by Kelly Lucas, marketing and social media manager

At this point, I’d be willing to bet most readers have heard of Blue Ocean Strategy. Now, whether or not you actually know what it is, that’s a different story. Blue Ocean Strategy (BOS) is business theory created by Renee Mauborgne and Chan Kim. In essence, BOS advises that instead of trying to go head-to-head with competitors over an existing market (where you’ll waste lots of time and money), create a new market with no competitors. This is how the most successful companies became the most successful companies. They saw a market or need that no one had yet addressed and focused their efforts there. Apple is used as an example of this in the BOS book.

Photo Source: Blue Ocean Strategy BOSSimulation

So now you know what BOS is, but what does it have to do with social media? In a recent article on SproutSocial, author Don Power details how social media goes hand-in-hand with the four major principles of BOS. I’m going to summarize the key points here, but I highly recommend reading the entire post on the SproutSocial site as well.

Reconstruct Market Boundaries – Look for new growth opportunities: Using social media is a great way to keep a finger on the pulse of the latest and greatest. By paying attention to trends, you can better predict the next big thing related to your industry.

Focus on the Big Picture – Look ahead and not just at immediate numbers: Often people associate success on social media with the number of followers or likes on the account. While numbers can be a good indicator of reach, it’s really more about the engagement. Think quality versus quantity. Visualize the way you want to be perceived long-term and foster that impression on social media instead of trying to make an immediate business transaction. People are smart and can distinguish between purely “buy now” sales and sharing insightful content.

Reach Beyond Existing Demand – Don’t have too narrow a focus: Don’t focus exclusively on what current customers need. Look at noncustomers and find a common denominator that brings you to their attention. In social media, don’t put all your eggs in one platform basket. If you are already using LinkedIn, consider adding Twitter. Branch out to other sites and try out new ones in order to increase your reach and uncover a new demand.

Get the Strategic Sequence Right – Anticipate new demand but be smart about it: Don’t just assume because you’ve found a new need that it will be sustainable and viable over time. In social media, use metrics and analytics to measure if you are going in the right direction and act on them appropriately to continue the process.

What do you think? Are there other ways to apply BOS to social media strategy? We would love to hear your thoughts.

by Kelly Lucas, marketing and social media manager

I love to play around on Twitter and will often join in when there’s an interesting hashtag trending. Recently I saw one for #11thcommandment. The best tweet from this campaign was from @orangejulius317: “thoust moveth thine feet, thoust loseth thine seat.” Classic.

Because these hashtag campaigns can be so much fun and generate a lot of participation, brands will sometimes jump on the bandwagon and create their own. For instance, @WheatThins ran a campaign that included the hashtag #WTF, for Wheat Thins Forever. However, given that this acronym is usually associated with a very different phrase, people had fun with this and it generated quite a few fun tweets. This is how a brand wants a hashtag campaign to work. If only McDonald’s had talked with the marketing team at Wheat Thins…

Image Source: xsquared

In the last week, you may have heard the cautionary tale of @McDonalds Twitter hashtag campaign gone awry. What started out with the best of intentions – tweets detailing McDonald’s use of farm-fresh food, #MeetTheFarmers, and generating feel-good food stories, #McDStories – instead turned into a PR snafu. Instead of a series of nostalgia-driven tweets about the best times spent at McDonald’s, Twitter spouted out stories of food poisoning, finding odd things in their food and poor customer service. Not exactly what Mickey D’s had in mind.

To McDonald’s credit, they were paying close attention and pulled the plug on their participation as soon as things got hairy. It’s also important to note that of the almost 73,000 tweets that participated in this campaign, only two percent were negative. However, because stories like this are interesting (and admittedly, kind of funny), it’s taken on a completely new life on social media. It really doesn’t matter if it was two percent or 20 percent in the end, the damage is done.

Not only did McDonald’s get smacked with those initial bad tweets, they’ve since had to deal with the media coverage as well as websites and blogs (like this one) that keep the story alive. I have to admit, I feel a little bad for them. Speaking only for myself, I’ve never had any issue with the company or their food, but I can understand how someone can get fired up over poor service. When your industry is overly scrutinized to begin with (fast food is very polarizing as of late), it’s probably best to play it very, very safe on social media sites where things can get out of hand quickly.

