Congrats to us! It’s our Birthday!

The odd thing was, nowhere in the ad could I find where they were thanking the customers who had made the past 20 years possible.

It was all a big me me me!, We did it! We overcame! We’ve stuck it out!, type of ad.

Maybe it was just a small oversight.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a firm believer that you should boast and post your successes…

But lately, I’ve been noticing this sort of ad more often.

There’s a local monthly magazine that’s loaded with ads from local businesses. I see about five or six different salons advertising in the magazine.

The ads always show a collection of six or seven salon girls carefully posed and professionally photographed.

There’s usually a few dentistry ads showing a picture of the wealthy dentist and his shiny bright pearly whites.

Many real estate agents are equally as guilty – You: “Top Grossing Sales Pro for March” Them: “Oh really???? Wow. So now you have more money than me. Great.”

Is it any different from the me me me type of ad I mentioned above? I don’t think so.

The key here is this:

It’s not about you and your business.

It’s about what you can do for the people you’re serving.

It’s about the benefits I, the customer, will receive when visiting your salon.

I don’t care what nine staff people look like. I’d rather see the immaculate conditions of your salon or hear about the type of treatment I can expect when I come in for a hair cut.

I don’t care what the dentist looks like…Well actually, maybe I do! But I’m more interested in the clean white teeth of real people just like me.

My buddy Shawn, who’s a killer copywriter and marketing maniac, helped me recently while I was working on a letter for a client’s marketing campaign.

The client wanted to include such things as “we’ve been in business X amount of years, we’ve done this for the community, we’ve done that for the community, we’ve moved into a bigger and better office, we’ve upgraded our equipment.”

Shawn replied – “All this is great, but what does it have to do with the customer?”

When we couldn’t answer this question, we removed it from the letter. Instead, the letter directly focused on the positive benefits the customer could expect.

Your advertising needs to be about them – not about you.

The Problem:
Many businesses, who are  jumping on the Twitter and Facebook bandwagon, are gauging success based on having a large number of followers.

More is better is what we’ve been lead to believe. I’m not sure why that is.

I’m not claiming to be a social media expert. There’s more than enough of those to go around and new ones popping up daily. For me, it boils down to good ole basic marketing.

I met with a client recently who asked if I could help him get 10,000 followers on Twitter.

“Sure” I said. “But there’s no point in paying me for that. Here’s how you do it.”

1) Follow tons of people that don’t really care about who you are or what you do. Wait a bit, weed out those who don’t follow you back, and repeat the process.

2) Continue the process until you have 10,000 followers.

It can actually be done fairly quickly. I estimated it could probably be done in under two weeks. Maybe faster. I don’t know.

The problem is that absolutely nothing has been accomplished and zero value has been gained.

Sure, it might be a great little bragging tool at your next business meeting.
Your company might even throw a party, maybe order some pizza, and call it a social media success!

The Solution:

More valuable than all of this is a small, tightly focused group of customers (and even prospective customers) who want to hear from you.

They want to follow you. They want to check out your Facebook page. They want your email blasts. They want to engage in discussion and social dialogue with you!

If your list of customers and interested followers number only a measly 100 people, who are eagerly awaiting communication and social dialogue with you, rejoice! That’s what you call a social media success.

One hundred focused and engaged followers is a far more valuable asset than losing your 100 best in a giant crowd of 10,000 unknowns.

New marketing tools have a way of making us think that bigger is better. That isn’t the case. We’re getting back to fundamentals here.

Focus on the 100 and treat them well.

Twice a week, I get a pile of tangible spam delivered directly to my driveway; and as far as I can see, there is no “opt-out” or “unsubscribe” button. It seems to just drop out of the sky.

I decided to take a look at the flyers, and with every second or third ad that I looked at, I saw those all too familiar lines…

“Follow us on Facebook”

“Follow us on Twitter”

So naturally, I eagerly rushed over in a fit of excitement, opened my laptop, clicked into Facebook, and began following all my favourite local businesses. (sarcasm)

In all honesty, I did take a look at a few of them, but I didn’t find anything too exciting.

Most businesses are jumping on the social media train but don’t have any rhyme or reason as to why they’re jumping on. They’re just doing it because everyone else is doing it.

Everyone else had a fax machine – they bought a fax machine.

Everyone else had a computer – they got a computer.

Everyone else had a website – they got a website.

Everyone else is on Facebook and Twitter – you get it….

But many are missing the key point to all of this? What is missing?

I don’t get it. It’s so blatantly obvious, and yet, it’s constantly being overlooked by millions of businesses!

The sad part is,  they don’t see the most important point.

Pity.  I’m not even going to charge you a dime for sharing the secret….

Ready for it?

Well – here’s the secret, they didn’t just call it media by accident….

They called it……….Drumroll please…..

