Attract More Visitors

An "Emergency Response" approach might be what's needed re: quick Social Media responses to real world and online faux pas.

Critical to get Info out fast

Having been involved in an Emergency Response Strike Team while at UNOCAL, a global energy resources ("Big Oil") company,  we knew that it's critical to get accurate information out to the media/public as quickly as possible.

With Domino's Pizza's social media problem hitting the web as well as the traditional news sources within the last week it seemed timely to offer a possible solution for future events like this.

Brief Background of Domino's Situation

Some Domino's employees filmed several YouTube videos which showed them treating pizzas/food at Domino's in ways that would cause great shock and distaste for Domino's customers.  This shock could lead to reduced sales as Domino's customers may wonder whether this was an isolated event, or is widespread throughout their company's locations and employees. Domino's didn't respond to the videos right away, taking a "wait and see" attitude at first.  This allowed the situation to play out online, particularly on Twitter.

For more detailed info and links to the now-pulled videos see the Consumerist's post: Domino's Rogue Employees Do Disgusting Things To The Food, Put It On YouTube.  Since then Domino's president has made/uploaded an apology video to YouTube.

Major Problems

• Was the response in Social Media quick enough?
• Was the YouTube video apology accepted as being a genuine apology?

Result

This entire scenario certainly caused a "brand emergency" and could cause a "brand disaster" for Domino's.

What's Needed: A Different Mind-set

With other company's having similar problems, e.g., JetBlue's runway fiasco awhile back, it might be helpful if companies considered an entirely different way of responding which would require a different mind-set:

Consider what happened as the worst possible event possible for your company, product(s), and brand.  Then act...fast!  And take action where your customers are likely to be/read/interact with their news (e.g., Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, or where-ever your customers are likely to be engaged at).

Take a Lesson from the Emergency Response PR Guidelines of an Oil Company

Here's an excerpt from BTC Pipeline Company's Oil Spill Response Plan - Azerbaijan:

"Oil spills are typically highly visible events and will generate public interest and concern.  The media and the public will base their opinions on information that is available to them.  It is important that they have access to factual and timely information.  It is well documented that refusal to talk to the media during a crisis situation creates the assumption that some wrongdoing has taken place.  If BCT does not provide accurate and timely information, reporters will obtain their information from potentially unreliable sources or those who can only speculate on actual events or actions. A "no comment" position can adversely affect BTC's reputation as a responsible corporate citizen, and could result in restrictive legislation that could affect both BTC and others in the industry. It is BTC's policy to cooperate with the media and make timely, accurate information available to the public."

This was written in 2005, well before the recent social media explosion.  But its possible application to bad web PR situations is crystal clear: Get ahead of the situation and respond - respond as quickly and as well as you can.

10 Brief Guidelines for Social Media Emergency Responses

1. Get a response out as quickly as possible.
2. At a minimum, respond in the venue the original SM Emergency occurred in, e.g., YouTube.
3. Then consider other social media venues your customers may frequent and consider creating information streams of communication in them, e.g., Twitter.
4. Get your CEO/President out in front of the situation...and do it in a believable way (minus points for not looking into the camera and talking to us).
5. Continue monitoring the situation and communicating with your customers.
6. Consider ways to put your customers at ease.
7. Consider ways to win your customers back (rewards, etc.).
8. Be truthful and transparent throughout this process.
9. Mean what you say.
10. Do what you mean.

10 Necessary Actions BEFORE Brand Emergencies/Disasters

1. Do Reputation Monitoring.
2. Monitor the web re: your company name, product(s), brand(s), and principals/executives.
3. Do Scenario Planning and Risk Assessments for everything you can imagine...and more.
4. Consider "what if's" for likely as well as unlikely situations.
5. Definitely consider scenarios for the worst possible situations.
6. If you already have disaster scenarios you've created in the past, dust them off, and make them current given new/currently available communications methods.
7. Assume that the walls of all of your facilities, file cabinets, hard drives, servers, and "cloud computing" are transparent.
8. Revise your social media emergency response plans accordingly.
9. Do SWOT analyses for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats for your company and each of its subsidiaries, products, brands, as well as for your competitors.
10. Rinse and repeat (start at #1 again as this is an ongoing process).

