I’ve blogged on how companies use listen through social media to catalyze pro-active outreach which generates positive Word-of-Mouth before.

But, YOU can also “listen” through social media to gain competitive advantage for yourself (as Angie did).

A few weeks ago, one of the Internet’s visionaries, Jeff Pulver, put out a Tweet saying “I’ll be in DC on June 24th, anything going on that night?”

I replied: “don’t know, but my client, NY Times best-selling author, Dan Pink would love to meet you.”

As a result, Dan and I had the privilege of Pulver’s insights on technology, the future of the internet, the Johnny Bunko marketing strategy and much more for close to two hours.

WELL worth it, if you ask me.

The good news: he validated much of our thinking.

The even better news: he shared some key thoughts on the semantic web, how to manage Facebook and Twitter (hint: have criteria for who you friend/follow and de-friend/un-follow when the value-add isn’t there).

During a presentation the other day, one attendee asked me:

“do you think customer expectations are rising? Is it a race to the top?”

Answer: Yes.

But you know that.

So, what do you have to do to generate positive Word-of-Mouth so your customers will talk about you?

Bad news: there’s no one answer.

Good news: you can learn from others who do it…and figure out how to apply the essence of that lesson to your business.

Today’s example. The Mini-Bar in DC, which offers a 28 course menu, consisting of ingredients such as liquid nitrogen; agar agar; sodium alginate and calcium chloride.

What's better: You can only call between 9am and 9:05am to make your reservation, for the next month!

Now, that’s remarkable.

I admit it. I’m a bit irritated right now, so I may not be entirely objective in this post. 

Despite that, I think I have an example of a short-sighted focus on profits that comes at the expense of long-range marketing.

It’s a balance, I know, but we have got to stop looking as marketing as an expense that happens outside of the realm of the rest of the business.

Here’s the backstory in full. In brief, I purchased a back-up generator for my house for over $4000. At that price, I expected it to work as intended, namely come on as soon as the power went out.

It didnt.

The company responded fairly quickly, but I asked them to make a gesture acknowledging that I had been inconvenienced at the only moment when I expected their product to work.

I initially contacted them as follows:

I think (arguably expect) that the right thing to do is this scenario is to say, “we’re sorry for your troubles. Yes, your next 2 years of service are free.”

PS. Did I mention your tech is here now and he discovered that the unit wasn’t working due to an “over crank?”  Something with the way your previous tech aligned the valves.

Here’s what they wrote in response:

As you know and stated in your original e-mail, we responded very quickly when we found out your unit did not come during the outage earlier this month.  We were able to make the necessary adjustments to get your unit working for the balance of your outage.  Due to the length of this outage we pulled your 1st  visit as part of your FREE 1 year maintenance agreement forward and conducted this visit.  We determined the unit had a warranty issue that we are correcting under your generator warranty.  In a few weeks, we will make another FREE visit to your home to verify that the warranty repairs made to your unit continue to show that your unit is fully operational.

Lastly, as part of your 1 year FREE maintenance agreement we will make a 2nd visit to your home in approximately 6 months.

This is the direction we intend to proceed and feel this is a reasonable course of action.

I guess a few things strike me about this note.

1. I think it fails the “you/we” test. It’s more about them, than me.
2. It doesn’t really give me what I was looking for…a sense of empathy at my frustration and irritation that their product let me down when I needed it.
3. With the all caps “Free", it’s almost a bit condescending, like I don’t appreciate their position. Which I may not, but it doesn’t come across well.

There are about 100 things they could have done in response to my situation. At the end of the day, people want companies to care. Of course the product should work, of course, the warranty should be honored. That’s the obvious stuff.

What’s not obvious is the compassion.

And that’s where you can make your money.

It need not be expensive either.

They could have written me a handwritten note, sent me some flowers, sent a few flashlights, just had a call from the CEO to say, “hey, that must have sucked, I’m sorry it happened. We feel your pain.”

Instead, it feels like it was a “hold the line on our profit margins and don’t give anything up.”

So, does the product work?  Yes.

Is the service good? Yes.

But, have they turned me into a raving fan so that I tell all of my friends about how they too must get generators and how they, too, must buy it from this particular company?

No.

I don’t get this. Sorry.

I’m a huge Bond fan, so when I saw @ranajune’s tweet, I immediately clicked over

The new Bond trailer!!!!!! http://tinyurl.com/599slk

And I saw this.

