The convergence of radio and social media fascinates me.  

Radio, unlike television or print, seems to have significant gains to make by learning to work inside social media and tap into their passive listener base.  Think about it.  From the user end, radio is a very passive form of media.

For years, radio stations have focused dollars, time and loads of effort on producing live events.  From live concerts and happy hours to on-location contests and parties, radio stations use events to connect with their listener base in hopes of creating loyalty.

Fast-forward to now.  Social media has made it possible for events to happen on the web.

Do you see the connection?

Social Blitz

What the 99.7 The Blitz is doing on Facebook is impressive.

If you visit their fan page, you’ll notice that there is no customization.  No special tabs.  No custom applications.  In fact, you won’t even find one any of the free applications that are available in Facebook’s application directory installed.

It’s bare bones – and it’s working really well.

What The Blitz (specifically, their morning show with Blazer and Mo) does have is the power of mass media, a targeted niche audience and solid engagement from their Facebook page fan base.  Win!

Lessons from The Blitz

I love this case study.  It highlights a critically important aspect of social media strategy: social media is more about sharing the right content and having active human users, rather than shiny technology.

Here are some lessons that we can all learn from how the Blitz is using Facebook:

Be Your Audience
Blazer, Mo, and most of the DJs on the blitz, are the demographic that they target.  They are rock fanatics, with active social lives, who share a sense of humor with their audience.  Being “one of us” is important in trust building.  Trust leads to deeper relationships.  Deeper relationships lead to greater engagement and participation.  All of this leads to retention.  Retention is worth dollars.

Create Conversation On Air
Since guys like Blazer and Mo are, for the most part, members of the audience they target, they know how to engage on the front lines.  Look at this example:

What’s interesting is that this conversation does not exist in a vacuum.  Blazer, Mo and the rest of the morning show crew has entitled this contest Facebook: What’s Your Amazingly Smooth Pick Up Line? The contest is announced during each break with a call to action for listeners to visit the Facebook page and post their best pick-up line.  Pick-up lines that are submitted and read on air serve to create more content for the hosts to riff from.  It’s a great way to engage the audience in the comedy.

Play in Real Time
One of the other topics of discussion from this morning’s show is this picture of Mo:

If you grew up in the 80′s and 90′s, you’ll probably find Mo’s classic digs (and ‘do) a bit funny.  Most of the Blitz target audience can relate, and may even have a few similar candid shots of themselves buried in a shoebox deep within their own closets.

Now look in the comments:

In today’s radio stations, DJs sit behind computers.  Within an hour of launching this bit on the air, Mo joined the conversation (via Facebook) in real time, as it was happening.  While some marketers and PR folks might cringe at his comment, it’s absolutely appropriate for the audience and the nature of the conversation.  In social media, being “one of us” and communicating in real time is much more effective than worrying about your brand voice.  Humans don’t speak brand.

Live Stream Your Broadcast
Drive time is huge for morning talk radio.  But what about when your audience arrives in the office?  How do you keep them engaged?  In my opinion, live streaming your broadcast via the web is an innovation that all radio stations should be focused on implementing.

Again, radio is passive.  As I sit and comb through email in the mornings, I typically listen to music or talk radio.  Streaming makes that easier, and, as a listener, it’s also very easy for me to keep the Blitz Facebook Fan Page open in my browser allowing me to participate in the live conversations during the show.  In a sense, this is a new kind of live event that listeners can attend each morning, at precisely no cost to either party involved.  Big WIN!

Things the Blitz Might Want to Do Next

A few months back, I tried this with WNCI and Dave & Jimmy.  Unfortunately, they either weren’t listening or didn’t really care.  Bummer.

