Paying attention to customer service starts with paying attention…

OK. I admit I’m not a food critic. I’m not a chef and I’m not in any way qualified to write restaurant reviews. I’ll put my hand up right away and admit all of that. Setting those facts aside, this may be a slightly odd post – half restaurant review, half customer service advice. You [...]

I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.

The other day someone asked me a question I get asked a lot: “How do I  measure the return on social media for my business?” To be honest, I couldn’t answer them. Or at least not completely. The truth is I didn’t know enough about their business or their activities to give a meaningful answer. [...]

Last I checked, you and Tesco didn’t have a lot in common…

Last week I was asked to speak to a small group of business owners who are currently in the (torturous?) process of trying to grow their own businesses. They were covering marketing that week, and I was brought in for a couple reasons (eye candy,? Ability to creatively curse?), but the primary one was to [...]

No no….please…invite me (and every one of your contacts) to all your events….I don’t mind

It’s friday. And that means I get to set aside a bit of time to bitch about something. Seriously…you should try it. It’s cathartic. But really this is a pet peeve of mine. Why on earth do people insist on using online networks as SPAM vehicles? It’s such a waste of a (potentially) powerful interactive [...]

Junk mail, email spam, fax spam, telesales and now: social media spam!

Hurrah! Or alternatively, if you’re anything like me, sigh… This won’t be particularly shocking to most of you. For those of us who work in the field (well, marketing in general) it’s even less so. I think we’ve finally reached the point where spam is starting to outweigh the good in some of our favourite [...]

Guru-tastic (in which our hero starts to sob uncontrollably)

I’ve had a guru-tastic week. Ugh. I’m sorry. I really do have a weird knee-jerk reaction to meeting people who call themselves gurus. And these days, it’s made even more fun by adding the words ‘social’ and ‘media’ in front of it. I’ve been surrounded by them last week, and I think I’m suffering some [...]

This just in: If it looks too good to be true, it probably is!

This could also go under the ‘if it looks like shit and smells like shit – it’s probably shit’ heading, but hey, I’m trying to clean up my act a bit (and my mother tells me I curse too much anyway). Onwards and upwards. I’ve been asked to speak about Social Media at a couple [...]

Belgian Beers, Canal boats & Customer Service (with a little Social Media thrown in)

Did you ever play the ‘one of these things just doesn’t belong’ game? I didn’t like that game either, and in this case, all three of these items featured in my vacation last week. And to be honest, I was really only planning on the first two. I don’t read (or, in fact, speak) Dutch, [...]

Seriously, who doesn’t have a Facebook group now?

I’ve never seen so many companies insist on creating Facebook groups for their companies. I’m forced to be the awkward b*stard and ask a quick question: why? Don’t get me wrong, I do believe that Facebook (along with other social media sites) can be a very effective  platform to engage with new (and existing) customers, [...]

Twitterclaus is coming….to town.

“I’m keeping a list I’m checking it twice I’m going to find out who sucks at Twitter.” Ok, it doesn’t rhyme, but it needed to be said. This could be classed as part 2 of my social media rant. My new favourite activity is watching companies (particularly small ones) absolutely miss the point of twitter. [...]