Posts with tag "business"

Loren Feldman hits the proverbial nail on the head

Category: Technology
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Posted 1178 days ago

Loren may not be the most popular person in some circles but I like the man even if he does come off as brash and loudmouthed. He consistently pokes a very sharp stick in the underbelly of the hype that surrounds Social Media.

In a post/video on Friday Loren takes aim at one of the core facets of the whole movement about how brands and communicating with the masses will save your company. It appears it was sparked by the same post by Steve Rubel that got me going the other day as well.

Here’s the simple rule: if your product sucks or your brand is nothing but talk there is nothing that is going to save your company.

Take away point: Companies don’t give a damn about you or me past the dollars we spend on their products. The couldn’t careless if they are our friend or not. In fact being friends is nothing but a headache.

But here’s Loren who says it much better.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIZzu3hsLXc

No amount of social media will save ‘bad’ companies

Category: Uncategorized
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3 comments
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Posted 1344 days ago

The current mantra in business, being led into battle by newly minted social media experts, is to get on the social media bandwagon as quickly as possible. Get on Twitter, get a Facebook page, it doesn’t matter if you have a clue how to use them just get on them. The idea being that the sooner you can start talking with your current, and potential, consumer base the better.

For companies that already have a record of being responsive to customers this whole social media exercise is only a natural extension of something they are already doing. Companies however that treat customers like they are idiots or are just a necessary evil of making money no social media action is going to save your ass.

Mia at Marketing Mystic puts it this way

Over the years, I’ve been asked many times by business owners, marketers, product managers whether they should use social media and here’s the brutal truth for everyone who’s still grappling with the same question: When your product doesn’t work and your customer support sucks, no amount of “tweeting” is going to save your business. Period.

She goes on to add that if you have shitty customer service no-one is going to give a damn about your Facebook page. Using AT&T as an example she says

AT&T is a great example of a company who uses Twitter to spew uni-directional messages instead of engaging unhappy customers because there are so many of them. In such case, I am baffled as to why bother having social media presence at all? All you’re doing is giving your unhappy customer base another avenue to vent but not really solving the fundamental problem.

So here’s a hint – you want to be able to be successful using social media as an extension of how you interact with your customers you need to fix your company first. If you don’t no amount of money poured into social media initiatives or any number of so-called social media experts your company hires is going to safe you from failure.

Time for a little Business 101

Category: Technology
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2 comments
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Posted 1542 days ago

Earlier this morning I wrote a post wondering just what it was that the consumer was winning as we rush through this increasingly demanding social media world that is occupying us and our time. It was an after a fashion questioning rebuttal of a prior post by Louis Gray and he was good enough to leave a comment that tried to address my questions. At the same time though he also raised another issue with which I have a really hard time reconciling with the real world – in contrast to the electronic one.

The point that he was trying to make is the same one that I see being echoed all over the place in light of Facebook’s recent understanding of why there was a backlash to the changes they had made to their terms of service. This is what Louis said in the comment

Regarding Facebook’s walled garden strategy, which you mentioned, comments from the panel suggested more data will be allowed to flow out. Steve Gillmor positioned FriendFeed as open and Facebook as a walled garden, and the ensuing conversation made it sound like Facebook was going to continue opening up.

What I would say in response is just because that Facebook; and other services in the social media sphere, say that they are open and transparent it doesn’t mean that some very basic business fundamentals have changed – or will change no matter the proclamations of warm and fuzzy openness.

Object of having a business

Number one rule for the creation of any business is to make money. Even if you are giving something away for nothing at some point the company has to make money. To do this you need two ingredients – product and consumers that want that product. Sure you can be good buddies with the company next door. Hell you can even share customer information so that the prime beneficiary is the consumer base that you both lust for but at some point you are going to have to try and do something to increase your consumer base; after all it is about the money.

Raiding the pantry

So there comes a time where you have to start looking around to see what you can do to get your consumers to spend more money at your business. You see that one of your competitors has a really nifty idea that your consumers go there to use or buy so you look at how you can do the same. As much as you might like your competitor and as friendly as you might be you want their consumers to spend more of the money with your business.

So you have a choice – see if they are willing to sell to you or copy what they are doing. There are arguments for either strategy but the end result is the same – you want to increase your consumer base at their expense.

How does openness, transparency and data portability play into this?

It doesn’t.

Sure it makes for a great smoke screen and helps flip the gullible into being advocates for your business but in the end it is all about making money, gaining new consumers from where ever you can and then keeping them coming back to your company all the time. You don’t make money when they go and visit your competitor.

Facebook, FriendFeed, Twitter and any number of the other services in the social media sphere can talk all the data portability they want. They could have glass walls around their gardens and easy spinning turnstiles at the doors to those gardens but it doesn’t change the fact that they are still walls and those turnstiles will still spin you back into the gardens.

Business is business and it’s all about making money

Just because you are open and transparent doesn’t mean you aren’t there to make money. Just because you mouth all the nice warm and fuzzy buzzwords at conferences doesn’t change the fact that you will do anything to make sure your business comes out the winner.

If this wasn’t the case then Facebook and all the others would be run as non-profits with great big donation buttons on their pages. Openness has nothing to do with trying to get as much of the customer base as is possible and then keep them – even if it means making yourself appear to be doing something that you really had no intention of doing – or wanting to do.

It is just another gimmick in a bag with lots of other gimmicks.

Remember it is all about making money and anyone who doesn’t thinks so – well here’s some sugar cubes and a copy of Jimi Hendrick’s All Along the Watchtower … have a blast.

