Understanding Who You Are

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August 5th, 2009

jacob-2

(yes, that’s me at a party with my laptop and 2 marketing books)

  • I’m not very detail oriented
  • I’m not too keen on routines
  • I don’t work well early in the morning
  • I don’t like working for other people (as in a full time job)
  • I can’t work 9-5
  • I’m not good at staying organized
  • I consider myself a leader
  • I’m good at looking at the big picture and developing strategies
  • I’m good at working with other people and building relationships
  • My disorganization is my organization
  • I work best on my own schedule
  • I’m an idea guy

Why does any of this matter?  It matters from a personal and from a business perspective.

Let’s start with the individual perspective:

As an individual you need to understand what you can do and where you can provide value.  You also need to know where you fall short and where other people can help you.  Success doesn’t come from being able to do everything well it comes from being able to do a specific amount of things better than everyone else.  I know what I’m good at and I work hard at making sure I can do it better than anyone else.  At the same time, I know where I need work and that’s where I ask for help.  At the end of the day the point is, “know thyself.”

From a business perspective:

Are you a technology company or a business company?  I can tell you that Mighty Mouth Media is a business company, whereas many other social media consultancies are technology companies.  We don’t focus on building apps or designing web pages, we focus on understanding and integrating social media into a business to achieve clear business results.  What sort of clients do you want to go after?  What is your core competency?  These (and many more) are all business questions that help you identify who and what your company is.  Treat your company like a person, it can’t do everything (and shouldn’t).  If you want to succeed you need to understand where you strong points are and kick ass in those areas, then you can start testing the waters and branching out into other things.

Do you know who you are?  Do you know what/who your company is?

TAGS: core competency, understanding who you are, understanding your company, what are you good at, where do you need help

Negative Experiences are Driving New Customer Engagement Models

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July 4th, 2009

I’m going to make a bold statement which is in essence in the title of this post, if it weren’t for negative experiences and feedback then new customer engagement models would NOT exist (or perhaps would take MUCH longer to adopt).  So what does this mean?  It means that the organizations that you see joining the social media space are doing so because they are getting trashed online.  I actually had an interesting discussion with Olivier Blanchard on Twitter which went a bit like this:

negative feedback leads to new customer engagement models

negative feedback new customer engagement models

If you are unhappy about your internet connection, your flight, your computer, a place you ate at or any product you purchased or service you received, what do you do?  Tweet about it, blog about it, go on yelp, etc.  This is why most of the companies are getting involved in social media, because of negative customer experiences and feedback that FORCE them to get online.  If Dell Hell didn’t happen do you think they would have adopted such a leadership role in social media?  Absolutely not.  If people weren’t always complaining about Comcast’s service on twitter do you think they would be on there?  No.  This is the process that we are taking with new customer engagement models.  I’m not David Armano with the graphics, but hopefully you can get the points from this (and if you want to create a better graphic I’d be happy to post/share it):

customer-engagement-model

If customers were happy then we would not see companies on social media, why?  Because there would be nothing to force them on.  Am I saying that we would Never see companies in the social media space?  No.  I’m saying that we wouldn’t see much activity or much of a presence from any of them.

Your thoughts on this?

TAGS: companies using social media, negative experiences driving new customer engagement models, negative feedback, social media engagement model

Using Social Media to “Socialize” Existing Marketing

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June 30th, 2009

Part of what a lot of companies are looking for in the social media space is to be able to integrate social media into their existing marketing efforts.  Before this can happen the company really needs to understand what their current marketing efforts.  I know this sounds intuitive but a lot of marketing is a [...]

TAGS: integrating social media into existing marketing, integrating social media marketing, social media and existing marketing, social media and traditional marketing, socializing marketing

Social Media Vs Marketers is a Zero Sum Game

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June 11th, 2009

I’ve been trying to find the best way to explain my thoughts/idea here so if the analogy for a zero sum game doesn’t make sense then I apologize.  Let’s first explain what a zero sum game is.
According to wikipedia:
“In game theory and economic theory, zero-sum describes a situation in which a participant’s gain or loss [...]

TAGS: marketers, sicuak graph, social media, targeted adversiting, zero sum game

Did You Know Barack Obama is on Linkedin?

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May 9th, 2009

I was on linkedin today going through a few things when I saw this:

I actually had no idea that Obama was on linkedin so naturally I invited him to join my network and clicked on his profile to see if it was really him, and it appears it is.  I’m not sure how many of [...]

TAGS: barack obama, president on linkedin, social media

Improving Your Marketing Game

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April 28th, 2009

I just wrote a post for marketing profs on 5 ways you can become a better marketer.  As usual, here is a snippet of the post.  To read the whole thing please check out “5 tips to become a better marketer.”
“Let’s start off by discussing what marketing is. According to the American Marketing Association (from [...]

TAGS: better marketer, marketing, marketing tips


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