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Seeking Guest Designers and Guest Programmers

I’ve been enjoying being a guest blogger for a couple of years now. I don’t do it that often, but just recently joined Dan Schawbel’s Personal Branding blog as a contributing writer, and have written for Doug Karr’sMarketing Tech blog a couple of times. (I even started my career as a writer by writing a guest column for my friend Joel in our college newspaper.)

Really old computer about the size of a pipe organ with people or sitting or standing around it.
Can you work a computer? Then, oh boy, have we got an opportunity for you?!

In fact, I like the guest blogger program so much, I think we’re going to take it that next logical step forward, and invite people to be guest web designers and guest programmers for our Professional Blog Service website.

Think about it. As a guest blogger, I get to write a weekly blog post about whatever topic I want, as long as it falls within the editorial direction and guidelines of the host blog. People see my name, I get some backlinks to my own site, and I get to promote my own efforts, like my own personal branding book, Branding Yourself (affiliate link).

Our guest designers and guest programmers will get to feature their own work on our blog, where it can be seen by all of our visitors, who will ‘ooh’ and ‘aah’ appropriately, marveling at the cleverness of your work and your skill. You’ll get viewers and consumers of your work, which could lead to some exciting new opportunities for you! Plus, we’ll create a backlink to your website on one of our blog posts. (Maybe the one about social media strategies for soil conservationists.)

While you are free to create or design anything, our goal is to specifically find guest providers who can:

  • Help us get the Agency theme working on the Genesis framework.
  • Write a WordPress plugin that will properly sync my speaking calendar to a sidebar Google calendar. (I can’t get any of the other ones to do it the way I want.)
  • Write a cool mobile app that lists all independent coffee shops in U.S. Sort of like the Starbucks app, but for indie shops. (Android only; you can create an iPhone version for yourself later.)

You know, simple stuff. However, unlike guest bloggers who don’t get anything, guest designers and programmers will get, I don’t know, a pound of coffee or a case of Mountain Dew. You guys like that caffeinated stuff, right?

So, if you’re as excited about this amazing opportunity as I am (if that’s possible), please leave us a comment and let us know what you would like to contribute.

The preceding was meant to be a feeble stab at humor, and not an actual call for designers or programmers. It’s also not a veiled slam against guest blogging, which I think is very valuable for bloggers. I was just in a weird mood this morning.

My book, Branding Yourself: How to Use Social Media to Invent or Reinvent Yourself (affiliate link), is available on Amazon.com, as well as at Barnes & Noble and Borders bookstores. I wrote it with my good friend, Kyle Lacy.

Photo credit: National Museum of American History (Flickr)

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Three Secrets to Make Your Video Go Viral – A Warning to Corporations

I’ve been digging into a lot of social media case studies lately, especially those that involve a little guy going up against a large corporation and winning the battle of public sentiment. A lot of these studies involve videos, and I think I’ve figured out the secrets to why they’re going viral, and why large companies need to watch out for these situations.

One of the most memorable videos is Dave Carroll’s “United Breaks Guitars,” which he released after United Airlines mishandled his $3,000 Taylor guitar. Carroll released a song and video about his efforts in filing a claim against United and all the hoops he jumped through for a year before anyone would even listen to him.

Ten million views and three videos later, Dave not only got his satisfaction from United, but Taylor guitars gave him two new guitars. His efforts also netted enough negative press against United to give an entire PR department heart failure.

Other videos have had similar success getting the attention of the corporate giants, and getting them to take notice and fix their problem. The same is true with blogs, tweets, and other times people have gotten punked by . And I’ve identified a few things they have in common.

