The Real Bruce

To have success you have to commit. You have to do it every day. You can’t take days off, and you can’t just relax on the couch and expect to see results. Now you may think I am talking about your marathon training, but I am really talking about your social media efforts.

Social Media is just like weight loss or training for a race. You have to put effort into it. There are no easy fixes and no magic pills you can take to get the results you want. I believe this is what some people get frustrated with. Just like with exercise, if people don’t see immediate results they tend to give up.

For example, if you register for a Twitter account tomorrow and decide you are going to build a following and really get your message out there, it isn’t going to happen overnight. It won’t even happen in a month.

However, if you have a plan and you execute it each and every day, you will start to build a following. That group will continue to recommend you and your following will get bigger and bigger.  Just like with weight loss you may hit a plateau and thats ok. This is not the time to stop, it is the time to press on because you will see results.

I will warn you, there are lots of scams out there as well. People will promise you thousands of followers for a small fee. While that sounds good and may actually happen for a short period, these people are not qualified followers and eventually those people will stop following you.

To get the results you want, good, hard, honest work is all it takes. Set your plan and go for it!  Blog even when you don’t feel like it. Tweet those two extra informative tweets. Friend that Facebook user right before bed. Go the extra mile. Make a commitment. It’s a social media marathon, now get in the race.

A few months ago I had the opportunity to interview Doug Karr, Owner of DK New Media and also one of the founders of Smaller Indiana.

Doug has a ton of good ideas and loads of experience in the internet world. I thought I would repost the video here on my blog since the interview was mostly talking about blogging. I hope you enjoy it.

I like to go back through my files and look at old posts. This is one I wrote a long time ago, but I still find it useful.

In this world of social media, communication can become very impersonal. Instead of picking up the phone, you can just send a message on Facebook saying, “Hi.” Rather than taking the time to let someone personally know your exciting news, you can just post it on Twitter and let all your followers know at once.

However, as impersonal as social media allows you to be, it can also be your greatest tool for connecting with your clients in a one on one way. If you just take the time to pay attention to various social media tools right in front of you, you can find out when someone’s birthday is. You can learn what books they like to read or even what motivates them at work.

Never before have we had such a database of information about our clients available at our fingertips! Yet most of the time, I see clients using their Facebook or Twitter accounts to bombard their followers with marketing messages about what they are doing. (I won’t lie. I have been guilty of this as well.)

Why not take a minute to listen to your followers or friends and make it personal again? Send them a card when Facebook tells you their birthday is approaching. Take them to lunch at a place that serves their favorite food. Give them a call when you see their son won the championship game. All this information can be found if you are paying attention to your social media tools.

Personal relationships drive business. Use your social media tools to complement your customer interactions. Simply take a moment to make communication personal again.

I have been trying to get into this whole Foursquare thing for several months. I have read countless times how it is the next Twitter and will be the next big thing. As much as I try to get hooked on it, I seem to be having trouble.

First of all why does anyone care where I am at any give time? Seriously, is it really that important? I can see how this might be attractive to some college kids, who run in large groups. You could follow your friends and know where they are hanging out, I guess. However, couldn’t you do that just as easily on Twitter. Why do we need another program to have to manage?

I completely understand the whole idea behind Foursquare and their arch rival Gowalla, and I really want to like them. After all I try to be a cool tech guy and stay up with all the latest trends. What a great idea! Create a location based micro blog that has gaming aspects too it. Then allow retaurants, hotels and other businesses use it to promote there business. It all makes good business sense. However, I still feel like it is too forced. Something about it isn’t natural to me.

I already update my Facebook and Twitter what seems like hundreds of times a day, now I have to remember to check in every time I go anywhere. Do I check in at work? At home? What good does that do me? I guess it gets me points or badges or whatever, but I don’t get any discounts at these locations. If I am at home and then leave, do I check back in when I return? It just seems like and awful lot of work.

Now there are some places where I would like to check in, especially ones that will give me discounts or a bonus of some sort. I will probably remember to check in there, but for Foursquare to be really effective, don’t they need people to check in all day as they go throughout their routine?

I believe the major difference between these services and Facebook or Twitter is you feel like you HAVE to do it. When I decide to update my status on Facebook, or I want to send out a tweet, I do it because I want to. I do it at my own convenience, when I have time, and a good thought to share. However, with Foursquare, I have to do it when I am at a location. It seems more of a to-do item then a fun thing to do.

I know we are still in the early stages of these programs and I am sure new enhancements are on the way. As for now, I will continue to try each of these services and see how I can fit them into to my social networking routine.  Maybe when I become the Mayor of Fry’s it will all be worth it.

Last week, I wrote a post about the great customer service I received from General Motors. I was so impressed with the service that I forwarded the blog post on to my new friend at GM who had helped me with everything, and I thought that was the end of the experience. Little did I know, that was just the beginning.

Over the course of the next 24 hours, over 80 GM employees viewed my blog post (gotta love Google analytics), I gained 20 new followers on Twitter and had an interaction with GM’s Director of Social Media and Digital Communications. I suddenly felt like I had a whole company that valued my business all from a simple Twitter post.

The next morning, I took my vehicle in for my appointment at the Chevy dealership. After a somewhat long wait, the service tech informed me that all my troubles were a result of severely worn tires. Could have been worse, I guess, but still a costly repair. After thinking about my options for a few minutes, I decided I would get a second quote before shelling out the money.

I went to my local tire store. I knew they wouldn’t put the same quality of tires on my vehicle that the dealership was offering, but quite frankly, I was just trying to save some money. The quote was a couple hundred dollars cheaper, so I went ahead and had them make the tire change. I was off and running with a smooth driving car, and once again, I believed GM had done their job, and I probably wouldn’t hear any more from them.

But, I was wrong again! That evening, I got a call from Thomas from the Executive Customer Service Staff at GM. To be honest, I didn’t return his call right way. I just assumed it was a follow up to my appointment that morning. Little did I know GM was trying to go above and beyond yet again.

Early today, I finally had time to call Thomas back. He had been trying to get in touch with me before I bought new tires. Not because he wanted to tell me how great GM tires were, but because GM wanted to pay for two of them. He said even though tires really fell outside the warranty because of my miles (65k), I had been a loyal GM customer, and they wanted to help me out with some of the cost of the repair.

I started to kick myself at this point for not waiting. I thanked Thomas for the generous offer, but informed him I already purchased some tires that were cheaper at another store. Again, I figured that was it, after all, at this point, the customer service experience had far exceeded my expectations.

Without missing a beat, Thomas said he still wanted to help me out. He then proceed to offer me a GM Maintenance plan for free. Right now, I can’t remember the name of this, but essentially they will cover all my maintenance costs (oil changes, tire rotations, etc.) for the next 30,000 miles.  I quickly accepted this offer and thanked Thomas once again.

From the moment I sent that tweet, GM has been looking out for me as a customer. This group of social media specialists has been empowered to make this kind of effort to make sure customers have great experiences.With all the talk about social media and the pros and the cons, this is a wonderful example of a huge, enormous company, interacting with one individual and making a difference to their business.

Did their effort work? Well, you are reading a blog post about it now, aren’t you? I also will forward this link to my Twitter followers and Facebook friends. Plus, I told ten people personally since this all happened this morning. Now, this story is reaching over 1,000 people or more. This is why I believe social media works.

I know this probably isn’t your typical story, and I definitely don’t think everyone should post things on Twitter hoping to get something for free. But in this case, GM went above and beyond–all from a simple Twitter post.  Now they have a customer for life.