Category: Managed Services

Scoop.it Leading The Lean Content Movement

Listening to Scoop.it CEO Guillaume Decugis discuss “Lean Content” on Blog Talk Radio it felt like they are on to something important. The Scoop.it team defines “lean content”  on their #leancontent Scoop as, “Resources, tools, tips, and tricks for the most efficient use of content with the minimum use of resources”. This definition echos one of my most viral posts 5 Magical Do More With Less Curation Tools. I tweeted into the broadcast to ask if “lean content” also meant creating less content that does more.

Yes, the Scoop.it team confirmed. One dimension of “lean content” is creating a deeper message faster with less effort. Seth Godin’s blog is very lean, usually only one idea at a time and rarely more than a three hundred words. Godin’s latest book, The Icarus Deception, isn’t really a “book” as much as a series of threaded vignettes.

Trends driving the lean content movement include:

• Content explosion even as available attention remains constant. 
• Advanced visualization techniques and skills. 
• Video gamification of everything. 
• Mobile tsunami. 
• Rise of Content Curation
• Nature of human attention.

The Content Explosion

Eric Schmidt tagged the content explosion at the 2010 Techonomy Conference when he said, “Every two days we create as much content as from the dawn of man up to the year 2003”. Schmidt also correctly identified the content explosion’s source – UGC (User Generated Content) flooding in from social networks such as Facebook and Twitter. UGC isn’t the only content driver these days. Velocity Partners, in an excellent SlideShare, notes how 9 out of 10 marketers plan much more content this year (2013). Here is Google Trends for the phrase “content marketing”:

The content marketing, or “inbound marketing”, worm has surely turned. When I preached content marketing in 2003 no one cared. Now everyone cares, but few know how to create or support great content. This means, as Velocity Partners in the UK noted, CRAP content is exploding too. Now your GREAT content will need to be twice as good to cut through the clutter.

Advancement In Visualization Techniques – Infographics

Have you noticed the Infogrpahics explosion? Some say infographics are over killed by their own success. I disagree. The visual representation of complex ideas will increase in value as content continues to flood over the dam. Lean content means lean presentation or gaining as much understanding from as few words as possible.

Video Gamification of Everything

Steven Johnson correctly speculated that video games have many benefits to managing contemporary life in an information age in his book Everything Bad Is Good For You. You don’t have to reach far to see “video gamification” whether it is in becoming the Mayor of Starbucks via FourSquare or how LinkedIn is using crowdsourced tagging to clean its records and set its algorithm via “recommendations”. What are smart phones if not amazing video game consoles.

Mobile Tsunami

We are connected 24/7/365. Most people have their phone within ten feet most of the day. Phones are the curators of our lives. We fill up every moment of “free time” with email curation, texting and watching video of crazy cats on smart phones, iPads and other mobile devices. The “Mobile First” movement suggests to begin any content marketing journey mobile and work backwards. I agree since to NOT use mobile devices as any content or campaign’s first view is to deny an important trend. Mobile also brings additional needs for lean content such as:

• Need for speed on the slower more densely packed mobile network.
• Different ergonomics as typing becomes a pain and visuals become critical.
• Need for arresting and informing visuals in less space and with less depth of field.

Rise of Content Curation

When I saw the Google Trends chart for “Content Curation” below in 2011 I created Atlantic Bt’s Content Curation Contest. Our contest would be followed by a flood of books, ideas and blog posts about the benefits of curating content such as: more efficient to create more reach, reinforces brand and SEO authority and plays well with Google’s “Quality Deserves Freshness” changes in their Panda and Penguin algorithm updates.

Nature of Human Attention

You don’t have to look far to see confirmation of the, “No one reads anymore”. Facebook pictures generate 35% more LIKES than other post.  A picture is worth a thousand words especially when discussing how much more visual we are than textual:

Lean Content Movement’s Three Legged Stool

The lean content movement is is about writing less but saying more, using curation, fast feedback loops and tools such as Scoop.it to live up to the promise of “less is more”. I’m a big fan of movements not campaigns and think my friends at Scoop.it are on to a big one with #leancontent.

