In 2014, we’ll generate five billion gigabyte GBs of data every ten minutes. We passed the five billion gigabyte mark in 2003 and today we generate this amount of data every two days! This Tsunami of information is ongoing and it has become mandatory to filter the relevant information.
There are many curation tools out there and for an in-depth study of all the tools available, I recommend you to check Rome residing Robin Good‘s impressive infographic: Best Content Curation Tools. Robin Good has painstakingly put together. Here are basic, but useful combinations of tools I use for my daily content curation needs.
1. RSS Feeds
RSS Feeds or Rich Site Summary/Really Simple Syndication is a family of web feed formats used to publish often updated works. I’ve written several blog posts that can help out create the right feeds for your specific content needs such as blogs, videos, pictures and much more:
- How To Create RSS feeds From Your Favorite Twitter Hashtags and Tweeps
- 11 Ways on How to Generate Twitter RSS Feeds For the Reader of Your Choice
2. Google Alerts and Talkwalker
If you want an other client to complement or replace Google Alerts, I suggest you give Talkwalker a good try. I started using Talkwalker wondering if Google Alerts, just like its brother Google Reader, would eventually follow the same fate. Talkwalker’s first 100 alerts are free. Talkwalker Alerts can be sent to both email or/and RSS clients of your choice.
3. Feedly
I have to admit that I am reluctantly starting to use Feedly in combination with RSS feeds. Feedly is my personal choice as Google Reader replacement. Feedly runs on all major Web browsers as well as mobile devices supporting iOS and Android.
4. Evernote
Mobile/Desktop application Evernote has become my favorite curation platform. Evernote allows you to clip images, websites, recordings, videos and much more. I enjoy Evernote’s premium feature Clearly: just kick back, adjust your speaker volume, and listen to the digital voice reading an article for you.
Evernote doesn’t allow sub-folder creation, but has an intuitive folder feature helping reduce work while tagging your searches. The free Evernote version comes with a 60 megabytes monthly allowance, but once you get used to Evernote, you will most likely move on to the one gigabyte premium plan.
5. Diigo
I use Diigo since 2006. Diigo is a great tool for annotating, bookmarking, highlighting, tagging and sharing web pages. Diigo also provides screenshot capacities. Diigo allows you to create communities and share your curated contents with friends and groups. Within Diigo you may create as many directories as you need and the number of tags does not seem to be limited.
6. StumbleUpon
StumbleUpon is a discovery engine (a form of web search engine) that finds and recommends web content to its users. Its features allow users to discover and rate Web pages, photos, and videos that are personalized to their tastes and interests using peer-sourcing and social-networking principles.
7. Delicious
I use Delicious to backup my Diigo bookmarks just in case something happens. Last year, Diigo’s domain name was literally highjacked, but after a few days, its functionality did fully return and since then, things have been working fine. I recommend Diigo in combination with Delicious both being excellent bookmarking applications.
8. Linguee
As a trilingual individual, I regularly check specific word meanings. The beauty about Linguee is that it not only offers the facility of a contextual dictionary for words and expressions, but directly hyperlinks the contextual translation into matching the website article. It is not a 100% accurate, but this feature offers an additional way to discover new content. Since I’ve started using Linguee as a contextual online dictionary, I have completely stopped the use of traditional dictionaries. Give it a try and let me know how you are doing with it.
9-10. Twitter Advanced Search and Twitter lists
In combination with hashtags, Twitter Advanced Search and Twitter lists are both a formidable way to curate real time information. Follow conferences you aren’t able to attend or follow twitter-lists while keeping up-to-date with the latest information as it unfolds on your screen.
11. Twilah
Twilah captures your Twitter messages and transform them into a website. As Neal Schaffer writes: “Your tweets are being dynamically categorized based on what you tweet most.“ and presented into a website thus reviving your tweets and extending their lifetime. Robert Scobble says that “Twylah lets media brands and celebrities monetize their twitter stream.”
12. Topsy
Topsy is a real gem I use at least once a day. Topsy allows you to search and analyze the social Web. Topsy is both a topic curation tool and a social media monitoring tool that helps evaluate the resonance of your shared content.
13. LinkedIn Groups
We often forget that LinkedIn has become one of the biggest publishing houses on the internet. Surveying LinkedIn Groups for content is an excellent way to curate information. Furthermore, LinkedIn Groups can be used as a self-promoting micro-blogging platform.
