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Posted by Nate Ludens on March 12, 2011 at 10:40 am
This is the stuff that really gets me excited about social media for businesses, ladies and gents.
Those who know me are probably pretty tired of hearing that I’m a “butts in the seats” guy. (Translation: results guy). I have designed and sent millions (literally) of printed mailers over the last 10 years for many Las Vegas and regional companies. A “successful” campaign was pretty subjective, but it boiled down to: Did anyone show up for the event? Well, mission accomplished. Design six more. Repeat.
That way of thinking seems to be going the way of dot matrix printers, brick-sized cell phones, dialup, and dinosaurs. Check out the analytics that facebook released this week and see the latest way my old stand by phrase, “butts in the seats,” is being redefined. Matt Schlicht from Prezi.com did a nice job of translating the new changes so you can explain it to your boss.
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Posted by Nate Ludens on February 27, 2011 at 10:19 pm
The other night, I was reading a really wonderful blog post by the great Chris Brogan, titled An Insider’s Guide to Social Media Etiquette. It really got me thinking, and here’s what’s missing: a guide for bigger companies using Social Media. Here’s a start.
- It’s okay to use a logo. In this case, you’re not a person, you’re a company. I’m fairly certain your followers know this. There are exceptions, but for the most part, you’re the virtual “face of the company,” and it’s a huge responsibility. You represent all of your co-workers, bosses and shareholders. Many very good corporate entities are doing social media very well “disguised” as logos. Here in Las Vegas, the Wynn does a great job on twitter, and they do social media by committee. You see it sometimes by the ^Initials at the end of the tweets. Totally cool with everyone I know.
- Respect traditional public relations. If you can, buddy-up with a PR pro or take a class. The fundamentals of crisis control, patiently waiting for stories to develop, tone, and strategy cross over to social media more than many of the nu-social media experts care to admit.
- Be appropriate. Don’t tell jokes or do #FollowFridays if you’re a police department or a doctor’s office. Please?
- Be helpful. Corporations are on twitter and facebook to put money in the bank. Just because they’re using social media doesn’t mean they don’t want your dough. The best ones embrace the personality of the company. They allow creativity to shine and have some fun while keeping relevant ideas in readers’ minds that relate to the company at hand. A corporate account such as Ford or Nike tweeting about having a slice of pizza or what they’re watching on TV (from the corporate avatar) is just weird, I think. Be cool to people and you’ll build relationships – it sounds tacky, but that’s the name of the game.”The less you be a dbag, and if you treat people like humans, the more you’ll get done and succeed.” – @ManyaS – friend and experienced business twitter guru.
- Leave the adspeak in your ads. Your company has an advertising budget, so let that do its job, and please don’t tweet like a radio commercial for a race. (Sunday! Sunday! Sunday!) My friends who tweet for companies always try to be helpful and cater to the people who want the updates. Hey, they already clicked follow or Like, right? My point? Quit dating and start mating.
- Be nimble when you’re wearing your Customer Service Representative hat. If someone has a problem with your business and took the time to tweet about it – it’s somewhat of a compliment. You want to take care of that customer as soon as possible. If you have a customer service center on email or phone, but not twitter – note it on your page or bio. (Do they use rotary phones, too? Just curious).
- Don’t delete negative posts. If I have to tell you this, go back to 2009 social media 101. There’s several great people to learn from. I started with the afore-mentioned Chris Brogan’s book, Trust Agents. Guy Kawasaki, Tony Hseih, and Gary Vaynerchuk all have awesome books to get you off on the right foot.
- Do some quick research when there’s someone calling you out, and be careful not to bite when you’re being baited. Hey, just because someone tweets, doesn’t make them customer of the year anymore. There are trolls on twitter that complain constantly in hopes of getting a free lunch. These creeps are on facebook, too. Block them if they’re a pain in the butt, and don’t be afraid to say no. Use caution, though – mob mentality is one rude response away. One interesting response (I haven’t tried it yet) would be to post a reply, while signed on as your business – on their personal facebook profile. Could be risky, but might help avoid the mob mentality. Let me get back to you on that one. Heh.
- Don’t be afraid to have multiple accounts. Managing more than one account isn’t difficult with the software available today. One CEO that I follow has one twitter handle where he can (and does) drop F-Bombs all day long. His company’s handle is much more businesslike. I follow both. If you have the content to back it up, create a help account, a sales account, one for media, etc.
NOTE: This post is a work in progress, so please check back and see how it develops. What did I miss? Was I way off target? Please feel free to comment and let’s discuss it. This doesn’t necessarily reflect my current employer’s opinions in any way.
