Alberta Business Marketing

One question.  That is all it took to meet a very special person and to open up what has the potential of becoming a wonderful friendship and a mutual win-win business relationship.

I met Christine in Calgary’s Maple Leaf Lounge.  Christine is a serial entrepreneur and runs a software company that provides accurate calorie counts for restaurant owners, chefs and those involved in the restaurant industry.  After a brief discussion about her industry and a number of emails with Christine throughout the day I learned that in California and New York state have mandate this from all restaurant owners and Ontario is thinking about it.

It simply took a question and someone who understands how everyone is connected.  The world is truly an awesome place and all it takes is to ask one question.

Are you reaching out to others around you or are you the type who keeps to him or herself?

I have to be very open here.  At one time I used to be very open to the type of activity that occurred yesterday, one day I flicked a switch and became a bit more closed off…well, time to change that.  Last evening David and I travelled to Santa Monica, California for dinner on Muscle Beach and the Santa Monica Pier.  We are in California this week for some very important meetings with partner of Ulistic.   The last time I was here I enjoyed lunch at a great mexican restaurant where two strangers simply sat down and enjoyed lunch with me.  It turned out to be a very informative lunch…one of the guys worked in the IT department with Boeing.

In our online world many of us have scores of friends and followers who we don’t really know.  What would happen if we simply reached out to people online as well?  What would happen if we focused on the needs to those in Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter?  Would it make the world a better place?  Would it help you in the long run?

Note:  Christine was from Saskatchewan…

Here is something else about my getting to know Christine…I know people in the restaurant business in Calgary…do you think I was able to introduce her to a few of those I know?

Tags: Calgary, California, Facebook Inc, LinkedIn Ltd, Muscle Beach, online world, Santa Monica, Santa Monica Pier, Stuart's ramblings, The Boeing Company, Twitter Inc
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Being a small business owner and working in our vibrant Calgary market is truly exciting.  I can’t think of any other market that I would want to own a business in.  My friends at SOHO came through Calgary on June 2nd for their annual trade show and conference.  The Small Office, Home Office event is one of the must attends for Calgary and area small business.  Ulistic had the pleasure of sponsoring this year’s event, sharing our story as an exhibitor and also being the closing speaker.

It was great to be the closing speaker. jokingly we said that Ulistic was the headliner for the 2010 SOHO event.   I spoke on “The New CRM – Managing Your Reputation Online Is CRUCIAL“.  It was a talk on what small business can do to monitor their reputation online.  Reputation Management is very important for business especially when it is so easy for business to fall victim to a malicious person or an upset customer who turns to the web to voice their frustration or seek their attention they crave.  For a great example, see what happened to a friend of mine recently on LinkedIn.

There are a number of key reputation management tips that small business in Calgary must do in aiding to help keep on top of their reputation online.  During my presentation I really only scratched the surface simply because online reputation management can be such a deep subject.  Only so much a guy can cover in 40 minutes!   Here are a few immediate things your small business can do to watch what is being said about your business and many of them are FREE!

1. Check Yelp.com or Yelp.ca daily. Yelp is a service that allows reviews to be posted online about your business.  It is very easy for a customer to offer their praise about your business on Yelp.  I would check Yelp daily and engage when required.
2. Take ownership of your business on the Google Local Business Directory.  Google’s business directory is an online directory of businesses across the world.  Check to ensure you own your listing and when you do take ownership ensure you fill it out completely.
3. Setup alerts on Google Alerts and Social Oomph and monitor your company name, trademarks, brand names, key employees, competitors and anything else you wish to monitor.

It is too late if a prospect informs you about some negative talk online about your business.

Now is the time you take ownership on your online presence.

One of the folks in my session sent me this email…

Aside from gold medalist Carla Macleod you were the best public speaker of the bunch!

About SOHO

SOHO is an organization that empowers small business owners from all across Canada.   Moe and his crew come to Calgary annually to share their message to small business owners.  They are truly unique in what they do.  I can’t really think of any other organizations who have national coverage and also approach our vibrant community with integrity and service.  Kudos Moe…great job.  To learn more about SOHO visit their website at http://www.soho.ca.

Tags: Business, Business/Finance, Calgary, canada, closing speaker, Home Office, Immediate Records, LinkedIn Ltd, online presence, Online reputation management, reputation, reputation management, Small Office, Small office/home office, Soho, World Wide Web
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I am flowing a very interesting discussion on one of my LinkedIn groups which focuses on Social Media.  The question raised by one of our members was on “what makes or what qualifications does a social media administrator require?”  Interesting question since the person asking the question has a title of “Certified Social Media Strategist”.  I was shocked to hear that there is actually a program for a Certified Social Media Strategist.  It is provided by Social Media Academy.  Very interesting.

Back to the question at hand, what skills or requirements does a social media administrator need to have?

Does business acumen matter?

How about a marketing degree or equivalent career history?

What risks does your business take by having someone who doesn’t get it?

I believe that alignment with the overall marketing strategy of the business is crucial, social media doesn’t stand on its own for many companies.  It is very important but the company can’t rest everything on the modern tools of the day.  Most businesses today who are looking at or implementing social media are not dumping their existing or proven marketing or communication activities.  The successful organizations continue to send postcards, making phone calls and hosting meetings. Their social media activities play a supporting role in many of the activities of the corporation including marketing, corporate communications, customer support and forming strong business networks.

Alignment is critical to the overall success of social media into your business.  Does your social media administrator need to understand where they stand in the pecking order?

Social Media is just another spoke in the wheel of your business.

What about maturity, is this important? Would you rather have someone who has a proven track record in your industry or someone new.  Everyone has to start somewhere but when it comes to maturity I mean you don’t want to risk having someone, regardless of age, tweeting what they had for breakfast on your company Twitter account.