Bottom Line

Ideally you want visitors and customers to be attracted to your website and online presences (Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, etc.) in the best of circumstances so they will have the best possible impressions of your company, brand, products, etc.

Cold dose of Reality: Life isn't always Ideal, so be prepared for the worst and act accordingly. And most of all act quickly!

Your visitors and customers are probably more than willing to meet you half-way, but the burden is on your company and all of your employees to let them know what's going on (create quick communication streams, e.g. via Twitter), what you're doing to solve it (currently), how/why this will never happen again, and how you'd like to form/continue the relationship with them (communication and enticement-wise).

Are you Clean with that? - Part II

In Part I of "Why Internet Marketing is Like a Disney Cruise - Are you Clean with that?" I mentioned the hand sanitizers used on Disney Cruises in all of their places to eat. Since we went on our cruise a number of supermarkets have also placed moist hand wipes at their front entrances. Now every time you go to the store you have an opportunity to think about your internet marketing techniques / methods / practices and think "Are you clean with that?".

8 Tests for Clean Marketing

1. Can you sleep at night? - "Sleep like a baby"? (soundly, peacefully).
2. Or are you kept up at night worrying?
3. Would you be OK with your marketing methods if your Mother read about them in an exposé on the front page of the New York Times?
4. Do you get a little queasy feeling in the pit of your stomach when you think about your marketing techniques?
5. Do your Friends ask you questions like, "What happened to you, you always used to be so (insert any nice wholesome word/concept here)?
6. Could words like bill of goods, cheat, con, deceit, deception, delusion, dishonest, double-dealing, evasion, exaggeration (huge), falsehood, fraud, hype, illusion, lie, misleading, misrepresentation, overstatement (gross), pretense, scam, scheme, shell game, snake oil, snow job, subterfuge, etc. be associated with your internet marketing techniques?
7. Would you use the same marketing methods on your friends or family. (The ones you like, that is).
8. If someone used the same marketing method on you, would you feel tricked or played for a sucker. Again, the "Golden Rule".

Solutions: "Faith, Trust, And Pixie Dust"

1. Clarity and transparency - it's as simple (and clean) as that.
2. If you can explain your internet marketing methods to a child or to the hero of a child (e.g., Mickey Mouse, Tinker Bell, Sleeping Beauty, Lilo [not Stitch!]) and they're ok with them, then you're probably OK.
3. Being open and honest with your visitors and customers will give them a reason to believe in you, and your methods, and your site - a reason to have faith in you and trust you, your business, and your website/blog/podcast.
4. Building trust through the words you use and living up to them with follow-through.
5. Building trust by using trust badges/symbols, etc. where a visitor would want them to be.  E.g., Better Business Bureau, Association logos, Visa/MasterCard badges (when purchasing), etc.
6. Building trust through real Testimonials/Reviews.  People can spot bogus testimonials. Remember what your Mom said, "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is."
7. Using persuasion instead of delusion or confusion. Be conscious of when you begin using internet marketing hype instead of a persuasive argument.
8. Pixie dust: It's ok to have add a little magic - some zing. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) seems like magic, but it works. So a little "white hat" SEO (the good SEO) is fine. Especially since these techniques are no more than what Google recommends so it can serve-up more targeted search results to its customers (searchers). You're just helping Google's customers find what they're truly looking for better.

Bottom Line: Add content and value - true value - and market them as straightforwardly as possible.

Morality Screed versus "What Just Makes Sense" and the Law

You might be thinking that this is just a heavy-handed moral screed, but really it's a plea to consider how your marketing efforts are viewed by those who encounter them, your potential customers.  Then turn it around and think (deep down), "Do I want to be marketed to that way?" and that should be your answer.

But if that's not enough, "It's the Law" as outlined by the United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC): Advertising and Marketing on the Internet: Rules of the Road:

"The Federal Trade Commission Act allows the FTC to act in the interest of all consumers to prevent deceptive and unfair acts or practices. In interpreting Section 5 of the Act, the Commission has determined that a representation, omission or practice is deceptive if it is likely to:

• mislead consumers and
• affect consumers' behavior or decisions about the product or service."

