Some things have changed dramatically. For one thing in our absence people have developed something called “Micro-Blogging” and it’s, no pun intended, huge.

I’m going to dispense with making a case for this, and get right into how to get started and tell you straight up, all you need to do is get on Twitter. If you spend 30 minutes of your time on Twitter looking for your customers, and are not excited, you probably aren’t going to get it. Trust me, on this, you will get the essential mechanics really fast. I’ve shown lots of people how to use Twitter, and, especially compared to using a blog, everyone of them figured it out the mechanics right away. If you need more incentive, see this article from Business Week. It will take a little while to really start amazing your company with Twitter, but the amazing thing is it’s within everyone’s reach to do that.

Let’s Get started!

1. Go to Twitter.com and create an account. Use either the name if your business (e.g. shadowboxstudios), if you work in a big company make sure no one will freak out if you use just the company name, or something about your representing your business (e.g. larryatshadowbox), which is a bit safer in larger companies.
2. Get comfortable, take a deep breath and make a simple post (called a Tweet). It must be brief as their is a 140 character limit. The suggested starting point is to simply answer the question: What are you doing? That’s the essence of it right there. Congratulations, you’ve created and started using your new Corporate Microbl0g.
3. Now for the fun part, use Twitter’s search tool to start searching for words that relate to what value you provide. It’s very easy to grow your visibility on twitter if you are helpful. That should be easy to do once you get comfortable, after all your business is all about being helpful. If you are a powerful brand you should have no problem finding people talking about you on Twitter. If you are not you can find people using words that relate to what you do, and enage with them.
4. Once you find someone Reply to those people, thank them for their support, help them solve their problem, tell them about a new way you can help them, in short show them that you care and are listening. Be prepared to answer questions, after all you want to start a conversation, not just impart information. 

Two things to keep in mind to make the most of your new Micro Voice

1. Revisit your blog strategy and tweet in support of that strategy. Don’t use it to simply do short versions of your press releases (though you can tweet about your press). Post things that happened during the course of your business day that you don’t mind people hearing about.
2. It’s much more effective if your tweets clearly convey that these tweets come from you, an individual person. For that reason you can, and should, tweet about things that are just interesting to you. Tweet things like: how much you liked an article you read online (provide a link!), or how pretty the day is, or what networking event you are going to. These kinds of posts should not outnumber the ‘on message’ tweets you provide, but they should be in the mix, to help convey that you are an individual joining the conversation, you just happen to be representing your company as you do it.

I’d love to hear about what your experiences are using Twitter as a company representative. Please share!

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There was a recent discussion started that I would like to repost here, as there are great nuggets of information found within.

Original PostI’m still trying to wrap my arms around all this and I am wondering what tools folks use to maintain and manage a conversation with users.

I have a “hard” product (meaning not software) and I want to provide a platform for folks to interact and provide feedback. What is the right web tool for this?

Is it simply a forum or are there new tools that facilitate this exchange more effectively? And if it is a forum, any feedback on what the best solution is that is out there (for my small business budget).

Reply #1

There is no perfect tool for developing community. Blogs can facilitate it, so can forums. So can conferences, skypecasts, email discussion lists, seminars, phone calls, happy hours, social networking, the list goes on and on. Community is built through quality communication among your community, which, as a pinko marketer you are a part of.

But even more important than the tools are the time, energy and attitude that you bring to nurturing the community. If you genuinely care about the community (as a whole and individuals!) and their love of your product/service, then they’ll care your company.

Strong relationships are the ultimate competitive advantage because there is no shortcut to creating them. They take time, love, caring and blood/sweat/tears. But I’ll take them over patents any day of the week.

Reply #2 (Original author posts more information)

Thanks for the offer of generating ideas. Hopefully I can keep this fairly short, but it does require some background.

My company markets bamboo fly fishing rods. Typically–99.9% of the time in today’s marketplace, a fly fishing rod is made of a graphite or carbon fiber material. However, between about 1880 and 1960, the majority rod was made of bamboo–split bamboo to be exact.

