On Words and Business

The small business success index takes on social media:

• 75% have a company page on a social media site like LinkedIn or Facebook.
  I have a company page on LinkedIn and am wishing there was more I could do with it. In my world, Facebook is for personal use and I don’t see that my customers would be looking for me there. Are you?
• 39% have a blog
  Check. This is it.
• 26% tweet
  Nope.
• 61% use social media to identify new customers
  Working on this one.

How are you using social media technologies in your business?

In the U.S. alone, poor customer services loses businesses $83 billion per year. And 71% of consumers have ended a relationship because of poor service. That’s pretty serious.

Check out more in this MediaPost research brief. Including the bit about it taking an average of 9.5 minutes for a consumer stuck in an automated voice self-service system to reach a live human to speak to.

If you haven’t heard about this yet, you should know there’s a bit of a kerfuffle about a change in blogging policy at Forrester. It’s an interesting debate.

What I really like is Bruce Temkin’s piece offering five lessons companies ought to take away from this:

1. Assume everyone will find out.
2. Don’t get bullied by the crowd.
3. Pick your battles.
4. Be open and honest.
5. Don’t obsess about social media.

To those I add:

1. Be on the same page. When communicating with the media, which includes the press and anyone keyed into your social media outlets, have guidelines for communication. Since you can’t vet every single word or thought in a fast moving social media environment, make sure those communicating with the public understand how they represent the company and the limits of their communications responsibilities.
2. Don’t be afraid. Social media has the edge over traditional media in its immediacy and viral reach. But don’t let that stop you or your company from stating your opinions or policies. The quick feedback allows for a quicker course correction if necessary.

The Economist published this special report on social networking, including a discussion of why the networks grow so fast, how small businesses are using them to their advantage, how it’s changing the world of job hunting, and what we can expect in terms of privacy issues.

As of October, 2009 Facebook was the clear winner in the numbers game with over 430 million users. Wow.

A fascinating blog I just discovered: The Numbers Guy

It’s all about how numbers are reported in news and business; and how sometimes they can confuse an issue (purposely or not). Statistics made fun. Sort of.

Have you ever wanted to learn how to predict the future?

Check out Eric Garland’s book Future, Inc. It’s all about how the futurists predict the future. And how you can, too. It’s not as hard as you might think.

Or check out his blog about forecasting.

Fun stuff, with the potential of serious impact on your business.