Dear Blazer and Mo, are you listening?  If so, mad props for doing some good work in social media.  Here are three basic suggestions of things you might try next:

1. Determine Fan Page conversion points – What do you want your fan base to do?  Sign up for events?  Register for email updates?  Subscribe to a station blog?  Whatever the goals are, make them clear on the page.  You can develop customized tabs based on what those goals are and work to drive your fans to take that action.
2. Add in some focused, custom tabs – You might try using PollDaddy to get the opinions of your listeners who play on the page.  Having the ability to poll your fans would tie in nicely with the whole “Your Rock Station” position you’ve taken.  Think of your Facebook page in terms of it being an ongoing town hall meeting.
3. More video – There are so many opportunities for using video on your page.  I would start by installing the YouTube application from Involver (a freebie) that would allow you to create a YouTube tab and pull in video content from your channel.  From a strategy perspective, I think it would be fun to come up with contests that get your fans and listeners to submit their own videos.  You’d probably (obviously) need to screen some of these before putting them up, but the idea follows the same train of thought as your pick-up line contest, but is much more interactive.  And just about everyone has a video camera on their mobile these days.
4. Bring streaming to the Facebook Page – This one might cost some bucks, but I’d love to see a custom application developed that would allow me to stream the Blitz, right from your Facebook Fan Page.  While they are few and far between in Columbus, Ohio, there are a handful of developers who know how to code in Facebook Markup Language (FBML).

What ideas do you have on how The Blitz, or radio stations in general, could use Facebook Fan Pages?

This is a continuation of my reviews of the Sprint EVO 4G.  I’m now two weeks in and getting more comfortable with my new sidearm.

Organization of Apps

There are some aspects of the Sprint EVO 4G that I really enjoy – the most prominent of which is the general speed of the operating system (and device overall), as compared to the iPhone 3G I was carrying.

Android seems to have bet their chips on the idea that your average smart phone user will typically use the same set of 20 applications (on a regular basis).  The organization of the apps on the Sprint EVO 4G seems to make it very easy to get to your top 20, but makes it’s bit more cumbersome to get to apps outside of that select group in a hurry.

It’s a decent idea, but I still fancy Apple’s new take on folder organization.

3 Downfalls of the Android Market

In buying into the Sprint EVO 4G, I’ve had to completely relearn how my phone operates.  One of the most stark differences lies in the user experience of the Andriod Market and Android Applications, as opposed to Apple’s App Store and iPhone Applications.

Here’s the breakdown of three differences I think are most noticeable:

1)  I’ve noticed a increase in the amount of comment spammers. These folks post comments on specific apps with the intention of driving traffic to third party app directories.  It’s not at all helpful in terms of learning about user perspectives, and, frankly, a bit annoying.

2)  The organization of the Market is cumbersome. Application titles are vague and it seems to take more clicks to get to information, regarding what each app does.  That alone has somewhat turned me off to seeking out new apps.

3)  There’s a noticeable difference in the variety and quality of the apps in the Android Market, as opposed to Apple’s App Store. While that’s not surprising, I am missing some of the apps I used on my iPhone 3G that were specifically tied to some of the back-end applications I use to operate Social Business Strategies.

What’s your experience with the Android Market and, Android apps and the Market?

It seems that almost every company out there is trying to figure out the art of blogging and how to do it right for business.  There are tons of benefits for the organizations that can make it work for the long haul.

We’re starting to see more and more companies take a collaborative approach to corporate blogging.  Rather than naming a dedicated company blogger, or a set of individual bloggers, taking the collaborative approach calls for multiple contributors from various levels within an organization to submit content on a single, company-owned platform.

Most of these blogs will also highlight each individual contributor to take advantage of the essence of humanization that is created in having individual voices present.

Some of my favorite examples of well-focused and consistent business blogs include the following:

• Hubspot’s Inbound Marketing Blog
• Junta42′s Content Marketing Institute (I’m a contributor)
• GSW’s What’s Your Digital IQ
• Incept’s Conversational Marketing Blog (Client)
• Kodak’s A Thousand Words
• What’s the Diff? by QuickenLoans

Collaborative blogs make sense for companies in that the approach spreads the content creation workload across multiple individuals, making it much easier to maintain a higher frequency of posts.  Another benefit of multiple contributors is that your blog’s readers gain a variety of perspectives from within your company.  Each contributor typically has a unique set of experiences and stories to share, which in turn can make the depth of your blog’s content increasingly rich.

So how do you get there?