Tomorrow, Part 2 will complete this content curation overview. Let me know what tools you are using and which one you would recommend. I am looking forward to your comments and suggestions.
Happy content curation
- 11 Ways on How to Generate Twitter RSS Feeds For the Reader of Your Choice
How To Create RSS feeds From Your Favorite Twitter Hashtags and Tweeps
- Six Reasons Why Social Business Strategists should read Mark Fidelman’s Socialized!
- Seven IT Eras Leading CIOs to Become One of the Key Evangelists to a Social Business Strategy (1/2)
- Seven IT Eras Leading CIOs to Become One of the Key Evangelists to a Social Business Strategy (2/2)
- 5 Ways for SMBs to Establish a Social Business Strategy (2/2)
- 5 More Ways for SMBs to Establish a Social Business Strategy (1/2)
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Posted in Content, Content Curation, Content Curation, Content Marketing, Content Marketing Strategy, Curating Tools, Inbound Marketing, RSS Feeds
Tagged "Content Curation", Android, Content Curating, Curating, Curating Tools, Curation, Curation Tools, Diigo, Evernote, feedly, Google Alerts, IOS, RSS
I bought Mark Fidelman Socialized! on Amazon at its full price (no discounts or coupons from Mark) and just finished devouring it. Fidelman delivers a fundamental work that greatly contributes to the heated debate of Social Business development. Fidelman not only shows, but proves how quintessential it is for businesses to harness the power of social. Not only with tools and technologies, but first with their immediate communities aka company workforce. Time is ripe for dismantling the prevailing command-and-control leadership style. The militaristic/hierarchical leadership approach ought to be replaced with Jon Husband’s Wirearchy structure. So why should you read Socialized!? Social Media ROI expert Dr. Natalie Petouhoff: “Fidelman’s ability to simplify key concepts like the Digital Village, Darwin’s Funnel, and the Digital Network, gives the reader a unique and important understanding of the power of Social Business. You’ll be sorry if you don’t read this book before your competitors do.”
Fidelman and his team interviewed business leaders around the globe in order to present to us a state-of-the-art social business road-map. Fidelman lives and breathes what he writes. He is the sort of individual any social minded person ought to connect with; either on Twitter/LinkedIn, and Forbes where he is a regular contributor. Socialized! not only talks the walk but most importantly walks the talk. It is a practical text-book backed up with countless case studies and examples anyone aspiring to become a social leader should be aware of and study
2. Culture, culture and more culture is the foundation to any social business undertaking
Fidelman emphasizes culture as the 101 prerequisite to any potentially successful Social Business Strategy. Fidelman: “Why after all do we insist on employees following our orders, and why do we call it insubordination if they question them? … Yet the companies that are leading in today’s world recognize the benefit of an empowered workforce that feels connected to the organization. Empowered employees understand not only how to make great products, but more importantly how to create cultures that continue to make great products well into the future.” Socialized! will assist CMOs and CCOs (Chief Cultural/Customer Officers) not only to analyze their existent Social Business state, but provide them with a detailed 10-point Social Business Culture development program.
3. Building first an internal digital village and then an external digital network
Once the infrastructure of a cooperative culture has been established, business leaders will need to handpick the internal evangelists and shepherds (regardless of their rank) who will co-create their internal digital village — the nuts and bolts to any Social Business foundation.
CXOs need to remember that becoming a Customer Service or/and Customer-Experience oriented company first requires the emotional support and buy-in of their internal communities or “Smart Tribes” (as coined by Christine Comaford in her brand new book). These “Smart Tribes” or internal communities represent the company’s intrinsic power that will transform the traditional working communities into enthusiastic business advocates.
After the creation of an apropos culture and the establishment of the right people foundation, the social team will need to select the social media platforms and its supportive collaborative technologies (Intranet/Extranet/SCRM/Social Business Software). This will make sure that the Social Business community sets up the proper internal tools to construct its external digital network.