So why did the Wheat Thins campaign work while the McDonald’s campaign backfired? Well, there’s not really anything controversial about wheat crackers. Moreover, I doubt McDonald’s thought ahead to what could be made of their hashtag. It was open-ended, up for interpretation and didn’t really guide the Twitter user to the desired type of tweet. That’s a recipe for disaster. For something like this, it would have been better to create a hashtag like #ImLovinIt or #MyMcDFavs or something like that. Too often on social media, the conversation can run wild, so it would have been best to try to rein it in from the very beginning.

McDonald’s has learned a lesson and I imagine they won’t be starting any new Twitter campaigns any time soon. However, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t. If you do decide to create or actively participate in a hashtag campaign, take the time to think of all of the potential feedback – both positive and negative – that could be generated and be prepared with responses. Participation in online conversations is a great thing, as long as you’ve prepared yourself for all of the possibilities.

by Bonnie Buol Ruszczyk, president

I recently attended a National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO) luncheon. I used to be a board member of the Atlanta group, and truly enjoy the programs they sponsor and the members I meet at these meetings. This one in particular piqued my interest, since Annette Saldana was speaking on “The Art & Science of Making Irresistible Requests.” It had me intrigued, to say the least.

Annette didn’t disappoint. She had me at her first example, in fact. By asking if a client was willing to pay a commission on a particularly big referral that she had sent them, she made $70,000 in one day. I don’t know about you, but I’d love to be able to tell that story! She went on to talk about others who had received free rent, some that entered business partnerships that seemed all but impossible and some that simply got business they never expected.

What’s the big deal, you ask? Most of the time, we can easily talk ourselves out of asking for what we want because we don’t want to rock the boat, we don’t think the other party will be interested, and most importantly, we want to be liked. We can create all sorts of scenarios in our heads to justify not asking an audacious question, without taking the time to think about the myriad ways it might just work. It’s human nature, and the ugly truth is that it keeps us from reaching our goals.

She then told us how we could make an irresistible request successfully by following these three simple steps:

1. Think big.

2. Write down what you want and why it’s a good idea for the person you are asking.

3. Ask joyfully.

That’s it? Other than the fact that it has to be a win-win situation, this seemed like the easiest thing ever. So to prove to us that it does work, she had us ask a person at our table a question and see what the answer would be. I can’t go into details on the question I was asked, yet, but I can say that it was definitely a win-win situation and may lead to a wonderful and profitable client for bbr marketing and some fantastic growth for that client too.

Holy audacity, Batman! It will take a while, and probably some pretty strong pep talks from time to time, but I am going to try to put this into practice. I’m going to ask for what I want more frequently, and not talk myself out of it before I even open my mouth. The worst that can happen is that the answer will be no, and that’s certainly not the end of the world. In many cases, what we think is a big deal may be nothing to the other person. Most times, the benefits from getting a yes far outweigh the risks of getting a no, so you have little to lose.

So, since there’s little to lose, I’d like to ask how can we help market your firm this year?

What do you think? What would you like to ask? How could this change the face of your company or job? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

by Sarah Warlick, copy editor

Out with the old and in with the new! We’re all about to become disciplined, fit and disturbingly Zen in our daily lives, what with resolutions for 2012 fresh in our minds. As part of this new leaf motif, let’s pause in our newly adopted heart-healthy, sustainable and time-efficient routines to join the annual Lake Superior State University word-banishing event.

This fine tradition brings together great minds for a completely subjective gripe-fest to forbid the further use of words and phrases that irk, irritate and push our buttons, with or without just cause. As such, there is plenty of room for disagreement and even blatant hypocrisy. For example, I’m calling for the end to ‘awesome’ and ‘deliverables’ – both of which being words I use with some frequency. I’ll keep using them but you shouldn’t, because you sound silly when you do. Another participant has demanded a moratorium on ‘ginormous’ on the grounds that it’s both annoying and a completely made-up word. I, on the other hand, find it charming in its juxtaposed incorrectness and redundancy, and shall continue to use it with relish. Even so, I accept and applaud the contributor’s valid points regarding the word, and respect its inclusion on the proscribed list. I earn extra internal credit for tolerance and she gets to indulge in a moment of didactic bliss for the benefit of all. See how much fun this game can be?

