Archive for the 'Networking' Category

Are you feeling the pain of peer-to-peer?

Published
by
Jim Blasingame
on September 9, 2011
in Networking, Online technologies and Technology
. 0 Comments

How does your organization produce, share and secure digital information: peer-to-peer or server-based?

Peer-to-peer means stand-alone personal computers for every employee, connected to each other – if at all – over a local network also delivering Internet connection. Each PC has its own programs, files, data back-up and security. File sharing is possible, but not elegant. This is a classic small business system because of how we start and grow: one employee and PC at a time.

A server-based environment is the next level up. Growing businesses find that a server set-up provides more control over file management, sharing, back-up and security, plus efficiency when adding people.

A server is to a PC what a pair of overalls is to a hand-tailored suit – rugged, utilitarian and plain. It comes with a central processing unit (CPU) and hard drive(s), and is designed to “serve” workstations. All programs, storage, back-up and security resides on the server, instead of at the desktop. And file sharing? Servers are born to share files like a thoroughbred is born to run.

So how does a small business know when to make the leap from peer-to-peer to server?

The rap on converting to server-based has long been that it was big business complicated. For a small business to jump to a server system, the peer-to-peer environment had to be so unproductive that the pain had to be worse than the conversion challenges. But here’s good news: Today you can convert before the pain becomes unbearable.

For a few years now, technology companies have made server hardware and software much more adoption and user friendly for smaller companies, especially with the creation of something called a “server appliance.” This is a features-rich server with pre-loaded software designed to reduce conversion headaches. You just plug your new box into an electrical outlet and your network and, bada-bing, bada-bam, you’re server-based, baby, with central data back-up, security, file sharing – maybe even a phone system. Now, adding a new user is much easier than buying a new PC.

Most providers of these small business-friendly servers distribute them through one of your neighbors, a local small business computer company. Contact one in your area and let them help you decide if it’s time to make the jump to a server platform and which system is best for you.

Don’t let peer-to-peer pain get too bad before considering converting to a server.

Check out more great SBA content HERE!

Your values and customer communities

Published
by
Jim Blasingame
on August 10, 2011
in Customer Care, Online strategy and Social Media
. 0 Comments


Last time we talked about focusing on developing customer communities as a way to find relevance through your online strategy, including website and social media. Now let’s strengthen this relevance by focusing on values.

Increasingly, prospects will turn into customers, and customers will become loyal, because they’re attracted to what your company stands for. They are looking for evidence of your values in your online elements. For example:

  1. Are your brand elements – brand promise and image – all about you and your stuff, or do they sound like something that would benefit your customer community?

  2. When delivering information to the community, is it all about you, or does it contribute to helping customers?

  3. What is the tone of your marketing message? “Tone” is how brand messages are incorporated as you serve the community, from crassly commercial to almost subliminal. You should strike a tone balance between making a sale and serving the community.


In a world where everything you sell is a commodity, value – product, price, service – is the threshold of a customer community, but values are the foundation. Anyone can find value, but when customers like your values, they tell their friends. Indeed, the most dynamic and potentially viral element of any online community is the feeling members have about your values. But remember, that “feeling” can go either way – positive or negative.


Here are a few guidelines for establishing compelling values online that match your values offline:

  1. Acquire and use the technology that makes online community building possible.

  2. Create an environment where an online community can flourish around the value you deliver and the values you demonstrate.

  3. Serve and protect your customer community, while accepting that you cannot control it. As customer members come and go, and say what’s on their minds, maximize the positive and repair the negative.


Once community members find your value and like your values, prospects will turn into customers and customers will turn into your best salespeople.

Write this on a rock…


Build and serve customer communities by delivering value and demonstrating values.

For more great Small Business Advocate content, click HERE

Build community with a website & social media

Published
by
Jim Blasingame
on August 8, 2011
in Online strategy and Social Media
. 0 Comments

Here is a question many small business owners ask: “Do we need a social media strategy if we have a website?”

The answer is the same as for why you have an email address, even though you have a phone. It’s not an either/or decision; it’s both/and.

Clearly, your beautiful website is also very handy: cyber address, digital brochure, e-catalog, virtual store, etc. But as versatile as it is, there is one increasingly important capability you need that a website isn’t good at: community building. That’s what social media does.

By my definition, social media is much older and more comprehensive than the popular Johnny-come-latelies, Facebook and Twitter. Your social media strategy includes everything you do to build, connect with and serve customer communities, including: the new stuff, email marketing, customer loyalty programs and, the original social media, face-to-face.

What are these communities? Do you have one?

In the old days – like 1999 – your customer list was just names on an accounts payable report or sales forecast. Today, those customers are part of your business’s community; the rest are prospects who are becoming interested in you. But unlike the passive customer list of old, this community is functioning and has expectations you have to meet, or they will join another community.

