Old Dogs, New Tricks encourages small business owners, for whom the vast majority of Americans daily work, as they adapt and succeed in an environment that includes the opportunity of Social Media.

Friday, September 30, 2011

You May Not Care About Facebook. You Should.

After watching the F8 Developers Conference keynote address by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg (total play time an hour and forty minutes) several times, and then slowly reviewing while taking notes, I've come to a conclusion:

We all need to pay attention to what's going on with all the Facebook changes.  Regardless as to whether or not you  personally or professionally use Facebook, or even if you don't use it at all, there's a whole bunch going on here of which you need to take note.

Future Facebook Domination: The Music Industry
Remember the days before Napster and iTunes, when a friend would show you his music album or cd collection and that was how you "shared" music, hand to hand?  Somewhere along the way, with the help of Napster and Apple, the entire music industry was redefined, reinvented, rethought......irreparably changed.  One friend bought the cd, shared it through computers and mp3 players like Apple's iPod, and the music industry and recording artists stood on the sidelines and thought:  how do we make money now?

Facebook is planning to rethink and reinvent the music industry, obviously to their financial advantage.  Collaborating with a dozen partner businesses, the most prominent being Spotify, Facebook plans to share music between friends automatically through Timeline (see Friday September 23 post of this blog).  According to Mark Zuckerberg, the key is to help you discover so many songs that you end up buying even more content than you ever would otherwise.  Cha-ching$$$ !  Want to buy that song your friend is listening to for 79 cents without leaving Facebook rather than logging on to iTunes to buy it for 99 cents?  Cha-ching$$$ !

Facebook users on Spotify listen to more music and a greater variety of music, and according to Spotify CFO and Co-Founder Daniel Ek, Spotify has 400 million playlists to back up that statement.  Question:  where did Spotify get access to 400 million playlists?  Hint:  Facebook has 800 million users and for the first time they reached a milestone of having a half billion individual users log on in a single day.

Didn't realize your personal playlist of songs was so valuable, did you?  Or maybe you didn't know it was being shared?  Do you also not realize that, after you personally log off Facebook, Facebook continues to track every website you visit and every page that you view?  

Future Facebook Domination: Movies, TV, Books, News
Netflix CEO Reed Hastings sits on the Facebook Board of Directors.  He was initially uncomfortable with sharing Netflix user info with Mark Zuckerberg and the Facebook team.  But after he realized the value of doing so for Netflix users and the company he heads, Facebook is now pioneering movies through social media with Netflix and a dozen other companies.  According to Hastings, Netflix is in 44 out of 45 countries on Facebook.  Hasting explained that there seems to be an outdated privacy law about video disc companies, but luckily the US Congress has a bill today in Congress to update that old privacy law and will allow Netflix to "turn on" in the US through Facebook.

Hmmm.  Even the US Congress is willing to help Mr. Zuckerberg and friends.  

So What?
I'm running out of time for today, but I wonder how valuable a company would be if they were the major player worldwide in music, movie entertainment, TV, news media and book offerings and distribution.  And how influential.  One thread of 145 comments that I read about the Facebook changes contained three comments from German individuals.  Essentially, they said we witnessed about 80 years ago what can happen when the control of media and information is willingly relinquished to a single source. 

Luckily, today we still have a Congress that sits under a Constitution and Bill of Rights that require our government to protect freedom of speech.  We do, don't we?   Not even a trillion dollar company can change that.  Can it?

Thanks for sharing 198 seconds of your day,
Smitty

Monday, September 26, 2011

Facebook Will Never Charge A Subscription Fee

IT IS OFFICIAL. IT WAS EVEN ON THE NEWS. FACEBOOK WILL START CHARGING DUE TO THE NEW PROFILE CHANGES. IF YOU COPY THIS ON YOUR WALL YOUR ICON WILL TURN BLUE AND FACEBOOK WILL BE FREE FOR YOU. PLEASE PASS THIS MESSAGE ON, IF NOT YOUR ACCOUNT WILL BE DELETED IF YOU DO NOT PAY!!!!!!