4. The new Social Business Playbook
Youtility author Jay Baer states: “Socialized! is an imminently readable, practical, and modern guide to social business. The playbook section alone is worth the price, and then some. Fidelman has added an important piece to the corporate social transformation puzzle.” Fidelman: “In practice, management should provide the right atmosphere, guidelines, technologies, and opportunities for employees to thrive.” Socialized! delivers a 15-point playbook: here are some of the highlights:
- Building an internal and external community
- Connecting and empowering thought leaders
- Recruiting a Chief Social Strategist or a Chief Cultural/Customer Officer
- Becoming an own media publisher, which makes me think of Michael Brito’s upcoming book: Your Brand.
- Replacing traditional inbound marketing with content marketing
- Leveraging employees, suppliers and partners to foster innovation
- Enhancing customer support to become the strength of your company
- Using Gamification to engage employees, partners and customers
- Creating the potential for serendipitous relationships
This last point is my favorite and reminds me of the romantic comedy “Serendipity” starring John Cusack and Kate Beckinsale. Fidelman himself gives a wonderful example of serendipity with StaffUnity: an automated employee lunch club system provider.
5. The rise of the social employee
Fidelman makes the case that, social networks, consumerization of IT, mobility, BYOD (Bring Your Own Device: smartphones, phablets and tablets) and cloud computing are all being part of the social and technological developments a 21st century enterprise cannot fail anymore to ignore.
6. Measuring the ROI (Return On Investment) of a Social Business Strategy
Fidelman stresses that social business initiatives should only be undertaken if those can be measured. He goes on to say: “Before starting any social initiatives, you must first identify objectives such as: “improving customer relationships, product innovation, acquiring and retaining employees and growing revenues.”
Image Credit: PulsePointGroup.com: The Economics of the Socially Engaged Enterprise
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Posted in Content Marketing, Customer Experience, Customer Service, E20, Enterprise Social Network, HR, Human Resources, Inbound Marketing, Social Business, Social Business, Social Business Strategy, Social Culture, Social Enterprise, Social Media, Social Media Strategy, Socialnomics
Tagged Collaboration, Company Culture, Content Marketing, Customer Service, CX, CXM, E20, Enterprise 2.0, Enterprise Social Network, Social Business, Social Business Strategy, Social Culture, Social Enterprise, Social Enterprise Network
In the first part of this two-part series, we reviewed the four IT-eras that have shaped and transformed the CIO role into a digital mediator and one of the key technologists of the new Social Business (Enterprise 2.0) era. We saw how mainframe computing led to personal computing then followed by Internet and finally the broadband technology. The consumerization of IT has brought us the “Bring Your Own Device” (BYOD) movement. BYODs are compelling our 20th century business models (based on the enlightenment era and its resulting industrial revolution) to include workers personal devices such as smartphones, tablets and phablets.
5. Mobile era
Uwe Vielle defines mobile computing as “the ability to use computing capability without a pre-defined location and/or connection to a network to publish and/or subscribe to information.” Mobility requires new type of softwares or SaaS (Software as a Service) stored in the cloud as well as brand new hardware handsets such as smartphones, tablets and phablets (Samsungs Note II) also known as BYOD.
Two weeks ago, Gartner reported that combined ultra mobile devices, tablets and mobile phone reached 1.872 billion in 2012 and would reach around 2.7 billion by 2017. Gartner expects a 7.6% decline in PC sales while saying: “This is not a temporary trend induced by a more austere economic environment; it is a reflection of a long-term change in user behavior.” Broadband and IT-consumerization both contribute to mobility. Ubiquitous Internet access compels us to centralize our data to a central location: the cloud.
6. Cloud Computing
Cloud computing could be compared to the technological shift electricity went through a century ago. At that time, Thomas Edison favored direct current (DC) systems. DC was eventually replaced by Guillaume Duchenne’s (1850s) and William Stanley’s (1880s) alternative current (AC). Alternative current made it much easier to industrialize the production and transport of electricity. In a similar way the alternative current analogy could be used for cloud computing. It is not the flow of electric charge that periodically reverses direction, but our computing routines. IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service), PaaS (Platform as a Service) and SaaS (Software as a Service) deliver the foundation upon which private users can upload their personal digital belongings.
Traditional software vendors like Microsoft are transforming their “one way” Office product into an SaaS platform while offering a 20GB SkyDrive cloud storage. In May, Flickr rolled out a whopping 1TB (Terabyte) of cloud-storage for free accounts. Laptops and notebooks paved the way to mobile computing. Consumerization of IT brought the diversity of multi-screen computing via smartphone, tablet and phablet devices. This newly acquired ubiquitous mobile flexibility threatens the very livelihood of US-PC giants such as Dell and Hewlett Packard.
