But I digress.  Look for that series in a few days.

This my friends is about Twitter and a mini-rant I’m having in three acts:

Twitter is key for small businesses.   There are many many articles about why.  I can sum them all up in a sentence.  There is no better tool for the money, for promoting and spreading information about your services, products and business. Sure there are tons of people on there talking about what book they read, what they had for lunch but that’s just part of conversation.  It can’t all be strategy and roses, in between there you have life and fluffle.  (I made that word up).    Here comes the rant part:

1.  Act One

• If someone friends you, read some of their tweets and if it’s not spam/porn/evil – friend them back.   Not everyone you talk to is going to be your best friend but you might just end up having an interesting conversation, learning something or even make an impression.   Nothing makes me crazier than going through my friends and pruning out people (which you have to do from time to time) – and finding a “social network EXPERT” (emphasis mine), small business, restaurant or digital consultant that hasn’t friended back.   What a waste of a connection.
• Take into account there are some Internet Superstars that just can’t follow the thousands and thousands of people back.  I tend to follow them even if they don’t follow me because I’m interested.  And that’s the only way I’ll do that.  I don’t care if you think you are an Internet Superstar and I’m not interested in what you are saying, I will unfollow.  To me – I take the saying of Mark Davidson to heart – Twitter is about a conversation.  If you won’t even allow the possibility, forget it!  UNFOLLOW, UNFOLLOW, UNFOLLOW.
• Also you do have to prune and check your ratios.  Because there people who will follow you wait X amount of time, whether that’s a minute or a week or a month, after you follow them back, and then unfollow you.  It’s a scam to get more followers.  What they want to do with these minions, I’m not sure, but I don’t want to be a part of the shuffling masses.

2.  Act Two

• Don’t have every tweet be a key message or even worse quote someone else. Talk about things.  I don’t want to get to know your key selling proposition, or what Einstein said.  I can read that or learn that myself.  I want to learn about you, your business, your thoughts – those are the things that provide value to me.   I think that personality is key.  Because I’m not doing business with a faceless droid, even at large corporations, I do business with people.  Case in point – I have been with Allstate Insurance forever.  And not because of Allstate or their commercials.  I do it because the Agent I’m with listened to me when I was a whippersnapper driver and he knows me and HE cares.  I can’t tell you have many entertaining conversations we have had which usually end with him saying – call me back if you want to file this claim otherwise BYE!   He is Allstate to me.

3.  Act Three

• Don’t jump on every bandwagon that blows through Twitter. This is the generating rant that brought this post to your eyeballs.  There has been Twitter Spam in the last week which is annoying.  But what is making me crazy right now is the direct message – “I just gave you “love bug hug”! Check it out:” and the “do you want 100000 followers, click here.”   I’m in the process right now of blocking and reporting a huge number of these.  ARGH!
• That being said, there was a recent bandwagon to help the Iranian people and their election.   Every now and then it isn’t all horrible.  I’m just saying, be careful out there kids – not every tool, not every trend, not every shortcut leads you to Oz.

And as always, I value your feedback.  What bugs you about Twitter?  What have you found useful?  Do tell.

The thought is that as web designers and developers and even SEO professionals we are judged by end product.   But the web being what it is and clients being the ones writing the check, we come across a quandary.   For companies who provide services in terms of the web how do you frame what challenges you had versus where you end up?  In honest terms I don’t think it’s every a good idea to trash a client’s budget and design being subjective in many ways, too much explaining can leave a sour taste in potential buyers mouths.  Along the lines of “the lady doth protest too much.”

I think at some point you have to be judged by what you produce.  You have to own up and say, I did this.  That being said, there are questions/concepts that potential clients need to take into account when looking at portfolios in this space.

• What was the budget?  And how far did that budget go?  You never get the exact amount you want and sometimes you even have to scale back services based on what the client has to spend.
• Who was the audience?  It should be obvious but sometimes the areas that are brought out and shown are aimed at specific audiences.  I know that sometimes when you are dealing with a primary educated audience in terms of a business niche it can to the untrained eye be confusing.
• How long has it been?  Even though we try to make designs timeless, trends gently and sometimes violently fade away.  Sometimes sites even get redesigned.  Every company wants to be with their clients time after time during redesigns but in real life that doesn’t always happen.
• Clients are paying the bill.  Which means we are actually consultants.  We can recommends, strongly disagree, advise against, work towards a compromise but they are paying and if ultimately what they want, they get.   You might not see it in a portfolio but it is what it is.
• Design is subjective.  While code can usually be judged based on quantifiable qualities, design, know matter how you slice it, is judged by each person differently.  You may hate that color, that font, that style but that was reviewed by client, company and designer and made the cut for some reason.
• What were the results?  Did all the elements come together to get what the client wanted.  It may not appear that way at first, but it ultimately is the only thing that matters.  But many times, it’s hard to get that answer.  However, it never hurts to ask.

So those are the ones that I think frame our work in the launched phase.  What do you think web design/development companies, SEO companies, interactive marketing firms need to be held to account on?  Or from the other angle, what do we want as an industry professionals to educate potential clients about when they look at your finished products?

Just thoughts to chew on.  Have a great weekend.