Have you seen this announcement on your Facebook News Feed?  Or a similar one?  If you checked the "official" news-breaking story out on Snopes.com, you would see that this is just another hoax about Facebook charging user fees.  There have been a number of similar hoaxes through the past several years. 

The reality is that Facebook would be crazy to charge a user fee.  Like Steve Job and Apple with the music industry beforehand, Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook are well on their way to rethinking and changing entire industries.  Scary truth is, they don't need your subscription fee to participate in Facebook because, in the brave new world of Facebook, you'll willingly pay them to listen to music, view TV and movies, read books and newspapers, etc etc etc.

Just waiting for them to wash and iron my clothes......and chew my food for me.......and...

(there's an unbelievable ton of stuff going on here, pay attention to the impact of social media on your business and life)

Thanks for sharing 68 seconds of your day,
Smitty 

Friday, September 23, 2011

Introducing Timeline From Facebook

Here's one announced change on Facebook - - Timeline. In less than half of a day, the views of this video leapt from 102,193 to 555,456. It will cost you 91 seconds of your day, but it may be worth it. What do you think?


Changes On Facebook

Among other things, two items caught my attention this week:  Facebook made some changes to the way News Feeds function, and eMarketer predicted that Facebook's ad revenue will double this year from $1.86 Billion in 2010 to $3.8 Billion in 2011.  Unrelated information?  Perhaps, and perhaps not. 

All week long there were posts: 

"The Facebook Nazis are at it again!"  
"I hate the Facebook changes!!!" 
"It's time to move to Google+" (which I applaud)

In some ways, this reaction just sounds like a pack of Old Dogs refusing to learn a few New Tricks.  We have all come to embrace the concept that "people hate change" despite the fact that we rejoice in the pleasure of driving a newly purchased car, love to go on vacations and celebrate the birth of a grandchild. 

Embracing new things can be a simple matter of changing one's perspective.  This past spring, I was diagnosed with a gluten allergy.  I can't eat wheat, rye or barley - - no pizza or hot pretzels, and a laundry list of other products you wouldn't believe contain wheat.  Friends express sympathy, but my reaction is:  it isn't so bad.  Compare that to last year when my son was in heart failure prior to his heart transplant and avoided salt like arsenic and could drink one, maybe two, thimbles of liquid a day, or starving individuals around the globe who would beg for food to which they are allergic.  See?  It really is a matter of perspective. 

Back to Facebook

Why the changes in the Facebook News Feed?  I'm certainly not an expert, but let's remember that Facebook is a business, not a charity solely interested in offering a free service.  Some of the changes are genuine improvements for the end user, in part brought on by a response to Facebook's competition, Google's social media platform Google+.  

Controlling the way that people see and absorb information also impacts the effectiveness of businesses using Facebook, and can enhance the attractiveness of investing in paid advertising on Facebook.  Before I stopped checking the astronomical figures, Facebook's valuation as a company grew from $35 Billion in December of 2010 to $70 Billion this past spring.  Stagnating at a couple billion in ad revenue isn't going to help the value of the company to continue to grow, particularly with a viable competitor like Google+ roaming the social media terrain.

Facebook is rapidly moving toward an IPO, an initial public offering of their stock.  They're getting ready to cash in on all their hard work and effort.  Additional ad revenue, and the promise of future growth, will ad to their wealth.  Long after Facebook users cease complaining about changes in the News Feed, those selling their interest in Facebook will still be counting their money.  How long do you think it takes to count $70 Billion?   

The small business owner is keenly aware that there is much beyond his control.  Facebook, or any other social media, can and will make changes that adversely impact their small business.  More on how to deal with that reality in a future post.  Until then, do your best to figure out how to take the greatest advantage possible of the new changes on Facebook.

Thanks for sharing 187 seconds of your day,
Smitty

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Choices!


