Wikipedia defines the QR code history as - “Common in Japan, where it was created by ToyotaDenso-Wave in 1994, the QR code is one of the most popular types of two-dimensional barcodes. QR is the initialism of Quick Response, as the creator intended the code to allow its contents to be decoded at high speed”

Why is this technology significant? The idea of linking spaces to information combine simple creation with easy As a result, QR codes might kick-innovation around information connected in museums, for example, QR codes beside art displays, directing patrons artwork and the artist. QR codes posted visitors the history of the building itself stands, and they might give the architect’s events happening in the city when botanical gardens, codes could direct medicinal uses or food value of botanical or offer data about the climate or soil certain plants to thrive. Because QR they might even be printed as stickers campus signs for a class activity.

What are the downsides? Not everyone is aware of QR codes . As a result, not everyone who sees one will know how to pull out a cell phone and and take a picture of the matrix. Furthermore not everyone owns a camera phone, and because many cell phones do not include a QR reader, the software must be downloaded and tested. Moreover, a QR code might direct users to a website that does not display properly on a cell phone.

Mashable.com posted an article over a year ago by Dana Oshiro that provides some unique ways to use QR codes for your business. One year later there is another article posted today by Zachary Sniderman on how to create and deploy QR codes.

Definitely something to take into consideration as mobile continues to become a viable and needed tool in the marcomm tool chest.

Best Nicole

Anyone with a smartphone can scan and read QR codes with the click of a camera, and anyone with access to a computer can generate QR codes themselves. BayBrain’s Snappr.net offers a QR bar code generator and links to a comprehensive list of software for code reading. By scanning the codes, you can access images, websites and text. By creating the codes, you can produce your own messages.

Usually synonymous with mass production, the quick response (QR) bar code was originally created by Japanese company Denso-Wave to keep inventory. However, because QR codes allow for more data than the standard 10-digit bar code, and because scanning requires less effort than typing a URL, the QR has taken a turn for the personal. The genius behind QR codes is that even a hairless chimp can play with them. Below are five of my favorite uses:

Got any cool uses for QR codes? Share in the comments below.

1. SWAG and Self Branding

I’d avoid any permanent tattoos, but these temporary ones could be cool promo pieces.

2. Geo-Based Reviews and Tours

In a year, despite the fact that the same codes will remain posted on the same landmarks and restaurants, tours may evolve into something drastically different. If a QR code is linked to a public review site, a wiki, or a forum, anyone can lend a hand in chronicling a site’s history. Obviously this has its pros and cons.

3. Green Ticketing

4. Geek Chiq Fashion

Lendorff.Kaywa produced only 500 high-end limited edition Space Invaders QR code scarves . Meanwhile, QRCode Commando Nerd p8tch offers a slightly more affordable “p8tch” to sew to bags and clothing. The patches are less likely to be used for branding than the Snappr merch as they link to a URL on the Swiss domain p8t.ch and users must then redirect. That being said, you’ve always got the opportunity to elegantly Rickroll your unsuspecting public.

5. Secrets & Acts of Defiance

Environmentalists can sticker products and link to corporate crimes, artists can satirize the man by postering government buildings, and Kevin Bacon can finally organize a footloose dance-off free of oppressive townies. The potential for activism and buffoonery is limitless. You are the master of your QR Code Destiny!

Now the internet has changed the face of PR and how these professionals are operating. Twitter can disperse news in real -time and the companies who used PR to promote positive relationships or  images for a brand – now have the opportunity to engage directly with their customer and can create relationships that allow those customers to promote those relationships with their friends and family with the speed, breadth and transparency that traditional PR methods just cannot reach.

Interestingly I have had some great meetings with some very skilled PR people in the last few weeks as we here at SHARE – look at our various projects – and the mix of offline and online marcomm tools needed to make a marketing campaign powerful and profitable. There are still many viable uses for PR as well as the integration of social media as a PR tool. Mashable.com has posted an article today by Erica Swallow – who in this post spoke to several PR professionals who provided their take – on the future of long standing PR tools, such as the press release, the evolution of social platforms, building relationships and current limitations with solutions for the challenges that arise leveraging social media.

With the advent of Twitter and sites like HARO  for which I subscribe – where you can help a reporter out by answering to a post, as a source for an article of interest. “Rather than having PR reps make the first moves all the time, now members of the media can put out requests for pitches from particular types of experts.” For me the most powerful statement to that – is that the author Erica Swallow used HARO to write this article and received 200 quality responses. I personally get several HARO feeds daily and am always looking for someone who might be interested in my expertise as part of an article they may be writing.

At the end of the day PR and social media is about the human factor of building and engaging in relationships. Social media has changed that relationship – as it is no longer a one way dialog – but rather one that can be shared “a bonus for both the company and the customer”. Melding the two together can be a powerful duo!

Best Nicole

Public relations specialists were some of the first people to embrace the power of social media, and as a result they are often the ones leading the way in the social space, whether they are consulting with clients from an agency point of view or strategizing on an in-house PR team.

In the past decade, the Internet has had a huge impact on how PR professionals function. As of late, social media is changing the face of PR, as well. We interviewed 14 PR pros on the future of public relations and how they see social media changing the industry. We collected their thoughts on how social media will affect the future of the press release, the evolution of social platforms, current limitations and solutions for those impediments, connecting with other PR pros, cost savings, and building relationships.

The Future of the Press Release

During the past few years, we’ve witnessed a shift towards what some are calling the “social media release.” Services like PitchEngine, PressLift, PRX Builder, and MindTouch are bringing the press release into the new millennium with embedded multimedia and easy distribution through various channels, including social media and e-mail. We asked our PR experts about the future of the traditional long form press release, and we received quite a bit of feedback that showed that while it is here to stay, it will continue to be influenced by the brevity and accessibility of social media.

