Introducing Customer Think

April 12, 2006 by Liz

Uh-oh I’ve Been Thinking Again

What happens when you cross thinking outside of the box with personal branding?

Customer Think–a series that takes Brand YOU outside the box to become Brand YOU & ME. We’ve let the world know who we really are and how to see the unique value we bring as individuals. It’s time that we do the same in return. We’ll be getting to know customers in a strategic, deep thinking way–from an outside-of-the-box, inside-of-the-customer perspective. So hang on.

You’ll be finding out plenty about customers, by finding out more about yourself. That’s the Brand YOU and ME part.

And just about everyone in our lives is a customer in some way, if you tilt your head to look at it from just the right angle. This isn’t your father’s business skills class, it’s life and business for the 21st century in that uniquely Liz way.

You know there will be nothing like it anywhere else.

Brand YOU and ME–can you think of a more natural way to promote your business, your brand, or yourself, than being able to think like your customers?

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Why Is Marianne Richmond Smiling?

April 11, 2006 by Liz

Janice Myint and her team at Technorati have put out a fire–Again!

I’ll let Marianne tell you the story. Technorati’s Janice Myint Scores Again!

Thanks to Janice and her team at Technorati Customer Service!

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Thinking Inside-Outside the SEO Sandbox

April 11, 2006 by Liz

Learning by Getting It Wrong

Remember your first web site or blog? You had to learn so much about coding and Search Engine Optimization. Bet you learned most of what you know now by doing–OJT, On the Job Training, otherwise known as getting it wrong and fixing it. Those were valuable experiences.

The thing about learning by getting it wrong is that you remember what you did. Tweaking a template and having your sidebar fall off is WAY more powerful than anyone telling you how not to code something.

As much as I wish that WordPress had an undo button, I know I’ve learned more because it doesn’t.

Think like a Search Engine

SEO folks think like Search Engines. They buy and read Aaron Wall’s SEO Book and its updates. They follow and discuss Matt Cutt’s blog, and the Google Blog–probably not this one, the Google Blog, but this one Google Research Blog–or maybe all of them. They check in at Yahoo’s Search Blog, MSN Search, and with other SEO hangouts, such as Search Engine Watch, Search Engine Round Table, and Threadwatch. So I do some of that–the first half at least.

But reading doesn’t help me half as much as doing does.

Thinking Inside-Outside the SEO Box

I’ve been searching out experiences to help me think like a search engine. I use my stats to watch how search engines route traffic to my blogs. Sometimes they hit right on the page that has the content being searched for. That’s not interesting. I expect that. They’ve invested powerful resources into research in doing that right.

Sometimes they hit right next to where they should. THAT I find puzzling and intriguing, especially when the page in question is tagged with the exact search term that was entered.

It happened again this morning. Someone searched for “nextsplogs.” The searcher was sent to the home page of Successful Blog rather than to the page called SOB Business Cafe 04-07-2006, where Nextsplogs actually appears twice–in the text and as a tag. Is it because the term is singular in one and capitalized in the other? Hmmmm. I wonder.

I don’t like things I don’t understand, and I want to understand this.

I’ve learned a lot from watching my stats, but this kind of thing my stats can’t help me crack.

Build Your Own Search Engine

Just when I was about to give up on my chance of knowing, along came this post from the MSN search weblog, Build Your Own Search Engine. I thought, here’s a way to learn by doing. It’s not an actual full-blown search engine–it’s search engine macros–and it’s an early BETA version. That suits me just fine, though. It gets my brain and hands in the process and I can even watch how the parameters have to be tweaked to work right. Just reading the comments about it, I can feel myself getting smarter.

Go on over. Take a look. It’s an inside-outside the box way to learn SEO.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
MSN and Microsoft Joint Research Venture
SEO The Secret Life of Search Engines
Check Google Backlinks Through Yahoo
SEOÃ¢â¬âThe Value of Outlinks to MY Blog

Great Find: 10 Reasons to Love Google Desktop

April 11, 2006 by Liz

Keith Dsouza and I shared some email this week about using Google Desktop. He’s an all-out customer evangelist, and he can give you 10 reasons why you should love it too.

