Who should be the star of your social media?

Having been involved in social media for the last five years, I've beeen part of developing social media strategies for selected clients and being a curious techno I've constantly searched the world for new thoughts on the medium. I've come to the conclusion that it's a person that must be active on social media, who ever likes talking to a in adamant object like a computer (other than strange people that like blow up dolls)

As business people we all understand the value of a referral or the power of word of mouth marketing (I get told this every time I sit with a new client) ... So why do we all constantly search for automated and impersonal marketing vehicles? couple this with my anadotale experience reviewing the web analytics of 100's of sites the second most visited pages on a website are about and team.

So, as a business owner do your best to conduct your social media updates and posts as a human rather than as corporate memo's, you'll find that people will follow and interact with you as a real person getting more followers... that actually follow and they'll stick around longer ... which ultimately means one day they might just need what you sell/produce and since they feel like they know you, you just maybe the chosen supplier! :)

When posting about a product you're wanting push paste a photo of yourself with it, or add a personal message about how much you liked it. Ask questions as this gives your followers an opportunity to engage and before posting read it out loud and ask does this sound like its written by a person or someone in the PR department... if you follow a couple of these rules you should be sweet!

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Its just Horse shit

My kids now talk about the bank that killed the horse, I reckon they threw out the baby with the bath water, but that's just my opinion... and then in the mail [yip we still get paper mail] the official letter arrived, with all the usual 'spin' a landscape with no Horse, a lot of blurb and a a simple goal "To be New Zealand's best bank"

I do wonder what drives a large corporation to make decisions like this? Is it a drive to increase the share price and therefore the value of the company [which executive bonuses are often calculated on] or is there a more honorable drive, a mission to deliver a better quality service, better valued products [lower interest rates] and more services? And what does it really matter to me as the customer?

In the letter they went to great lengths to explain all the new advantages, but hang on a minute .... I already had those advantages, and I've been enjoying them ever since the ANZ bought the bank a few years back, so I again I ask, what is the benefit of belonging to a bank that wants to be the best bank in NZ?

An interesting additional piece of information that needs to be tabled is that the National Bank was already ranked the best bank in NZ, so now that they've merged, they've succeeded in taking one bank back and the other mildly forward (remember that the ANZ was ranked one of the worst ;-).

I wish I had an answer to this question, and I can't be bothered contacting the Ad Agency or the Comm's department at the bank to get any answers as I dare say I'll just get more 'Spin'... so maybe over the next few days some of you may be able to shed some light and educate a rural boy from Ranfurly ... please...comments are now open

 

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Don't be up yourself!

Reading my bible is a daily challenge, but it's one thing I enjoy, but only after the exercise. Anyway this particular day I read in Proverbs 27:2. Don't call attention to yourself; let others do that for you. I stopped and thought about this for some time and realized the truth is especially important in a business marketing context.

God, is stating that we should not self promote, but let others do it for us, and in my experience this is true, making sales easily, faster and getting those all important calls or enquiries and we must resist the temptation of thinking that we should tell people how good we are. it's like our CV that's us self promoting, and that's why prospective employers contact and interview referees and past employers. A good book written specifically about this was by Al Ries "The fall of Advertising and the rise of PR" His premise in his book was that large firms that appear to have built their position or reputation by creative advertising, actually built it early in their life cycle on the back of some very good PR and all that advertising does is maintain or strengthen that market perception.

... So then how can we improve our reputation?

1. If you have a LinkedIn page then get other contacts to write recommendations. This is very easy to do if you've taken the time already to connect with many business contacts.
2. Join networking groups, like the chamber of commerce, The Cycling Cluster, BNI and get to know other business people that will actively recommend you.
3. Build a blog so that people the ability to comment on your posts, this has others see that you have people following you or social proof (take a hint people write nice things please ;-)
4. Post in Facebook and Twitter regularly asking questions that inspire others to comment, just don't be like me and go too contraversal
5. Here's a big one: DO A GOOD JOB! all the tricky tactics in the world don't work unless you or your business aren't delivering good value.
6. Avoid all tactics that have you stand out from the crowd, they'll be the reason people remember you, for potentially all the wrong reasons
7. Become world famous, write a blog, post in the social networking arena, or like my good friends at concentrate.co.nz, write articles for the local media.
8. Be easy to talk about, my anadotal evidence as a marketer involved in networking groups, is the businesses that are the easist to understand get the most referrals. This requires a deeper understanding of what you do for your clients, not what you do! (If you need help call me 03-974-9230 and I'll steer you in the right direction)

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Bloody cyclist!

