Hopefully Less of me will be headed back to Texas this year!

In just a few short months I’ll finally be making that long trip back to my homeland – Texas. It’s been five years, and as much as I love my new home here in the Great White North, I can’t wait to get home for a couple weeks. Big Skies, Warm Sun, Mexican food and Barbecue! And I’m not just talking about tossing a-steak-on-the-grill-barbecue. I’m talking good old fashioned slow-smoked for hours fall apart in your mouth brisket with spicy BBQ ‘Sause.’

And what do I need to get done before I make this pilgrimage? Lose a few pounds of course! I can’t go down to Texas looking like this! Marriage has been good to me and It shows.

How do you start losing weight? Oh, let me count the ways! There is the cabbage soup diet, the no bread diet, the low-fat diet. Adkins, South Beach, Flat Belly. Should I be ‘Eating Right for My Type’ or looking into something called my G.I.? There are so many options that even a few moments wandering through the cyber-stacks of Amazon has my head spinning.

This doesn’t have to be THAT complicated! Taking off a couple pounds doesn’t have to take joining a cult, chanting long into the night and sacrificing snickers bars to the gods of weight loss.

Here are a few quick things that I’m going to take to heart before I head out to Texas (where I plan to gain every single calorie back with the aforementioned barbecue). As always, check with your doctor before beginning any weight loss program and remember I’m not a doctor, nor do I play one on TV, so don’t take my word for it. This is what I’m doing. Nothing more.

I’m going to eat less. Sounds easy, I know, but it’s surprisingly difficult to do. It’s just so easy to go back for seconds or to take just one more spoon full of spaghetti sauce. I’m going to watch what I put on my plate, not just what I’m eating.

I’m going to exercise more.  My puppies are going to LOVE me for this! Every day, weather permitting, I’m grabbing the leashes and we’re going out to explore.

I’m getting rid of the junk food in my home. My kids like chips occasionally in their lunches. They are going to be disappointed to know that it’s not going to happen anymore. It’s just too easy to grab the bag when sitting down to watch Big Bang Theory on Thursday nights.

Agua. H20. Water. Call it what you will, but it’s awfully important. I guess I could quote some doctors or organizations that talk about how important water is to weight loss, as well as just being healthy, but I’ll leave this up to you. Don’t believe me? Google it! I’m planning on downing lots of it!

Spring is Here! I’m going to enjoy the great outdoors and hopefully get a bit healthier in the process.

Now that’s SOCIAL Media

Working with Facebook, I’d be pretty happy to have 100 comments or likes a day on a site. Heck, 100 a week would be seriously cool.

I ‘like’ a page that managed to rack up 12,000 likes on one of their updates in 12 minutes! 1,000 likes a minute. Seriously!

HOW THE HECK DID THEY MANAGE THAT???

Well, first, the Facebook page is for a very popular show that just had a pretty intense season finale, so they are riding a good high anyways, but it’s not just about popularity. Coca-cola is pretty popular, but they usually have a few hundred likes or comments at a time. Big Bang Theory, a show that is very popular in social media can also hit 12,000 likes, but even then only has a few hundred comments on a post.

I’m talking about the Walking Dead – whose stats are pretty amazing. It’s a show that has just finished its second season and only has 7+ million likes (as opposed to 20+ million for BBT and 40+million for Coca-Cola) but can reach 40,000 comments on a single post?

It certainly helps to have a popular product or show, but that won’t guarantee a good social media site.

The secret is CONTENT.

Let’s look at Coca-Cola’s Facebook page:

Now they do have regular posts – 1 or 2 a day, it looks like, but they aren’t much to look at. Nothing particularly engaging. No questions that will bring out the masses. No though provoking comments. Nothing that really bonds fans to their page. I might like Coke because.. I like Coke.. But I don’t have any urge to talk about coke and they aren’t giving me any reason to.

We see a great public relations page, here. Fantastic way of saying ‘Look! We’re involved in the community and we’re talking about our product!’ And that’s great, but I can go to Coca-cola’s website for that info. There really isn’t a lot of ‘social’ in this social media. I’m listening to them tell me about themselves.

What about Big Bang Theory?

