It’s not because I feel I need one, per se – the community here is one of the best on the web.

I feel incredibly lucky to have you guys come here and share your views, because you always treat both me and your fellow commenters with respect when discussing something I’ve written.

That hasn’t changed.

So why a comment policy? Simple – it keeps everything upfront, so if anyone ever does “step out of line”, they’ll know why I either edited or deleted their comment.

Again, I’ve probably only had to do that 4-5 times in the 14,000+ comments made here since this blog started. That in itself goes to show what a great community you are.

I also want to make sure that you, the reader, feel safe and comfortable when sharing your views. As my comment policy states, I will not accept anyone attacking another commenter for having a point of view. You help make this blog what it is; the least I can do is help make it somewhere you want to hang out.

The blog policy can be found here, but I’ll also replicate it now:

When I write a blog post, it’s obviously my point of view. Once it’s in the open, though, it then becomes a shared point of view with you, the readers – and your point of view is what builds the discussions around a post. Sometimes you’ll agree with me; other times, not so much. And that’s what makes the comments after a post such a fervent breeding ground for ideas.

I don’t mind if you attack me for my views. Heck, I’m big and ugly enough to take your shots, and it shows me that you’re passionate about a topic – and I would never discourage passion.

Besides, I’m the person that’s invoked that reaction, so if it’s an attack, let’s have it open and unfiltered (although keeping it respectful would be nice).

What I won’t accept, however, is attacking other commenters. They’re like you – simply offering an additional view on the starting topic. By all means, attack me – the blog is my home and as the owner, I’m responsible for what goes on inside. But attacking another commenter – that’s poor form.

I’m a firm believer in an open comment policy; I don’t moderate before publication, because I feel that stints genuine interaction and conversation. Going by the conversations that have happened over the months, it would appear that most agree.

Let’s play nice and keep it that way. Like I say, attack me if you wish – as the instigator of discussion, I’m open to all views and words. But let’s treat the guests (and that includes you) nicely. Otherwise, you will be moderated and deleted where I feel it’s applicable.

And let’s keep the bigotry, hate, sexism, profanity and all that other fun stuff off here too. You want that, hit up TechCrunch, YouTube or similar.

What say you – fair?

I think that covers it pretty well.

Good to go?

Image: Bob.Fornal

Surveying 1,550 U.S. respondents aged 15 and older from March 2009 to April 2010, the results found that a whopping 40% of consumers like a brand or company on Facebook to “receive discounts and promotions.” When it comes to getting freebies, 36% would like a brand who offered giveaways.

Add to that 30% of those surveyed would like a brand to get updates on upcoming sales, and it’s clear that having a Facebook page offers a great opportunity for businesses to build loyalty with a willing customer base.

So how can you use this information for your business’s Facebook page?

Coupons and Customer Coding

The obvious way to market would be through coupons of your own. If you have flyers or discount coupons for your brick-and-mortar retail store, you can easily transfer that to your Facebook page.

Grab the artwork from your existing flyer (or make one unique to Facebook) and then transfer that to a tab on your page’s navigation menu. Currently this is created using the FBML application (and some HTML coding), though soon you’ll have to change to iFrame.

Call your tab something simple like Coupons or Discounts to grab attention. Then, to encourage folks to Like your page, only make the coupon or discount available to people after they like you. If you’re unsure how to do this, my friend John Haydon has a great guide on using Facebook HTML as well as hiding offers until people click your Like button.

I used this method when I offered a free Facebook Marketing ebook exclusively to folks that liked my Facebook page, and as you can see by this overview on the metrics, exclusive content definitely works.

Of course, getting folks to like your brand through coupons and discounts is just part of the process – keeping them is a whole other story.

Loyalty, Lists and Like Highlights

So now you have a bunch of folks that have liked your Facebook page because of your discount coupons or freebie offer. But how do you stop them from un-liking as soon as they have the coupon?

Simple – you market. But not just any old marketing – now you use the strengths of the Facebook page platform and make it a no-brainer for folks that like you to continue to do so.

• Facebook Insights are available for admins of any Facebook page, and will give you information on demographics, content popularity, interaction on offers and other useful insights into how people are acting on your page. Use this to tailor audience offers and time-sensitive specials.
• Facebook Updates are the equivalent of email lists, and will send a targeted message to people that like your page. The great thing with updates is that you can completely tailor them so that instead of everyone receiving a message, only those in a certain city, country, age range, demographic, etc, will receive the message. Perfect for gender-specific offers, or cultural events, or national holidays – anything you like, really.

