In 2009, businesses will live and die by the level of customer service—designing memorable and positive user experiences—that they are able to provide. Here are five tactics to help guarantee that you and your business are providing the best possible customer experience (online or off) in the coming year…
Among those of us who use social media, the vast majority—93%—expect companies to have a social media presence. Does your business have a social media strategy yet?
As social media takes hold and anyone with an Internet connection is given a voice (or a megaphone), it is essential that businesses rethink their marketing strategies.
As a consumer, whom are you more likely to trust—someone you’ve never met who is likely getting compensated for his or her product endorsement, or a peer who shares your tastes and interests, is genuinely excited about the product and isn’t getting paid to have an opinion.
Every day, millions of people are going online and creating content. Do you know what your customers are broadcasting online about their experiences with your brand and your products? Learn how to just listen or engage your critics and fans alike in the social media landscape.
I’ve been on both ends of a Rick Roll; I was even Rick Roll’d live in front of a few dozen people by my thoughtful and charming user experience team. The video below takes the art form to a new level by including Muppets. And, as we all know… Muppets make everything better, except Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.
A couple weeks ago, I noticed Google experimenting with a new user interface pattern in their search results: another search input field. The search within a search raises some questions from both usability and marketing points of view. Is this unexpected UI pattern beneficial for end-users; does it help users more easily discover what they’re looking for; and what will be the effect on content owners whose sites Google is searching?
In less than 24 hours of Twitter usage I’m following 18 people and 12 are following me. I’ve posted a few tweets… I have to admit, it is somewhat addictive
Jeremiah Owyang, Senior Analyst at Forrester Research shares his thoughts on best practices for businesses entering the social media and social networking arena. “The power is in the hands of the community.”
Yes, attention is king; the hard part is capturing and maintaining people’s attention. MTV has fried most of our synapses to the point that we can’t focus on anything for more than three seconds.
Are you paying attention? More importantly… is your audience?
Are user generated content websites like Facebook and MySpace taking advantage of their users? The aforementioned websites are valued at billions of dollars (estimates range from $15 to $65 billion for MySpace alone), but without the users who create all of the content on the sites, aren’t the businesses effectively worthless?
Websites like Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Flickr, etc. are increasingly attracting marketers looking to get their product in front of millions of web users. There are at least three questions that should be asked of any business that wants to enter the social fray…
As 2007 comes to a close, let’s take a look back at some online trends that I would rather not see again in 2008. Realistically, many of these trends will persist, but a guy can dream, can’t he?
The era of the deep discount big box store is over. Why bother fighting crowds, standing in endless lines and dealing with rude employees at a warehouse store when shopping and research can be done from the comfort of our homes and offices? The businesses that will succeed in the next decade will make personalized customer service and a pleasurable user experience their top priority.
Lately, it seems as though every client that I work with is asking for a community or social networking aspect to their website project. Marketers are gradually realizing that social media is seizing control of their brand message, and, in turn, they feel that if they enter the fray they can regain the upper hand. Whether or not all of these clients actually understand what social media entails is another question.