Now, I understand, you don’t want the whole movie on YouTube, but isn’t this a great way to get the excitement started? Get people talking?

What am I missing here?

If you email me at jeremy AT jer979.com and I respond from another domain say jer979 @gmail.com, does that affect my credibility with you?

I get why someone would want a specific domain fro branding, for a business card, etc., but once you’ve established the relationship, do you care where I respond from?

Does it matter?

I’m starting to think that it doesn’t.

Thoughts?

Jonny Goldstein is one of DC’s social media gurus. His weekly show “Jonny’s Par-Tay” is a must-see for those in/entering the social media scene.

I’m  honored to be his guest this week, discussing the concept of ‘Perpetual Beta.”

I’ve aruged why a recession might be good for social media strategy.

Now, I’ll take the other side. Here’s why it might be bad.

It’s going to be a gold rush. And gold rushes bring out everybody who smells money.

This happened back in pre-bubble 1.0 era.

Lewis Green summed up the current (building) demand for social media strategy in a post a few months ago where he quoted an audience member who said:

“Your presentation is really good. But we already know we have to embrace Social Media. What we need to know is how.”

And the clients lack of knowledge makes them vulnerable and susceptible to the modern snake-oil salesman of “social media” strategy.

Now, I know there are folks who are FAR deeper into social media than I am. But (trying to be humble here), I’ve spoken with enough of them and gotten the feedback that I can “play at this level.”

However, I’ve also spoken with a number of folks who claim to be social media strategists, but man… well they just aren’t, or shouldn’t be.

You don’t need to know how to configure a server, but you should know what RSS is and why it is important.

Caveat Emptor

I am ridiculously pleased with Google Apps for your Domain as infrastructure for a small, start-up company. And, with the recent addition of IMAP support for Gmail, I can now keep multiple devices in sync (which was a BIG problem w/no Exchange Server).

Now, for free, I can delete an email on my phone and it syncs to my laptop, my desktop, and the gmail.com interface. Sweet!

Unfortunately, I am not ready to pronounce Google Docs as a standard over Microsoft Word. It has the functionality, no question, but I feel like it is still a version or two away, since there are just a few quirks in terms of formatting/usability that make basic stuff a bit too frustrating for this stage of the revolution.

I do love the ability to share/collaborate with others and immediately publish to web, but you need to be able to write the doc with no hassle before all of that.

It’ll get there, no question, and it’s close, but not yet for me.

It’s no secret that in-person networking is critical to growing your business and your career.

Effective networking has a number of key ingredients. The not all inclusive list includes:

1. Getting Attention...
2. Having a good story ...
3. Does your business card make an impact?
4. Networking Event Follow-Up SOP

and you can always take the guidelines suggested by Keith Ferrazi, master networker, in his book, Never Eat Alone.

Now, when networking you you never get a second chance. to make a first impression and that is even more true when you are trying to establish a meaningful relationship with an “influencer” in your industry.

I was thinking about this last night as I attended a networking event last night with Robert Scoble,one of the Internet’s major influencers/thought leaders

(I’ve blogged about him a few times: Scoble's Peak?, PR in the Web 2.0 Era, Twitter Fatigue..., and most notably, based on his fantastic book on the value of blogging...)

Now, here’s where I messed up.

Prior to the event, I was rushing and I didn’t answer the question:

“what’s my elevator pitch/story for Scoble?”

Honestly, I didn’t even think I’d talk to him, figuring there’d be a ton of people (there were), so I didn’t have it completely ready when I walked in and within 20 seconds, turned around, and had Scoble stick his hand out to me and say “hey, I’m Robert…”

Now, it wasn’t a total disaster, but it probably wasn’t my absolute “A” game.

The question: did I give him something that would stick?

I give him credit though, he’s a very personable guy, asks questions, and listens. (When you are connected as he is, you expect a certain ego…absent in Scoble).

He also looks thinner in person than the picture on his blog (yes, I told him that).

Well, the life of perpetual beta is to learn from your mistakes and I was mulling how I would do it differently, preparing for a blog post.

Good news, Pam over at Cubicle Nation did it for me/you. Right on.

Photo credit: (cc) Shashi Bellamkonda www.shashi.name and www.solutionsarepower.com

From Andy Sernovitz’s blog, his Word-of-Mouth/Social Media Job Descriptions.

Feeling pretty good about how I measure up (and should help you in your search for in-house folks as well)