We’re certainly getting more content – and the number of likes and comments shows that. They are continually posting full episodes, clips, pics from episodes and even a few bonus items, such as scripts or interviews with cast or creators. Definitely getting there. But I see a lot of ‘Check out this clip’ ‘Remember this scene?’ ‘We love it when…’

Know what that is??? PUSH ADVERTISING. They are pushing out clips, pics, episodes. No interaction beyond making it polite to say ‘Watch this NOW!’ I see attempts to drive to the webpage and to buy into a product, but no real interaction of the product. I don’t feel like I’m part of the story or that I’m really even needed. I like that I can find info, so I absolutely do go to their page (usually when my wife and I are trying to remember if there is a new episode on) but not just to hang out with other fans.

Both of these are great for public relations – they show their product and have great looking pages. Fantastic way to push info out, but they aren’t using Social Media. For the most part those pages are just plain ‘media.’

Now onto Walking Dead:

As you can see from this pic, they are certainly getting interaction. In the first 6 or so posts I’m looking at right now are pure interaction. We’ve got a great picture from the last episode. No comment about the shot from the Page – Just asking their fans to post their own caption. It’s a great picture and from an amazing (I loved the scene) part of the show, so there is no need to talk it up, they just put it out there and let their fans tell THEM about it. I see an interview where one of the creators of the show answers FANS questions. Maybe not my questions, personally, but definitely from people like me. We see notices for live twitter events where we are, again, asked to participate.

Twitter.. hmm. That brings up an interesting point. It’s not Facebook. In fact, that is a key to these results. We’re not focused on Facebook – We’re focused on Social Media where Facebook is just one part of the entire plan. We’re shown blogs, twitter events, live chats during the show. Heck, we even get to PARTICIPATE on a live TV show after the Walking Dead airs! All these things are designed to draw in participants. We’re not just an audience – We’re part of the event!

We are part of the event.

WE ARE PART OF THE EVENT.

That’s the difference. It’s not JUST CONTENT. It’s the interaction of content. With 1/3rd the amount of fans, The Walking Dead can easily get 5 times the amounts of likes and comments on their Facebook as some other Pages. That’s startling numbers!

And this is comparing a show that is in it’s 6th season with one in its 2nd. Think those numbers are going to go up in 4 more years?

In the end, does it matter? Probably not in these cases. All three of the examples I’m using are pretty solid products. And all three have numbers that I would be ecstatic to even have 1% of on my pages. What does matter is the lesson we can take away from the crew over at AMC – Don’t attempt to create a page and just push information to your audience – instead build an experience.

Create a plan to build the social media experience. Interact with your fans in new and interesting ways. Think outside the box. Build a following that WANTS to go to your page every day to see what new treats you have.

Social media is an amazing tool, but just like any tool out there, it has to be used correctly and in accordance to a plan. A really nice hammer does you no good if all you have are screws. And Facebook isn’t nearly effective when you use Push-Advertising instead of Exchange-Advertising.

What do you want to accomplish with Social Media? How can it help your audience? What else, besides Facebook, can you use to create your brand and the need for that brand?

Don’t just build a page – build an experience!

New Opportunities

I’m currently looking for a new job. Now, if you know me from work please realize that, for the most part, I LOVE my job. I find every day a challenge and really do love being able to help build a cohesive marketing plan for all of my offices. It’s a challenge that I really do look forward to every day.

BUT…

And there is always a but.. And actually in this case there are two ‘buts…’

First off I find parts of my job extremely frustrating. I’m not a graphic designer, though I spent years telling people that I was. And there is a great reason for that. I really do enjoy the graphic design side of my job. I love creating. But in this position, I’m finding that graphic design is really the least I should be doing. Social Media, marketing plans, new concepts and new ideas – these are what will build businesses in the coming days. As I’ve said so many times before – The days of uni-directional advertising are gone. People don’t want to be pushed on, they want to be a part of. Billboards are GREAT! but they don’t talk back. Neither do bus benches, garbage cans, business cards and radio ads. The fact is that I spend much of my time fueling a dying marketing paradigm instead of breaking ground on new technologies and helping my agents to do the same. The marketing challenges are so much greater than ever before with so much greater chance of success.

Don’t get me wrong, there is still a place for bus benches, billboards, sponsored signs at the local arena. But they are no longer the end-all be-all of advertising.

And as bad as all that is, it’s not actually the main reason I’m currently looking for a job. If anything it’s the most recent motivator, but even then.. just barely.

