

Each of us plays many roles in life, and we all wear a variety of titles, but it appears that there are numerous leaders out there in today’s world who just do not live up to their titles. Many enjoy the luxuries of the titles they possess, but some just do not work hard enough to truly live up to the duties of the title; simply, many fail to neither give that extra but necessary effort nor lead from the front. Unfortunately, this appears to be the current trend, and that is why we all need to wake up and make sure that we are doing all that we can to fulfill our roles in life – to be the very best person that we can.

Currently, there are numerous examples of people enjoying the fruits of their title(s) yet not living up to an appropriate level. In the business world, we are constantly hearing about some CEO or other executive stealing from their company or abusing their powers and privileges. Those CEOs are enjoying the “high life,” but they are not pulling their own weight and living up to the standards set forth by their organization’s stakeholders. In the political arena, many representatives are constantly misappropriating taxpayers’ dollars; they are giving their buddies inside deals and outlandish government contracts. Around the globe, we see dictators and dignitaries basking in the fruits of luxury while their people are getting abused and are dying from a lack of life’s fundamental needs (ie. food, water, and shelter). In many of those cases, these political figures are mightily failing to show political leadership and responsibility. Sometimes, we hear about a biological father being anything but a father. He contributed to the birth of the child, but he has yet to step up to be the man that he should be for his child. Essentially, calling yourself a father does not really make you one, for your actions do or don’t. I could go on and on with the examples, but you get the picture! Certainly, there are cases wherein somebody truly earned the title that he or she now wears, but, once you earn it, you must still work each and every day (giving your best effort) to maintain and live up to the title. It reminds me of my time in the Marine Corps; we all had to go through twelve weeks of boot camp to earn the title, Marine, but being a Marine does not stop there; there are the Corps Values and leadership traits that a Marine must always work to maintain. Earning the title is only half the battle!

In almost every example case above, so many fail to see that decisions have consequences, that there are things called opportunity costs. Not working hard to maintain and live up to the title has consequences just like hard work and dedication do (yet the actual consequences tend to drastically differ). In most situations (barring emergencies, etc.), you would not cut the left side of the lawn and not finish cutting the right side, would you? Concurrently, we all carry so many different titles within our own lives, and it is common to not fulfill or live up to each of those titles every second of each day, but it should still be our resolve to put our best foot forward, give the best effort possible, and strive to give our 100 percent each and every time! If you can’t live up to the title of CEO, political representative, father, or Marine, why should you continue wearing it?

Jump into the time machine and head back one decade or so before technology really got advanced and exciting; if a person had a question, concern, or comment for a business, they called them. If they were unable to reach the company right then and there, they were allowed to leave a message on the answering machine or voicemail. Then, customer service representatives from the company would return the customer’s phone call and continue the conversation. This was the best practice and standard operating procedure of all businesses big and small! Around the same time or maybe another decade before then, students in classrooms had to work out their math problems by hand. The calculators were not always so readily available.

So, fast forward to today; what do we have? Well, technology has advanced, and new tools to reach our customers (and solve our math problems) have become available to us. In today’s age of advancing technology, many companies of various sizes are warming up to the idea of social media and blogging; companies seem to be listening to David Meerman Scott’s advice and reading his book about the new rules of marketing and public relations, but I worry that some companies are still not acting upon this (and other similar) great expert advice! Companies would not normally return only some of the voicemails they receive from their current or potential customers, so why would they want to not reply to customer concerns sent directly to them via social media networks like Twitter or Facebook?

The key is to engage, and technology is making it easier for companies of all shapes and sizes to do just that. Here’s a tip: if you want to maintain pace with and exceed your competitors, you need to stop looking at the tools available and start using them. Paul Gillin (acclaimed and renowned social media expert and author) reminds us all in his book, Secrets of Social Media Marketing, that “the first step in social media engagement is social media awareness… learning what’s being said about your company, people, and products.” Again, I’m all for using the tools available to us, but we cannot drift from the core principles we all learned in business school, in real world business experiences, and in math class!

