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Innovation Drives Marketing & Strategy

rosslogosmallI spent the day at the Marketing Symposium at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business.  In these tight economic times, many of the companies are spending a little more time in deciding where to allocate resources (both personnel and money), but the message that permeated all the presentations and panels was the need to innovate.  Here are some thoughts on how companies are driving innovation and tying it into their marketing strategies:

  • Insights from one person are sometimes deeper than quantitative data
  • Consumers don’t always know what they would want to buy
  • Customers are evolving in their expectations of companies
  • Link technical aspects of a product to brand identity and marketing
  • Don’t ask customers “greed” questions (would you buy this if it was cheaper?)
  • R&D is key to meet numbers and show growth
  • Look for “weird and wonderfuls” – leaders in their niches for ideas and innovations
  • Act like a “startup” without the rules of a big company to spur innovation

How is your company driving innovation?

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Twittering for Business Startup Guide

bookslinpernilleYesterday we discussed some issues you should consider when deciding whether or not to twitter for your business.  Once you’ve decided to go forward, here’s how to get started:

Choose a Name

You’ll need a twitter name so that people can find you.  Usually businesses choose a name related to their company name or a particular brand.  If your name isn’t available, contact twitter.  According to their TOS, companies can gain control of names they own.

A little about you….

The bio and website information will give people an idea of what you do and why they might want to follow your updates.  These are especially important when people are searching for people to follow by keyword.

Publish your tweets

Setup your twitter feed on your blog and website, add your twitter address to your emails and other correspondence.  Twitter is a great way to quickly add snippits of information to your websites and keep in touch with your customers.

Welcome tweet

Even without any followers, make sure you at least have a welcome tweet.  People won’t follow you don’t have any tweets.

Find people to follow

You can use the twitter search to see if your customers already are on twitter, or find people to follow on blogs you read.  Many people will also follow you back when you follow them.

Listen & Respond

Listen to what’s being said and monitor twitter for mentions of your company and brands.  Politely respond to any concerns people have and to any questions you can be helpful with.

Be Relevant

Share relevant information with your customers via twitter.  Links to articles or posts of interest can be twittered.  Retweeting information others find can be a great way to connect too.

Keep Tweeting

You probably won’t find a twitter audience overnight, so keep sharing relevant information and use Twitter as another tool to connect with your customers.

Don’t Spam

While you need to keep providing good content, don’t overdo it.  Tweets should only be every so often else they get really annoying.  How often you can tweet depends on the tolerance of your audience, so it’ll take a bit of trial and error.  A few tweets per day should be safe.

Be Patient

It takes time to realize the benefits of Twitter.  Keep at it, keep listening and stay in the conversation.

What Twitter tips do you have?  Please share in the comments.

(photo by Lin Pernille Photography @ Flickr CC)

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To Twitter or Not To Twitter

Twitter has become fairly popular over the last year and is a powerful tool for communicating with your customers.  However, as with most business decisions, you should consider some things before you make your decision:

  • Is Your Audience on Twitter? Search for some of the keywords important to your industry to see if your audience is on twitter.  Even if there are only some, it may be worth at least monitoring twitter.
  • What’s being said? – If your customers and industry is on Twitter.  What are they saying?  You can use tools such as Tweetscan, Twitscoop and Twist to take a look at conversations and keywords.
  • What will the effect be on your brand and reputation? For some brands, their reputation may be negatively affected if they are not actively participating on Twitter.  Everyone should be aware that anything said on Twitter will be around in the future via search engines.
  • Who will tweet and monitor? It may be helpful to have multiple people using Twitter, but they should have a general idea of what is ok to say and what the plan is for using Twitter for the company.
  • What persona will you use? Does your brand or company have a mascot or other persona you should use?  If multiple people are tweeting, make sure they aware of any personas.
  • How will you integrate Twitter with your website and other marketing efforts? Twitter makes it fairly easy to include your tweets on other websites.  Where will you include it?  How will you let your customers know about it?
  • To follow or not to follow? When people start following you on twitter, will you follow them in turn?  This may make it easier to follow conversations (and it is a nice gesture), but following unsavory feeds may not be a good idea either.  Deciding on a follow policy beforehand can make it easier.

If you are already using Twitter for your business, what did you consider beforehand?  What advice would you give to others who are trying to make the decision?

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