Amanda Miller Littlejohn, founder of Mopwater Social Public Relations, commented on the importance of the social media release and how it enables readers to share and interact with it:

“While I don’t believe the press release is dead, it has been transformed, to become this living, breathing thing. If a release doesn’t have a social element — that is, a way for viewers to comment or share to their social networks — it doesn’t have legs.”

The format of the press release isn’t the only factor in its evolution. In an e-mail interview, Vice President of BLASTmedia, Lindsay Groepper, discussed how distribution of the press release will continue to be key to its future:

“When I first began my career in PR more than decade ago, we would e-mail or fax (gasp!) the full press release text to the press. What we see now is new methods of distributing the info, driven by social media. Rather than e-mailing a press release, PR people are sending journalists to custom landing pages created just for that specific announcement, contacting them via Twitter with a BUDurl link to the release, or even directing them to a YouTube video with a message from the CEO making the announcement.”

PR professionals are now experimenting with these new distribution channels. Likewise, many are finding that the form of the press release isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution for every channel. Vistaprint’s Public Relations Manager Jeff Esposito believes that the press release will continue to evolve into multiple iterations for various audiences, channels, and situations:

“Over the next five years, I think we’ll see three types of press releases that will assist different audiences. The first is in a video format where there will be a short description followed by a link to a video giving information on the news from a company source, hitting on the five W’s and also offering sound-bites that can be used for stories or added to a news story. The second iteration will be a further evolution of the social press release that is being used today, except more brief and more focused. The final is similar to what we see now with company boiler plates, stock quotes and additional information.”

In the end, the press release’s future may simply depend on media consumption trends, according to David McCulloch, director of public relations at Cisco Systems:

“In the past couple of years, we’ve seen a marked shift in [the press release's] format to reflect the accelerating societal shift from mass consumption of media (“push” media) to personalized consumption or “pull” media. That’s a shift that has led Cisco to spend less time telling reporters and bloggers what it is we expect them to write, and more time helping them understand how what Cisco is doing might fit with their interests.

“…[I]t’s pretty clear where the press release will go next: It’s going to get shorter; link to more sources; be focused on simplification and explanation; and it’ll come in many more flavors. Practically speaking (assuming the SEC keeps pace with media evolutions), that means the press release of the future will deliver its content in text, video, SMS, microblog and podcast form, to any choice of device, whenever the reader decides, and preferably it will be pre-corroborated and openly rated by multiple trusted sources.”

Kelly McAlearney, an account supervisor at Edelman Digital, agrees that based on natural progression, the press release will continue to get shorter, for concision’s sake:

“Engagement with journalists and consumers has evolved considerably over the past five years, to shorter formats. Often, we find that our most effective pitches are our most succinct. And interactions have naturally become more concise as many brands are in constant, direct contact with consumer audiences and media via online channels.”

Lou Hoffman, CEO of The Hoffman Agency, brought an interesting perspective to this conversation. He said that the backlinks generated by press releases are reason enough to continue syndicating them, even if the contained information is of little use to the audience. He speculates that if search engines were able to point out and devalue republished news releases and their included backlinks, companies would find better ways of dispersing news:

“I don’t think the news release will die in the foreseeable future, say the next five years. Even if the syndication of this content has little impact on the target stakeholders, they’ll still be generating backlinks, which by themselves deliver a decent ROI.

“Looking beyond five years, I could see the algorithms of search engines becoming smart enough to discern whether a backlink comes from syndicated content, which in turn causes it to greatly reduce the value of the backlink. In other words, even if a news release is syndicated on the Wall Street Journal, with all the “authority” that comes with the site, the search engine figures out that it’s nothing more than a republished news release, so scores the backlink super low. If this happened, we would see the volume of news releases significantly decline.”

The Evolution of Social Platforms

The social media platforms with the most value must be used by a client’s target audience and be a meaningful place for brands to connect with consumers and journalists. Our PR experts said that mass social platforms, like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, will continue to be important on some level, but niche, industry-specific networks will be of greater value in the future.

“The most important platforms for PR pros in the future will be the ones most targeted for their clients,” said Cara Stewart, founder and principal at Remarx Media. “Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook are ‘fun;’ getting nitty-gritty into community sites that are industry-specific is less ‘fun,’ because PR pros have to really understand clients’ technologies, business models, services and more. Really, it’s more about PR pros becoming better PR pros and understanding their clients’ businesses, as well as what their clients do … Social media is not a one-size-fits-all solution.”

Social media platforms will continue to evolve, but “A PR person’s job remains the same,” said Heather Whaling, founder and president of Geben Communication. “It’s critical that we’re innovative and staying on top of the latest and greatest; however, we also need to avoid ’shiny object syndrome’ and instead make recommendations based on the client’s business needs.”

Once the industry settles in to a standard for finding the right platforms for each of its clients, the next step is measuring success. Miller Littlejohn pointed out that the PR industry is moving from placing importance on broadcasting to highly valuing monitoring and measurement:

“Right now, the most important tools are the broadcasting tools … But in five years, the most important tools will be the monitoring and measurement tools — the tools that can tell you what happened to your message once it got out there. [T]he tools that can demonstrate (and quickly demonstrate) return on engagement will be winners.

“Free measurement dashboards will also be winners. Right now, there are a few ways to measure mentions of your brands for free, but they are extremely limited in how much and what you can measure at one time. You can pay thousands of dollars per month for a nice platform to measure your brand on the social web, but most smaller brands and small businesses can’t afford that. I think if someone develops a more sophisticated social media and PR measurement and monitoring dashboard and offers it for free, that will be a rock star tool.”