Also there's a special section on "Testimonials and Endorsements".
See FTC Guides Concerning Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.

Hope this helps!

Take care & hope you're internet marketing is a great success,

Karl

Comments?

Got one?   Think I'm off-track...or not - just let me know below.

But if you like this for whatever reason, then "Tell A Friend" below.

Everything I need to know about Internet Marketing, I learned on a Disney Cruise: "Faith, Trust, and Pixie Dust".  Are you "clean with that"? (more on this below...)

Cleanest Hands in the World

Clean hands make a healthy voyage.  Every time you eat on a Disney Cruise, you're given moist hand wipes before you're allowed in the dining facility.  One of the comedians on the cruise joked that "We have the cleanest hands in the world."

I'm "Clean With That"

When I used to work for a Big Oil company (I mean large global energy resources corporation), one of my co-workers used to rate decisions and/or courses of actions by saying, "I'm clean with that."  This is like saying, "I'm OK with that," but far more positively.

Clean Marketing

Similar to these two examples, if we can be "clean" with the methods of Marketing we use, then we can feel good about what we're doing.  I think this spirit of positivity carries over to the people we're attracting to our web sites and creating relationships with.  If we're genuine about our intent then people will sense this and naturally be more predisposed to purchase at our web site.

"Mud People" versus The Golden Rule

Conversely, I remember hearing a professional speaker refer to the members of his audiences as "mud people".  These were people he felt were stuck in the mud in their lives and needed his hand (techniques) to help pull them out.

This is wrong on so many levels.  Once you start thinking of your potential visitors or customers as "marks" (easy marks), as they say in the carnival business, then clearly you've lost all respect for them. As always, the time-honored test is, "Would I want to be thought of that way?"

• As the Golden Rule says: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."
• "The ethic of reciprocity (also known as the Golden Rule) is an ethical code that states one has a right to just treatment, and a responsibility to ensure justice for others." - Wikipedia

If you would not want to be thought of that way, then steer a straight course for a journey to internet marketing success you can be "clean" with.

More on this is Part 2: Why Internet Marketing is Like a Disney Cruise - Part 2

Wishing you the best online marketing success,

Karl

PS: Have a Comment on this?  Or are you "clean with that"?

Last night I spoke to Mark Stern's Ethics in Marketing & Advertising class at UCLA extension on "The Importance of Ethics in Social Media in Marketing and Advertising" and I just wanted to share the slides with you in Slideshare:

Slideshare

The other thing that's cool about sharing these slides with you via SlideShare is that I can embed them (above) or get a Widget and install it in my sidebar (see the right column under "Technorati Favorites" above the Global Translator flags).

Creative Commons License

What's also great is that you can use a Creative Commons Attribution license to "...let others copy, distribute, display, and perform your copyrighted work — and derivative works based upon it — but only if they give credit the way you request."  This way others can use your PowerPoint presentation, or parts of it, but they need to credit/attribute it to you.

Online Marketing & Social Media

Slideshare is another great social media tool for sharing information with others, so they get the info they need and then they can share it with others, who can share it with others...

Descriptive Tags

Not only that, but you can include many tags describing your slideshow when you upload your slides. This way your slides can be found easily on Slideshow, but better than that, they'll be indexed by Google and easily findable in Google searches.

Google Juice

In fact, my slideshow was already #1 in the Google rankings and I only uploaded it 1 hour ago - and I ate lunch in between! See image below...

That's great Google Juice!

Thanks Slideshare!

SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

Of course this makes sense since Google tries to provide fresh valuable content from reliable sources/authors to it's customers: Web Searchers.

So this is just good SEO (Search Engine Optimization) as well as using great tools like Slideshare.

And of course I used the "Mother-of-All" long tail Google searches too (see below & image):

The Importance of Ethics in Social Media in Marketing and Advertising

The Importance of Ethics in Social Media in Marketing & Advertising

Comments?

Have a Comment? Do you have other great ways to get Google Juice? If so, let me know...

11 Quick Questions for Podcasts

This is Part III of a series of posts on evaluating/improving websites, blogs, and now podcasts.

