The Blog of Hans Eisenman

An example of Google's Live Search

Posted via web from Hans's posterous

Attracting Traffic or Understanding Google's Mission Part II

Want to get more followers oline?  Real traffic?  Here's a follow up to my Understanding Google's Mission video blog post.  Here I'm kind of hitting on the same point somewhat but from a different angle.  Both videos should help you begin to formulate a more effective plan for attracting people organically (not having to pay for them to come see you) and keeping them around.  Things have changed so much in the last few years by way of how informaiton is shared and this posting is about how they have changed and what it means to you as a publisher (and by the way, you ARE a publisher).

Posted via web from Hans's posterous

Understanding Google's Mission

via youtube.com

This is a video for folks who are still trying to get their head around what Google is all about. It contains the one key fact that's more important to know than all the others if your goal is to get traffic without having to pay for it.

Posted via web from Hans's posterous

Dell Outlet Made $3 Million Through Twitter

Here's some ROI (return on investment) data from Dell regarding their use of Twitter.  I think this is more money than Twitter itself has made from Twitter!

How Dell Outlet utilizes Social Conversations to generate revenue « Random Thoughts of a Boston-based CTO: John Moore’s Weblog.

What return on investment have you seen for Dell Outlet by investing in social channels? In addition to revenue (we announced in June that we surpassed $3 million from @DellOutlet Twitter links alone), we have also benefitted greatly from the increase in awareness. The press we’ve received has helped us put Dell Outlet on the radar of many potential customers that would not have otherwise know about us. While it’s not something we can replicate, I think it illustrates the importance of always looking for innovative ways to approach new media and new technologies. There are many opportunities to be “first” or “best” if you keep your eyes peeled. Combine that with a great Corporate Communications team, and enjoy the ride!

How Your Competitors May Use Social Media to Leave You In The Dust

Social Media really IS turning the business-to-customer on its head and this process is only beginning.  The businesses which embrace this are going to stay ahead of this chaos as it happens.  But if, as a business,  you're afraid of change or too set in your ways, you're liable to regret it later when your competitors take a giant leap ahead by setting themselves apart.

Let's say you're a dentist (this is fresh on my mind because I just visited a great one here in town and am still convalescing a little from their excellent work).  The usual dental business model is like a lot of others: attract patients (customers), do the work, they leave, you follow-up at some point or schedule a follow-up right there.  That's the way it's been being done for years and years, with some slight variations.

What's missing from this equation?  It's the same thing missing from a lot of businesses out there: getting an honest answer from that customer on how they really felt about the service or product.  The customers truth about that service or product, if you will.

But can businesses "handle it"?
Does this idea make you feel a little uncomfortable?  It might and I'd be surprised if it didn't because businesses have not been all that good about bellying up to that particular bar.   When was the last time someone at a company really asked you for your honest opinion about a service they delivered to you, in a way that you were happy to tell them because you could see they handle the truth?  Ever?  (Note: I'm not talking about the constrained surveys that only let you numerically assign values to service or your likeliness to buy or recommend.  I'm talking about real, braindump, unedited type responses, because that's what people are able to dishout now, via their own media channels (blogs, Twitter, Facebooke, etc.), if they so choose.

Social media, if it's doing anything else in the market place is starting to tear down the walls between businesses and the minds of their customers.  Not only does the emperor not have any clothes on, but his subjects are willing to tell him and can with relative impunity.

As more and more people realize they have venues like UserVoice, Get Satisfaction and others like them (see article below), honest answers about your services and products will begin to flow out into the world, whether you like it or not.

The best thing businesses could do is embrace this fully and early as possible and build "get honest answers" mechanisms into their existing customer/patient management processes.  The sooner they do this the sooner they will also ensure that they are protecting their herd or tribe from poaching businesses.  (After all, the ease with which customers can now get information means they have so many more choices than ever before.)

Embrace this change before your competitors do and you'll give your cusotmers/patients one more reason to stick with you, in addition to your already excellent services and products.  Any business can do it.  It doesn't matter what you sell.

One more thing: there is a huge added advantage here, in addition to letting a customer know you hear what s/he has to say: the feedback will give you ideas for how to improve and, if you use them, will ensure that you stay on top of your game.  Nothing wows a customer like seeing one of his/her suggestions in place when s/he returns for the next visit.

Companies who don't embrace this are going to find themselves being talked about whether they like it or not (because anyone can publish these days).  Sooner or later that will happen and it's always harder to handle that sort of thing reactively.  Get proactive.  Start this process now.

---

How Social Media is Upending the Enterprise | Fast Company.

The power of social media has empowered the consumer to reach literally hundreds or thousands of people in seconds. And because we know a consumer’s closest friends are three to five times more likely to share the same preferences for products and brands, this newfound power is not to be underestimated.  ...

The challenge for companies is figuring out how to manage this. A conversation could start with a tweet, be directed to a help forum, be responded to in email, updated in a blog post, and then broadcast on Facebook. How will this be tracked, measured and monitored? This market is ripe with opportunity for both brands and software platforms built to nurture the distributed web-wide conversation.

