Website Visitors Place More Weight on Design
July 1, 2009 by admin
Filed under Business tech |
The demand for good web design is increasing, revealed a recent Webcopyplus online poll. Almost 25% of web users indicated “poor visual presentation” as the number one element that drives them away from websites. Only 6.6% of web users who participated in a similar 2007 online poll indicated “poor visual presentation” as the main reason to abandon a website. That equates to a 267% increase during the two-year period.
Twelve Major Brands That Will Disappear Soon
May 22, 2009 by admin
Filed under Business News |
By: Douglas A. McIntyre
A number of well-known brands disappeared in the last year in large part due to economic forces. Many of them were in the retail industry, led by Circuit City. ATA and Aloha airlines are gone. Gateway Computers has effectively disappeared after being bought by Acer. It still has a website, but the brand is no longer marketed.
As the recession deepens and stretches out quarter after quarter, more companies will close or will shut divisions. More brands will disappear because their parents firms fold or can no longer afford to support them. Other brands will be obliterated by mergers.
24/7 Wall St. examined 100 large brands that are facing troubled futures. The analysis included records for those brands that are public companies or part of public companies. We considered sales information, information from industry experts, and brand histories. We also looked at the level of competition in each brand’s market and the extent to which that competition is growing. We examined the likelihood that a brand could be sold or spun off in cases where parent companies are in financial trouble.
We have compiled a list of 12 brands that will we believe will not survive until the end of next year. Each brand and the major reasons for its demise are listed along with some of the public information 24/7 Wall St. examined.
1. Avis/Budget (CAR) operates two car rental businesses. The primary competition for the company is Hertz (HTZ). Both firms are facing significant problems paying down their debt. Barclays Capital analyst Brian A. Johnson said the companies are “facing an almost perfect storm, with increasing pressure on both revenues and costs, coupled with very large risks on the liquidity and operational side.” There is real risk that Avis may violate its credit facility covenants. As the travel industry continues to falter, problems at Avis/Budget are going to get worse. The company has said that it plans to operate both brands. Their financial statements indicate that will become increasingly difficult. Avis is the larger operation with 5,100 locations to Budget’s 2,750, according to the company’s 10-K. Avis/Budget lost money each of the last three years and in 2008 lost $1.1 billion on revenue of $6 billion. As sales drop through 2009, Avis/Budget will find it impossible to support the costs of maintaining two brands. The Budget brand will have to be eliminated. CAR trades for $1 down from a 52-week high of $18.
2. Borders (BGP) has struggled for several years as the No.2 operator of book store behind Barnes & Noble. When Border’s released its last set of earnings it said it would cut the number of Waldendbooks stores from about 300 to 50 or 60. With Border’s losses, that won’t be enough. The pressure from online book operations led by Amazon (AMZN) and new e-book readers is overwhelming Borders. In the fourth quarter of last year, sales at Border’s branded stores dropped 15.3%. For the full year 2008, Borders lost $157 million on revenue of $2.8 billion. Borders recently extended its $42.5 million senior secured term loan with Pershing Square Capital Management, moving the due date to April 1, 2010. That may be the day that Borders goes away. Border’s shares trade at $1.47, down from a 52-week high of $8.02.
3. Crocs (CROX) sold the fastest growing footwear in America at one point. In late 2007, the company’s shares traded at more than $72. Now they change hands at well below $2. At the end of March, Crocs got a six-month extension of a critical credit facility. According to Reuters, “Crocs Inc averted a cash crunch by winning an 11th-hour credit facility extension with a California bank, but analysts say the jury is still out on whether the struggling brand can turn around.” Two weeks before the credit extension, the company’s auditors gave the firm a “going concern” letter, an indication that there would be reasonable chance that Crocs would make it another year. In the fourth quarter of 2008, Crocs lost $43 million after making $55 million in the same period the year before. Revenue fell from $225 million in the last quarter of 2007 to $126 million. Crocs won’t make it through the year.
4. Saturn was created by former GM (GM) CEO Roger Smith to be the company’s platform for manufacturing and marketing innovation. GM, now faced with bankruptcy, will almost certainly close its poorly performing brands. In the first quarter, Saturn sales dropped 59% to 19,843. GM can’t afford to support a brand with poor sales that are falling at such a rapid pace.