No. The fact is that I’m currently looking for a new job because everyone should be looking for a new job. So often we end up as turtles, pulled deep within our shells, dealing with our lives as we see them without ever looking up to see what’s around us.

6 months ago I missed out on applying for a job as a marketing person/ graphic designer for the provincial side of Alberta Health Services. Maybe I would have gotten a job that pays (A LOT) more than what I’m making now, with better benefits, better hours, more excitement and … wait for it- a retirement plan! Maybe I wouldn’t have. Maybe all I would have gotten was an interview. Maybe just a note saying ‘thanks for applying… Heck, maybe my resume would have ended up in file thirteen only to be seen by the seagulls as they wandered across it looking for scraps of food at the dump.

The thing is this. I will never know. I have no idea what that door might have lead to. There isn’t any way to know. And that’s fine. No use in crying about it now. But it’s making me think. While I keep my head down doing the job I’m doing, what else am I missing?

When one door closes, another one opens. But that’s not always how it goes. Sometime the second door opens and it’s up to you to walk through it and then close the first on your own.

It doesn’t matter if you’re extremely happy or supremely unhappy with the job you’re in. You owe it to yourself to stop, look up, see the world around you and watch out for those open doors.

And don’t be afraid to walk through them.

And just as importantly – don’t be afraid to close them and stay where you’re at.

Opportunities aren’t always right- wrong time, wrong place, wrong for you. You just need to know they are there.

Social Media is an exchange of ideas, not just a source of free advertising

So after a fairly disappointing trip to The Cheesecake Cafe here in Medicine Hat I posted a comment talking about it on their Facebook wall figuring that while it might not be up for very long, it would certainly make my feelings known and hopefully they would reach out to me to discuss my concerns or even say that they were sorry I didn’t enjoy my experience.

Instead they deleted the post and ignored it. Not even a simple “I’m sorry you felt that way.”

Social media is about exchange marketing – No longer can companies use broadcast advertising to push out their message without listening to their customers. Modern customers want, and demand, exchange marketing. We can broadcast to the companies we do business with – both good and bad – and should expect to be able to have an exchange of ideas.

This is the power of SOCIAL media. It’s an exchange and, for better or for worse, it’s here to stay. Companies MUST understand that if they choose to participate in social media, and leverage the potential of sites such as Facebook, they should be participating fully.

To Cheesecake Cafe – this was a fantastic opportunity to build a relationship with a disappointed customer and instead, because you don’t understand social media, beyond the ability to broadcast to a potential customer base for free – a small part of what makes social media powerful, you’ve lost that opportunity.

While I won’t dramatically swear that I’ll never go to Cheesecake Cafe again, I will say that it’s probably never going to be my first choice (or second, third, forth etc).

More importantly all my friends will be sharing, even a little part, my experience. And if they comment, all their friends will get to share that experience…. And their friends… And theirs…

And THAT is the power of Social Media.

Well, I certainly hadn’t seen that coming…

So, almost a year ago I applied for a job with a local real estate company that was looking for a graphic designer. They explained that they were actually just looking for freelancers and not offering a position. I wasn’t at all interested in doing freelance work, so that was that.

6 months ago I decided to start doing some freelancing – who wants to be tied down to a boss and a schedule and a regular paycheck (well, okay, that last one is awfully nice)

Now that I’m not looking for a job and just going freelance, that same company that had been looking for freelance is now looking to hire someone for a position.

Yesterday they offered me a real job with a real title (We’re not exactly what that title is just yet, but I’m leaning toward ‘Marketing & Communications Coordinator’)

It’s been three years since I’ve had a real, honest to goodness job – Wish me luck because I start on January 5th.

making music for the love of making music

I’ve started working on some posters and wanted to find some good inspiring quotes about music from some great musicians. First up was Louis Armstrong because, other than being one of my all time favorite musicians, he was always good for a quote.

Next up was Elvis, and he too did not disappoint. I was going to go with Bob Marley next when my wife asked if I was going to do any with people my audience would recognize. Since I’m doing these for my daughter’s school, I figured I had better look into newer stars. (I’m pretty sure they will recognize Bob Marley, even if only from headshop displays and hopefully they all know Elvis, but I’m pretty sure my man Louis is going to be a mystery)

So, who should I start off with? Realizing for the first time just how old and out of touch I am, I resorted to some quick research.

