Okay, so first off I have to say this. Dr. Scholl's is not paying me for this endorsement however, I am a BzzAgent and I receive these products to try and talk about.I received a pair of Dr.Scholl's for Her: High Heel Insoles to try along with some coupons to share. I had my doubts. I have tried these kinds of things before. They never made much of a difference, in fact, they just caused pain in my shoes. I slipped these into the one pair of shoes that I have the most trouble with. A fab pair of beige platform, 5 inch heels. I loved these shoes but one was the display and thus, it was slightly stretched out. Always caused an issue. Not only did the ball of my feet hurt but one foot slipped out.So in went the insoles. WOW!!! Such a difference! The arch support made a huge impact for me since I have high arches and evenly distributed the weight into my arch, ball, and heel so I could stand for hours! I am so impressed!!Impressed enough that I want to go buy 4 or 5 more pairs!! So you can move them between shoes but it's better just to have a set in each of your 'painfully pretty' pairs.Seriously ladies, check them out. And you can wear them with sandals so check it before your wreck it... you feet I mean. 
The Negative Online Experience
This post is slightly different from yesterday's blog. Yesterday, I talked about a message I received on Yelp in response to some feedback that I left. I pointed out that it was a very positive experience and the business owner genuinely appreciated the feedback and wanted me to come back and try their business again.Today I want to talk about our 24 second attention span/news-cycle and the advent of mean online commenting, either anonymously or through features like Facebook Connect.Have you read any controversial news article online lately? Ever make it down to the comments? I often wish I didn't. For me, it is often an article about a Jewish topic or issue or relating to Israel. The virulent hatred just spews!! It's amazing because I am pretty sure none of those people could say any of that nasty business to a person's face. What's more is that it is rarely constructive or helpful. More often than not, it is close-minded and hurtful comments that, if said aloud in a public place, would shock the living daylights out of you.We pride ourselves on being tolerant and kind to our neighbors... except online. Clearly, this is not a unique phenomenon. We have armchair quarterbacks and backseat drivers... even sofa bobsledders... (that's a reference to my father's favorite episode of Dharma and Greg where the men are watching the Winter Olympics and decide that bobsledding is super easy, even they can do it. So they fly somewhere like Tahoe where there is snow on the ground and attempt to bobsled with a canoe and football helmets... needless to say, it doesn't work out so well.) It is always so easy to criticize someone from behind a keyboard and monitor. You know they can't reach out and hit you but you also feel the bravado of not being faced with any of their realities.The fact of the matter is this - Online commenting is losing it's power because we abuse it. Rather than contributing to the conversation, more often than not, we just want to be a part of it... no matter whether that is positive or negative. People vie for the 'bragging rights' to comment "FIRST" on articles. We trash women for being too skinny, too fat, too ugly, too pretty... Rather than posting constructive comments, we call people nasty names that would have garnered soap in our mouths. And we sit back and judge and make assumptions based on the few facts available to us.The social media culture we live in has only enhanced this. We have shortening attention spans and our news-cycle is 24 seconds rather than the older 24 hour cycle of my youth or the 7 - 14 day cycle of my grandparent's youth. We sit in front of the TV with an iPhone and Macbook while the news is reported and scrolls on the bottom of the screen.And we aren't going to change this culture.This is why we, as marketers, have to be as present as possible in every medium. We have to have our ears to the ground listening to every established service and our minds in the clouds imagining what could be next. In a recent Science of Timing webinar from the great company, HubSpot, we talked about how often and when you should post to Facebook and Twitter. One key rule that I will share here is: you will be forgiven for more on Twitter than Facebook. Post each article at least three times on twitter but only once on Facebook. Otherwise, your followers may block you from their FB news feed but miss you in the noise of Twitter.So we can't change the way people interact online but with the wealth of information out there, we can choose not to look at comments... which is the way I think our society is moving. Some people find such joy in the trolling or arguing but most people ignore it. However, as a marketer, it is important to pay attention to what people are saying in comments and on social media so you can respond appropriately to the genuine comments.Thus completes my series. Hope it was helpful!