Let’s engage the customer, and let’s respond to their every tweet. Great tools like CoTweet are available for companies of all Twitter following (sizes) to help manage and organize the customer communication, the conversation engagement, and the relationship building! There are no real excuses for companies when they fail to respond to 140 characters tweets from their customers. Desiree Scales, renowned CEO of Bella Web Design in Atlanta, GA, recently tweeted that, from time to time, she will tweet larger companies just to see if she gets a response; half of the time, she does not. How sad is that? Well, let me agree with Desiree (rhyme not intended) and encourage you to NOT “be that company!”

Apparently, I wasn’t paying full attention to some interesting labor law concerns that have arisen in the northwestern portion of the continental United States. Apparently, the National Labor Relations Board (General Council) feels that Boeing has broken the law by building a new plant in South Carolina, one of 22 Right-to-Work states within our great country. According to NRTW.org, “a Right to Work law secures the right of employees to decide for themselves whether or not to join or financially support a union. However, employees who work in the railway or airline industries are not protected by a Right to Work law, and employees who work on a federal enclave may not be.” In the case of Boeing, it has its main facilities in the State of Washington, a forced-unionism state. While Boeing is not laying any workers off at its headquarters, it wants to add jobs to its new plant in Charleston, South Carolina. Certainly, this decision might have been made due to the fact that the appropriate unions in the region cannot force new employees to join its rank-and-file; in many cases, this would lead to the assumption that the company would be able to lower labor costs a little bit at this facility and help roll in greater profits on its upcoming line of 787 airplanes. The National Labor Relations Board’s General Council contends that Boeing should have to build those 787s at its Washington facility.

Personally, I find this a bit appalling. I am not here to bash on the unions or the companies out there; certainly, growing up in a pro-union household in Michigan, I have seen some advantages that come with the implementation of union shops. Concurrently, being on the management side of the aisle, I have also observed a few of the disadvantages that come with the union territory. The opportunity costs are visible on both sides of the argument, and I am not here to ramble on about those. Instead, I am truly concerned that a group of people would fight against adding more jobs in our country, especially in a time wherein those jobs are vitally needed. If it was a matter of Boeing trying to close one plant and reopen elsewhere, I might reconsider my perspective, but that does not appear to be the case here. Boeing has an opportunity to add more jobs to this recovering economy. I am sure that the South Carolina opportunity is more feasible to bring those jobs (and the 787 airplanes within budget) to fruition. I worry that, if the National Labor Relations Board pushes too hard, Boeing and other companies like them will simply elect to take their business elsewhere – to another country like China, where labor costs are extremely low and we have little to no say in the decision. If they [National Labor Relations Board] push too hard, our economy as a whole could suffer both in the short and long term. Instead of getting greedy (on either side), why don’t we all just try to work together to come up with the best solution possible? What do you think about the two positions on this matter? How best would you resolve this issue?

For the individual, responsibilities include following the law, eating right, giving back to the community, take care of their family members, and many more. Corporations, however, are not immune to obligations or responsibilities. Instead, corporations, like individuals, have responsibilities that they must be held accountable to. But, there is this little thing called change that gets in the way from time to time. We all experience change and must find ways to adapt to that change! For many corporations, that change is called technology and how it has shifted the relationship with and power of the customer more in their favor. Consumers have so much more control these days, for they vote companies in and out with their purchases or lack thereof!

As a result, companies cannot afford to ignore the customers if they hope to succeed in the long run. Just as technology has allowed companies to reach suppliers and potential target markets around the world, consumers have gained many similar powers as a result of the added capability to shop around and communicate their positive and negative experiences with others with a stroke of the keyboard and a click of the mouse. More recently, consumers have found additional tools called social media networks (like Facebook, Twitter, foursquare, and others) to reach out to others and tell their story.

Luckily, as social media networks have matured, businesses now have a slew of tools at their disposal to help them monitor chatter about their brands. But, as with anything, these tools are only good if you use these tools. Therefore, marketing and public relations employees (and even managers of various other departments) need to understand the urgency to engage the customer – the customer of yesterday, of today, and of tomorrow! And this engagement needs to occur often!

Some companies are finding social networks like Facebook and Twitter to be a great means of communicating with the customer. You see Comcast representatives like Bill helping the customers resolve issues, answer questions, and help out in any other means possible. LA Fitness uses Twitter to reach out to customers, encourage customer’s progress towards their health goals, and help resolve issues or concerns as they come up! Dunkin Donuts does the same!

