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Brandon Carter |
| Dude, where's my jellybeans? |
| 2008.12.12 07:07:23 | |
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Don't you get frustrated when you plop down $5 for a box of candy at the movies only to get back to your seat, open the box and find that the dang thing is only half full? Potato chips pull this prank all the time. Being the cheapest person on the face of the earth, I actually have a method for feeling around on bags of chips to be able to tell which one is the most full. You'll never find a bag more than 3/4 of the way full. It's a fact of life. Now jellybeans have joined the fray. Someone brought in a box of jellybeans as a treat for Sproutians (who, in all honesty, don't need more treats). It was a big honkin' box from a leading jellybean company. Delicious. Compare the actual beans to the box in which they came.  Dude, where's my jellybeans? The amount of beans is about 1/3 the size of the box. I don't think there's a law against this, but it strikes me as a total breakdown of a promise. Not to mention a total waste of materials. Are your customers getting what they think they are when they fork over their dollars? Or are you charging them for a big ole box, when all they want is jellybeans?
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| The Importance of Being Trustworthy |
| 2008.11.13 23:39:45 | |
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Madness erupted on Twitter last night, as the latest cool "app," Twitterank, was suddenly accused of being a simple password swiping scheme. Over the past 48 hours, thousands of people were Tweeting the same message: my Twitterank is 101.54!
Each one of those thousands of users freely gave out their username and password to the site. In exchange, the site uses some complicated algorithm (or not, maybe it's entirely random) and out pops a rating. Then around 3 p.m. or so, Mountain Time, PANIC broke out.  Within minutes, similar messages were everywhere. This is the online equivalent of an angry, confused mob. ZDnet jumped in, along with dozens of other legitimate news sources. News is breaking out this morning that it really isn't a scam at all. Regardless, I think there are a couple lessons here. 1. Twitter people need to be a lot more careful about their passwords. A lot of them use the same passwords across multiple sites. If the Twitterank person wanted, he could be posting to your blog while ordering expensive popcorn with your credit card. 2. How trustworthy is your brand? Do people have confidence in coming to your site that if they share personal information, it'll be protected? It took eBay and Amazon years to get to this point; they were the pioneers. There are tons of sites that do e-commerce now, thanks to Amazon. Then you look at the Twitterank site; does it instill confidence? Kind of reminds me of an old Yahoo! Geocities page. Sure, he did it late one night for kicks, and he SAYS he won't take your password... Apparently this was good enough for tons of people. But I bet they're rethinking that today. Tags:
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| Unintentional Corporate Nudity |
| 2008.08.21 06:27:53 | |
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Web 2.0, besides being one of the most overused and misunderstood terms in recent memory, is an ever-evolving swarm of humanity all connecting and accomplishing things we couldn't have dreamed of while waiting for AOL dial-up to connect at a blazing 14.4k 12 years ago. It truly has changed the world, mostly for the better. The folks who are most atwitter about it (pun intended) are Web marketing folks and PR types. It changes everything for us with a million new ways of reaching our target audiences. But there is a price for this glorious new day, and I like to call it corporate nudity. This is a little different than Robert Scoble's notion of "Naked Conversations." Unitentional corporate nudity is more like, "Don't get de-pantsed." Some real-life examples I've had to deal with in past roles include: -If your product is perceived as crap - right or wrong - the word will spread virally very quickly. Forget your corporate messaging on this one, once word gets out you're exposed, and it will affect your targets. -Google can find even the most obscure information. Remember your CEO's DUI? Of course not, it was before he came in to the company. But Google remembers it and someone will find it. Know what's our there and be prepared to message to it. If it's significant enough, be proactive about it. -Cameras are everywhere and videos can be spread to the universe through YouTube in a matter of seconds. That video of your product bursting into flames? 100,000 Digg users just saw that and are now ripping you to shreds. There's no excuse for not knowing how your product will behave even in the most bizarre situations. Sounds obvious, but check the national product recalls database to see just how many companies miss this idea. Web 2.0 has been and will be a big opportunity for marketers, but if you don't approach it right, you'll be standing in front of the classroom without your trousers. Know your company, your product and especially your market. Hard work, but better than being out of business. Tags: PR | Digg | Youtube | web 2.0 | Public Relations | Web | Web Marketing Hits: 264 | Read more... |
| Stiff Social Networking |
| 2008.06.20 02:06:27 | |
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There was one major problem: his profile was crap. Instead of making something personable yet professional to enhance his own brand, he made the page into one big advertisement for his company's product. The profile was under his name, but no traces of him were to be found. Instead, it was pictures of and sales pitches for his wares. Why would anyone connect to that? It'd be like volunteering yourself for spam. "Wow, I want to be friends with this person who is apparently a screen shot of a hosted accounting compliance application!" There are valuable business opportunities to be found on sites like MySpace and Facebook but you can't be a used car salesman. Create a profile or group for your business and pimp your products there. Your personal profile needs to be just that: personal. Let them buy into you first, then show them what you do. And no, the picture of you looking like a stiff in the suit and tie doesn't need to be there either. Show a little personality! Some good examples of Utah CEOs with friendly, personal profiles:
Tags: web 2.0 | Web | PR | CEO | Facebook | LinkedIn | Twitter | Utah CEO | Web Marketing Hits: 682 | Read more... |