5. Esquire Magazine is published by Hearst which is having substantial problems in both its newspaper and magazine divisions. Hearst recently threatened to close The San Francisco Chronicle after losing tens of millions of dollars during the last several years. It kept the paper open after the staff agreed to huge cuts. At about the same time, Hearst closed its paper in Seattle. The collapse in print advertising has pushed revenue at most of Hearst’s large magazines down by double digits after a bad year in 2008. Flagship titles such as Good Housekeeping and Cosmopolitan have been hit especially hard. Hearst is going to have to cut some of its anemic magazine titles. Esquire is among the weakest of the major men’s magazines on the basis of advertising page performance. Through April, ad pages at the magazine dropped 27% to 206. Men’s magazines are one of the most crowded categories in the industry. Esquire is up against GQ, Details, Men’s Journal, Maxim, and a number of men’s fitness and health publications. The men’s magazines which are performing the most poorly will not last long. Big publishers such as Hearst and Conde Nast have already proven that they will cut what they have to in a brutal environment.
6. Gap (GAP) Old Navy and Banana Republic. Gap is a three-brand company living in a two-brand body. In March, same-store sales for the Gap North America flagship brand were off 14% following a 14% drop in the same month in 2008. Sales at Old Navy were flat for the same month but dropped 27% in March 2008. Sales at Banana Republic were off 16% this year and 8% last year. Gap announced that year-to-date net sales were $2.08 billion for the nine weeks that ended April 4, 2009, a decrease of 9% compared with net sales of $2.28 billion for the nine weeks that ended April 5, 2008. Old Navy has more stores than Banana Republic, 1,067 compared to 573. In the fourth quarter of last year, Gap had less than a 6% operating margin on $4.1 billion in revenue. In other words, if same-store sales at the company continue to drop 15% month after month, Gap is going to run into problems. Old Navy is still the weakest brand of the lot. Gap will have to close it down.
7. Architectural Digest Magazine has lost 47% of its ad pages this year. The magazine is owned by Conde Nast which is controlled by the Newhouse family. Newhouse is having significant financial problems with both its newspaper operations, which used to be very profitable, and its magazine group. Architectural Digest is operating in an environment where high-end home sales and expensive redecorating have been driven out of the market. It is also up against a number of other home and shelter magazines. Publications which are losing nearly half of their ad pages are almost certainly not going to make it for another year no matter what subjects they cover. Conde Nast has already closed or cut back several of its magazines.
8. The Chrysler brand of Chrysler LLC faces a problem similar to the one that GM faces with its weakest brands. As the company filed for bankruptcy with government support, the automaker knows that it cannot support product design, manufacturing, and marketing for all of its brands. An analysis of Chrysler LLC sales by division shows that the Chrysler brand has substantially worse sales than Dodge or Jeep. Through the first quarter, Chrysler sales dropped 61% to 45,706. The only nameplate within the brand that sold more than 20,000 vehicles was the Town & Country which could almost certainly be moved to the Dodge division. Dodge and Jeep both sold substantially more cars than the Chrysler brand even thought their sales were down 40%. When the company is restructuring Chrysler will be gone.
9. Eddie Bauer (EBHI) stock trades at $.38 now. Just last September it changed hands at more than $8. The company has said that it may violate debt covenants this year. According to the AP, the company also has severe competitive problems. “The retailer is facing an uphill battle because its merchandise doesn’t stand out among competitors such as outdoor retailer Recreational Equipment Inc., according to Janet Hoffman, managing partner of the global retail practice of Accenture.” In the fourth quarter of 2008, Bauer lost $128 million on revenue of $369 million. The company’s current S&P rating is about as low as it could be—CCC-. Eddie Bauer could be out of business by mid-year.
10. Palm (PALM) has been at death’s door for some time. It prospects have improved recently and the company has one last chance to become viable when it launches its new “Pre” product. Recent research shows that almost no one who owns an Apple (AAPL) iPhone or RIM (RIMM) Blackberry will switch to the new smartphone, so Palm will have to essentially expand the market to get share for its new device during a recession. The “Pre” will also be sold exclusively though Sprint (S), the No.3 cellular carrier in the US which has been losing subscribers consistently for more than two years. The launch of the “Pre” is a disaster in the making. Palm’s results for the quarter that ended on February 27th were awful, failing to meet Wall St’s modest expectations. Palm sold only 482,000 handsets for the period, down 42% from the same quarter the year before. Revenue dropped from $312 million to $91 million, and Palm lost $95 million. Palm brought in just over $100 million with the help of its largest shareholder, Elevation Partners, in a recent financing. The bottom line is that Palm has no chance of getting an even modest part of the smartphone market in a severe economic downturn since it competes with two of the premier technology companies in the world—Apple and RIM. Palm won’t be in business in a year.