The school’s committee has selected these and others from a slew of nominations:

Baby bump: humans should not be demoted to fashion accessories, no matter how cute.
Amazing: Anderson Cooper had to blow it for the rest of us. Pace yourself, man.
Man cave: in deference to our less Neanderthal brethren with a flair for interior design.
Shared sacrifice: one of the many worthy contenders from the world of corporate lingo, this one frankly leaves me with the urge to demand my allotted portion of the toasted virgin.

We at bbr marketing have some of our own to contribute, based upon nothing more than personal whim, naturally, and we’d like to invite you to add yours to the growing list of words that should be banned from usage simply because you’re tired of hearing them. Our collection includes:

Leverage:  every time someone utters this word, an angel sneers snidely. This term has progressed so far into meaninglessness that even children mock it openly. My first grader asked me yesterday,“I’m hungry, Mommy. Could you please leverage me a peanut butter sandwich?”
Deliverables: you think important business documents, I think pizza and Szechuan beef. Try ‘product’ or ‘report’ if you want to demand a specific item or brag about your work.
Low-hanging fruit: corporate leaders should show more discretion. Our intrepid contributor spelled out what the rest of us have been giggling silently about for months – every time we hear this phrase, the universal response is to visualize unsupported testicles. Spare us.
Strategize: lay off with the gratuitous verbing of respectable nouns! Let’s get together to make a plan, or to generate ideas, or to put together a strategy, but please…not to strategize.
On the same page: really? And here I thought we were on the same plane of existence. Unless you’re Alice in Wonderland and I’m the Queen of Hearts, find another way. Off with their heads!
Myself:  This is a perfectly decent reflexive pronoun, but it’s devolved into a pretentious way to say “me” for those with a weak grasp of the accusative case. Don’t do  it.
My pleasure: Certain businesses demand their customer service representatives use this in each exchange. While it’s refreshing to learn you enjoyed serving my chicken sandwich, “You’re welcome” is more traditional and far, far more honest. We know you’d rather not be there.

Not cranky enough for you? You play too! Next time you wake up in a fit of anxiety at 2:30 in the morning, turn your mind instead to the equally productive task of limiting the language choices of others. You’ll be back to sleep in no time, but be sure to send us your thoughts before you doze off!

by Kelly Lucas, marketing and social media manager

Not long ago we wrote a post on FINRA’s social media policies for those in financial services. The financial services industry has always had pretty specific rules about testimonials, recommendations and advisory. When social media came along, it created the potential for serious regulatory violations. FINRA then created the standard upon which Registered Investment Advisor (RIA) firms have been basing their own policies, allowing them to cautiously create an online social presence. Well now the SEC has put out its own set of policies.

The provision that seems to have the biggest impact covers prohibited client testimonial. Under the Advisor Act of 1940 Rule 206(4)-1, advisors may not advertise using client endorsements or testimonials of any sort. The proliferation of Facebook “LIKE” buttons on third-party sites increases the potential to cross regulatory lines, since Liking a post can be viewed as an endorsement. Additionally, positive comments and Liking posts on a Facebook wall can be viewed as testimonials. To prevent issues from occurring, some firms prohibit unregistered public users from commenting or have posted disclaimers stating they do not approve or endorse third-party postings.

With regard to the remaining compliance matters, they read more like suggested best practices for firms to help them adhere to formal regulations and create their own internal social media policies. The SEC found that firms tend to have overlapping policies and procedures that apply to advertisements, client communications and electronic communications which were confusing in that they don’t identify social media specifically. They suggest reviewing internal compliance programs to determine if social media use is addressed and ensure that the rules are currently being followed. The factors they focus on include:

Usage guidelines: restrictions based on risk to firm, which sites are approved, which functionalities are approved

Content standards: suggest clear guidelines for content or use of pre-approved content

Monitoring: determine how to appropriately monitor use and the frequency of monitoring

Firm resources: determine if there are available resources for compliance and monitoring

Participation: determine the appropriateness of a site

Training: training on how to appropriately use social media, consider requirement of certification

Personal/Professional sites: determine if use is through a firm-sponsored profile or through an IAR’s individually created profile, review potential risks for profiles part of a corporate enterprise

Information security: review and address potential information security risks with social media use

Recordkeeping and document retention: determine whether or not recordkeeping is being adhered to based on the Advisers Act if it applies to the content and that documentation is accessible as determined by federal securities laws

To some, the SEC’s new social media guidelines may seem a bit vague. For these individuals, there’s security in knowing they are keeping to clear-cut rules, allowing them to not have to think too much about it. For others, the ability to have some flexibility in their firms’ social media use, within the rules, makes the online experience more enjoyable and more engaging.