First, you should know that I'm a great fan of podcasts and listen to as many as I can, as often as I can. I've learned so much from you that I'm really in your debt. Now I'd like to "give back" in the form of some constructive feedback to help improve your podcast.

One thing to keep in mind when reading this post: If "audio is 70 percent of video" then audio is 100 percent of an audio podcast.  And of course I'm not referring to the content of the podcast which is a completely different subject.

So when I pose the questions below, just know that I want your podcast to be the best that it can be so you can attract more listeners and be more successful.

Since Podcasters often have blogs for their show notes, you should take a look at the 10 Quick Questions for Evaluating your Website -- Part II and then consider these questions:

1. Is the ultimate* volume of your podcast recordings high enough?
   * Where "ultimate" is podcast player software (e.g., iTunes or Windows Media Player) set to maximum volume and the device (iPhone, mobile phone, MP3 player, PDA) set to maximum volume.
2. Ask yourself: "Who are my Customers and Why do they Buy?" as my co-instructor at UCLA Extension, Beverly Macy, is fond of saying. Applied to podcasting: Think of it this way, where might your typical listeners (consumers) listen to (consume) your podcast)?
3. Is it somewhere like the gym, where there's lots of noise pollution from TV's, loud mobile-talkers, loud talkers, clanging weights, and whooshing flywheels? Or is it on a walk, where there's the sound of cars/traffic, street sweepers, garbage trucks, etc.?
4. What device/software will they listen with? (some devices/softwares have maximum volumes that aren't loud enough to compensate for the factors mentioned above).
5. Is your lead-in bumper music or big-voice announcer promo much louder than your voice so the listener needs to turn the volume up to hear you? Or is it smoothly equalized? After all, you'd hate to be compared to traditional media advertisements with loud ads and soft programming, right?). Similarly, does the podsafe music at the end of your podcast have a big bump in volume?
6. Are your guest interview calls and/or call-in questions (on or off-line) equalized so that one is barely audible and the other is much louder?
7. Do you have show notes with links so listeners who can't write while listening (e.g., driving) can still access your valuable content?
8. Do you have transcripts of your podcasts?
   
   Tip: One no-cost way to do this is to use another microphone (e.g., a headset mic) and route it to another computer with built-in (free) voice/speech recognition (e.g., Windows XP or Vista) software so your words will be automatically typed into Microsoft Word (or OneNote) as you speak. Of course, currently this only works well if there's one person speaking. See these resources for more on this:
   Audio transcriptions and annotations with OneNote
   How to transcribe any audio on your PC
   - And you can just use MS-WORD instead of OneNote.
   - Assuming you'd like a free solution, rather than buying Dragon Naturally Speaking, of course.
9. If you do a video podcast do you offer an MP3 version as well for those who are just listening to your podcasts versus watching them? This is the value-added podcast equivalent of giving a CD (with MP3 files) in addition to a DVD, if you sell DVDs).
10. If your listeners subscribe to your RSS feed and download/synchronize your Audio podcasts to their devices, do you try to avoid inserting a long (large file size) Videocast which might blow-out their storage/memory when they auto-sync their feeds to their devices (Yikes!)?
11. Do you have some sort of consistent naming convention for your file names so your podcast will make sense when viewed in music player or File Explorer? E.g., an acronym/abbreviation for the name of your podcast, podcast number, the date, and a brief title.
    The reason for having the podcast number and a title is that depending on how someone's viewing the filename (music player or File Explorer) they should be able to easily differentiate which they've listened to versus which are new (since they may not remember which # they listened to last/before).

And I know it's easier said than done for some of these things like equalization. But just try to think of these points from your customer's perspective and what will draw more people to your podcast so you can grow the number of your listeners and retain more of them.

For some ideas/programs to help with equalization see Segment #3 of  the show notes (or listen to) the eMarketing Talk Show --> "Podcasting 101: Understanding the Basics & Getting Started".

~~~

Have any questions, comments, or tips of your own for evaluating podcasts? If so, please leave a comment...

~~~

Prior post (Part II): 10 Quick Questions for Evaluating your Website -- Part II.