7. Post PC era
Broadband, mobility and cloud computing confirm the steady decline in the sales of personal computers in favor of “post-PC” BOYDs. BYOD threatens the use of traditional software in favor of cross-platform applications such as Android, Java or iOS. In 1999, Microsoft CEO Bill Gates coined this development as the “PC Plus” era. In 2007, Steve Job renamed it the “post-PC device” era. According to IDC the U.S. PC market contracted 12.7% year-to-year with a 18.3% decline compared to the fourth quarter of 2012. “A new report from International Data Corporation (IDC) shows a 13.9% decline in first quarter PC shipments compared to 2012. The ‘year-on-year contraction marked the worst quarter since IDC began tracking the PC market quarterly in 1994,’ according to IDC.”
The US PC-industry is in a dire position. Last year Hewlett Packard announced that it would lay off over 27,000 employees. Dell’s troublesome privatization endeavors are still going on and a 274-page proxy filing states, “Dell – the company and the man – wants to move away from PCs because making money in the global PC market is about as easy as selling tap water in a rainstorm”.
8. Social Business
Not too long ago, the CIO was considered (and in many cases still is) the technological IT-drill sergeant in many companies. He was the technological door keeper, who in the name of “security” only granted employees the right to specific choices of hardware and software. A major shift began when computing mobility entered enterprises with the use of laptops and notebooks. Emails and data access became mandatory and VPN (virtual private networks) were created. Consumerization of IT could be for the former CIO king what the 1789 French Revolution was to Louis XIV. CIOs are losing their controlling grip and are forced to accept the BYOD revolution and the respective operating systems such as Symbian, iOS, Android, Window & Blackberry to name just a few. Added to this culinary buffet of BOYDs and operating systems let’s not forget our newly acquired social media channels. Social media are transforming customer service, experience and marketing altogether and terminates the traditional hierarchical company customer communication era. Traditional outbound marketing methods (pay, pray and spray) are being replaced with inbound/content marketing which in turn is rapidly evolving into convenience marketing.
Ladies and Gentlemen welcome to the age of social
Meine Damen und Herren willkommen im sozialen Zeitalter
Mesdames et Messieurs, bienvenue dans l’ère sociale
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Posted in Broadband, BYOD, Cloud Computing, E20, Enterprise Social Network, Human Resources, IaaS, IaaS, Innovation, Internet, Mobile Commerce, PaaS, SaaS, Social Business, Social Business, Social Enterprise, Social Media
Tagged Cloud computing, Cloud Storage, Enterprise 2.0, Enterprise Social Network, IaaS, IDC, Mobile Technology, Mobility, PaaS, SaaS, Social Business, Social Culture, Social Enterprise
In the last 10 years, the modern CIO has transformed himself into an IT chargé d’affaires (mediator) and a key technological emissary. He has become one of the key players to the development of any successful social business strategy. In this two-part series, we will review the seven stages that led IT to transform its traditional door-keeping role into the technological beacon of a social enterprise. Without further ado, let’s review the last fifty years of IT’s technological maturing and unraveling.
1. Main Frame Computing
In the mid 70s, my dad and I regularly headed to the wholesale outlet in Orléans (France) to get our grocery supply. As a teenager, one item particularly fascinated me, the huge IBM tabulating machine in the administration hall.
An employee would insert the punched-cards into the machine. Then, this giant would print out an invoice with all the trimmings. Needless to say, this was in the mid 70s state-of-the-art technology: the era of mainframe computers (mostly used for transaction processing) roughly covering the late 50s through the 70s. A computer professional would probably smile at the informal way I associate this device to the mainframe era, but at that time it was an impressive technology only larger businesses could afford.
This IBM machine was known as the “Card-Programmed Electronic Calculators (CPC). Mainframe computers would soon be followed by mini, micro and personal workstations also known as personal computers.
2. PC Era
IBM underestimated the fact that by the mid 90s, personal workstations would usher in Personal Computer that eventually would replace the typewriter. Some of us probably remember the Commodore PET, the first successfully marketed personal computer introduced in 1977.