How Small Businesses Create Sticky Content Marketing

During Free Internet Marketing Consulting Saturday this week, a clearly exasperated small business person asked a great question. “You say we have to create great content, but there is already a sea of great content. How can my content stand out?” A chiropractor named Todd asked this excellent question and, after some further discussion, we decided that VIDEO Q&A would be very sticky. As he shared, “I get asked the same questions over and over.”

Sticky Is as Sticky Does – VIDEO Marketing

Video content isn’t as deeply rooted as written content. Video, thanks to embed codes, skims along the surface of the web and is easily shared and promoted on social networks. In fact, Facebook is already the 2nd largest video player behind YouTube, because pictures and videos are the best kind of Facebook content. If Todd the Chiropractor decided to create five videos answering questions about back health, those questions his customers ask over and over, there’s no telling where his Q&A videos could show up.

Couple of things to remember when creating video marketing:

• Don’t JUST host on YouTube.
• Include transcripts to help SEO.
• Short is better than long (1 minute = great).
• Create an umbrella brand, such as Atlantic BT’s “conversations”.
• Q&A is a great format.
• Mix in “B-Roll” and graphics so it’s more than just talking heads.

Use Cliche, Convention and Common Understanding

Made to Stick, the Heath brothers’ book, is my favorite source for HOW TO make Internet marketing ideas sticky.  Their biggest lesson? Sell NEW from OLD. The Heath brothers created one of the best examples of how to build awareness of the NEW from an old archetype, analogy or metaphor by pasting a piece of duct tape on the cover of Made To Stick. You don’t have to teach anyone that duct tape is sticky, so their book concept is instantly understood.

Create Personas and Segments

When I describe Cure Cancer Starter, my Story of Cancer nonprofit foundation’s first project, I say, “It is like Kickstarter for cancer research,” to a technical audience. For a non-technical audience, an audience that may not know the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter, I change my pitch to, “Cure Cancer Starter is like Facebook for cancer researchers and patients.”  Always use Made to Stick’s main lesson, build the new from the old, but modify your message to your audience.

Persona Examples

Dan the Overworked Man

• Age: 40’s
• Profession: White collar, IT 
• Sports: Runs, was a long distance runner in college
• Average Work Week: 60 hours plus some off hour tech support
• Commute: Drives an hour to and from work each day with some traffic
• Family: Married to Sally Stressed and has two teenagers, son Chip and daughter Mary. 
• History: Long history of back trouble since college, wears prescription orthopedics when runs.  
• Lifetime Value: Customer for more than a year with weekly adjustments.
• Social: Active on social media. 
• Technology: Desktop at work, laptop at home and phone when “on call” for tech support. 
• Gladwell: Connector / Maven. 

 

Sally Stressed

• Age: 40’s
• Profession: White collar, IT.
• Sports: Plays tennis with a group on Sundays after church.
• Average Work Week: 80 hours (job + managing home front).
• Commute: Drives half an hour to work dropping off junior high school age son Chip and daughter Macy before work.
• Family: Married to Dan the Overworked Man with two teenagers.
• History: Back trouble started after 2nd pregnancy and Macy’s birth.
• Lifetime Value: New customer, only comes once a month when she “can find the time”.
• Social: Active on Facebook and uses Facebook to organize tennis and book club. Also active in PTA.
• Technology: Lives on her phone and iPad.
• Gladwell: Salesperson (Sally is the organizer of her group selling tennis, book club and impromptu meetings).

 

How to Use Personas & Segments

Dan the Overworked Man and Sally Stressed are the same age and share many of the same environmental stresses. Despite their similarities, Todd the Chiropractor wouldn’t want to make the same offers or use the same language when communicating with Sally and Dan. Sally Stressed is more time compressed and less devoted to adjustments than is Dan the Overworked Man. Chances are good that Dan the Overworked Man sent Sally Stressed to see Todd the chiropractor for her first adjustment.  Sally would be defined by Gladwell, in his highly recommended marketing book The Tipping Point, as a “Salesperson”.

Gladwell would define Dan a Maven, a technical expert who shares with his peers. Mavens crave details and may embed and share Todd the Chiropractor’s videos. It is a great idea to ASK A MAVEN what subjects would appeal. Mavens love sharing their advice. Mavens may take Todd the Chiropractor’s videos and embed them on Facebook or include Todd’s videos on their personal blog, especially if they’ve been consulted.

