e3datasolutions company blog

Create a Cohesive Communication Strategy for Your Business

Starting a new business takes a lot of work. Starting completely from scratch without any idea of "what you want to be when you grow up" requires even more effort and may be considered a mild form of insanity. When you do start fresh, though, you can certainly say that at the point of conception that you have nowhere to go except up. The potential is unlimited.

Most of us are already in business or in a career and won't have that greenfield opportunity, which may be a good thing! It is easy to dream up too many options and never get anything done. However, many times there is nothing better than having a blank slate to work from. And there is one distinct example - when it comes to your website, your storefront, your voice on the phone, etc., starting from scratch can provide the opportunity to make it all to fit together. This gets us to the theme of this post - developing and maintaining a cohesive communication strategy.

I did a search for the word "cohesive" and found the following at WordNet:

cohesive (cohering or tending to cohere; well integrated) "a cohesive organization"

In other words, every element of what the public sees and hears - the home page, the voice on the phone, the video clips, etc., should mesh together to support your brand. This is not to say every page has to be exactly the same. The elements just need to mesh. If your message and theme is chaos then make it so across the board! (is cohesive chaos an oxymoron?). Working from a blank slate affords you the opportunity to think it through and come up with a strategy. Take the time needed, research the competition, ask your peers, ask your family.

Once you decide upon your theme, find the easiest possible way to maintain it. Find a good content management system so that everyone in your organization can help you provide fresh content for your site. You can get help with the initial setup of a website, but if you can’t easily provide new and updated content then the site will quickly become stale. Don’t try to string together too many different objects or widgets. It will just make it confusing to the customer and difficult to maintain.

For many entrepreneurs this fresh start may be their last chance to project a cohesive and professional image. Once things start to get busy, it is very difficult to keep track of all the elements that make up your storefront. Time goes by and the entrepreneur finds a new widget or tool or system that would add great value to their tool set. After a while the "seams" start to show and the presence starts to look like a patchwork quilt. You will want to make sure you have and follow a strategy to keep your presence cohesive. Just like us, as companies mature their "face" will start to show a few wrinkles. You go to the home page on their web site and they proudly state their company motto. You go to another and magically they have changed from being "the leading provider of xyz" to "the top seller of abc" or "the best solutions provider in the city". You call them up on the phone and they have a wonderfully recorded message touting yet another angle.

Now this is not to say that things should not change or evolve. Quite the contrary, things should always exist in a state of "constant and never ending improvement". Just let your content be the media for the change. As any small business operator knows, it is very difficult to keep all of the elements in the same theme. It brings to mind a comparison to "herding cats". Just try to keep to your original strategy or go 100% back to the drawing board.

What are you doing today to ensure that your image and your communication efforts are cohesive?

Bill Cooey

www.e3datasolutions.com

We help companies to create a Cohesive Communication, Collaboration, and Content Management Strategy!

Small Business and Getting the word out about Social Networking

As many other people do, in my spare time I volunteer for worthy causes. Among those organizations, I support the Service Corps of Retired Executives. SCORE , as it is more commonly known, is a national organization that coaches thousands of budding entrepreneurs, as well as established businesses, on a number of topics from accounting to human resources to marketing to wholesaling. SCORE taps the expertise of retired executives and business owners who have excelled in their fields, or in the case of the internet and other recent technologies, they look to people like me who are still actively working in the industry. They have a national website and a home office in Herndon VA, as well as local chapters in nearly 400 locations across the country. Specifically, I do pro bono business counseling as it pertains to the internet industry for the Atlanta SCORE chapter.

On March 6th 2008, SCORE Atlanta, the national SCORE office, and American Express sponsored a speed counseling and business workshop event at the Hyatt Regency in downtown Atlanta. The event was one of several taking place this year across the country and was well attended by entrepreneurs from all walks of life, each looking to take advantage of the excellent information and business counseling. The events are part of an initiative by American Express OPEN and the SCORE national office, who have teamed up to support and encourage the growth of small businesses. Notables speaking at the event included Ken Yancy, CEO of SCORE, and Dr. Timothy S. Mescon, Dean and the Tony and Jack Dinos Eminent Scholar at the Michael J. Coles College of Business at Kennesaw State University (KSU) as well as representatives of American Express OPEN and the local Atlanta SCORE chapter.

Aside from the speed counseling that I participated in yesterday, (the details of which of course is privileged information), I was also fortunate to be able to talk to a number of attendees that comprised a wide range of life experiences, ages, and backgrounds. From this interaction I was able to gain some insight on what issues and concerns the entrepreneurial world is focused upon. The economy, the likelihood of a recession, and the respective prospects for a slowdown in their businesses topped their list of concerns as you might expect.

