New Facebook Layout
Lindsey Root - Tuesday, February 09, 2010
The Wait is Over, The iPad is Here
Lindsey Root - Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Social Media for Businesses
Lindsey Root - Tuesday, January 05, 2010
Now with social networks like facebook, twitter, and LinkedIn, we are able to stay connected with all of those special people on a day-to-day basis. It’s difficult keeping up a long distance relationship with your friends and family and now social media makes it convenient and easy. Not only is it a great way to stay connected with your friends and family, it’s also being used successfully for businesses.
Businesses are now able to create a community for clients. Who wouldn’t want to get the latest info on specials, sales, or news on your favorite store or restaurant?! Do you have a question, compliment, or complaint that you want to share with your favorite retail store? Now you are able to join that business community and ask any and everything you want, and actually get a real person to answer it.
Social media is being used effectively to reach out to clients and give them a more one on one relationship. Our world is becoming more innovative and technically minded and businesses must move in that direction quick or else they will lose business to their competitor that is using Social Media.
Target's PR Nightmare
Adam Root - Monday, December 21, 2009
Target was founded in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1902 as the Dayton Dry Goods Company. In 1962, the company opened its first Target store in nearby Roseville. The concept grew and eventually became the largest division of Dayton Hudson, culminating in the company changing its name to Target Corporation in 2000. Target has worked very hard to secure it's validity in the retail space, but their hard work could go away over a plastic hamster.
David Lawrinowicz of Lancaster worked at Target for almost 8 years on the overnight shift. Target fired Lawrinowicz and six of his co-workers last Wednesday — for buying and $8 toy.
According to The Buffalo News Target said the company has certain guidelines in place regarding employees shopping during their shifts.
“These guidelines are in place to provide our guests with the same purchasing opportunities as our team members. We are committed to making the items our guests want as available as possible to ensure a positive guest experience,” said Target representatives in a statement.
Target said the policy is made clear in its employee handbook, and that reminders of it “are often communicated” through postings, newsletters and verbal “huddles.” Policy violations are punishable by action up to and including termination
Since the story first broke it has been mentioned 259 times across social networks, and at the time of this post the target firing story was mentioned every hour. Including a comment from online user who goes by the alias BobbyCat:
I'm glad that Target has "certain guidleines".
I have guidelines, too, especially when it comes to mistreatment of employees. I had planned to stop at Target this afternoon but after reading this story, I'll go elsewhere - to another store that doesn't mistreat its employees. Firing a long-time employee at Christmas for some chickensh*t violation is inexcusable. I'll take my business elsewhere.
Has your perception of Target changed after reading this story? Will you be purchasing your holiday gifts at Target after reading this story?
Top 4 Ways to Grow Your Business with Social Media
Lindsey Root - Wednesday, December 16, 2009
In order for businesses to succeed, they need to change their current business model from “selling” to “engaging” the consumer. The most successful businesses are captivating customers through social networks like Facebook and Twitter to “post less about their products and services and more about things that help their customers get to know the people and personality of a company.”
2. From “Large Campaigns” to “Small Acts”
In the past if a customer had a bad experience with a company it could take days or even weeks to spread the bad feedback to their friends and family. Now with networks like Facebook and Twitter, feedback can be viral in a matter of seconds. Smart businesses will reach out to their customers on social networks to fix a bad experience by addressing customer concerns and realize “it pays for companies to pay attention to the one-on-one customer relationships forged via social media.
3. From “Controlling Our Image” to “Being Ourselves”
Businesses need to learn to let their staff be human. Customers don’t want to connect with a company representative; they want to connect with a real person. Of course businesses need to be professional and polite, but people still need to be unique individuals who can build relationships that will benefit the company, not robots with no personality.
4. From “Hard to Reach” to “Available Everywhere”
Before companies used to only be able to engage with customers through email blasts and customer service numbers, but now customers are able to directly interact with you everywhere through different network channels like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, discussion forums, and blogs. Customers now feel more comfortable buying specific online-marketed brands because they have a direct one-on-one relationship with the company.
“Of course, traditional advertising and press releases will still have their place, but social sites such as Twitter and Facebook allow a whole new type of communication to take place that has previously been unknown to most businesses. The businesses that choose to only stick with traditional forms of marketing will lose business from competitors who are engaging their customers through social media.
“We are now in the age of open communication, engaged dialogue, and transparency, and business success may now have less to do with the size of ad budgets, but more to do with the quality of interactions with customers.”
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