    • Viral videos are not straightforward rants. There needs to be an unusual hook, or something that makes it different/better than someone staring at the camera and talking about their complaint or issue. That’s why videos that involve music or acting gain a lot more traction than that talking head video you wanted to do.
    • Viral videos include something humorous. Dave Carroll’s video was musical and funny. Other complaint videos are also funny, or have a humorous element to them. People love to be entertained, and anything that’s humorous will gain more attention than something that’s serious. (Of course, this doesn’t work about serious issues — just ask Groupon — so choose your humor carefully. And if you have to resort to humor that is guaranteed to offend part of your audience, don’t use it. You don’t want your audience hating you.)
    • Viral complaint videos are always about David going up against Goliath. This is the big secret. I have yet to see a viral complaint video about two Davids fighting it out, or two Goliaths duking it out. It’s always the little guy going up against the big guy. Whether it’s Dave Carroll (a real David) fighting against the uncaring, careless United Airlines, or Dooce complaining about her Maytag (not a video, but a great example of the little guy fighting the big guy), people always cheer for the little guy. If there’s any indication that the big guy is screwing someone, we’ll watch the video, read the blog post, and retweet the tweet in order to help get the word out about the “epic struggle.”

This last point is what corporations need to beware of. All it takes is one irate customer with some creativity and a Flip camera to make your PR people sweat blood trying to overcome the tens of thousands of views of that video and subsequent complaints, plus any negative press that came about from their video. Dave Carroll’s epic struggle was picked up by the global press, making sure the United name got plenty of mentions in the press.

Even for companies who don’t want to be on social media, they need to at least have a presence so they can monitor customer complaints. They shouldn’t be caught off guard by videos, because they’re already behind the 8-ball when it comes to social media. The little guy is ready to complain about the big guy, and everyone else is ready to support them and carry their torch for them.

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I Love My Square: Why Verifone Acted Shamefully

A couple of months ago, I was introduced to the Square credit card app for iPhone and Android, and immediately started using it to sell copies of my book, Branding Yourself.

It’s been a real life saver. There have been a number of times I’ve been at a seminar or talk, and someone wanted to buy the book, but didn’t have the cash. For a 2.75% fee (collected from my price, not added to the customer’s), I was able to accept that person’s credit card just by swiping it on the free card reader from @Square.

I’ve been meaning to write this post for some time now, but felt the urgency after the manner in which Verifone shamefully attacked Square’s security.

Verifone, a competitor of Square’s, called the security of Square’s credit card reader and encryption into question. They did it by writing an app that would allow people to steal someone’s credit card information — assuming you handed your credit card to someone you didn’t know and they had this app.

Verifone wrote the app, published an open letter to Square and its users, calling on the company to recall the reader, and then sent a copy of the hack app to the four major credit cards. They also sent the app to JP Morgan Chase, Square’s credit card processor, in an attempt to cripple Square’s business. Oh, and they also made a copy of the app available for any thief who steals a credit card, thus enabling thieves everywhere to take full advantage of the flaw they pointed out. And they very helpfully uploaded a YouTube video that showed thieves how they can use the app to steal from people. (You can read all of this at sq-skim.com. I’m not linking to it, because they don’t deserve the SEO juice.)

Android has an unencrypted camera that can be used to steal photos of credit card numbers.

(I’m reminded of the record companies who argued that Napster and other peer-to-peer networks enabled people to steal music. They sued the bejeezus out of Napster and got them shut down. Can Square do the same thing to Verifone now?)

Verifone’s actions are some of the slimiest I have seen in the business world in years. This is typical of the behavior I would expect from Karl Rove during an election, or some guy telling me he’s the son of a deposed Nigerian prince, not a business that wants me to trust them with my money. Maybe I’m naive, but I tend to see the good in everyone until proved otherwise. Verifone just proved otherwise.

From Verifone’s open letter: (B)ecause anyone can get their hands on these Square readers, anyone can masquerade as a legitimate business or vendor and swipe your payment card. Your card data is then instantly and illegally captured in the smartphone, un-encrypted – and voila, you’re a fraud victim.

Consumers who hand over their plastic to merchants using Square devices are unwittingly putting themselves in danger.

