Hate to harp on Disney again…I have watched and enjoyed my share of Disney movies…but I just read this story in Business 2.0 (one of my favorite magazines) about a British family who wanted to put an image of Pooh on their child’s gravstone.  Disney said NO!  Stonemason Aaron Clark was outraged because Disney told him that carving an image of Pooh would amount to breach of copyright.  Mr. Clark went to the press and behold a kinder and gentler Disney, they finally relented.

Does this sound familiar?  Disney has a heart and moral standards only once the press is invovled

Yes, I know so many people are on linkedin (an online business networking social media tool)…so many people are connected, and that is great.  I hope that it changes how people do business.  I hope that it turns the business world upside down with the social media/networking capabilities!

But here is one of my biggest problems with these start ups and many other small businesses.  In order for any business to grow, you have to make the customer happy.  You have to make any process easy whether it be signing up, changing a password, or changing your service.

Well, guess what?  Linkedin has made signing up very easy but when it comes to tweaking your subscription package, they make life very difficult.  First, you can’t downgrade your account online (even though you can upgrade, change your password, enhance your profile….).  There is no 800 number to call…all you can do is send an email and hope for the best.  I made my request through an online cust. svc. email and it took about 24 hours for a response.  The response that came back claimed they were cancelling my subscription.  That was it…no futher explanation from Loretta at Linkedin.

This is not what I asked for!!  I sent a reply email and again no repsonse so I went back online to go through their cust. svc. email.  I got an email back which said that they were not able to do downgrades.  They had to cancel my subscription and then I would have to sign up again and pick the package I wanted.

Reid Hoffman, CEO, Allen Blue, VP Product Strategy, Keith Rabois VP Business and Corp Dev and other Linkedin staff…I thought the scare tactics went out when social media came in!!  Don’t tell me that you can’t do what I ask cause that is just stupid with the technology you have involved in your service. 

What is apparent to me is that Linkedin doesn’t care about their customers and their needs.  What is my motivation to sign up again…I can’t get anyone on the phone, they don’t respond in a timely manner, they lie and say they can’t do something they can do.  I am no longer a strong advocate for Linkedin.com!

As I have stated before, high quality customer service needs to be the new marketing tool (especially for linkedin).  The best way to maintain and get new customers is by listening and acting wisely.  Just ask Dell who is trying harder at customer service!  Just ask the Creative Concepts clients!

Just an interesting note.  PR Newswire: while they claim to be on the forefront of technology (great people? yes, ahead with technology? no), I have seen no evidence of it.  They made an accounting error which began in June 2006…they still have the same accounting error happening even though my rep and her boss are lovely and claim it has been resolved.  Should they be worried?  Just a little but they no doubt don’t read blogs so they may never know about this entry.

On a marketing blog note, Todd And’s Power 150 Top Marketing blogs has put Creative Concepts on the honorable mention’s list.

And a final note, we at Creative Concepts have a couple of great blogs we are creating for our clients.  Our latest is Cruise Resort & World Travel, Inc. which has just broken out of the gate.  Stay tuned for more updates and check the links in our client section for new blogs!

 

Greg Verdino over at Digitas has a great blog!  He writes about trends among other things and is now being quoted in the press.  One of the latest subjects has been about Second Life.  Greg talks about how Starwood Hotels got a lot of hype for creating “Aloft” which was an online resort in this online world where you can live a second made up life, buy things (with Second Life money) and now, experience violence.  The draw for many is that any player can recreate themselves and be anything they want to be.  Well the problem with Starwood is that they carved out a spot for themselves but didn’t work their new place after all was said and done…they have a hotel but no greeeters or staff which in the real world wouldn’t be good for business and in Second Life amounts to the same.

As Greg points out, when any company makes a bold move into these new forays, you can’t just create it, walk away, and think you are getting anywhere.  As with anything else in business (or life for that matter), make a choice, stick with it and work it the best you can.  This applies to blogging, podcasting, press releases or just keeping up with the bookkeeping.  If you let things go, any initial effort is a waste of time and money!  Consistentcy with every campaign or any effort will win the prize at the end of the day!

For those of you who are in the midst of overseeing and guiding the corporate blog, has anyone ever put on the blog a “how to” section?  As we have pulled out of the gate with the Bigelow Blog, many of the visitors who are coming over from the main Bigelow website have never seen or been active on a blog.  The first way to alienate anyone is by presenting something that no one understands and so we have posted a “how to” section to help explain the many facets of the blog (entries, comments, how to comment, categories…).  It is a simple thing but necessary.  As we all become more immersed in this online world, don’t forget that there is a large majority of people out there who don’t get it or maybe they get it but they don’t know how to work it!