OK its no secret, I'm a keen cyclist with one of my rants being [check previous blog] around aggressive and inconsiderate road users and their attitude and actions towards other road users. Today while in Dunedin I rode past one of those signs "Share the road" took the snap and decided to take it to task later in my weekly blog.

Do you really think that this signage and education makes any difference? Does it change the behaviour of a road rage induced individual with a strong sense of entitlement? Lets take a wee looksie at this then...

Dale Carnegie in his famous book "How to Win Friends and Influence People" made the statement "A man convinced against his own will is of the same opinion still". No doubt as one of my blog readers [the ones that don't read my blog are probably not very mature in thought] you've had many a discussion with work mates and family [no one you would choose to be a friend] around issues that they believe to be correct even in the face of a mountain of evidence adamantly stating the opposite of what is proven [flat earth types]. So I believe that the signage here could be falling on deaf ears, only reinforcing to other cyclists like myself that we're right creating a sense of righteousness potentially fueling the rage issue even more.

Secondly how do we respond to be being preached at? hmmm, not very well and the reason this is so is that many of us have to understand the reasons behind the rule or statement for us transform our attitudes and actions. Does this sign do that?

OK, so Ive bought into question the potential success of the sign, I do feel that the designers of this sign have the best of intentions to have us all be safe and enjoy the right to a conflict free journey. What could we do to change the nature of this signage? I'm not proposing a strategy to transform every road user, as that takes time to change attitudes and can take generations, but we could make the tone softer, less preachey and potentially more effective,

...How... in my opinion two simple words are missing...

We drum these words into our kids from an early age and the reason we teach our children to do this is that we realise as grown ups that the way to increase the success of life is to mind your P's and Q's. So we could say please share the road, but that again assumes that some might not want to or we don't share, so...

...How does this read to you? please comment back, i'd love to know your thoughts...

Thanks

for

Sharing the road

 

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Stop f#%^*ing ranting

Drinking at Elevate bar

During my typical Friday afternoon drinking session at Elevate Bar, I met up with a long time cycling friend Al Duncan, first we lied about how good things were (or I did anyway) and he then asked me about my blog and how difficult it was to come up with topics. In responding to his question we inadvertantly brainstormed two more topics .... this is one... Ranting... And another about success, and how successful people tend to succeed in different areas, when I questioned, why then do some really great people fail at their marriages? Which had us briefly question our inital hypothesis, until Al in his wisdom suggested that maybe it's linked to what successful people value, rather than what they are good at!... but that's for another blog on another day....

So back to the subject of ranting... We were discussing the benefits of blogging and it's ability to crystallize thoughts and that the process of writing had reduced my level of ranting, why? because every time I get a blog idea and I started to wrote about it, it turned out to be nothing more than a rant based on very little evidence, a reaction based on no real thought and bugger all truth. So my recommendation [I'm included] this week is that we all stop bloody ranting without THINKING. It's ok to rant about some things [Child poverty in NZ] but lets stop take time to think and really analysis critically before engaging the mouth. If you don't it's not the end of the world, some will diplomatically listen and even agree to a point, but what do you think when someone is ranting? feel free to share your thoughts ;-)

 

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This app will get you on track

So many of us find it soooo hard to change to good habits, whether it's around diet, exercise or work. This maybe a possible helpful app, initially my thoughts were not positive thinking it's just another checklist type app (there are thousands in the app store)

The app is habit list is a great app if you want to make changes. I've been struggling with my diet (no reference to current weight please) since the earthquake last year along with the volume of my cycle training, but with this app I've really started to get a hold of things.

The thing that's driving me to eat well and cycle regularly is the need to get a 100% score! The other benefit is the good feelings I'm having about my success...and that's where it works...

It's a great list as you can vary the variables from daily, or certain days only or even so many days a week as an example I want to train 6 days a week rather than certain days or for days of healthy eating I leave off Friday (fish and chip night) see the screen shot...

This screen shows me the success I'm having and interestingly I'm amazed at how it helps me change or modify my actions....