There is also a growing demand for social platforms that make it easier for journalists and PR reps to contact one another. Help a Reporter Out (HARO), PRNewswire’s ProfNet, NewsBasis, and Media Kitty are all enabling the communication lines to run in both directions. Rather than having PR reps make the first moves all the time, now members of the media can put out requests for pitches from particular types of experts. In fact, I used HARO to write this article and received nearly 200 quality responses.

Current Limitations & Solutions

While PR pros are experiencing lots of successes with social media as is it today, our experts pointed out quite a few limitations with the current offering of social platforms that will need to be worked out for continued adoption, understanding and success across the industry.

• Broadcasting vs. Listening: Our experts pointed out that a vast majority of the PR people out there are using social media as a broadcasting tool for sending out press releases and recent client news. The next gen PR pros will use social media as a listening and communicating tool. Scott Bauman, vice president of Greenough Communications, elaborates:
  

  “In the future, I think we’ll see more … real-time interaction that demonstrates the brand is actually listening. This begins to build trust, which is highly valuable and highly perishable. This means continued growth in listening platforms (such as Radian6), but less for reporting (just showing share of voice, for example) … In the end, the real change is a more fluid, immediate, and nimble PR/communications practitioner, instead of one who simply follows a PR plan and rigidly adheres to it.”

• Finding the Right Audience: Many of our experts agreed that while the mass social platforms, like Twitter and Facebook, are useful, the niche, industry-specific communities provide just as much, and sometimes more, value for clients. The current issue, though, is that finding these communities is quite tough and involves a lot of scattered research across the web. In the future, directories with the ability to search for target demographics across a broad range of social networks would make the process of finding the best platforms with the right audiences much easier.
• Imperfect Data: With measurement becoming one of the most important features of social networks for marketers and PR pros, data is the key to enlightenment. “Social media provides a lot of information, but it’s also imperfect data,” said Chuck Tanowitz, founder and principal at PR and social media firm Fresh Ground. “So the trick is knowing what to accept and what to dismiss.”Tanowitz gave the example of the mayor of his home city of Newton, Massachusetts. Mayor Setti Warren has just over 700 followers on Twitter, which wouldn’t put him into the “influencer” category on most social measurement tools. However, in real life, he’s quite influential. Tanowitz notes, “It doesn’t tell you much. Yet, when he got elected [as mayor], he received a call from President Obama, so he obviously has the ear of some influential people. You can’t learn that from Twitter.” For now at least, social measurement data should be taken with a grain of salt.
• Social Stream Aggregation: Nicole VanScoten, a public relations specialist at Pyxl, believes that the future of PR is all about a one-stop social dashboard for easy social media management. She says, “Right now, we’re forced to pay attention to a whole host of different networks. I think we’ll continue to see more aggregation here … People will continue to develop programs that save us time.”Tools like Hootsuite, TweetDeck, CoTweet, Postling, Vitrue, SocialTALK and more, aim to make it easier for businesses posting and monitoring across platforms. While there isn’t one perfect management tool quite yet, over the next five years, it’s probable that one or two clear leaders will emerge.
• Client Buy-In: Lastly, PR pros are still finding it difficult to obtain client buy-in for investment in social media. Currently, a large part of a PR pro’s job involving social media is educating clients of its use and benefits. The solution here is data. As success measurements continue to improve, the case for social media will become much clearer.
  

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  Connecting with Other PR Pros

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  As more and more independent PR professionals launch their own consultancies, the independent PR community at large is becoming an important place for individuals to get advice. Social media is driving those relationships.

  LuAnn Glowacz, an independent PR strategist and founder of PR firm WordCove PR notes, “My most valuable business connections are other independent PR and related professionals in Austin, who I connect with daily on Twitter and Facebook. We refer each other, give advice to each other, co-work and socialize together. It’s like having co-workers and employees while keeping the paycheck all to myself.”

  Glowacs also connects with other PR pros every Wednesday at the #SoloPR Twitter chat, moderated by her colleague and PR/social media consultant, Kellye Crane. Crane also runs a blog and LinkedIn group for Solo PR. Glowacs commented on Solo PR: “In my opinion, it’s the top social media resource for indie PR pros. [It consists of] very high-caliber PR pros from around the country helping and learning from each other.”

  Twitter chats seem to be popular among contemporary PR pros. Stewart and her team at Remarx attend the #B2Bchat on Twitter every Thursday to keep up with social media trends and share their own knowledge of the space. And Whaling co-moderates the popular #pr20chat, a weekly exploration of social media’s influence on public relations.

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  Saving Money and Putting It to Good Use

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  Social media has the ability to save companies lots of money through enhancing traditional and online campaigns. INgage Networks‘ Corporate Communications Manager Kathy Saenz explained how her company saved $270K in expenses via social media. They had previously paid $250K annually for an external PR agency, and $20K in events budgeting for venue, traveling and promotions expenses. They saved all of that money by bringing their PR in-house and focusing on social media. Instead of running large events at expensive venues, they now run webinars. Of their latest webinar, Saenz said, “It was a targeted B2B audience we wanted to reach; [we] broke record attendance numbers. We didn’t have to pay for anything as a result. Great exposure and big money saved.”

  For PR professionals, social media also saves time and money by yielding higher response rates to pitches. VanScoten explained:

  “It’s amazing to me that I get a MUCH higher response rate when pitching reporters via Twitter than e-mail. I would actually go as far as to say that every time I’ve pitched a reporter via Twitter, I have gotten some sort of response (often resulting in a story for my client). Via e-mail, I have maybe a 50% response rate. The phone call response rate would be my lowest.”