Sally Stressed is unlikely to embed videos, but she might share a video with her friends at tennis or during a book club session. Sally responds to GROUP incentive, so her video should feature more people than Dan’s. Connection is more important than technical details for the Sally Stressed archetype. Todd the Chiropractor might have 15 seconds where 3 to 5 women discuss their adjustments in the round for the Sally Stressed group. Sally Stressed likes to sell her friends, so asking Sally how to appeal to her friends would increase her engagement and help shape Todd the Chiropractor’s message for women in the Sally Stressed group.

How Segments are Different From Personas

It can be tough, when creating personas, to remember you need enough specific information to enable marketing TO the persona and not so much that you’ve created a group of one. An archetype is a macro grouping. Sally Stressed represents a larger group of similar women who balance life, work and family. Dan the Overworked Man represents a group of men who were active in sports in college and have had to make compromises as life’s demands changed their journey. The Dan the Overworked Man group works too much and exercises too little (familiar right?, lol).

Personas and segments are different. You might only have two segments: new and returning customers, with a handful of personas within those two segments. If personas are organized by customer characteristics, then segments are more about how a business operates. Todd the Chiropractor might have a segment each for Chapel Hill, Durham and Raleigh (location), a segment for insurance and non (way customers pay) and a segment for customers who respond to deals (offers). Segments come from a small business’s data and operations. Personas come from customer characteristics (demographics and psychographics).

Data may show the Sally Stressed archetype responds to Groupon promotions, shares Groupon deals with friends and uses those offers in 30 days. The same data may show Dan the Overworked Man hates Groupon offers (low redemption). Some in the Dan the Overworked Man group may go beyond low redemption to complain about how crowded the office becomes with “new people”. Great marketers take feedback like Dan the Overworked Man’s and find ways to create marketing that feeds Sally Stressed’s need for group savings and Dan the Overworked Man’s need for a more intimate relationship with his Chiropractor.

All businesses must grow to prosper. A satisfied customer is the best advertising no business can “buy”. Risking a loyal customer like Dan for more sporadic customers like Sally would be a mistake, as Todd the Chiropractor’s data would show. Use personas to understand your customer’s needs and desires. Use segments to craft offers that don’t rob Peter to pay Paul.  Yes, “rob Peter to pay Paul” is an example of a Made to Stick-ism. Also highly recommend: Managing Content Marketing by Rose and Pulizzi for more “How To” help creating personas and segments.

What about you? Did you find this Tip of the Week helpful? What is your tip? Share your experience creating personas and segments, and we will curate your thoughts in.

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Open Office Hours Friday With Marty

When: 11:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.

Where: Atlantic BT Center (across from Macy’s Crabtree)

RSVP: First come, first served – tweet @Atlanticbt #FreeFriday & your date

Don’t Forget: Free Internet Marketing Saturdays

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First Free Internet Marketing Open Office Hours Friday

Just concluded our first Open Office Hours Friday. Spent a couple of hours discussing my friend Doug Kaufman’s website AlleyDog.com. AlleyDog.com is a cool website Doug built when he was in college as a resource for psychology students.

When anyone asks me about a website, I want to know these things:

Marty’s Website Scorecard For AlleyDog.com

AlleyDog.com HomePage Google PageRank (PR): 6 (this is excellent, 10 is top)
Inbound Links: 407 (this is a tad anemic for a PR6, explained below)
PageSpread: 7,000 pages (use site: on Google to see pages indexed)
Google #1 Listings (absolute, i.e., no float): AlleyDog.com has many #1 listings.

I can know everything an Internet marketer needs to know from these numbers. For example, I see AlleyDog.com’s PR6 and only 407 inbound links (Alexa), and I know that some of those inbound links are very special. I’ve been an Internet marketer long enough to know why 407 inbound links (root domains, not total inbound links) can generate a PR6 too – educational links.

AlleyDog.com lives in the .edu space. It doesn’t get more authoritative or trusted than .edu for Google. One PR5 .edu is worth an army of non-.edu’s PR4’s. The more trusted the websites linking to you, the more trusted your website is for Google.