My curiosity in particular, once I got past the "economic global warming" topics, lead me to check the pulse of Social Networking via the internet as it relates to small business. I asked everyone I came across the following question - Are you using Social Networking or tapping Web 2.0 services to build your business? I found some very interesting responses.

When organizing the respondents' answers by their age, some trends emerged similar to what you would expect from the greater general public when asked about the web in general. Given that entrepreneurs are a subset of the population who should be considered to be motivated to network, I would have expected a slightly different result than what I saw. While this is not to be considered a scientific poll by any means, it does provide some anecdotal evidence of where "Social Networking" stands with respect to the small business owner:

• in general, people in their 50s and 60s were not aware of the term "Social Networking", did not know what Facebook or LinkedIn was, and did not have much interest in web related activities other than having a "brochure" website for their business (Web 1.0). They tended to be uncomfortable with the thought of revealing too much information online.
• People in their mid 30s and 40s knew or are users of Facebook and MySpace, but typically were not power users of LinkedIn. Some had created a simple presence of some sort (home page) that was typically related to their personal lives. They also typically thought of Blogging as an outlet for someone to rant or complain about something rather than for information. As a rule, they did not use social sites such as delicious or stumbleupon. They were more comfortable with having personal information online, but still felt their personal life and their business life were separate silos.
• People in their late 20s and early 30s were users of Facebook, LinkedIn, and MySpace, but again they mainly concentrated on using those resources for keeping in touch with their friends or for personal blogs. They had also used Google for business research and would post replies to their friend’s blogs.

Most people attending the event, (maybe even 95%), fell into the categories listed above. After some determined searching, I was able to talk to a few people in their early 20s. It was this group where I finally saw evidence of change that I was hoping to see from at least a few people in some of the other age brackets. Most everyone in the youngest age group was an avid user of Social Networking sites and Web 2.0. Several I talked to were actually basing their initial marketing strategies on their Facebook page. Some were also looking to do video on You Tube to promote their products.

So what can this information tell us? Perhaps the concept of Social Networking for businesses is not yet becoming engrained in the small business owners’ community, so the subsequent use of Social Networking to promote businesses is nearly non-existent. I feel, however, that this is most certainly because we are still in the beginning phases of adoption of these concepts for small businesses.

What does this mean for the typical entrepreneur? The good news is that depending upon the product or service that a company will be selling, there is probably a huge opportunity for small business owners to get a large jump on their competition if they quickly adopt a Social Networking strategy. The youngest entrepreneurs who were weaned on interactive video games (not Pong) consider it a given and will very likely succeed. The remaining early adopters, however, have a limited timeframe to pick up and run with it before it becomes overwhelming to the potential customer. It still comes down to the "old school" business theory of innovation - "the quick and the dead".

Where will your company's presence be by the end of the year? Please feel free to share your thoughts!

Bill Cooey
e3datasolutions

How many Social Networks can a social networker network if a social networker networks socially?

Some of you may remember the tongue twister about the wood chuck from your childhood? Here is a new spin on that idea. Bright and early this morning I cracked open the Wall Street Journal today (yes – the print version – old habits die hard) and ran across an article in the Technology section about Social Networking. The article by Lee Gomes in the “Talking Tech” Q&A section reported that more and more, firms are creating their own social networks. This is an interesting read that gives some basis for the belief that Social Networking will be an extremely important tool in a company’s marketing plan.

There are some obvious benefits to this proposition, and to quote Lee in the article “Companies … are trying to learn from the customers and develop a closer relationship with them”. Further along in the article Lee indicates that while a social networking site will allow a customer to have a platform to air their problems, complaints, and concerns. Lee also writes that this increasing wave of new networks could be compared to the growth of blogging and where it was a few years ago. Lee estimates the potential costs of a private site at between six and seven figures.

To research this I have posed the following question to the people within my network at linked in:

“With the existence of major social networks like Facebook, etc., can individual companies successfully create and benefit from their own focused social networks?”

From my perspective I do have some concerns as to whether this in fact could be a successful tool for companies' marketing efforts.

First – while the benefit of having a vocal user group makes sense, how many companies will make use of the data gathered? This forum could easily be used as an excuse maker for all the problems with a company’s services or product. Or the forum could be so filtered as to render the attempts at constructive posting useless. Many books have been written on the subject including “A Complaint is a Gift” by Janelle Barlow and Claus Moller. Their philosophy highlights customer complaints as a mode of communication to the company, but the key is will the company listen? Will the comments consist of customer rants of how “XYZ, Inc. stinks”, or will they provide actionable input for product refinement. Or perhaps, the social network will be just another wasted effort and resource that was directed from the top just so the company doesn’t miss the trend, and then the implementation is never properly utilized.

