Talk To Your Customers Through Video
Posted on April, 05, 2013 by Kerry Rego -Video has the power to influence the way your audience and customers feel about you. A recent example of how you can do this is the new video that Facebook released that explains their NewsFeed redesign. Facebook has never been good at offering explanations about what they are doing and that they are, in fact, listening to their customers.
They have a horrible reputation for not caring and doing whatever they feel like. This may not be true. They might care very much but they have not been good at demonstrating it either way.
I work with a county services agency that has an image problem. Whether or not the press about them is true, I told the executive director that she really needs to get in front of the camera and address the myths and misconceptions that are floating around. By dealing with it personally and head-on, you can reduce the amount of misinformation and rumor spreading about your organization.
Show your customers your face and tell them what you want them to know. It will drastically change what they think when they hear the words coming out of your mouth.
Hootsuite: A Tool to Manage Your Social Media Presence
Posted on March, 29, 2013 by Kerry Rego -
There are so many parts to social media, it can be overwhelming. First there’s strategy, then tools, and editorial calendars. But where I find many campaigns fall apart is in the day after day, week after week, delivery of content. How do you actually manage all of those channels? Lack of time is the number one concern for each and every company or organization I work with. Social media management tools are what make it all gel together.
I recommend, prefer, and use Hootsuite.
It’s a social media dashboard that allows the person or team managing a brand’s social media presence to visit one website and direct content to different platforms, track brand mentions, save searches, create detailed analytic reports, and schedule posts into the future. It has Free, Pro, and Enterprise versions and is available for mobile devices. I use the Pro level ($9.99 per month) because I have more than five channels connected to my account.
The social networks you are able to connect to are Twitter, Facebook (profiles, pages, events, groups, search), LinkedIn (company page, groups, profiles), Google+ business pages, Foursquare, Myspace, WordPress.com, Mixi (Japanese social network), and a host of applications.
If you work for a larger company or organization that requires reporting to a board, the custom analytics feature is excellent. You can port in Facebook Insights, Google Analytics, Twitter profile stats, your shortened click stats, Google+ page analytics and more to create reports designed just for your needs. Visual reports are a great way to communicate the achievements of a social media campaign to those that may not understand the technical details.
Working with lots of people can create headaches. Their teams features include: collaboration, team structuring, custom permissions for access to accounts, private team communication, and the best part-the ability to assign messages to specific team members for followup. This is the future of customer service! Just ask McDonald’s, Hard Rock Cafe, Virgin, Lamborghini, or PepsiCo. They use Hootsuite too.
My favorite part of Hootsuite is the scheduling feature*. You can create a message and send it out at a determined point in the future. Scheduling your posts is useful when you go on vacation, when you have a small team, when you have events that need to be promoted multiple times, when you want to your message to be viewed at different times of day in order to reach multiple audiences. The Pro version of this tool allows you to bulk upload as well (I have not had success using this feature).
*Tip: Scheduling posts ahead of time has risks. Something could change, a previously innocuous post could be viewed differently based on the happenings of the day, it can lead to complacency and a social media manager to believe they don’t need to be present on the channel. I recommend scheduling as only one kind of post. You really do need to converse, to interact, to be organic and present on top of predetermined content. Don’t put your online presence into neutral and walk away. Your audience will know and you will not get the return on investment that an engaged presence can bring you.
I know this sounds like a commercial.
I once signed up for the affiliate program but I don’t actually participate. I’m telling you the benefits of Hootsuite because I like it, I recommend it, and I use it-not because I will get a kickback (I won’t). I am a Certified Hootsuite Professional, in fact I’m the only one in Sonoma County. There are two others listed in the directory. Both have since moved out of the area.
I not only train people to use all the tools that Hootsuite manages but I train on the social media dashboard as well. If you need assistance managing the coordination of posting content to your channels, I’d be happy to help.
How do I use it?
I print out my calendar twice a month and circle all of the public presentations I’m giving, classes I’m teaching, or other events of note. I create posts to promote those events, distribute to appropriate channels, and post them multiple times. I review my blog posts and continue to promote them, on average once per month, to multiple destinations. I also recycle other content such as videos, press pieces, or other valuable links. This ensures that if I’m locked in a session room all day teaching a class, that my channels are evenly filled with useful content, my brand is being promoted, traffic is being driven to my blog, my events are being promoted, and I don’t have to worry about radio silence. I spend about 30-45 minutes on this scheduling about every 2 weeks. I’m lightly scheduled about 6 months out at any given time. I also use it to monitor any keywords of interest such as my name, brand name, industry specific terms, or projects so I can see who is talking about what so I might strike up a conversation with someone.
