Carvill On Marketing blog

There’s no denying that we are in a digital age.  Right now, it’s pretty advanced already – and we have digital experts and respected futurists making statements that in just 5 years time tangible media will no longer exist.

So please tell me what’s going to happen to banks?  In my experience of banking with banks, both personal and business accounts – and in working with banks in partnership arrangements – there seems to be a common challenge.   And that challenge is, they’re too slow!

As typical with any enormous organisation – there are just too many hoops to jump through – too many processes, too many lines of management and therefore, everything takes too long.

For example – I recently made a complaint to my bank (I have to say, I can’t remember the last time I’ve had any reason to complain to them).  I made my complaint via email (which was never allowed to happen in the past – ooh progress).  24 hours later I received an email from the relevant team (it was looking promising) advising that my complaint was being looked into – attached was a lengthy PDF – and I was referred to the customer complaint process, informed to read said lengthy PDF, and advised that I’d receive a written response, together with a hard copy of the lengthy complaints process brochure within 14 days.  (It couldn’t be emailed in case someone intercepted the email).

I then queried why it was going to take 14 days to respond – to be advised that it was procedure and if I read page 14 of the Customer Complaint Process brochure, it was clearly documented – blah, blah, blah.

Now as a small business – highly responsive to clients, I can’t for one minute imagine asking a client to wait 14 days for anything – let alone to address a service recovery procedure.  It just a) wouldn’t  and b) couldn’t happen.

As a small business, we don’t have a Customer Response Team (probably a team of a minimum of 20 perhaps, even 80+?).  Instead, we have a small team that does everything they can to deliver services and service to our clients.   And let me tell you, there’s no ‘we’ll get back to you in 14 days’ amongst our vocabulary.

So in an age where everyone expects high levels of responsiveness and service (after all technology has enabled it – right! and so we do out best to keep up) we just sit back and accept the prehistoric practices of banks.

It must be hugely frustrating to work in a bank and want to make a difference – red tape, bureaucracy, 5000 meetings and procedures to work through, 150 different types of line management decision makers – yet no real empowerment to actually DO anything.  By the time a decision is made, the opportunity is probably lost.

I wrote a blog post a few weeks ago about ‘keeping things simple’ and for those businesses that do so – they’ll have cracked it.

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For those of you that follow me on Twitter, then you may have been alerted to the fact that I was not too happy with the service levels at Symantec last week.

To provide a bit of context – I had a very simple query.  I received a notification advising me that I needed to renew my Norton 360 license with them – simple – and I did that no problem.

However, the license I have is for 3 machines, and I wanted to switch one of the licenses and see whether Linux platforms were supported in that license.  A quick call – or live chat query, or even email support would have sufficed.  The query could have been resolved in, say, 2 minutes.

I searched on their website for answers to my queries – but nothing was evident, and so I hunted down a number to call and eventually found an office in Reading.  I called them and having completed at least 4 rounds of call selection – I was then put into a queue.

It was interesting, because in the queue, I wasn’t notified that it was going to take me an hour and a half to get through – instead, I was repeatedly advised to hold on the phone, as if I hung up, I would lose my place in the queue and have to start again.

I waited, and waited – after 40 minutes, I started to get really fed up – but the, by now, terrifying mantra came at me again – hang up and I’ll lose my place!

Of course, I wasn’t just sitting there winding myself up during the long wait – oh no, I tried to be as productive as possible.  I visited their site again, hunted down the FAQs, hunted down a search facility, inserted the keywords relating to my query etc etc.

Pages upon pages of results returned – totally off the mark – and now I’m getting more and more frustrated.

After 90 minutes on hold – I was now uber twitchy – of course, my Twitter app was open, so I posted; ‘Can’t believe I’ve been waiting on hold at Symantec for an hour and a half, disgusting.’

Fortunately, or unfortunately for the poor chap I did eventually get put through to, they answered the call shortly after, (1 hour and 38 minutes on hold.  That’s got to be a record!)  Flabbergasted, I wanted an explanation, why, what… however, the very nice chap I was now through to in the Philippines had no answers.  Sorry – we’re busy, that’s all I can say.  He answered my query and worked through what I needed to do – and all was fixed.  However, I was still finding the whole waiting on hold for that amount of time, incredulous.

