A Consultant's Chronicles

HELP! My Business Page Has Been "Timelined"

Today is the first business day where like it or not all businesses have had their page converted to Facebook's timeline format. The question then becomes, how can you maximize these changes to benefit your business? Rather than rehash it all, I am going to refer you to the folks at Hubspot because they provide an excellent  "cheat sheet" for dealing with this.

To give you some idea of what you will find, I have provided a quick peek at the main points here in outline form.

1. Set a new cover photo [the banner sized photo] bearing in mind that Facebook prohibits certain features that are sometimes found on websites like pricing, contact information ,references to any Facebook features/actions, or any calls to action
2. Set your new profile picture [a nice spot for your logo]
3. Next, time to organize views & apps
4. Now star, hide, highlight, pin items on pages
5. Enable messages to communicate  with your fans privately
6. Offset  & feature milestones & major accomplishments for the business

That's just the overview. If I were to offer one single guiding piece of advice, I'd say that the timeline format is much more akin to website design so don't be afraid to use it accordingly  & with every bit of the same creativity within the limitations set by the company. Here are some examples to help you to unleash your own timeline creativity.

Lessons From Steve Jobs

That Steve Jobs was a visionary & creative genius among many other attributes has long been established but what about the rest of us "mere mortals?" Is there anything we can learn from him & his pioneering ways? The answer to this question seems to be a gigantic YES!!!!.

Some Not So Secret Principles For Success From Steve Jobs

According to former Apple CEO & the man who once defeated Jobs in the boardroom, John Sculley said that according to Jobs:
1-Great ideas already exist; they are just waiting to be discovered
2-A world-changing product deserves a world-class brand campaign
3-Jobs [& about every writer] agree, its toughest to decide what to cut, not what to add
4-Simplify,simplify simplify; "user experience" counts for a LOT
5-Great leaders must transform their vision into something tangible & inspirational
6-Hire [or surround yourself with] the best & only the best
7-Failure can also be your instrument for success
8-Follow your passion

While there are many other lessons in business to be gleaned from him, no one can promise you that following any of these principles will guarantee success. I will say that at its core, this "blueprint of ideas" speaks to a lot of what Jobs meant when he said those crtical 2 words: "think different."  "

Steve Jobs 1955-2011

The creative genius that was Steve Jobs happens perhaps once in a generation. His death today has been felt in the four quarters of the world. There may be no better words to memorialize this man than his own. He said:

"...Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary...”

- Steve Jobs

May he rest in peace.

5 Business Takeaways From The Weiner Scandal

While the media seems to be nothing short of possessed by Congressman Anthony Weiner's [D-NY] digital indiscretions on Twitter in these last 10 days, I actually think that there is a teachable moment here for people in politics & business alike because we see powerful people [typically men] getting embroiled in sexual peccadilloes on a regular basis these days. What can people in business learn from this latest scandal when it comes to navigating the rocks & shoals of social media?

Five Social Media Business Takeaways From The Weiner Scandal

1. Twitter can help to create & build a business or personal brand but it can
   just as easily destroy it if not used prudently
2. Twitter can be a fantastic PR tool when used correctly BUT remember:
   once something is asserted on twitter, you cannot obfuscate, dissemble,
   or even become suddenly silent when asked a straightforward question [is that a picture of you]
3. The cover-up is ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS worse than the original
   "crime" or action. Trying to hide the truth speaks to [a lack of] trust,
   integrity and leadership. We are all flawed so people will forgive human
   failings because there is no such thing as a perfect person but are also less inclined to do so when they you lie about them
   
4. Privacy as we used to know it has gone the way of the horse & buggy.  Now the best the average person can expect is the illusion of privacy but there is absolutely ZERO privacy if you are a public person who is accountable to the people for your job. To that end, one could easily argue that Weiner wanted to be caught. Be that as it may, there will always be people watching you; people who are not only just waiting for you to fail [or to otherwise make a fool out of yourself] but also waiting to share your failure with everyone all over the internet. Do not make their jobs any easier by doing it yourself. Remember, once something is on Google, it is there for perpetuity
5. When tweeting for business, it is NOT the place for satire or dark humor
   although in Weiner's case, his name makes it almost inescapable because part of what has been feeding the media is the copy-rich double entendre which makes for attention-grabbing headlines. Nonetheless, humor can easily backfire & can therefore create awkward spin. Remember that something is funny only when people are laughing with you, not at you
   

Never Put It In A Picture

These points are perhaps best summarized by an odd pair of political bedfellows, Martin Lomnasney & former NY Governor Eliot Spitzer who was caught in his own sexual escapades.  Nomnasney, a state senator & political Boston ward boss from an earlier era said, “Never write if you can speak; never speak if you can nod; never nod if you can wink.” Spitzer then added a critical addendum “never put it in email.” My guess is that Weiner's postscript would be "never put it in a picture & post it!" Or as I said in a previous post, "social media giveth & it taketh away!"

