Business tactics

Credit to www.dannyok.com for the graph.

I know what you’re thinking. “We use email, social media, instant messaging – what else do we need?” Well, for starters, if you’re one of those offices comprised of fifteen programmers spread across the world who communicate and organise themselves and their projects digitally, you’re at a disadvantage. Working physically alongside people can often be beneficial, but sometimes, the closest we can get is through video conferencing.

In the first 24 hours after Google’s VOIP service launched, one million calls were placed. Of course, most of these were probably test calls placed so people could go “hey, Tony! It’s just like Skype, but with a different logo, and in Gmail, right?”, and then hang up. But it proves a point – Google experiments, but will very rarely launch something it doesn’t have the utmost faith in. Voice calling is dominated by Skype, with telephones being manufactured and built into keyboards specifically for this. In fact, it’s probably why 99% of office workers who aren’t receptionists are buying headsets.

But does that mean we’re communicating well? Do we lose the tone of voice, or the ability to physically show someone an architectural model because we’re using webcams instead of sitting there in the office with them? Some things tend to get lost in the transfer, and unfortunately it’s usually the personal side to a business. Businesses, large ones at least, are not the most personal of entities to deal with. Large, faceless corporations, often have an automated telephone network and a bored set of people on the phones. If we apply the same “once removed” strategy to our internal communications, are we really a team, an empathetic, tight-knit motley crew of people able to hit the big numbers?

I find that although I can show someone a design for a website, or a bit of content, over the web, it doesn’t always mean they’re entirely following what I’m saying. Technology is fallible, and if we return to the example of the network of programmers, what happens if the Skype network goes down? No VOIP, no face-to-face or voice-based communication, and half the meaning in human speech is lost the second their thoughts hit the keyboard. Unless, of course, they send little vlogs to one another by YouTube, but if that ends up being the case they’re probably doing more video editing than programming at that point.

VOIP is a useful tool – it doesn’t require our fingers, and this means we can often keep working, take down notes, or surf to the site they’re telling us about without having to avoid multitasking. However, if we continue to rely on communication via digital channels and phase out the good, old-fashioned phone call, doesn’t all business conducted become less human? I agree it’s a rather philosophical concept for a Monday afternoon, but realistically we need to take a look at the way we’re talking to each other. I speak to a client on the phone, or face-to-face. We understand each other better, there are no mixed messages. This is preferable when you’re meeting for lunch on a work day, but if you’re meeting to discuss a £5m contract, it’s crucial.

I’d love to try the Google VOIP system, though I’ll be waiting a while as the UK aren’t getting free calls unless it’s to the US or Canada. However, when it does go free, and it will have to if it wants, in true Google-style, to stomp the competition flat and dance on its digital corpse. Skype must be shaking in their boots right now, either that or they know something we don’t.

Today marked the launch of an exciting and innovative new website called FashionStake.

A New York-based company has come up with the idea of allowing the consumer to purchase a ’stake’ in a designers collections. In return they get various privileges, which any fashionista would love, such as pre-order discounts and runway show tickets.

The idea is a novel one; it gives us, the consumer, the chance to fund and shape a designer collection before it has even been produced. It allows you to become more hands on, or to have more online input, in the clothes you will eventually wear.

Firstly FashionStake allows you to  provide feedback, so you can vote for individual pieces and also interact with the designers themselves in discussion boards.

Secondly you can become a buyer. This means you can pre-order from a collection and get a big discount, thought to be about 40%.

Thirdly you can become a funder. Pay $50 and you can purchase store credit, worth up to $125 return on a $50 stake, which you can use to shop till you drop once the collection goes live.

And lastly, for the die-hard fashion fans, you can pay $500 to be a VIP. You will get things like Fashion Week tickets, dinner with one of the designers and even a free item from the collection.

So, it’s great for designers who want to launch a career, it’s great for the owners of FashionStake who don’t have that much money to support all up and coming designers and it’s great for the consumer. It offers them the interactive aspect that you don’t get when buying clothes in most shops and there is also a social media feel to it that people want.