Social Media!!!

I put the keyword in bold above.

The keyword is SOCIAL.

Of course, with the thousands  of businesses who  are missing that all important point, there are a ton of businesses who actually get it!

(full disclosure: Both the examples below are clients of mine)

I work with a local restaurant who gets it. The restaurant is Jack’s Gastropub in Kingsville, Ontario.

They have gone from having a static website and a static Facebook page to having a dynamic and lively community of engaging fans.

They did it all by transitioning from static to social. There’s nothing super fancy about it. They didn’t spend 30k on a fancy website. Instead, they created something simple yet extremely effective.

Jack’s does video blogs a few times a month. They have nothing to hide. Everything is transparent. If a customer has a bad meal and calls Jack’s on it, the owner will address the concerns in a video format.

When their customers complained that they couldn’t order a menu item any longer, Jack’s was honest about why the product was removed. It wasn’t because they were purposely trying to upset their customers; it was because they could no longer get regular deliveries of the required products.

What happened next is brilliant. They engaged their customers by asking them to take part in an online petition.

The petition was meant to be fun; but instead, it got the attention of the head office, in Dallas, Texas – 1,200 miles away, regarding the products.

Needless to say, the item is now back on the menu.

The customers had a part in seeing a favorite item returned to the menu. It was engaging and exciting.

The stats, the numbers, and the lines of people waiting to get into Jack’s on Friday night don’t lie. Going social was the key.

I work with another local business guru who’s crushing it on the social media level.

Brad Graham is a big deal when it comes to the business of hair.

Just recently, Brad was a main-stage speaker at the prestigious International Beauty Show in New York City. He also opened the show with a killer Hendrix-style guitar performance of the Star Spangled Banner. You can check that out here.

Brad does weekly videos showing his clients how to achieve the same looks at home that they would get in his salon and all for free. He also gives them special tips and tricks of the trade. These are the tricks Brad has spent years mastering.

Every couple of weeks, Brad takes customer’s questions, concerns, emails, and makes a Q&A Video.

Brad’s clients love it. They haven’t stopped coming in or spending less on his products, just because he’s giving away some of his best tips. The total opposite has happened.

Coming to Brad’s salon is even more exciting now. Brad’s a character and his clients love his videos. It’s just another way for clients to interact and have a social connection with Brad and his business.

If you drop Brad a comment on his Facebook page, you don’t get an auto-response or a 10% off coupon. Instead, you get a response from Brad. It’s social.

And to think – they stuck the keyword right into the name and it’s still being missed.

How did you you miss it?

If you’ve been reading my blog for any amount of time, then you already know I’m a big Seth Godin fan. When I saw Seth offering to send advanced copies of Linchpin as a gift to those who made a donation to the Acumen Fund, I took up the opportunity.

Waiting…waiting some more….and a bit more after that my advanced copy  never showed up. The book was released on January  26th and I still don’t have my advanced copy.

Seth sent out an email apologizing to us Canadian folk still waiting. It didn’t come as a surprise to me to still be waiting. I’ve been dealing with my share of Canada Post issues over the past few weeks so I could understand this.

Friday comes around and FedEx comes knocking on my office door. Inside an envelope is a copy of Linchpin with a note. The note is from Seth. He’s thanking me for my generous donation to the Acumen Fund and because of that generosity he’s sent me a second copy of Linchpin. Seth suggests I can continue the spread of generosity by giving this second copy to someone else as a gift.

Brilliant marketing and truly generous. FedEx all your early adopters a second free copy of your book that they can share and give away! Ideas spread and so does generosity.

That would be great and I plan to do so if the first copy ever shows up, but for now, this copy is mine.

What did I think?

Being a Godin fanboy I knew I’d enjoy the book. I didn’t know I’d enjoy it as much as I did and here’s why.

This is Seth Godin’s best book. This book has more going on inside than any of his other books.  When I read Linchpin I could hear Seth’s honesty and passion for what he was saying. I feel that Seth has gone to the next level with this book.  I’ve read nearly all of Godin’s books and this one trumps the rest.

Unless you’ve read all his other books, you won’t really get that.
That’s OK. This book is still for you.

Godin starts the book by calling my a genius. Many will be taken back by such a direct and forward compliment. Me? A Genius??? You MUST be thinking of someone else? (this is your lizard brain)

I went with it anyways. I figured if Seth Godin was willing to call me a genius I’d accept the compliment.

I’m going to spend most of this week looking at the book in more detail because my lizard brain thinks it’s a great way to spend the week.

So what’s the lizard brain?

The Lizard Brain is an actual part of your brain. You can read more about it on Wikipedia.

The problem for us, is the lizard brain is what causes us to not ship. Seth uses this terminology all throughout the book.
You may be thinking “great, I don’t have anything to ship,” or “excellent, I’m not in the shipping business.”