Interestingly, just 10 minutes after I’d posted on Twitter – I received a message on Twitter from NortonOnline asking how they could help me.  Had my problem been resolved – sorry to hear I wasn’t happy?

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Ok – I’m pretty IT savvy, and yet why is it that I still end up tearing my hair out when it comes to undertaking what should be a really ‘simple’ task.

I simply want to transfer the photos from my Blackberry to my laptop.  Now that shouldn’t be difficult at all should it? Surely the current Blackberry Desktop Manager has a simple resource for doing this – surely, it’s just a simple case of syncing my device and voila!  Er – no.  Not that simple.

Ok – I won’t be defeated, rather than email each photo to my outlook account (tedious) – I’ll send via Bluetooth.  Simple!

So, I open the Bluetooth access on my laptop – my laptop and Blackberry run into the arms of one another – very painlessly – and connect.  Great – so now it’s just a simple case of sending my photos via Bluetooth.   Er – no.  Not that simple.

The software is not compatible.   Bit of a pain – but shouldn’t be insurmountable – I will simply visit the Blackberry.com site and get the relevant update.

By now I’ve spent the best part of 2 and a half hours trying to complete what should be a really, really, simple task.

So, I open up my Desktop manager – and request updates – again should be simple – and it pretty much is.  I access the relevant updates, upload – message that it may take 30 minutes for everything to configure.  Oh, oh – there’s now no way to stop this progress, as if I do I’m warned I disrupt the data and so I am now left wondering what exactly it’s up too – and keeping everything crossed that it hasn’t reconfigured my email accounts (as it did last time)!

What should I be doing now – well actually, enjoying the snow with my children at the ‘community built’ ski and sledge runs at Punt Hill.   A task that I thought would have taken me minutes – has taken hours!

How much longer…

The statement ‘why is nothing ever simple’ – isn’t just my continual mantra.  I hear it all the time from friends, peers, family – even my children.  And hence why those businesses that have a sole purpose to ‘make things simple’ – and really deliver on that – are destined for big success.

Oh – have to pause this post – got to restart my ‘systems’ to implement the changes.   Back soon.

Pleased to report that I eventually managed to get my Blackberry photos uploaded onto my laptop.  In fact, having battled with the Bluetooth access – it transpired that the lated Blackberry desktop manager had indeed included a Media Sync function in their latest release.  So there it was…

Customer service has nothing to do with simplicity

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining about the Blackberry service – indeed their customer service has always been responsive and excellent.  This isn’t what I’m talking about – it’s more to do with the fundamental way things are designed.  Create products and services that are so intuitive – and customer support becomes almost unnecessary.

There’s a business model right there – make or provide access to a product or service, which is as simple as possible, and you’ll thrive.

For example, The Made Simple Group have a number of online services for the start up and small business communities – which each site offers something different, the one similar key factor – making simple.  It’s no wonder that their www.companiesmadesimple.com site is one of the leading online company formation sites in the UK.  They’ve made the process of forming a company (I’ve done this a few times now on other sites and with my accountant and have to say never, ever, found it a simple process previously) – but with Companies Made Simple, it really is a very simple process.

Another service I came across, www.enterprisemadesimple.co.uk – focus on getting access to all the grants and funding available for businesses – simple.  There’s so much red tape involved, that it becomes such a time consuming exercise for businesses, that I’m sure there’s always surplus funding left over at the end of each day.

Businesses that focus on making things simple – designing products and services, and websites – that are so intuitive, are totally on to a winner.  In an age where time is our most limited resource – those services that make things truly simple will win through.

One of our own sites – Logotastic, an online logo design service, was created just for this purpose too – the brand identity and logo design process can often be a very lengthy, time consuming and expensive process.  Logotastic focuses on getting the user to put their brief online in a succinct way – and then they work through the design iterations with a professional designer online – cutting out the often unnecessary, design by committee and meeting after meeting elements.  The ethos – to simplify and make professional design affordable to all.

There’s a great book I recommend, The Design of Everyday Things, which is a bible for anyone interested in usability – not just online usability – but service design and product design.

I do find myself always saying – why is nothing ever simple! As things never seem to be as clear cut as they should be.

