Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim

Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim

Radically Transparent: Chapter 1 Free, Entire Book Now 53% Off!

Posted: 08 Jul 2008 10:50 AM CDT

I consider it an honor whenever someone buys a copy of Radically Transparent: Monitoring and Managing Reputations Online. With your purchase, you’re trusting that I’d deliver a book worthy of your $30 investment–and not make you wish you’d bought a Seth Godin book instead. :-)

That honor turns to humility, when so many of you tell me you absolutely love the book and give it 5 stars on Amazon. Thank you!

If you’ve not yet picked up a copy of Radically Transparent, I have a couple of incentives for you. Below, you’ll see the first few pages of the book. At the end of this post, you’ll see the link to download the complete first chapter–for free!

When you’re ready to buy the entire book, head over to Amazon. Radically Transparent is currently on sale for just $14.10 (53% off) and I don’t know how long that price will last.

Thanks again for helping to make Radically Transparent a huge success!

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JetBlue Airways Hits Bumpy Air

JetBlue Airways, the low-fare darling of the airline industry, had a bad day that lasted
more than two months. A Valentine's Day ice storm in 2007 left passengers in planes
on runways for ten hours and in northeastern U.S. airports for much longer. A total of
1,100 planes were grounded over a six-day period. How could their favorite airline do
this to these loyal customers? What started with an understandable act of nature
became a crisis due to JetBlue's internal communication system failure. Flight crews
and airport personnel could not coordinate well with corporate decision makers to
handle the unhappy customers.

JetBlue had over seven years of stellar reputation that became quite tarnished in
just a few days. Scrambling to make this right, Founder and then-CEO David Neele-
man responded with classic crisis-management savvy:

• On February 19, he accepted responsibility and made a public apology, which
received national coverage across traditional media outlets. He also sent e-mail
and paper letters to customers expressing his regrets on behalf of the company.
• Also on February 19, he posted a video on YouTube introducing the "Customer
Bill of Rights," explaining what the company would do to make sure this never
happened again.
• On February 22, JetBlue posted the Bill of Rights on its website.
• On March 19, Neeleman reported back about JetBlue's progress in a company
blog entry titled "Talk is Cheap."

All this while the company was dealing with over 5,000 media requests and calls
from PR professionals offering their counsel. In the meantime, the internet rapidly
filled with public opinion. Customers posted their own YouTube videos on February
19, showing themselves abandoned in airports, eating junk food for 24 hours and hop-
ing to get somewhere. Others commented on Neeleman's apology video: "I'll pass on
the Kool-Aid, thanks. This airline is a joke and anyone who buys this B.S. from this
moron deserves to be stranded for 10 hours w/ no food, water or toilets! Boycott Jet-
Blew!!" Before the Bill of Rights appeared, the following comments were posted on Jet-
Blue's website regarding the three-day posting delay: "I love Jet Blue…The message of
the video is great, but, why can't I get the Bill of Rights on the Jet Blue website?" And:
"I couldn't live without JetBlue! I appreciate your personal message and attention to
every new problem. We ALL learn from our mistakes."

By May 7, nearly 300,000 people had viewed Neeleman's video and nearly 500
had commented on it. Like judges, the internet community was still critiquing this inci-
dent in May 2007, reviewing the company's reactions to both the crisis and the commu-
nity conversation, and evaluating Director of Communications Jenny Dervin's every word
and move. People also posted comments about new JetBlue incidents and compared them to the Bill of Rights: Were they followed, they asked? JetBlueHostage.com emerged as a
blog filled with customer, employee, and public opinion about it all. A six-day incident,
handled well by the traditional PR book, did not completely return JetBlue to its previous
high-flying status.

Conversation in social media amplified JetBlue's crisis, showing the need for new
PR practices. This incident led to the replacement of founder and CEO Neeleman on
May 10. The company handled this crisis reasonably well, yet it continues to plague
JetBlue—what could they have done differently?

The Reality of a Transparent, Always-On, Wired World

JetBlue's problems started with a genuine crisis, but sometimes this mob mentality
begins in a most unexpected way. In an article for MSN.com, columnist Scott Burns
asked, "Is Home Depot Shafting Shoppers?" His description of personal experiences at
the retailer led to the conclusion that home improvement company Home Depot "is a
consistent abuser of its customers' time." That same day, the MSN staff received
10,000 e-mails and 4,000 posts in the story's Talk Back section describing all of Home
Depot's problems. How could Home Depot CEO Frank Blake learn about and handle
a huge reputation problem like this that blooms to gigantic proportion within hours?
The rise in social media means that anyone can post pictures or write about your
company, 24/7 online, and will. Business customers and consumers alike actively judge
your company and comment online for their network members' enlightenment. In the
business-to-business (B2B) market, word-of-mouth communication influenced 53% of
work-related purchases by business decision makers—some of it online, according to
research firm Keller Fay Group. In the business-to-consumer (B2C) market, Jupiter
Research found that 90% of large companies believe consumer recommendations are
important in influencing other consumers' purchase decisions. Astonishingly, despite
this awareness only 20% of corporations have a formal process in place for monitoring
blog posts written about their company, according to Harris Interactive.