The maker splits a bamboo culm length-wise (of a particular variety called Tonkin that is grown in a 20,000 acre area in southern China), and then proceeds to plane the split pieces by hand into very exact (within .004-inch) 60-degree triangular shaped and tapered strips that are glued together in sixes to form a hexagonal rod–about 1/2-inch or less in diameter at the base and 1/8-inch or less at the tip. This is a long and labor-intensive process that yields a completed rod in about 50-75 hours. Hence the move to “plastic” materials that can be mass produced.

There is a certain nostalgic element to fishing a bamboo rod, but because of the labor involved, they usually sell today for US$1200 to US$3000 and there is very often a waiting list of up to 18 months from popular makers. My thinking (and the reason I started the company) is that nobody should have to pay that kind of money or wait for a rod (and it wasn’t always like that–when bamboo was the norm, there were production shops that put these out by the millions in any and every grade for all fishermen–fly fishermen or otherwise).

So, over the last four years I have developed a relationship with a family in China that builds the rods at a rate that allows me to sell in the US$400 range and to keep lots of rods on hand for immediate delivery.

That’s the business. I sell over the Internet and and via mail order direct to customers. I am toying with a deal where I work with fly fishing guides and outfitters to have them advocate the rods and get affiliate-like finders fees. I advertise in the right magazines. I do some email marketing. It is a very conventional business and I would like to figure out how to create a community. And I understand that I need an online and offline community.

My business goal is to “right-size” the business by selling about 1200 rods per year. (I am currently doing about 300 a year).

The things that I deal with include the following:

1. Made in China. Can be a big deal for some fly fishers (“USA, USA, USA”–oh brother! We do live in a global economy).

2. Shock factor of the price vs. competition. Many cannot believe I can offer a quality product at the price I do. But the rods are as well build as any available. I have a lot of happy fly fishermen.

3. A large interest in the 55-80 year old set (though this is just one segment) that is for the most part offline. I often get letters in the mail with interesting penmanship. These are people that actually fished bamboo at one time, not like me that wished I did.

4. Choosing a fly rod requires “feeling” the action. Selling over the Internet or mail order is kind of stupid. People really want to try before they buy.

5. It is a niche of a niche market. US, there are probably 4 to 5 million fly fishermen, maybe that many again in the rest of the world. Those interested in bamboo are probably 10-20% of this group.

6. Because bamboo has something of a mystic and is rare, getting rods into the hands of fly fishers often causes a stir.

7. I run the business part time out of my house. That means limited resources, time and focus. I am a “virtual” business with just me (and my wife and kids) as owner/chief bottle washer. I want to keep it like that. As you can see, I have “outsourced” manufacturing and continue to do so in areas of finance, marketing, etc.

That’s the long-winded version of the business (I know, very unpinko). Bring it on, I am very open to suggestions and criticism.

The URL is www.split-bamboo.com (Company name is Headwaters Bamboo Rod Company).

Thanks again,

Reply #3

Just a quick thought from a non-marketer: For me, a truly organic and sustainable way to build community is to tell a compelling story. Story draws people in, and if the story gives hints of more story to come, it keeps people coming back for more.

That said, I think you’ve got potential for some great story in your product. You mention you’ve developed a relationship with a family in China who make the rods. As a potential community member, I would love to hear about that family. See pictures. Read a travelogue of your trip to set up your business. Not only could this be great reading, but it would go a long way to alleviate assumptions some folks have about anything made in China — ie, that it’s *all* crappy, poorly paid factory work.

