Successful Blog

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

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The Headache Rx

relationships button

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?

relationships button

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!!

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6 Ways to Build Your Own Personal Developmental Network
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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!!

Are You Listening? Influence and Participation Above the Noise

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Listening Is Essential to Communication

“To listen well, is as powerful a means of influence as to talk well, and is as essential to all true conversation” –Chinese Proverb

Last week, I got a chance to talk with Patrick Rooney, of the Zócalo Group in Chicago. As we discussed social media, Patrick discussed the perspective of corporate clients moving into the social media space now. He made a powerful point about how some corporate clients are slow to enter social media because they perceive bloggers as having no forgiveness for mistakes they might make. [not a direct quote]

Patrick and I talked about the digital divide that needs closing. the stereotypes in both directions: a bunch of undisciplined bloggers and social media rockstars who don’t like companies and a bunch of uptight, uppity corporate folks who think they know more than everything. We discussed opportunities to get some conversations started. I told him about the barns and bridges project. We made some plans to move things forward.

It seems so easy. All we had to was introduce them and get them talking and listening. Listening is the crucial part.

Influence and Participation Above the Noise

If you want to make a deal or a partnership, build a bridge, or solve a conflict, listening is the way in. If we don’t listen to what people believe, what they need, or what their goals are, how could we have their best interests in mind?

Listening is influence. A good listener has the power to change conduct, thought, or decisions, by encouraging discussions to go deeper, thoughts to get bigger, and people to raise their ideas above the noise.

Listening is participation. Great listeners are involved and thinking. That’s how we connect with other people’s ideas and values. Active listening helps us find the places where our minds meet and understand the places where our ideas separate. Here are just a few ways that listening enhances influence through participation.
Listening:

  • is learning
  • demonstrates respect which builds reputation
  • allows us to learn about and improve ourselves and our ability to connect with others
  • gathers information about how people perceive things, making their actions more predictable and increasing our ability to communicate in “their language.”
  • offers attention which opens channels to more information
  • collects data on which to test and build goals and strategy
  • uncovers issues and opportunities
  • invites new ideas which influence future actions
  • sparks new dialogues which lead to deeper relationships
  • allows people to get to know, like, and trust us at their own speed
  • allows us to find places where our goals align with possible partners

We talk, teach, tell people what we think and walk away feeling we’ve had an influence. Have we really? The folks we’re addressing could be ignoring every word we say and smiling while they do so.

If we want to form effective partnerships — raise barns and build bridges — we have to understand what the other guy cares about, where he or she is going and which of our goals match well alongside those. Listening tunes us in to potential partners.

Listen gives us direction and purpose in any collaboration. When we listen first, we make better choices about what we say and how we say it. Our voices become more powerful.

. . . it’s the listening that separates Social Media experts from Social Media theorists. said Brian Solis

Has social media changed the way you listen? How would you explain listening online to someone who’s new here?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

Some Listening Resources:
Chris Brogan offers a slew of advice on how to listen.
Conversations are happening online in all kinds of places. It’s important to understand how to get in there, and how to listen where the conversations are happening. Here’s a very impartial list of places to listen and how.

Once you’re through Chris’ list, here’s a Starter List of a few more Web 2.0 Social Tools.

Some new new tools that help us tune in include:
monitter, which allows you to follow conversations by keywordyacktrack which allows you to track a single term or a url, social mention which searches across 8 web media formats

Ospitalità! Prego! What My Italian Grandmother Knew about Community Building

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Community Is about Welcoming People In

flower_in_window-Italian_village

Most of the kids I grew up with were 2nd generation American, which meant our grandparents spoke a language other than English. Adult immigrants had a hard time learning English. My grandmother, who was born in 1888, never did.

I can only imagine what it was like, knowing that her grandkids couldn’t understand what she was saying . . . Still my grandmother knew how to connect and by the time I was six I was talking with her through gestures, faces, and a tiny Italian vocabulary she gave me. We could spend hours enjoying each other’s company.

I didn’t understood the magic of what she did until I visited her village in Italy. I realized the humanity of my grandmother’s gifts when I felt strangers offer the same sort of welcoming, reaching out. It was a way of life not just a “family thing.”

You could feel from the smiles in their eyes. You could hear it when they said “buonasera” as they walked by. You could see in the flower pots placed outside the windows of every house. I felt welcomed. It didn’t matter that they didn’t know who I was.

In the last 24 hours, I’ve spoken to three people about blogging and social media. All three, in their own way, said they feel as if everyone is speaking another language. They all felt that they didn’t know how to find their way to connect. That’s why I’ve been thinking about what my grandmother did . . .

