August 2011
We hear a lot about spin.
The most frequent and best practitioners of spin work in Washington, D.C. Here’s what spin has done for them:
- Congress’ approval rating is now 14 percent – the lowest in history.
- President Obama’s approval rating is 42 percent – near the lowest of his presidency.
Nobody inside the Beltway is safe from the backlash of spin.
Consumers are far too smart and have far too much information at their disposal to believe spin. Ironically, the spinners would try to spin that another way.
August 2011
Crises come in two forms. Those that happen to you and those that you cause.
Your company is at risk for both if you don’t anticipate how you will respond if hacked.
Hacking is an insidious, invasive event because most of the time it involves personal data that customers entrusted to your organization for some business purpose. Companies have tried to cover hacks in the past, which led to new laws requiring disclosure for any size of data breach.
The only acceptable response to a data breach is swift and honest. That’s impossible if you haven’t anticipated and prepare for the possibility of a breach. We recommend drafting your worst-case-scenario communication to customers, i.e. the worst possible loss of data. You can always tone it down from there. Make sure to apologize for any inconvenience, emphasize your commitment to proactive communications with customers, and outline cooperation with law enforcement.
And make sure to have your legal team review the communication in advance. You don’t want attorneys holding up the process when customers are waiting to hear from you.
Swift, honest communication will win you points and minimize the overall damage to your company’s reputation.
A slow and overly corporate response creates the second type of crisis – the type that you cause. Communications that shift responsibility, try to rationalize a bad situation, and/or offer no remedy to the problem can actually deepen customers’ pain. That’s not a good thing for you.
August 2011
Next time you create online content, try making the content more “-able.” Ideally, any online content should be findable, readable, understandable, actionable, and shareable.
Ahava Leibtag from the AHA Media Group explains each of the five elements and provides a handy checklist that you can print.
August 2011
Four applications continue to dominate the social media landscape. The following are some key statistics for Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn:
- Facebook — 70 percent of the 149 million U.S. users log in daily.
- Twitter — Americans spend 2 hours and 12 minutes per month on Twitter.
- YouTube — YouTube accounts for 86 percent of U.S. online video watching. Hulu, the No. 2 site, receives just 7 percent.
- LinkedIn — LinkedIn exceeded 100 million users worldwide in February and went public in March.
Social media’s impact is far more than its rapid expansion or its staying power. It has changed how consumers communicate with one another, extended networks of friends, and brands.
Companies are just now beginning to measure how social media affects consumer trust. That will be a real metric worth watching.
August 2011
www.squareup.com
Square is a free app that lets you process credit card payments from anywhere. A free card-reader accessory plugs into the audio jack of an Android phone, iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch. It’s easy to use for individual contractors, freelancers and small businesses, because there are no monthly fees or contracts – just a universal fee of 2.75 percent on each transaction. Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Discover are accepted.
Even if you don’t see an immediate use for Square in your business, don’t be surprised when your landscaper or plumber swipes your credit card through his iPhone and a receipt shows up in your inbox within minutes.
August 2011
By Brian Eisenberg
Google and social media have given consumers greater access to information and changed what they expect from the brands they buy.
Waiting For Your Cat To Bark focuses on how brands need to evolve to meet consumers’ new expectations.
Author Brian Eisenberg argues that when media was limited, brands could simply ring their bell enough times and consumers would come running, much like the dogs in Pavlov’s famous experiments. The conditioning worked.
He believes today’s limitless media has caused consumers to act more like cats, who will respond if and only if they feel like there is something in it for them. “Smart merchants know the secret to success is not to make it easier for the seller, but to make it easier for the buyer,” he wrote.
Information is the key to solving the new marketing dilemma. Eisenberg offers a formula called the “persuasion architecture” that answers three key questions:
- Who are we trying to persuade to take action?
- What is the action we want someone to take?
- What does that person need in order to feel confident taking action?
The persuasion model has several steps that anticipate the buyer’s needs and tries to make the right information available at the right time when buyers are ready. We wish he had explained the model in more depth, but that doesn’t detract from the book’s overall impact.