Social Media to me sounds slippery.  Like it’s a fad, phase or worse a “trend”.  And in some ways it is.  It suddenly became the darling of the “Web 2.0″ world and everyone was an expert that had ever written on a blog.  But for those of use in this industry (Interactive Marketing, Web Design, Development) when the term first came bubbling up into the common knowledge realm it was like putting a name to things we had been doing for awhile.  It was one of those “Aha” moments, not unlike when the term Web Master finally came into business lexicon and people knew what it meant.  A lot of us were going “so that’s what I do”!

But I live and work (and love) Texas.  It’s not that we are more conservative, it’s that – ok we are more conservative than the coasts.  Many of our clients are lawyers, law firms or corporations.  But we aren’t stupid.  When something makes sense, we do it!  Especially if it means something for our businesses.  So take Social Media which is about at it’s core connecting with your customers.  It’s community and interaction.  It’s being connected with people you work with, sell to and interact with through your company.  None of those things are foreign to us Texans.  With that thought in mind, I reframed Social Media into what it truly is Community-Based marketing.  Same idea, different name.

Dos and Don’ts in Community-Based Marketing

The biggest “fear” about community-based marketing when talking to my clients is this – “what if my clients/people talk back to me.”  And it’s not that they are afraid to connect with their customers, it’s that they are afraid that it will just be an open door of rants and negativity.  The stories of “trolls” and people just being ugly have filtered back to them.  And yes, it’s true that once you open the door to allowing clients to interact with you, there might be some people that are not happy with the company, or a decision you made or even a connection that happened in the past.  This is a real and valid fear.  But it’s worth getting over those fears and really being in tune with what’s right and what’s wrong in the marketplace.  Companies pay lots of real dollars to get “marketing research” about what’s going on in their industries.  With community-based marketing, it’s all right there.  You just have to listen, know where to look and not take it personally.  We as people all make mistakes and since we run companies, mistakes happen.   People aren’t always out there to crucify you and your company.   They just (many times) want to be heard, know that their feedback matters and that you acknowledge you are listening.

For me and what I tell my clients here is the list of dos and don’ts:

• Do open that door and let clients interact with you.  Allow comments, join forums, create a space for communication to happen
• Don’t overreact when someone comments in a negative or unintended way
• Do acknowledge their frustration, anger, issue either publicly or directly if appropriate
• Do attempt to make their feedback matter – it doesn’t always have to be a grand gesture.  Giving a future discount, connecting them to the appropriate internal people to rectify, acknowledging a decision had unintentional consequences, allowing them to vent, etc.
• Don’t be surprised when people are positive.  Many times our fears, are just that, fears.  You do good work or you wouldn’t be in business.  Allow people to respond to you positively.
• Do get a thick skin.  Just like ever arrow slung your way doesn’t need to hit it’s target, every compliment doesn’t need to get you an award.
• Do listen to the trends.  The door to your customers is open for a reason.  If you hear lots of times, that something isn’t working, change it.  If you hear that their is something clients want, give it to them.  This is good stuff, and ignoring it is a bad decision.
• Don’t get bullied.  This might seem counter to everything I’ve said above but you are allowed to set boundaries about how you will and won’t be treated, even online.  If I feel someone is a troll, I block them or report them.  And I define Troll as someone who just causes havoc to cause havoc.   I am open for discussion and opinions, I am not open to people being jerks because they are hiding behind a computer screen.

And here is the most important DON’T.

• Don’t sue someone over a Tweet.  I can see if this was Robert Scoble or Mark Davidson who have thousands and thousands of followers.  But this woman has 26 (before she cancelled her account) followers.  She expressed an opinion to a few of her friends.  You sue her for $50,000 and now everyone in the Interactive World and beyond knows who you are, that their might be mold in one of your apartments and you are a company that will whip out their legal department over NOTHING!

If community-based marketing is about interaction and connection with your clients and potential-clients, then jump in.  The waters warm, the people are generally nice and the rewards are genuine.

I would love to hear from you – if you are a business what your experience has been or if you are still the fear area, what is your fear.  Interactive marketing people – do you have any other do’s or don’ts?  And of course, any other feedback is welcome as well.

In the next few days, I’m going to start a series of posts about how to set up an interactive marketing plan and then step-by-step show you how to work that plan.  I do this for clients all the time and I know how intimidating it can be but I’ll be here as a resource and if you have questions, then we can get you some answers.

Here is what I’m seeing this week:

Get Started with Email Newsletters by Michael Mayor

Focus your email newsletters and achieve your marketing goals with these easy steps.

(editorial) – This is especially relevant as I try to send out our first e-mail newsletter. It’s hard because I want to jump in but that pool looks a little cold.

In the Integrated Marketing Realm we have:

A Quick Guide to Integrated Marketing

What you need to know (and what you need to avoid) to get the most out of your marketing campaign across channels.

Contrasted with this article From Media Week on Ad Clients Mixed on Integrated Efforts

Ad Clients Mixed on Integrated Efforts

(editorial) – As consultants to our clients when we recommend an integrated approach for a brand or a concept, it makes the most sense to that situation. Except that we need to know the internal and external barriers that will either be present or need to be overcome. This is a good look at what’s in our way and how to get through it.

And finally I thought this was very interesting. MTV is forming a research company called Viewser Labs. They aren’t waiting for information to be pushed to them. From their article

“MTV says Viewser Labs will “examine and re-think every minute of viewers’ and users’ experiences across MTV’s multiple screens, from pods to programming to promo spots to product integration to commercial time and more.” The ultimate goal of Viewser Labs is to find new advertising opportunities, says MTV, beyond the 30-second spot and the banner ad.”

Check out the full article here