What My Italian Grandmother Knew about Community Building

My grandmother was born in 1888. Her name was Liza. She knew a lot about people and life. When she came here, she owned a small saloon in a small town in Illinois. Though she had no English — she only knew Italian — every person who came there felt welcomed and most came back.

Her tavern was a living example of a participatory culture. Social relationships and community thrived. I saw these things with my own child’s eyes.

  • Welcome! Every time someone walked in the door, her face lit up in a smile. Whether they’d been there before or just arrived, she stop to welcome them as if they’d come home from a long journey.
  • See! She had an uncanny way of looking at each person fully and individually in the eyes. It didn’t matter if their words weren’t the same. The attention she gave said how she valued every one of them.
  • Smile! She was a woman of joy! Joy is contagious and attractive. My grandmother was a tall, thin 80 year-old woman when I knew her, but until her last day she could make a room glow.
  • Listen! Because she didn’t have the words, but often knew what people were saying, my grandmother listened better than anyone I know. That made a person feel like a great communicator and feel like a fine lady had heard.
  • Laugh! When she didn’t understand what someone was saying, she would laugh at herself as if words were playing games. Then she’d look for another way to reach out for meaning.
  • Ospitalità! Prego! Any person who spent an hour in her saloon couldn’t leave without knowing that those two words meant Hospitality! and Yes, of course! The entire venue was about the people who came. She loved every one of them.

My grandmother wasn’t afraid to build a bridge on the language she didn’t know because she trusted herself to connect in other ways. We can build a bridge to the folks who don’t know social media by taking a clue and some cues from things she did.

Where are you seeing great examples of hospitality and bridge building in our Internet culture? What can we do to help them grow?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

Are You Sending Visual Mixed Messages?

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It’s about Mixed Messages

In preparation for SOBCon09, I’ve been researching the importance of visuals as social media connection points. Visuals are power in helping us recognize where we’re safe, where we want to eat, what we want to buy, who we trust, who’s like us and who’s not.

Unfortunately, one thing is true about visual communication.

When we don’t know what we’re about, our visuals often contradict what we’re saying.

In that research, I came across this page in a report —

The page below is a screenshot from a pdf., called the Power of Visual Communication.

The document leads with a quote in a blue box that says . . .

“We are becoming a visually mediated society. For many, understanding of the world is being accomplished, not through words, but by reading images.”
–Paul Martin Lester

I’m not a designer, but I’ve played a VP of Design and Editorial in a Publishing Company. My experience is that most people respond to a type heavy page like this by looking at the quote, the gray box, and the chart, and then skipping over the rest.

This page wasn’t communicating nearly as well as it might. The text and visuals say different things. The blue box quote says visuals are important. The page layout says they’re not. The visuals on the page — the picture up on the right and the chart below — are overwhelmed yards of tiny type.

  • I can’t “read” the photo in the upper right or understand how it relates.
  • This page walls me in with words.
  • Unnecessary words and long sentences make the reader dig to find what’s important. The whole first section is really unnecessary information with no real impact.
  • The most important sentence on the page is hidden in the tiny type. The blue box quote is not the most important they want you to carry forward to the next page.

How might it have worked with more power and more consistency? Few things are more fun than editing other people’s stuff. I looked at what I might do highlight key information on this page and how they might underscored the point about visual information by using the text in more visual ways.

I reproduced the page cutting and moving text — please use your imagination for precise alignment. (I repeat. I’m not a designer. These are thoughts, not a professional design.)

This is the new version.

Visuals_Are_Important Visual Version2

Some of the changes I made include these.

  • I enlarged the type in the blue box and the photo in the upper right corner.
  • I kept only the two most important sentences in the gray box and reset one far larger with visual emphasis. They work now a question and answer.
  • I deleted the entire first section and added white space above the type block.
  • I made pull quotes of two key thoughts, giving emphasis with a gray box to the most important idea.
  • I enlarged the chart to give it more importance, to the reflect the position of the blue box quote, and because the information relates to both columns of text.

Because they’re hard to compare full size, here they are side by side:

Visuals_Are_Important Visual Version3

My aim was to get the visuals and the text delivering that same message — the richer story that was hidden in the text.

We all make this mistake when don’t stop to access what we’re saying with our visual presentation.

Have you thought about the visuals that represent you — your avatars, your blog, your social media profile photos, your clothes, your videos, your words in text?

And can anyone tell me what that picture in the upper corner has to do with all of this?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!