Citizen journalists don't limit their reputation-tarnishing conversations to
companies—they also threaten the personal reputations of individuals. A total of
23% of Americans search online for the dirt on colleagues, customers, and employees
(according to Sean Michael Kerner of ClickZ, a resource for interactive marketing
news). Recruiting firm ExecuNet found that 78% of executive recruiters routinely use
search engines to learn more about job candidates, and 35% have eliminated candi-
dates based on the information they found. Thanks to the availability of information
on the internet, others can quickly learn about your actions, history, and point of view.
At risk are C-level officers, entrepreneurs, professionals, marketing executives,
salespeople, job seekers, and others. Citizen journalists and people paparazzi have devices
to capture your every move (cameras and video phones), software to create and manipu-
late content, and a network for distribution to millions of people in e-mail, blogs, or
video posting sites (e.g., YouTube). "Nastiness can erupt online and go global overnight,"
says BuzzMarketingForTechblogger Paul Dunay. All this without your knowledge—and
potentially discovered first by your important business customers and partners.
Jack Welch, Sir Richard Branson, Dr. Deepak Chopra, and Dale Carnegie trans-
lated their outstanding personal reputations into business profits. Celebrities and politi-
cians trade on their reputations, as do all of us. In one unusual example, Janet
Schoenberg was evicted from her New York apartment and felt her case was not being
properly handled by Judge Jerald R. Klein. Janet could find no way to attract attention
to her perceived inequity, so she put the judge up for sale on eBay. She posted a picture
and offered free worldwide shipping (according to The New York Times, the best offer
after four days was $127.50). The judge didn't discover this misuse of his image until a
reporter called. Nor would most men think of looking for disgruntled ex-girlfriend
postings about them at DontDateHimGirl.com.

Every day, people discuss your personal and corporate reputations on blogs,
forums, and niche websites. This kind of transparency requires new reputation-
management skills.

cont…

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Download the entire first chapter for free!

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Rumor Mill: Twitter Buys Summize AND Now Stable?

Posted: 08 Jul 2008 09:49 AM CDT

Just when you thought Twitter was a dead duck, a flurry of news suggests there’s life in the old bird yet!

First up, rumors are circulating that Twitter has acquired Summize. There’s no official confirmation yet, but Summize’s search engine and sentiment analysis of Twitter would certainly make a sensible acquisition. Not so much for the public-facing interface, but for the gigabytes of useful information Summize can feed to Twitter’s developers.

Changing focus, VentureBeat reveals that, despite Twitter’s performance issues, the service is still growing strong. In fact, even new competitors such as FriendFeed and Plurk, didn’t prevent Twitter from reaching record levels of users in June. As VentureBeat suggests, at this point Twitter’s biggest enemy is itself.

Every time Twitter is offline, a competitor gets its wings! ;-)

So, how is Twitter handling its performance issues? Well, it must be close to being back on track considering its recent talk about improving its API.

The Twitter API is a big part of our success and we will be stabilizing and improving it in the short term. The rate limit is currently set to 20 requests per hour but we're working to bring it back to 70.

Let’s hope this is a sign that Twitter’s core functions–such as replies and archives–are now stable. Surely Twitter wouldn’t dare talk about API improvements, without first addressing issues with its basic functions.

Love Twitter? Follow my inner-monolog here.

Pilgrim’s Partners: Is a blogger attacking your company without you knowing? Monitor your online reputation with Andy Beal’s Trackur–try it for free!

Linky Goodness, July 7

Posted: 07 Jul 2008 05:08 PM CDT

If you’re not too busy celebrating los sanfermines (you know, running with the bulls, etc.), you might enjoy this linky goodness!

Now grab the bull by the horns. Or, uh, don’t.

Pilgrim’s Update: Learn online reputation management skills directly from Andy Beal. Attend the Online Reputation Management Workshop and save $400 when you register today!

Google Gives on Privacy Link

Posted: 07 Jul 2008 04:59 PM CDT

Capitulate. Bow. Buckle, fold, submit, succumb, surrender, yield. However you want to put it, Google blinked first in the battle over a link to the privacy policy—and has also found the magic number of words on a page!