After every meeting or other period where I’m unable to be online, I check my messages. First thing, I pick up my phone and check email, voicemail, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. I answer any questions that have been asked of me and make sure that I’m reachable by my audience. I don’t rest on my laurels with scheduling. I am present as much as possible to interact, engage, communicate, and BE SOCIAL.
I’m not a Ninja.
But Hootsuite is one tool that allows me to have, what I call “Social Media Ninja Moves”. I’m asked all the time how I manage it all, how I get it all done, how I seem to be everywhere. I always have an assistant or intern but they don’t post for me. I do it all myself. Hootsuite is my trick and I want you to be able to use it too.
Technical Differences Between Me and My Dad
Posted on January, 09, 2013 by Kerry Rego -
I come from a family of readers.
My dad’s close relatives just love books and share everything they’ve read. The hand off books like warm loaves bread right out of the oven. When I was young, I wasn’t a part of their reading circle because the material wasn’t for my age range. My grandmother and father had a habit of communicating with me via newspaper clippings. When they had something tough they wanted me to understand (like when I was a smoker), they would send me an article with my name affixed to it and a note. It used to get under my skin because the subject matter was a judgement on my life. But now that I’m a woman in her mid 30′s and my dad still does it, I think it’s cute. He’ll drop by my house with a great magazine article about strong women. Female heads of state and powerful business owners. Usually women of color and often from foreign countries.
The reading on my bedside table. Notice the Newsweek magazine with my dad’s note still attached.
My mother died when I was six, a black career woman with two small children. My Irish American father is repping for my mom. He is loving me and guiding me and helping to show me what a strong adult woman of color is capable of achieving. He is being my mother when she is unable. Maybe that’s just being a parent. It’s his way and I find it quite loving.
When I was little, he would take me to Santa Rosa’s downtown library, drop me off in the juvenile section, and it allowed me to explore my curiosities. He liked to go to the magazine section because it carried every periodical you could possibly want. He would read as long as I’d let him. When I was old enough, I got up the courage to go find him on the other side of what seemed like this massive building. I came across him reading and twirling his hair (a Quirk family trait). I felt brave and safe at the same time.
I love the library. I love reading and losing yourself in something great. My dad was always a big part of that feeling and the articles that he gives me to stress a point are always thought provoking, intelligent, well written, and LONG. Longer than I’m used to now.
This is my whole point.
We are both college educated adults, Kevin and Kerry. For reference, he has a BA in Psychology. I have two A.A.S. degrees in Computer Office Administration and Computer Business Administration.
He gets his news from the printed edition of the Press Democrat, the paper for Sonoma County, CA. I do as well but I read it a few days late and in spurts and because I also follow the PD on Facebook. Often I’ve read the best stuff before I even touch the physical edition. I am an odd duck in that I will always get the physical newspaper. I tried to cut it once and simply couldn’t do it. I grew up reading the paper while eating breakfast and I find that I read different news in print than in the digital version. But I can’t tell you how many times my dad has asked if I get the paper.
Kevin reads magazines like Newsweek, TIME, Life, Car & Driver, Pilot, Consumer Reports, Motor Trend, and a few more. Though I’m not a car and airplane fan like he is, I read individual articles from many of these magazines and MANY MANY more due to reading just the article I’m interested in, for free, the day it comes out on the Internet. On a sad but apropos note, in December 2012 Newsweek printed it’s last paper edition.
I don’t have to get into his feature phone vs. my smart phone. Or his dialup vs. my broadband modem. Or the fact that he checks his email approximately once per month. I won’t tell you how many times per hour I check my own.
I visited my parents one night for dinner and the 2008 Democratic National Party Presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama was on tv. Dad was watching it and was a bit irritated with me for chatting and not seeming to care about a very important moment to him. My 3 yr old was running around the table as I tried to talk to my stepmom. I fudged and told him that I was recording it on my DVR. He gave me the oddest look.
