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Don’t Tell Business Lies

Today, I’m taking part in a huge new business pitch. It’s a great opportunity for Falk Harrison, and I’m excited to take part in the effort. I told my 8 year old daughter this morning that I had a big day today. She often shares a small piece of advice with me as I drop her off at school, and this morning, she got me prepared for the big pitch:

Be yourself. And don’t tell business lies.

Honey, I’ll try my best.

Social media is not the magic elixir that immediately juices your sales, but with honesty and persistence, it’s worth the time. My daughter teaches me so much, and the lesson for me here is to never make promises you can’t keep. Refusing to tell tall tales about the supposed power and guaranteed results of social media might hurt my sales, but “telling business lies” is just not worth it to me.

Focus on the Customer, Not the KPI

Should a business focus on its customers, or the ROI of the strategies it implements and the KPIs their employees are responsible for monitoring and exceeding? I’m sure this is overly simplistic, and perhaps these need not be mutually exclusive, but I gravitate towards the former. An obsessive focus on those you serve often results in delighted customers, positive word of mouth (still the most powerful form of advertising), and bottom line results.

I was reading this short post about Apple, and found a passage that resonated with me and aligned well with my work past.

Focusing on the customer/consumer resolves all the horrid debates people from different departments have, especially when the people around the table have to meet their own individual KPIs, quarterly results, or agendas etc. If not properly managed, these debates often result in compromises in strategy and watered down solutions.

That says it all for me. When departments fight over territory and compromise so it’s a win-win for everyone, that often results in a vanilla solution. Which is totally awesome if your company makes vanilla! Not so good otherwise.

You can’t give away the farm, but taking really good care of your customers should trump the findings of a committee. If I go over and above for a customer and therefore blow a KPI because I spent too much time with said customer, I believe I’m measuring the wrong things. Data is great and more power to you if you want to measure everything, but I’m just not wired that way. Delighting one’s customers is still the most important strategy in my tool kit (yes, way more so than social media).

Compendium of Spammy Blog Comments

My new ChrisReimer.com site is less than two months old, and the deluge of spammy blog comments has already begun in earnest.

I don’t understand spam. You see it, in all of its forms, and you think, “Well, they wouldn’t be doing it if it didn’t work.” I can’t believe that’s true, though. Brute force marketing means you throw everything and the kitchen sink at the wall and see what sticks. But where’s the thought? The strategy?

These oddly worded comments, and the all-important outbound links lurking behind them, are pointless and worthless – a disturbance in the natural order, a horrible waste of time. Someone had to sit down and write these. And for what? Some Google Juice? And the language used… it’s actually a concerted effort vs. the blog comments of the past where you’d just paste a link into the comment field. They’re trying. And this is the result.

All of these comments went into moderation, and none made it to my site.

By the way, I considered the SEO implications of creating one blog post containing all of this spammy jibberish. I guess I just don’t care. Google AutoBot, if you can understand this, the stuff below is not spam with regards to my site, but to a bunch of other sites. Don’t index or care too much about it or whatever. Cool?

HERE WE GO:

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Birth of a Meme – Why Did The Harlem Shake Take Off?

In a scant eight days, the Harlem Shake went from a song that was released in August 2012 to an crowdsourced international YouTube phenomenon. One can claim to be sick of this meme, but 1 billion YouTube views and over 300,000 versions later, I’m thinking that all of us watched at least a few Harlem Shake videos. (I never made one, and I’m sort of proud of this).

I posted this article from Social Media Today that explains what happened over those eight days. My good buddy Mark Reardon from KMOX saw the article, and asked if I wanted to come on to discuss. I cannot say no to Mark.

Have a listen here, and let me know what you think in the comments below. In the off chance the link does not work, here’s a link to the story page on KMOX’s website.

LinkedIn Has a Sense of Humor, Doesn’t It?

(thanks @ErinE)

The Harlem Shake – Discussion with Mark Reardon and Kenny Wallace

My appearances on the Mark Reardon Show on 1120AM KMOX Radio are supposed to be debates. Mark and I are supposed to disagree on something, and then we appropriately agitate each other for eight or so minutes. However, when it comes to the Harlem Shake, we are in agreement. We’re tired, weary, we want it to end. Just make it stop!

So we decided to just have a discussion where we would agree that the Harlem Shake cannot exit the public consciousness fast enough.

And then, he springs a surprise guest on me! Actually, he kind of hinted at his intentions.

All’s well that ends well. 🙂

***** CLICK HERE TO LISTEN *****

 

The Power of In-Person Networking

I met Michael at the Dubliner as he was covering Mayor Slay’s reelection and the resulting party for KMOX.

I’m half joking, but three quarters serious. Tis better to have met Michael in person than to have merely remained Twitter friends.

Interview with Nick Ruiz of Recycled GoGetter

I was pleased to do this nearly one hour interview with Nick Ruiz of Recycled GoGetter. Enjoy!

(link to his post, in case the embedded video above does not cooperate)

Talking About Vine on Fox 2 TV

I recently appeared on Fox 2 Now with my good friend Angela Hutti to discuss the new video creation and sharing app called Vine. Watch the video, let me know what you think, and be sure to read by blog post on Vine on Falk Harrison’s blog.

Here’s a link to Fox 2’s story, in case the video embedded above decides not to work.

What I’m Going To Figure Out In 2013

There is a social media engagement continuum on which I must determine where I fall. 

On the one side, there's Seth Godin and his blog with no comments and his robotic, broadcast-only Twitter account. On the other side, there's full, head-on engagement and all of the battles and criticisms that go along with that. For 2013, I want to figure out where my clients and I stand on this issue. Does the sting of criticism (we're human, after all) mean that I should pull back a bit? Or does my future rely on my tribe, my network … so much so that I need to remain fully engaged?

Hit play and have a listen.