Wal-Mart to Change Logo

Wal-Mart is ready to change their logo. After years of criticism the retail superpower is ready to revamp their image. Maybe now consumers will look at Wal-Mart differently. Or will they?

Changing Your Logo Won't Change Your Image

According to the USA Today, Wal-Mart wants to change their logo to reflect their "renewed sense of purpose" towards consumers. Really? It takes you this long to change they way you react to people demanding a change, and all you do is change your logo! Nice try Wal-Mart, perhaps your low costs have come back to hurt your PR department. Your logo change will not fool the millions of Americans that do not shop at Wal-Mart for your savage attitude you have towards employees and small business owners. You need a new strategy. Sorry, my services are not for hire.

Twitter: Love and Hate

Ever since I began using Twitter, I became aware of two things. The first was that there are many great minds using Twitter to share their ideas and second was that this micro blogging site only works about half the time.

So Frustrating

Let's talk today. I have not been able to log-in to my Twitter all morning. I have been trying for four hours and it just wants to deny me my pleasure to chat for as long as it can. This comes just days after the reply app was "under construction" for about four days. Twitter, please use some of that money Amazon invest in your company to function like a website. Right now I hate Twitter, ask me again tomorrow and I will tell you I love them. It is confusing but we all can understand that.

Can You Solve Social Media?

Do not count on this guy coming up with the answer (he's got a lot on his plate) but will you or your company have a solution? Social media is changing the way we communicate with consumers. You will not find out the answer by getting an MBA, trust me on that one, or by reading the latest blogs and news. Hopefully the following will help because I have experience helping businesses with social media and perhaps my advice will shed some light.

Create, Don't Wait

Every second you are waiting for someone to tell you how to use social media to your advantage, you are missing the opportunity. Now I am not saying to dive in heads first without checking how deep the water is, what I am saying is that nobody has a successful generic template they can give you. Therefore as marketers or business leaders you must begin to test which social media avenues work for your brand or company and record those results. Some will work and some will not. But which ones thrive will depend on you.

Finding a Successful Social Media Avenue

The most important factor to accomplishing a social media campaign is to be interactive. You can do this in all avenues but it is more important than you think. Traditionally advertising has been targeted at large segments. This results with consumers feeling undistinguished and unexceptional as part of a large group. With social media you can actually target a single person making them feel valued. A one on one dialogue is central to this campaign and it is not as hard as it sounds. Do this well and you will turn your average consumer to a full out evangelist.

Responding to Crisis

You are bound to make mistakes because you probably have never done this before. Your consumers will at times criticize you and complain. What do you do then? Responding to a mistake or complaint quickly and efficiently will show your consumers you really value them. Just recall your last phone call to your cable company, nothing was solved and it just made you angrier. Do not let this happen, no matter what. Going through this process you will have to make promises you have never made before and follow through with them. Then these consumers will love you and tell all their friends about how a big company did so much just for one person. Get started by assembling your team of social media specialists.

These factors are not all you need but they are important ones. Let me know what other major factors I should have covered or what I missed.

The VIA Group Caught Red Handed!

Who wants to work for and advertising agency that has a record of lying to their clients? The answer is clear, but that does not stop on agency out in Portland. Thanks to a story from Mediabistro a disgruntled employee at The VIA Group sent out an email expressing the dishonest truth his company has been lying about for quite some time.

Busted

According to the employee email, "despite our constant claim--on the site (vianow.com), in every press release, and in every pitch we do--that we have "offices in Boston and New York," the fact is that we have NEVER, EVER had a New York office. Not ever." Why be deceitful in where your company has a location? Perhaps saying they had a New York office was the only way they got clients such as HP, HBO, JP Morgan and CBS Radio. Well if I was one of those clients I would be livid. Not so much due to their erroneous claim of a mythical office, but that I know they have been lying to a lot of people for a long time. How can I trust my business and my money to an agency like that, who knows what other stories they have told me? This made up location, if the email is true, is not worth any of the trouble for this company.