Truthfully, he was more right than he knew. I didn’t care. I don’t watch political content on tv. In fact, I don’t watch much tv at all and couldn’t tell you what was on regular programming on any given day of the week. I was expecting to read about it later in a variety of places such as Twitter, Facebook, the newspaper, or other periodicals of which I subscribe. I was making the point to him that if I were to want to, I could look up the footage and that I wasn’t beholden to someone else’s schedule. The concept of recording a show or automatic recording is a little out there for him.
It boils down to this:
The way I live my life, the work that I do, the communications I have with 80% of the people I know, and the way I get my news is outside his realm. He has a really hard time relating to my world and I don’t blame him. I understand his perspective because that was the way the world was as I grew. Now that I’m older, things have changed.
I love my dad, don’t get me wrong. I have respect for his intelligence, his accomplishments, his education, his work, and who he is as a person. Depending on the day, he is more than willing to have a conversation about the technology innovation I encounter but these lifestyle differences are becoming more apparent to me.
I work with my “dad” every day. He is my average client; the bank manager, the business owner, the consultant, the government official. Many intelligent people with families and jobs are watching the world spin away from them. There are so many similarities between yet so many differences. It feels like the technology have and have-nots are drifting away from each other.
Sample Editorial Calendar
Posted on September, 26, 2012 by Kerry Rego -
I’ve been wanting to post this for some time and was finally prompted to do so as I listened to Chris Denny of The Engine is Red talk about “Content is King” at the Santa Rosa Young Professionals Network last week. He had so many excellent points about how to convey your company message as well as good and bad examples of how well known brands are doing so.
In order to deliver good content that communicates your brand’s message effectively, planning ahead is necessary. I provide my clients with an example editorial calendar (shown below). Sometimes I help them develop it and sometimes they take it back to homebase and use it as a springboard. I wrote the blog 15 Easy Blog Topics which gives you a solid set of content ideas for blogs as well as use with other social media platforms. I used those ideas to build a sample editorial calendar to give to my clients.
The beauty of using a calendar is that you can plan a year ahead in a very short amount of time. It can be done within one meeting or brainstorming session. Once you plan a structure for the upcoming 12 months, it allows your marketing brain to relax a little because it knows you won’t be drawing a blank when it’s time to write. You can bank the content ahead of time by writing in batches. Batch writing is great for tackling a subject that is too large for just one post. You can write parts 1, 2, and 3 in a single sitting then schedule them to publish at preset times. Writing ahead of time will allow you to look for the topical items in the news that you should be addressing, the things you could never have anticipated but fit nicely with your message.
Feel free to click on the image below for a jpg or on the link to download a pdf version of it. I build it in Excel and you can do the same. Think about your subjects and ideas as you construct it for yourself, this is just a guide. Change the channels that you use to fit your needs. You will most likely expand it to have 4-5 weeks in the month. I’ve seen calendars that show the hours. If that is what you need, make it flex to fit you.
Kerry Rego Consulting Sample Editorial Calendar
Editorial Calendar Tips
Posted on August, 10, 2012 by Kerry Rego -
I have a simple technique I use to help build an editorial calendar. I print out my physical calendar, identify the events that I want to promote or talk about, using color coding for social media channels I then systematically distribute information. I do this every other week. Sometimes it takes an hour sometimes only 20 minutes.
Give it a try and tell me if it works for you or you have a better approach.
The Fastest Way to Get Help from LinkedIn
Posted on July, 27, 2012 by Kerry Rego -
Click ^ for video on getting help from LinkedIn
I have a client that requested that I claim their pre-existing LinkedIn Company Page, update it, and make it spiffy for them. I said the fatal words, “This is a really easy project and shouldn’t take me long at all.” Well, 4 months later, I was shaking my head at how simple turned into painful. See my video on the subject.
There were a variety of factors that created a delay but much of the wait had to do with radio silence from LinkedIn. The first challenge was the fact that I was working with a department of a government. Actually, I’ve worked for this department many times and they really are awesome (I think Jeff Boland has something to do with that). So the speed at which things occur is on a completely different cycle than for for-profit organizations.
The second issue at hand was that the government body uses one domain for ALL its departments and employees. LinkedIn has a requirement to claim a company as an administrator that your primary email address must contain the domain of the company. Makes sense right? Well, it does to me too but it created a headache for me. We had to purchase the domain just for this purpose then create and confirm the email address. I insert this *new special email just for LinkedIn* (can you hear my high pitched crazy tone of voice here?) and make it the primary email. My expectation was that LinkedIn would recognize this new address and allow me to claim the page.