Positive Use of Online Feedback
This is part one of a two-part series. Interestingly enough, I have experienced both the positive and negative side of online feedback in the same day! Let's start with the positive and figure out some takeaways.I am very active online and one of my favorite activities is reviewing restaurants and businesses on Yelp. I like to be honest about my experiences both good and bad but I am never nasty. I attempt to provide true and accurate feedback without being mean. I know that the business owner doesn't always feel that way but I have never received a negative or harassing message on Yelp. I have, however, received messages like this one:
Hello Talia,Your review was very fair, and I must say I chuckled a bit reading it. That being said it was frustrating I am sure to come in for a massage and receive a treatment that was poor. The lady you worked with is no longer employed in this clinic. Not based on your review but rather her overall satisfaction rate from clients. She was hired to help out with the busy online promotion and that turned out to be a poor idea. In any event, you were very honest and thanks for being kind with the 3 stars. I would like to make it up to you with a massage on the house with B or S, two therapists who often have great feedback (or try anyone who works in your schedule). We are open until 7:00 and also on the weekends now as well.All the bestDr. L
I tried to be fair in my review and like to sprinkle them with humor. In this case, I had a terrible massage and a bad experience. I hadn't planned on giving them a second chance but with a response like this one, how can you not?Now that is good business. Take the time to know what you customers are saying and where they are saying it and fix the problem. In all likelihood, I will go back to this company and try again. And I may have ended up as a customer for life, if I hadn't recently found the most amazing massage therapist in Denver (Denver Massage Associates). But more than getting repeat service from me, I will stop telling the story of the horrific massage I got where I felt like I was being basted for Thanksgiving and was the least relaxing of my life. Instead I will tell everyone I know about the incredible customer service and follow up I got from a company that didn't have to care. They have good ratings from most everyone else... he didn't have to respond to me.But he did. And that is GOOD BUSINESS.The key in this social media world is follow through and to listen. Listen to what people are saying about your brand. Listen on Facebook. Listen on Twitter. Listen on Yelp. Listen everywhere your customers are. I have had some of my students ask me, "Talia, if I can only pick on social media network to be on, which should it be?" My answer is never simple...The key here is to be listening on all of them. Own your brand name on Twitter and Facebook, even if you don't plan to have a presence. You don't want someone else communicating under your name (see the Heinz example) and you want to know what people are saying for you. Here is my advice to my students:
- Own your name everywhere
- Set up Google Alerts for all the permutations of your brand name, including with qu0tation marks
- Listen to your users and find out where THEY interact
- Be present where your demographic lives
- Always be ready to communicate on a variety of different mediums
- The worst thing you can do, in general, is ignore... especially if there is dissatisfaction with a product or service...
- Offer to fix it, comp it, give them a coupon, etc...
- You have to communicate with them or else you are the "big giant corporation that doesn't care"
So that is social media done right... but remember, you can apply this throughout your organization. It is so rare to get to speak to a person, a happy person is even more rare, these days. Think about the service you would like or you would like your mother to receive... then use that rule for your customers. Sure, you can't stay on the phone with one person for 8 hours... but a little patience goes a long way. So does a little positivity, a smile on your face when you are on the phone or in person and a thank you.I hope this helps! Have a great day!
Privacy In An Online World
As of late I have been doing a lot of thinking about privacy. The topic has come up with friends several times recently and it's been on the top of mind. When I started this blog I knew it would bring more transparency to my life than either Myspace or Facebook had. I started out as a small time Tweeter but now I have over a thousand followers and am climbing close to the 10,000 mark on blog views. And slowly, over the years, my threshold for privacy has decreased. I still look to Facebook as a private place where I am only Friends with my actual friends. I don't accept Facebook friend requests from strangers or blog readers (sorry guys) because that is the last bastion of privacy for me. That is a place to share pictures and stories and frustrations that I don't want the general world to know about... but even so, I remind myself that once it is on the internet I no longer have control over it.Increasingly in my life I try to live by a simple mantra... If I don't want my parents to read about it in the newspaper, don't do it. Otherwise, I own my behavior. I think another reason I keep my Facebook private is that I have earned the mark of true internet celebrity in that I have received many unwanted messages from people, messages that could make a girl nervous. But again, all was expected when putting my life online.I know I could never be a politician and people may use the behavior they see online to try to hurt me but, like I said, I own it. It is no secret that I enjoy hanging out with my friends or an adult beverage.But there is another factor here. The onus of responsibility for MY online privacy is not in the hands of others, rather it is my own job to ensure the image I wish to project is projected. Being in the media industry and the social media industry specifically, I know that there is always someone with a camera or a phone nearby. Another good case for reputation and brand management online (i.e. check twitter...)!But what I find so fascinating is how integral the online world is for me daily. I don't show people photo albums anymore... I direct them to my Facebook page or Flickr feed. When asked by a friend to take down some pictures from Facebook, I was confused... well, where are you going to look at them if I take them off?While I am the first to extol the internet's joys and value, I realize that we have lost something when it comes to memories. To rely on jpgs and png files to hold our memories is flawed. And he was right. Not every picture is for sharing online, not even in my contorted system of privacy levels. Sometimes, it is better to keep thing private and share them another way.Just as my stalker incidents had me rethinking location based services, this has be rethinking how I store memories. I mean, as a photographer with over 3000 images on my Flickr stream alone (those aren't all of what I have on my photo external harddrive), it is hard to imagine having time to sit and go through all of them, much less printing and photo albuming them... but there has to be a way...Food for thought.