Do you know what else is unsecure about credit card transactions? Everything. Verifone isn’t pointing out anything new.

Here are some other ways you could steal someone’s credit card numbers.

  • Take a photo of it with your cell phone camera.
  • Memorize it.
  • Write it down.
  • Steal someone’s wallet.
  • Trick someone into handing it to you.

Credit cards are unsecure. Hell, your data isn’t even encrypted on that magnetic strip, so it’s not like Square’s reader is even a problem. Any thief with a pen and a scrap of paper is a security threat.

Here’s the thing: If you’re worried about someone stealing your credit card number with a Square app, don’t hand your credit card to people you don’t know or trust. The same is true if a business uses a Verifone credit card system. This also includes waiters and waittresses who work in restaurants that already use Verifone’s credit card processing, store clerks that already use Verifone’s credit card processing, or calling catalog 800 numbers that use Verifone’s credit card processing. All of these places can have people who steal your credit card information with one of the methods I just listed, despite Verifone’s secure encryption.

Sharpie makes an unencrypted pen that can be used to write stolen credit card numbers on a piece of paper THAT YOU CAN BUY ANYWHERE!

The “problem” Verifone pointed out lies more in the fact that people could trick you, not because Square’s reader — or your credit card — is not encrypted. You run the same danger of being ripped off by a thief who gets a job as a waiter or by having your wallet or purse stolen. Yet Verifone doesn’t tell you that. No, they only attack a company who’s a serious threat to their profit margins.

What Verifone did is shameful, sleazy, and unethical. I decided a long time ago that I would never do business by bashing the competition. It didn’t matter whether they had horrible products or were nasty, immoral people. I would make comparisons between products, but I would never denigrate or embarrass a competitor. And I certainly wouldn’t do it in so grandiose and public a manner.

If Verifone can call on Square to recall their reader, then I’m calling on Verifone to remove their theft-enabling app and video showing people how to steal. I also think if people have their credit card information stolen by a Verifone app, they should sue Verifone immediately, forcing them to make restitution to the victims.

While I believe that every consumer has a right to credit card security and safety, and that Square should solve this problem (if it is indeed their problem, and not the credit card issuers who send out unencrypted credit cards), I think Verifone did more to harm their reputation than they did to hurt Square’s. That, and they just made it easier for thieves to steal. So, you know, thanks for that.

Square can fix a security flaw, but no amount of coding can unsleaze Verifone. I can guarantee that my company will never become a Verifone customer. I simply can’t trust them.

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Five Rules to Getting Good Customer Service on Social Media

Social media has made customer service more important and easier since the advent of the 800 number.

We tell people, and our companies, what makes us happy and what makes us upset. We tell others they need to support or avoid companies that have pleased or displeased us. And if we’re lucky, the companies will pay attention to us, and solve our problems for us.

But depending on what you complain about and how you do it, you may have better success with some techniques than others. Here are five rules for getting good customer service on social media.

1. Don’t Be Passive-Aggressive

Social media has made it possible for the passive-aggressive among us to air our grievances to all of our friends without actually confronting any issues. You see them on Facebook, Twitter, and other anywhere else we can share our innermost thoughts and accomplishments with our friends:

Claire: I wish some people would quit leaving the toilet seat up.
David: Jeez, I said I was sorry.
Gayle likes this.
Gayle: Good for you, Claire. Make whoever it is PAY!”
David: You know, I can see you both across the table.

Customers who complain about a company need to be specific, factual, and shouldn’t play the hapless victim seeking sympathy. If you don’t like something, say so outright. Also, sticking the #fail hashtag on a complaint tweet just makes you look like a petty drama queen.

