Successful Blog

Steve’s Shorts: Twitter Influence and WC Privacy

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We Interrupt Regular Blogging for Steve’s Shorts

Take a simple few minutes where a guy who is brilliant makes an observation about the social web that you might have already be thinking. This interruption brought to you by the evil conspiracy that is Steve Plunkett and Liz Strauss.

What is Social Media Influence? (on Twitter it is..)
by Steve Plunkett.

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I post a link to an article, it gets Retweeted. They don’t ask where the link goes. They don’t ask what the article is about. They just retweet it, because in the past @steveplunkett has sent them to a favorable destination. There is inherent trust that it’s not a malware or virus link and credibility that they can pass the link on to their followers and not look stupid. so how is this influence? I never asked for a retweet, they were “natually influenced” to do so.

A Short Look at … What’s Next?

Hope you enjoyed these moments with Steve’s Shorts.

steve_plunkett

M/C/C’s Director, Search, Steve Plunkett, is responsible for all aspects of search engine optimization (SEO) and Internet user behavior. Plunkett’s competitive personality makes him a perfect fit in the competitive world of SEO. As a child and a gamer, he worked hard ensuring that it was his initials at the top of every arcade game unit in his neighborhood. Today, he uses SEO to ensure his clients appear at the top of the search engine results –and offers an array of optimization services that are scoring big for those clients.

I’m a proud affiliate of

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3 Key Strategies and 3 Crucial Insights to Growing Business on the Social Web

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What to Keep and What It Means Now

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At the Social Media Masters Summit, I spoke about three crucial business growth strategies.

  1. Make an irresistible offer. Remove things that customers don’t want. Enhance and expand what they love. Then find ways to add in extraordinary value that only you can provide.
  2. Grow products and services as you grow (and get to know) your customer base. Review. Revise. Repackage. Be on a continual cycle of offering something new for old customers and something revised or repackaged to new customers. Avoid dying by offering old product to old customers for too long. Avoid the huge risk and expense of building something new for a whole new market — dividing your resources while trying to attract people to something new.
  3. Value loyal customers. We never recover the lost of replacing one who deserts the fold. The loss of revenue over time is high and noticeable. When it is combined with the opportunity loss, the cost of acquiring a new customer, and the negative word of mouth (the average deserter tells three friends) the impact is huge.

I also spoke about three key insights we need to fully leverage the speed and reach of the social web …

  1. Solution is the new location. Once it was important to be at the corner of State and Main. Now it’s important to be at the top of a search engine when people type in a problem they’re looking to solve.
  2. The attention economy requires a clear message sent to a clearly defined customer group. The social web makes it easier to amplify our message and to reach out to the ideal customers and partners we want to attract. In geographically limited marketplace, we could claim to serve a less-clarified market, because the community was limited. The loss of limits leaves a lack of definition in a position to be entirely overlooked. The value proposition for a specific niche is what makes us different from all other competitor’s on the web.
  3. Narrowing a niche widens opportunity. Geography no longer limits our community and customer base. A clear narrow niche works like a laser beam to focus attention on what we offer and our best value proposition for the ideal customers that we’re trying to attract.
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No wonder the social web has become such a revolution. Once a brick and mortar store could count on a limited number ideal customers and be required to offer products and services beyond their needs to less ideal customers just to survive. The freedom of the Internet offers us an opportunity to choose the exact ideal customer base we want to serve. We can hone and tailor our products and offers to reach out with intention, knowing that the world market has far more customers of that description than any single geographic location ever could.

It’s the beauty of direct mail with out the cost of the catalogs … without the long development time between offers and seasons.

What businesses do you see demonstrating that they understand the reach of Internet? Not many I bet.
How are you leveraging the opportunity that the social web represents?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

I’m a proud affiliate of

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63% of the International Bees Awards Entries Are Big Brands

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San Francisco November 9, 2010 marks the first annual International Bees Awards in recognition to the best Social Media communications and marketing practices. I’m proud to serve as a member of the Iinternational Bees Awards jury. I’m also excited to report that

  • Every continent has submitted entries: Social media marketing is a worldwide phenomenon.
  • 14 of the 16 categories have received entries: Market sends the message that social media marketing goes way beyond creating a Facebook page.
  • 63% of all entries come from large brands: Large brands are embracing actively this new marketing approach on the Web.
  • 70% of all entries come from specialized agencies: Small/fast-growing agencies are making social media marketing their main expertise and as a result, seem to get the large client accounts.