What do you think? Are the SEC guidelines too vague or just right? We’d love to hear your opinion!

by Sarah Warlick, copy editor

Spelling, meh. Spellcheck will fix it. My people will handle that. Google doesn’t judge…or does it? As it happens, it does, and the relative quality of your spelling and grammar will be reflected in your website’s page rank on the world’s most powerful search engine.

Spelling correctly so that your keywords show up in searches related to your topic is an obvious necessity. If these words are misspelled they’ll never appear in the results of a query, unless the query itself is spelled the same way. This happens more than you might expect, and some companies purposely use common misspellings in posts to get the hits from users who are searching with an inaccurate version of a keyword or topical term. (I admit to scanning craigslist for ‘convertables’ because the technique tends to turn up underpriced gems posted by people who don’t know the value of a dirty old Mercedes SL.) Most professionals frown sternly on the practice as sleazy, and it is. CJ Moore makes this attitude perfectly clear when he says about intentional misspellings, “This offense is worthy of Internet purgatory, as far as I’m concerned. Google, Bing and other search engines should not just bury the offending sites’ page rank; they should quit crawling those sites altogether. Let them advertise in the Yellow Pages.” Strong stuff.

This is a screen shot from September 27, 2009. The misspelling is intentional, as it was a celebration of Google's 11th anniversary.

There’s more to maximizing your Google page rank than meets the eye though.  In one of the search giant’s Webmaster Help Videos, Matt Cutts, head of Google’s Webspam team, points out the correlation between good spelling and high page rank. “We noticed a while ago that, if you look at the PageRank of a page — how reputable we think a particular page or site is — the ability to spell correlates relatively well with that. So, the reputable sites tend to spell better and the sites that are lower PageRank, or very low PageRank, tend not to spell as well, which is a pretty interesting effect if you think about it.” That’s pretty interesting, all right. Good spelling goes along with page rank. The search algorithm Google adopted this year, Panda, includes spelling as a specific suggestion in a list of questions for webmasters trying to optimize their search engine performance. Cutts says that spelling wasn’t a direct signal used to rank search results the last time he checked, but that he thinks “it would be fair” to do so. I suspect it is.

Cutts goes on to say, “If you can put in the time to make sure that something is edited well, you’ll find it’s probably not just a good overall piece of content that’s more likely to stand the test of time, but probably users will appreciate it.” That appreciation of your work translates to more hits, more links and a more positive perception of your company. Even a brilliant but carelessly proofed article full of useful industry insights just won’t receive the same respect it would if it had been edited properly.

Don’t waste your time and your company’s reputation with meaningful work that appears less worthy than it is because of misspelled words. Ask for help from a friend, a partner or a professional. We provide that service at BBR Marketing for those who’d like it, but no matter who you choose, have it proofread by someone other than the writer. Spelling counts.

by Bonnie Buol Ruszczyk, president

This is the time of year when most of us take stock of how we’ve done and where we are going. I encourage our clients to do this on a regular basis, but the end of the year just naturally makes us all want to take a look at how far we’ve come toward meeting our goals, what we need to do to get closer than we are today and how we need to revise them for the next year. I do it myself, too.

When I look at where BBR Marketing has been and how far we’ve come, I have to admit I’m pretty proud of what we’ve done. First, we are still in business, which in and of itself is quite an accomplishment considering the statistics stacked against any new business endeavor. We’ve managed to grow by over 50 percent this year, which is incredible. I work with two incredibly bright, and funny, women and wouldn’t be where I am without them. We have plans for 2012 that include some pretty amazing and innovative stuff too. We’ve worked very hard to get where we are today. However, we also know that we would never have been here were it not for those of you who have supported us with your trust and business, those of you who have referred us to your colleagues and friends, and those of you who have simply bought drinks and listened to us vent on a particularly tough day. Cheers to all of you!