I also know with that many Google #1’s that Doug understands the Q&A goldmine. Nothing stronger than a glossary to rocket your pages to the top of the listings. His glossary is rocking traffic and has many, many top listings. We discussed how to make those pages more social to preserve the rank even when under attack.

We also discussed how to build revenue for AlleyDog.com. I made a few points that regular readers of ScentTrail Marketing or my posts on Atlantic BT will recognize:

• User Generated Content (UGC) – the “More, Faster, Better“ thing.
• Platforms vs. Websites – have to have a place, a HIVE, for UGC to multiply and grow strong.
• Authority Content – AlleyDog.com is solid here, but MORE would be good (see UGC).
• Social Support – Social signals confirm and elevate  content.

Becoming a Social Business

“My head is spinning,” Doug said at the end of our two hours. I get that reaction frequently (lol). One of the most interesting discussions was how AlleyDog.com can become a social business. We discussed the overt vs. covert signals websites send, a favorite topic (See “Your Website Communicates Non-verbally Here’s How” on ScentTrail Marketing).

AlleyDog.com is currently a lecture site. No email subscription form and only a Facebook Like widget below the fold means AlleyDog.com wants to share information more than create community. I shared how dangerous it is to be a lecture website, even a great one, in a social and mobile age.

I suggested Doug tip his toe in with a contest like our Curation Contest from last year. Here is the phased approach I used to create Atlantic BT’s Curation Contest last year (and that I’ve used many other times) :

I. Call for Entries – need a landing page outlining contest terms and criteria and an entry form.
II.  Curate entries into a group of “semi-finalists”.
III. Social Competition Phase – use wisdom of crowds community voting to curate down to a handful of finalists.
IV. Some Expert Board picks winners.
V.  Memorialize in some permanent way (profiles on your website – I still owe our semi-finalists this, sorry guys).

I learned some important B2B Marketing Tips from our successful Curation Contest including:

• Include a “Download the Content” landing page so you don’t lose qualified leads.
• Develop relevant “white paper” or video content that move qualified leads off the contest and into your nurture track.
• Never let community voting award Grand Prizes (too much spam, and you miss another marketing opportunity to market the experts. We fixed this in our $25,000 Mobile Grant Contest).
• Mobile is CRITICAL, especially in the voting stage.
• Moneyball happens at the social voting stage, so make sure your website is ready to FLY when 10,000 people are all trying to vote at one time. May want to double or even triple the size of your pipe and be sure to test the page under LOAD. An alternative is use an edge network like Amazon’s or Akamai to cache the VOTE NOW page).
• Most valuable, long term, is the permanent home of winners via profiling. I fell down on this, but you shouldn’t, because it sets the stage to repeat and continues your strong connection to players.

1:10:89 Rule

If you Google “1:10:89 Rule”, I think ScentTrail Marketing still comes up first (depending on the float). The rule is simple and frustrating but beyond important if you are a content marketer (and who isn’t, now). 1% of your traffic will contribute meaningful content, 10% will vote on the content created by you, and the 1% and 89% are important but form the silent majority of your website.

This means ANYONE who votes, shares or comments is beyond valuable to your revenue dreams. Five years ago, User Generated Content (UGC) was important; now it is beyond critical. UGC and social signals are the game you play. How YOU feel about something matters some, but how THEY (your customers or visitors) feel about you, the products you sell and the content you create is THE GAME.

Social signals are important for many reasons BEYOND Search Engine Optimization (SEO) such as:

• Social signals (LIKES, Shares and other people who like X also like Y) create LIKE ME connections.
• Social signals confirm or deny what you are saying, so they legitimize your marketing.
• Social signals are the fastest feedback loop you’ve got.
• Where social signals go, MONEY follows.

4 Levels of Social Signals

There are 4 Phases to becoming a social business online:

• Create a cool UGC Contest to get your feet wet and drive traffic.
• Add in a social share widget.
• Solicit UGC via comments and reviews.
• Gamify it all.

If creating a cool UGC contest as describe above is Phase One social, then making sure every page has the ability to be liked and shared via a social signal widget such as AddThis.com is Phase Two Social. Best application of social shares for my money is Mashable.