Now I know some of the singers I can hear when my daughter has her headphones on, so I have a couple names to start with – Ke$ha and Usher.

A quick look through Texts from Last Night revealed a strong bent toward Lady Gaga and a search of Canadian Singers yielded a couple names from which I pulled Alanis Morissette and Nelly Furtado (not to be confused with Nelly – the things you learn…)

Now, I was listening to Alanis in high school, so my guess is that she’s out.

So I have a list of 4:

Usher
Ke$ha
Nelly Furtado
Lady Gaga

Let me stop a moment and say that this list does NOT come from any sort of serious research, but just happened to be some names I basically pulled from a hat. Please do not take this list to mean anything other than it is 4 names of singers that I know are relatively popular.

Now my first two searches were pretty quick and easy. Typing ‘Louis Armstrong Music Quotes’ and ‘Elvis Music Quotes’ easily gave me dozens of quotes to choose from which illustrated to me clearly how they felt about music and their opportunity to create that music.

“If you have to ask what jazz is, you’ll never know.”
-Louis Armstrong

“Music should be something that makes you gotta move, inside or outside. “
-Elvis Presley

What about the other 4? My modern stars?

I’ll list a couple of my favorites, though please remember that this isn’t exhaustive:

“I’m interested in making sound moves as a young man. When the opportunity presented itself, I jumped in.”
-Usher

I write pop songs. But I think it is sprinkled with a lot of counter-culture references. It ranged from rap to hip hop to trip hop, house, drum and bass, and experimental and improv and jazz.
-Nelly Furtado

“My ideal man would be funny and fat with a beard. I love fat men. I like real men. I don’t like really feminine men who tan. I don’t understand that. I like a funny man, though. Russell Brand’s not quite my type, but if he had a fat, bearded friend, that would be perfect.”
-Ke$ha

“I have fans who just love my music and don’t know I write it and enjoy it shallowly — and that’s OK too. I think art and music should be just as powerful if you drink it shallow as if you drink it deep.”
-Lady Gaga

These aren’t the worst quotes, but I picked them because they were a good example of the quotes I saw. I didn’t see quotes about music and loving it. I didn’t see quotes that would make me want to pursue music as a dream or a love. I didn’t see passion or excitement.

I’ve always thought, and maybe this is a bit naive of me, that some of the older music stars, like Louis Armstrong and Elvis Presley, seemed to create their music because of an internal passion. That creating music was the only safe way to release the feeling inside of them, but when I look at today’s stars, I don’t see the same passion for their art. I see a bunch of people with talent (or at least good agents) who want to become rich and famous. They thrive off the attention and not off of their music. Oddly, out of the 4 quotes from earlier, the deepest glimpse of that passion is from the one person who strives to get all the attention – Lady Gaga.

I’ve admitted I’m out of touch with the music that is most popular today, so maybe I’m completely mistaken. Maybe there is passion there and I just don’t see it at first glimpse.

I see it in today’s culture. People are becoming famous not because they strive for years to build their skills and craft and slowly work their way up from nothingness to stardom, but instead they go on a show for a few weeks and are suddenly stars. I see people who have rich and famous parents leaping into stardom from the first floor instead of the basement. I wonder what effect this has on the stars themselves? Instead of talking about music, they talk about themselves. Instead of the passion of great art that has a life of its own, they talk about becoming famous. The music and art take a back seat to the person who creates it.

I got a glimpse of this the other day. My daughter had no idea who Louis Armstrong was but instantly recognized ‘What a Wonderful World.’

Maybe in 30 years someone will be saying the same thing about Usher or Lady Gaga. They’ll say, “they had a passion and love of music- that today’s stars don’t have the same feeling.”

Now, a question for those out there who might know today’s music better than I do. If you were trying to foster a love for music in today’s teens, who would you use? Who creates inspiration in today’s youth? Any ideas. If I start looking for Justin Bieber Quotes I might just loose it.

Zappos Customer Service Fail

I recently read the article 10 Best Stores for Customer Service from Newsweek. Customer service is a dying art, so it’s nice to know that there are some businesses that strive for excellent customer service.