I'm really driven to increase my training to get that 100% ... 75% is driving me nuts... Ok

Time for me to squeeze into my cycling kit (Lycra is soooo revealing, that why I train by myself at the moment ;-)

Read more from Alex Mann here

 

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A business has never given me money

I've never had a business give me money! I've never sold anything to a business either. If you understand that it's people that engage with people and not businesses you may get different results.

How?

Write ads that appeals to the human needs and motivations, not just the dry boring death by powerpoint presentations full of bullet pointed business advantages, but get a little more creative. As a advertising example, why not also appeal to the purchasing persons agenda with "The money you'll save the firm with our products will assure your promotion" (probably a bit cheesey... That's why I'm not the creative in our firm) or "As an astute executive you'll save your company millions"

This could also form part of the sales process with the person face to face, instead of boring the pants off them with endless technical babble, language that only computers, accountants and analysists resonate with.... start with asking questions that reveal the person agenda or motive...if you relax and don't try and 'sell' you may end up having a satisfying conversation and a sale!

Just remember corporations are filled with humans!

 

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iPad dissatisfaction

In our house the iPad is the most desired reward (well, after lollies). Recently I gave Mckenzie this reward for doing the dishes. McKenzie did a great job and was totally motivated in completing the task, so she ended up getting almost 50 minutes. After her turn the other two children in the household also requested some time and being in a good mood I obliged giving them 10 minutes each. Mckenzie noticing this the next day requested some extra time, so not thinking I caved and gave her some extra time.

Two or three days later she appeared at the end of our bed one morning requesting extra time for her reward, stating the case that her siblings got time on the ipad for nothing, and so deserved even more time to set this injustice right! So in my infinite wisdom and wanting to win the best father in the world award, I pulled open the bible (on the iPad of course) and found the reference to the workers in the vineyard story (Matt 18:20-25). I paraphsed it for her so that it had its best chance of her understanding.... Now I would love to say that this strategy lead to Mckenzie seeing the errors of her way, falling down at her fathers Feet, recognising his great wisdom and his superior biblical knowledge ...nope, not at all! it only fuelled the extreme injustice that she felt, storming out of the bedroom slamming doors and calling me a poopy head (the ultimate insult in our family).

This interation with my eldest daughter gave me great insight to how some feel about the current issue of gay marriage, it may not take anything away from their own relationship, but giving others the same legal rights or access to the institution of marriage just seems very unfair to some. It also explains the anxiety many feel with their life, a life that has more comfort and material wealth than a 15th century king would have had and why? Well it has nothing to do with what we have but more about what others around us have that we may not, it could be professional success, fame, assets, good looks, cars, holidays abroad and the list goes on...

What can we do about this? You must understand the cause of your upset/anxiety before executing any strategy and this is the job of an experienced councillor or a proved program. Once you know what's behind the symptom, only then can any strategy be successful. Feel free to contact me alexm@psmm.co.nz for any guidance on whom you should council.

 

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Who can remember the Walkie talkie?

When I was a kid I dreamed of having a Wilkie talkie, and now I have one... Yee haaa! This app is one of the top ten out of the two hundred and fifty plus apps I have on my i-devices. This app is free and works on both the superior iPhone and the other sort of second run phones ;-) which means that you can communicate with almost anyone in this fashion...

Simple as to use, select a friend, just hit the big button and verbally rant away! When they get the rant it alerts them just like a text message and they can easily repond with their verbal rant.. If you have the app open you can bounce messages back and forward...You'll soon notice that we have a heytell voice (first coined by Andrew Smith of Surefire) but you'll soon become more natural using your voice to emphasis what you're messaging about.

Some great advantages of this app are listed below, but this is one of my funnest apps even heytelling Joey from my upstairs office requesting coffee/ food or quietness from the kids! Its one app that gets used on a daily basis, mostly for business use, setting up groups so that you have get collaborative conversations going (bit like reply all with email). It really can eliminate lengthy phone calls that distract us all (I'm the worst perpetrator)

1. Send messages while driving, safer and more legal than texting
2. Send short complex messages saving time on long texts and emails
3. Recorded thread for easy review of instructions sent or received
4. more fun than texting

Just jump into the app store and grab the free version first, the paid one takes away the annoying ads and you can set up the group option. Can't wait to get your hey tell...