Social Media Can Hurt You

The fact that story came out online and is being talked about in blogs all over, maybe even New York, is evidence to the power of social media. Do something great and people will post blogs about you and praise your work, but do something wrong and people will hear about it before you do and the story will spread so fast that there is no stopping it. The force of social media is at work once again. So for all you companies, check your addresses and check on your angry employees.

The Future of Social Media

Companies should be preparing for a 180 degree change in they way they do business. If they are not taking these measures now, they likely will not need to bother because they are too far behind already. What should these companies be doing? Executives, board of directors and everyone else in charge needs to be ready to turn over control of their company to the customers.

Why Transition is So Hard

We all know that this is the direction businesses are going. Even though people know this change is inevitable, there is resistance among the Baby Boomer leaders of America. There are a few reasons for this, all of which are simple yet important.

Baby Boomers Do Not Likes Change

These Baby Boomers have ran a generation they way they have seen fit for quite a long time, hence the recent economic trouble. They think they rule the world and know better than everyone else, just recall how our parents used to talk to us. Botox is a prime example on the desperation of this generation to hold on to what they value: youth, power and fortune. They have been trying so hard to hold on to the torch as long as possible. They cannot bare the idea of turning over their million and billion dollar companies to customers! Unfortunately for them, their global grasp on our economy has just about expired.


Customers Have All the Power

The future of social media is already upon us. It is dialogue with our customers. We will still be creating a product or service but the consumers will dictate what they need and want through a dialogue. This communication will take place through different social media channels, and you better believe Facebook and Google will be leading way. The companies that are already interacting with consumers through these channels such as Best Buy and IBM have been very successful. These social media networks allow the consumer to take control of what they desire. The companies who can listen to them better and respond to them the fastest will be the new business leaders in America and the world. So find those specialists in SM because you do not want to be left behind.

Will Facebook Succeed in Russia?

The domination of the social networking site Facebook in the U.S. is undeniable. Thus far, the SNS giant has been able to spread this success in other countries. However, they might face their first major obstacle. It seems like a few decades before anybody here has said this but Russia could stop this powerhouse cold in their tracks. Funny? Not really.

Russian Roadblock

Facebook has picked Russia as their next potential hot spot, which seems extremely unlikely due to sub-zero temperatures. Other large internet players have tried the trip into Russia before such as MySpace and search king Google. It is hard to imagine that Google could not dominate in the Russian market as well as they have in the States. One explanation, according to The New York Times, is the popular Russian search engine Yandex. Their advantage is being a Russian product thus the language and culture is not a barrier to thrive. Facebook has a tough challenge ahead. Perhaps buying half of the Russian vodka supply could give a good name for Facebook over there. I'm just saying.

Associated Press Revolt!

The Associated Press (no link here as long as they continue to be absolutely anal) will have their own Jim Kennedy meet today with Robert Cox, president of the Media Bloggers Association. The AP as we all know have been heading this revolt against the blogger world complaining and insisting that AP material is copyrighted and cannot be used in blogs.

What Fellow Bloggers Can Do

I believe that it is up to myself and other talented writers, let's call them bloggers, to avoid paying attention to whatever the AP is posting as their "news". You can visit the site by InfoWorld and see that there are people joining the blogger revolt against the Associated Press. While our initial mental tendency is going to be towards anger, I will advice us to take some simple steps to avoid most trouble we could get into.

My Advice

Just type whatever the hell you want and we will get away with it forever! Oh, sorry about that. I am still trying to control my anger as you can see. Seriously there is something simple that we can do that should work. As long as we give credit to the initial media source where we first received the news than we will be fine. I am not saying we need to properly site our sources and include a reference page at the end. This idea is for most bloggers who repeat news rather than creating their own ideas and posting them. The outcome will probably not enforce any bloggers to change they way we do things. The AP is feeling a bit upset about losing some control of the grasp they had on providing information. Just remember this: the AP is so small in comparison to all the bloggers out there. Majority rules.