But shipping is a metaphor for finishing your ideas and spreading them. It’s not about the actual physical exercise of shipping something (although it might be in your case.) It’s the term used for taking an idea and shipping.

We’re ALL in the shipping business.

This means you don’t just create. You take what you’ve created and you spread it. Employees can ship. They ship by doing amazing work that creates change.

According to Seth our lizard brains are hungry, scared, angry, and horny. The only thing our lizard brains want are to eat and be safe.

The lizard brain effects all those in business because it wants us to be safe.

• Safe means not shipping.
• Safe means not taking chances.
• Safe means not getting outside your comfort zone.
• Safe means not being laughed at because the business you just tried to start has failed.
• Safe means writing this blog post when I should be creating.
• Safe means checking into Facebook and tweeting your day away.
• Safe means answering emails all day long because it makes you feel busy.
• Safe means not creating.
• Safe means creating but not shipping.
• Safe means you’re the employee who follows the manual and job description word for word.
• Safe means driving in the middle lane because it’s not too slow and  not too fast.

The lizard brain is very real.

That’s the scary thing. I hate knowing that I’ve got a lizard living inside my brain. The scariest thing about it for me is I think my lizard is more like a vicious velociraptor.

Seth goes on to explain how the lizard brain works. We’re all able to pull from the lizard brain but we’re usually snapped back to reality by the resistance. This is the lizard brain at work.

But even with all the talk of the lizard brain, Godin’s really only got one true goal in Linchpin.

He wants you and I to become indispensable.

I’m going to talk about this more throughout the week. Most people in our society aren’t indispensable. We’re cogs in the machine and unfortunately, we’re disposable cogs.

I used to believe that having an office job made me different than a factory worker or a blue collar worker, but it doesn’t. It’s the same thing and both of these types of  employees are disposable cogs (as we’re more frequently finding out.)

The high paid executive or office worker is nothing more than a nicely dressed factory worker. Seth’s goal is getting you to see this NOW because soon it will too late.

Being a linchpin isn’t about quitting your job to work 4 hours a week. If written for anyone, it’s especially important for employees and people looking to remain “safely employed” because Seth would argue that safe doesn’t exist anymore. The only safe position in our ever-changing economy is to become indispensable.

I have to admit that I’m sometimes amazed at the things people say online.  Just this weekend I was surfing around bragbook, I mean Facebook, and I noticed an old friend of mine made an interesting status update.

The update read:  so-and-so ” is drunk on a Wednesday!”

No disrespect to my friend who may end up reading this, but it got me thinking. It’s certainly not a big deal to have a few drinks on a Wednesday, but it really made me reflect on a few things.

People have lost jobs because of Facebook status updates. They call and sick and then continue to post 200 pictures of themselves boozing it up when  they were supposed to be in bed with the flu. Next thing you know, someone at work informs your boss and you’re out of a job.

But there’s something far more important to consider than the stupidity of losing a job over Facebook. It’s the legacy you’re leaving for both your children and  grandchildren to see.

Make no mistake about it, everything you say and do online is leaving a permanent data trail of the history of your life. We’re essentially writing our own documentaries.

I’m not sure we can even fully comprehend what this means at such an early stage of Facebook and other lifestreaming activities.

I think about legacy a lot and to me this is the most exciting yet scary thing about it.
For most of us, we’re lucky to have a collection of old dusty photos and a mix mash of historical information passed down like a game of telephone. The stories change and often get better each time your grandfather tells them.

Our kids and grandkids will have our entire lives to dissect. There won’t be any possibility for the stories or truths to become muddled because we’ve written them ourselves.

Every picture
Every status update
Every tweet
Every vacation
Every party where you had too much to drink
Every YouTube video

All of it.

Think about it.

Seth Godin has compiled a free eBook titled “What Matters Now” with a collection of ideas from over 70 “big thinkers” about the world in 2010.

You can download the eBook free directly by clicking the button below. 

Here are a few of my favourite ideas, thoughts or quotes from the book.

Seth Godin – This year, you’ll certainly find that the more you give the more you get.

Chris Meyer writes about the evolution of capitalism but does so by comparing business to Darwin’s finches of the Galapagos Islands. Darwin observed that the finch’s beaks would evolve and change shape to match the form of the flowers which provided their food.

Chris suggests that businesses will need to evolve as capitalism changes in our new economy. Chris suggests that the game is changing and businesses in  developed countries will need evolve their beaks and learn the new rules of the game.

Jackie Huba and Ben McConnell’s story on “Bacon Salt” and how it’s our job to find the “one percenters.” The 1% of people deep in the trenches of a niche who become the roots of word of mouth marketing.  Many are looking for the masses right out of the gate. Focus on finding the one percent first and allow them to get the roots buried deep into the soil.