It did not work.
I filed a support ticket. Help? No.
I filed another support ticket. Help? Not even close.
I filed another support ticket. Help? Hahhhahhhahhhhhhhhaaaaaa (craaaazy laughter)
I decided to go postal on this one. I went to Twitter and called them out in the loudest voice I could muster. I didn’t want to but I knew it would work. I have to say again, publicly, I really like LinkedIn and I’m grateful they were able to help. BUT my suggestion to you is, if you need help from LinkedIn, call them on Twitter using @LinkedInHelp.
Be Transparent: Why Deleting Negative Posts is a Bad Idea
Posted on June, 22, 2012 by Kerry Rego -
It’s generally considered bad form to delete a post from your Facebook page* just because you don’t like what that person has to say. As business owners, we have to come to terms with the fact that the second we open our “doors”, someone somewhere is unhappy. We can’t please everyone all of the time. Now, the whole purpose of using social media is to have conversations and communicate with others. If you are a page administrator that removes a post by the public simply because the content isn’t what you prefer, then you don’t understand what social media is really about.
I recommend deleting and removing posts from others if they are: racist, sexist, full of hate speech, obscene or violate your stated community guidelines. Deleting simply because you don’t like them shows immaturity, an inability to deal with real life situations, and damages your credibility. No matter how much you try to whitewash life, you can’t remove all negativity from your world. Instead of pulling out the big pink eraser, acknowledge the concern (if they aren’t delusional), communicate with the person, validate their concern then discuss your plan of action, whatever it is. Remember, there is always someone watching your actions and there are silent members of your audience that WILL notice. For a step by step guide on how to do this, see my blog on How to Deal with Negative Customer Feedback.
The way you deal with unhappy or negative people is proof of your character. A less than rosy comment doesn’t have to be the end of the world. It can be a learning experience if you are open to it. Have you ever had cruddy customer service, complained, then received excellent treatment and it changed the way you thought of the company? It happens to me all the time. People love to bag on telephone reps. I love it when I get the truly helpful and nice person. It happens more often than people acknowledge but sometimes it’s the way Ginny from Oklahoma treats you that determines how you feel about the multi-billion dollar conglomerate. Take every opportunity as a chance to provide a stellar experience. It’s never too late to turn it around!
Bottom line? Deleting posts damages your credibility. Are you wondering if you post something bad on my page whether or not I leave it? Test me: http://www.facebook.com/KerryRegoConsulting
* When I say Page, I mean BUSINESS PAGE. If you are a person, you have a PROFILE. They are not the same thing and have very different cultural rules.
Staying Connected: Using Social Media to Communicate (Sebastopol Senior Center)
Posted on May, 14, 2012 by Kerry Rego -
Get Yourself Listed on the Web
Posted on March, 11, 2012 by Kerry Rego -
Go ahead, do a vanity search (otherwise known as “Google-ing”) for your name or business. Do you like what you find? So often, people say they’ve done this and have been unhappy at the information they find. It’s old, it’s personal, it’s simply wrong. Don’t waste your time trying to get those webmasters to remove your information because they: 1) won’t 2) aren’t home 3) have been closed down 4) there are simply too many 5) they all get their information from somewhere. You can be proactive with your online information (see How to Get Started in Reputation Management) and displace it with content you DO want people to see. Or you can list yourself.
Why is it important to make sure the information about yourself on the internet is correct? Yellow Pages Association and comScore found that local search for businesses, products and services grew 58% last year and reached 15.7 billion searches, more than a tenth of overall search traffic. Additionally, see this Sprout Social blog to read more about the benefits of social media on local search results.
According to Internet Reputation Management, 94% of people do research before buying and 60% of those are going to research you online. They might use a phone, they might not. If they were to call you, they most likely aren’t using a traditional phone directory. People under the age of 35 probably don’t have a landline. Did you know that if you don’t have a landline, you may not get a book delivered to your door? It’s true. 18 states have enacted an opt-in policy for delivery and only 2% choose to receive one. Check out this infographic by WhitePages to see the status of the phone book.