11. AIG (AIG) may be the only large company in America that both the management and federal government want torn apart. If AIG succeeds in selling most of its divisions it will be able to repay more than $100 billion in government loans and investments. The figure may be closer to $150 billion depending on how the federal money is accounted for. Uncle Sam also owns 80% of AIG’s shares. There are two reasons that the AIG brand, once the premier insurance brand in the world, will disappear. The first is that most of the companies owned by AIG do not bear its name. AIG owns ten general insurance companies with names such as New Hampshire Insurance Company and The Hartford Steam Boiler Inspection and Insurance Company. Several of AIG’s life insurance companies do not have AIG in their titles. AIG’s most valuable financial services company is probably the aircraft leasing operation, International Lease Finance Corporation. AIG is now a “toxic” brand. Its operating groups will do their best to distance themselves from the company even while they are owned by AIG. Once they become independent of part of other companies, these operations will end whatever attachment they have had with AIG even if it means changing their names. AIG may be the one large brand in America which almost everyone would like to see disappear.
12. The travel industry has been so badly damaged by the economy that the airline industry faces substantial overcapacity. There is almost no question that two of the large US flag carriers will have to merge to avoid the bankruptcy of another American airline. United Airlines (UAUA) is among the three weakest carriers in the US. AMR (AMR) and US Air (LCC) complete the list. The stocks of all three companies are down more thank 40% so far this year as concerns mount that passenger traffic declines will accelerate as the recession gets worse. The sales loses are being partially offset by a drop in fuel prices and cuts in routes and airplanes, but the benefit of those reductions has already mostly occurred. When the economy or fuel prices are bad for a prolonged period, airlines turn to the two behaviors which have been their modes operandi in the past—mergers and bankruptcy. If the revenue problems facing the industry get worse, a stronger carrier such as Continental (CAL) is almost certain takeover one of its weakened peers. At United, total consolidated revenue passenger miles (RPMs) decreased in March. Not only are the numbers of passengers dropping, but as BusinessWeek pointed out two weeks ago, airlines are cutting ticket charges sharply because “there are relatively strong indications that bookings for the spring and summer — especially for business-class tickets — may be far softer than carriers had expected.” And, United has indicated that the quarter that just ended will not be as good as Wall St. had hoped. Avondale Partners analyst Bob McAdoo recently wrote “Despite the deepest capacity cuts in the industry, UAL expects declines in [first-quarter unit revenue] that are slightly worse than what other legacies have recently guided to.” In the fourth quarter of last year, United generated negative $989 million in operating cash flow and negative $1.1 billion of free cash flow, defined as operating cash flow less capital expenditures. United cut a deal with its largest credit card processor in terms of the cash balances it needs to maintain. The card company gets a security interest in some United aircraft in exchange. The deal extends until January of next year. United needs a way out of all this trouble. It has already been through a bankruptcy recently. A “merger” is a much more likely alternative now. As TWA learned when it was bought by AMR, the company being bought gets to keep its brand around but fairly quickly a new logo gets painted on the planes.
Source: http://247wallst.com
Black Radio a thing of the past?
May 12, 2009 by admin
Filed under Business News |
NAB Urges Congress to Oppose Record Label Bailout
WASHINGTON, DC — NAB President and CEO David Rehr urged lawmakers to oppose legislation introduced today that would force America’s hometown radio stations to pay a new “performance fee” to the recording industry for music aired free on the radio. The legislation, introduced in the House, is supported by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). A measure opposing today’s Congressional action is expected to be introduced shortly.
“Local radio broadcasters consider this fee a ‘performance tax’ that will not only harm your local radio stations, but will threaten new artists trying to break into the business as well as your constituents who rely on local radio” wrote Rehr. “Although the proponents of H.R. 848 claim this bill is about compensating artists, in actuality at least half of this fee will go directly into the pockets of the big record labels, funneling billions of dollars to companies based overseas”
Three of the four largest record label conglomerates — Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, and EMI — are internationally-based.