Speaking of this premise, this is the idea behind the Business Smart Tools Conference.  Business people everywhere have heard of blogs, podasts, RSS, and many other online tools, but they may not know how to use them when it comes to futhering their corporate strategies.  We provide the speakers who are in the thick of things, we provide a time to learn, we provide a time to chat and connect, we provide live demos of upstart companies who will make a difference in the corporate arena.  We do all of this in one day, in 6 hours, in Connecticut.  Who can ask for anything better than that!!

On a more local note than Disney, I headed over to the offices of the Fairfield Metro Center for a light cocktail party this evening.  What a project that is going to be between corporate and retail and a train station…it will change Fairfield in a great way!

Ran into a good friend, Michael from DesignSite.  He and his buddy Joe are making it big with podcasting in the music industry…more specifically Capitol Records.  They created The Pet Sounds 40th anniversary podcast series.  It got a crazy big number of hits on iTunes..check it out.

It has also been a big day of blogging and websites.  Working with a host now where we are having problems uploading a simple blog design for a corporate client.  They are working hard at solving the problem but come on..my client is waiting…other solutions are waiting in the wings on Friday that is for sure.

Bigelow Tea sent out an email blast today to 49,500 of their biggest supporters….56.41% of the visitors to their blog were new today…love those multi level communications to get the word out…blogging, email and search engine press releases (those are coming)…you can’t get any better than that.

Ok, I am done for the day!

One of the predictions of this whole Spocko/Disney debacle is that Disney will encounter its worst nightmare: mainstream media will get wind of the story.  The ball is rolling.  Melissa McNamara from CBS News reports the story.

Just to finish up on the Disney story, Spocko, the guy who reported that Disney’s super right wing radio affiliate KSFO condoned torture and murder, was supported and given a big hurrah from the blogging world. 

Once the blogoshpere learned about Spocko’s site being taken down because of uploading audio files from the radio station, other bloggers (both national and international)  posted the audio files on their sites and different hosts offered their services to bring Spocko back up.

What are Disney’s lawyers going to do now?  It’s only a short time before mainstream media picks up the story.

This is what I love about blogging, the internet, and consumer generated content: the truth has an easier and faster way of bubbling up to the surface.  The big guns like Disney can’t beat the small guys into submission any longer because there is no controlling the messaging.  This scares some (and many Public Relations people fall into this category of fearing the uncontrollable) but to me it brings total satisfaction.  The blogosphere can bring down the bad but at the same time it can boost up the good ones (and the bold ones)  :)

Disney, as reported by Tom Siebert of Online Media Daily, has actually succeeded in bringing down a blog that posted audio files from the super right wing Bay area ABC affiliate radio show KSFO.  The blogger and media critic “Spocko” of the blog “Spocko’s Brain” reported on comments made from guests who support torture,  reported that the station sent out a call to hang New York Times editor Bill Keller and other journalists and a recommendation that Sears’ Diehard battery be attached to an African-American’s testicles.

Disney’s claim is that there were copyright issues in posting the audio files and so they got a court order to either take the files off the site or bring down the site all together which happened; Spocko claims “fair use” of the copyrighted material which is a battle that is just beginning the courts.

 

Hello everyone and welcome to 2007. I have started out the year with a bang by dropping a new blog design for your pleasure…it matches more closely with the Creative Concepts website and was designed by my web guys at Fat Free Studio. Enjoy!

So with a new Year comes the all mighty and very tiring predictions. Every email and every article I have read today talks about Google, AOL, MySpace, Social Media, Online Networking…the predictions list goes on and on! Where are we going, how are we getting there, who is doing what …you know how it goes.

One article by Bart Cleveland was a bit unique. He talks about how the small agencies need to embrace social media. He says, and he is right, that the small agencies often have the flexibility to be the innovators but they may not be keeping up with the social media revolution because it is moving so quickly and they can’t keep up because of lack of staff, lack of time, lack of faith in successful outcomes….this could be true for many but not for Creative Concepts.

We work hard at staying ahead of the curve at Creative Concepts but it doesn’t come quickly or easily. We research and study the trends and the marketplace, we listen to our clients who are thankfully asking us to help them with the online world which includes SEO, blogs, podcasts, video, optimized press releases, websites and more, and we make a decision about what works and what doesn’t which often comes through hard work, courage and a lot of business know-how.

As a small agency we are proud to be offering something to our clients that they can’t seem to find elsewhere! It is our goal and ambition to use these social media tools to enhance what already exists in the PR and Marketing worlds. The ability to guide our clients through the new and ever changing internet terrain is not only our mission but our pleasure as we continue to be ahead of the pack by merging the old tricks with the new plays.

I won’t even attempt to make a prediction for 2007 other than we are looking forward to an exciting year with clients who are willing to take the internet ride! Yahoo!!