At the risk of hurting your feelings, once customers find you, returning to that beautiful website of which you’re so proud will be of decreasing interest to them. But the good news is that anything you have that’s new – product and how-to information, order status, special offerings, etc. – is of increasing interest to customers. They just don’t want to have to come back to get it. More and more, customers are saying to businesses, “I’ve seen what you offer and like it, but I won’t be returning to your website much, because I’m very busy. Why don’t you follow me home?”

This is what customers and prospects mean when they join your community by giving you permission to connect with them and send them stuff by email, text messaging, Twitter, Facebook, etc. They just want the new stuff, including updates to your website.

Connect with and serve your customer communities by following them home with all social media resources. That’s how a small business transcends merely being competitive by being relevant.

It’s both/and: Build and serve customer communities with a website and social media.

I’ve talked a lot about building online communities on my radio program, The Small Business Advocate Show. Click here to see all my interviews on social media, but first, let me know what you think about building customer communities.

Social Media Builds Customer Communities

Published
by
Jim Blasingame
on July 22, 2011
in Customer Care and Social Media
. 0 Comments

Two things are sure with regard to social media and businesses: 1) as a way to connect with customers, social media is here to stay; 2) social media will evolve into an essential, customer community-building tool every successful business - large or small - will use.

“Social media” is the technology that makes online community building possible, not the community itself. It allows for the creation of, and service to, online communities, where dialogue and interaction among community founders and members are possible. While the term “social media” is handy, it would serve businesses well to think of it as “building online customer communities.”

There are two primary examples of these communities:

1.      A company’s profile and “fan page” on sites like Facebook, Twitter, etc. Your company can build communities with these public platforms, which are free, but have limits.

2.      Communities founded and hosted by your company and oriented around relationships with customers and prospects. This type of community is established when customers subscribe to one or more of your channel offerings in order to receive information. There is now new technology emerging that helps you create a Facebook-like social media platform that you host, which I predict will become the next killer app.

A channel is a syndication tool or method of content delivery and service to a community. For example, real simple syndication (RSS), a blog, email marketing, including an email newsletter (ezine), a text (SMS), and Twitter are channel tools, through which businesses serve their customer communities.

A website is a very important part of your online presence, but it is not a very effective community-building tool. However, a website can become a platform from which you launch and serve customer communities. Think of your website as the living room where you entertain new friends and social media communities as the den you share with close friends.

There is one critically important thing for a founding company to understand about both of the online customer community types: The company cannot control community behavior.  Members - customers and prospects - control the conversation in the community. The founding company can only create and influence the community by establishing and demonstrating community values.

If value is the threshold of a community relationship, values are the foundation. Get started building online customer communities.

On The Small Business Advocate Show I’ve talked quite a bit about building customer communities and social media on my radio program. Click here to see and listen…

Your customers have connection preferences

Published
by
Jim Blasingame
on July 12, 2011
in Networking and Social Media
. 0 Comments

One of the markers of the digital age is the proliferation of handy electronic connecting tools, like email, text messaging and social media platforms. And as with any element of our lives where there is an abundance of choices, over time we establish preferences.

These days there are actually two preference scenarios in play with regard to the digital connecting platforms:

  • How we prefer to connect with family, friends and business associates; and
  • How we prefer to be contacted by businesses for order follow-up, and with information and offers.

The preference rule of thumb for connecting with family, friends and associates typically depends upon the generation. If you prefer email, that probably means you’ve been in the marketplace for a few years - Baby Boomers and much of Gen X. If you prefer texting you’re probably under 30. And if you prefer social media, you’re definitely under 30.

In the second scenario, where customers give a business permission to connect with them electronically, preferences are still evolving. So recently, we asked this question of our radio and Internet audiences: “When you give a business permission to contact you, which digital method do you prefer?” The results were instructive.

The response we received from those preferring a business contact them by email was overwhelming at 95%. All the rest, 5%, preferred to be contacted by text messaging. That’s right, not one of our respondents preferred to be contacted by either of the two social media choices we offered, Facebook or Twitter.

It’s not surprising that email won the preference race; it’s been around the longest of the digital platforms. But even though texting came in a distant second, and social media didn’t even move the digital needle, believe this: These options will grow as preferences for how customers will want your business to contact them.

Your website is becoming less of a destination for customers and prospects, and more of a distribution center to them. The future success of your small business will depend heavily on asking for and getting permission from customers to “Follow me home” digitally.

And you shouldn’t care which digital method customers prefer you use to contact them. Your job is to make all the prominent digital connection options available wherever customers find you, and then do what your customers prefer.

I talked more about how your customers want you to connect with them on my radio program, The Small Business Advocate Show. Take a few minutes to listen and leave your thoughts on how you like for businesses to connect with you.

How are moms finding your business?

Published
by
ethan
on June 23, 2011
in Marketing - Branding - Advertising, Online strategy and Social Media
. 0 Comments

How are moms finding your small business? Stacy DeBroff joins Jim Blasingame to talk about why more moms are looking for your business in the online communities they hang out in, not necessarily your website.

Stacy DeBroff is founder and CEO of Mom Central Consulting.

Listen to or download the interview here

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