 

Is It The End of An Era: Sayng Goodbye To Jobs This Month

Sources close to his family report that May will be a cruel month for Steve Jobs & Apple.It is said that he may not even last the week. As it has been written many times, Jobs has been battling cancer for several years & has been on medical leave from the company for the second time. The first time was to have a life extending liver transplant. Apple will be a different company without the leadership of its iconic, taste-making founder, visionary, & marketing whiz who has single-handedly set the "gold standard" for computers & handheld devices as well as changing how we consume music & other media. However, it is well known that he has done so "leaving a trail of bodies in his wake" in his attempt to create the perfect product each & every time.  Whether the current acting CEO Tim Cook will become permanent remains to be seen. While  Apple's board of directors as well as Wall St "wait & watch," this blog can only wish the best to the Jobs & Apple family during this very difficult time.

Line of the Week 1-16-2011

This week's line of the week belongs to Intel's senior advisor & former CEO, Andy Grove who had some interesting things to say about his frequent lunch partner, Steve Jobs who has once again taken a medical leave this week. As it has already been well chronicled, Jobs has been wrestling with pancreatic cancer for well over a year. Apple is indisputably his legacy. Since his original diagnosis, adding to a host of other popular products, he has been able to see his iPad "born" as well as the iphone4 [& probably the newest iteration expected in June].

Builders vs. Traders

Jobs, a man of strong opinions, & self-appointed tastemaker when it comes to high tech consumer products, reportedly doesn't think much of some working in high tech today whose only goal for their start-up seems to be to develop an idea only so far before selling it for the "big score." According to Grove,

“...There are builders and traders,” Mr. Grove said on Tuesday...Steve Jobs is a builder...”

Jobs & Grove clearly have much in common in that regard.

 

 

 

Ignore The 'Siren Song' Of Paid Links

Lately I have received emails from many quarters inquiring whether or not I would be interested in featuring links for companies & their clients for a fee. To this question I always provide the same answer, a polite & diplomatic but resounding NO. These marketing companies who typically tout themselves as SEO specialists are trying to "buy links" for their clients since having inbound links is a way to improve SEO [aka search engine optimization]. The problem is Google frowns upon such practices & has no qualms about "rewarding it" by pushing your name back a few pages so that you & your business are in effect "buried." There are certain written & unwritten rules of the road when it comes to SEO & when they are not followed, you have what is known as Black Hat SEO. The opposite is cleverly known as White Hat SEO, which reflect those SEO practices deemed ethical by the web community. Don't endanger your page rank & web-rep by being on the wrong side of this particular "fence."

Paid & Organic Links

In case you don't already know, a typical Google search page is broken down into two major ways: paid links & organic links. There are two kinds of paid links. One type is typically found along the right hand side &/or are highlighted in pink. Those ads are based on pay per click. The other kind of paid link, the kind I am cautioning against is when for example marketing company X contacts you & asks that you link back to one of their clients for a fee. The small amount of money you'd make is simply not worth the risk you'd take. Organic links are more powerful, durable & trustworthy. More to the point, they are more valuable in terms of page rank.

Protect Your Online Reputation

There has been research done which shows that the most powerful links are the organic ones in white. Those links are highly placed because they have generated real interest by the web community. They either reflect people or companies providing a good service [or one so bad that everyone is writing about it] or they add value in some other important way. Any business should strive to be on page one of Google [& every other search engine] organically if at all possible. Do not put your online PR in jeopardy by paying a marketing company to provide paid links for you.

                                          

Worker Wars: 'X,Y & B'

According to blogger Penelope Trunk, workers belonging to Gen Y can do your job better than you [if you belong to the Boomer, Obama, & X generation that is].  Really? This is not the first time that I have had serious disagreements with Ms Trunk & it may not be the last. Let's start with her initial premise that Gen Y is optimistic about their employment future. About this I'd say perhaps but it's is not the whole story. While I believe that unlike boomers, the 'Obama Generation,' & perhaps even some of those in Gen X who may have been confronted with some very tough employment options going forward, I believe that Gen Y has every reason to believe that, if they are unemployed now, they will eventually get a job. What Ms Trunk doesn't talk about is that Gen Y is now confronted with a new world in terms of their job opportunities, & salary realities relative to their expectations in addition to a growing uncertainty that they too will have an equal shot at the American Dream. Basically, this is not the rosier world promised to them by their parents. However, these issues are for a different blog because the main thrust of Ms Trunk's post is that as children of the information age, Gen Y is so digitally facile that they "can run rings around" anyone older.

A Generation 'Born with A Mouse In Their Crib'

However, as I observed about some of her other positions, she tends to view things outside of their larger context. For example, it was not Gen Y who created the information age. No, the information age as we currently understand & use it was brought to us by 'old geezers' of the baby boom generation with names like Jobs, Gates, & Dell followed by the slightly younger Mr[s] Yang, Brin, & Page. Basically one needn't be born "with a mouse in their crib" in order to be at ease in the information age which is a fact that is conveniently overlooked by Ms. Trunk [& to be fair, some others who write about Gen Y]. Instead she tends to support her argument with an outdated stereotype of the "befuddled boomer" who can't manage to program their VCR. Facts however are inconvenient things. For example the fastest growing demographic on Facebook is between the age of 45-55. Thee same groups she tends to discard are busy buying new [information] gadgets like smartphones, e-readers, & tablets for themselves. Do they do that because they are so hopelessly out of touch? Somehow I think not.