On top of these two options, rotate your coupon and offers, and make sure they’re only available to people that like your page. Don’t settle into a routine – have an offer one week, then change two weeks later, then 2 days, etc. Mix it up so people will always have to be connected to your page to know when a new coupon is available.

Highlight your most valuable users as well.

Folks that interact the most; or use their coupon the most; or share your offer the most – give them special discounts and rewards to say thank you. It shows you value them, and also offers incentives to your other “fans” to become more involved.

These are just some of the ways you can be the brand that customers won’t just like, but be loyal to instead of being a fairweather friend.

And at the end of the day, isn’t that what you’re in business for?

Image: Exact Target and CoTweet

I’m not against anyone making money through products they endorse.

Heck, I promote the Headway theme and BlogOnCloud9 web hosting services (both affiliate links) because I believe they offer the best combination for WordPress bloggers.

But you’ll notice there’s an affiliate disclosure there, and that’s the part that pisses me off about certain affiliate marketers.

I’m seeing a lot of blog posts where affiliation isn’t disclosed. That’s bad enough, but you can always check if it’s an affiliate link by hovering your mouse over the link (and if it’s not a direct link but one with numbers and ID’s, you can usually bet that it’s an affiliate link).

Where I’m getting really annoyed is on Twitter. I see a bunch of recommendations for products that you just know are affiliate links and, true enough, if you click on the link you’ll see the affiliate URL before the normal one kicks in.

But there’s no mention of the affiliation in the tweet. Instead, it just looks like someone’s had a great experience with a brand, or they really like something and want to share it with their followers.

Fine, go for it. But you can’t disclose? Seriously? It’d take six characters to show it’s an affiliate link – (aff.). Would that really eat into your 140-character tweet limit? You have space for a ten-letter hashtag, but not the space to disclose the affiliation?

To me, that’s false advertising. You’re not disclosing your ties to the company, and that’s something the FTC was meant to be cracking down on in social media. Seems they still have a way to go.

Marketers get a bad rep from a ton of people, saying we’re only out to make a quick buck. Marketers in social media get much more stick, and we’re akin to the bubonic plague in some quarters.

But it’s no surprise when you see crap like this hidden affiliation happening.

Does $20 a sale really mean that much to you that you give up the decency to be honest?

• Update Sept 1: Looks like the Advertising Standards Authority in the U.K has been listening to 4,500 pissed off users over there. Twitter and Facebook paid links will be coming under their regulation in 2011.

Image: Fr. Stephen, MSC

We wait for that one killer application or solution that will take us from Brand X to Brand Everyone Wants a Piece Of. We close doors on ordinary ideas because only extraordinary will sell.

But what defines ordinary?

Cancer research takes ordinary science and medicine and is trying to offer extraordinary life-changing results.

While we have digital tools to write our missives, it’s still the ordinary pen that’s used for our most personal thoughts. Thoughts that have the potential to turn the world on its head if we share them.

What we see as extraordinary when it comes to heart transplants, surgeons see it as just another ordinary day.

An electric bike might be ordinary to our kids, but a tribal member in the most hidden reaches of the jungle could see it as an extraordinary gift from the Gods.

Sure, we need to be smart in business. We need to know our decisions will keep a roof over our heads and that of our employees, and put our kids through college.

But you know – sometimes the most ordinary decisions and ideas could be the ones that bring the most extraordinary results.

Are you redefining ordinary?

Image: *ChArLiE 2010(^:*’s

How its practitioners are snake-oil salesmen.

Why everyone’s just out to make a quick buck.

How businesses are being ripped off by consultants who charge an arm and a leg for their time and deliver very little back in return.

One of the better headlines I spotted was Why Social Media Gurus Should Be Trampled by Elephants (check out the edited URL as well for extra emphasis). To be fair, that post makes some good points, while draped in a humorous link-bait title.

But here’s the thing.

While there are definitely crap merchants out there who wouldn’t know a tweet from a poke, there are also many more incredibly smart and business-savvy individuals and agencies that are bringing their clients huge success in social media.

You know why?

Because their clients actually had the common sense to do due diligence on who they were employing as their social media arm. Because the consultants/agencies had results and actionable strategies (with return predictions) to show. Because, simply put, the business owner acted like a business owner.