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September 08, just as the ‘credit crunch’ was taking over the universe – I wrote a post about keeping energy levels up amidst the doom and gloom.

Whilst many of us have really great intention – it is often zapped by people we meet, work with, live with – and the reality that our most precious resource, time, just seems to run away with us – there simply are not enough hours in the day.

Optimism, passion and energy are really key fundamental success factors we need to personally harness as, when you think about it – it’s energy and enthusiasm that keeps us all going – the sense of purpose that motors us on.

Think back to how you feel when you’re not 100% – I know myself that I can’t think straight – and often feel overwhelmed by the usually manageable everyday tasks.

Whilst the 2009 media was dominated by the ‘doom and gloom’ relating to the economic climate – so many of us were keen to get into 2010 – and I don’t think I’m alone in feeling really optimistic about 2010.  And, of course, optimism is infectious – perhaps that’s just the way it works – a self fulfilling prophecy – resign yourself to D&G (and I don’t mean Dolce and Gabanna) and that’s what you’ll get heaps of.

So if optimism is infectious – let’s spread it.  And to keep ourselves keen on spreading it – let’s ensure our energy and enthusiasm levels are maintained too.   Revisiting my September 08 post – much of what I stated, remains…

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Ok, so I only started blogging in mid 2008 – so that’s only around 18 months – and I opened my Twitter account in October 08 – so again, only just over 12 months of activity.  Have dabbled with Facebook – but still can’t get my head round the business side of things.  However, I’ve been with LinkedIn for a while and have been a regular participant on a number of online forums for a good few years.   In fact, one started over 10 years ago.

Whilst I participate on and am very comfortable with social media platforms – what I am not, is a ‘social media expert’.  What I am, is a pragmatic and experienced marketer (both off and online) – open to and keen to leverage new channels of communication as you would imagine any decent marketer would be, particularly if those channels enable more targeted activity.

Twitter certainly seems to have dominated ‘social media’ platforms and media during 2009 – and piggybacking on the success of Twitter are at least 5 or perhaps even 10 million (or perhaps even more) social media experts!  Where did they all come from?  And what is the definition of a ‘social media expert’?

In fact, without mentioning any names, I recently met a ‘social media expert’ at a networking event – their business card actually stated Social Media Expert underneath their name.   So, in the name of my own personal quest to determine the route and core of social media expertise, I honed the conversation around developing a greater understanding of the competence involved.

What, very quickly, became apparent, was that this expert was participating with social media platforms in a very similar way to me – and had been doing so for a similar amount of time.  Prior to that, they mainly focused on SEO!  ITheir role was to share their social media expertise with clients – assisting them in setting up these channels to market.  Effectively, setting up accounts, setting alerts to make them aware of activity in their particular sector (if relevant).   On a positive note – I suppose labelling yourself as a ‘Social Media Expert’ regardless of your background does indeed communicate a very targeted and relatively still niche expertise – regardless of how ‘young’ that expertise may be.

I wrote a blog post some months ago now – about Implementing a Social Media Strategy – the post was born from activity I’d been undertaking with a client I’ve been working with for about 7 years.   As part of their ‘umbrella’ marketing strategy which covers a whole range of marketing activity (both inbound and outbound) – it was clear that new ‘social media’ platforms were out there for us to leverage.  So, in just the same way, we’d approach any new activity, I researched, strategised and created a social media activity plan which we would look to implement – and nurture.

I follow the words ‘social media’ in my TweetBeep alert and so am always watching what’s being ‘talked about’ in the social media context.  [In fact this resource is really useful for targeted activity see this post] .  From months of observation, what’s very clear is that many organisations are not ‘on board’ with social media – and those that are, it’s all still very fertile territory.

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I was on the train into London on Friday morning and noticed a chap with a plastic carrier bag. It was a festive plastic bag – snow scene of graphic style village – we’ve all seen festive plastic bags before, so no surprises there. The main brand was Phones 4 U – and then the tag line was …. A bag for xmas not for life!  

As soon as I saw this my immediate response was one of ‘questionning’ – so I had a little think about it – was there a clever little message in there that I was missing? Bag for Xmas – not for life…? Hmmm…. But no – I quickly ascertained that this ridiculous posturing is just really poor marketing.

