Today we answer listener questions about when it’s ok to give stuff away for free and how to extricate yourself from a guest blogging commitment. Plus we talk about recovering from entrepreneurial failure.
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It’s tempting to get caught in the echo chamber of positive reviews and praise from fans but sometimes we need to pay attention to negative feedback because that’s they only way we’ll learn to improve. Here’s the good, bad and ugly of reviews.
You may want to grab a grande half whole half skim quadruple upside down macchiato latte extra hot… and breakfast… and maybe lunch, too… because this is what can only be described (if you’ll forgive the cliché) as an epic episode.
Friends Jillian Jackson and Dino Dogan join us to talk about the Starbucks #RaceTogether campaign, the good, the bad and things we couldn’t have anticipated. We truly enjoyed the conversation and think you’ll gain some valuable insights into business, marketing, how they tie into social issues and whether you should put yourself or your business in the line of fire.
Have you read the hoopla surrounding the Starbucks “Race Together” campaign? To read the stories, one might think this was the most evil blight to hit humanity.
Was it poorly planned? Was it badly executed? Did it completely miss its audience and prove that there is just another tone-deaf CEO trying to reach the cool kids?
Or are we perhaps too scared of the subject to give it credit, to dare see a bright light in the madness?
And why does this matter to your small business, anyway?
That’s what I tackle today – issues from race to raving lunatics, from social media to customer relationships. Here’s my perspective and why I think the alleged “failure” of the campaign wasn’t a failure at all. Agree or disagree, there is something for all of us to learn.
Today’s short form podcast is a story that I wrote for Butter & Beast, a storytelling project hosted by my friend Téa Silvestre of The Story Bistro.
It’s 12 days of stories from entrepreneurs that tie a business tale into a recipe – perfect for sharing and eating during the holidays!
If you’d like to read the article or get my Arroz con Pollo recipe, visit ButterAndBeast.com. While you’re there, subscribe so you’ll be notified when the next story and recipe is published!
So many times businesses fail to gain momentum on their marketing because they want every campaign to be flawless. When a campaign takes an unintended left turn, a business becomes hesitant to try again.
While you should do everything you can within reason to avoid failures, missteps in marketing are inevitable.
I want to share three of our recent failures so that you can (hopefully) laugh along with us and perhaps learn from our mistakes so you don’t make your own. Or if you do make mistakes, you can learn to pick yourself up and keep going.
In this episode of the Web.Search.Social Marketing Podcast we revisit the U2 “marketing fail” and ask whether it was such a fail after all. We also talk about why the “list post” must die and the importance of keeping your profiles and photos up to date.
Harumph. If you heard our podcast this past Monday, you’ll know that we touched on the current U2 scandal and outrage. Specifically we decided that the whole thing amounts to… meh.
Neither Carol Lynn nor I found it disturbing or outrageous that Apple released the U2 album, despite some reasonable concerns such as the amount of space the album takes up on a mobile device. Ultimately, we concluded two things:
This outrage is more a reflection of the Internet zeitgeist than it is a reflection of a mistake on Apple’s or U2’s part.
If you run a small business and you do something nice for your audience, someone will hate you for it.
Just recently Apple announced a new iOS update and as part of a PR collaboration with the rock band U2, Apple added a free copy of U2’s latest album onto Apple users’ iPhones.
While some of you may be thinking, “Cool, free stuff!” others were outraged by the fact that Apple did something “without their permission”, even if that something was giving away a free album.
Thus opens the conversation in this podcast about good marketing gone bad and when you should and shouldn’t run in to pick up the pieces.
Over the past few months I’ve met a lot of small business owners like you and had a chance to talk to them about their marketing. I’ve witnessed a few trends that I want to share with you in the hope that it will help you strengthen your marketing, because if you attempt social media on a flawed premise, it might just be the demise of your marketing.
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