It doesn’t matter what industry you’re in. It doesn’t matter that “social media is new”, “social media is scary”, “we don’t understand social media”, or any other excuse or phrase you want to use.

If you do your job as a business owner and protect your investment, there wouldn’t be the need for any social media bashing (or any other industry bashing). You’d be asking questions that should be asked of any supplier.

• What’s your experience?
• Name some of the projects you’ve worked on.
• What was the strategy used?
• How did the results versus the projections go?
• How will this really benefit my company?
• What’s the time map?
• How will you transfer your skills to my industry?

Forget how many Twitter followers someone has – that can be gamed and bought. Forget how sparkly their blog is – that can be paid for. Forget how they name drop players in the industry – is that relevant to you?

Instead, treat social media like you would any other part of your business. Carry out due diligence and don’t be sold on the first whiz-bang pitch you receive.

You’ve built your business to where it is now because you’ve been protective of your investment.

Why stop that now?

Image: What What

In it, he told the story of how he was inspired by George Bergeron, the Group President of one of the companies Mark worked for.

On George’s desk was a sign that had three simple words – “Leaders Dispense Hope.”

The rest of the post offers Mark’s take on why these words have stuck with him, and what he looks to in leaders to follow this mantra.

It’s a great read and the comments offer some excellent thoughts too.

And it made me think. How are we encouraging hope in those around us? How are we helping to grow the leaders of tomorrow?

I wrote recently about the roles of companies needing to team-build differently, and I think some of the ideas mentioned in that post can help.

But they’re not the complete answer – they just look at what companies can do.

We also have to look at what we’re doing every single day, both in our own lives and our professional lives. Like it or not, we’re all acting in a role of leadership with every action we do.

• Our reactions to situations and people around us shape the mindset of today’s kids, tomorrow’s leaders. We swear; they swear. We smoke; they smoke. We do drugs; they do drugs. If we’re not setting the example, how can we expect our kids to?
• How we work with colleagues dictates how we lead our workforce. Even if we’re not managers, we’re part of a decision-making process that defines that company’s culture and success. Work smart; work intelligently; work respectfully.
• Our voices define our outlook. Disagree with something or someone by all means, but respect their view to differ. Religion; simple points of view; movie tastes, etc – wouldn’t it be boring if we were all the same? Make your point but allow more than yours.
• Speaking for the voiceless when words aren’t enough. Actions speak louder than words – know someone that’s right but afraid to say so? Say it for them – don’t be a passer-by when the slightest encouragement can offer so much hope.

None of us are born leaders – that takes time to cultivate. Even then, leadership is born from respect of our peers, employers, friends and colleagues. People earn leadership – bought leadership is just politics.

Leaders make changes that others wish for but never act on. Imagine if we encouraged everyone around us to be leaders in their own right?

Image: Horizontal.Integration

I’ve had brilliant guest authors here, but not really written too many myself. Maybe I should revisit my own post…

Having said that, I have been fortunate enough to appear on three blogs recently. Each one offers something different, while still within the realms of business, marketing and good old PR (which seems to have also taken a bit of a backseat here).

Anyhoo… The three posts can be found below, and I’d love for you to jump over and share your thoughts in the comments of the post.

A Message to PR – Don’t Be Restricted, Be Positive and Influence Change. Paul Sutton is a PR pro with more than 14 years knowledge and experience. He recently interviewed me for his Flock Friday Thought Leader series, and we spoke about PR and social media; restrictive agencies; old and new mindsets and why ethics need to start from the top. You can find the whole shebang here.

Stop Killing Your Business. Frank Dickinson is someone who I have a lot of time for. A marketer by trade, he’s also one of the kindest folks I know. Always supportive, always ready to lend a hand. For this post, I look at five things you can implement now to stop your business being another “Remember Brand X?” statistic. You can find out what these are here.

What I’d Like to See from Geo-Location Marketing. Gini Dietrich – what can you say about Gini? Smart, savvy, witty and very driven – everything a business owner should be. Gini’s a seasoned communications professional who runs her own PR/comms agency. Here, I talk about geo-location services like Foursquare, and why marketers need to up their game when it comes to creativity on offers and promotions. The juicy stuff starts here.

So there you go – a little diversity from the usual stuff, and as I say, I’d love to read your thoughts in the comments there.

The blogs also belong to three folks I admire immensely, and their blogs are always worth reading, so make sure you check the rest of their blogs out while there, and subscribe to them if you like what you see.