So business is going well, check. How’s the personal life going? For me, I have an incredibly supportive husband who keeps me in check, fixes dinner on my frequent late nights and tells me he always knew the company would succeed even when I didn’t. I have a network of friends and family I can turn to when needed, and I do my best to return the favor as often as I can. I am working a bit too hard, am not making it to the gym and not traveling as much as I’d like, so these are areas I plan to work on in 2012. (Though I hate to be so pedestrian as to have a “work out more” New Year’s resolution. How boring!)

What really got me on this topic is an article I read recently entitled, “The Top 5 Regrets People Have on their Deathbed.” Maudlin, I admit, but informative and enlightening too. Here are the regrets, and my thoughts on each.

I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me. I have to admit, I sort of addressed this one during the awful summer of 2009 and when I started my company. I even wrote a blog post about it earlier this year. I’m a big believer in the philosophy that you are who you are, and while not everyone will like you, there are many more that will appreciate the authenticity with which you live your life when you are true to yourself. So, do it!

I wish I didn’t work so hard. I’m of two minds here. Yes, I need to take more time off and not work so hard. In fact, I’m writing this post on a Sunday. However, I also believe that it is hard work that has allowed my company to grow and succeed. So I guess we should all seek and strive for a balance that allows us to live our lives in the way we want, reach our goals, and yet still have some time for fun and frolic as well.

I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings. I like this one and vehemently agree. We should all take the time to let those around us know that we love them and express how much they mean to us. If someone is taking advantage of you, stop it and make it clear  that you won’t stand for it. In the end, it’s the people in our lives that make life worth living, and we should all take a bit more time to let them know how we feel. It makes you feel good and makes their day too.

I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends. I’m starting to see a theme here, and this is one of my personal resolutions for 2012. I have turned down invitations to spend time with loved ones because I had work to do, and that needs to stop. In the end, it comes down to managing my time in a way that allows me to take care of my clients while still being able to enjoy time with friends. Most of the time we can make it all happen, it may just take a bit of crafty juggling.

I wish that I had let myself be happier. This one makes me a bit sad. So there are people out there who choose to be unhappy when happiness is an option? I guess we all get caught up in our day-to-day activities and don’t take time to do the things that make us happy. All the other regrets above lead to this one. If we make time for our friends, live an authentic life and express our feelings, then happiness is bound to follow, right?

So what about you? How has 2011 treated you and what do you have in mind for 2012? Which of these deathbed regrets hit home the hardest? And most importantly, if I haven’t told you recently, I truly appreciate the role each of you plays in my life. Here’s to a successful, balanced and HAPPY 2012!

I had the pleasure of meeting Paul when I spoke at the Thriving Firm Conference in San Diego in October. I was impressed with what he is doing at his firm and asked him to write a guest post for our blog. Enjoy!

by Paul Foster, The Business Therapist

I had an ongoing debate with my accounting firm employees about productivity. They told me that they can consistently work hard and efficiently all day, every workday.

While that may be true if you have to be in the office all day, what if we changed the rules and I said, “If you get your work done by 1:00 p.m. you can go home for the rest of the day.” My hypothesis is that under this scenario, productivity per hour would increase!

I proved my hypothesis myself just prior to taking a vacation – the last day of work before my vacation was the most productive and efficient ever.

So why is every hour you are at work assumed to be same? Shouldn’t your hourly rate be higher for the day before your vacation to adjust for the productivity increase?

To take it to the extreme, why not implement a “ROW” or “Results Only Workplace”? Just take each file or project and tell the team that they will get paid a flat fee for the work rather than for the number of hours it takes to get it done. Then the team can take as long as they want to complete the work. Or they can get it done as fast as they can! How much do you want to bet the work gets done more quickly using this method than the traditional billable hour?

I was about to implement this strategy in my accounting firm before I sold it, but was afraid the purchasers would have an issue with this way of doing business. I would be curious to know if any “results only workplace” types of programs have been tried in other professional services firms? And if so, what has been the response?