Another place to explore story is with some of your old timer customers. Grab one or two that you know personally and go for a fishing trip! Take lots of pictures. Talk about old school fishing and blog it! The life stories that come out during a day of fishing …. I can only imagine. (Hah — think “A River Runs Through It” Podcast style! )

Reply #4 (my reply)

I grew up in McCall, a small mountain town in central Idaho. McCall is a fisherman’s paradise. I spent many days of my childhood with my father, brother and close family friend fishing the many streams and lakes around McCall. Ray, the family friend, and my father were great fly fisherman , while my brother and I were simply bait fisherman. Its not that we didn’t aspire to become fly fisherman, its just that we did not have the patience or dexterity as children to do much with a fly rod other than make bird’s nests out of the line after several casts.

When I turned 12, my father bought me my first fly rod. That was the day that I became a fly fisherman. Between the advice that I received from my father and from Ray, I became a pretty decent fisherman over the years. Fly fishing is rather easy to learn but difficult to master. Ray taught me how to tie my own flies and how to tell which hatch was on. Both Ray and my father taught me that there is much more to fly fishing than simply catching fish. There were a lot of things that they told in an off handed fashion that I didn’t really understand until I was at the university. It was then that I realized that there are many life lessons that can be learned while casting a fly.

I basically gave up fishing when I went to grad school in Arizona. Its hard to be too interested in fishing when you have to drive long distances just to get to crappy trout fishing. However, I seemed to always make at least one trip back to Idaho per year and would always manage to get in a few days of fishing while I was there. When I went back in 1998 just before I moved to Europe, my father told me that Ray had cancer and didn’t have more than 6-8 months to live.

Of course we all wanted to get one last fishing trip in with Ray. We ended up going to one of our favorite old haunts that we used to go to when my brother and I were just kids. It wasn’t the best place to fish, but it was a short drive and it was easy for Ray to get in and out of the water there.

There we were on that fabulous fall day, all in our float tubes – my father, Ray, my brother and me. It was a beautiful site. We didn’t catch many fish that day. In fact, I don’t think I caught one, but it was the best day of fly fishing that I have ever had. It was the last day I would fish with my friend Ray.

That’s my favorite fly fishing story although I have many more. As you know, every fly fisherman has great stories and now they are telling their stories in their blogs. I did a quick search on IceRocket and found that there are 3528 posts with the topic: fly fishing. Those are a lot of conversations in which you should be participating. Your website should have a blog as your product resonates from passionate stories waiting to be told. You should find the active fly fishing bloggers and sponsor them with one of your bamboo rods. Offer a discount to anybody that hangs one of your banners on their blogs. Or make an exclusive badge (Certified Bamboo) that only those who have purchased a rod from you can hang on their website/blog. Start an affiliate program from within your community. There is no reason why you shouldn’t be able to meet your sales expectations if you become an active member in the community.

The company website is very well done, but it really does need a blog to tell his story. My next post will outline a the blog strategy that I recommend he incorporate.

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]]> http://shadowbox.com/2006/07/18/blogs-and-fly-fishing/feed/ 0 http://shadowbox.com/2006/07/12/follow-up-to-intranet-trends-to-watch-for-in-2006/ http://shadowbox.com/2006/07/12/follow-up-to-intranet-trends-to-watch-for-in-2006/#comments Wed, 12 Jul 2006 20:06:48 +0000 Pat Dodd http://corpblog.shadowbox.com/2006/07/12/follow-up-to-intranet-trends-to-watch-for-in-2006/ I made a post yesterday about Intranet Trends to watch for in 2006 from a CIO article – basically I cut and pasted only the information that pertained to blogs. Today, a fellow blogger and knowledge management Guru, Louis Suarez, did the article justice by really commenting on the meat of the article. I highly recommend reading the post – actually, his entire blog is a treasure trove of knowledge management information.

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]]> http://shadowbox.com/2006/07/12/follow-up-to-intranet-trends-to-watch-for-in-2006/feed/ 1 http://shadowbox.com/2006/07/12/dell-launches-blog/ http://shadowbox.com/2006/07/12/dell-launches-blog/#comments Wed, 12 Jul 2006 13:32:36 +0000 Pat Dodd http://corpblog.shadowbox.com/2006/07/12/dell-launches-blog/ Yesterday was the day that Dell launched their business blog. And it didn’t take long before a few of the blog heavy weights put the smackdown on them.