Social Media Influence and Staying Power

This morning I was considering whether Social Media will be here to stay, or is just a fad.  It's a prett common point of debate out there from pundits and commoners alike.

Statistically it is pretty hard to ignore social media's influence today.  We've gone from boring, static websites (Web 1.0 if you will) to blogs (less static, more updating more often--Web 1.5?) to what I have heard some describe as the Sharing Revolution, Web 2.0.  These are sites like Facebook with 300 million users now, Twitter's baffling (to some) popularity, etc. where you can share something at the click of a button with tens, hundreds, thousands of people and more, depending on how many are following you.

At first I was thinking that this social media influence is driven out of people's desire to share.  There is a lot of truth to this, of course.  You see a great (or even just good) movie, you want tell others about it.  Buy a car you're particularly happy with, same thing.  Tell your friends.  Have an idea, make a video and

There is, though, an impulse that runs deeper than merely sharing, however.  It's the need to HELP.  

Often I find that I want to share a link or a thought with others because I think it might help some of my friends and followers out there in the world.   If sharing is the What, helping is the Why.

To me, this means a couple of things, right off the bat:

1. Underneath it all people are basically good.  Just look at the numbers of people out there who are connecting and sharing and helping each other even if just in a small way.  Facebook's user stats alone are staggering. Granted, there are those who use social media for evil just like any other tool, but they are the minority.
2. Social media is here to stay, whether in its current form or some newer version (Web 2.5!) which evolves over the next few years (or minutes the way things go around here these days).

Increasing Social Media Influence
This also speaks, I think, a bit to how people should be using social media.  Share links and information with others because it would be helpful in some way, vs. spreading gossip or info that might be hurtful to others or have no real purpose at all (note: fun and comical things can even be helpful because they lighten the heart and give a person some lift).

---

Maybe I'm just an idealist, but I really like the idea that social media and all this sharing could be fueled primarily on people's innate drive to help others and do good in the world. 

What do you think?  Leave a comment below.  I'd love to hear your input on this idea.

The Social Media Revolution

How To Use Twitter: Twitter Spam

How to use twitter is a question I get asked a lot.  Along those lines, you might be interested to know what Twitter considers spam.  Here's a list from their site. 

 When it comes to more links than updates (see bold item below), I'm not sure I agree.  If you're sending useful links (which admittedly is hard to measure) to your followers and throwing in the occasional update, I would be more likely to follow you than if you were tweeting more personal updates.   Sending useful links out to your people puts the focus on your audience which is largely where it belongs in any interaction in life.

What do you think?

*Spam: You may not use the Twitter service for the purpose of spamming anyone. What constitutes “spamming” will evolve as we respond to new tricks and tactics by spammers. Some of the factors that we take into account when determining what conduct is considered to be spamming are:

• If you have followed a large amount of users in a short amount of time;
• If you have followed and unfollowed people in a short time period, particularly by automated means (aggressive follower churn);
• If you repeatedly follow and unfollow people, whether to build followers or to garner more attention for your profile;
  
• If you have a small number of followers compared to the amount of people you are following;
• If your updates consist mainly of links, and not personal updates;
• If a large number of people are blocking you;
• The number of spam complaints that have been filed against you;
• If you post duplicate content over multiple accounts or multiple duplicate updates on one account
• If you post multiple unrelated updates to a topic using #
• If you post multiple unrelated updates to a trending or popular topic
• If you send large numbers of duplicate @replies
• If you send large numbers of unsolicited @replies in an attempt to spam a service or link
  
• If you repost other user’s content without attribution.
• If you have attempted to "sell" followers, particularly through tactics considered aggressive following or follower churn.

via twitter.zendesk.com

Twitter Tutorial Series: Adding Friends, Searching Twitter and More

Twitter is such a powerful program (yes, it is a program even though it is not something you download and install on your PC--it just "runs" via the Web), that I want to focus a bit on it in this and future posts.  It's also very, very simple, so it's power can be easily overlooked.

This morning I was logged in to Twitter and just poking around on some of the links and found some features that I hadn't used before particularly, like:

• How to quickly search the Twitterverse (what every one is saying on Twitter) from Twitter.com
• Saving those searches for ease of checking back in on those conversations whenever you want.
• How to quickly check places like Gmail or Yahoo Mail for friends you already have who might already have Twitter accounts.  If you're going to follow someone, follow your friends, right?

I put together a screencast on how to use these features in case you haven't tried these features yourself. 

Is there something you "don't get" yet about Twitter?   Want it to be doing more for you or your business?  Leave a comment and I will see if there's something I can post about it that might help you.

To see a larger version of this screencast go here: http://www.screencast.com/t/LmMxZ9t2

A Twitter Business Story: 2,000 followers

Here's a story about how someone I met on Twitter (http://twitter.com/JenWojcik) is having business success with Twitter.

Could you use 2,000 followers?