Is this the way forward for all new online businesses? If you lack the funding to do everything you want, then this seems like a good alternative because you get the money and also a fan base. It’s using the principle of crowdsourcing and crowdfunding.

We know this idea does work, to an extent anyway, look at Ebbsfleet United, the English football club.

In 2007 instead of allowing the club to be owned by millionaires, it was announced that it would be taken over by the website MyFootballClub.com.

27,000 members of the website paid £35 which provided the £700,000 takeover fund and they were all given an equal share in the club, although they do not make a profit.

Similar to FashionStake, the members vote on transfers, player selection, even the kits.

Initially ideas like this do very well, especially with all the press involved and people like to be a part of exciting new projects.

Ebbsfleet United is still owned by the members of MyFootballClub.com. However in March of this year, only 800 out of 4000 members have continued to pay membership fees. The initial idea clearly works but the future of the club may be rocky. Speculation suggests that the club had far too many debts in the first place for this to succeed.

What about FashionStake? Presumably it will do very well in the first year but whether it will stay the distance is anyone’s guess.

But if you are looking for an injection of funding, a chance to get your customers involved and drum up a little publicity, crowdfunding seems to be the wave to ride.

I’m sure everyone’s read this week that there’s a distinct likelihood of The Social Network, the Facebook film, being swiftly followed by a film about Google. Googled: The End of the World as We Know It, the book about the company penned by one Ken Auletta, has been optioned for the silver screen by producer John Morris.

I can’t help but wonder how the CEOs and employees in question feel about these films. Sure, they might not be representing the most positive view of the company, but surely any press is good press? I know no one needs to call attention to Facebook and Google – that’s a done job, being the two of the most popular online destinations on the internet.

But why not make a statement? Embrace the fact that the films are the talk of the town? I’m looking forward to The Social Network and the drama and controversy that the film aims to convey. Mark Zuckerberg, the film’s protagonist and arguable founder of Facebook itself, doesn’t think the film will hold to the truth. However, doesn’t he realise that Facebook’s saturation of the planet’s population means hundreds of thousands of people are going to see the film anyway?

Google’s film, however, may be far more interesting. Google is, like Facebook, a monopolistic online entity. Their market-share hovers at around 95%, they’re rapidly spreading into every digital market and medium, from their search engine to books, television and domain management and registration. I have an account, a homepage, a domain, a YouTube account and a browser, all done by Google and used by me on a daily basis.

But the end of the world? Is this really bad market for them, or is it an opportunity for Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page to show off their PR muscle and demonstrate they’re serious, business-minded entrepreneurs whose determination meant they were able to place themselves at the centre of the internet. How many companies can lay claim to inventing a verb?

It’s an interesting, online-focused Russian doll concept to consider; the film’s advertised on sites, some of which using domains sold to them by Google, to talk about a Google movie that people will research using Google. No other company can claim to act as such a seller of information, and they could raise or sink the film depending on the complex, secretive algorithms they use to determine what comes first in their search engine – the excited Google critic, or the excited Google fan.

Both Google and Facebook have had their fair share of third-party controversy – Facebook has stalkers, kidnappers and rapists, and Google’s safe-search features aren’t always as “safe” as they proclaim. But what other companies will we now see drifting into the limelight? McDonald’s PR staff must’ve had minor aneurysms after Super-Size Me was released to the public, and they’re the most dominant fast-food chain on the planet – I discovered only last night that if you’re visiting the pyramids of Egypt and fancy a Happy Meal or a Big Mac, it’s only over the other side of these sacred architectural relics.

It begs the question; are you really coping with your critics as well as you could be? Everyone releases statements, denial-esque press releases, and product changes to respond to critics without actually responding. But what if Google’s founders sat down, tomorrow morning, and used Google Video to release a vlog of them discussing what they’d love to see discussed in the film. It calls attention to a film that could be dangerously critical, while making them seem involved in how they’re perceived by the public.