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Posted by Nate Ludens on October 29, 2010 at 4:52 am
Today’s prominent facebook-API message on every Hootsuite user’s dashboard was kind of a shocker to some, and quite a few comments I read today showed anger or frustration. There’s some lessons to be learned here, and I think Hootsuite’s going to be the one observing their users (us) learning the most.
On some minute level, I have to wonder if it’s a delayed power play from Facebook to sort of show 3rd party apps “who’s boss,” – or perhaps some 3rd parties cut some dev corners to get out a head start on the Social Media App game. This isn’t a hack on Hootsuite – I’m a big fan, and have been an advocate since it’s launch. Tweetdeck, Echofon, Tweetie for Mac, I’ve used them all. Every single one has glitches – the more social networks it operates, the more drama with API calls, the more down time. Chalk most of these up to growing pains. (Anyone all-too familiar with the Fail Whale?)
Lesson 1: You get what you pay for. When Hootsuite announced a few months ago that they were going to a pay model, the company was met with massive Boos and Jeers. Hootsuite retracted, and said they’d chill and develop a new strategy for their pay version. Well, today they showed corporate users (the freeloaders, specifically) that if they want Hootsuite to single-handedly operate a company’s Customer Relationship Management, they may actually want to invest a dime in it.
I wonder what would happen if a large corporation had a call center full of volunteers and donated phones… I digress….
Lesson 2 is for non-professional SM users. Just because you can post and schedule every update on facebook and twitter and your blog and LinkedIn and MySpace – doesn’t mean you should. When was the last time you actually logged into each of your social networks to post on each, individually?
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Posted by Nate on May 19, 2010 at 6:00 pm
One year after closing my creative services studio, and hearing about more and more layoffs in ad agencies and belly up studios like mine, I can’t help but to sometimes think about creative services as sort of a paralyzed industry. In my case, there were several reasons contributing to my studio’s demise: my inexperience, some poor judgement, some bad luck and probably more than all those combined: bad goddamn timing. But I’m not bitter. I’m evolving, and the rest of my industry should, too. Okay, maybe the creative services industry isn’t exactly dying, but it sure is starving – at best.
But I think I’ve been wrong. The industry isn’t paralyzed, it’s just changing – quickly. In a different era, advertising ROI wasn’t as prevalent and Agencies could staff up – becuase profits were high all around. Now, the temptation to use a smaller, less expensive company or a freelancer is great. Crowdsourced creative, template sites and stock houses are tempting to companies on tighter budgets – and sometimes they can work quite well. Sometimes they’re a disaster. The importance of quality photography and design in all areas of your campaign has never been more important. Advertise smarter, in other words.
Today’s advertising industry has expanded to encompass traditional print and brodcast mediums as well as the new engagement/experience driven marketplace, and I predict this should boost the creative services industry – and here’s how I think it will go down.
Quality control will be at the forefront of your strategy. Here’s why: Your product cannot “suck.” If it does, with poor ad placement or a bad – say – retail product, people will A) know and amplify the shortfalls via social networks; or worse B) not even see it and it will dissolve into obscurity. if you hire a lousy designer to make a lousy menu – someone will tweet about it, write a review on Yelp and post it on Facebook. Hire a lousy guy to design your brakes. Ask Toyota how that could go down. Hire a lousy designer to design your website, your business card, your menu, your packaging… all potential public or financial FAIL. This is why its so important to invest in good design, or suffer the consequences.
To summarize, companies must put their best foot forward at all times to get noticed and do it alongside a good creative professional team. Stakes are higher now than ever. After all, the new consumer is the media, and they’re still always right.
No pressure.
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Posted by Nate on March 9, 2010 at 8:58 pm
Of course they are. But there’s a few no-brainers I want to shed some light on that can help your company save some money and evolve your 12 point piece of paper into a conversation piece, instead of something someone writes notes on.
1. Retail & sales contacts need cards. Back of the house staff don’t. Save yourself some dough and make a company card for those who don’t need a lot of them.
2. Don’t use a template that came with Microsoft Word/Publisher, etc. There’s a reason nobody uses clip art anymore. It’s garbage. Usually these are the wrong resolution, the wrong color mode, and incompatible with any professional software your printer can work with. Pay for a real designer who knows what it means to build a cohesive brand identity for your company.
3. Don’t have cheap cards. If you do, I fully expect you to show up to your next business meeting in sweatpants and a torn, stained white shirt, because you clearly don’t value first impressions.
4. Websites like LinkedIn, Facebook, eLance, etc. won’t kill the business card industry. Why? Not everyone has bump (or an iPhone, for that matter), and what are you going to give people at mixers, bars and golf courses?
Want some cards designed? Email me, maybe I can help.
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