Here are some tools that I think you’ll find helpful. Granted, there are more here than you’ll ever really use but pick and choose the ones you want to list yourself on. Focus on the biggies towards the top of the list and the ones that have incorrect info about you and get them the right stuff:
- Google Places
- Yahoo!
- Bing
- Yelp
- Merchant Circle
- Manta (really common search result)
- Facebook (get a business page and list your address)
- Citysearch (click register to get started)
- MapQuest
- Foursquare
- Yellowbook
- Yellowbot
- SuperPages
- InsiderPages (sign up then search for your business, claim it, or create your listing)
- Local
- Localeze (search for your business, claim or add listing)
- Angie’s List
- Kudzu
- Get Listed (an aggregate and will show you what your listings look like)
Read more blogs by Kerry Rego Consulting on Reputation Management: http://bit.ly/krcrepmng
[Image via Sustainable SPC]
How to Deal with Negative Customer Feedback
Posted on March, 08, 2012 by Kerry Rego -
When asked about negative online comments I say, “Any company that has been in business longer than 5 minutes has an unhappy customer. You simply can’t please everyone all the time.” How you deal with it is more telling than the fact that the negativity exists. The lack of control over what people say about businesses makes many owners uncomfortable. I’ll let you in on a secret, the internet didn’t take away your control. You never had control. Control is only an illusion. The only thing you actually control in any situation is how you react.
According to the Opinion Research Corporation, 84% of Americans say online reviews influence their purchasing decisions so this is an important area of which to pay attention. I was doing a platform audit for one of my clients, Getaway Adventures, when I came across a negative review on TripAdvisor. The customer was displeased with the tour he went on and felt it wasn’t what he expected during purchase. The owner, Randy, dealt with it in a really effective way. He apologized and told the customer that the next tour was on him and that he’d take the customer out himself. Done. A negative turned into a positive, at least from my perspective. You can learn a lot about a person/business by the way they treat people. He handled it just the way he would’ve if the client had been standing in his place of business. The way we cope with online feedback should be very much like the way we’d handle it face to face. Same skills different application.
A word about having your friends or employees write reviews for you. It’s called astroturfing. Astroturfing is a bogus grass roots movement or the practice of disingenuously creating reviews for a service that come from someone other than an actual customer. Lifestyle Life, a cosmetic surgery clinic in New York, was required to pay $30,000 in civil penalties after an investigation by the state attorney general’s office. Employees had been found guilty of posing as plastic surgery patients and had been writing wonderful reviews. It’s tempting. Don’t do it. Also, don’t promise free merchandise or services for good reviews. You are in effect paying for their words. Same premise different approach.
Retail customers prefer social media support to a tune of 45%, according to ZenDesk. Do you know what kind of support your customers prefer? Give them a survey, high tech or low tech, the important part is you know their preference before it gets to the bad review stage.
Let’s say you really did mess up. Here are the basic steps to go through:
- Apologize. This can be hard for people but sometimes the complainer just wants to be validated or acknowledged. If a customer complains about a pizza arriving late, not necessarily to the company itself, the company can respond with an apology and a promise of a free item on the next order. Tracking complaints will allow you to spot recurring issues. This accomplishes several things: the customer is happier because they’ve been acknowledged, you are tracking a possible problem in your service chain, and the general public can witness how you handle the situation.
- Procedure. When a simple apology won’t solve the situation, you need to have a more organized approach.
- Have a dedicated point of contact to take ownership over issues and see them through to resolution. This person will be tracking complaints to be able to spot patterns.
- Set expectations for the customer. After the initial contact with customer, let them know when a full response will be forthcoming. If the complaint is in a public arena, strive to take it private as soon as possible. It will be easier on the customer and keeps further negativity out of the public eye. Time isn’t your friend if the complaint originated online. Find a resolution fast.
- Respond with the resolution. An explanation or maybe a discount. This is your call as your business model is yours and yours alone.
- Publicly resolve. If it started in a public forum, make sure you let the public know that you care about customer service issues and that you work hard to make it right. If it began on Twitter, post your public resolution there.
- Make Changes. By having your process in place you will be able to make necessary changes to the way you deliver your product and improve the customer experience.
- Encourage your Super Fan. These people believe in your brand and will keep the tone where you want it to be.
- Don’t take it personally. As I already said, everyone has had an unhappy customer. It’s part of the gig. Your job is to make sure you did all that you could when it’s all said and done.