July 31st, 2008
The internet has been buzzing about the new SEC guidelines and regulations regarding blogs, that’s right blogs. It appears that blogs are going to be recognized as official public disclosure mediums, meaning instead of a company having to write a fancy press release and sending it out to the world, a company will now be able to post the news on their corporate blog!
Here is a snippet from the excellent article on techcrunch written by Brian Solis.
“In a speech yesterday, SEC special counsel Kim McManus outlined new guidance the SEC is about to give companies on when they can use their Websites, including blogs, to disclose material information. What this means is that we can now finally kill the press release, at least in its current form.”
Check out the full article on techcrunch.
Thanks for reading
TAGS: blogs as publig disclosue, corporate blogging, no more press release, sec regulations on blogs
July 30th, 2008
(photo was taken from a small yogurt shop in Santa Cruz)
When I say critics I mean customers, users, clients, bloggers, etc. I mean anyone that uses your product or your service; how are you getting feedback from them? If you offer a product or service to people but then are not getting good or bad feedback, it is difficult to evaluate success, satisfaction, and company direction. Your users would love to talk to you and tell you what they love and hate about your product, let them! That way you know what you need to improve upon or what you should leave alone. There are many ways to get feedback from your users:
- Comments from blogs
- E-mails directly to management
- Surveys
- Phone calls with clients (or users/etc.)
- Meetings with clients (or users/etc.)
- Twitter replies or direct messages
The list can go on and on, virtually any social media platform can become a method of getting feedback from your “critics.” Feedback is probably one of the most valuable things for a company and should be encouraged, especially from the loyal users and enthusiasts. Look at the Apple fans. Year after year they demand and ask for things from Apple and most of the time they get it, because they are very vocal about what they want and Apple encourages and listens to user feedback. This is probably one of the greatest reasons that has contributed to Apple’s success. If Apple didn’t encourage and get feedback, how would they what features to build into their products? How would they know what they need to improve on? How would they know what the users expect? The answer is they wouldn’t. Don’t underestimate the importance of feedback and make sure to ask and encourage it whenever and wherever possible. Make it EASY for people to give feedback, if you ask for feedback and make users go through a 5 step process, then you might as well not bother.
Thanks for reading
TAGS: company development, customer feedback, feedback from critics, how to get user feedback, user feedback
July 29th, 2008
Those of you familiar with advertising may be familiar with the rule of 3. This rule states that in order for a consumer to actively think about purchasing your product or service you have to hit them with the advertisement 3 different times. For example if a company wants to sell you something [...]
TAGS: advertising rule of 3, relevant advertising, spam advertising, spam marketing, target marketing
July 28th, 2008
I recently saw the film Atonement, the story of little girl who sees something she doesn’t understand. By not understanding what she saw and reporting it to authorities she effectively ruins the lives of a couple. As she grows up she realizes the mistake she made.
Now I know this may sound a bit funny at [...]
TAGS: atonement, clever marketing, misunderstanding social media, Social Media Marketing