Second – Social Networking is definitely growing. The real question is will that growth be in users or number of successful networks. Personally, I belong several networks, but I only have time to keep two truly up to date. If initiatives such as OpenID can form a core engine to drive multiple networks, then there is a possibility for success. There is way too much time involved in properly maintaining a user id in multiple places. I am sure that there are many people out there who can do this, but for the majority who sign up for many networks there will always be only a couple of networks that are faithfully utilized.

Lastly – I am sure there are companies out there that are willing to throw money at having their own social network. In corporate America the thought of “missing the boat” usually triggers the wasting of time, money, and resources without having given the due diligence. There will probably be a market for developers and service providers who are more than willing to assist.

Later today I will provide an update with the results of my poll.

Cheers and happy networking!

Bill Cooey

www.e3datasolutions.com

Excerpts used with permission from The Wall Street Journal Online

Where's Waldo (or Bill, Jane, etc)?

Some of you may remember the book Where's Waldo, a children's book by Martin Handford. Either you read it growing up or bought it for your children, you probably remember that every page was an illustration of a sea of activity and people. Each one intricately detailed, making up a mosaic of life. The task at hand was to try and find Waldo, a nerdy looking guy in a striped shirt and stocking cap, whose image was buried inside the picture. The goal and also the challenge of each page was trying to find Waldo and see what he was doing.

This children's book can also be viewed as a metaphor for marketing and Web 2.0. As a business owner or entrepreneur, you should picture yourself as Waldo, preferably in more fashionable clothing, and try to scan the pages of the book to see if you can be found. The one catch is that we could always be assured that Waldo was there somewhere in the book. There is no guarantee that you or your company is even in the picture.

In order to be seen in the Internet today, you have to do more than just post a "brochure" web site and expect the public to come. That worked for Kevin Costner in Field of Dreams, but remember, you are Waldo and this is 2008. You still need to promote yourself and your company. You need repetition or your brand on the Internet to increase your visibility. Since taking out an ad on a highly visited web site like CNN or Fox News or "fill in the blank" is probably cost prohibitive, you are going to have to do it the old fashioned way - good ol networking. Go sign up for FaceBook, LinkedIn, or any other of the Social Networking sites. Start a blog. Get your name in "print" and then go shake some hands, both virtually and in person!

Question - Have you Googled yourself today?

Bill Cooey

e3datasolutions

Photo Sharing primer as an example of Social Networking

A friend of mine, Ashley Miller maintains a blog that I now read regularly. Doing so not only helps me keep in touch with Ashley and his family, but also educates me on Social Networking. In his vast research of the Internet and everything Web 2.0, he came across a website for Common Craft. Among other things they produce really neat and quirky video presentations on various subjects and post them to YouTube.

YouTube to some people may not seem to be much more than a outlet for spur of the moment video captured on a cell phone. But in a more practical sense, many companies are using this medium for distributing video to the public. This makes great sense as it gives huge exposure to your company's work product. YouTube is visited by hundreds of thousands of people daily which is comparatively way more than a lot of other media available to most businesses.

Producing a video is the "fun" and creative part. Getting people to watch it is the other and equally important part. Since your production can get lost like the proverbial "needle in the haystack", you must also "evangelize" your creation.

So here is an example of a fantastic Common Craft presentation, and the way I came to find it.

The "evangelizing" of this product is as follows - from Common Craft to Ashley via an Internet search - from Ashley to me via my reading his blog. While only two degrees of separation, the "network" is exponential. I am sure that there are many Ashleys out there and whomever reads this blog will add another degree to the equation. This is akin to the old shampoo commercial that went "She'll tell two friends, and they'll tell two friends, and so on, and so on,..." that is the core of marketing and today's format - social networking. I had the opportunity to attend a workshop at TAG in which Sherry Heyl gave a presentation on this subject and social networking in general. She used this shampoo example of viral growth to demonstrate this concept, the kind that your company will benefit from.

So enjoy the Common Craft video and for those who are old enough to remember the commercial, and for those who are just learning, give social networking a try and make sure to "spread the good word"!

Bill Cooey

e3datasolutions

Getting your feet wet in blogging

So this is what blogging is all about. You've done your research, you found a blogging tool or host, and now you are ready to rock and roll!. So what now? You make your first post . You have high hopes and expectations. Now comes the real work. What will be your content? What will make your blog meaningful to someone else? Do you know what your target audience is, or is that important to you? Are you wanting to vent, show your inner most feelings, or babble on about your personal life. That option isn't necessarily a bad idea, but you should be smart about it. Remember - the whole world, including your family, friends, co-workers, business associates, as well as all of your friends from church, will be able to see and reply.

For me, this is a company blog. You wont be hearing too much about my dog, Buddy, or the kids, the significant other, my treks though the mountains or on a bike. That's not to say it won't happen on occasion - you really dont want to build a wall around your persona. But I will try to stay on target and keep this blog focused on technology and how we at e3datasolutions look at the world.

So for now - Happy Blogging!