Mashable added a “total” number, and that is masterful (Mashable Total Social Shares Example).  Slap a SHARE widget all around. Remember you want the POST shared and your website LIKED and SHARED too, so set up places to do both.

Phase Three Social is  actively seeking reviews and comments. WordPress does a good job, and I’m sure there is a plugin to take your comments and reviews to the next level. I used PowerReviews and Bazaar Voice as a Director of Ecommerce and liked them both. As Doug pointed out, those are SaaS applications he can’t afford. I don’t have direct experience with a good SaaS to help here, so will look into it and then curate an answer in.

Phase Four is adding a gamification layer to use social incentives to drive engagement and content creation (read “Gamification: Winning Hearts, Minds and Loyalty Online“ for more).

Not hard to see why Doug’s head was spinning, but becoming a social business and then, almost at the same time, a mobile business is critical to success. Social and Mobile have been combined into SMobile because everyone wants something to do while standing on the Starbucks coffee line.

If AlleyDog.com can gamify its User Generated Content creation via mobile, all the better.

Mobile tends to go drip, drip, drip and then FLOOD. This means if your mobile traffic is less than 5% and so you think the mobile revolution doesn’t apply to you, you are WRONG (read our drip, drip flood Mobile story “The Mobile Revolution Arrives at Atlantic BT“).

Two Last Notes

Doug was frustrated that his Q&A area didn’t get more traction. Q&A areas are like a garden. They need a lot of tending before they bear fruit. Critical components of Q&A include:

• Contributor Profiles – who is providing what input and how legitimate are they?
• Social Rewards – Must gamify Q&A, see my friends at AnswerHub.com for a great SaaS to help.
• Seeded Content – If Q&A is a ghost town, it is on YOU not THEM, but make sure you seed content in.
• Consistent Social Support – Be sure to Tweet and curate cool things that happen in your Q&A area as that drives more engagement and content.

The Silver Bullet Problem

The other thing we discussed is the lack of a silver bullet (See “Think Like an Internet Marketer: Silver Bullets and Barking Dogs” for more). Doug really wanted me to tell him the ONE THING he can do to win.

Sorry, Internet marketing is about spreading the board, hedging your bets and diversifying your digital assets. Once you see a vein of gold, by all means MINE IT, but if I could tell Doug or anyone reading this post where the gold was…. Well, I would be on a beach with a frosty beverage, a well dented lounge chair and a big guy named LARS bringing whatever my many friends and I needed (actually, I would NEVER spend money this way as long as cancer isn’t cured, but you get the idea).

Now your head is spinning too, right? Cool, then my work here is done.

Rock on and have a great weekend. We are going to have a ROCKING time tomorrow at my Free Internet Marketing Consulting Saturdays with @1918 (Phil Buckley) talking SEO and Mark Traphagen discussing Google AuthorRank.

			Origins of Tech Cures Cancer: Falling in Love with Technology In 1982 I was 24 years old. I remember sitting across from a loan officer at Marine Midland Bank in Buffalo, New York explaining why I needed $5,000 to buy this new thing called a Personal Computer. Would you make that loan? No, I wouldn’t either. . Thankfully, he did. I purchased a PC with 640K of memory, two big floppy drives, and a monochrome green monitor. I worked days selling M&M’s, and at night I worked my second job learning software and operating systems. . My goal was to eliminate paperwork that took a day a week. The irony of spending hundreds of hours to save a day a week escaped me. My life’s journey took its first left turn. . I was in love with technology.
			My Year For Curing Cancer I will donate my 2013 Atlantic BT salary to the Elizabeth Martin and Duncan Smith Story of Cancer Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit named for my parents. . The Foundation’s mission is to identify and build technology to help cure cancer and provide support for cancer patients, their families and friends. . Tech Cures Cancer!
Want To Help? There are thousands of ways you can help, such as by hiring Atlantic BT to design your website or mobile application or by sharing your ideas, enthusiasm and support. . Join the Tech Cures Cancer Movement through the “Yes, I want To Help” form on the right. . * Privacy Protected and double opt in. Look for the confirmation email to confirm your membership.