When to post when... lessons from HubSpot
Here is my Twitter transcript of the HubSpot Webinar I just attended. It was run by @danzarrella and was really fabulous. I really recommend @HubSpotIt's Twitter... so start reading from the bottom...
thdpr Talia Davis - טליה
Blog is at http://taliashewrote.com and I promise to post 32 times a day and email you 20 times a month. ;) #timesci
thdpr Talia Davis - טליה
Thanks for the new follows and blog subscriptions! Looking forward to interacting with you all!
thdpr Talia Davis - טליה
Hey @EXConnection - The most retweetable time for @Exconnection is 12AM on Monday (EST).
thdpr Talia Davis - טליה
@danzarrella do we all have to press play at the same time? #timesci
thdpr Talia Davis - טליה
@danzarrella haha, thanks! #timesci
thdpr Talia Davis - טליה
@danzarrella Super fab webinar! Thanks! I wrote my thesis on content delivery and measurement. Would love to chat sometime about data
thdpr Talia Davis - טליה
The most retweetable time for @thdpr is at 1PM on Wednesday. What's yours? http://tweetwhen.com #timesci
thdpr Talia Davis - טליה
Thanks to @danzarrella for the great information #timesci
thdpr Talia Davis - טליה
http://TweetWhen.com - find most ReTweetable days and times #timesci
thdpr Talia Davis - טליה
@samanthamcgarry yup... and bathing kids... and drinking a glass of wine! :) #timesci
thdpr Talia Davis - טליה
donnacicotte Donna Cicotte
by thdpr
@#TimeSci - FB Shares between 12 a.m. and 3 a.m. work best.
thdpr Talia Davis - טליה
@WendyKinney Same inbox... not necessarily same email.
thdpr Talia Davis - טליה
After dinner is made, kids are in bed. Take some time to think about it #myowndata #timesci
thdpr Talia Davis - טליה
I found that if my audience is moms but they work, I have to think about when they could get to the computer. #myowndata #timesci
thdpr Talia Davis - טליה
@ashleymszeremet I've actually heard weekend and fridays because computer and internet usage goes down. #TimeSci
thdpr Talia Davis - טליה
@CarriBugbee hahaha! True #TimeSci
thdpr Talia Davis - טליה
@MassMarotta right and they aren't consistently successful and give the others a bad name #TimeSci
thdpr Talia Davis - טליה
@JPotestivo Amen. Though you want to... #TimeSci
thdpr Talia Davis - טליה
@odatomarketing Me too... #TimeSci strategist is much more realistic
HubSpot HubSpot
by thdpr
24,000 people have registered for today's #timesci Science of Timing webinar! http://bit.ly/etKZ3B
thdpr Talia Davis - טליה
thdpr Talia Davis - טליה
Prime Word of Mouth Marketing
I believe in Word of Mouth (WOM) marketing. It is insanely effective. If you don't believe me, just look at your Facebook. That is the ultimate in online word of mouth.But there is another group pioneering WOM as well. BzzAgent is a group that solicits everyday people to try products and talk about them. It is amazingly attractive even without the rewards. I have tried a Sonicare Toothbrush, food, cosmetics, all sorts of different products.Lately, I have started working on a campaign for SniqueAway. It is a luxury getaway site. Think Groupon or JDeal for lux hotels and resorts. Now, I know what you are thinking... I can't afford that. But here is the opportunity for two things.
1. Book a staycation by finding a deal in your town for a hotel that you would never go to because it is WAY too expensive.2. Plan a big out of town trip and upgrade your hotel to a fancy resort through SniqueAway.Basically, I am super excited to plan a vacation now and these hotels look amazing. Check it out here - SniqueAway
Social Media Plan Template
I have been asked what social media plan template I use by several colleagues and students. Here is one that I found online and have modified for my own use. It is a great jumping off point for social media practitioners.Social Media planYou are welcome to use it and I am happy to share but I would love a shout out or link to my blog in exchange. Remember me when your CEO gives you a raise! :)
REVISED 8/21/12:
Some folks have 'kindly' pointed out that the linked social media plan above is from Marketo and have (very unkindly) call me some nasty names for 'stealing' it. The reality is, yes, I used Marketo's plan as inspiration for my social media plan. I also used several other companies. At the time, I could not recall their names. However, when I uploaded it to my blog, I attached the wrong link. The above link was to a PDF version of Marketo's plan. That is not the plan I use. In the rush of everyday life, I neglected to check the link and it has existed for over a year on my blog mistakenly attributed to me. For that I am deeply sorry.This has given me the opportunity to present to you an updated version. My previous version was focused a lot on content delivery companies (which is what my Masters thesis was on) however, I am doing less of that these days. Here is my actual, real, and current template and plan which I use in my social media adventures.
Updated Social Media Plan
Thank you all for your interest and visits!
JDeal's Battle Of the Blogs
Two great reads for marketers
I haven't read my beloved AdAge in a while. Too busy packing and moving to Israel and taking Jewish Studies classes and blogging but I caught a couple today and thought I would share.This one is about the lessons from a hacked email account. He lays out great and simple rules for marketers. What Marketers Can Learn From the Responses to a Hacked Email AccountAnd if any of you use social media out there (I mean, duh!) than you know exactly what this article is about. RIP, the Press Release (1906-2010) -- and Long Live the Tweet
Drumroll please...
It's been approved. I just received this touching email from the dean and my department -So warm and kind...THIS IS AN AUTOMATIC MESSAGEYour Capstone Project has been approved by your department.CONGRATULATIONS on your accomplishment!University College************************************
Student Name: Davis, TaliaSchool: University CollegeDepartment: Organiz & Prof CommunicationDegree Name: Master of Professional StudiesType: CapstoneTHIS IS AN AUTOMATIC EMAIL NOTIFICATION