Social media is still an emerging market and there are a lot of questions and curiosities revolving around this new medium. Upon submission, entires have the oppurtunity to become case studies for the international press. Entries are kept 100 % confidential unless stated otherwise.

Case studies that have been shared with the public come from Sweden, Japan, and Canada, showcasing campaigns for IKEA and Cirque du Soleil’s One Drop are shared on the Bees Awards Blog.

The professionalism behind the criteria for choosing the jury, the truly international focus, and the dedication to quality make this event one to keep an eye on.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

I’m a proud affiliate of

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Steve Shorts: ReTweets and Cranking on Gmail?

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Proud to Introduce you to Steve’s Shorts

A simple few minutes where a guy who is brilliant makes an observation about social media that you might have already been thinking. This column brought to you by the evil conspiracy that is Steve Plunkett and Liz Strauss.

Why I Don’t Thank for Retweet
by Steve Plunkett.

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When people say “Thanks for the RT,”, I always shoot back, “Thanks for the good info”.. I read it, I may have even blogged it. It was good info, so I passed it along, you don’t need to thank me for sharing and trusting your credibility. Believing in you enough to click on a link? That you earned anyways via engagement and professionalism. But you are welcome, again, thanks for the info. When you retweet me, you are saying “Thanks for the info”.

A Short Look at … What’s Next?

steve-crank-gmail

Hope you enjoyed these moments with Steve’s Shorts.

steve_plunkett

M/C/C’s Director, Search, Steve Plunkett, is responsible for all aspects of search engine optimization (SEO) and Internet user behavior. Plunkett’s competitive personality makes him a perfect fit in the competitive world of SEO. As a child and a gamer, he worked hard ensuring that it was his initials at the top of every arcade game unit in his neighborhood. Today, he uses SEO to ensure his clients appear at the top of the search engine results –and offers an array of optimization services that are scoring big for those clients.

I’m a proud affiliate of

third-tribe-marketing

Win Brand Loyalty and Get Free Word of Mouth at the Same Time

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Research proves that customer investment and word of mouth marketing are most effective business development initiatives any company can have to build a brand, to build sales, to build lasting value. It’s true that a word from a friend we trust makes a huge difference in what gets our attention.

Getting my attention doesn’t mean I’ll buy.

If you want me to buy your product or service, show me

  • how it makes my life smarter, faster, more efficient and you’ll win my thinking.
  • how it makes my life more fun, more entertaining, more meaningful and you’ll win my emotional investment.
  • how it seamlessly and easily integrates into my life and you’ll win my participation.

It’s the last one that most products and services leave out. Build a great product that’s meaningful or fun, but make it hard to get to, too expensive to buy into, or just plain something that doesn’t fit into what I already do — I might remark on it, but it’s unlikely that I’ll use my discretionary income to try it out. A chance at converting me into a loyal fan is a far stretch.

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If your product makes me feel smart, makes me feel better about myself, and fits easily into my already crowded life, chances are great that I’ll buy if I can. And if your product lives up to those promises, chances are even greater that I’ll be telling all of my friends. That’s free word of mouth from a new evangelist. And when I bring my friends back with me to try out your product the cycle will happen again.

How can you make what you’re offering fit more easily into your customer’s life?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

I’m a proud affiliate of

third-tribe-marketing

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33 Twitterers Answer: How Do You Recognize a LifeLong Friend?

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The LANGUAGE of SOCIAL MEDIA

Words have a deep effect on
how we interpret and interact with the world.
The words we use and how we define them
reveal our interests, concerns, and values.
This series explores the words of social media.