A Quick Caveat
I am NOT a graphic designer, nor do I play one on TV. Never think that what you see in one of my blog posts comes out of our design group. I tend to brute force ideas visually and then let talented artists clean, tune and improve them. Caveat stated, here is why AFTER MARTY has a chance of converting readers to customers while BEFORE MARTY has little chance.

Homaro Cantu Food Genius

I love revolutionaries, no matter where they are and what they are doing. Homaro Cantu is a “food genius”. His MoTo and Ing restaurants are on the forefront of a cooking revolution. Creating great email marketing is like cooking. Too much of anything ruins the dish. Homaro’s newsletter (on the right above and linked below) arrived in my inbox needing some help from an Internet chef. Here is how I tuned Homaro’s newsletter so his audience could convert (do what he wants them to do such as buy his book and make reservations).

Ing Newsletter

1. The 7 Word Headline Rule

Emails are like billboards. They are scanned FAST and visually. Flying by at 70 mph, you don’t have time to read more than 7 words on a billboard by the side of the highway. Whose life isn’t flying by at 70 mph now? No one reads anymore. Marketing is becoming more visual and less text.  Create a 7 word headline. Here are some quick off the top of my head 7 word headline ideas for presenting Homaro’s cookbook:

Homaro’s Miracle Berries Cookbook Arrives 1.1.2013

Miracles In Them There Berries, New Cantu Cookbook

Chef Cantu’s Miracle Berries Cookbook – FREE

Not going to fully brainstorm the headline now, but of these ideas, FREE crushes the others in clicks and conversion. Seth Godin proved the only way to “sell” a new book is give it away, get people talking and then curate their chatter. The world is about to be awash in diet books since January is “diet season”, so Homaro should create a User Generated Content (UGC) contest and ask potential customers why it is important to win a copy of the Miracle Berries Cookbook. The value of such a campaign vs. what is there now is beyond calculation.

 2. Don’t Oversell the Click

This email is set up as a “Newsletter” and thus its length, impossible size and flood of text. Even in a newsletter, the format of your emails should be highly visual and tease the click. I call the BEFORE MARTY marketing Chinese Army Marketing. This email floods the reader’s senses with information in the hope they will comply. No one ever does.

I thought the BEFORE MARTY email was spam at first glance. Even when creating monthly Newsletters, do so in a Pinterest-like, highly visual way. Use images and sub-headlines to tease the click into a landing or product page. You can’t convert on email so don’t try, and don’t oversell the click.

3. Use Occam’s Razor & Friendly CTAs

One of the problems with being an Internet marketer is you can’t see your own work after a bit. You have what the Heath brothers defined as a “Curse of knowledge” in their book Made To Stick. Things my email marketing team and I thought we had razored down to the thinnest, most minimal components were still never simple enough or clear enough.

If you want to be a successful email marketer, form a partnership with a team like the friendly dinosaurs at Bronto and let them teach you how to email market. If that is too big of a commitment, look at emails that motivate you to click: I bet there is an offer you can’t resist from a trusted source.

CTAs Are Email Marketers’ BFFs!
Call To Actions (CTAs) may be the most important missing element in the BEFORE MARTY example. There are CTAs in there, many of them, but they are so swamped with TEXT and messages that the chance of any one CTA being acted upon is zero. The Seth Godin Rule applies: One is fine, Two is pushing it and Three is insane. I pushed AFTER MARTY to 3 CTAs just to show you can fudge a little.

I like BIG, highly contrasting buttons because after years of testing, they always won. I move the second and third CTA’s down in graphical attention-getting (size and color and moved the 3rd CTA Meet Homaro to a simple text link). I want to focus response where it is needed MOST (selling the book).

FREE is the best CTA, so find a way to use it. In my example I envision a sign-up form where users share why they need miracle berries. Put the User Generated Content received from such a contest into a voting stage to really amp traffic because people competing for the book will drive their social traffic to your website (or Homaro’s).

4. What Is Goal of This Email Marketing Communication?

If you are confused about what you are trying to accomplish, your customers will be hopelessly lost. What is it Homaro and his team want their readers to do? Buy the book? Make a reservation? Both? Neither? Confused customers do many things, conversion is rarely one of them.