  As these success stories become more publicized and the PR industry begins to see the cost savings behind social media, it’s inevitable that the stragglers will jump on the bandwagon.

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  The Human Factor

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  No matter which tools PR pros use to connect with media members, the most important factor is the human factor. Public relations and social media are both about creating and fostering relationships. Our PR experts agreed and emphasized the fact that personal relationships will continue to propel the bond between social media and PR.

  Dave Delaney, social media coordinator at Griffin Technology explained, “Today, not only can we send a press release to a valuable group of media contacts, but we can now take that message wider using social media. Whether our communication is a press release, blog post, or a tweet, the important thing is remaining relevant and engaging our friends, fans and followers.”

  Emphasizing relationships, Hoffman also discussed his agency’s use of social media:

  “We’re definitely using social media to connect with journalists and customers, but this outreach involves a news release maybe 20% of the time tops. The other 80% of the time we’re talking with journalists, bloggers and other influencers about issues and macro topics. In short, we devote most of our outreach to helping our clients serve as industry and business sources, as opposed to promoting their products.”

  McAlearney reiterated the importance of building relationships with influencers. “Regardless of how an announcement is shared -– via wire, blog post, tweet, or otherwise –- the critical step has historically been, and will remain, the human element. By directly reaching out to key media and influencers with whom we maintain relationships, we’re able to ensure their timely awareness of the news.”

  Groepper backed up that point in saying that “Despite the changing landscape of press release distribution, the most effective communication for a PR person still remains unchanged: Building relationships with the most influential press in your space. Having key relationships is what helps drive the type of media the client is seeking, and no press release can accomplish that in its place.”

  “In truth we’re talking about the same positive PR practices that good PR people have been doing for decades,” Tanowitz concluded, “They read and understand their target audience, then help craft stories that speak to and with that audience.”

We believe that or I should say I believed – I was prepared for when this day would come, but when it arrived I was not even close to being ready. I think for all of us, know matter what age our parents are – we are never prepared for them to have to go through the challenges that can come as you age. In our case my father is a fighter and determined to surpass all of these serious issues as soon as possible. It is our job to help support him and negotiate the challenges and find outside support to help us do that as best we can.

In these times what I have learned is that family comes first and then everything must come after that. None of us are super human – especially women who want to take on the world! That by the way would be me!! The result is that the blog has fell behind and so I felt it important to SHARE where I was and hopefully touch someone else who is going through the same experiences as I am! Life is an evolution and we are all on a journey – sometimes SHARING what we are going through helps us as much as it does others!

Looking forward to getting back to the world of social media next week!

Best Nicole

Complaining and unhappy customers from our perspective our gifts for you and your business. They allow you to look closely as those aspects of your business or brand that have come into question, review how you are managing your customer service responses, allow you to engage with your customers one on one and build a relationship and make the great things you currently do better! Ironically  feedback and criticism promotes fear for many businesses – especially in today’s world of social media- where word of mouth spreads like a wild virus, yet what they forget is that by hiding or not responding this unhappiness spreads anyway. Why not take the initiative to face that unhappy person or group and use the good will and caring you demonstrate – as another way to promote the many great reasons – why they should continue to do business with you and SHARE their good relationship and experiences with others. Now that sounds like good publicity…taking lemons and making some delicious lemonade!

On Mashable.com I came across an article that speaks directly about this very issue today. Susan Payton posted an article that provides some good examples, expanding upon my thoughts in this post – to leverage that unhappy or unsatisfied customer – not only to help solve their discontent, but to take advantage of the ways you can learn more about how to make your business better and promote the way you face head on – the negative things you do or have done.

The outcome is that your customers win and at the same time so does your business and your brand. You learn about the way you can make your business better and in turn can promote the great way you engage with your customers. Think Zappos – they focused on customer service and it became their best skill because they realized when they began it was something they lacked. We always promote the positive things – but isn’t it a positive thing to know – that if I have a problem with your products or business you will be there immediately – to make sure that it gets fixed immediately?

How are you embracing complaining customers in your business? We would love to hear how you have managed some of your customer service challenges.

Best Nicole

Companies love positive feedback. They share it on Twitter (), post it on their website and use it as marketing fodder. But what about when feedback is, well, less than pleasant? What can you do with a handful (or more) of irate customers? Do you ignore them? Bury them out back? Not in today’s social atmosphere.

Rather than try to sweep these unhappy customers under the rug, look at them as a challenge and an opportunity to improve your brand and leverage them for some publicity.

Why You Want Angry Customers

There are several ways to connect with unhappy customers in a meaningful way:

• Hold a panel or forum in person; give them a tour of your facility and hold a venting session
• Work virtually; host an online panel to get feedback from them
• Work one-on-one to understand their concerns and address them individually

In-Person Events

Dell recently held its first Customer Advisory Panel event at their headquarters in Round Rock, TX. They invited two groups of 15 bloggers and social media gurus. One group was full of people who had negative experiences with the company and who were vocal about their displeasure. The second group was made up of people that Dell considered brand evangelists; people who loved Dell and told others.

The attendees started the morning with their gripes; customer service issues came up again and again. The heads of customer service and marketing were present and actively engaged. As they listened, they took notes, then asked questions and they promised they would make changes.

That type of customer empowerment is important. Now, whether they’ll go through with the promised changes is another story, but it was clear that Dell understood it was time to start paying attention to the public’s perception of its brand, and make some changes to keep their customers.

Nestlé is another company that has been successful at holding an event to let people engage with its brand directly. After a resurgence in interest in the Nestle Boycott a few years ago, Nestlé decided to invite a group of bloggers to what it called its “Happy, Healthy Gathering” in 2009. Mommy bloggers, who’d been tweeting up a storm about the company’s stance on breastfeeding in third world countries, were invited to tour the facilities and give their input on the company.

