image via flickr

Social media encompasses all of the great tools we have on hand to share our messages with the masses.  I can sit in my living room and tell thousands of people via twitter whatever I want.  That doesn’t mean I should take advantage of that privilege and spend my social media currency on  broadcasting.  I should spend that time engaging in and creating conversations.  That way, when I have something important to say…people will listen.

When someone asks you what you do for a living, what do you say?

I have to admit, when we first started Toolulu, my pitch went something like this…

“I work for Toolulu.  We’re an interactive marketing agency that helps build your presence online.”

And to no surprise, it wasn’t working.  People were often confused, and it would take me awhile to explain to them what it is we exactly did.  And part of this is because we were doing too much, we were a new company trying to figure out what we really wanted to focus on.  But now my elevator goes something like this:

“I work for an interactive marketing agency called Toolulu.  Recently, we helped a client increase their presence on facebook by 800%.  We weren’t seeing an increase in sales from the campaign so we took a look at the website.  During our usability testing we found that majority of their demographic was struggling with the checkout process on their website, many giving up.  Our web staff is now in the process of fixing this fatal error.”

By focusing on work that I’ve actually done, it gives the person I’m meeting for the very first time a visual of what I actually do.  I’ve also notice that it’s a great conversation starter as well.  Usually when I focus on work in our portfolio, they want to know more about the process and how it works.

Is your elevator pitch creating a conversation?  How can you improve it?

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I haven’t met a single person that likes to do business with car dealerships in the traditional way.  I think Aaron is on to something and I can’t wait to see this concept go more mainstream.

The car in the photo is a Lincoln MKX and if I had unlimited funds, that’s the car I’d like to be driving.

1.  They put their clients first. They are available any time of the day, 7 days a week.  And if you’ve ever had need for IT support, you know this usually isn’t the case.

2.  Word of mouth. They remind me a lot of Zappos in their marketing efforts.  Instead of focusing on where they are going to spend their marketing dollars, they focus on their current clients and their clients spread the word for them.

3.  Keep building. They don’t let their business get stagnent.  They keep pushing for the next best service or formula to do their business.  Instead of saying, “We’re doing great, let’s lock and load” they stay on top of current trends and push to be innovators in their industry.

4.  Branding. They didn’t talk about this in the podcast, but just as a general notation, they have  great branding.  Their service cars are clearly marked, and are advertising for them on an ongoing basis.  They also have a great casual dress code where employees wear branded shirts out on the job.

What do you think other companies are doing right?  What are you doing to replicate this in your own business?

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Deb and I have been thinking about this a lot lately as we’ve been adding people to our team as freelancers.  These are our top four:

• Dependable/Reliable
• Fast
• Creative
• Team Player

When you are looking to add people to your team, what are your must-haves?

And I am guilty.

Just this last Friday, I went in to a local Salon & Spa to get my hair jazzed up for summer.  I love my hair dresser.  She doesn’t talk and I love that.  It gives me almost 2 hours of complete silence to reflect, make to do lists, and catch up on email.  It’s complete bliss.

It also helps that she’s good at what she does too.  My complete bliss ended as I went to check out.  I had received a timely coupon in the mail from the salon, and my husband knowing that I like to go here, gave me a gift card for Mother’s Day to use on pampering.  And what could be more pampering than 2 hours of silence, and a little head massage?

I was told when I went to check out, I couldn’t use both a coupon and a gift card as a customer couldn’t receive two discounts at the same time.  I asked how a gift card is a discount seeing that someone paid cash for it.  They understood my point, but couldn’t do anything about it.  As I got in my car, the first thing I thought to do was tweet.  Tell my friends how crappy this was.

And then people started responding.

And then I felt a little bad.  I try to be a responsible Twitter user, and use my stream for things that contribute to the world, not take away.  But then the responses kept coming.

And then I realized that this is why I’m in the business I’m in.  {Smart} Companies can now track what other people are saying about them.  Never before could they track what I said on the phone to my best girlfriends.  The question is, are you tracking what others are saying about you, or your company?  Do you step in before things spiral?

I’m sending the salon an email today in hopes that this was just a training issue and that they same experience will never happen to anyone else.  I will, of course, keep you updated.

We are “building lifelong relationships one call at a time.”  Zappos is unique in that they actually like receiving phone calls.  They know it’s maybe their only chance to talk with you for 5-10 minutes.  And they are doing it differently than most call centers.  They encourage their employees to connect with the customer– even if it’s not related to Zappos.  If the employee has a dog, and can hear that the customer does do, they say, why not talk about dogs! 

We were impressed to see a company doing it right.  A company not solely focused on the bottom line — because with time, they know their customer service will win everyone over.  They are about creating conversation and building relationships with their cutomer– not just thinking about the next sale.  They care, and it shows.

What are you doing to build your relationships?

Caterina is one of the co-founders of Flickr.  Her latest project is Hunch…described as Amazon recommendations for everything.

2.  Rashmi Sinha

Rashmi is the co-founder and CEO of Slideshare.

3. Mena Trott

Mena is the co-founder and President of Six Apart.

4. Zena Weist

Zena is a social media powerhouse located in the midwest (Kansas City).  She has been working in the business since day one and is a dynamic speaker.

5.  Jennifer Pahlka

Founder of Code for America and has been involved with the successful Web 2.0 and Gov 2.0 conferences.

All of these women are entrepreneurial rock stars…that just happen to be female.

Who would you add to this list?

She’s not the only one.  The Oklahoma Red Cross is using it to give alerts on shelters.  News stations are getting their warnings out there to more people.  Concerned friends and relatives (like me) can keep an eye on things when we are far away and not getting the kind of news coverage we would like from our own local stations.

When I was talking to mom she gave me a few reasons why she prefers Twitter to radio/tv for news updates.

• Pictures.  When the weather is bad her satellite goes out and she can’t see pictures of what is going on via the radio.
• Instant news.  She doesn’t have to wait for the radio announcer to get the reports from the reporters.  She’s getting rid of the “middleman” by following the reporters herself.
• First person news.  You can see reports from people on the scene and get a bigger picture view of the action.

No wonder newspapers are struggling.  It’s kind of hard to compete with instant coverage.

Where do you get your news?