When I reached the tenth on the list, Zappos, it reminded me that I needed new winter boots, as my current pair each have a rather large hole in them. I jumped online and began the long and tedious task of finding a pair that would fit my size 12EEEE feet (yes, that’s 4 ‘E’s). I tracked down a boot that wasn’t exactly what I was wanting, but was still better than the ones I owned and at $116 they were quite a bit cheaper than the Redwing pair that I liked which only came in 2E width. I also found a great cowboy boot that was onsale for $85 that also came in a size 4E.

Of course that price is in American Dollars, and since I live in Canada I figured I’d just end up paying a few bucks more. I also expected that the free shipping was probably an America-only offer. After a quick search, I found that Zappos has a Canadian Website and I moved over there.

WOAH! The Canadian website was awful to find anything in. It’s poorly designed and the search function was nearly useless – Are winter shoes ‘dress’ ‘casual’ or ‘athletic?’ The price for shipping was $10 (returns, which Zappos has always paid for was $15, so you’re out $25 if you get them and don’t like them).

After a few minutes I was able to track down the cowboy boot, but gave up on finding the winter boot and called the 1800 number. They don’t ship that brand of shoe. Fine, I understand that for whatever reason some manufacturers do not allow shipping to Canada; It is most likely because they can sell the same product in Canada at a higher markup which is good for them, but an awful pain for the consumer. I explained that the website was pretty frustrating and asked the Customer Service Representative (sorry, didn’t get her name- I’m assuming it’s not CSR, but that’s what I’m calling her) if she could help me track down a winter boot in a size 12EEEE. Instead she began to talk about why the website was so bad. It wasn’t because they didn’t care, it was because it was the old style that the American version had originally had but because of Canadian laws and shipping concerns it was impossible to change the site.

HUH? Impossible to change the site because of Canadian law? I’ve shopped online from a number of sites that ship to Canada from the United States and most of them were fine, so why is Zappos having so much trouble? Seems odd that Canadian Import law would determine whether or not you could have an easy, customer friendly search function on your website, but I figured that was a matter for Import/Export Lawyers to deal with.

I attempted to steer the conversation back to helping me find a winter boot that would fit. CSR continued to tell me that they have had multiple complaints about the site, but there just wasn’t anything they could do. “Ok, fine, no problem, can you help me find a winter boot?” She says sure and asks my size again and does a quick search before informing me that she doesn’t see one in the search she did, but they probably have them and all I have to do is go to the Canadian website and search through all the shoes until I find a pair that fits.

Wow, that was helpful. I explained, again, that I had already looked but hadn’t been able to find them (I kept ending up looking at either cowboy boots or tennis shoes, neither of which was particularly helpful) and she explained that she understood my concerns, but the website couldn’t be changed because of…

Yeah, thanks – I got that.

It amazes me that a company that prides itself on their customer service experience would fail so bad when a customer called needing help. Is it because I’m living in Canada? Would it have helped me to explain that I was actually American so they could give me a bit more help? Should I just chalk it up to fate telling me that I have to wear uncomfortable shoes? Maybe I’m blowing it out of proportion.

The fact is that I won’t be buying anything from Zappos. Not even the cowboy boots that they can ship to Canada. You can’t throw a brick without hitting a web designer, so I find it amazing that they can’t have a better web page for their customers in the frozen white north. And it seems to me that a retailer that makes such a big deal out of customer service should be able to help a customer having a problem better than ‘just keep looking, I’m sure you’ll find what you need.”

The biggest issue is that when I did ask for a complaint about the website and lack of selection to be made to the company I was told ‘Oh, don’t worry about that, I know there have been a lot of people upset with the website and shipping.’

Really? Lots of complaints? I’ve taught a lot of customer service classes and I promise that at no time have I taught that the way to make a customer feel better is to tell them that they are just one of many unhappy people so not to worry about it.

I know Zappos is an excellent company with amazing customer service, but in this case they failed. They lost a $200 sale, which doesn’t mean much to their bottom line, but it does matter to me. Their customer.

UPDATE:

Looking back at this post, I realized that I’m not solving anything. Was there anything that she said that was really wrong? Probably not – though I was frustrated because she didn’t seem to listen to what I was saying. Later I do plan on taking the conversation apart a bit – maybe look at how the conversation could have gone that might have made me a bit happier as a frustrated customer.