The World According To Trunk

In a point by point analysis, according to Ms. Trunk:

-Productivity-She believes Gen Y are better, & more comfortable 'knowledge workers'
 I'd say this an outdated assessment based on stereotypes & not the realities of today's rapidly changing workforce

-Communication- She says Gen Y are skilled communicators because they are comfortable writing online
I'd say their older peers are better communicators because they are more facile communicating across platforms or "live as well as in cyberspace." Plus they acquire information from a variety of mediums not just online.

-Career mobility- She maintains that Gen Y is more comfortable job-hopping
I'd have to agree on this point. People in Gen Y are definitely more comfortable jumping from 'start-up to to start-up' because spending an entire career with one company is as outdated as the Edsel.

-Career resilience- She says young people use entrepreneurship as a safety-valve & when they don't earn enough money, they move back in with the folks.
Once again, she is looking at employment & the workforce with Gen Y blinders on. Globally, entrepreneurship is a go-to safety valve across many age groups. What's more when people are older, they don't have the option of moving in with mom & dad & therefore have more pressure to build a successful venture or find an alternative position..

Results Of Re-Training

Don't get me wrong, there's  still a small percentage of people in these older generations who are not digitally fluent but they are rapidly becoming a smaller portion of the overall  "workforce pie" especially as folks go back to school for re-training in order to stay current & employable. I'd say it's time for Ms Trunk to take off her 'Gen Y' blinders & give the total workforce a more dispassionate assessment. What's your view?

 

The Nexus One: Another Phone Bites The Dust

Some people study box scores for baseball as a hobby & others like myself keep tabs on the telecom industry [being a die-hard Met fan may have something to do with it but that's another post]. At any rate, because I'm long overdue for a new phone, a few days ago I went hunting online to find out if a rumor I'd heard a couple of months ago was indeed going to become fact & was surprised by what I found instead. I had heard that Google had decided to let T-Mobile, it's provider for the Nexus One sell the phone as well. You may recall that the Nexus One arrived with banner reviews as the sure “iPhone killer”. I discovered that once again, gossip is well, gossip & definitely not reality because to my surprise & dismay, I learned that Google was killing the phone all together. I knew the Nexus One had customer relations issues but I didn't expect it to be like the Microsoft Kin: here today, gone tomorrow.

Anemic Sales Will Kill Any Product  

Google clearly mishandled the sales & customer service part of things perhaps partially in an over-zealous desire to beat Apple at it's own game. However, the phone itself received pretty solid reviews; in fact in some quarters it received rave reviews so what happened? It would seem that the bottom line is sales: the phone looked awfully good but it sold a fraction of what the new iPhone 4 has sold already & the Nexus One has been out much longer.

Raw Numbers Don't Tell The Whole Story

Numbers may have driven Google's decision but I don't think it tells the whole story. Here's what I think. Google's first mistake was deciding to sell the phone online itself, while diverting hardware issues to HTC, the company that actually made the phone, & sending provider issues to T-Mobile. They should have handed the whole thing to T-Mobile, a company who is in the business of selling phones & supporting them. No one wants to wait 24 hours to have a question about their phone answered in an email & you can only do so much with YouTube instructional videos. What Google got instead was a case study in diffusion of responsibility because their 3-prong strategy turned out to be a be a customer service disaster with the consumer left “holding the bag.” 

The Droid Factor

Another issue, which I call the "Droid-factor," is a happier "problem" to have because it has been a boon for Google's Android operating system. Basically, the Nexus One was designed to be the premier Android phone but was beat to the punch by the equally elegant Droid, which came out first. The Droid has taken off becoming a wildly successful phone for Motorola & Verizon. It may have rendered the Nexus One un-necessary out of the starting gate because it has become such a solid head-to head competitor with the iPhone. I also think it's a matter of time before other Android based phones are knocking at the iPhone's door. In short, Google should remain focused on Android because there is no need for it to step into foreign territory to make a phone when its more experienced telecom partners are already on it. They may have decided to cut their their losses with the Nexus One but Android is doing just fine.

Line of the Week 7-04-2010

This week's line of the week belongs to New York Times tech columnist David  Pogue. Noting that in his role as a public speaker he has found that only a mere quarter of his audience generally knows about social media especially sites like Facebook & Twitter. Noting that they kind of "snuck up on us," he realistically wondered how would people know because:

"...The government never mailed fliers to every household explaining what it’s all about..."

After all, our population is not comprised of 95% of people under the age of 25! The whole notion motivated him to write a social media primer article called: For Those Facebook Left Behind. For those of us who are digitally fluent, it's hard to believe that people aren't aware of these social media sites but then not everyone lives in techno-meccas like NY & CA. More likely than not if you are reading this blog post, the article isn't exactly required reading for you but possibly for someone you know & love; It's a very handy article & an excellent place to start.