One example where DD location information is wrong

I must say that each engages the customers differently, but I have endured a few hiccups and observed some lack of engagement. Take Dunkin Donuts, for example! They do a solid job (most of the time) responding to tweets, but I have experienced a lack of follow-up. For example, over three weeks ago, I notified them via Twitter that their restaurant locator feature on their site was bringing up incorrect results. They listed one Dunkin Donuts location near me that was supposed to be open 24 hours, 7 days per week! Of course, I knew this was not the case because I frequent that one; it actually closes at 10pm. The closest location that is open 24 hours is actually 10 miles away; when I look for that one on the site, it was not listed as being open 24 hours, so I took it upon myself to call some other locations, and I found the hours data on the site to be wrong in many of those cases. When I tweeted Dunkin Donuts, they finally said that they would look into it, but that was over three weeks ago, and there has yet to be any sort of website correction or follow-up, and there’s been no follow-up after my last two reminders. Luckily for them, there is not a Tim Horton’s down here in the Atlanta area; otherwise, Dunkin Donuts might lose all of our business – some $200 – $400 per month! What a shame!

So, learn from others’ mistakes and engage your customers today before it is too late! And please follow up with the customers too! Engage… Engage often!

Let me tell you a quick personal story! I want to take you back to when I was halfway through the eighth grade at Carter Middle School in Clio, Michigan. Some of the students in my grade decided to participate in the trip to Washington, D.C. The bus to the airport was going to leave around 6 or so in the morning, so I had my mother drop me off. Unfortunately, the school had two parking lots, and it appeared that the bus was a bit late or something. Of course, we did not want to miss the bus and hence miss out on the cool trip, so a few of us who arrived early were a bit confused about which parking lot we were suppose to meet up and depart from. After a little bit of driving back and forth between the two parking lots, my mother and I decided to roll the window down and chat with the father of one of my dear friends. What he said next was unexpected and a little funny but has stuck with me ever since. He said, “Organization is the Key to Success!” Basically, the trip departure plans should be been a bit more organized and communicated; luckily, nobody missed the bus, but it brought up a great point about staying organized.

In today’s world, we have so many things that we either want to do or have to do, and we usually have less time to accomplish those tasks within. As a result, we need to prioritize and organize to be as efficient and effective in these endeavors as possible. Luckily, we have advancing technologies that provide us new tools that will help us to achieve all of these, but technology isn’t a simple fix, for we need to try our best to take the lessons from the pre-Internet and pre-Technology Era and apply them to today’s advanced days. One of the biggest and most popular online tools that we use on a daily basis is the social media network.

Take Facebook, the biggest social media network out there today with over 500 million users, as a great example. Many of us follow so many people on there – some from high school, some from our workplace, some from our family, and so on! What that means is that you have various information coming your way, and that can lead to an information overload if you are not careful. I found that to be the case after using Facebook (and other popular social media networks like Twitter) for a little while. So, what can you do to optimize the experience and make your online interactions more productive and efficient? Simple – organize the information to fit your needs. On Facebook, I found this to be easiest by creating friend lists. This allows me to view content posted by a specific friend group / list (ie. friends, family, authors, those within my inner circle, clients, colleagues, military contact from the past and present, etc.), helping me to locate just what I need without wasting too much time looking through the entire newsfeed. Also, this feature permits me to target my posts and messages to a specific group of my friends. I know of some people that want to hear all about my workouts and fitness goals (and knowledge), but others might find that overwhelming and uninteresting! So, the organization helps everyone involved, and more gets done. I do the same think over with my Twitter profile. I build lists and use those to communicate with various groups of individuals, companies, organizations, and brands. I must say that I prefer how Facebook allows me to create more lists as Twitter appears to have capped me and all users at 20 lists, something that I hope that they fix in the near future!

All in all, staying organized online will help you achieve so much more! It just takes a few extra minutes at the beginning to get things organized, and then your time online and interactions with others become so much better, much more productive, and highly efficient! So, if you have not started yet, get organized, for it is the key to success!