“Although the big record labels have seen their revenues decline over the last decade, local radio broadcasters are not the reason the recording industry is losing money, and it should not be the industry to fix it” wrote Rehr.
To read a version of Rehr’s letter to House lawmakers, click here.
State broadcast associations representing all 50 states, as well as Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia, also issued a resolution today expressing opposition to a performance tax.
On numerous occasions, both record label executives and artists have recognized the promotional value of free radio airplay. Such statements include:
“I love a strong radio hit. All of us. That’s what our job is, to have a radio hit. Without radio, we couldn’t do what we do, but the job is to have a radio hit that sounds unique, and like you”
– Jewel, Grammy-nominated recording artist, ‘Nashville Star,’ July 2008
“Alright, let’s talk about the nuts and bolts. If you win ‘Nashville Star’, you have to get on 200 major market radio stations. You have to”
– John Rich, Big and Rich, ‘Nashville Star,’ July 2008
“I have to thank… every DJ, every radio guy, every promotions guy, everybody who ever put up a poster for me and spread the word”
– Alicia Keys, recording artist and Grammy winner, 2008 Grammy Awards, February 2008
“[R]adio remains the best way to get new music into the listeners’ lives”
–Sony BMG Executive VP Butch Waugh as quoted in Radio & Records, January 11
“[R]adio is the conduit to the people, the voice of the format and the lifestyle’s soundtrack.
-Sony BMG Nashville VP of Marketing Tom Baldrica, as quoted in Radio & Records, January 11
“Obviously, radio is probably the most important thing for a new rock band coming out. If you don’t get yourself on the radio, then you won’t draw bodies at the clubs and you won’t sell records”
– ‘Another Animal’ drummer Shannon Larkin, Drum Magazine, 2008
“Country radio, thank you so much for being our mouthpiece. You know what we do means nothing if it never gets played, and no one gets to hear it”
– ‘Rascal Flatts,’ Vocal Group of the Year, Country Music Awards, 2007
“I can’t even believe that this is real… I want to thank country radio. I’ll never forget the chance you took on me”
– Taylor Swift, Horizon Award (for best new artist), Country Music Awards, 2007
“I have yet to see the big reaction you want to see to a hit until it goes on the radio. I’m a big, big fan of radio”
–Richard Palmese, Executive Vice President of Promotion, RCA, 2007
“Radio has proven itself time and time again to be the biggest vehicle to expose new music”
– Ken Lane, Senior Vice President for Promotion, Island Def Jam Music Group, 2005
“It is clearly the number one way that we’re getting our music exposed. Nothing else affects retail sales the way terrestrial radio does”
–Tom Biery, Senior Vice President for Promotion, Warner Bros. Records, 2005
“That’s the most important thing for a label, getting your records played”
– Eddie Daye, recording artist, 2003
“Radio helped me a lot. That’s the audience. I can’t see them, but I know they’re there. I can’t reach out and touch them with my hand, but I know they’re there”
– B.B. King, recording artist, 2002
“If a song’s not on the radio, it’ll never sell”
– Mark Wright, Senior Vice President, MCA Records, 2001
“Air play is king. They play the record, it sells. If they don’t, it’s dead in the water”
– Jim Mazza, President, Dreamcatcher Entertainment, 1999
“I am so grateful to radio. Their support has truly changed my life, and I hope they know how appreciative I am for that”
– Jo Dee Messina, recording artist, 1999
Source: Webwire.com
Top 10 Social Networks for Entrepreneurs
March 24, 2009 by admin
Filed under Business tech |
Looking for a job? Consider creating your own. There are a number of social resources to help you connect with other entrepreneurs and get your business ideas off the ground.
Here are the top 10 social networks for entrepreneurs. Each helps entrepreneurs succeed by providing them with the guidance, tools and resources they need to setup their company and gain exposure.
Blogging Your Way to a Successful Online Business
February 28, 2009 by admin
Filed under Business Practices, Business Tips |
Blogging began as keeping a journal, or diary, online that others could read and interact with by posting and responding to comments. The term originated as a combination of web log. Now blogs can be big business. And businesses often have their own company blogs.
Blogging is a promotional tool for your business. The blog can announce new products, post press releases, give tips and tricks, and answer customer’s questions. The blog is a personalized way of communicating with potential buyers rather than a faceless corporation. Most blogs have the
ability to allow readers to post
comments which leads to an interactive experience rather than one sided.