Have a great Friday!

Image: PaulWB

When you get there, you see the normal weekly flyer that has the current offers. Some you might be interested; others, not so much. So you flick through the flyer, then leave it at the bottom of the shopping cart.

You wander around the store, grab the things you need, then go to pay at the checkout. You might have a loyalty card for that store, so you swipe it and grab your points, and leave.

Job done for another week or so (more, if you do a large monthly shop instead). Then you’ll repeat the routine in a month’s time, and then the following month, etc.

But it could be so much more.

The Relationship to the Sale

According to a new report from eMarketer, consumers aren’t just looking for the latest and greatest offers. Sure, price plays a part in any sales process, but that’s just part of the story.

The biggest part? We want to be educated as well, as this chart from the eMarketer report shows.

What’s interesting from this chart isn’t the fact that consumers want to know how your prices compare – that’s a given. Nor is it getting or redeeming coupons – again, that’s almost a given with any retailer.

It’s the remaining pieces of information – the parts about getting nutritional information, reading product reviews and visiting the company’s site for information.

Oh yeah – and the part that this is all via smartphones while the consumer is shopping.

So, looking at the report a bit further, it’s essentially saying we, as customers, are on our smartphones while shopping to not only see if there are any online discounts available, but to see if we can find more information about what we’re about to buy.

Now how could you, as a retailer, use that information? Because it’s clear our normal shopping methods are changing, and you need to change with that. So where do you start?

Loyalty on the Go

If you’re a retailer, there’s a good chance you already have a loyalty program in place to reward frequent shoppers (I’m looking at this from a medium-to-large retailer point of view; although smaller retailers could benefit as well from a low cost loyalty program).

But how well are you using that with mobile marketing? Are you using it at all?

In Canada, for example, loyalty programs are hugely popular, with almost 94% of consumers belonging to at least one loyalty program. If you’re a Canadian retailer (or have a presence there) that equates to almost 15 million consumers to target (working on the assumption half the population are minors or children).

We know that population is increasingly smartphone savvy – as this 2009 Nielsen report shows, Canada accounts for 12% of the smartphone market (which is probably more now that the iPhone and Android are available in Canada). This equates to about 4.8 million Canadian consumers on smartphones.

So let’s think about that a second. Loyalty is huge in Canada; more Canadians are using smartphones – so the obvious next step is to combine the two with your marketing (and this can be across markets – I just used Canada as an example as that’s where I live).

• Tie in your loyalty card to a mobile app. When consumers sign up for your card, advise them of your mobile app. When they download, they enter their loyalty card number and that ties their accounts together.
• Monitor the usage of the app. Is it for coupons? In-store specials? Research? Build a database of your consumers’ use of your app, and build loyalty offers into that. Offer small tips on nutrition, product energy usage, etc, depending on the products you sell. Give shoppers a reason to stay in your store.
• Make it easy to shop with you. Best Buy and Future Shop currently have an app that offers a ton of features to make the consumer’s experience more enjoyable. Browsing and buying options, easy check-out, barcode and billing options are just some of its features. Tie that into the Best Buy / Future Shop card, that rewards your app use with physical points, and you can see the benefits immediately. (At Bonsai Interactive, we’re currently building a bunch of apps that take this to the next level for multiple retailer industries).
• Have price comparisons at the ready. Saying you offer the best value is one thing; showing it is another. Have mini-chart comparisons on prices for you and your competitors – that keeps consumers off your competitors’ mobile sites and interacting on yours.
• Pro-active use of loyalty points. Because your mobile app is tied into your loyalty card, you can instantly advise consumers of when they’ve reached a certain plateau. The app recognizes how many points has been accrued and lets the consumer know via an alert. They can then buy direct from the phone with smart, targeted and mobile-friendly ads and purchases (which then gets added to the loyalty card).

And on it goes – these are just some ways you could combine your offline loyalty card with your online mobile marketing. And we haven’t even discussed where social media or location-based marketing comes into the mix – combine that with existing marketing and mobile promotions, and the sky really is the limit.

We’ve all heard the line, “Social media is changing the way we do business”. But perhaps the real line should be, “Mobile and loyalty is changing the way consumers need us to do business.”

So how far along the line are you at making your mobile customers loyal?

Image: LearnVest

Instead of blowing $50,000 on the staff Christmas party, companies offered employees the option of a smaller bash and donated the rest to a local charity.