It’s Microsoft So It Must Be Dumb And Smack Of Desperation

Category: Technology
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4 comments
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Posted 1692 days ago

I don’t get it – really I don’t

Why is it everyone seems to get their panties in a bunch when Microsoft decides that it wants to use exactly the same kind of promotional ideas that many other companies do online; or just about every company in the real world uses. The latest action by the company that has got all the pundits in a let’s slap Microsoft around mode is the announcement that they are testing out an new Live Search promotion campaign.

It doesn’t matter where you turn in our real world but at some point point in your day you are going to have some company offer you a special promotion for their product or service. Whether it be a cashback deal on a vehicle, a percentage off coupon for the price of shampoo or air miles to some vacation spot these normal business practices come at us a mile a minute. Yet when Microsoft offers the same thing we get things like

If you can’t beat ’em, pay ‘em off. – Mary Jo Foley

or this from TechCrunch

So will SearchPerks be any different? It’s too early to tell. But begging people to use your search engine certainly doesn’t send the right signals to those who may be considering it.

then we have JR from The Inquisitr chiming in with

The move reeks even more of desperation than the company’s CashBack deal back in May.
[..]
Microsoft’s already on its knees and begging.

and finally from Paul Glazowski we get this gem of business acumen

It smells of soft desperation, of Microsoft throwing its hands in the air and subsequently throwing things against the wall to see what sticks. Which isn’t a healthy impression to make at this point in the game.

Oh wait …. I get it. It’s Microsoft doing this and since they are number three in the search game anything they do; including accepted business promotional ideas, must be regulated to the dumb idea pile. Because it’s Microsoft who is trying to gain ground in the search business this idea must show how absolutely devoid of any business sense they are.

It doesn’t matter if the plan works or not – that isn’t the point here. What is the point is that people seem to think that just because it has to do with search there is a whole new set of business rules that need to be used. Bullshit – business is business whether it is online or offline. If the idea is that there is some sort of purity that is associated with the search business well I hate to break it to you but that idea went out the window with the first time AdSense was added to search results.

This recent test campaign by Microsoft will succeed or it will fail – which I am betting it will – by it’s own merits but that doesn’t make it stupid, desperate or leave an unhealthy impression. If that was the case then every coupon you use or every air mile you case in is just as stupid or desperate.

You can’t have it both ways.

Web 2.0 best intentions don’t make money

Category: Technology
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Posted 2231 days ago

Whaaaa .. you mean we need to make money? Stan Schroeder over at franticindustries has nailed one of the key problems with Web 2.0 with one of the best assessments I had read so far. In his post Stan looks at the current situation with Web 2.0 from the most important standard of success – corporate acceptance

Corporations, contrary to what they would like you to believe, care about one thing only: money. It’s obvious what it means to the concept of sharing: amassing money and sharing don’t mix well.

But I’d even go so far that corporations don’t have a problem with sharing per se; they have a problem with everything which is not related to making them more money. And this will cause significant problems when it comes to some of the underlying features of the Web 2.0 phenomenon: mashups and sharing.

Most Web 2.0 businesses start out with the best of intentions and most of the time without a business model that includes making money. They have taken on the open source ethos and leave the money making as an after thought just incase they hit the mark and become successful gaining critical user mass.

This creates a problem for any corporations that see the potential; or want the technology, because they have shareholders who want to see a return on their investments. So buying a Web 2.0 start-up that exists only because of VC money makes a hard sell for one simple reason – where’s the money?

Corporations aren’t in the business of social consciousness or playing footsie with warm and fuzzy ethos. They are in the business of making money – the rest is just the cost of doing business; and a way to keep both government regulators and do-gooders happy – not to mention away from the corporate books. So while business modeless Web 2.0 start-ups gain the temporary hearts of the web traveler they hope to gain the attention of the corporate deep pockets to buy them out of nichedom or failure.

Stan says it best

How will this pan out in the end, it’s hard to say. But the attitude of big corporations towards Web 2.0 services and their users has to change. And now, for the obligatory rhetorical question: how often do you see attitudes of big corporations change, if they’re not directly connected with making more money? That’s right: bloody never.

And given corporate track records I don’t think it will ever change which means all these start-up are going to have to start thinking like real businesses or find themselves being last weeks fad.

Are they serious?

Category: Technology
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Posted 2400 days ago

Ethics of Web 2.0 …

Is this for real? … I’m beginning to think that all these folks creating free commercialized sites based on a quick and dirty codebase have way too much time on their hands; must be waiting for the Google call.

These are suppose to be business venture; regardless of the fact that 99% of them have no business model, and since when has business every really had any ethics. Just because you slap a 2.0 on a catch phrase doesn’t suddenly mean you’ve joined the angels heralding a new world.

Fake sharing … True Sharing come on … are you guys even living in a real world anymore. Nicolas Carr put it best:

They fooled themselves into believing that Web 2.0 was introducing a new economic system – a system of “social production” – that would serve as the foundation of a democratic, utopian model of culture creation. They were wrong. Web 2.0′s economic system has turned out to be, in effect if not intent, a system of exploitation rather than a system of emancipation. By putting the means of production into the hands of the masses but withholding from those same masses any ownership over the product of their work, Web 2.0 provides an incredibly efficient mechanism to harvest the economic value of the free labor provided by the very, very many and concentrate it into the hands of the very, very few.

The web stopped being a true sharing environment the day the the Internet took over for ARPNET; and from that point on it has been a constant evolution of making more and more money with the least amount of cost possible.

Stuff like this is nothing more than light headed philosophizing to keep all the Google dreaming coders happy in the trenches and entrenching the idea that free stuff is the greatest motivator for progress that mankind has seen.

Gimme a break…..