Questions to the Phones 4 U marketing team – where did that idea come from and what possible positive brand associations were you looking to achieve?

Was it really as ridiculous as someone saying – “hey, there are so many bags for life out there messages – let’s look ‘edgy’ and different by clearly stating that our bags are just for Christmas?” – oh dear.

Message for the Phones 4 U marketing team – it’s totally put me off your brand, irresponsible message, ridiculous and trying too hard. If there was any purpose – then I’m missing it. It’s just left me with negative brand associations for you guys… the bags looked great – you just should have left the message off them.

I was totally impartial to your brand before – no negative associations at all – so no reason why I wouldn’t have wondered into your store. Now I have some emotional response with your brand – but it’s not positive. That’s not great marketing is it. Or perhaps that was the intention – targeting those that find recycling and efforts to reduce wastage ‘dull’ and futile? Who knows.

It just goes to show the power of words. A real example as to how businesses and brands need to be careful of what they say – trying to be ‘edgy’ or even attempting dry humour can often be misconstrued and set the brand on the road to negative associations.

For more marketing news, view, ideas and tips visit my blog http://www.carvillcreative.co.uk/blog

I had a rather lengthy conversation earlier today – I won’t mention any names – but effectively, I had been following up a potential partnership where there was specific synergy between a client’s business and the group I was talking with.

Without going into too much detail – what surprised me was their ‘old fashioned’ view on partnerships and reciprocal promotion.

In a day when advertisers have never been more savvy, and have never had as many tools and resources to measure their advertising effectiveness, I was genuinely gobsmacked to hear that my proposals for cross linking and reciprocal

You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours...

promotion (you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours) were completely dismissed, because their modus operandi from an advertising perspective was purely based on paid ad sponsorship.

Indeed – this is why more and more ad spending has become based on a ‘CPL’  or ‘CPA’ – cost per lead, or cost per acquisition basis – because businesses, regardless of size, are hesitant to throw their money at online advertising (banner, content sponsorship etc) without any agreed return on investment.  With a cost conscious market – business should be looking at other ways to promote themselves.

A key area I really to advocate – which is far more mutually beneficial to both parties, is indeed the world of ‘Partnership Marketing’.

By this I mean linking and ‘partnering’ with other businesses that have specific synergy.  You both have the same audience – but offer different services / products.  Find a partner with this specific synergy and 1) you can promote their relevant services to your customers and 2) they will promote your services to their.  Immediately creating a prospect base which is targeted – and is being ‘introduced’ by someone that audience potentially ‘trusts’ rather than a ‘cold sell’.

And of course, rather than do this on a ‘one hit wonder’ basis (which almost never works) – the partnership should continue for a period of time.

So let’s take a look at some examples of what works from a Partnership perspective:

1) Added Value

One great example is one of my clients, The Made Simple Group – who within their group of online solutions for the start up and small business community, have the award winning http://www.companiesmadesimple.com – a company formation site.  Google have partnered with The Made Simple Group for a number of years now, as they clearly see the benefits of offering Google Adwords vouchers to businesses that are just starting out in business – educating and advising on how to get noticed online and providing them with a voucher to try our Adwords.  This presents The Made Simple Group with a relevant added value offering and a great brand (Google) to promote on their sites.

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Over the past few weeks (probably 6 in total) I’ve been unable to post blogs.

Following the much tweeted about ‘Word Press’ hack – (and yes, my blog was indeed infiltrated and messed upsignificantly) – I thought I’d take advantage of having to reload my blog by moving it to my site (WHAT, I hear all SEO experts stating – she hasn’t got her blog on her site – longtail blah blah blah).  Yes, I know that it’s really poor from an SEO perspective, but my blog wasn’t started as a content and traffic builder for my site – it was a genuine attempt at independently sharing my marketing views, news and ideas and advice without having any ‘sales’ push.

Anyway – back to the blog, it’s now finally moved – so now I can happily post again.

And of course, what I’ve observed is that by not posting to my blog regularly – I’ve noticed that other things related to social media have also started to slow down.

• I haven’t visited / participated in as many of the  forums I usually visit
• I haven’t tweeted as much as usual
• I haven’t been vigilant with my Tweetbeep alerts
• And I haven’t even been checking out who is following me!