Boy, there seems to be an abundance of choices in life:  choices, choices, choices!  Sometimes it can be overwhelming.  For me, I'm intimidated by the choices in the grocery store........... can there really be 117 different breakfast cereals, in one Giant Eagle grocery store?  I'm the perfect sucker for a SALE! tag or a coupon available right in the aisle at the point of purchase, because I really don't know (and I'm blessed to be married to someone who really does know!).

Perhaps you feel the same way about social media options as I do about grocery store  choices.  The variety of tools and platforms available in social media can be intimidating, making it difficult to begin.  The choices of how to engage and use these tools can be staggering, paralyzing.  As a small business owner, you recognize that you should use social media to your advantage, and engage the incredible opportunity and benefit that is available to you and your business.  It may simply be challenging for you to get started and stay engaged.

I wish that I could remember the creator of the picture above, about Google Plus adapted from a beer ad, because he deserves appropriate credit.  It's amusing and clever, and I really, genuinely like Google+.  It would be great if everyone I know, and hundreds of millions that I could meet, would be active on Google+.  Hands down, it is a superior tool or platform to Facebook.  Yet many continue to live on Facebook.  Is it a choice of familiarity?  A choice of reluctance to change?  And what about Twitter or LinkedIn or a blog?   

Frankly, the most crucial choice is to engage in social media, not which tool to select.  That is the foundational reason for this blog, Old Dogs, New Tricks, to encourage you to take an initial step toward harnessing the power of social media to improve your life and business.  The ability to reap the advantages may require an initial step of choosing to stop doing something else, because of the "busyness" of your life.

The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.  Please, take that initial step.

Thanks for sharing 111 seconds of your day,
Smitty

Thursday, September 15, 2011

A Sense Of Wonder

This week a reader of this blog from Qatar emailed me to share a story on the ESPN website about the use of social media by the New York Jets professional football team.  Jim said the article "certainly resonates with the message you've been espousing". 

Please excuse me for a moment as I shake my head in amazement.  I'm still an Old Dog with a sense of wonder when I ponder the impact of social media and the reality of how commonplace it is to be able to share ideas and information from the other side of our planet. 

A situation comes to mind about a college student from our church earlier this year:  While studying abroad through Geneva College, she communicated by Facebook about her escape from Egypt when the government there was collapsing.  If one recalls the broader circumstances surrounding this college student at that time, is there any denying that social media contributed heavily to the abrupt change of the Egyptian government?

Closer to home, I could make a strong case for the use of social media contributing heavily to the election of our current President of the United States (which I did, in fact, do last March in a post at my old blog address: "Does President Obama Owe His Place In History To Social Media?").  The influence of utilizing social media can be staggering.   

Back to Jim's email about the New York Jets

According to the ESPN article that Jim shared, three or four years ago, the Jets website was in the bottom quartile of the teams in the National Football League.  The Jet's executive vice president, Matt Higgins, hired social media consultant Gary Vaynerchuk and implemented a successful social media strategy.  Today, the team is in the top quartile of the league, and Higgins believes that social media has been significantly responsible for growing the fan base during those couple of years.  The Jets have become a league leader in social media.

In a business environment where NFL teams sometimes hover around $1Billion in value, do you have any idea how much social media has increased the value of the New York Jets professional football team?  I remember, as a kid, when Joe Namath signed a contract for $400,000 to quarterback the New York Jets (a huge sum at that time).  I also remember how the Namath-led Jets shocked the sports world by defeating the mighty Baltimore Colts in the Super Bowl.  Social media consultant Gary Vaynerchuk would be underpaid if he received the amount of Namath's contract for his contribution to increasing the value of today's Jets. 

How about you?  Sure, I understand that, unless your last name is Rooney, your business probably isn't worth a billion dollars.  But you can surely increase the value of your small business by learning a few New Tricks and implementing a successful social media strategy over the next few years.  Come on Old Dog, if the crummy New York Jets can do it, just imagine what you can do in Steelers country?  

Thanks for sharing 144 seconds of your day,
Smitty

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

The Overall Plan

The business world, and the world in general, is rapidly transforming due to social media.  Social media is impacting relationships with customers and competitors, as well as providing tremendous opportunity for small businesses.  In the midst of this evolving impact, an owner must also remember that social media, in all its forms, is fundamentally a tool.