The predecessor to IBM AS/400, System/38 was first made available in August 1979. It was marketed as a minicomputer for general business and department use. It was sold alongside three other product lines, each with a different architecture not compatible with each other. Digital Equipment Corporation used this IBM weakness to expand. Digital Equipment was acquired by Compaq in 1998 which then merged with Hewlett Packard in 2002. In the meanwhile Paul Allen and Bill Gates had founded ”Micro-Soft,” the combination of microcomputer and software, which became a US$ 42 billion corporation.
3. Internet era
Internet service provider (ISPs) began to emerge in the late 1980s and early 1990s. CompuServe (my first email address) was a service provider founded in 1969. CompuServe was the first major commercial online service in the United States that became a leading worldwide internet service provider. In 1998 CompuServe became a subsidiary of America Online Inc. (AOL). Internet has become a global system of interconnected computer networks to serve billions of users worldwide. Since its email commercial start, Internet technology has added: instant messaging, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) with services such as Skype, two ways interactive video calls and finally the World Wide Web including discussions forums, online shopping, blogs and more recently social networks.
4. Internet broadband and the World Wide Web era
Broadband Internet access or broadband is a high-speed internet access that replaced the awkward dial-up “modus operandi” some of us remember. Dial-up bit rates varied from 33 to 64 kbit/s and required a telephone line. Broadband started supplying higher bit rates with the crucial advantage of not disrupting regular phone lines. It also provides a continuous “always on” connection. Then came the World Wide Web, a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet. Broadband supports a much faster World Wide Web browsing experience, faster downloading/uploading of information, video telephony, computing mobility with VPNs (virtual private networks) and online gaming experience.
Next week, we will post the second half of this two-part series with the last three reasons why IT should become the technological beacon of a social enterprise 2.0 transformation. In the meanwhile I wish you a very pleasant rest and a wonderful weekend.
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Posted in Broadband, E20, Internet, Social Business, Social Business, Social Enterprise, Social Media
Tagged CIO, CompuServe, Digital Equipment Corporation, E20, Enterprise 2.0, IBM, Internet, Internet access, Internet service provider, IT, Personal Computer, Social Business, World Wide Web
This material has been so helpful to me that I thought I would share it with my readers and make a blog post out of it: I hope it helps you as much as it helps me on an ongoing basis
Here is a series of free PC-tools you can use to clean up your system from unwanted files:
1. MiniToolBox
Please, download MiniToolBox, save it to your desktop and run it.
Check mark the following check-boxes:
- Flush DNS
- Report IE Proxy Settings
- Reset IE Proxy Settings
- Report FF Proxy Settings
- Reset FF Proxy Settings
- List content of Hosts
- List IP configuration
- List Winsock Entries
- List last 10 Event Viewer log
- List Installed Programs
- List Users, Partitions and Memory size.
Note: When using “Reset FF Proxy Settings” option Firefox should be closed.
2. TDSSKiller.zip
Please download TDSSKiller.zip and extract it.
- Run TDSSKiller.exe.
- Click on Change Parameters
- Put a check in the box of Detect TDLFS file system
- Click Start scan.
- When it is finished the utility outputs a list of detected objects with description.
- The utility automatically selects an action (Cure or Delete) for malicious objects.
- The utility prompts the user to select an action to apply to suspicious objects (Skip, by default).
- Leave the options as it is and click Continue
- Reboot if needed. Note: By default, the utility outputs the log into system disk (it is usually the disk with installed operating system, C:\) root folder. The Log has a name like: TDSSKiller.Version_Date_Time_log.txt.
3. SUPERAntiSpyware Free
Next run Superantisypware (SAS):
Please download and scan with SUPERAntiSpyware Free
- Double-click SUPERAntiSypware.exe and use the default settings for installation.
(For instructions with screenshots, please refer to the How to use SUPERAntiSpyware to scan and remove malware from your computer Guide).
- An icon will be created on your desktop. Double-click that icon to launch the program.
- If it will not start, go to Start > All Programs > SUPERAntiSpyware and click on Alternate Start.
- If asked to update the program definitions, click “Yes“. If not, update the definitions before scanning by selecting “Check for Updates“. (If you meet any problems while downloading the updates, manually download them from here. Double-click on the hyperlink for Download Installer and save SASDEFINITIONS.EXE to your desktop. Then double-click on SASDEFINITIONS.EXE to install the definitions.)
- In the Main Menu, click the Preferences… button.