Jeff Jarvis says:

The subtitle is “direct conversations with Dell” but this is as much a conversation as yelling at a brick wall. There is not one link there. It’s filled with promotions for Dell’s wonderfulness.

But seriously, folks, the first step in blogging is not writing them but reading them. The conversation is already happening out there without you. Join in that conversation. Dell continues to believe that it can control the conversation. That horse is out of the barn, over the horizon, dead, and buried.

Steve Rubel says:

More importantly, Dell really failed to get the blog going the way that they could have. This was a golden opportunity for the company. They could use the blog to engage the community in a genuine conversation on the critical issues that have dogged them for years now as well as the good things they are doing. (Recent pictures of a Dell computer blowing up at a conference in Japan were recently the rage in the blogosphere and now the media.) However, they chose not to.

Scoble says:

By the way, I agree with Andy Lark that we should be nicer to new companies that try the bloggy Web. At least give them a couple of weeks to get settled into their new homes before we start lobbing rocks through their front windows. Of course, I doubt anyone will listen to me because these companies came into the bloggy Web so late that the mob isn’t gonna automatically be nice the way they were to me three years ago.

I agree with Scoble – give them a few weeks to get things straightened out. However, had they done their homework at the outset, they probably wouldn’t have received the lambasting that they did. Rest assured that with all of the eyes on Dell’s blog, it will either shape up nicely or be pulled within the month. My guess is that they will be forced into doing it right. Their post today shows that they are starting to get it.

Good luck Dell.

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]]> http://shadowbox.com/2006/07/12/dell-launches-blog/feed/ 0 http://shadowbox.com/2006/07/11/intranet-trends-to-watch-for-in-2006/ http://shadowbox.com/2006/07/11/intranet-trends-to-watch-for-in-2006/#comments Tue, 11 Jul 2006 10:19:37 +0000 Pat Dodd http://corpblog.shadowbox.com/2006/07/11/intranet-trends-to-watch-for-in-2006/ Following up on yesterday’s post regarding blogging and intranets, CIO has an interesting article that talks about 2006 intranet trends (thanks Jeremiah for pointing me to this). One of the trends they mention is blogging and RSS. This is what they have to say:

Blogs come and go but RSS will remain
Arguably blogs are the most significant Web phenomena of 2005. Everybody from presidential nominees to the local postman is blogging these days. Companies like Sun Microsystems, Google and Maytag have been caught in the hype and have enthusiastically set up both customer facing blogs and internal facing ones too. But will the employee blogs last? Will there be even more blogs in the next year?Some employee blogs will last but unfortunately most won?Äôt. Many companies that enthusiastically set up employee blogs ignored the two most important ingredients for blogging success. The first is that the blogger needs to have something important and unique to say. According to a recent survey by America Online, the most popular blogs are the most personal and opinionated ones too. Most organizations have cultures that subconsciously encourage information hoarding and group think. These organizations will find that their employees are reluctant to share their knowledge and personal insights unless they see tangible benefits in doing so. As a result most employee blogs will be superficial and boring unless, of course, they are anonymous.

The other ingredient that drives blogging success is independence. The most successful bloggers are also those who don’t feel censored by anyone else around them. Company cultures often force employees to be extremely self aware and reluctant to say or do anything that may put them at odds with the official order. This too will limit the success of blogs in the enterprise workplace. The people who have something really important to say will be the ones most reluctant to say it.

The related technology to continue to keep an eye on is Real Simple Syndication (RSS). Companies that embrace RSS as a content format and use it to publish information to employees will have far greater success than with blogging alone. Enabling employees to subscribe to subject and department specific RSS feeds and then view them via readers will enable more targeted, community focused conversations in the workplace. And the ease with which postings can be viewed in an RSS reader will encourage more employees to participate. For RSS to be adopted however, companies will have to let their employees subscribe to both internal and external RSS feeds. If this happens, then I believe that in some companies blogging combined with wide adoption of RSS readers will become even more relevant than the company intranet.