So what is the plan or strategy that can best utilize these tools?  In advising a small business owner, I often begin by introducing an overall plan and then use the plan as a guide for decisions and activity in marketing the business.  This is the plan I frequently utilize:


Global Marketing Strategy

1.     Where Have We Been?

Why did you start your business in the first place?  What was the dream?

Paint a clear and defined picture, as you saw it then.

“Talk about dumb mistakes!”, and great decisions.



2.     The Core and Heart of Our Business

Ideally, what specifically do we want to accomplish?

What is the measurement of success?

State the core of our business simply and specifically.



3.     Where Are We Now?

Who is our Target Customer?

       Explore and define everything that we know.

Who and What is our Competition?

       Inside and out, directly and not - - what prevents our success?         

How are we, ourselves, our biggest enemy?



4.     First Things…..First

What are our core values?

What are our greatest priorities?

       Rank them.  Obey them.



5.     Strategic Planning

What is the most effective path to our #1 priority?

What are our biggest obstacles?

       Eliminate or neutralize them.

Are we willing to do what is necessary to accomplish our goals?



6.     Execution

Do we have the will?
Action Steps:  with deadlines and consequences/rewards


What's your plan for marketing success in today's social media world?

Thanks for sharing 92 seconds of your day,
Smitty

Thursday, September 8, 2011

What Do You Believe In?

Earlier in the week, I wrote about the winner's secret to success:  mastering the simple aspects of business, or life, and pursuing those simple fundamentals with maximum vigor.  When I first start to work with a small business owner to improve the bottom line, it is critical to understand and have a firm grasp on these simple, basic fundamentals.  No sense passionately pursuing the wrong objectives with maximum vigor, eh?  To be truly successful, you need to accurately understand the core and heart of your business.

Ask yourself questions like:

Why did you start your business in the first place? 

There's one thing you want your grandchildren to know about your earlier days in starting and building your business.  What is it?

What are you most proud of regarding what your business offers?

How do you measure success?

When you're gone, what would you like the legacy of your business to be?

I firmly believe that, in order to successfully progress into the future, one must understand where you have been and what you truly value.  The video from a post earlier this week reveals the values and core beliefs of legendary coach Vince Lombardi.  The narrating voice (boy, I love that voice of NFL Films!) informs us that Lombardi believed in the old fashioned virtues of hard work, second effort, loyalty and love.

What do you believe in?  What are the core values of your business, the things that you believe deeply and will not compromise?  Knowing these things is a guiding compass in a rapidly, ever changing world.

Professionally, I believe in serving God by loving and encouraging others in their daily work, in relationships that are built and based upon trust and respect.  I firmly believe that everything in life is about God, and I am personally a devoted follower of Jesus Christ.  This belief and faith doesn't make me better than others, in fact, I realize how flawed and hopelessly self-centered I genuinely am.  

How about you?  What do you believe in?

Thanks for sharing 93 seconds of your day,
Smitty

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Learned Anything New Lately?

This is an Old Dog who definitely needs to learn some New Tricks!

                                                                        

Monday, September 5, 2011

So, You Think Life's Simple?

“That’s been one of my mantras -- focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.” 
[BusinessWeek, May 25, 1998] quote by Steve Jobs

"Gentlemen, this is a football......"  Coach Vince Lombardi

Steve Jobs helped to build a "simple" company that revolutionized technology and even the music industry, improving our lives.  Vince Lombardi stressed the "simple" basics and his professional football team won 5 NFL Championships and the first two Super Bowls.  Lombardi continues to inspire many a half century later. 

"Back in the day" when an Apple was a key ingredient in baking a pie and I was certain that my new Keds tennis shoes would make me "run faster and jump higher" (long before any of us knew what a "Nike" was), Coach Lombardi admonished his players to perfect the simple basics, the fundamentals: hit, run, block and tackle.  Nothing fancy, just executing simple plays with maximum effort.  Opponents of Lombardi's Green Bay Packers may have correctly anticipated the next play that the Packers would run and yet they couldn't stop the play from succeeding.  To Lombardi and his team, winning wasn't everything, it was the only thing.

