Archive for January 2010
What Is Social Media To You?
I’m certain this isn’t the first time this title has been used for a Blog Post. One of the most confusing things to most business owners and those not technically savvy is, what exactly is Social Media and how will it help me. Social Media in my humble opinion is seriously misunderstood by most. You can tell by how it’s being used for the most part, you can see the traditional marketers doing their typical advertising outbound push. Hell, even some so called Social Media experts are doing the same thing.
The definition of Social Media taken from the Wiki site:
Social media is media designed to be disseminated through social interaction, created using highly accessible and scalable publishing techniques. Social media uses Internet and web-based technologies to transform broadcast media monologues (one to many) into social media dialogues (many to many). It supports the democratization of knowledge and information, transforming people from content consumers into content producers.
I’m probably going to do a bad job at sharing this but I’m going to give you some things to think about, a list if you will. Let’s take a peek:
1.) Social Media is a very human driven practice.
2.) Social Media can’t be done or driven by a single person.
3.) Social Media is not about technology
4.) Social Media is about sharing
5.) Social Media is a mechanism in which you are tagged
6.) Social Media is about ubiquity
7.) Social Media is a tool for listening
8.) Social Media is not about pushing your product
9.) Social Media is what e-mail used to be
10.) Social Media is not a channel
11.) Social Media can help build trust
12.) Social Media deepens relationships
13.) Social Media is real-time expression
14.) Social Media is not new, it’s just different
This list could go on and on, I would love to hear from and add to this list.
What is Social Media to you?
New at Owen Greaves Consulting – DISQUS Comment System
Good Day!
I have decided to try the DISQUS Commenting System on my Blog, this is in effect immediately. As with most Blog systems you want to reach and provide the best service possible, commenting is a huge part of Blogging and shouldn’t be treated lightly. I hope this new commenting system works well for Owen Greaves Consulting, but more importantly it works well for you.
Thank you for reading my Blog and I hope this system will entice you to leave more comments.
Owen Greaves
Your Customers Are Dying To Talk To You!
Something is terribly wrong with the business world at large don’t you think? I mean, customer service is still failing and businesses and their owners don’t seem to care! Yes some get it and are doing something about it, but lets be honest here, have you seen a grand scale change of mind and heart on what customers really want from local businesses?
A while back a shared a couple stories with you, one where Black & Decker failed bigtime in my books, one where SAVE-ON FOODS went way out of their way to make my life easier, and then there was the BEST BUY stupidity. I was out with my oldest son this afternoon, he said hey let’s go to Best Buy! My response, why? He looked at me kind of funny and said what? I said these guys don’t get customer service and I won’t buy from them again. Of course he asked what happened and I shared with him, he said I understand. The stupid thing about this experience is that I got more attention from Best Buy USA online staffers and I never did hear from anyone in Canada at the time of my rant. I did get a Tweet from someone a wekk later but that was it, and that person solved nothing, did nothing and didn’t even ask for details. No nothing, no how can we make this right, sorry you had that problem….NOTHING! I won’t be back, That I can control.
Black & Decker made absolutely no effort to fix their website and or make my experience with them a positive one. SAVE-ON FOODS, they were amazing, well one staff person was (Lorna) , they get my business, that store ONLY gets my business unless I’m out of town.
The oxymoron of all businesses is, they ask for our input, how were we today, how can we be better, make a suggestion and so on. But are they really listening, and if they are, they must be using selective hearing. I rarely see improvement from those businesses that blow it and know about it. So why am I pissed? They don’t get it, and I’m not confident that they will anytime soon. They don’t understand that their clients, their customers want to talk to them, and want to be heard. Don’t they know that their customers want that relationship, want to trust that company, want to have a positive experience with their Brand. I don’t get it, why don’t they want to give us what we really want?
Don’t you know – Your Customers Are Dying To Talk To You!
We can all take a lesson from these experiences, I know you have your own stories to tell but somehow the message is getting lost in translation. Is Social Media that confusing they don’t understand what Social Media is all about, I think it is, orherwise we would see more movement for the better.
Am I over reacting? What do you think?