William Taylor suggests that in the past businesses found a feeling of comfort by staying in the middle of the road and today the middle of the road is the most unsafe place to be. Where is your business?

John Wood – “The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago. The second best time is now.”

Tony Hsieh (CEO of Zappos.com) – Everything Tony learned about business he learned from Poker. Here’s an example: The guy who never loses a hand is not the guy who makes the most money in the long run.

Guy Kawasaki on Evangelism. Guy’s message is usually pretty consistent. He is constantly hammering home what it takes to be successful. You think he’s trying to tell us something?

Dave Balter on “Dumb”

For example,

• Putting a college Yearbook online was considered dumb..
• Limiting small micro updates on the web to 140 characters was considered dumb.

“Recognize that your dumb idea may be tomorrow’s huge breakthrough.”

I remember when the iPod was first announced. It was considered “dumb.” Why would anyone want to carry all their music on a digital pocket device?

Look at the hilarious comments (especially the last one) left on CNET”s very first article about the iPod being introduced

“Naw …. wont take off”
“This will be the last thing from Apple ever, they’ll never be successful with this.”
“apple is going to go bankrupt with this new mp3 player thing. mp3s are going to be obsolete within the next couple years anyway”
“This is crazy. Next thing we know Apple will move all the Macs to Intel processors”

WOW. In case you don’t get why the last one is the funniest it’s because just a few years later Apple did switch to using the PC’s Intel Processor.

Gary Vaynerchuk and the “Thank You Economy.”

Gary is  right on the money and I’ve seen it in action. Two years ago if you made a video, posted an online petition and tweeted about Frito Lays not delivering enough Fritos to your restaurant, nobody cared.

Today, Frito’s headquarters calls you up and takes care of the situation personally. It’s an amazing world and the tools are here. How are you using them?

My father-in-law over at Quoteflections has done three awesome posts of his favorite quotes from the book. Check them out as well. #1 , #2 , #3

~Noah

I couldn’t stop thinking of the Terminator films when I viewed the presentation hence the title of this post!

Tara writes:

“The presentation I gave at nextMEDIA in Toronto today. Basic premise, let’s put human stuff first when using the ‘new’ media (and in every case, in fact). Stuff like personality, quality, relationships and taking the time to invest in the people you follow/follow you is really important for being able to raise that crucial social capital that helps us achieve our goals at the end of the day (job, growing our business, changing the world, raising money, etc).”

Time & time again we’re seeing businesses break these rules only (usually without knowing mind you) only to have the accounts removed as a Terms of Service Violation a few weeks later.

Basically, the only thing you really must know is that Facebook has made a clear distinction between “Profiles” and “Pages,” and that distinction is this, profiles are for individuals only and pages are for businesses.

Businesses can have a page but not a profile. I’ve seen this time and time again where businesses create profiles only to have them removed weeks later. Facebook is very clear and swift on implementing their TOS.

Businesses can have a page that allows people to become “fans.” A business cannot be a person and does not have the ability to add “friends”

Business pages can do all sorts of cool things like add photos, status updates, wall posts but it differs from that of a personal profile where the ability to have friends comes into play. So for example, Pizza (first name) Hut (last name)  is not a person you can become friends with. Pizza Hut can have a page and you can become a “fan.”

So how is a Page different from a Profile? According to Facebook’s Pages TOS:

“Each user is permitted to maintain a single account, which is represented by a profile. Profiles can only be used to represent an individual, and must be held under an individual name. This account can also be used to manage multiple Facebook Pages that represent businesses or other organizations. You may only create Facebook Pages to represent real organizations of which you are an authorized representative, and fans of these Pages won’t be able to see that you are the Page admin, or have any access to your personal account.

All personal site features, such as friending and messaging, are also for personal use only and may not be used for professional promotion. If you add a user as a friend, for example, this person will be invited to be a friend of your profile and not your Page. Using personal site features for professional promotion, or creating unauthorized Pages, may result in your account being warned or disabled.”

Making sense?

Now let’s say you wanted have a Facebook page for your business but have NO interest whatsoever of being on Facebook yourself as an individual. Facebook addresses this as well in their Pages TOS.

“Business accounts are designed for individuals who only want to use the site to administer Pages and their ad campaigns. For this reason, business accounts do not have the same functionality as personal accounts. Business accounts have limited access to information on the site. An individual with a business account can view all the Pages and Social Ads that they have created, however they will not be able to view the profiles of users on the site or other content on the site that does not live on the Pages they administer. In addition, business accounts cannot be found in search and cannot send or receive friend requests.”

Once you understand the distinction your business can easily enter the social media world and the exciting new world of Facebook. I think by now it should be making sense.

More of less, all of this information can be found within Facebook’s Terms of Service. You can view the section on Pages here as it directly relates to business usage.