 

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]]> http://shadowbox.com/2006/07/11/intranet-trends-to-watch-for-in-2006/feed/ 1 http://shadowbox.com/2006/05/31/better-organization-the-key-to-better-blogging/ http://shadowbox.com/2006/05/31/better-organization-the-key-to-better-blogging/#comments Wed, 31 May 2006 11:50:13 +0000 Pat Dodd http://corpblog.shadowbox.com/2006/05/31/better-organization-the-key-to-better-blogging/ Better organization is much more than the key to better blogging – it’s the key to better living. Easier said than done, I know. But there is a website that can help you out. Ariane Benefit’s Neat Living is about simplifying, letting go of clutter, organizing, “thinkbuying,” resisting consumerism, getting healthy, working with passion, charity, ethics, and having fun too! The blog is packed with tips and great ideas to help you get out from underneath all of the clutter that is keeping you from realizing your true potential. Ariane’s posts exude passion and motivation. In fact, I’m going to cut this post short so I can tidy up my office workspace, which is something I’ve been meaning to do for a while now.

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]]> http://shadowbox.com/2006/05/31/better-organization-the-key-to-better-blogging/feed/ 1 http://shadowbox.com/2006/05/28/converting-traffic-into-business-part-ii/ http://shadowbox.com/2006/05/28/converting-traffic-into-business-part-ii/#comments Sun, 28 May 2006 16:59:40 +0000 Pat Dodd http://corpblog.shadowbox.com/2006/05/28/converting-traffic-into-business-part-ii/

The difference in my perspective in contrast to Patrick’s is that most of the value to me in blogging is to allow people to “meet” me and allow us to create conversations through the blog. Much like having an open studio, a blog allows me the opportunity to discuss my ideas about art, about blogs, about conversations in cyberspace, The blogs let me feel out the audience, share my personality, show some of my work and in general share what’s going on in my life with people who are interested in doing a little evesdropping. – Susan Reynolds
Essentially, my view on the monetizing issue is that a blog can serve a perfectly useful and even productive function in a business by helping raise awareness of the business, helping to build trust and providing other benefits, none of which need to be directly attributable to this or that sale of goods or services on or directly from the blog. – Des Walsh

For myself, increased traffic to my website (tripled) has resulted in a doubling of revenues last year alone, and it’s going to be even better this year.

But I blog for the pleasure of writing, and it also serves to clarify my ideas, thoughts and purpose. I also learn through writing. That is just how I consolidate things I’ve read.

Why do you blog? I mean, besides all the money? Sure, increased traffic is good, so are the relationships and new opportunities, and reaching a global audience. For me, it’s not “show me the money,” it’s “show me the fun!” – BlogSquad

Indeed, you are all absolutely 100% correct. After reading through the comments and re-reading my post I realize that I came off like a used car salesman. Just to clarify, I do not believe that the main reason businesses should be blogging is to hard sell products/services. On the contrary, blogging, IMHO, is about initiating and nurturing relationships that will help to generate business. However, not offering the occasional call to action on your blog is like handing out your business card at a networking event and not telling the person to please call if he/she ever needs your services.

Dennis D. McDonald says it best here:

I’ve found that I am more successful when I incorporate a call to action in the targeted communications I direct to target clients via phone and email. I use embedded referrals (links) to my blog as a supplement to my resume and to illustrate capabilities relevant to solving specific problems I think ae relevant to that client.

In that respect, I view my blog as an integral part of my sales process, but I do not use it by itself specifically in a “call to action” sense.

But what actions do I promote via the blog? That’s a fair question and one that I use my blog visit records and Google Analytics to help answer.