This lack of blogging activity, coupled with a few fab days away for a birthday celebration with girlfriends – has meant that over all, my social media activity has slowed from a force 7 to a force 1.

What’s daunting however is that in just a few weeks, as I now get back onto Twitter and the forums – so much activity seems to have happened – there’s so much that I’ve missed out on.  Already there are tons of other people out there – my Tweet Beep alerts are consistently firing new Twitterers – which I am again researching and if relevant then following.  All my blog posts have vanished from the ‘Latest Posts’ on the forums – it’s amazing how quickly you can drop out of the loop.  And there’s been so much activity on the forums – there’s just so much I could have been participating in!

So key things I take from this – which I didn’t fully appreciate before:

1. My blogging activity is the lead in my social media activity – if I don’t blog, I tend not to share my posts and tweet and then get involved with my regular social media environments.
2. If for reasons beyond my control, (life, bugs, holidays etc) I fall out of the loop – it’s as quick to get back on bandwagon as it was to fall off.  That’s the beauty of social media.
3. However, it’s probably best to stick at it and keep building momentum.  As when you stop – others do not.
4. Social media activity is still relatively fertile territory for the majority – so rather than give myself a hard time for not being as proactive as usual with my activity – give myself a break and realise that ‘hey, you’re still ahead of the majority’.

For more marketing news, views, ideas and advice – visit my Blog.

As anyone who has spoken to me in the past few months will know – I keep raving on about the brilliant book, ‘Funky Business’ – written by Riddlerstrale & Nordstrom (see www.funkybusiness.com).

It was published in 1999 – so it is 10 years old – but a decade later and the messages and gems containedwithin are more relevant than ever.

One message which really resonates is about risk – taking risks, daring to be innovative and creative, being willing to be laughed at – to fail – taking it all on the chin, learning and trying again.

Isn’t that how great marketing works? Let’s face it, behind the majority of successful ventures or products – it is likely that there are tens, if not hundreds, of attempts that went before the success.

Even those success stories that just seem to have ‘happened’ and become an overnight phenomena –(eg: Twitter) will have had a previous format in a previous life that failed, was tweaked, tested, failed again, tweaked, tested – taking years to create a formula that works and brings huge success.

Of course, written 10 years ago – their view of a ‘traditional organisation’ – is one where innovation and creativity is not encouraged or nurtured. Failure carries the corporate equivalent of the death penalty – sending a message throughout the corporate system that failure is punished.

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DON’T ask people to register unless it’s absolutely necessary!

I recently read an article on Webcredible – it was about optimising user registration and, of course, enhancing the user experience.  The article went something like this…

“Do you ever get annoyed at having to make yet another password for one more website? Too many websites still force users to register without good reason, or provide an ineffective registration process. You can avoid frustrating users on your website by thinking about the following points:

1. Ask users to login or register only when necessary. Those parts of a website that aren’t personalised should be equally accessible by registered and non-registered users. Only ask people to login or register when it’s required to complete an action, not earlier.
2. Make registration optional where possible. Customers shouldn’t have to ‘create an account’ in order to buy products from an online shop. If a site needs to remember simple previously entered information, this can also be done by using a cookie, which of course requires no effort from the end user. Read more »

The creation of your business may have been down to many factors – timing, a brilliant innovative idea, discovering a gap in the market, an invention – however, whatever it was, to bring your business to life and ensure its longevity, then knowing where your business is heading and having a vision, which you can ‘share’ with employees, investors and customers – is an all important, yet often overlooked, part of the business planning process.

The Visioning Process is really the critical starting point – if you’ve clearly set out a vision for where your business is heading, you have something that you can live by – and any other stakeholders, can easily understand. After all, if you have everyone associated with your business singing from the same hymn sheet – all clearly focused on the direction of the business – then you are ahead of the game in getting there…

Visioning isn’t simply about creating an inspirational ‘tag line’ such as ‘Be the best’ – it’s about the processes which are implemented and the values that underpin what ‘being the best’ means.

I recently read a case study about the vision at Motorola – their vision is very simply ‘wireless’ – simple, yet hugely ambitious. 3M focuses on ‘solving unsolved problems’. These statements are simple enough to be shared by all team – and they are clear in saying what the companies should not be doing. Try showing up at Motorola with a wire and see what happens!

