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Three Companies that Started down the Trust Path with Customers First

They do it by talking about and engaging with topics and content that will make their customers smarter. Or they share tidbits that are fun and engaging, and share the love. These are the secrets of successful corporate blogs - and ...READ»

Five Companies that Fix their Story to Inspire Service

Branding as a strategy means little if the customer experience is not there. If your story doesn’t align with what you do, all of the clever tactics you can come up with to follow your lofty goal will not make the cut.Unless you can ...READ»

Would CPG Brands Compete with their Own Channels for Customers?

AdAge writes an interesting article about going beyond online ads to eCommerce opportunities for CPG brands. Will it pay off? Services are easier to deliver online. A few product dot-bombs in the early 2000s made us keenly aware of ...READ»

Customer Issues and the Bottom Line

Many marketers spend a considerable amount of time calculating the ROI of campaigns by looking at cost per lead (CPL) or Web conversion numbers. You are probably quite smart yourself to the ways of lead nurturing and its importance in ...READ»

Innovation and Failure

There is a good relationship between innovation and failure. As Monica Harrington shares, Microsoft Bob gave plenty of very smart people a run for their money - and lessons to take to their next project.   Those are familiar ...READ»

Mad Men and Trust Agents

They’re at the opposite ends of the conversation spectrum. The show context is that of media and advertising, two areas that are undergoing rapid change - some would call it a decline. Mad Men captivated the public’s imagination ...READ»

Fluency in Customer Conversation is a Key Business Driver

There is a reason why this publication is called Fast Company. The US has an even shorter attention span than many places I’ve had the fortune of spending time in. I’ve been writing about customer conversation here for more than ...READ»

How to Give Your Company Service Deadlines

Usually it’s the customers who give you deadlines - and sometimes ultimatums - on service. Needing something done by, support within “x” time, service at “y” time and place. What would happen if you turned that concept on ...READ»

How you can get the Most out of Customer Service

We spend so much time talking about how to improve customer service that I thought one post on how to improve customer attitude would be time well spent. If you think about it, we call a customer support line only when we have a ...READ»

How to Map to the Social Media Engagement Profile of Your Customers

You probably already know that Forrester’s social technographics profile can help you analyze the social profile of your customer base. As authors Josh Bernoff and Charlene Li explain in the book Groundswell, people increasingly use ...READ»

How to Answer the Social Phone

It seems that if there are many ways to listen in the social Web, there are also many reasons with the ways to answer. Tom Asacker puts it well, we define ourselves both according to what we identify with and what we reject, and given ...READ»

If Your Customers Are Poised For Revolt, It's Time For Extreme Trust

It used to be that a business could generate substantial profits by keeping its customers in the dark. But sooner or later practices like those will put your company in as much jeopardy as a Middle Eastern dictator. If you want to stay out of the line of fire, your best course of action is to protect the interests of your customer, proactively. READ»

4 Social Startups On Track For A Monster 2012

With one month down in 2012, it's a good thing we waited until February to put this out. One of the four sites below wasn't even on our radar until late last month. All four are heading in the right direction in a segment of the Internet that has most saying Facebook has muscled everyone else out.READ»

ManageWP Is The Unified Wordpress Dashboard We've Needed For Years

When it comes to managing multiple sites at once, most bloggers were limited in their choices--especially using Wordpress, which has been conspicuously obtuse when it comes to managing multiple blogs from a single platform. That's the gap that ManageWP fills.READ»

Relationship Guru Charles Orlando Helps E-Book Self-Publishers Help Themselves

Too many do-it-yourselfers don't actually do anything--then expect to become the next Amanda Hocking. The author of "The Problem With Women ... Is Men" breaks down the economics of self-publishing and his own winning strategies. READ»

Beyond The One-Time Click: 6 Social Media Rules For Creating Brand Evangelists

There’s a vast expanse between the transactional moment when a consumer likes, friends, or follows a site and the instant that same consumer becomes a brand evangelist, entering into a state of emotional commitment.READ»

Super Bowl Command Center Monitors Parking Gripes, Terrorist Threats

The private company behind the Super Bowl's official Social Media Command Center isn't just tweeting fans transit tips, they're monitoring social media for game-day threats by would-be terrorists. And Madonna.READ»

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Facebook's Timeline Movie Maker, Starring Your Jacked Ego

The visualization tool brings home the point that your Timeline is supposed to be a survey of your young life so far. And it makes you want to upload more and better pictures.READ»

FBI Spying On... FarmVille?

The FBI just announced plans to ramp up their social media monitoring, data mining, and analysis. The surprising thing is that they haven't done so already.READ»

Fast Company's Must-Attend Events In March 2012

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