 

 

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Why am I blogging

 

Every weekend myself and Joey get to lie in bed while the kids watch junk TV (like all great parents do) and while the kids are entertained we get to chat for hours about everything... It's a great aspect of our marriage that I love. So this weekend I was discussing the recent blog and how a business friend stood at a networking BNI meeting and promoted that everyone should go read it... I was embarrassed and a bit nervous... What would they think, would they argue with me, not accept some of my ideas... ? So while sharing this with Joey she turned to me and asked, why am I blogging? bloody good question...

After some time examining the reasons and motives... I settled on this one, it's for me! If you enjoy my writing, that's fantastic. I hope you do and I really love to hear your feed back and encouragement (notice I left out criticism ;-)

My initial motivation was inspired by my two cycling mates Hans and Arron while drinking coffee, they pointed out that it's a great way to order thoughts, arguments and apply more discipline to any opinions. So I'm now into my third month and really enjoying the process.

Malcolm Gladwell talked about the 10,000 hour principal, an observation that anyone that masters anything usually has spent about 10,000 hours refining their skill, so I've got 9,990 hours to go.. Or you have about 1,000 blogs to read ;-)

 

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Where do great kids come from

Let's start with a disclaimer "Yes I have a view of this billboard .... And no I won't discuss that view today"

I've driven past this billboard many times and I'm confused (as a marketer) whom the target market is and what the intended recipients should do?

Let's look at some possible target markets :-

1. A person with a great marriage; Would this ad reinforce their good marriage and the good job they're doing with their kids? What should they do, or what action are they to take?
2. A person with a crap marriage; Would they feel good after seeing this? Would this promotion motivate them to change the situation surrounding their marriage? Would they be motivated to find out about the sponsoring promoter?
3. A single parent with a family, would they resonate with this message or would they feel insufficient and excluded! And what actions does the billboard owners want this group to do?

So, I'm left wondering whom the ad is for and what action they should take.... being curious I went to their website to learn some more and I discovered that they're a non political family centred organisation with two options of joining or donating. These are valid options and if the ad resonated with you then you may support their cause...

Conclusion, the marketing seems to be targeted, wanting to attract like minded individuals to grow the movement. So it's achieved it's goal, but how many more people did it alienate and does good marketing have to do that? ... Bet you thought I was going to diss it ;-)

 

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To stream or not

To me there are two different music lovers, the first is format focused and the other is artist focused. Now I know that you're different you're a bit of both, but you're probably driven by one first. So my weekly blog this week I would like to review two apps, spotify and tunein radio, I have tested both and depending on your predominate music driver will prefer one to the other

Tune in radio, streams 1,000's of Internet radio stations from all over the globe, in my favourites I have smooth jazz, swing, big band, cafe, blues jazz stations, I love this as I'm in the mood for s certain format of music I'll dial up the stream and listen away for hours. The benefit of this app over all the other streaming radio apps is the ability to record up to 8 hours of music for offline listening pleasure later. It easily hunts down all the local radio stations in NZ that I could never listen to (bfm in Auckland) and make available any station no matter where. The other thing worth noting is the data usage, it's really not that bad with the most you'll use is 60-80meg and HOUR, that's all so even on expensive or restricted data plans you can listen to any station anywhere in the world!

Spotify, is my most recent trial app that I became aware of after being at a friends place. Now, my preferred way to listen it music is not artist centric so this one has had less use time than tune in radio, but saying that, for only $10 a month (U.S) it's a great deal! I do enjoy listening to some artists and now I can with out having to buy expensive CD's to racks of iTunes that fill up my valuable space on my idevices. Just a note, even though I find the $10 a good deal I've not yet signed up....?

 

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How not to worry

Just when the knife is ready to fall something comes along and saves your bacon! As the saying goes 90% of what we worry about never evetuates and the other 10% of the time works better! And on reflection my anecdotal experience reinforces sets this.

So if we know that most things turn out ok, then why do we continue to worry so bloody much and is there any remedy to the problem of worrying?

Ok here's the bad news, psychologists tell us that as humans beings, we are all prone to worry, no one is immune. They do acknowledge one thing and thats we all experience different levels of worry. So, maybe the question to ask, is not how to stop it all together, but how do we go about reducing the level of anxiety with the worry.

My personal strategy that works for me is my one step philosophy; take one simple step or action to reduce/solve/understand the worry you have... That's it! My strategy...