Notice I said “goal”, singular. Seth Godin taught me that one conversion goal on a page is a lot, two is bordering on too many and three is beyond the pale (now known as the Seth Godin Rule). Focus your communication to what you want and you may get it, don’t and you are guaranteed not too.

5. Tell a Story & Respect NOW Is Only Email Time

Funny that Homaro has created a diet book, since the diet archetype is endemic to Internet marketing. The best way to sell things online is to tell a BEFORE and AFTER hero’s journey via testimonials. Before Homaro’s book I was 50 pounds overweight, after I drive fancy sports cars and am married for the second time (lol).

The key in the lock of much of the best internet marketing is a BEFORE story full of angst and despair, then the journey (use of the product) and the return of a changed and heroic person. The “diet convention” is so strong online it is one of the few conventions you flout at your own risk.

The most powerful way to sell online is to have the confidence to let others carry their experience onto your platform. If you have a mission-critical website that doesn’t promote and seek User Generated Content (UGC), then you should read Platforms vs. Websites TODAY!

Time Is Always NOW Online
Homaro’s Ing newsletter was confusing. I didn’t know about Ing. I know his other restaurant, MoTo. If Homaro wants to discuss both restaurants, he should name the newsletter the Homaro Cantu Weekly Newsletter, as that covers all bases.

Never put edition numbers and other time codes on emails. There is only ever one time online and that is NOW. Emails are not going to be archived and looked at again, so don’t worry about edition numbers and dates. Say want you need to say and stress taking action NOW.

BONUS TIP – Tune Emails for Mobile

If your emails look like junk on someone’s phone, your clicks and open rates are plummeting and you may not know why. I know why. Since it is easier to delete mounds of spam using mobile phones and pads, these tools are becoming the gatekeepers of our inboxes and lives.

If your emails look bad on mobile, they never make it past that gatekeeping stage. Homaro’s email looks bad on my desktop, horrible on my pad and unreadable on my phone. I believe in the “mobile first’ movement. Create emails that look amazing in mobile and grow to be more and more as my screen space expands.

Hope following these 5 simple rules make your email marketing will do what you want them to do – convert and contribute profits to your bottom line.

How about you? What are your 5 email marketing secrets, tricks or rules? Share your favorite emails with a story about why you love them, and we will curate in here.

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When Ashley Verrill and the team at Software Advice shared their fascinating “Social Service” study, I asked if we could post their results on our blog. They upped my offer by suggesting a guest blog post sharing Dos and Don’ts learned during their Twitter customer service study. The study asked major brands such as McDonald’s, Starbucks and Apple for help via Twitter.

Twitter is a proxy for social media here. We are confident that Ashley and her team’s results are accurate to the state of customer service via social media. The Social Customer Service Race Study results were surprising, shocking and a clear indication that “Social Customer Service”, meaning using social media to connect with customers, has a long way to go. The first brands and companies to embrace using social media marketing for customer service will win big, as the MasterCard team showed in this excellent study, and as Zappos proves daily. Here is Ashley Verrill’s guest blog post for Atlantic BT:

Ashley Verrill, Software Advice

Customer Service Support via Twitter Study
Once viewed exclusively as a marketing tool, social media is emerging as a popular channel for customer service. Whether you know it or not, instant-gratification customers are looking for support from your company or brand via Twitter, Facebook, and other social networks.

Are brands and companies paying attention on social media?

This question and the growing importance of an active social presence prompted our recent four-week research project. “The Great Social Customer Service Study Race” analyzed 14 top brands such as McDonald’s and Starbucks for customer service responsiveness on Twitter. The study revealed interesting customer service and social media strengths and weaknesses. This post shares a list of dos and don’ts for customer service via social media.

The Great Social Customer Service Race Study

Four Software Advice team members used personal Twitter accounts to send customer service tweets to 14 leading consumer brands in seven industries. Each company received one tweet per weekday for four consecutive weeks. Tweets used the @ symbol with the company’s Twitter account half of the time; the other half of the study’s tweets mentioned the company or brand by name. Use of @TwitterName triggers a notification to a Twitter account holder they were mentioned in a tweet. Using a company or brand name isn’t automatically shared.

Tweeted questions fell into five categories:

• Urgent.
• Positive.
• Negative.
• FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions).
• Technical.