Wish someone at @burgerking hadn’t only put one piece of cheese on my Double Whopper. Learn to count. #fail #MyDayIsRuined

2. Don’t Be a Jackass

The funniest thing I heard Scott Stratten say at his Social Media Club Chicago talk was, “I’m not the jackass whisperer. I don’t have time to deal with jackasses.” If you’re a jackass to the company you’re dissatisfied with, don’t be surprised if they don’t help you. Calling someone names or insulting them because you’re not happy will only make them mad, and wreck what might have been a valid complaint. If they do help, it’s because they’re committed to customer service, not because your jackassery is actually effective.

3. Don’t Say Anything You’re Not Willing to Say to Someone’s Face

If you’re a jackass online, how willing are you to be a jackass to someone’s face, especially when they’re not the person who aggrieved you? And if you’re the passive-aggressive type, are you willing to make a cutting comment at the same time you make eye contact with someone?

What makes me laugh is to see is when someone complains about a company on Twitter, and the company responds, the person quickly backtracks and tries to soften what they previously said. It’s an understandable vent. They’re upset, they’re frustrated, and so they reached for their mobile phone, and told the world why, but didn’t realize the company was paying attention to them. When the company responds, they backpedal on their complaint, embarrassed at their outburst, and more than a little humbled. And yes, I’ve done this. It’s embarrassing.

Many years ago, when I was in grad school, I was on the receiving end of this. I had stepped onto an elevator and hit the button for my floor. The doors closed just as a woman ran up. I couldn’t hit the Open Door button in time to keep them from closing all the way.

“A-hole!” she shouted as the doors shut in her face. (She didn’t actually say “a-hole,” she said the whole word.)

However, it turns out I did hit the button in time so the elevator didn’t leave. The doors slid open again, bringing her face to face with the guy she had just called a name.

“Oh jeez, I’m so sorry,” she stammered. “I was just annoyed about the doors.”

“Don’t worry about it. I won’t make you ride with an a-hole,” I said, and hit the Close Door button.

Here’s the rule. Don’t shout something on Twitter or Facebook that you have to stammer an apology for when you meet that person.

4. Send Out Thank You Messages After Your Complaint Is Resolved

After you’ve been helped, write a blog post, or post a video or some photos about you being happy with your new or replacement item. Turn the company’s effort into a win for them. Give them something to be happy about. Customer service people spend 8 hours a day being our whipping posts, so show them — as publicly as possible — that you’re thankful.

There’s an old management adage that says “reprimand in private, praise in public.” That works here too. If you have a customer service gripe, it’s nice to keep it private. Just between you and the company. But definitely make your praises public. Let everyone know why you’re pleased.

If you do launch a complaint in public, it is absolutely not right to only thank them with a personal email. You made sure everyone knows about the company’s failure, so you need to make sure everyone knows about their success too.

5. Praise a Company Before You Have a Need to Complain

There are some companies that just rock your world. You love their products, you “like” their Facebook page, and you tell all your friends about them. Become a super fan and praise them on your blog, Twitter, and Facebook. Become their evangelist before you ever lodge your first complaint.

If they’re on social media, connect with them there too. Become someone who will help them out when they need it. Then, when you have a complaint, not only do you have one or two people you can complain to directly, they’ll take you seriously, because they know how much you already love them.

As clichéd as it is, the old saying, “you catch more flies with honey than you can with vinegar” applies here. If you’re unhappy with a company, by all means, complain. It’s your right as a customer. But if you do it the right way, you’re more likely to get what you want than if you whine and gripe about their incompetence and #failures.

My book, Branding Yourself: How to Use Social Media to Invent or Reinvent Yourself (affiliate link), is available on Amazon.com, as well as at Barnes & Noble and Borders bookstores. I wrote it with my good friend, Kyle Lacy.

Photo credit: kandyjaxx

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How Social Media Veterans Succeed Where Others Fail

Lately I’ve been writing and talking about the importance of businesses working with or hiring social media veterans instead of social media rookies to manage their social media campaigns. I’ve talked about why social media is not an entry level position, and why it’s important for companies to hire people with several years of work experience to manage their entire social media campaign.

