Archive for March, 2010
You’ve seen them. They look like something from The Matrix. You may not know what they’re about, but their popularity (and cost effectiveness) is growing quickly. From a commercial perspective, it’s called “mobile tagging”.
QR is short for Quick Response, because they can be read quickly by a mobile phone through its camera. They are used to take a piece of information from a transitory media and put it in to your cell phone – this can be links, videos, text, photos and more.
QR codes are generally more useful than a standard bar code because they can store much more data. Most smart phones can scan and convert them in milliseconds. (Don’t have a smart phone yet? You will)
Why put a QR code on a T-shirt? So people can scan it and find out everything about you that you want them to know. Age, lifestyle, job, favorite color – you name it.
Why put it on the window of a car for sale? So all the info a manufacturer and/or dealer wants the consumer to know about that car is delivered in the very best way. Video, audio, whatever. It’s the ultimate salesperson perfected via modern technology.
Ever been house shopping? You drive by a house and pick up a flyer, if they’re not already gone. You want more information than what the flyer tells you, and you want it while you’re in front of the house. So you scan the QR on the mailbox. Boom. 360 walk around, info on offers already made on the house, details way too long to fit on a flyer but still wanted by the potential buyer. It’s all right there.
Yes. Very sci-fi. But just like most other technology, it’s coming at you whether you want to embrace it or not. So why not be an early adopter in your industry and benefit from the additional business that will no doubt be waiting for you?
For more information you can check out QR at Wikipedia.
South By South West (SXSW). Austin, Texas. Nine crazy days mixed with tech, music, and film. It’s probably the next Sundance. Definitely the biggest music gathering. But it also includes this thing called interactive. Four years ago the tech portion was about 2,000 people. This year they say it’s 15,000 just for interactive. Impressive? Yes. But I’ve heard plenty of grumblings in the halls that it has grown too fast and left many of the 15,000 interactive attendees scratching their heads and as
king themselves why they came.
Certainly this is a networking nirvana. But for many of the 15,000 who came here to also learn, they wandered aimlessly looking for a decent seminar, workshop, or panel, of which there were few that truly delivered. Even Guy Kawasaki trashed Twitter’s CEO, Evan Williams, for his boring Keynote interview, of which more than half the room packed with 2,000 people walked out.
Too bad. Chris Brogan’s post today addressed this. Hopefully the powers at SXSW will get the feedback they need to have this venue expand appropriately and fix the problem for next year. The opportunity is awesome. There are just obvious challenges to face when something this big grows so fast.
“Must catch fly with chopsticks.” That’s what Mr. Miyagi told the Karate Kid he had to do in order to be good at karate. Sometimes that’s what it feels like when you’re trying to understand all this social media stuff, huh? The fly is always moving, darting left to right, up, down, in, out. That’s the technology and tools – always changing. And all you’ve got is a pair of chopsticks. That’s not your brain. It’s your time. It’s limited, and you didn’t plan on using it to catch flies.
Every day we hear business owners say, “I know I have to do this Social Media stuff. I know it’s a great way to do business. But I don’t know where to start. I don’t know how. And where am I going to find the time?” No kidding.
Can someone else do it for you? Yes, most likely. Do you have to be extremely cautious handing it off? You bet. Unfortunately there are a lot of snake oil gurus out there today taking advantage of what you don’t know. Here’s our advice: If you find someone, or some company, that touts their social media expertise and they have a website that lets you “just sign up” and takes your credit card, or tells you they can help you without ever meeting you, without ever spending time with your company, without truly proving they understand your industry, leave skid marks on their home page.
No matter how much expertise a person or business may have in the technology of social media, it is pointless unless they strategize, customize and personalize it for you. They also need to work with you to draw a line in the sand and say, “These are the things we can do for you, on your behalf – and these are the areas we will need to turn over to you because they absolutely must come from inside your organization.”
Most businesses are determining that a lot of this new world of social media can effectively be outsourced. It’s faster, cheaper and better. How the heck can you even hire someone for a position that you don’t know how to train for, monitor, or judge? How do you know they’re keeping up on the daily changes and technological advances available to make this whole thing work even better if you’re not on top of it yourself? That’s the challenge many companies are realizing.
The real experts will become more and more obvious. And yes, in full disclosure, we believe our Online Brand Managers are true experts. But that’s because they spent a lot of time becoming experts. And they continuously spend a lot of time getting to know our clients businesses as if they were employed by them.
If you want to try your chances at catching flies with chopsticks, by all means, give it your best shot. But when you get tired of wasting time, look for Mr. Miyagi.
Catchy headline, eh? And what does it have to do with the gift card photo? Everything.
Here’s a quick example. I just had a small family owned air conditioning and heating company, Fisher Air, come out to my house to service our heater (yes, we still use them sometimes in Southern California). They showed up on time, did a nice job, and charged about $75.
Three days later we get a thank you card in the mail with a really nice, credit card quality, $50.00 gift card for their services. But it wasn’t for us. It was to give to a friend or neighbor. And, they noted in the thank you card, when our friend or neighbor uses it, Fisher will send us another one for $100.
Since I already had a feeling of TRUST with the company, I didn’t see this as a scam. I saw it as a genuine effort for a small business to build quality relationships with their customers. So maybe they’ll give up $150 in labor to retain our business and earn another household’s. But how much word-of-mouth (and mouse) might they get in return? A lot more than $150. And a lot more than a $150 ad in some local circular. But remember, they had to have a QUALITY PRODUCT for me to earn their TRUST. And their product was integrity, honesty, kindness, knowledge, efficiency and, oh yes, a reasonable price.
So, you want to save money advertising? Give your customers a gift they didn’t expect. Don’t be cheap. Make it count.