Social Service Do: Use a Placeholder If Response Delayed
Several times during the Social Customer Service Race Study companies took several days to respond to a tweet. This lag between tweets seeking connection and company response is a huge misstep. Many consumers expect a response in two hours, according to a recent Oracle Study.

One helpful strategy we discovered was requiring agents to post a placeholder response if a question required escalation or a management reroute. Some immediate recognition is a good idea.

Example of a Social Service Placeholder Tweet:

“Thanks for your tweet @customername! We are looking into [topic] now and will be back to you by [date].”

Social Service Do: Leverage Customer Service Tweets for Marketing
MasterCard was the clear winner in our credit card group. Mastercard posted better-than-average response times, and they capitalized on opportunities to add marketing and sales to a customer service interaction.

When one of our test tweets asked if MasterCard is accepted globally, the MasterCard Social Service Team responded AND Re-Tweeted our message. This shows MasterCard’s 30,600 followers Mastercard listens and responds. The MasterCard Social Service Team used another tweet focused to customer service to proactively pitch a related product.

Social Service Don’t: Never Be Lazy, Solve the Problem, Create WOW
In one interaction with McDonald’s, the Social Service agent didn’t provide a good answer to the tweeted problem. The response didn’t make it clear she was with the world’s largest fast food chain. The test Tweet asked about placing a regular weekly order for a business. The McDonald’s Social Service Agent’s reply said we should contact our local store.

The McDonald’s Social Service Team missed a chance to use social media to WOW. Sharing the number of the nearest McDonald’s or calling them for us could create WOW customer service worthy of a social share. Companies shouldn’t be lazy or overly canned in social media interactions. Look for chances to WOW, and build WOW into social media support systems.

Social Service Don’t: Respond to Negative Sentiment Before Storm

Most “listening software” or Online Reputation Management (ORM) tools such as Radian6 or Google Alerts can be customized. Business rules and filters can move social communication with certain keywords to the front of the line. During our Social Customer Service Race, it was clear that some brands prioritize “thank you” messages. One company responded in about 13 minutes to a “thank you” tweet.

Messages with important sentiment words or phrases such as “mad,” “help,” and “thinking of switching” went unnoticed.
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Companies should program software to prioritize messages with important emotional words. Negative words and feelings can go viral if a frustrated customer doesn’t feel heard, recognized and corresponded with.  Small storms can brew into difficult to counter negative reviews on Google Reviews or Yelp.

Confused and angry customers do many things; advocacy and conversion are rare.  The best way to quiet a negative review or blog post is to take proactive steps so negative PR storms don’t happen. Stopping a storm before it becomes viral and powerful is our best advice. Tuning systems to recognize negative sentiment prompting immediate response is the best tactic.

Social Service Do: Listen for Your Brand, Product and Company Names, @ or No @
Less than 8 percent of responses during the Social Service Race came when we didn’t use the @[TweetName]. Companies and brands must listen to social media for positive or negative mentions. Just because the customer doesn’t address your company specifically, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t respond. Consider this example:

Each team member in the Social Customer Service Race Tweeted this message:

“I’m thinking of buying a new laptop today. It’s Macbook vs. HP? What do you think?”

Both brands missed this high purchase-intent tweet on four occasions.

Your listening software should alert for mentions with the @ and mentions of important brand names and keywords.  Mine social media for intent and sentiment to generate return.  Those questioning social media Return On Investment (ROI) should read our study carefully. Perhaps ROI is more related to how social media is being used.

Summary – Time for a Change in Social Strategy

Brands responded to a mere 14% of the 280 tweets sent during the Social Customer Service Race.

Social Customer Service remains a new concept for most brands. Brands did not meet minimum customer expectations on Twitter during the Social Customer Service Race Study. We hope our social media customer service Dos and Don’ts help Social Customer Service Teams respond better in the next race.

About Ashley Verrill

Ashley Verrill is a market analyst with Software Advice. She spent the last six years reporting and writing business news and strategy features. Ashley’s writing has appeared in Inc., Upstart Business Journal, the Austin Business Journal and the North Bay Business Journal.  Ashley is a University of Texas graduate with a bachelor’s degree in journalism..