- Click the “General and Startup” tab, and under Start-up Options, make sure “Start SUPERAntiSpyware when Windows starts” box is unchecked.
- Click the “Scanning Control” tab, and under Scanner Options, make sure the following are checked (leave all other options as they are set):
- Close browsers before scanning.
- Scan for tracking cookies.
- Terminate memory threats before quarantining.
- Click the “Close” button to leave the Control Center screen.
- Back on the main screen, under “Select Scan Type” check the box for Complete Scan.
- If your computer is badly infected, be sure to check the box next to Enable Rescue Scan (Highly Infected Systems ONLY).
- Click the Scan your computer… button.
- After the scan is complete, a Scan Summary box will appear with potentially harmful items that were detected. Click “OK“.
- Make sure everything has a checkmark next to it and click “Next“.
- A notification will appear that “Quarantine and Removal is Complete“. Click “OK” and then click the “Finish” button to return to the main menu.
- If asked if you want to reboot, click “Yes” and reboot normally.
- To retrieve the scan log after reboot, launch SUPERAntiSpyware again.
- Click the View Scan Logs button at the bottom.
- This will open the Scanner Logs Window.
- Click on the log to highlight it and then click on View Selected Log to open it.
Some types of malware will disable security tools. If SUPERAntiSpyware will not install, please refer to these instructions for using the SUPERAntiSpyware Installer. If SUPERAntiSpyware is already installed but will not run, then follow the instructions for using RUNSAS.EXE to launch the program.
4. EST
Finally run ESET online version:
Hold down control and click on the following link to open ESET OnlineScan in a new window.
ESET OnlineScan
- Click on the “ESET Online Scanner” button
- For alternate browsers only: Microsoft Internet Explorer users can skip these steps:
a) Click on “esetsmartinstaller_enu.exe” to download the ESET Smart Installer. Save it to your desktop.
b) Double click on the esetsmartinstaller_enu icon on your desktop.
- Check: Yes, I accept the Terms of Use
- Click the start button
- Accept any security warnings from your browser
- Under scan settings, check and check Remove found threats
- Click Advanced settings and select the following:
Scan potentially unwanted applications
Scan for potentially unsafe applications
Enable Anti-Stealth technology
- ESET will then download updates for itself, install itself, and begin scanning your computer. Please be patient as this can take some time.
- When the scan completes, push “List of found threats” and proceed as you wish.
NOTE: In some instances if no malware is found there will be no log produced.
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Our world is getting more complex every day. Technology evolves at a speed that is hardly possible to keep up with. In Part one, we reviewed the first five ways SMBs can set up a solid social business strategy:
1. Regularly review and refine your company mission, values and goals
2. Keep transforming your content marketing into convenience marketing
3. To blog or not to blog
4. Transform your website into a social hub and its visitors into co-creators
5. Carefully choose your social platforms
So here are the five last ways SMBs can establish a solid foundation for a social business:
6. Reinforce and share your company vision
Share your company vision to employees, suppliers, customers and prospects on your company website. Communicate your company vision on all your social networks. Reinforce your core values to customers, suppliers, prospects and anyone your business is coming in contact with. I can guarantee you that it will be a rewarding experience for both your company and your customers who will better identify your vision and enthusiastically share it with the communities of their choice. Zappos is well-known for its outstanding company culture and the way CEO Tony Hsieh runs his interviews for both cultural fit and skills requirements. On Zappos’ company blog, Tony publicly shares some of his correspondence for anybody to read: management, co-workers, clients, prospects and suppliers alike. This is a superb way of spreading company culture while avoiding misunderstandings, promoting transparency and informing everyone.
7. Create a dual strategy by combining your brick and mortar shop with a state of the art HTML5 web presence
Strive to create a superb online and personal shopping experience while rewarding your customers with loyalty perks and status. Shoppers often use smartphones and tablets to get access to relevant information. About.com has qualified three main distinct search types being made on the internet: “answer me (46% of all searches), inspire me (28% of all searches) and educate me (28% of all searches). Wouldn’t it be a great idea to make “answer me, inspire me and educate me” the three-dimensional crusade of your content marketing strategy? Ask your customers, both online and in your shop, what answers they are looking for? What inspires them? What educates them? Gather your customer data directly into your database: the business headquarters of your people-centric customer information center. This custom-made marketing know-how will help your business tailor make your content marketing output and assist you schedule personalized marketing messages via email or SMS.