Visioning is an important strategic process – which whilst may take a bit of time to implement, is certainly worth doing – to ensure that you are 100% clear on where you are heading.

There’s a great saying; “People who set out without a target hit it 100% of the time!” – so let’s take a look at the Visioning Process – to ensure that you have a Vision to live by…

Step 1: Where are you now?

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As an avid Twitter user I recently came across a white paper written by Michael Stelzner – it’s the first official ‘marketing industry report’ on social media that I have come across – no doubt many, many more will follow.

The report, titled; How Marketers are using Social Media to Grow their Businesses is most certainly worth a read. It documents the findings of research geared to ‘marketers’ with a sample size of approx 900 participating.

Of course, it is a US sample – but given the context of the questions (behaviour based) – geographical location is pretty much irrelevant.

Whilst I’ve been ‘in marketing’ for over 15 years – I am a relative newbie to Social Media (just about 9 months!). Yes, I’ve been blogging for about 9 months now – and participating in forums for about the same time – and have absorbed myself in Twitter for the past few months.

I’ve never really been a Facebook fan – as when I dabbled some months back – I felt that it was more of a ‘popularity contest’ – (how many friends do I have) rather than a useful resource – and from a B2B perspective, in my view, it still has a lot of ground to break. I had researched Facebook and the other social networks, both established and emerging, quite rigourously – about 18 months ago – as I was (and still am) involved in the development of http://www.bizzbug.com which for me, is a far more practical and useful (not to mention more private) resource.

On Twitter I’ve connected with some really very interesting and useful people. And often I think of myself as a ’student’ – listening to the wise musings of those that appear to have been part of the social media scene for years!

When digging around however, for research and best practice methodologies and strategies for social media – there’s not much around. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of Top 10, Top 20, Top 100 articles (some of which are very useful) – but clearly the territory is still too fertile for established ‘research’ and documented strategies.

I was therefore somewhat comforted to read in Michael Stelzner’s report findings that 72% of those using social media in their business – have only been doing so for a ‘few months or less’.

Further, it was good to see that the main platforms that ‘marketers’ were engaging in were; Twitter, Blogs, Linked-In and Facebook. So the fact that I am active in three out of the four didn’t make me feel too left behind.

I was surprised that Forums didn’t rate higher than they did. I participate in two or three very relevant forums and I find them really useful. Where relevant I can point people to solutions I may have written about in my blog – or to other resources – and answer specific questions, sharing my experience, advice and views. And of course, when stuck or looking for a ‘feel’ on things – then I can pose questions. A forum is far more ‘tightly knit’ than say ‘Twitter’ – and I notice that forum members tend to be genuinely protective of ‘the community space’ – spammers and users on a forum for a quick sell, are quickly given the boot.

It was during a forum thread about Social Media that I came across a tribe of people who are clearly upset that ‘marketers’ have jumped on the social media bandwagon and have bastardised the concept – ruining the platforms for people who want to have genuine conversations and connect. The view was that people were sick of ‘marketers’ muscling in on ‘their’ spaces and that they were going to have to find another means to ’socialise’!

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I remember during one of the recent ‘Apprentice’ episodes – ‘Shr’ Alan’ making the statement that, ‘once he’d had a taste of working for himself, even when he wasn’t making a fortune, wild horses wouldn’t have been able to drag him back to work for someone else’.

Having been self employed for the past 7 years – I found myself nodding in agreement with his statement.

But that got me questioning just why I agreed so readily with his statement. Let’s face it – I am aware of many people who are very, very happy working for someone else. They get rewarded both financially and personally – enjoy paid holidays and sick days, pensions, perks and generally really enjoy their roles. And whilst I’m not undermining the pressure of many roles – having been employed for most of my working life, I recall, that there’s definitely more opportunity to ’switch off’ – after all your ‘role’ is a job and as conscientious as one may be – you are ultimately not the business owners – that’s somebody else’s challenge! And unless your role is ‘commission’ based – then you’re not often directly constantly concerned with winning and developing new business to keep a constant revenue stream through the business.

So given how attractive employment is, what then is it that drives an individual to rough it through the very real challenges of ’self employment’?