Instead of sending employees on a team-building exercise to the woods, companies sent them on a team-building exercise to renovate a playground in a run-down area.

Instead of always using interns from the local college, companies mixed it up a little and gave a business education to kids from lower income schools.

Instead of the lavish client lunch expenses, companies offered smaller, intimate, catered meetings and bought food for a local food bank.

Instead of the expensed company cars, companies rewarded carpooling where possible and bought the local school new buses.

Imagine if.

Are you promoting yourself via social networks, or are you leaving that to your readers? Do you make sure potential clients know about your blog, if you’re using it as a business platform?

Are you simply using the standard sharing options - Twitter, Facebook, etc – or are you thinking of ways you can be a little creative when it comes to sharing your blog socially?

Let’s face it, if you’re using your blog as a business platform then the more eyeballs it gets, the better for finding potential new clients or customers. Even a personal blog can benefit from extra visitors.

So here’s a few ways you can get outside the normal views of retweets and shares, and promote your blog to a bigger crowd that may miss it otherwise.

Social Sharing Groups

The most oft-used method of sharing a blog post is via social sharing buttons on the post itself.

These are either located at the top and/or bottom of the post, or to the side. I use a mix of both – Digg Digg to offer the floating share bar to the left of this post, and Share This at the bottom.

But why not take this a little further, and create a social sharing group?

For example, one of the best resources for traffic to this blog is Stumbleupon. This is a great social sharing platform that lets you “stumble” the web, and allows you to give either a thumbs up or down to the site you’re currently on (you can also leave a review if you like).

What happens then is that the site is put into the Stumbleupon library, so anyone else using the stumble option could land on your blog. If they then like it, they give you a thumbs up and your currency increases on Stumbleupon. It’s easier than it sounds, and it’s a great passive traffic generator.

So create a Stumble group.

Grab about 10 of your online friends, and help promote each other’s blogs. Anytime a new post is published, have one of the group stumble it, then you can give it a thumbs up.

You can then take this idea to other social bookmarks - Reddit, Digg, Sphinn, etc. Just make sure you also highlight a lot of other great sites too – don’t create the group just to promote your work, that’s just spammy.

Turn Posts into Ebooks

You blog. You write. A lot. Depending on whether you’re a niche blogger or not, you might have a lot of posts on similar topics, or even run a blog series of interconnected posts.

So why not turn them into an ebook?

The market for ebooks is huge, and offers a great way for you to either give back to your blog community for reading you, or sell them as part of your business offerings.

Write a crafts blog? Put together some of your favourite tips and publish as an ebook. Chef? Collate some of your favourite recipes and sell them via your blog. And so on – the possibilities for what’s in your ebook are endless.

I put together a bunch of my short form posts on Posterous as a free ebook with some simple marketing ideas, and so far it’s been downloaded just over 2,000 times. So ebooks are definitely a great way to both give back and get back.

Turn Your Blog into a Slide

One of the best platforms around at the moment is Slideshare. Essentially taking PowerPoint presentations to the next level, Slideshare also allows uploads of PDF’s, documents and other presentations.

It then turns these into slideshows that you can either grab the embed code for or download to your hard drive, as well as the normal sharing options on Twitter and Facebook.

You can even add audio or talk tracks, or turn your slides into mini-movies.

So working from your ebook idea, collate some of your best posts on a topic and create a presentation. Edit the posts accordingly to make the best use of Slideshare’s capabilities (perhaps a connecting image, statistic or similar), and then upload and choose your sharing settings.

If folks like it and decide to embed on their own blog, you instantly have a new audience. That could go one step further, and businesses could pick up your kick-ass presentation and use it as a training resource.

The next potential step from that is to bring you on board to expand on your initial ideas – so now your original blog post has become both a training resource and a client lead.

Just Getting Started

These are just three ways that you could take the normal social sharing option, and add a little extra to help promote your blog.

You could also use the WordPress application on LinkedIn, or Networked Blogs for Facebook as another couple of alternatives. Or you could re-purpose old posts for publication elsewhere.

The thing is, just because you already have sharing options in place doesn’t mean you need to stop there. The great thing with blogs is that they can be essentially timeless, given the right post and topic. Why not use that?

How about you – what are you doing to extend the reach of your blog? Feel free to share your tips on what works for you in the comments.

photo credit: sigmaman