There are several free blog hosts, including livejournal.com, blogger.com, and wordpress.com. It’s easy to set up a blog and no limit, other than your own energy, to how many blogs you can own.
Wordpress.com can be installed on your company’s domain rather than on the wordpress site. The software is free and relatively uncomplicated to install and maintain.
Money can be earned through blogging in several ways. Blog posts can be sold to advertisers to promote their products. This is usually done through clearing houses which match the blogger with the advertiser and take part of the advertising fee as payment.
Reviews of products, movies, and books can be posted on a blog and an affiliate link included in the review. If a reader buys the product, a commission is paid on the sale.
Google Adsense can be placed on blogs. Google’s program looks at the words used in the blog and then matches those key words with relevant ads. The more relevant the ads are to the content of the blog the better. When a reader clicks on an ad you’re paid a fee by Google.
Blogs need to be updated on a regular basis. If you don’t have the time or the inclination to do it yourself, hire someone to do it for you. Or assign an employee to maintain the blog. Posts can be sent to you for approval before posting to the blog.
Blogging is a way to introduce your business, establish trust with your readers, and boost the sales of your company.
Latest Business news from the web
February 13, 2009 by admin
Filed under Business News |
Birmingham Business News - Local Birmingham News | Birmingham Business Journal: View Breaking Local News Headlines in Birmingham from the Birmingham Business Journal. Access business resources, company profiles, business advice columns, local jobs and more.
Latest financial news - CNNMoney.com: From CNN and Money magazine, CNNMoney.com combines business news and in-depth market analysis with practical advice and answers to personal finance questions.
10 Steps for Creating a Successful Business
February 10, 2009 by admin
Filed under Featured, Starting a Business |
Step 1: Create a Life Plan
Plan your life, then plan your business.
As we always say, plan your life, then plan your business.
Some of the most successful and happy people we know are entrepreneurs who created a business that’s in perfect synchronicity with what they want out of life. If you do what you love, you’ll work harder, better and more happily.
In this step we will focus on:
- Elements of your Life Plan
- Using your Life Plan
Elements of your Life Plan:
Your Current Status
Think carefully and honestly about where you are now in your life. Consider work, recreation, relationships, finances and anything else that’s important to you. And then jot down some simple, succinct bullet points in each of these categories:
- Quality rating of your life on a scale of 1 through 100, with 100 being the best possible life
- Realities of your life, including responsibilities, funds available to start a business, expenses
- Things that make you happy
- Things that make you unhappy
Your Ideal Life This is a snapshot of your “ideal” life, in a very brief, bulleted list. And remember, the sky’s the limit, so don’t be afraid of being bold or maybe even a little grandiose. Factor in things like family time, hobbies, charity work, early retirement – anything that gets you really excited.
Your Loves: What You Really Like Doing
Think about the types of things that you love to do, whether at work, at home, or at your local soup kitchen. List these things out briefly. And don’t worry if some themes are starting to repeat in each section, that just means you have some really focused ideas about what you want in life!
Your Skills & Capabilities: What You Do Well
List the abilities, experience and strengths you can build on to attain that ideal life.
Bear in mind that your skills need not be strictly from your professional life – list skills developed in your personal life as well. It may be a combination of skills that leads you to a startup that’s best suited to fit your needs.
Your Track Record: What You Have Experience Doing
List those accomplishments in your professional and personal life of which you’re most proud. Pay particular attention to successes you’ve had that would be helpful in starting a business and managing it successfully.
Your Ideal Work Style: Whether full-time or part-time, at-home or on the road, working behind the scenes or interacting with lots of people — understand what your work style priorities are so you can define the best kind of business for you.
Another way to look at this is, what level of risk do you want to take? You may want a relatively low-pressure first-go at entrepreneurship.
Your Manifesto: This is your personal mission, your values and what drives you forward, all wrapped up into a one-page (maximum) statement. To write this, you should draw on everything you’ve already discovered about yourself in steps 1 through 6, and bring it all together into a clear statement of your principles and priorities.