I have been pondering this for a few days now… and whilst it would be a simple task for me to write a list of the pros and cons of employment -v- self employment: flexibility, accountability, responsibility, exhaustability (is that a word?!) to name but a few.    However,  I believe it actually runs a bit deeper than that.

From my perspective, it’s the balance of the relationship that’s an all important factor. Plain and simple – it comes down to ‘playing fair’.

I think we’ll all agree, that regardless of the type of management style we operate, or participate within [hierarchical, non hierarchical] – in all cases an employee is viewed differently from a ’supplier’. The expectation of an employee is to ‘do’ for the business. The expectation of a ’supplier’ is to supply to the business. With employees there is usually some form of ‘hierarchical’ structure – and ‘boundaries’ to play within – yet with ’suppliers’ the balance is far more equal.

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As a marketer with a mantra of ‘be targeted’ – then I always raise an eyebrow when I receive messages from Twitter followers advising me how to get 1000 new followers in 48 hours! And, I certainly don’t follow back those on Twitter who clearly only have the goal of creating a huge number of followers (but to what end!).

I find Twitter a really useful resource – but that’s because I am following – and largely being followed, in a targeted way.

I’ve conversed with my followers to bounce ideas around and get feedback from – and given that I am talking to a relatively targeted audience – then it’s all highly relevant.

To assist me in my targeted strategy – I’ve been using TweetBeep (http://www.tweetbeep.com) – I am aware that there are other alert apps out there – but this is the one I started with – and it’s doing the job marvellously.

Effectively, I use the alert process for a number of things:

• I set my alerts on certain keywords that are relevant to my interests, eg: user experience, social media marketing, usability and online psychology.
• I get alerted via a TweetBeep email each time these keywords are triggered.
• This allows me to read through the messages –check out who the people are – and decide whether to follow them or not. If relevant, I do.
• It’s also been really useful in identifying areas where I can assist and share information. For example – when I saw messages from people looking for a social media strategy outline – I was able to send across a document I had put together. Without the TweetBeep, I wouldn’t have been able to help. I add value to them, they then start following me – subscribe into my blog etc – they’ve found a ‘relevant’ contact.
• Likewise – I’ve found relevant contacts in the same way – and have found some really useful people to follow.
• It also enables me to monitor my own ‘reach’. I often come across my own tweets – being shared across the network by people who are not necessarily following me. And of course, if you set an alert in your own name/twitter handle – then you’ll get alerted on these too.

Of course, when I do follow a new user – then I always check out who they are following – this enables me to grow the people I follow in a targeted way. Like often attracts like – and I am finding that many of the people I am connecting with – are also following in a targeted way – so hence – in their followers, I am finding a great pool of relevant contacts for me to explore.

You can set the alerts on anything which is relevant to you – and so if you too have a targeted strategy, rather than a ‘follow anyone in the hope they too have a follow all strategy and have autofollow set ‘ one – you can watch the relevant conversations that are taking place – and then decide how and whether to participate.

The TweetBeep alerts are pretty instantaneous – and so not only relevant but timely. As I said – there are other alerts out there – and I am told that Tweetdeck has this facility within it.

So, whichever, alert you go for – my advice is cut through the noise and ‘get targeted’.

For more marketing news, views, strategies and advice – then why not subscribe to my blog

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It was a weird start to the day. Having gone to bed very early the evening before (poorly daughter had kept me awake for much of the previous 3 nights) – I had missed all the news on Twitter and so awoke with no idea about the terribly sad news of Michael Jackson’s death.

They say that you always remember where you are when you hear shocking news – and so there I was – in the kitchen, robotically preparing weetabix and bagels.

I turned on the news and the media circus was, as one would expect, in full swing.

From the myriad of documentaries that were given pride of place in the programming schedules (and I viewed 3 consecutively) – they all seemed to have been splitting Michael Jackson’s life into 3 sections:

1. The early years – how he started, the Jackson 5, the Jacksons
2. The King of Pop – how he changed music, broke down barriers of ‘colour’
3. Whacko Jacko – how we went off the rails, his appearance, ‘the court case’, self destruction and his debts

As true marmite lovers know –  all brands, and in particularly with superbrands – thrive on ‘brand loyalty’ – people grow to love their ‘brands’ so much – that they won’t hear anything negative said against them, they become protective of their brand, and no matter what slurs are made against that brand, it takes a lot to switch true brand loyalty.