Is social media deeper than Facebook and Twitter? What is the depth of knowledge of your social media administrator?  Do they have press contacts or know where the industry or your clients go to research information?  Is your administrator’s depth of Social Media knowledge stop at Facebook or Twitter?

How about thinking out of the box? In other words, creativity!  Can your social media administrator come up with creative solutions to enhance your company’s reputation or ability to serve your clients better?

What about the size of their ears? Well, not physically.  Can they listen to what is going on around then.  What is happening in the marketplace?  How about understand what news Bloomberg is reporting and what it means to the organization.  Can they listen and then approach the leadership to formulate a response or plan to seize opportunities which may exist.

Lots of stuff to consider.

If you would like to engage with the Social Media group on LinkedIn and our discussion, click here.

Tags: administrator, Blog hosting services, Bloomberg L.P., Business/Finance, Certified Social Media Strategist, creative solutions, Facebook, Facebook Inc, linkedin, LinkedIn Ltd, Online social networking, Social information processing, Social Issues, social media, Social Media Academy, social media administrator, Social Media Strategist, Social Media Ventures Inc, The Facebook Era, Twitter, Twitter Inc, web 2.0, World Wide Web
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Hot off the presses…I pulled this off of some newswire stories today.

According to PCWorld’s Carrie-Ann Skinner, Facebook is reconsidering some it’s privacy settings after a backlash from their members.  Maybe not so many changes, but making privacy and controlling what others see in Facebook easier for the average user of Facebook.

Carrie-Ann included a quote from a Facebook representative in her article “We’re working on responding to these concerns. Watch this space”.  Privacy commissioners here in Canada and privacy groups in the UK have called Facebook privacy settings “unacceptable” and are on a rampage against the US-based social networking service.

Privacy specialists are lobbying Facebook for an opt-in vs. an opt-out policy for who sees what with your information on Facebook.  Some Facebook users are even threatening to take extreme action on May 31st, 2010 by deleting their accounts if Facebook doesn’t fix their privacy.  You can share your intention to quit Facebook by signing up on quitfacebookday.com.  Funny thing, according to Facebook, they added 10 million new users since the uproar on security first was reported.

Once again, I need to remind or caution you all that if you wouldn’t email a photo or even share it face-to-face with someone..then posting it on Facebook is also not a good idea.  When you elect to post something to any online service you must practice “sensibility”.  This goes for posting, sharing, status updates or anything that could be used against you.  Almost sounds like a court of law.

But, Facebook is just the whipping boy this month.  I still remember when Microsoft was the whipping boy for all the security holes in Windows…have we forgotten about Windows.  Next month or some time down the road it will be another program or social networks turn in the spotlight.  Maybe it is Twitter or LinkedIn’s turn next.

How can you test your Facebook privacy settings?

There is an answer for all of you who are concerned about your Facebook privacy settings and don’t understand how to lock everything down.  There is a great website and serve that does all the testing for you and ensures your Facebook account is properly secured.

Are you interested in testing and then ensuring your Facebook privacy settings are set correctly?

I stumbled across this interesting site today that helps you determine you level of privacy online.  Check out reclaimprivacy.org and test your online privacy. When you hit the reclaimprivacy.org site, read the instructions very carefully and run their tool against your Facebook privacy settings.  The service will offer up recommendations to tighten up your Facebook security and actually fix them for you.

Give it try to see if you have any privacy holes that need filling.

Tags: Blog software, canada, Carrie-Ann Skinner, Criticism of Facebook, Facebook, Facebook Beacon, Facebook Inc, Internet privacy, LinkedIn Ltd, Microsoft Corporation, Microsoft Windows, online privacy, online service, Online social networking, privacy, reclaimprivacy.org site, representative, Social information processing, social media, Social network service, social networking service, social networks, Technology/Internet, Twitter Inc, United Kingdom, web 2.0, World Wide Web
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LinkedIn is a wonderful resource to meet new people and keep up to date with what is happening out there.  While surfing through LInked, I ran across this awesome article in Robert Cohen’s Trusted Business Advisor LinkedIn Group. After reading some of the points in the group I felt  obliged to jump into the conversation on using email as a form of cold calling.  I haven’t had a tremendous amount of success with this practice and after reading the feedback in the group…I know why!

I would love to hear from you if you are using email to cold call people and if you are actually having success with it.  If you are having success, what are you doing?  What is working?

My friend Tibor Shanto wrote recently in a great blogpost on Email as a form of cold calling that you must check out.  It got me thinking about all the marketing folks out there who preach about the fact that Cold Calling is dead.  I don’t completely agree with the statement that you never have to cold call again.  However when your marketing efforts are firing on all cylinders you may have the opportunity to reduce the amount of cold calling you need to do.  Or even better, your strong marketing efforts will allow your business cold calling to be highly effective.  Why?  Because people have heard of you, they know about your business and now a cold call become lukewarm.

I heard a statement a few weeks ago about the difference between marketing and sales that really opened my eyes.  Effective marketing gets people to call you, sales has you calling people.  In Tibor’s article I guess we are not completely speaking about marketing and now we are focused on more sales related activities.  The two activities are always working in a successful business.  They can never stop or even slow down.  Plus, all members of your team must be engaged.

Tibor offers some great examples of how to use email effectively to create an opportunity for a meeting.  Where I believe I made my mistake using email to solicit opportunities is I forget the cardinal rule of the call or email…it is just to get a meeting, not to sell.  Thanks Tibor for the reminder.

Tags: Business, Business Success, cold calling, Direct Marketing, LinkedIn Ltd, robert cohen, sales, trusted business advisor
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