Successful Blog

Epilogue: Motrin, Take Two and Don’t Wait ‘Til Morning

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The Headache Rx

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The folks on the Motrin team are suffering from a sefl-induced headache today. It was caused by being focused on the wrong things in their “WE FEEL YOUR PAIN” AD CAMPAIGN.

Now they’re at a crossroads where the social media sphere is watching for how they’ll respond. Will they apologize, explain, and move on? Will they love their ideas or love learning about their customers? Were I the healthcare practioner on this case, I’d suggest that they take two …

  1. Step away from the the clever ideas — build relationships not campaigns. Send out an actual human being to talk with your customers. They’re your heroes.
  2. Trust that human being, trust your customers, and give people every reason to trust you. Trust is the currency of lasting relationships.

Don’t wait until morning.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

Motrinmoms: The Spectacular Opportunity to Rise from a Colossal Mistake

5 Doorways to the Power of Social Networks

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Are You Networking More and Enjoying It Less?

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Anyone in social media can tell you the power of networking for individuals and businesses. Social networks can fuel personal growth and business development.

From Linkedin and Facebook to Twitter and Ning, the quality social networks that we build can guide us, protect us, and help us stay our course … if we let them know how.

We have the networks already or already started. Now we need to engage in open, equal, and active relationships that move us all toward success.

5 Doorways to the Power of Social Networks

One bane of small and solo business is the isolation that can be part of our business life. We can hire lawyers and accountants, trainers and guides, marketers and sales folks … well, maybe not all at one time. Even if we can outsource in every direction, we need to know that what folks are suggesting is right.

We’re building communities and networks that have the experience and expertise we need. The key is to get our networks working with us. Here are 5 ways to do just that.

  • Listen for doorways being opened.
    Rather than trying to pry new doors open, find the doors that people are holding open for you. Social media folks and great networkers are always opening doors. We ask what they need or what they they’re working on. Sometimes it’s a simple, “How’s business?” Sometimes it’s a more direct, “What can I do for you?” Once I started listening for open doors, I realized folks were opening doors for me every day.
  • Value compliments.
    Compliments are a way that people reach out in good faith. Accepting a compliment elevates you and your relationship with the person who gave it. You show that you value the giver and the information. Compliments open doorways to find out what people perceive as your strengths. Think about them dispassionately. Be sure you know what a compliment means. Follow up later to ask if you don’t.
  • Talk about what you’re doing.
    Listen first, but let people know your quest. Open a doorway to let people know what you’re doing, especially what you’re trying for the first time. This week I’ve told everyone about my goal for 2009 — to find ways to get people working again. I’m glad and grateful that Gail jumped in with both feet to help. I might never have know that she had something similar on her mind.
  • Ask for help.
    Be a learner not a hunter. Open multiple doorways for people to let people see you learn. Most people rise to an occasion to help. Invite your network to be teachers, removed from the role of potential clients. When we start with “Would you help? My ideal client would look a lot like you, would you have five minutes to offer me advice?”
  • Turn interest into a way to invest.
    When someone likes your work, offer a doorway to a partnership. Sit on the same side of the table and enlist that client or friend in your quest. Too often we see ourselves as “less.” Yet, that person has something to teach us and we have something to offer in return. Ask about his or her goals and find how they align with yours. Use what you learn to follow Steve Farber’s advice. “Do what you love in service to the people who love what you do.”

Doorways connect.

We’ve invested in the network of people we call friends and colleagues — the people we respect and are happy to help. Why wouldn’t we offer them doorways to do the same?

How do you open doorways to enlist the power of your network? How else might we engage them in open, equal, and active relationships so that our barns and bridges are well built and successful?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
If you think Liz can help you find focus or direction, check out the Work with Liz!!

Related
6 Ways to Build Your Own Personal Developmental Network
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Money Strategy, a Dead Horse, and Folks
Are You a Freelancer or a Solo Entrepreneur? Use Guy Kawasaki’s Mantra as He Meant

Motrinmoms: The Spectacular Opportunity to Rise from a Colossal Mistake

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Savvy Companies Don’t Have to Do This

Tonight, a corporation made a colossal mistake. Motrin put up this ad.

The ad was meant to tell Moms with new babies that Motrin understood their pain. Except, in the process of building their campaign and that ad, they forgot to get in touch with new Moms and their pain.

I’m hoping this won’t scare off other corporations looking to enter the social media sphere. What happened here was problem with a team that didn’t do it’s job on two fronts.

Motrin didn’t do what they claimed. They also didn’t know the media in which they placed the ad. Savvy companies don’t have to make the same mistakes.

What Motrin Didn’t “Get” about New Moms

Some folks are saying that Motrin needs to understand social media. I’m with that. They blew it big. But social media only speaks to the size, speed, and volume of the response to their collosal mistake.

A company that claims WE FEEL YOUR PAIN. Better know what they’re talking about long before they get to the social web.

WE FEEL YOUR PAIN?
Motrin made it obvious that they don’t.