Superbrands are superbrands because they are able to sustain ‘loyalty’ over a significant period of time. It’s not really about ‘Michael Jackson’ himself – but more about the values, beliefs and feelings we as ‘consumers’ associate with him. What does Michael Jackson mean to you? That’s the loyalty factor.

Michael Jackson as a brand has been growing this loyalty for over 45 years – and so his superbrand status is truly embedded.

In reality, even shocking allegations of child molestation, whilst not great for the brand, didn’t really do much to dent the brand power. The several millions of people tuned into ‘the verdict’ is testament to his brand strength and reach – with people from all over the world screaming and crying at the ‘verdict’ – as if it was one of their closest family members. And personally, I just didn’t believe it. Call me naïve if you wish – but whilst I figured he was clearly a shrewd businessman, I really couldn’t get my head around him being anything other than emotionally ‘innocent’.

And it isn’t surprising – many of us around the 40 ish age – grew up with Michael Jackson. I know in my household – my mother’s Sunday morning cleaning ritual was supported by Shirley Bassey and anything ‘motown’ – and The Jacksons featured heavily – so I was about 7 when I was dancing to ‘I want you back’ with a duster in my hand.

And so it went – each time he reinvented his brand, giving it a new edge or angle – we all followed his journey.

It’s a rare thing to find a person who hasn’t got the ‘Off the Wall’ album (somewhere) or who watched the Thriller video in awe, with a household of friends – video-taped it and then relentlessly endeavoured to replicate the steps in perfect sequence to showcase at the school disco! (Or perhaps that was just me and my friends!).

Thriller was such a ground breaking event in music – treasured by billions of people of all ages. In fact, when my mother died and my sister and I were sorting out the house – we found the Thriller video which she had recorded years earlier, and kept (video cassettes in the era of dvds!) alongside video recordings of our family. She clearly couldn’t part with the tape – even though she no longer had a video recorder! And I took it home with me – dogged and worn with the fingerprints of my family and friends – an old video recording of Thriller – but such sentiment and value – loyalty to the brand.

Prior to going it alone, I worked in a global consultancy – when we did our 3 day intense management training seminars, the supporting music was Michael Jackson’s, ‘Man in the Mirror’ – strategically selected because of his power to connect emotionally with audiences.

Whilst the media are keen to advise us of just how much debt he is in and what a terrible mess he’s made of things – £400 million, (or it is billion!). Then at least from a financial perspective, we can all rest assured that the death of a superbrand is good for business.

The debts will pale into insignificance with new album sales, downloads, memorabilia, tribute concerts – and long may they all continue. It’s a shame it takes his death to give his range of music more airtime, and for us all to remember his outstanding achievements and contribution to music.

As I said earlier – a brand isn’t about the ‘object’ ‘product’ or ‘person’ – it’s about the values that the object, product or person instils in the hearts and minds of the consumer. And over the years, Michael Jackson has given us so much to value – such value builds a barrier which makes it difficult for any negativity to penetrate.

I found the ‘Wacko Jacko’ emphasis in the programmes I watched last night – distasteful, but that’s because they are not part of the values I associate with Michael Jackson – and from a psychological perspective – once those values are embedded, as any brand manager looking after a ‘superbrand’ will tell you, they are excruciatingly difficult to shift.

The tributes from people who really knew Michael Jackson all seem to concur with the fact that he was a genius talent, a genuinely nice guy, shrewd in business, yet gentle and childlike, often introverted – and through pressure, he lost his way. Fame beyond fame – but at what cost? He had so much to live up to – it was interesting when his sister was talking about the pressure surrounding the lack of success of the HIStory album – to learn that even though this was deemed a ‘failure’ – it still had more sales than most recording artists could even dream of achieving. The bar was certainly high!

I may have seen him a few times (in concert), I certainly never met or knew him. And so, my views about Michael Jackson can only be based on what he and his music has meant to me over the years.

Genius talent and King of Pop for sure.  There’s no doubt his music will continue to be played forever.  And yes, my children have already been introduced to The Jacksons and Michael Jackson,  as we dance around the house with our dusters on a Sunday morning!

Superbrand indeed – yet also an all time icon!