Great Find: Top 10 reasons why you should love google desktop
Type of Article: Product Review
Permalink: http://www.keithdsouza.com/google-news/google/top-10-reasons-why-you-should-love-google-desktop.html
Target Audience: All internet users

Content: In this article, Keith Dsouza outlines 10 of his favorite reasons for using Google Desktop. I say favorite, because his writing is filled with such enthusiasm, I have no doubt that he could give you another ten, if you asked him. He also lets us in on a secret that–he’s developing a new plugin for it. Keith uses several plugins already–for Sidebar, Scratchpad, and Del.icio.us. He also uses a filter to keep his RSS feeds right there. If you’re thinking of using Google Desktop, Keith is the fellow you want to know. Click the screenshot to read about what he’s been doing with it. I’m sure that he’d help you, if you want to do some of the same things.

Thanks, Keith.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Bad Strategy Deserves Bad Poetry

April 10, 2006 by Liz

Bad Poetry Night on Successful Blog

If you’ve got some bring it over.

I’m watching more than one company do everything they can to tell their customer to go away. Too many companies leave today’s customer sitting alone, while they try to think up “strategies” that will bring them new ones.

S-T-R-A-T-E-G-I-Z-E

They said the latest thing
and I came to realize
This company couldnÃ¢â¬â¢t strategize
They chased trends
like fireflies

Like kids loose in a candy store
they search every candy drawer
and shake every magic door
pinning hopes on that one big score

They’re on the corner preaching
to customers who don’t their need teaching

They see the world with tiny eyes
and let their wishes hypnotize
They can’t even spell strategize

No wonder they always talk about customers with fear.

Strategy in the hands of those who can’t spell it is even worse than a really bad poem.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

5 Sure-Fire Ways to Break the Promise of Your Brand

April 10, 2006 by Liz

Brand YOU Common Sense

All of this Brand YOU conversation really does come down to common sense. In order to make a strong place for yourself in the world of business, you need to know yourself. You need to capitalize on your strengths and shore up your weaknesses, to find ways to let people know how you add value, and to think deeply so that you can speak to the unique assets that you bring to everything that you do.

Being able to do those things puts you ahead of most folks–if you keep the ideas in perspective–because most follks don’t quite understand the concept of brand versus product or store. Keep in mind your brand is a promise you make. Not everyone will take you up on it. Some will look for you to break that promise. One day, in some way, you probably will.

5 Ways to Break the Promise of Your Brand

Here are 5 sure-fire ways to break the promise of your personal brand.

1. Build a brand on what you wish you were instead of what you are. You’ve taken time to build a brand. You’ve gathered the attributes and strengths that you want people to see as yours. But they’re really just pipe dreams–wishes instead of realities. Your promise was made on false pretenses. People recognize soon enough when you’ve oversold yourself. They see it in what you can’t do. You not only lose your brand. You lose any credibility you might have had. It’s exponentially higher, if not impossible, to win back trust, than it is to earn trust you never had.

2. Crack under pressure. Sail along smoothly as a calm and charismatic leader until the chips get down, then lose it all and fall apart. It doesn’t matter whether you whine and shake, or yell and stammer. Lose your humanity, your leadership skills, your sense of humor and your brand is lost right with them. You broke your promise when it counts.

3. Change with the weather. A brand is a promise that you’ll always be there–you, the you that folks have come to know. Your coworkers and business relations don’t want to get to know you every time they meet you. They want a brand they can believe in. Consistency is a cornerstone of any brand. If you’re not consistent you don’t have a brand. Folks don’t make promises with the wind.

4. You don’t believe you. You know what you want to be, and in your heart you want to be it. You just don’t believe you ever will. If you don’t believe you, why in the world would I? It’s not good business to bet on a promise that starts with I’m not so sure, but I want to try.

5. You think Brand YOU is an entitlement. Whoa! Slow down cowboy. This isn’t a rodeo, and you don’t have the silver buckle yet. You see Brand YOU isn’t really about you at all. It’s about the customer, and the customer is every person who is NOT you–the folks you work with and those you serve. Brand YOU is merely a way of communicating to them what you stand for in shorthand so that you can get on to the relationship of working together with some common knowledge of each other as already established ground. The promise should be that you’re there for THEM.

Just like any broken promise, no personal brand at all is better than a broken personal brand.

Turning Brand YOU Upside-Down

Now that you’ve identified your personal brand and you know what it’s there for. It’s time to turn it upside-down. It’s time to add the most crucial part of it. ME–Well, me the customer. The customer is the reason you made a brand in the first place. The customer is the one who lets you know what your brand really is.

Now Brand YOU becomes Brand YOU & ME. Two is a lot more fun. Just wait I’ll show you why and how.

–ME “Liz” Strauss