If you felt the pain of new mothers, then you’d realize that it’s off to use high heels and carrying a feverish child in the same sentence as examples of feeling underappreciated.

If you felt the pain of new mothers, then you’d see that the “fashion” of baby slings is a luxury very few new mothers think about. New mothers — with and without baby slings — are worried about more important things than that.

If you felt the pain of new mothers, then you’d understand that it’s not the ache in their back or in their head that makes them cry or say “what about me?”

The pain of new mothers is people who make light of their feelings.

It’s the hope that they’ll measure up and the worry that they won’t. It’s the folks who offer advice as if they know more than the new mom about what’s best for her child. It’s the people who say “Here, take a couple of headache pills and you’ll feel better after that.” It’s people who claim they feel her pain and don’t bother to find out what her pain is really like.

That’s the part that Motrin didn’t get about new moms.

What Motrin Didn’t “Get” About Social Media

The fundamental problem with the ad is that the “unique pain of baby sling” isn’t one of fashion or feeling underappreciated. The fundamental pain of a baby sling isn’t much more than “ouch, my back,” and then, only when the sling doesn’t fit.

That’s the kind of pain Motrin can fix. That story isn’t as glitzy or clever, but it is authentic.

Do you like the woman in the ad?

Was she joking? Do new moms say stuff like that? Sure they do — with their friends — not with strangers. Friends can say things because friends already know that I love my kid no matter how I joke. Strangers can’t because they don’t.

Here’s where social media savvy comes in. A company has to be a friend before it can communicate with customers like friends. THAT’s the part about social media that Motrin didn’t get.

The Spectacular Opportunity

What would I advise the Motrin team to do? Get over being clever and get serious about learning. Here’s a short action plan.

  • Read enough to understand the mistake. A wise, open-mind doesn’t have to read long to see what went wrong.
  • Admit the mistake and apologize. Say thank you to folks who pointed it out.
  • Read everything — every tweet, post, conversation about it. Put several folks on knowing every blog and blogger, every tweet and tweeter. Respond with appropriate apologies and a beginner’s mind.
  • Listen. Listen. Listen. Say thank you again.
  • Ask for help. Offer new moms a chance to make their version of what the ad might have been. Put serious resources at their disposal. Participate with time. Don’t just throw money at them.
  • Use as many of what they make as you can. Feature their ads on your site as big as your own. Pay the moms for their investment in you.

It’s a spectacular opportunity to learn social media and to turn critics into heroes. A company that does that with everyone watchng could win over the social web.

Got more ideas for how Motrin might recover from this?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

Sorting Is a Breeze, a Day at the Beach

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Thoughts that Say Easy . . .

I love those idiomatic phrases that mean things are easy …
Easy as pie …
It’s a piece of cake.

My most favorite of them are …
It’s a breeze. . . .
a day at the beach.

I use them when things get stressful or hard, especially when my head gets too filled with details and options.

When I have too many options, those last two idioms help me sort them. A breeze and beach conjure up images that let me sit back for a thought, no matter how busy or anxious for answer the world is.

I imagine a day at the beach where the sand and the sky are big and open. No clocks or buildings interrupt a chance to spread out my thoughts. I need to see the spaces between the options to know what I’ve got and sort them.

A few well-spaced thoughts and I remember that my life is my creation. I’m in charge of valuing the options. I choose the path, the curves, and the interactions. When I listen to what I know, seeing where I am and I’m going is easy. It’s a day at the beach drawing possibilities in the sand.

How do you sort too many thoughts and options?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Image: sxc.hu
Image: sxc.hu
Work with Liz!!

Check Out the Program for SOBCon09

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The Speakers and Times Are Up!

The first blush edition of the SOBCon09 schedule is up.
Here’s some of what you’ll find …

  • We’ve added Friday sessions so we can get in-depth conversation on products and practices.
  • We’ve limited Saturday to five workshops so that mastermind groups can really dig in on the content that gets presented.
  • We’re planning to have a second evening event on Saturday, since the group seemed to like being in the same place.

Lot more detail to be filled in … but it’s shaping up into something special already.

You’ll find the program for SOBCon09 here.

Can’t wait to see you!

Liz and Terry

Thanks to Week 160 SOBs

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Successful and Outstanding Bloggers

Let me introduce the bloggers
who have earned this official badge of achievement,

and the right to call themselves
Successful Blog SOBs.

I invite them to take a badge home to display on their blogs.

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They take the conversation to their readers,
contribute great ideas, challenge us, make us better, and make our businesses stronger.

I thank all of our SOBs for thinking what we say is worth passing on.
Good conversation shared can only improve the blogging community.

Should anyone question this SOB button’s validity, send him or her to me. Thie award carries a “Liz said so” guarantee, is endorsed by Kings of the Hemispheres, Martin and Michael, and is backed by my brothers, Angelo and Pasquale.

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Want to become an SOB?

If you’re an SO-Wanna-B, you can see the whole list of SOBs and learn how to be one by visiting the SOB Hall of Fame– A-Z Directory . Click the link or visit the What IS an SOB?! page in the sidebar.

–ME “Liz” Strauss