As with all the major shifts in the online sphere, time will tell on this one, but hopefully we’ll get a Google film that pulls no punches and stays neutral. The Social Network seems fun, but a little dramatic. An adaptation of a critical work of non-fiction about a company with monthly online visitors numbering in the billions deserves to be taken seriously, and the company should take the opportunity for a little serious marketing of their own.

Not sure about you, but the Bing adverts have, as of late, become one of my most despised advertising campaigns. The endless noise and dubious message that any other search engine is going to give you unrelated results, and the implication that we’ve all seemingly got some kind of mental disorder where tangential conversation techniques are the only way to go.

Allow me to de-bunk this marketing campaign, if you will.

First off, take a look at these figures. These were released in July 2010 – before and during the “information overload” advert campaign, which is still   going. Yahoo’s share of the UK search engine market has fallen by a couple percent, leaving it third to Bing.

This all sounds hunky-dory until you consider that their combined market share is still equivalent to what it was before. Bing has consumed part of Yahoo’s slice of the online pie, but Google’s still got the same amount of pastry, crumbs and cherries in sauce it had a year ago. Dominance over the market second-comer is not an achievement, not when you’re supplying the search technology for your competitor and their market share was below 5% to begin with.

But the advert asks an interesting question: what has information overload done to us? This is a valid question, and one that it’s taken a Microsoft ad campaign to make us ask of ourselves. Personally, information overload now means I’m learning more than I was ten years ago in my spare time. It means I can research and reference in the space of a minute, and nothing is too complex now as sites covering a single subject help us to study along a gradient of complexity.

Google has, unfortunately for Microsoft’s Bing engine, sealed the market shut, and if in ten years it became the West’s only search engine I wouldn’t bat an eyelid. After all, it works well for what I need it to. Make sure you’re preferring UK results (especially when shopping), stick Safesearch to strict to filter out the waves of immaturity in Google Images, and you’re laughing.

But what if it didn’t work so well? The problem with a monopolistic market share in technology is that consumers tend to flail in panic, en masse, when something goes seriously wrong. Take the iPhone 4, for example. One moment it’s the Messiah, the next we’ve digitally lynch-mobbed Apple to the point that the man at the head of the operation “decided to leave”.

“Digital lynching” is an interesting phrase, and one a colleague coined recently. Apple’s Anntennagate martyr, and HP’s CEO are suffering from the same melodramatic backlash from the public – social media tirades. Twitter has become the new forum for slamming public figureheads, and trending and hash-tags allow this to happen. But are big jobs suffering for it? If Google’s Android system is successfully sued and the funding goes down the toilet, the OS with it, will Twitter turn on Oracle, or Google?

It brings me back to thinking about Bing. Is it a good thing? Do we need a wider choice? I’d say so. Google’s a fantastic search engine, but when one company gets a monopolistic hold on the market, almost no one holds a hand up and says “stop”. However, if it was to happen in government, there’d be protests on the streets.

Tyranny is no different in business, the only change is that your money’s going to Apple for your phone, Microsoft (or Apple again) for your computer and Oyster for your travel (if you’re in London), rather than paying your taxes to whichever party is currently dominating the ballot box. Are we now more subsceptible to marketing than we ever were? Is Bing just another pusher? What has information overload done to us?

It seems like such a ridiculous goal, doesn’t it? To make an incredible amount of money from something as simple as a blog about, say, writing white papers, or about social media. But there are a few who blog and rake in an impressive revenue each year, and one of those few is Michael Stelzner.

Reading the incredible account of his meteoric rise to internet fame and economical success via the blogging medium, it got me thinking. Why aren’t we all doing this? I’m a copy-writer, and I’ve written millions of words relating to every subject you can think of over the few years during and after university.

But it takes social media knowledge to drive traffic in. People aren’t going to bother visiting a site unless one or both of the following two conditions are met: a word-of-mouth recommendation, or a larger online social media campaign. But how do we achieve these two goals? Social media, social media and social media.

Firstly, if you’re aiming to grow your fan-base with a loyal cult following, then the foremost thing to consider when attempting to start it off in the first place is your network of colleagues and friends. Everyone knows that when a colleague or a friend makes a new website, you’ll all visit, have a poke around. Some will even return regularly, provided it’s interesting and updated often.