Are You Humble? – One Day You Will Be
The world we live in is filled with many that feel nothing is impossible, they are smarter than everyone else, and find it much easier to pull people down rather than build them up. As difficult as that is to admit as a people, it is also sadly true, some of us treat others poorly in order to make ourselves look better and feel good. We couldn’t be more worng. You are probably wondering why I’m writing about this.
If you have ever lost a close family member to any kind of illness or sudden death, you know where I’m headed. My next door neighbor is about to lose her younger sister to Cancer, the Cancer is literally eating her sister alive every living minute. It is terminal, there are no pallitive beds available so she is in general ward. I find myself reliving the loss of my Father 11 years ago, my Dad still felt he was going to out work the Cancer, and that because he was smart he would beat it. I told my Father, this thing called Cancer will humble you like you have never been before, it will strip you of every decency you’ve known. Cancer plays no favorites and reduces you (us) to our lowest possible form.
You may think you’re ten feet tall and bullet proof today, but one day, you will be brought to your knees begging for help, longing for the pain & embarrassment to be taken from you. I have learned that being smug, treating people like something stuck on your shoe, having status and money is the beginning of the fall to humility. It will happen, if not tomorrow, on your death bed.
I urge you to love more, give more grace and help those you come into contact with, they will be the legacy you are so desperately trying to build and leave behind. Stop chasing the wrong things and invest your time wisely. You can do this by removing self from the equation, serve all those around you, humility will take you farther than any other form of self-sufficent thinking could ever do for you. Be humble, the world will know you made a meaningful impact on those around you. Be an encourager, lift people up, build one another up and above all, love your neighbor as you love yourself. Ask yourself with all honesty, Are You Humble? If not, I promise you, one day you will be.
Many Blessings,
Owen
I.T. Strategic Planning – The Blog
There are many things I.T. Strategic Planning can cover, blogging isn’t really one of them, unless your an IT Sweat Shop and it’s your portal to the world. Blogs however, tend to be birthed out of Marketing & PR Departments, they are a means to an end when it comes to getting the message out or building community.
From a Strategic Planning perspective, the Blog is a tool, yes it’s a technology platform but not a strategic one, this is not an item the company may live or die on. In my case, I’m a Consultant, a self-employed one at that, one of my tools of choice is this Blog. In this case, not only would it be in my Business Plan, it would also be in my I.T. Strategic Plan. Why? I would have to plan to implement and deliver the platform in order for my business to to do business here.
How would I arrive at such a decision? Well, I am not a large organization with resources, I am a sole Proprietor, I can reach my target market faster and in a more efficient and cost effect way. Hence, I need the Blog! I also need to have a Hosting Company to hold my blog so I am able to deliver my content, not only to my target market but to the world. I started my own webhosting company, it was a place to put my friends & clients, I also wanted learn how the backend works. So the arguement of Tactic & Strategy comes to the forefront yet once again.
This decision was easy for me, almost no money is required, I know how to build the site, and I know how to run the Content Management System. I knew which CMS I was going to use (WordPress Self-Hosted) & which theme, I use Headway Themes.(affiliate link) A no Brainer right?
Today almost every person is or will have a Blog at some point, almost every business will have a Blog, if they don’t, they won’t really have a voice out here and most likely will be out of business. So, the Blog is strategic in some cases, and in today’s digital world, it is imperative.
Having said that, the Blog is also not strategic. Why? There is no way a Blog can circumvent the server and it’s server platform, that has to come first before the Blog. The server, or the hardware required to deliver your information is strategic in that it’s a fixed cost and yet disposable at the same time. In my IT Strategy I would be saying, I need a server, on that server I need to run Windows Server or Linux or whatever server software happens to be the best suited to deliver my content. On that server, there will be web server software, it will be home to the Blog, it will be the space to which I upload and store my content.
As you can see the Blog really can come later, it may be the driving force to having a server but I think not, you will need a place to store files first before you need a Blog. We could go back & forth on this for some time, but the fact is, the Blog is becoming a staple in your business strategy and it is thought of long before the server ever is. So in that sense it’s part of your I.T. Strategic Plan.
What do you think?