The State of Social Media for Business 2010

Last November, SmartBlog on Social Media released a report called “The State of Social Media for Business,” asking whether social media veterans or rookies — companies that have been using social media for several years compared to a few months — are doing a better job of social media.

While the report is about companies that use social media, not individuals, the same ideas apply to people — especially those who have used it for a few years for clients — versus the people who have only used it for a few months, but think their 100 hours playing Farmville and leaving cookie haikus on the Oreo Facebook page somehow qualifies them to be a social media consultant.

For their report, SmartBlog surveyed readers from a variety of industries and companies, and editor Jesse Stanchak pulled some of the best results from the report. (Disclosure: Yesterday, SmartBlog published my article about six social media tools to monitor your personal brand, and Jesse was my editor on the piece.)

SmartBlog found that companies with more than three years of social media experience — compared to companies with less than six months — are more likely to:

  • Say they have a fully developed or well-developed social-media strategy (65.7% of veterans compared with 13% of rookies)
  • Measure the return on investment of their social-media efforts (36.1% of veterans compared with 9.6% of rookies)
  • Say they would not be able to operate without a strong presence in social media (27.9% of veterans compared with 3.6% of rookies)

(It’s this last sin — operating without a strong presence in social media — that many marketing agencies and PR firms commit when they offer social media services to their clients without practicing it themselves. They claim they can manage clients’ social media campaigns, but have 300 Twitter followers and still run their entire website on Flash, which can’t be indexed by search engines.)

Stanchak attributes these differences in veterans’ performance to five key areas, veterans invest more in social media, have support from their leadership, diversify their tools, and use social media for more than just marketing.

But it’s the fifth point that really caught my eye: Veterans are more likely to listen.

Stanchak said that while both groups are almost as likely to use social media to put out news releases and maintain fan pages, it’s the veterans who are more likely to listen, experiment, and measure. (Stanchak didn’t say measure; I threw that one in myself. But he would have, because he’s smart that way.)

Social media veterans will listen to their networks, their customers, and their colleagues in the industry. They’ll experiment with new tools and new campaigns. Then they’ll measure the results, and make the necessary adjustments and measure again. They’ll make sure it’s the right thing to do, and they’ll use it the right way.

The problem most social media veterans face is the influx of rookies who read a book on social media and get hired by companies who believe social media is for young people.

While I don’t have a problem with social media rookies — after all, everyone has to start somewhere. We were even rookies once — my concern is that too many companies accept their advice. Then, when things go wrong, the companies blame social media and say it was a mistake to ever get started, while the rookie walks away from the problem and finds a new client or employer.

On the other hand, the smart rookie will figure out the problem by listening, experimenting, and measuring, making the necessary changes on the way. The smart rookie has identified mentors and teachers who will show them how to become smart veterans.

For businesses who are looking to hire a social media agency or employee, whether it’s for business blogging or social media management, check their pedigree and history. Ask them how long they’ve been doing social media. Ask them about past campaigns and how they dealt with problems. Ask them about their past failures. (And if they say they’ve never had any, they’re either lying to you, or they’re too new in the business to have any real experience.)

What about you? What have you seen from a social media veteran or rookie? What lessons have you learned? What are you hoping to learn? And if you’re a rookie, am I way off base? How are you making sure you don’t make the same mistakes of your predecessors?

My book, Branding Yourself: How to Use Social Media to Invent or Reinvent Yourself (affiliate link), is available on Amazon.com, as well as at Barnes & Noble and Borders bookstores. I wrote it with my good friend, Kyle Lacy.

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Five Online Reputation Management Tactics

Your 15 minutes of fame will last a lifetime on the Internet.

Former Indiana deputy Attorney General found this out a couple weeks ago, when he was fired for posting tweets that called for the use of live ammunition against the Wisconsin protesters. I had the chance to appear on WISH TV the day Cox was fired to talk about the importance of managing one’s personal brand on social media.