Whether the event truly changed perceptions remains to be seen, but it did a great deal to show that Nestlé was putting in the effort to reach its audience.

Disclosure: I was one of the bloggers invited to participate Dell’s Customer Advisory Panel.

Virtual Panels

Virtual panels are decidedly less effective than in-person ones. But they can be good replacements for focus groups. Pssst is General Mills’ online testing ground for new products. The company sends participants coupons and free products to try, and in return they are asked to fill out surveys. The program is so successful that bloggers who write about saving money are gladly turning others onto joining Pssst.

Similarly, the Starbucks Passion Panel was designed to get customer feedback — for better or worse. The community of Starbucks drinkers gives their input via surveys and forums.

Passion Panel member Jennifer Boyd said, “Being on the Passion Panel means that I have access to direct input and discussion with other members. It enables me to give my opinion on Starbucks’ current and future products through surveys. The panel is a great way to engage with their loyal customers and solidifies a relationship with a consumer to a brand.”

Wal-Mart’s Elevenmoms platform is another example of how a mix of online community, shopper experience and in-person visits can work together to help the company gather new insights. John Andrews, former Senior Manager of Emerging Media for Wal-Mart and founder of the Elevenmoms, said the community succeeded in getting Wal-Mart’s attention in a few areas where it was lacking.

When the iPhone was launched in Wal-Mart stores, the Elevenmoms were invited to go through the purchase process. Some had no problems, but others did. It took one blogger two hours to buy a phone. Each blogger published her experience, and Wal-Mart took the feedback to its operations staff, who took notes and improved the purchase process.

“The Elevenmoms used direct social media interaction to improve the shopping process,” said Andrews.

Other feedback caused Wal-Mart to reconsider its layaway strategy. Having canceled the layaway plan due to costs, Wal-Mart got some flack from the Elevenmoms, who felt it made it easier to make big purchases. As a result, Wal-Mart developed its Site to Store platform, which provided the benefit of layaway online, so that local stores didn’t incur extra costs.

Disclosure: John Andrews now works with Collective Bias, a company with which I have collaborated on projects.

One-on-One

Solving a customer’s problems and changing their perception individually is the least cost-effective method, but a little work goes a long way. And it starts with customer service personnel being properly trained to solve problems, and not to simply stick to “the script” at all costs. Look at Zappos or Disney for great examples of how service reps are empowered to solve problems.

Disney empowers each of its “cast members” (staff) to solve a guest’s problem. From the street sweeper to the reservation specialist, everyone has the ability to turn a negative situation into a good one. That might mean replacing a fallen ice cream cone, upgrading a guest’s hotel room, or simply answering politely the most commonly asked question on Disney property: what time is the three o’clock parade?

Disney is so good at customer service, they’ve opened the Disney Institute, a customer service training program helps other corporations use the same techniques that has made Disney such a success.

Likewise, Zappos is also famous for its customer service tactics. The reps don’t use scripts, and seem to genuinely care about solving problems. Many customers are pleasantly surprised when their shipping gets upgraded and they get their shoes even faster – at no additional charge.

By providing instant happiness to the customer, these brands can prevent a lot of the bad karma that comes down the road when an unhappy customer becomes an enraged customer who tells everyone he knows about how bad the company is (no one wants their own version of DellHell).

Conclusion

On Mashable.com there is a wonderful article written by Maria Ogneva that focuses on your business – building relationships to help solve problems for your customers. Understanding what products you have – that will solve those customer problems today, tomorrow and next year. It goes back to a want need and a benefit. When we can fulfill those 3 human touch points – you begin to find that your brand not only becomes just a product – but rather integrated into ones day to day life.

What we loved about this particular article is that it focuses on the various business departments that make up a company, marketing, sales, customer service traditional advertising and product design. Outlining what their role is in relation to social media and how each can better serve the customer using social media tools.

Quoted from the article I think the author Maria Ogneva says it best “our brand is no longer what you say it is, but rather what the patchwork of customer and employee voices says it is. That being said, you still have a tremendous opportunity to help steer these conversations and educate the public in a conversational, open and honest manner so they feel well equipped to talk about your brand when they choose to do so.”

How are the various departments in your business serving your customers using social media?

Best Nicole

When it comes to social media for business, there’s no one-size-fits-all strategy. But to ensure results, you must align it with your overall business objectives and avoid falling for “shiny new objects” simply because they are trendy or hyped.

For example, a new business or “first mover” may want to focus on establishing thought leadership, while a more mature business should aim for customer support. In all cases, creating a product that actually solves problems for customers, present and future, should be every business’s top priority — and you should be using social media to help you figure out what that product is.

Below, we’ll take a closer look at how each department can blend traditional and social media to drive business goals and collaborate on a seamless customer experience.

Marketing Touchpoints

Remember that your business needs to have as many touchpoints with your customers as possible, of which social media is just one:

• A clear website that establishes value and helps customers weave your brand into their own story.
• Thought leadership and content creation, in the form of blogging, guest-blogging, webinars, whitepapers, e-books, presentations, and videos help educate the market. Use social media to help create and share content, as well as create discussions around this content.
• Relationships and outreach: As a result of your social media listening, discovery and engagement, you will undoubtedly form relationships with other thought leaders with whom you can collaborate on content, form guest-blogging relationships, create podcasts, etc. I have started many of my professional relationships on Twitter, which have later led to in-person meetings, client relationships, co-creating content, consulting engagements, jobs, etc.
• Events, online as well as offline, are also great awareness vehicles and can take the form of attending and speaking at conferences, sponsorships, and producing your own. Social media can and should be used to drive awareness, collect content input from the public, and provide ways for people in your network to meet in person. Take the time to produce content around the event. Interview people you respect and with whom you have built online and offline relationships, and share that content via social media.
• Then of course, there is social media itself, which is a must for any brand building effort. Your social media strategy should include actively monitoring Twitter (), Facebook (), blogs, discussion forums and other outpost communities, with the purpose of learning, engaging and forming relationships.
• Third-party support, in the form of partners, resellers, and blogger outreach, is also tremendously important. Forming and nurturing these relationships is crucial to your success as a brand, and can have a multiplicative effect on your social media and offline buzz.