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friends

We meet people in all facets of our lives online and offline. We meet our online friends offline at gatherings, conferences and meetups. We invite people we know offline to connect with us at sites where we spend our time online as well.

People online and offline make up our communities and the networks that provide our learning and our support. We call these people our colleagues, our coworkers, our families, our acquaintances, our pals, buddies, BFFs and our friends. But occasionally some one in that community of people we reach out to bring closer a smaller group stands out because we begin to know they’re in for the longer haul.

We call those people friends for life. They are the people for whom we would drop everything and fly around the world to help solve their problem. They are the ones for whom we’re always ready to answer the 2 a.m. call.

Recently on Twitter, I asked this question … 33 people answered.

How do you know a lifelong friend when you meet one?

  1. @ashleykingsley
    The way yoiu can laugh together.
  2. @@inyourfacebook
    similar sense of humor/values
  3. @AbbieF
    immediate connection. If you have to ask might not be.
  4. @ashleykingsley
    The way yoiu can laugh together.
  5. @IsCool
    You don’t.
  6. @Chris_Eh_Young
    I imagine that would be a singularly self-evident revelation. 🙂
  7. @those2girls
    YUP RT @Chris_Eh_Young It’s something U feel.
  8. @cdnmortgage
    It really is! RT @Chris_Eh_Young: It’s something you feel.
  9. @Illig
    I imagine that would be a singularly self-evident revelation. 🙂
  10. @swoodruff
    I can sometimes intuit that level of connection when I meet someone. Lifelong friend status takes time.
  11. @mkohpotts
    the difference between a friend for life and a friend for now
  12. @ISLfinancial
    You don’t have to say one word but if you do – it is the right word!
  13. @Miss_Dazey
    You just know, Liz! 😉 // Sometimes you just know a good friend by the way she tweets or blogs.
  14. @EmmaLTaylor
    you don’t always know which is why you should give them a chance
  15. @rmclin
    When you are active in a relationship for life. The ones that are there for you when you need help unconditionally.
  16. @GlendaWH
    You just know, Liz! 😉
  17. @ScottMonty
    To me, it’s about being able to have differing views but with the same value system.
  18. @Joe Manna
    when you can call or txt them anytime and they’re there for you. (And vice-versa.)
  19. @asandford
    You never know if someone might be a forever friend. I try to treat every friend as if I’ll have them forever!
  20. @debng
    They don’t ask me who I’m with.
  21. @esgarg
    Intuition.
  22. @debmorello
    I think you just know. The give and take the same, values, the same?
    p.s. unconditional
  23. @tabarnhart
    it’s the secret handshake.
  24. @slines
    Some times u don’t have 2 meet them in person; u know they care
  25. @CateTV
    when they positively talk about/lift/promote someone else up other than themselves during first conversation w/o asking
  26. @mkohpotts
    I don’t know. I have been wrong enough.
  27. @morgetz
    It’s immediate recognition of friendship.
  28. @Briddick
    I think you just know. Esp when you can talk to someone for hours and it seems like time flies!
  29. @TimJackson
    sometimes you don’t- which is kinda wonderful. Sometimes it happens over time & w/o warning. Others- there’s a spark, like love. . . . and I have some lifelong friends who I’ve yet to ever meet in person- modern friendship is an amazingly bizarre blessing.
  30. @SuzeMuse
    I walk away with a smile on my face.
  31. @lyksumlikrish
    Easy. You can’t stop the conversation!
  32. @ReallyJeannie
    When it feels like a miracle.
  33. @JasonFalls
    The fact they give me $1000 … or an open mouth kiss. Heh.

Lifelong friendship is a bond of trust and loyalty. We communicate with our lifelong friends without the filters that make us stop to consider what they might be thinking about us. I am proud to follow all 33 of these folks on Twitter. @LizStrauss

I’ve made a TweepML list of 33 Twitterers Who Recognize a LifeLong Friend in case you want to follow them too.

How do you recognize a lifelong friend?

SEE ALSO:
What Is Social Media?
What Is Social Networking?

Got more to add? C’mon let’s talk.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!