Chris Brogan recently shared a "secret" on his blog:  Complex is usually just a lot of simple things played out in a smart sequence.  Are you able to learn from the apparent success of Steve Jobs, the winning record of Coach Lombardi and the secret revealed by Chris Brogan?

Are you executing the simple basics in your business?  In some ways success in business, as well as in life, depends upon mastering the simple and consistently executing with maximum vigor.  Sounds too simplistic?  Maybe.  But keep in mind that after companies spend $2Million to $3Million on a 30-second Super Bowl commercial, the winning team at the end of the game receives the Lombardi trophy.  Go figure.

Steelers fans, in particular, will enjoy the conclusion of the video below.   

Thanks for sharing 109 seconds of your day,
Smitty


Thursday, September 1, 2011

An Old Friend Who Has Been Gone A Long Time

I had a dream about an old friend that woke me up after two hours sleep and caused me to write this blog.  She came into my life over thirty years ago, and she used to ride my wife (then my fiancee) around with her friends when they were nursing students in college.  They used to joke about how another one of my wife's friends who was about six feet tall, Marty, used to put her stockings on in her back seat while they drove at 6AM in the morning to their nursing student clinical at an "old folks" home. 

Believe it or not, she wound up with my brother's ex-sister-in-law's ex-husband.  We tried to call her "Betsy" but often called her "the shrimp boat" (she really was massive).  My life-long best friend and best man at our wedding called her the "deuce and a quAHter" (mimicking my Mom's Boston accent). 

My old friend was a 1971 Buick Electra 225 ("deuce and a quarter"), and she was ten years old when I bought her for my wife, who was still my fiancee at the time.   The Shrimp Boat was the first car I purchased, for $700.  

That Was Then

The world has changed quite a bit since my old friend was a "newborn" in 1971, forty years ago.  The Shrimp Boat didn't have a cd player or a GPS, there were no electronics on the dashboard to tell you your tire was flat, and I don't remember calling gas "leaded" back in those days.  That was forty years ago.  The world, our world - yours and mine, has profoundly changed in the last four years, let alone the last forty.

Are you continuing to change, to grow and adapt, along with the world that surrounds you?  People brag that "our family business is forty (or twenty or sixty, or even ten) years old", failing to see that a strength such as longevity can potentially be a weakness.  A small business owner can become trapped in the nostalgia of a business that still runs on "leaded" gas, and fail to recognize that no one. . . .  else. . . . cares. 

This Is Now

In a past life, when I sold radio ads to small business owners, we had an expression that is quite relevant today:  A business owner is "inside the bottle".  This doesn't mean that small business owners have a drinking problem.  It means that the owner was so close to his business, so wrapped up in it and intimately involved, that the owner can't see the business clearly from an outsider's perspective.  Hence, the owner is so "inside the bottle" that he can't read the label on the outside of the bottle, the label that accurately describes his business to the public.  As such, the small business owner is  the last person who should be authoring the radio commercial.  Due to the owner's limitations, a business coach or advisor can be genuinely helpful in this situation.

We also challenged the weak and ineffective ways that a small business owner pridefully described his business.  Keep in mind that the potential customer or prospect is constantly asking "What's in it for me?" when determining to engage in a business relationship.  Owners often make meaningless stand-alone claims such as, "we've been in business for over forty years" (who cares?), "we provide the best service" (compared to what?), "we're better than our competition" (prove it!).  The owner's intimate familiarity with his business cause these phrases to have value from his perspective, but these words are meaningless to a prospective customer.  Again, external advice can be valuable and effective in such a situation.

My old friend, the 1971 Buick Electra 225, has been gone a long time.  Sadly, the old mindset that hampers today's success and limits the future for experienced small business owners is very much alive.  Usually, it's never too late for an Old Dog to learn New Tricks.  Until it is.

Thanks for sharing 186 seconds of your day,
Smitty