Sales

You should also be using social media listening techniques to gather intelligence around your customers and prospects’ businesses to help drive better and richer conversations. Listen for purchase intent and identify clues about when people may be looking for your product.

Customer Service

This streamlines the customer experience. Imagine when a customer tweets an airline that she needs help; if the airline can tie her social data to its internal information associated with the reservation, it can help her that much better. Additionally, anyone in the company can help this customer, because there is a unified customer record available to all relevant parties inside the company.

The Intersection of Traditional and Social Media

Ask yourself the following questions:

• How will you receive traditional and social media requests for help? Perform a social media audit to understand where your customers are talking about products like yours, and set up a monitoring system attuned to those platforms.
• How will you triage your social media messages?
• How will you route and escalate your social media messages?
• How is that different (or not) from how you treat traditional e-mail and phone support?
• How much automation do you want?
• Do you use a hub-and-spoke system? If so, who is the hub — your social media manager or community manager?
• Are you giving Twitter responsibilities to existing phone and e-mail support reps, or are you hiring specific Twitter response teams? (This will largely depend on the volume of mentions you have and the size of your business.)
• How do they work with the rest of the customer service organization?

You also need to track workflow statistics on messages — social as well as traditional — and relate them to your success metrics. You need to have a unified reporting dashboard that integrates statistics for both kinds of support.

Product Intelligence and Design

• There’s a lot of information out there, and you can easily figure out what people are saying in aggregate by using the right monitoring and analysis platform. Because there is so much social data, you need smart text analytics to help you make sense of it all. When collecting customer intelligence, you should be blending traditional market research (surveys, focus groups, secondary research) with this type of social media research.
• On a more intimate level, you need to invite your customers behind the scenes and give them a stake in the future of the product. If your customers help you create the product, you can possibly reduce customer support queries and complaints in the future. One easy way that you can implement this today is by adding an idea generation and feedback community like UserVoice to your site.

The key is to establish a flow for easy and consistent information dissemination. Again, if you put your community manager at the helm, she can act as the liaison between the product team and the community providing ideas. Make strong multi-directional communication (between the community manager, product team, and the customer) a key priority.

Personally I have met some great people via social networking – for both business and pleasure with some great connections on Facebook in particular. What I really have enjoyed most – was building a relationship online that has continued offline. In some instances I was able to meet some of the people that were local and in others our relationship and business has moved to phone conversations. In both instances the old “traditions of relationship building and networking“  enhanced – when you have the chance to take that next step to connect with someone in person – or even by phone where you can hear their voice and build a chemistry of conversation.

In Canada online bank ING Direct has had alot of success using social media as a communications tool – both by their CEO tweeting and as well as company employees. They have had and announced what they call “tweet ups” across the country and are now opening ING Cafe’s for people to connect in real time – have a coffee, access to free internet and learn more about saving money as they say! They have seminars on various topics such as the importance of using credit responsibly – which in this economy is a worthy seminar to attend!

Mashable.com posted an article that originally appeared on the American Express Open Forum. This article written by Stephanie Marucs who walks you though – how to organize a successful meetup. A meetup is defined as a ” planned event where like-minded people meet and typically chat over cocktails and listen to a guest speaker. Organizing one of these events is an excellent way to establish yourself or your business as a “go-to” person in your industry.”

For anyone who has hosted a dinner party with success – you all know how important the planning and details can be! The reward is a vast new viable and fun network that you have to access both online and offline!

Best Nicole

1. Why Your Meetup?

Next, you need to craft a clear lead statement that explains exactly what your Meetup is about. Break it down so that people will understand what type of conversations you hope to develop.

2. Create a Meetup Group

Meetup’s services make it easy to get the group rolling. Create your group, and choose your location, the group’s name, headline and your lead statement describing what the group is all about. Pick a theme for your group’s page; you can choose from several templates or create your own.

The next step is important. Pick up to 15 topics that describe what your group is targeting. Picking the right keywords is how you’ll find the right members for your group. Meetup’s site offers some good suggestions and shows you how many groups already exist under each umbrella topic.

Then pick a pricing plan. Meetup is free to join, but if you want to actually start a group, pricing will run as low as $12 a month. With more than 6.5 million people signed up and over 60,000 groups formed it’s the simplest way to organize a group and reach out to the most people.

Now that you have created the group, you’re officially the “organizer.” Seventy-two hours after you have created the group the site sends out an alert blast to everyone who has listed the topics or keywords you choose to categorize the group, and invites them to join.

If you have contacts who aren’t members of the site but that you know you’d want to attend, send off a personalized e-mail informing them of your new group. You can also tweet the link to your group’s page so your Twitter () followers get the message as well.

3. Grow Membership

Don’t rush to create an event right away says Yuli Ziv, who organizes the Meetups for her group Fashion 2.0 and is the co-founder of My It Things and Style Coalition. Ziv’s group has more than 1,000 members, and she has organized 20 Meetups since 2008. She advises that you wait for the membership to grow before you announce your first event.