As an example of how this can work, I'll use this particular blog article as an example, I've now posted three or four blogs over the last month and now I'm suffering from writers block. I'm a day or two late even posting another blog and it was niggling at me, so 15 minutes ago I sat down at the table while waiting for Joey to cook my dinner and stated that all I'll do is start with one sentence...15 minutes later I had somehow created this article, read it to Joey and made some minor grammatical adjustments ... Result, I feel complete, the anxiety has gone, dinner is ready and I'm proud of my first draft (you're reading the edited version now).

 

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Does slow equal safe?

 

I once heard an Asian woman describe herself as a safe driver and justifyed this position by her slow driving behaviour... interestingly her naive evaluation of herself is a beautiful example of how wrong our seemingly logical first conclusions can be. Now, lets ask this same question of a driving instructor, they'll give you a different answer. The instructor will explain that speed has little bearing on the quality of a driver pointing out experience, natural driving talent and the ability to quickly ascertain a situation to take the appropriate action are better determinates of a safe driver.

This same phenomenon has been explored by the award winning author Malcolm Gladwell in his book Blink, where he observed that individuals ONLY in their field of expertise can make very accurate decisions in the blink of an eye.

So what is it that you're constantly expounding about and just how qualified in this field are you to make accurate and valid decisions??

 

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Become paperless with Remarks

Want to become paperless, sick of taking note paper with you?

Ok here is the best note taking app I've used...

I've been able to eliminate paper note books with the only thing that I need is my iPad. At meetings I take hand written notes that can be saved, emailed to work mates and draw diagrams to explain concepts!

Working in multiple places I always ended up leaving my notes and files in another place, well no more!

1. You can mark up PDFs and fill in PDF forms
2. Draw or take a note just like you do on paper and with one easy button press email it away.
3. Start new notes fast and easy
4. Sync the notes in your Dropbox

I've tried, noteshelf, notability, penultimate, tapose, skitch, the notes that came with the iPad and a few drawing apps but this is the best so give it a Whirl remarks

Education in New Zealand

Are we doing a good job of educating our children? if you listen to the media and certain politicians you would be lead to believe that our educations system is failing and in dire need of attention. My experience as a parent, board of trustee and mentor with big brothers big sisters would differ. I do not believe that our system is perfect but to make blanket statements that our education system is failing is not helpful. When I observe most of the teachers teaching, and the various people at the school attending to the children, I see very committed and passionate professionals doing a great job.

What would be helpful would be a more supportive community. To drive my point home I would like to firstly define what I mean by community, it involves everyone both as individual citizens and secondly as business owners, teachers, professionals, trades people, politicians and volunteers in charities. As a community citizen we could step up and with personal evolvement at our local school, maybe you're retired and could assist with metal class or turn up and mentor an at risk child, maybe we could lobby government to consider establishing a ministry of children and de establish the ministry of racing! And secondly as professionals, business owners, skilled workers and leaders we could be encouraged to share our good fortune and resources to maintain & tool our already high quality teaching profession.

In summary until we all take responsibility for our children and their well being placing them higher than whales, money, and horse racing we won't see much change other than political tinkering. Thank goodness that the National party last week backed down from their thinly valed effort to cut costs.

 

Stay on mission with Week Cal

This is my first blog attempting to share the beauty and experience of the iPad and the iPhone.

I've now had an iPhone for over 12 months, a 4s for six months and an iPad for a month tested and used over 250 different apps and become reliant on the technology every single day. This has lead me to decide to blog on a regular basis to assist those that enjoy the iPhone and iPad to be more productive and have more fun! 

Week Cal

 

I've decided to rave about this app first, it's the one I've used the longest, has stayed in my main menu since first bought it and use many times aday.

 

Now being a very busy person, with three kids a wife, a cycling addiction and a small business dealing with many clients, I needed a system that organised my time in a graphical manner (see the image) and that could sync with my google calendar without fail. It had to be very reliable and easy to put new calendar entries into as there is very little patience with time tardiness in my industry.

 

Week-cals strength is in three areas, the templates that assist with very fast new entries, the week view and finally the colour coding making it easy to see important meetings on a small screen. The rest of the calendar functions a what you would expect with good calendar, but these features I could not find anywhere else on the app store. Testimony to the quality of the app is that even with a bigger iPad and a computer I still reach for the iPhone with week-cal.