Our example manifesto
Work as Freedom: We think work is about pursuing our dreams, not for the benefit of some nameless, faceless company, but for ourselves. We believe that owning our own business leads to the liberties and freedoms that the forefathers of our country envisioned for us. We’re free to choose the kind of business we conduct. We’re free to choose the way we spend our time. We’re free to choose the people with whom we work. We’re free to set our priorities. Work as Family: We’ve tried to create a workplace environment where employees feel like they’re actually members of a greater family. There’s a sense of common purpose, mutual respect, and deep trust. Everyone should feel important and as though they’re a meaningful member of the collective effort. It’s an environment that empowers people to share in the hard work—and in the benefits. Work as Fulfillment: We’ve made it a priority to ensure that our work gives us a sense of satisfaction. When we wake up in the morning, we can’t wait to get on the phone, get online, and get our team in gear. The work we do is truly the work we love. For us there’s nothing that turns us on more than facing a challenge and transforming it into an opportunity. There’s nothing more thrilling than seeing a customer use our product. There’s nothing more gratifying than helping someone else turn a dream into a real business. And over time, we’ve found that our fulfillment comes as much from the process of trying to achieve our goals as it does from actually achieving them.
Key Moves to Get You Where You Want to Go
These are simple strategic action items you must develop in order to transform your Life Plan from a self-assessment into an action plan. At this point in life planning, you know where you want to go, what skills you already have, as well as what type of work suits you best. Draw from that information a list of moves you’ll need to make to achieve your ideal life.
It’s very important to print your Life Plan and keep it in plain view. You’ll find that its presence—even in your peripheral vision—will constantly remind you of what you want, what’s important, and what to do next.
Ideally, you should also revisit your Life Plan periodically to measure your success and to make adjustments and additions where appropriate. It’s okay if things change over time—life is a fluid and dynamic thing and your Life Plan should be, too!
Use your Life Plan to provide context for strategic decisions you make—including what niche you choose to operate in, what business model you’ll use, whether you’ll have lots of employees or a home-based, one person operation.
Most importantly, your Life Plan will position you to do what you LOVE and that always brings out the best in an entrepreneur.
10 Steps to Excellent Customer Service
February 10, 2009 by admin
Filed under Business Practices, Business Tips, Featured |
We’ve been hearing for years that the United States is becoming a service economy. If that’s true, and our success (or failure) hinges on the way we deliver customer service, why are so many companies so bad at it? You see it in so many companies that deliver services that it no longer is surprising when it happens. We’ve become so used to it that it doesn’t even faze us any more.
The Importance of Customer Service in Today’s Marketplace
February 10, 2009 by admin
Filed under Business Practices, Business Tips |
source: associatedcontent.com
Most anyone will agree that customer service is one of the most important parts of your company’s overall strategy to conducting business. Without customers you really don’t have a business. If this is the case, why is it mostly everyone as consumers can easily cite examples of poor customer service in their daily lives? I believe every company either has or thinks it has good customer service. However, if certain steps are not taken to ensure this, the reality of their situation is often far worse than their current perceptions.
Learn to Twitter if you want to stay connected
February 10, 2009 by admin
Filed under Business tech, Featured |
As a chief inspiration officer for San Antonio’s Sales by 5, Nan Palmero is a technology power user. So when he flipped open his Dell laptop last week and saw vertical lines, he shifted into uber-geek mode. He tracked down a YouTube video that displayed the exact problem and called a Dell support technician. “I wanted to email him the video so he could troubleshoot quickly,” Palmero says.
The specialist couldn’t accept an e-mail and, instead, started to submit Palmero’s request into that black hole, otherwise known as the repair request process. Annoyed, Palmero sent out a Tweet on social networking channel Twitter.com
“Dear Dell, I could show your support team EXACTLY what’s wrong with my XPS M1330 if they had youtube access. Apparently, it is a common prob,” Palmero tweeted.
Immediately, Palmero got a response: “@nanpalmero What’s going on with your Dell XPS? Is there something I can assist with?”
Ten minutes later, a technician fixed Palmero’s issue and one of Dell’s Twitter team followed up to ensure his satisfaction.
Palmero’s experience hardly is an anomaly. Corporations all over the world are responding to customer service issues with staff that monitors channels like Twitter and Facebook. It is another avenue to preserve their company’s image and promote their brands.
Receiving excellent and immediate customer service is only one reason to Twitter. Getting familiar with a medium that is taking the world by storm is another.
Trust me, I understand how uncomfortable this makes you. I already struggle to answer my workday e-mails and exigent text messages from one of my four kids: “R u making dinner??” Now, I’m supposed to track hundreds of alternately witty and mundane Tweets? “I just don’t get it. And, for that matter, who cares?” is the collective response from many first-time Twitter users.