Once you decide to put a Meetup event on the calendar make sure you announce it and give yourself some time to promote the event so that people can RSVP.

4. Format

Julia Kaganskiy organizes the 1,300 member strong Arts, Culture and Technology group. A former social media strategist and community manager for an entertainment agency, and current Digital Learning department intern at the MoMA, Kaganskiy held her first meet up nearly two years ago as a way to meet people in the specific communities she wanted to work in.

For her first event, Kaganskiy says she ran more of relaxed gathering because she wanted to get a feeling for who would come out. “I wanted to see what fields people were in and find out what they were really interested in. I worked the room and got a sense of what kinds of questions people wanted to explore.”

Fourteen Meetups later, Kaganskiy now creates each event with a different theme or topic and invites top industry leaders as guest speakers. Sometimes she’ll invite a few speakers to speak for 30 minutes or she’ll invite four or five guests with a variety of viewpoints to each speak for 10 minutes. Either way, the goal is to get the conversation flowing.

5. Venue

“Find a bar on a Monday or Tuesday, and most places will be thrilled to have you. If it’s a low traffic area they’ll be more than happy to have you bring in 50 people for a couple of hours,” says Kaganskiy.

Once you have space set there is always the question of if you’ll have enough. In places like New York City, space is often an issue.

As Fashion 2.0 has grown in membership, Ziv says that they have outgrown the venues where past events have taken place. To avoid turning people away, Ziv suggests capping the number of people admitted if there is enough interest. “Some events are better in an intimate setting,” she says. “A big event doesn’t mean a great event. It could be 30 people and be just as relevant and interesting as one with 100.”

Once you have established yourself as a group, Ziv suggests making a wait list if too many people RSVP to your event. “It can make people more excited. It means it’s a special event and people want to be a part of it. This way you can encourage people to RSVP early,” she says.

6. Day of the Meetup

If you’re in a private room at a bar or restaurant, try to make sure that the staff know who you are and that they’ll communicate to arriving guests where the event is being held.

On the day of, don’t forget your Sharpie pens, name tags, and the RSVP list. Have someone besides yourself man the door, so you can take care of last-minute needs. If you decide not to cap your admission number, make sure to have a sign-in sheet so you can get everyone’s contact information.

7. Sponsorships

Initial Meetups tend to be low-key affairs, but once you’ve organized a few and keep gaining members, sponsorship is a great way to make your Meetup more professional and enjoyable, while taking the costs off your hands.

Getting sponsored can happen in different ways. Fashion 2.0 was lucky enough to find some of its sponsors within some of its own members according to Ziv. “We have executives in the group and it’s to their benefit to tell their companies about a relevant group with great people who they would want to reach out to.”

The benefits of being sponsored mean that Fashion 2.0 can afford a bigger venue and host events with an open bar, which definitely attracts people. “It really takes it to the next level and makes it a serious event. The fashion industry has high standards and people expect a big production,” she says.

Another way to find a sponsor is through Meetup’s website. Three years ago the website noticed that groups were starting to get sponsored by local businesses.

“Running groups were sponsored by the neighborhood running store, and we saw that there was an opportunity for big brands to come in and support these groups,” said Cindy Laning, the account manager for Meetup sponsors. Since organizers pay to use the site, Meetup is committed to supporting the success of each group, and found that groups grow, on average, 7 percent faster with a sponsor.

Laning explained that organizers have the option of whether or not they would be interested in sponsorship, and Meetup reaches out to groups who they think would benefit from working with, including dozens of top brands like Columbia Sports, Dove, Vitamin Water, Equinox, Blackberry, Huggies and Microsoft.

“The point is to get as many groups sponsored as possible. We reach out to the group and act as the middleman between them and the brand.”

According to Laning, Meetup has a 75% opt-in rate for sponsorship, which insures that brands are welcomed into the community. “We get qualitative feedback; brands come in and they recognize these communities by financing them or with other things. The groups are so grateful for that support, that when it comes time to make a purchase decision they are likely to use the brand that has been helping them out. It’s a pay it forward mentality.”

8. The Future

“Running the Meetup was the single most important move I’ve made in my professional career thus far,” said Kaganskiy. “It positioned me at the center of this community that I was just making my way into. It allowed me to create my own networking opportunities. Because I’m creating a public service by organizing these events, I’ve gain a lot of respect.”

9. Keep Connected

The event may be over, but your work is far from done. Now that you’ve met all these new people, it’s your job to stay connected with them via your group’s Meetup page, but also through other social media platforms. Follow your members on Twitter and Facebook (). Keep your community buzzing. Was there a controversial question that generated a lot of discussion? Tweet it after the event and keep people thinking about you so that they can’t wait for the next event. For example, John Hyland and Anthony Quintano of the NYC DSLR Meetup, keep up with their members via Twitter to keep conversation rolling before, during and after their Meetups.

At Fashion 2.0 there is a whole conversation on Twitter in addition to the event. Ziv says members all follow and support each other, and foster new discussions.

Kaganskiy uses her personal Twitter account to promote the group and says that following up with members on other networking sites really helps to cement the relationships. She reflects, “I was an outsider looking in. Now I have friends at every major museum in the city, and it is because I maintained those connections I made at the Meetups.”

Like anything – for some – the internet can be a place of wonder and for others too much information can ultimately be confusing. Yet the sharing of information with the people who have the same interests, values and passions – is easy with social media – to zero in on the things that YOU want or need and even those things for which you may have forgotten and wish to remember…like the rows of vanilla and chocolate Girl Guide cookies!
My go to resource for case studies and great, yet simple info. on the topics I decide to write about Mashable.com and its author for this article – Zachary Sniderman, posted an article that shows how some of these savvy sales people and small companies are using social media with success. From Twitter to geo location tools like Foursquare – these companies are finding ways to get the most out of their social network efforts and communities and best of all seeing great results!