However, that’s only a few, and you’re going to have to work hard. No one enjoys having a friend push their blog at them purely for the sake of the site’s hit-counter. But people do like the odd nudge in the right online direction by someone who knows someone who’s writing some really funny, smart stuff on a daily basis.

However, if you’d like to take the more formal route, or you’re a solitary warrior writhing in existential agony and feeling like you’re one of the army of unread bloggers , then you’re going to have to consider social media as your best, and only option. In this day and age, newsletters are not read like they used to be, and we’re probably not going to visit another news site by seeing an advert for it on the one we’re already reading.

However, we might just have a quick peek if the site turns up on somebody’s Twitter account, or regularly forms a part of someone’s Facebook profile. Of course, when they visit and enjoy your content, there’s the small chance of the gold-dust re-tweet, and once that happens it tends to spread like wildfire through people with similar interests.

Take last week, for example – I had someone spontaneously find this article, read it, and tweet about it. I don’t know them personally, and two of their followers re-tweeted the link to this article. There was no prompting, no request at the end of my blog asking those who enjoyed my work to talk about it: it was free advertising for writing someone enjoyed.

These kinds of digital thumbs-ups are important, because eventually you’ll find your way onto the “must read” list of someone big, and that list often now finds its way onto the web. When I first started to write for a publication called Resolution Magazine, I wrote a long screed about the simulation of cultural identity. It was something I’m proud of to this day, but not half as proud of that as what happened to it.

Kieron Gillen, founder of New Games Journalism and arguably one of the best in his field, included it in his Sunday Papers post that listed his favourite bits of writing during the week. To be endorsed by such a major face had a serious impact on my confidence and the success of the article, and the fact that we got a fair amount of traffic simply by repeatedly turning up in his list.

It’s not impossible to become the blog to end all blogs – you’ve just got to utilise the same method that started political revolutions, the Renaissance, and Twitter – word of mouth. If one person says your site is fantastic to a room of ten people, and they in turn do the same, in a day’s time you’ll have 100 more unique visits. Things multiply if you keep the quality up, so do so, and thrive.

This week, Mark Thompson of Stay on Search was discussing content and the way in which it relates to social media and aggregate sites. “One of the best ways to know what type of content has the best chance of going viral is by being an active member in each community.” Personally, I think that most businesses using social media may not have the time or the budget to employ a social media guru to do all their writing, tweeting, digging and other social media verbs for them.

Viral content is an extremely effective way of pushing your company to the top of the online public awareness sphere. Though you may only be flavour of the month, if you churn out more new flavours than Walker’s Crisps during the World Cup, you’ll succeed in the long term. This is a credible strategy, but it begs the question – when you’re a business that deals in solutions, products and services that don’t appeal to the online or tech-geek community, how do you go viral?

The ideal method to leap this particular marketing hurdle towards the revenue finish-line is simple: make yourselves mysterious. Don’t put your product on a white backdrop, on the homepage of your website. Experiment. Use silhouettes, use YouTube camcorder videos, and place adverts on sites that most people wouldn’t imagine being there in the first place. The more you stand out, the more consumers will become curious about your attitude and therefore whatever you’re offering to them.

Don’t serve up information on a plate, but don’t withhold either. This sounds a little paradoxical, but what I mean is this: list specifications, list capabilities and results, but allow the information to trickle out through the community, then confirm via the press. Doing so means that once the geek community has absorbed and discussed your move on the industry chess board, you can either confirm it to the press, or change something the community deems undesirable and side-step a potential venture failure.

If you take a look at the trending topics, numbers and words on Digg, there’s a few obvious results. Words like “the” and “of” turn up frequently, but this is a given – don’t be disheartened by the obvious. Taking a closer look at the list, “movies”, “games”, and, rather poetically, “time”, pop up too. This raises another interesting question – to “top # [product/form of entertainment] of all time” articles fare better online than a press release from a huge corporation?