8. Social, local, mobile (SoLoMo) and free Internet access
Would you rather have customers and prospects find out about competitive pricing inside or outside your shop premises? If they search within your business, it might be easier for you and your staff to find out about competitors’ pricing and promotions. It will also grant you the chance to intervene and give away “spur of the moment” discounts while bringing in more sales. Providing customers and prospects with free internet access is a sure way to keep them inside your brick and mortar shop is not it? No matter what, customers will find out what they want so you might as well give them the chance to do it while there are “browsing” around. It’s time for your business to harness wireless technology and give your visitors the shopping experience of their lives. Why not consider an indoor positioning system (IPS) and lead your prospects to the right aisles? Why not consider near field communication (NFC) and QR codes to provide visitors with more product information?
9. Free is a wonderful motivator
We all love free things don’t we? The concept of free automatically appeals to our human nature. Would it be possible to provide your business with a little coffee and snack corner? Could you add a few tables for prospects to linger around and visit? This could be a wonderful opportunity to create a local’s corner while gathering precious ideas about business dos and don’ts. Ask your customers what they expect from your business and reward the top ideas with prizes (first, second to five and 11th to 20th or more if you can). Give, share and get altruistically involved with your community. How about giving away a free coffee for every new Twitter follower or Facebook likes? Be creative, try new things, and encourage mistakes among co-workers and team members. One last word of advice from Dan Erwin: “Shift your networking orientation from getting to giving and your long-term success is assured.”
10. Refine your web and shop loyalty program
Loyalty programs should become digital and mobile. There are clients combining web and shop loyalty programs who can adapt their products to your specific needs and beyond. It is fundamental for customers to get rewarded. Customers both love rewards and status. Status gives a sense of belonging, a feeling of being part of something bigger. Among the 36.8 million followers Lady Gaga enjoys on Twitter, she concentrates on the top 1% she names her “little monsters” … “These fans evangelize for her and bring new fans in the fold”. Lady Gaga understands her fans’ needs to emotionally wanting to connect with her and goes as far as interrupting her concert while calling one of them on the stage with her. The more customers purchase, the more unique their reward and status development should be. Think of airlines bronze, silver and gold levels as an example. Rewards and status are the motivation that channels patrons into buying more of your products and services, but also to evangelize your business. Be creative, different, and provocative, and reward your customers with an exhaustive loyalty program that shows genuine gratitude towards them.
Now it’s your turn. Which advice would you give a combined brick and mortar digital shop for it to thrive in this contemporary business environment? Looking forward to your comments and suggestions.
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Posted in Content Marketing, Customer Experience, Customer Service, E20, HTML5, Inbound Marketing, mcommerce, Social Business, Social Business, Social Business Strategy, Social Culture, Social Enterprise, Social Media, Web 2.0
Tagged Company Culture, Content Marketing, Customer Service, CX, CXM, E20, Enterprise 2.0, Inbound Marketing, Loyalty program, Marketing and Advertising, Mobile Technology, Mobility, NFC, QR Codes, Retail, Tony Hsieh
Our world is getting more complex every day. Technology evolves at a speed that is hardly possible to keep up with. The amount of information is exploding and as Clay Shirky points out, we need to avoid filter failure. We are at the threshold of intelligent marketing because now, Big Data is available. We are moving from descriptive and predictive to prescriptive business intelligence. How do we establish an effective business strategy, the one that will give our businesses the necessary room for successful growth and development? What should its priority list look like? Social media, blogging, inbound or outbound marketing, curation of information, website updating, brick and mortar shop, digital shop? Trying to answer such a complex question within a ten point two parts blog article is a daring undertaking, but here is a modest attempt at doing this.
1. Regularly review and refine your company mission, values and goals
This could be a daunting task, but a simpler way of restarting the process is to review your unique selling proposition (USP) and then divide it into three sub-categories: company mission, company values and company goals. Having a sharp and targeted vision is quintessential for refining and pursuing a suitable strategy. Reviewing your mission is crucial as business opportunities and changes do take place. IBM, in the mid 80s, was the personal computer leader. IBM wrote US$ 16 billion of losses under the baton of Lou Gersten with 35.000 workers made redundant. IBM finally sold its mainframe business in 2003 and, under Ginni Rometty’s leadership, concentrates on three core areas: analytics, cloud computing and emerging markets. Should IBM have failed to adapt and change, who knows if IBM would have become the thriving social business leader it has been now for the last several years.