Google had been taken to task recently by several organizations—from membership organizations it was trying to join to privacy advocate groups—for not linking to their privacy policy from their homepage. Google founders refused on principle, claiming that the additional seven letters would clutter their beautiful, clean homepage. You know, the homepage that already had 28 words on it.

Marissa Mayer posts on the Google blog last week that they did finally add a link to the privacy policy, but they could only do that by preserving the sacred 28 words on the page. So they sacrificed, changing the last line of the page from “&copy2008 Google” to “© 2008 - Privacy.” Says Mayer:

I thought about the homepage, and how to keep it simple, all the time. Yet I hadn’t thought to look at it through this very simple lens: just count the words. The fewer, the better. Ever since that night, this has been our discipline, and everyone who works on the homepage and its design knows the current number: 28.

Okay. So every single one of the words on the page other than the last “Google” was absolutely vital. Let’s review what those other words were:

  • Images
  • Maps
  • News
  • Shopping
  • Gmail
  • more (which contains another 13 links)
  • iGoogle
  • Sign in
  • Advanced Search
  • Preferences
  • Language Tools
  • Advertising Programs
  • Business Solutions
  • About Google

Shopping? iGoogle? Are you kidding me? I mean, we can’t even trim “About Google” to just “About.” (Are the users so stupid that they can’t figure out what “About” would refer to?)

Google prides itself on its clean, 28-word homepage. Granted, Live has 50+ words on its homepage, but Yahoo Search and Ask get away with 20 or fewer words, including words in images and buttons—and they link to their privacy policies in those words.

Let’s be honest—the reason they claim that they need the page to stay at 28 words is because their earlier claims were so ridiculous that they need to stand behind them or they’d look like idiots.

Yahoo: Make Us an Offer (We Won’t Refuse)

Posted: 07 Jul 2008 04:20 PM CDT

the young and the profitlessSuddenly, I feel like I work for Soap Digest. But with the latest don’t-miss developments in The Young and the Profitless, we had to get a jump start on Season Two!

Last time, on The Young and the Profitless:

Despite Stacey’s (YHOO) recent marriage to Grant (GOOG; last season), Brad (MSFT) has decided he’s going to win her back, with or without her consent.

Meanwhile, Grant’s and Stacey’s marriage is really one of convenience to provide financial support for Stacey When faced with Brad’s emotional assault, Stacey turns to Tim (Time Warner) for help—but Brad has been trying to get Tim on his side to help woo Stacey once and for all. Who will win Stacey’s heart and search business?

Well, we may have an answer soon enough. More letters from Icahn, Ballmer and Yahoo today actually make it look like there might be some progress one way or another in the issue.

In chronological order, the letters go as follows:

Carl Icahn to Yahoo stockholders:
Ballmer and I have been talking, and he says that he’d love to buy Yahoo, but wouldn’t dare do it with the current board. After all, it could take serious time to get approval for such a deal worldwide, and the current board has such a crappy track record (and hates MSFT so much) that they could very well run this company into the ground in that time. So vote for me and my new proxy board so we can sell to Microsoft!

Microsoft to Yahoo stockholders (five minutes after Icahn’s letter):
What he said—fire the current board and we’ll get serious in talks about acquiring all of Yahoo or just Yahoo Search.

Yahoo board to Icahn and Microsoft (two and a half hours later; via):
If you’re serious about an acquisition, Microsoft, make us an offer now. Otherwise, we have no reason to think that Icahn’s board’s to-be-determined deal is any better for the stockholders.

And just to make it even more accessible to us all:
But Brad has a ace up his sleeve. He doesn’t need Tim to persuade Stacey—Brad has Stacey’s rich, obnoxious Uncle Carl in his back pocket!

“Stacey, I’m going to your parents, and we’re going to get your power-at-attorney. You’re clearly incompetent when it comes to making life choices,” says Uncle Carl.

“Shut up. All you ever wanted me to do was marry Brad! I don’t care that he’s rich—he’ll try to change me, I just know it! I’ll lose everything that I am!” Stacey turns away. Yes, she hates Grant at the bottom of her heart, and she’d love to do anything to get back at him, but can she make this sacrifice?

Brad rolls his eyes. “Listen to your uncle, Stacey. We know what’s best for you.”

“Oh?” Stacey scoffs. “If you’re so serious about marrying me, let’s leave my parents and the courts out of this. Propose to me right here, right now, on the same terms as your last offer. Because I seem to remember that when I came crawling to you last month, you shot me down.”

Brad looks away, rage and love clearly battling in his heart. “Stacey . . .” he begins.

Tune in next time for more adventures of The Young and the Profitless!

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