Largely, yes, because the internet is a social animal, more so than it was ten years ago, and this is furthered by the simple fact that you don’t talk shop at parties. People love discussing films, games, music and books, because it’s not related to the rat race. But they also discuss politics, the mortgage and their student loans, and this is a niche of viral content that still isn’t being exploited. “Top 5 ways to manage a heavy mortgage and a student loan simultaneously” is something that I’d read, and I’m not even in the home-owner market yet.

Why would I read it? I, like many an English graduate before me, have a student loan to pay off, and it appeals to me due to the fact in the title. The fact is the number 5. Thompson claims that the use of numbers is a fair more visually appealing method of communicating statistics to people than writing the number out. “Five” sounds formal, “5″ sounds quick and sharp, and that’s the two main aspects o viral bit of content – it spreads quickly, and it’s smart.

When you’re next launching that large insurance policy, look at how you’re marketing it, because Reader’s Digest, post-working-hours television and the odd mention on your own website won’t cut the mustard. To hit the consumer where they’ll respond (with their mind and, hopefully, their wallet), you need to craft your titles. Blog a little, and Digg those blogs. “Top 5 ways not to go broke”, and be proud of your company, but be subtle.

Also, think about using a by-line. “George has been the CEO at Insurance, ltd. for 10 years, and you can find the many ways he’s helping people through the recession [here].” Make people enjoy your content, enjoy you, and the work is done. One link by a non-company individual on Facebook, Digg, or Twitter, and you’re laughing, because you might just be the next big thing. David After Dentist should be a good enough example.

I feel frustrated with Amazon sometimes. I’m sold on their new Kindle for the UK, and I’ll order products from them over anyone else. However, recently, I ordered a DVD box set which arrived, as have many Amazon-bought products as of late, not in the best condition, and certainly not what most people would classify as “new”.

Now, what to do about this? I complained, of course, but nothing’s happened. I’ve received no voucher, no apology whatsoever. Nothing. Silence. What makes it even more insulting is there wasn’t even an automatic response, no “Dear Customer, we’re sorry to hear”, just a complete lack of care.

Currently, Amazon are beginning to sell more best-sellers in their Kindle e-book format than in physical form, as I mentioned last week. However, they seem to have forgotten that those ordering physical products aren’t going to be pleased if they’re arriving in poor condition. You can’t dog-ear or scuff a Kindle download, but you can break the hearts of literature lovers with a book in shoddy condition.

It would seem, with the arrival of the Kindle, and now especially BankSimple, the world’s first “online-only bank”, that those willing to go all-digital get a better deal when it comes to quality of service. With BankSimple, this means low-to-zero fees, great rates and less paying out for the offices and branches that need to be paid for, rented, furnished and staffed as a result. But what about the downsides?

One of them would definitely be the lack of actual human interaction. I’m as loathe to sit on the phone talking to a bored twenty-something in a call centre as the next person, but I like the fact that I can walk into Abbey, Lloyds TSB or Citibank and actually speak to someone. I can’t do that with Amazon, or Paypal, and that’s a major source of worry. Being able to know that there are people who have to deal with their customers face-to-face, on the other hand, is comforting.

Of course, it’s not the CEO behind the glass wall stamping your cheque, but it’s someone, at least. BankSimple reminds me a bit of the Mac OS X. It’s simple, easy, visually friendly and quick. But it’s so simple that if something goes wrong, figuring out how to fix it can be an exercise in sheer frustration.

So how to promote a brand as human and friendly when you’ve got absolutely no humans on show? Put humans at the forefront of your business strategy. BankSimple’s plan to integrate itself with Facebook Connect and @Anywhere is a vital part of bringing banking to the next level of “online” compatibility. I don’t know about you, but given the choice between the traditional awkward exchange of bank details anywhere but online (our main source of communication now, don’t you know?) or being able to click someone’s name on a network page and transfer funds, I’d take the latter.