Being authentic, remembering how you build relationships offline and using those same thoughtful gestures to build transparent and honest relationships online are – ways to leverage the traditional sales techniques with greater success via social media!

Best Nicole

The days of door-to-door salespeople might be drawing to a close, but that doesn’t mean that people have stopped selling things. The Internet is a great resource to get your goods into the right hands, but it can also be a confusing mess of options. How do you find the right people online? How can you get your products to them?

We’ve found a collection of small companies and websites that can help you get the most out of your social media network. Whether you’re a tiny Italian ice shop, a regular seller, or a seasoned vet – these resources can help you get real results.

Online Vendors

One of social media’s greatest benefits is how easy it is to get brand exposure. Your products aren’t limited by having to set up a physical shop or take out ads in the local newspaper. However, with so many online vendor websites (such as eBay or even Craigslist) available, it can be difficult to find your customers through all the noise.

Craigslist and eBay are expansive platforms that reach a huge swathe of customers. While this is great for reaching a large market, it can be difficult for individual salespeople to get their products featured, or noticed. Instead, look to niche online markets that suit the kind of products you’re selling.

Imagine you’re a local farmer selling honey. Selling a jar on eBay might be tricky, however, sites like Foodzie or Foodoro that focus on selling goods from small food producers is a more focused way to get exposure and sell your product. A quick search can turn up other niche online vendor hubs.

Creating Updates

Once you’ve found a place to sell your goods, you need to let people know about it. Facebook fan pages and Twitter accounts are two great ways to let existing or potential customers know about your product. Food carts across the country have already jumped on the wagon in order to let their customers know where they’ll be parked. For example, New York’s Rickshaw Dumpling Truck regularly tweets its location for the day with light-hearted updates and customer service.

But what if you don’t have a food cart? Twitter updates are still a good way to build buzz and excitement and create a community of customers.

Group Buying

Group buying (or mob buying) is becoming increasingly popular as a win-win for businesses and customers alike. Sites like Groupon, Deals for Deeds, Buy with Me, and Social Buy provide its users with large discounts on businesses. While there is an expected discount in the transaction, group buying sites allow salespeople to reach new customers and draw in large chunks of profit. Most group buying sites (including the three listed) have a section where buyers can sign up to be a featured vendor. Some sites, like Deals for Deeds (based in Washington D.C.), include an option for buyers to donate their savings to charity.

Sellers beware: Because of the nature of group buying, most sites are regionally based so make sure you find a site or group that is around your area or willing to sell your products online.

Foursquare Specials

Foursquare is more than just an invasive new technology for young folk; it’s a powerful tool for salespeople to share their products through social media. Sellers now have access to a small business dashboard that allows them to offer rewards and special deals to their most loyal customers. One such example is Rita’s Ice in Bellmore, NY. The Italian ice shop was able to attract customers over its competitors because of its specials and offers – some of which were only accessible via Foursquare.

Foursquare is a good way to both find new customers and reward long-time patrons for their loyalty.

The Dangers

Yup, even the Girl Scouts – long-known for their door-to-door cookie drives — have turned to social media in order to sell their strangely addictive cookies. The Girl Scouts previously shunned the online world for safety reasons but are just now experimenting with a new, safe online outreach to allow customers to buy their favorites. You can find corporate accounts for Girls Scouts on Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and YouTube. But more importantly, you’ll find Girl Scouts everywhere sending Facebook messages to their friends and family members, inquiring on cookie orders.

While they are reaching a much larger audience, the Girl Scouts illustrates the danger of tarnishing a traditional brand image through selling via social media. They are so associated with door-to-door sales, that some see the turn online as a step backwards for the Girl Scouts’ image.

Branding is just as important for any other business or salesperson. Define your brand and decide how you can market it online without compromising your authenticity. With a little bit of forethought and tenacity, you can use social media to sell your goods with real results.

What really touched me is to see when someone from the traditional world realizing the opportunities of the digital world and is transitioning his career from the old world of media and sportscasting where he worked for 40 years – to the new world of Twitter, Facebook and Youtube. That would be sports caster Len Berman.  This morning I came across this video from my favorite site Mashable.com. Author Adam Ostrow, posted a beautiful piece which includes video from Len Berman himself who talks about his transition to social media and how he is finding success – that he may not have had – with some of his current business endeavors.

There are two videos included in this post and I encourage you to watch both of them and be inspired. As he says “whats an old fart like me doing on Twitter”?! To me he is a leader in the world of change and a great example of someone who saw success in the world of old media but was savvy and courageous enough to embrace the new media and is reaping the rewards of success in new ways. Bravo to Len Berman!

For all those business people and companies that sit caught in the old world media and still hedging on leaping into the new world – I say watch these videos and join in! Hope you will pass this on!

Best Nicole

One of my personal favorite moments of this week’s Mashable Media Summit was when long-time sportscaster Len Berman took the stage to talk about his transition from a nightly TV reporter in New York to a new media persona — a presentation he prefaced with the question “what’s an old fart like me doing on Twitter?”

Aside from the fact that I watched Berman growing up, his tale is an interesting one that points to the ongoing trend of old media personalities reinventing themselves in the social media world.

In Mashable’s backstage interview, we talked to Berman about the move, how he thinks social media helped him get a book on The New York Times Best Seller List, and which of the Fantastic Four’s powers he’d want. Check it out in the video above.

Also, watchBerman, an Emmy Award-winning sportscaster and New York Times bestselling author, talk about the transition from old media to new media during his speech in this livestream video: