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What did you do Thursday morning between 7am and 10 am?  Were you just rolling out of bed or having your first cup of coffee? Was the sun just coming up over the backyard fence?  What an awesome site.

Most of my mornings are like that.  Tuesday and Thursday mornings are a bit different.  For instance, last Thursday morning between 7am and 10am I transported over 50 people from their cars to the front door of their work.  I don’t get paid for the service I provide;

I am a Volunteer RU?

I am a volunteer van driver at a local hospital.  Not just any hospital, it is the local Veteran’s Hospital.  There is nothing like picking up a person who’s been in battle, or at least served their country in one way or the other.  What I am finding is satisfaction beyond belief.

If you can find at least one hour a week to volunteer, you can make potitive impact on someone else’s life.  It’s about what you can give rather than about what you expect to get.  Remember the saying “what goes around comes around”?

Happy Trails

Mike.

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TSA Pats Down 3-Year-Old In Leg Cast And Wheelchair (VIDEO)

A three-year-old boy in a cast and wheelchair on his way to a Disney vacation with his family was stopped by TSA agents at Chicago’s O’Hare airport. He was traveling with his parents, two siblings and two grandparents.

The video, which appears to be shot by the boy’s father, shows him visibly confused, nervous and squirming to get out of his chair. Holding back tears, he says he just wants to go by mom. But, according to comments in the video, nobody was allowed to touch the child or come near him during the process.

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This is a question that has been plaguing retailers for a long, long time.  We are working with a restaurant that uses coupons to get consumers in their establishment.  They send out coupons several times a month and we make the coupon available to as many people as we can.  We usually add it to their monthly mailing and send it into their social media network for widest dissemination.  We are also test marketing a hard copy version.  It was not until the hardcopy version that we realized the dilemma, what size do we use?  It all started with our printer’s question…….

After sending the draft coupon to be printed, the printer came back with a smaller size to help decrease costs (more coupons per page = less to print = decreased costs).  We weren’t sure what to do so we printed the coupons, cut them out and held them in our hands.  We also put the coupons in our test market’s hands so they could “feel” the coupons and we could document their reaction.  We also tested coupon visibility when placed in a public location using several basic techniques; bold type versus regular type, color, etc.  We also took both sized coupons to another retailer that regularly uses coupons so we could get their reaction too.  They took one look and said “the larger size.”  They unequivocally stated we needed to go to the larger size, and we’re glad we took their advice.

To date the coupons are going like hotcakes (fast).  After printing, cutting and placing the coupons, we are wondering if we should go one size bigger.  At this point we are printing 8 coupons per 8.5×11 sheet of stock (8up).  We are thinking about making them bigger and maybe even take it to 4 coupons per 8.5×11 sheet of stock (4up).

Does Size Matter?  Let us know.  Should we stay with 8 coupons per 8.5×11 or go with larger (4up) or smaller (12up) coupons?  These hardcopy coupons will be strategically placed in public areas so the consumer has to be able to easily see them, and of course be compelled to use them.    Your Thoughts?

You decide if size matters and let us know.  I am talking about the size of a coupon.

You can delete the complaint, but that just mean people will no longer see it on your social media site(s).  The complaint has already been published to all your readers’ sites.  Additionally people who have alerts set for certain key words will actually receive the complainant’s post.   

Your readers may not read or react to the complaint, but are you willing to take that chance?  Let’s take a look at the next option, ignoring the complaint. 

Ignore the Complaint

Maybe if you ignore it, the complaint will go away.  Actually, it won’t go away if you ignore it.  It may die a nice quiet death, but it doesn’t go away.  Its kind of like the Delete the Complaint scenario.  Its already been published.   

Here’s something interesting.  If no one comments on the complaint the average life expectancy of the complaint is 45 seconds on Twitter, and about 15 minutes on Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube.  Blog complaints are always there and do not go away as easily as they do on the other social media sites. If someone comments on the complaint, those times just doubled and that complaint’s readership grew. 

Sounds like something could be getting ready to go viral. Beat them to the punch by considering the next technique for dealing with complaints: Address the Complaint. 

Address the Complaint

This is the head on, right in your face type of customer service that people love to see.  Your customer service process should shine through whenever you deal with a complaint head on.  It is like you are in a room full of people and they’re watching to see what you’re going to do. Choose carefully, you’re getting ready to do one of two things, you will either lose readers (prospects) or gain new customers.  

Addressing the complaint yields the most positive effects to business. When you use my process of how to Address the Complaint, readers get a look inside your customer service. How you handle complaints is a direct indication of how you deal with your customers.   

Outsiders want to see inside your business so they feel comfortable working with you.  Addressing complaints directly is a valuable step in building relationships with potential customers.  In the long run this technique coupled with another technique I am going to talk about next is the most advantageous to your business and will yield the best results. 

I thought this article that was written several months ago was interesting.  The following are predictions from 38 so called experts.  Yeah right.  These are not my predictions, I know what’s going to happen with social media in 2012.  Let me know what you think:

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I predict that 2012 will be the year that marketers begin to look beyond the buzzword that is “social media” and focus on what truly matters – building engaging communities.  Twitter, Facebook, Google+, etc. are great channels/tools for communicating and pushing out content but without a focus on fostering a sense of community, your efforts will ultimately fall flat.  But you don’t have to take my word for it. The beauty of predictions is that everyone has their own.  Below are predictions on the future of social media from 38 experts.

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The last part of this series on Social Media’s Impact on Small Business has to do with “The Ugly.”  Those nasty complaints people make about you in social media.  They are upset with you and they are telling all their friends about it.  The most asked question I get at my seminars and workshops is question “What do I do when people complain about my company, product or services in social media?” I am going to tell you how to handle them so they don’t destroy your business and how to turn a complaint into a positive viral marketing action.

The Ugly

thecomplaint

 “The Ugly” part of social media is when someone says bad things in social media about your company, product or services.  True or not, you need to know what to do when you get slammed by someone. It can get very ugly very quickly if you don’t know or don’t understand how to get “The Ugly” under control. 

If you’re not plugged into social media, you won’t know when people talk bad about your business or what they are saying when they are talking.  Even if you don’t market your business with social media, you should have your brand monitored. You don’t want to wait until the door to your business swings slower and slower before you realize something’s amiss.  You need to know at the first hint of trouble. Always monitor your brand.  This is very important. At the first hint of trouble you’ll want to know the why so you can correct it.   

Bad business reviews travel faster than good business.  It can get ugly when a consumer talks bad about your business and their review goes viral.  That’s NOT what you want to happen. Stay on top of your brand and be ready to overcome anything anyone says about your business. I’ll show you how to overcome the social media complaints in a minute.   

Even if you do not have the time or inclination to use social media marketing for your business you need to know how to monitor your business from afar.  There are hands-free tools you can use to monitor your business; all you need to do is set them up.   

One of the most asked questions I get at seminars and workshops is “What do I do when people complain about my company, product or services in social media?”  

Its not as hard as you think.  When I said bury them I meant it. If you’re doing social media correctly, you’ll bury the complaint with all the good information you have floating around the internet that “The Good” always overcomes “The Ugly.  

I’ve narrowed the answer to the complaint into three basic options for the business owner. After I’ve explained all three, I’ll tell you my pick and why it works for my clients. 

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Businesses are investing more in online advertising today and giving themselves the Internet marketing advantage for the following reasons:

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Friends, Fans, Circles, Likes, Plus 1’s, it can all be a bit intimidating for small business owners. The fact of the matter is though that Social media is not going away; if anything it is only going to have a larger influence on buyers’ decisions moving forward. So, do you sit back and pass it off as “something for the kids”, or do you take action and learn how to leverage small business social media as a catalyst for business growth?

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