Tweet from Indiana deputy Attorney General Jeff Cox

I told WISH anchor Debby Knox, “Unfortunately, this sort of thing will follow him around forever. When someone, like a new employer, Googles his name — even 10 years from now — this story will forever be associated with it.”

The problem is, as a lot of people are learning the hard way, what you say on the Internet, even something as small as a 140-character tweet or keg-stand photo, will be around forever. And if the wrong people find it, you’ll be crucified with it. Whether that’s a potential employer or someone from the media, you can be guaranteed you’ll be found out.

Here are five online reputation management tactics you need if you’re concerned about your personal brand.

1. Know What The Internet Is Saying About You

We worked with one guy whose name was nearly identical to someone convicted of real estate fraud in the same state. The felon’s name would always appear first in a Google search if you just typed in our guy’s name. Anyone who knew him knew the difference, but when it came to potential clients, they would probably worry that they were going to hire a convicted felon.

Anyone who is named Jeffrey Cox is going to have a similar problem. A quick Google search showed that there are a lot of guys named Jeffrey Cox, even here in Indiana. Imagine the problems they’re going to have for the next several months or few years when people try to find them…

To know what people are saying about you, sign up for Google News Alerts, and have an alert set for your own name, your company name, and even your Twitter handle. Monitor this closely, and pay attention to any mention of your name that’s not on your own blog or website.

2. Know Your Influence

Whether you prefer Klout or Twitalyzer, or any of the myriad of other influence analysis tools out there, you need to know how many people are paying attention to you. If you want to positively manage your reputation, then you need to have that number as high as you can possibly get it. I prefer Klout, only because that’s what everyone is using, and so it’s easier to compare my reach by using the same stats as everyone else.

3. Practice Search Engine Optimization

Normally this is a website-/blog-only technique. If you want to get your blog or website to the top of the search engines, you need to optimize it so Google and the other search engines know exactly what your blog (and each individual post) is about.

This becomes more important if you want to knock something off Google’s front page. If you made a mistake and something is appearing at the top of Google, you need to focus on a couple of properties, like a blog, and optimize it so it sits at the top of the search rankings.

This practice is called reverse search engine optimization, and it’s becoming more important as companies and individuals realize they either made one mistake they don’t want following them around, or in a few cases, someone shares a name with a convicted felon (see below).

4. Use YouTube and Flickr/Picasa

Photos and videos are an excellent SEO tool. Not only do they boost your search rankings, but your photos and videos will often show up in your search results. If you have another result you need to boot off Google, photos and videos can help. Sign up for (and use!) YouTube and either Flickr or Picasa.

I prefer Picasa only because Google owns it, and it’s easier to integrate with my other Google properties, but Flickr is by far the more popular photo sharing site.

The best way to use photos and videos is to embed the code into a blog post, rather than uploading the photo or video to your own blog. Not only does it take up server space, but you don’t get as much search engine juice for an uploaded video as you do for an embedded one.

5. Join a Niche Social Network

If you’re trying to find a new job or establish your expertise in an industry, join a social network that’s specific to that industry. Or join one geared toward your local community. I first started connecting with people on Smaller Indiana, an Indiana-based network for people who live and work in the state. Even now, when my name appears in Google searches, there are a few results from Smaller Indiana that appear in the results.

Additionally, participating in that network will make you more visible to the other people on it. If you’re trying to make your name known in an industry, contributing a lot of valuable content to the network will accomplish this for you. Answer questions, write valuable information, and forward interesting articles to your fellow network members, and they’ll come to rely on you as someone valuable and worth working with or even hiring.

How are you managing your online reputation? Any tools or tricks we should know about? Leave a comment and let us know.

My book, Branding Yourself: How to Use Social Media to Invent or Reinvent Yourself (affiliate link), is available on Amazon.com, as well as at Barnes & Noble and Borders bookstores. I wrote it with my good friend, Kyle Lacy.