Improve My Business

To close out this relationship themed month on our blog I want to talk about online relationship building, and before you ask, no I am not going to talk about online dating sights. By now everyone knows that your business needs a website, and if you are reading this blog chances are you are relatively tech savvy and have a nice website set up. What is the purpose of your website? Does it give information? Is it simply a place to list your phone number where prospective clients can find you? Or is it a community? Are you using your website as simply an informational tool or are you using it to build relationships with clients and prospective clients? This is what I mean when I say I want to talk about online relationship building.

When the internet first came around it was a great source for easily search-able information, and this is still true. Now days most any question can be answered if you know how and where to look on the internet. However, this is not the only use for the internet, like anything else it grows and evolves. Recently we have seen the rise of social networking and what is being called Web 2.o. The importance of these new innovations from a business standpoint is that they are shifting the way our customers use the internet, and therefore we need to shift the way we use the internet.

Web 2.0 is changing the internet from a simple search-able database of information into a forum for creating community and fostering relationships, and as business people who realize the importance of relationships this is great for us. People are no longer content to simply find information posted on your website, they want interaction, both with you and with other customers. We need to  make sure that we are tapping into this new way of building relationships and using it to reach a new customer base that we may have never thought of before.

To me it makes sense to think of the new internet as one big trade-show. At a trade-show you can have your booth and just put on information for people to come by and pick up and look through, or you can stand at your booth and invite people in, engage people in conversation, and start building a relationship with that person. The growth of web 2.0 has given us the opportunity to stand out front of our online booths and interact with the people coming in, not just let them pick up information and leave. As anyone who has worked at trade shows will tell you, it is the interaction more then the information that is valuable, and this is becoming true on the internet as well.

One final point that I think a lot of people forget is that the rules and tips for building personal relationships apply just as much on the internet as they do in person. This means that whatever you do to start building your relationship presence on the internet you need to make sure it is honest and genuine or you won’t get the desired response.

So I encourage all of us to start thinking about how we can increase our presence on the internet not just from an information stand point, but from a relationship standpoint. That is part of what we are trying to do with our blogs at McDCG. We want to use these blogs to not only provide information, but also start growing a community. This is why we always encourage you to leave comments and start discussions. So how is your business using the internet? Leave us some comments so we can all see what you have done and learn together.

Technorati Tags: blogging, Business, Business Relationships, communication, twitter

So, you’re using Twitter, but you wish you were getting more out of it?

Well, there’s no reason you shouldn’t be able to improve the way you use Twitter.

This site lists over 150 Twitter tools that can help you customize your twittering so that it works for you.

I’m using just 3 of these. (Guess I’m a bit behind) Let’s see how many I can utilize by the end of the week! How many Twitter Tools are you using? Do you have a favorite that’s not listed?

Technorati Tags: communication, improvement, twitter

Do you know anyone who blogs for blogging’s sake?  They blog b/c they haven’t had a post in a while, not because they have something to say?  I Freudian slipped and typed bogging, but that’s what this is, isn’t it?  Bogging down our servers, our emails, our tweets with useless stuff?

So let’s make a pact - no more bogging, only blogging.

Technorati Tags: blogging, twitter

Here I sit in a client’s office in Los Angeles, still trying to recover for the 5.8 earthquake that just rocked the area about an hour ago. I’m still a little queasy (probably adrenalin aftermath) and a little shaky (my insides as well as the building movement)…

I gotta tell ya, it’s really thrown off my concentration. I can’t focus on what I was doing when the quake struck; I can’t focus on what I’m supposed to be accomplishing right now; and just when I think I’m OK and ready to get back to it, the lights freekin’ flicker! Like, every 2-3 mins - just enough to be annoying as well as a reminder that “Things aren’t like they were this morning”. So, here’s my deal with myself: when the lights stop flickering, I’ll start working on diagramming a process again.

Till then, it’s hangin’ around on Twitter and hopin’ that I can continue to fake out the client with my perceived nonchalance - all while silently screaming “I want my mommy!” in my head… and I’ll gladly pay the big trucks that rumble by the building $100 if they take another route - their passing feels too much like aftershocks.

Technorati Tags: twitter