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Paul Foster, C.A. is the Founder and CEO of The Business Therapist®, an online resource, coach and advisor for personal and business growth. Using first-hand client knowledge from  30 years of experience, Paul Foster provides tools and resources for small business owners, business coaching, and entrepreneur mentoring.

by Sarah Warlick, copy editor

The flurry of excitement surrounding BBR Marketing’s series on the niceties of grammar and punctuation has been gratifying in the extreme. We knew there were a slew of people who cared desperately about such matters! So now that we’ve got our language lobes all limbered up and are bursting with enthusiasm and positively seething with anticipation, we’re hitting hard. Yes, today we’re taking on…drumroll please…the apostrophe.

One of the wonderful things about punctuation is the way a few simple symbols can convey such nuanced detail about the meanings of words they accompany. The noble apostrophe is one of the finest, able to work with almost any crowd, never demanding its own key, and not complaining about having to perform double duty. Think about it for a minute – what other symbol can do that? It lets you know “There were other letters or numbers here, but I’m covering their shift for them” in contractions. In other contexts it becomes the prime, the single quotation mark or the okina. Forget those. What we’re dealing with today is its most common and most heinously misunderstood use: to show possession. While the apostrophe can perform myriad functions, leaping from grammatical crag to punctuation peak like some particularly agile Alpine ungulate, the one thing it cannot, should not, must not do is indicate a plurality. I am amazed at how often I see CPA’s used to refer to a group of accountants rather than something a particular accountant owns. This is simply wrong! I can hear the outraged cries from here. “What? What?? Surely you jest! I see this all the time, how can it be wrong?” Luckily, in English we have a foolproof technique for expressing the concept of plurality: the letter s. Apostrophes don’t add to the power of this letter, they only show that something belongs to the person or object in question. This is the strategy to employ for normal words, words that end in a sibilant sound, abbreviations, acronyms, obscenities, slang, technical terms, compound words, official titles and every other possible thing you can write.  Let’s take a look at what this miracle of punctuation can do, shall we?

One cat = the cat. Two or more cats = the cats. Something that belongs to the cat = the cat’s pajamas. Something that belongs to two or more cats = the cats’ pajamas. Something that belongs to something that belongs to the cat = the cat’s pajamas’ polka dots. Something that belongs to the objects that belong to the objects that belong to more than one cat can be accommodated too, as in, “The cats’ pajamas’ polka dots’ hues were far too gaudy for such a somber occasion.” If the cats are the companions of a cabal of CPAs or attorneys general, the rule remains the same: The Attorneys General’s cats’ pajamas’ polka dots’ hues are looking a tad more subdued today.

“Then why was I so convinced that adding an apostrophe was the way to do it?” The depressing answer is that apostrophe-mangling has become such a ubiquitous sport that you are unlikely to read a single website or take a trip to the grocery store without seeing it done wrong. From CDs to cantaloupes to today’s specials, you will see what should be a plural used with an extraneous apostrophe more times than not. I’ve even heard rumors that MS Word changes any plural abbreviation to the possessive form, and although the versions I use don’t do this, I can’t prove it doesn’t happen. This is why we must all be vigilant about our own usage, in hopes of slowly shifting the balance in favor of correct punctuation.

“But aren’t there any exceptions?” I’d like to say no, but in the interest of full disclosure I will share that there are exactly one-and-a-half exceptions of which I am aware. Some, but not all, style guides allow the use of an apostrophe to indicate the plural form of single lower-case letters, as in “Mind your p’s and q’s,” or “Mississippi has four s’s.” It is also acceptable (but not mandatory) to use an apostrophe that would normally be forbidden in the phrase “do’s and don’ts.” This last example is an odd one because adding an apostrophe to the “don’t” portion would be bad and wrong, but it’s okay on the “do.” Presumably this is to prevent the more easily misled readers from believing the topic under discussion dwells on correct and incorrect protocols when using an old-fashioned method of communicating with one’s computer. I look askance, but grudgingly accept. There do exist guides that call for an apostrophe in other cases. They are wrong. Fight against this reprehensible act with all your might.

It’s not easy, I’ll admit. It’s hard to follow the rules when all your friends are leaping lemming-like into the abyss, but it falls to each of us to hold fast and do our part to stem the tide of apostrophe abuse. If you run into trouble, just ask BBR Marketing for a little help. We understand.