When I do a targeted emailing or call campaign I can measure a variety of things:

1. I can often tell when a targeted person has visited my blog after an email since I can track specific IP addresses.
2. I can tell how often my resume, my about me page, my white papers, and my RSS feed page are visited by using Google Analytics ?Äúconversion goals?Äù tracking process.

These responses to my “calls to action” are much less concrete than, say,”click here to add item to shopping cart.” But they do give me some sense of how well my blog is doing in terms of the overall cycle of communications relative to my networking and business development activities.

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This is something that I have been wrestling with. You’ll notice in my previous post that I concluded with, “If you’d like to learn more about business blogging, please feel free to download our Corporate Blogging 101 whitepaper. If you’re already up to speed on business blogging basics but would like to discuss whether it makes sense for your business to have its own blog and a rough estimate of how much it would cost to get your blog set up, please feel to contact me.” Is this something that I should be putting at the end of every blog post or is this too in your face?

The question at hand is this – What have you done to create an effective call to action in your blog?

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I’m looking for case studies on how blogs word of mouth potential
impacted a small businesses bottom line. I’m primarily interested in
knowing if there are case studies whereby a retail shop had set up a
blog and the benefits that the retail shoped reaped from the blog.

My reason for asking is that I run a web design and blogging
consultancy and I have a friend of mine who runs a coffee shop in my
neighborhood. She’s pretty internet savvy and wanted to know if a blog
could help her. I think it could, especially from a WOM perspective,
but I wanted to read up on some case studies before talking further.

This was a post that I received from a group to which I belong – the LinkedInBloggers group on Yahoo. Unfortunately, I have been to busy to respond until now.

I firmly believe that there are some businesses that would not see much benefit from blogging. On the other hand, with a bit of creativity, I think you could find a compelling reason for most businesses to have a blog. A coffee shop blog is a slam dunk IMHO.

Aldo Coffee is a great example of a coffee shop blog. The Aldo blog/website lists their menus, event schedules and other interesting tidbits without making the site cluttered or busy, but most importantly the blog tells a story that draws people to the coffee shop. The only thing that I would do differently is insert coupons with every post that readers could print out and redeem at the coffee shop. Adding coupons to newsletters/blogs worked amazingly well for me back when I was in the business. I talked about this back in March and you can find the post here. The following is an example of a branded coupon. Please excuse the fact that it doesn’t look that great – I’m no designer and I was in a hurry

Back to the original question that my fellow group member posted in which he was looking for case studies that showed a direct impact of blogging on a small business’ bottom line…Unfortunately, I haven’t come across any such case studies. However, I don’t think that a lack of concrete ROI evidence should prevent a small business owner from starting a blog especially when the cost of getting started can be extremely inexpensive – free if you sign up with a service like Blogger.

If you’d like to learn more about business blogging, please feel free to download our Corporate Blogging 101 whitepaper. If you’re already up to speed on business blogging basics but would like to discuss whether it makes sense for your business to have its own blog and a rough estimate of how much it would cost to get your blog set up, please feel to contact me.

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So if markets are conversations (and they are) and the blogosphere is where the conversations are taking place (and it is), then it follows that businesses can use blog specific search engines as a marketing barometer to measure the level of interest in their products or services. Let me give you an example.

I recently met with the marketing manager for Durham Business School (DBS). The crux of the meeting was to convey that no one (in the blogosphere) was talking about their MBA program, which means that either the DBS MBA program is unremarkable or it is simply off the radar of people who are discussing MBA programs (or some combination of the two). This should be very disconcerting especially when you contrast these results with results you get from entering the main competitors into the search engines.

So how do you check whats being said (or not said) about your company/product/service? Easy. Just enter your comany name + product/service + any other descriptors to one of the many blog search engines (my favorite blog search engines are BlogPulse, Technorati, Google and IceRocket) and see where that takes you. Join an existing conversation or get one started. Good luck!

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