So, given the advantages, what about the disadvantages? Everyone’s forgotten, seemingly, about Amazon’s rather awkward George Orwell scandal, but I sure haven’t. What if BankSimple were to make a mistake? You can’t give someone a voucher to replace the money they spent on, well, their money, can you? Social media is a popular but casual affair, and I’m not sure how seriously the bank will attempt to get everyone to update their status while paying off a debt to a friend in the same five minutes on the same site.

People are cagey about money and their purchases, but they’ll talk at length when in the local branch or on the phone with customer service (unless they’re on pay-as-you-go). But if BankSimple reneged on its pledge of loyalty to customers, and became another bail-out bank like the ones it so wishes to put out of business, then what happens?

A word of advice: whenever wondering whether to invest in anything digital where your rights seem blurry, think of  Space Odyssey: 2001. Now imagine the bank telling you they “can’t do that, Michael”, when you’re trying to pay your mortgage. Makes Wall Street look like Sesame Street, doesn’t it? If It’s a Wonderful Life taught me anything, it was that warmth and love for your customers make your bank a good ‘un.

I’m going to introduce you to a theory I’ve been formulating today that many old-school businessmen and women would reject instinctively – the paper business document is effectively dead in the water.

My father, a respected and well-known IFA in the UK, often has to refer to legal texts and various volumes in order to make sure he’s doing things “by the book”. A lot of people have this problem – piles or shelves full of books – hardbacks, softbacks, A5, A4, cracked spines, pages falling out, overuse, damage, spilt coffee. It’s a nightmare. But what’s the biggest problem?

Dad seems to feel it’s the weight. If you, like him, are slogging it through Moorgate and Bank with a laptop bag that holds not just a netbook, but a 400 page, hard-bound, A4 legal text, it’s going to hurt after a while. That’s a big thing, for a man who could walk from here to Manhattan without stopping for breath. “One block further,” he used to tell us, and we’d mentally prepare ourselves for the inevitable marathon to the finish.

Now he uses an Amazon Kindle. I met him for breakfast in Farringdon soon after he’d bought it, and I will admit: I was excited. I adore paper – the feel of the pages, sticking a paperback in my back pocket, reading on the train. But I picked up the Kindle and wanted it more than I’ve wanted most material objects I’ve seen, as appetising as the scrambled eggs on toast I had that morning. It also contained PDF files, many of them, and some of them hundreds of pages long. Was his back as sore? Not any more.

Currently, Amazon’s sales of hardback books have been overtaken by its ebook sales, and by 2011, the company predicts ebooks will outsell its physical form. Admittedly that’s just one company, but let’s not mess around, here – it’s Amazon. The online store sells everything bar the kitchen sink, although they do outsource a fair few items (DVDs from IndigoStarfish in the UK, for example). The fact they’re seeing the light when it comes to a digital page isn’t just because the Kindle is their platform.

Let me put you in a situation, and picture it for me if you will. You’re in a conference, and you need to read a speech, and refer to several documents. Either you somehow organise several pages of A4 onto a small lectern, or you whip out a Kindle. Ooh, everyone will say, this person’s done this before.

Yeah, it’s an image thing – so what? Why have you all bought the iPhone 4 even though it’s broken? Image. Why do we still buy most things in life? Image. Image is important, and it goes beyond your company logo. Someone with a portable database of files, speeches and charts on what is no larger than a thin paperback is going to feel a lot more organised and less chaotic. I can’t stand ploughing through reams of paper, but I could read PDFs for hours.

Many businesses would argue that the 50 cent price per PDF converted (read: downloaded) by Amazon for your Kindle would amount to thousands within the month. Allow me to debunk this one as well. Buy a USB cable, and do it yourself. It’s no more difficult than using a USB dongle, and it saves you a good tenner a week if you’re getting a lot of client portfolios or sales reports.

The new 3G functionality seals the deal – have a document on your Blackberry, but not the Kindle, and need to transfer on the move? Your Kindle has its own PDF-receptive email address and free wi-fi everywhere it goes in the UK. Add Wikipedia and Google searches, and you’re golden.

Paper is quaint, but we all work on laptops, not typewriters. Let’s move forward, and move on.