Tim Walker, an Austin-based editor and blogger for Hoover’s, says we should care. In a presentation that hit the audience over the head with a Web 2.0 two-by-four, Walker posed the question: “How new are the social media?” His answer: Not new at all. In fact, Walker argues that one of history’s first Tweeters was the late theologian Martin Luther, who died in 1546, a full four and a half centuries before Twitter became a phenomenon. When Luther nailed a copy of the “95 Theses” to the door of a church and the message was printed, copied and distributed like wildfire, he was using a form of social media, Walker says.
Twitter, today, is no different from the earliest letters, telegraph messages, and e-mails. Historically, people always have pressed for new ways to connect and communicate faster, and especially on channels that fly under the radar of the mainstream. Twitter is to computer users what CB radio has been to truckers and lighthouses have been to ship captains.
“Twitter is an easy way to interact with your community,” says Jennifer Navarrete, one of the founders of Social Media Club San Antonio and a social media consultant. “If you are a business, people are talking about you — good or bad and if you’re not participating in that conversation, you’re not promoting or problem solving. Likewise, if they’re not talking about you at all, then they should be.”
If you’re ready to take the leap, here are some steps you to get you started:
• Look up www.commoncraft.com (at the recommendation of Palmero) to watch How-To Twitter videos, which are simple step-by-step explanations using stick figures.
• Go to www.twitter.com and sign up for an account. It’s free. For your settings, make sure you click “See all @ replies” so you can view responses.
• Download a Twitter application to your iPhone or BlackBerry.
• Jennifer Navarrete (@epodcaster) offers up this starter pack of people to follow in San Antonio: @alanweinkrantz, @kr8ter, @calamityjen, @Pandaran, @doing media.
• On the national scene try: @chrisbrogan, @Twalk, @nanpalmero, @BryanPerson and a few I find interesting: @taxgirl, @incspring, @johnlithgow and @iamneurotic.
• Check out tools like Twittersearch, geotweet, and Twittergrader to find out who is Tweeting locally and what they’re chirping about. Use the Tweetdeck to organize your followers into groups like: work, family and current issues.
Hoover’s Walker likens Twitter to a cocktail party, and, indeed, the awkwardness of walking into the virtual lounge is palpable. It’s noisy in there. In one corner, advertising and marketing gurus are jockeying for position by throwing up posts about new Twitter tools. In another corner firms are announcing new products. In between, artists, parents, and animal lovers are getting chummy over life issues and popular movies. There are online snobs who liken novices to “Twitter Tots” and grimace at Twitter blunders through emoticons. Users need to find their own groove.
Like any human interaction, the beauty lies in the serendipitous connections. A business contact hooks you up with a cheaper, more efficient product. A like-minded parent eases your worries. A company representative is so warm and funny that you reconsider your opinion of that giant firm. Or, you simply make a new friend. Twitter is a human knowledge database standing, ready and waiting on your front lawn 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It’s an interactive encyclopedia and global support system on steroids.
Marc Warnke, an Idaho-based author and speaker on social media (@marcwarnke), says this: “It’s critical to understand that Twitter can be a business tool, but if you come to the table with only your business in mind, you will never be set a place to eat,” he writes in his blog. “If someone jumped up on a table and yelled his or her pitch (at a cocktail party), it would be very inappropriate… walk lightly around self promotion. Be helpful, funny and that person who people want to hang around with.”
For your professional life, Navarrete says consider Twitter a virtual Chamber of Commerce mixer or industry networking seminar. “You only go to those once a month, and if you miss it, you miss out on a great chance to meet new people and make new connections,” she says. “This is a 24/7 networking opportunity, it’s free, and it allows you to get to know people before you meet in person. I can’t tell you how many people I’ve met via Twitter and by the time I meet them in person, we’re hugging like long lost friends.”
Last month, Navarrete and colleagues kicked off the first ever San Antonio Social Media Breakfast (http://sanantonio.socialmediaclub.org). San Antonio is the 15th city in the country to form this type of breakfast group where marketers, educators, business owners get together to learn something new about social media and share information. I’ll be there. Look me up @writeontime, and we’ll plod along on this journey together. Not interested. Don’t worry. That crazy new thing called Internet e-mail? It was just a passing fad.
source: San Antonio Business Journal - by Donna J. Tuttle