A challenging way of applying technological trends could be to ask yourself if you could “create your 140 character brand promise”? Can you summarize your company’s strategy in 35 words or less? The shorter and the clearer, the easier it will be for your communities to understand your mission and purpose. It will help your business to energize its community while making it an active part of its purpose and vision. Here are three USP examples which are each worth billions of dollars:
Domino’s Pizza: “You get fresh, hot pizza delivered to your door in 30 minutes or less—or it’s free.”
FedEx: “When your package absolutely, positively has to get there overnight”
M&M’s: “Melts in your mouth, not in your hand”
2. Keep transforming your content marketing into convenience marketing
Traditional marketing is no longer sufficient. Businesses which mostly concentrate on their own activities and products are promised a tough time ahead. Today there are many companies that master innovation and customer experience by creating and listening to their communities. Such companies like IBM, Amazon or Starbucks give their customers the opportunities to consult, advise and recommend new products and services. Starbucks understands that some of the best ideas come from their own grass root marketers, the ones entering their coffee-shops day in and day out. Could there be a better source of feedback than the one coming directly out of their customers’ mouths?
Consider your website as a customer hub with people coming and going, uploading and downloading information. The more your business listens to its community, the more focused its content marketing will be. Some of the platforms to distribute your content could be how to, tips, recommended sites and resources, books, authors, literature, recipes, videos, interviews, podcast, webcast, webinars and so much more.
3. To blog or not to blog
It’s great to hear what Chris Brogan has to say about blogging: “No matter what, the very first piece of social media real estate I’d start with is a blog … It’s a website, with lots of built in features that make it useful from the search perspective, and simple from a content creation perspective…” Blogging is like jogging for the brain. Euan Semple once said: “You do not know what you think until you write it down.” At first blogging could be a strenuous way to ratify your thoughts, but the best way to freely express your personal ideas, views and expertise. A blog is all yours and you may write (within reason) whatever your heart desires. To blog or not to blog, this is the dilemma and the sooner your business starts the easier it will get. Blogging, like jogging, takes training, dedication and relentless commitment. Avoid blogging about your products and services. Concentrate on answering, sharing and inspiring. Give your community what they want. This will be the first act into bringing traffic to your website, and a natural way to gain traction and attention.
4. Transform your website into a social hub and your visitors into your website co-creators
Amazon is a fabulous example of information crowd-sourcing. When inquiring about books, the first thing most of us do is to find out about customer book-reviews. Amazon has long understood that their website is not about them, but about the communities reading the books it sells. It’s about letting visitors write reviews, comment on other people’s reviews, create groups and meet like minded readers. It’s about customers’ wish-lists (a fabulous way of gathering marketing information) and remembering their interests, likes and dislikes. Amazon is a platform where people meet, read, comment, upload videos reviews and create personal profiles. A company’s website should altruistically answer, inspire and educate its community. It is not about your products or services, it is about your community, their worries, their interests and what inspires them. Consider reserving enough space for uploading videos, reviews, articles and for giving your visitors the chance to become your website’s co-creators.
5. Carefully choose your social platforms
According Wikipedia, “Social media refers to the means of interactions among people in which they create, share, and exchange information and ideas in virtual communities and networks … It allows the creation and exchange of user-generated content.” Social media is the new technological platform businesses use to promote physical or digital goods. Social media networks should be kept to a minimum: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Instagram, Google+ and YouTube. Pick three or four and get professional help. A Facebook and Pinterest expert like Mari Smith will save you time and money as she keeps up with ongoing platform changes and updates. Mari will provide you with the necessary support while you concentrate on your business.
In part two, we will review the last five fundamental points connected to the ongoing review of a successful social business foundation.
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Posted in Content, Content Marketing, E20, Social Business, Social Business, Social Business Strategy, Social Enterprise, Social Media, Social Media Strategy
Tagged Content Marketing, E20, Enterprise 2.0, Inbound Marketing, Social Business, Social Business Foundation, Social Business Strategy, Social Culture, Social Enterprise, Social Marketing
Bruno Gebarski