With a New Year and a sense of there being a new outlook in the world, it's a good time to think how your website/blog/podcast is doing. While the Presidential Inaugural parade was today in Washington DC, we can also look at the recent Rose Parade on New Year's day in Pasadena for some guidance on website design and strategy.

Design, Planning, Functionality, and Theme

Looking at the before and after pictures of NAMM's* "Musical Extravaganza" float which was designed to coincide with the Rose Parade's "Hats Off to Entertainment" theme you can see that a lot of work and planning goes into creating a pleasing yet functional float. And it must have been pleasing because it won the President's Trophy.
* National Association of Music Merchants

Big Bird float - BEFORE

Big Bird float - AFTER

Before and After

This wasn't just random - the float was entirely conceptualized and planned out before it was built (structurally) and the flowers were glued on. You can see the scaffolding used to build the structure in the Before photo (on the left) and the final flower-decorated float in the After photo (on the right).

Blind Evolution versus a single Objective

But many websites have grown-up (evolved?) from initial ideas/concepts into something which might be quite different from what they originally began as.  These websites (yours?) weren't tightly themed, planned, and constructed with a sole purpose for a particular effect or goal (e.g., winning the President's Trophy).

"Now" is the Time to Step-Back and Evaluate your Site

No matter how your website got to where it is, now is a great time to step-back and evaluate it (or re-evaluate it). One way not to do this is to let your body go all limp, squint your eyes, and stare at your website for x minutes (like a "magic picture").

Ways to Evaluate (and Improve) your Site

Ok, so if that isn't the way to evaluate your site, then what is? One way would be to find a handful of brutally-honest friends and ask them what they think. A variation on this would be to find a handful of strangers and ask them what they think. The difference being that you'd have to reward the strangers in some way (free ____, pay them, etc.). Or you could simply evaluate it yourself by answering some questions or using a checklist.

See my next post for "10 Quick Questions for Evaluating your Website", or see free 77 Tip Checklist (77 Great Tips of Internet Marketing) (at top-right of web page) for a more complete checklist.

~~~

Have any questions, comments, or tips of your own for evaluating websites? If so, please leave a comment...

~~~

Next Post: Part II: 10 Quick Questions for Evaluating your Website
Next Next Post: Part III: Quick Questions for Podcasts

Asking these 7 Questions can leverage brand slogan marketing and keyword optimization to attract and satisfy visitors to your website, just as Costa Rica uses "Pura Vida" (Good Life) to attract and satisfy tourists to their country.

Blog Post re: Costa Rica's Brand Slogan

Satisfying visitors helps create customers and success for countries as well as websites. Just as satisfied tourists (customers) tend to re-visit countries, your website can flourish too.

Just in case you missed these points in my last post ( Pura Vida - Good Life - and your Visitors ) I wanted to highlight them for you:

Leveraging Keyword Optimization

Part I showed an Example about optimizing keywords in brand slogans/taglines/mottos: What Keyword Research showed about Life (Good vs. Great). What a difference a single word can make!

Leveraging Brand Slogan Marketing and Keyword Optimization

Part II of the post had a list of 7 questions which can leverage your company's brand slogan for your website's success: Part II: Attracting Visitors with the Principles of Pura Vida (Good Life).

The 7 Questions are summarized* here:

• Does your company have a tagline or motto and are you putting it everywhere and on everything?

• Are you using the best/optimized keyword terms to attract visitors to your website, e.g., "good" vs. "great"?

• Are you satisfying people's needs on your website?

• Is your website and are your employees "talking the talk and walking the walk"?

• Can your employees or customer service "make lemonade out of lemons", e.g., turning terrible roads into massages?

• Does your site make what people want or need easy to find, e.g., "eco-tour" signs being everywhere, appealing to the youthful environmentally-conscious traveler demographic?

• Is the spirit of your brand "lived" (portrayed) on every part of your website and by your personnel and consistently used in every/all places it makes sense to?

* For more information see Part II: Attracting Visitors with the Principles of Pura Vida (Good Life), or the entire post: Pura Vida - Good Life - and your Visitors.

Comments/Questions? - Just let me know...