The most important truth for a company to consider is that no matter what fancy technology you implement, blogs will never write themselves.  That said, a great place to start (even before forming your content strategy) is to build your team of collaborative corporate bloggers.

6 Essential Steps to Build a Collaborative Blog Team

• Start Small - Don’t try to shoot for the moon on your first attempt at launching a collaborative blog.  Selecting a core team of 3-5 dedicated contributors, who will deliver content regularly, is better than a team of 20 contributors who struggle to keep up with the publishing requirements.  Set a goal for each member of the team to produce one post each week to start.  Once your team members get comfortable with that schedule, kick it up a notch.
• Balance the Team – Build your collaborative blog team with individuals from different levels and departments within your organization.  Not everyone needs to come from the marketing or sales departments.  A balanced blog team will include company leaders, customer service representatives, operations folks and maybe even individuals who work in the accounting department.  It’s also a good idea to look for contributors who already understand the blogosphere.  While experience in copywriting is a plus, an understanding of how blogs and social networks operate is much more valuable.  Finding contributors who are avid blog readers and commenters will ensure that your team has, at least, a basic understanding of how blog content is typically formatted.  Pay special attention to employees who already write a personal blog; they can prove to be a very valuable asset to your team.
• Pick Good Administrators – Make sure to select one or two collaborative blog administrators who take on administrative duties as a core part of their responsibilities at your company.  At times, these folks may need to spend a greater amount of time working on blog tasks, since they will act as a bottleneck for final approval on all posts.  For this reason, it’s a good idea to keep the number of administrators to a minimum.  Administrators will have full access to all areas of the blog, so selecting someone with previous technology experience is a good idea.  Finding an administrator with experience in search engine optimization is also a plus.
• Design a Workflow Process – I’m always careful when using the phrase “editorial calendar” in blogging because the blogosphere is very dynamic.  Trends and topics can change on a daily basis and it’s important that your blog content stays relevant to the conversations happening on the web.  Building a high-level content strategy, and assigning focus areas to your contributors, is a good way to stay focused yet agile.  Also, be aware that there are tools available that can help administrators manage the process of post submissions so you don’t have to chase team members around with emails and spreadsheets.
• Subcontract with a Proofreader - This is one of the best decisions a company can make in terms of time management.  In most cases, your blog administrators will have loads of other tasks on their plate while also trying to manage the team and keep content flowing.  While proofreading each post for grammatical and spelling errors is absolutely critical to your success, it’s often a major time suck that can be overlooked.  It’s a good idea to seek out the services of an experienced freelance copywriter who can serve as a proofreader and content flow editor to lift this burden off your admins.  Most of these individuals will offer an affordable price per page model.
• Develop Blog Team Mastermind Groups – Consistent coaching and discussion on what’s working and what’s not is valuable for any blog program.  Setting up weekly or biweekly mastermind sessions – during which your blog team can get together to discuss strategy, challenges and content ideas – will keep the momentum going.  You might consider having these sessions over morning coffee or boxed lunches.  These mastermind sessions are also a good opportunity to bring in outside resources for training, such as SEO consultants, social media specialists or writing coaches.  Making an investment in improving the knowledge base and skill level of your blog team will pay dividends almost immediately.  Always keep in mind that company turnover might effect your collaborative blog team, at some point in the progression.  Accordingly, it is important that team members have the ability to get newbies up to speed quickly.

Are there any steps you feel I’ve missed?  What would you add?

LinkedIn is still gaining momentum in the B2B world.

With over 70 million professionals holding profiles, it makes good business sense for companies to start looking at how to use LinkedIn as an everyday business solution.

I thought it was interesting that even Chris Brogan would check in on LinkedIn, if there was a location-based component.  His target audience of clients lives there and check-ins in that context might result in new opportunities.

It’s important that company leaders realize that it will take a coordinated and dedicated human effort over time to see any results from tapping in to LinkedIn.  Your company may even consider assigning a group of personnel to spend a portion of their time monitoring, researching and actively participating in the many groups and subgroups available.

If you’re ready to dedicate more time and effort, you can always build your own group and subgroups inside the network.  This is appealing because there is literally no cost involved, outside of time and energy.  But make no mistake, the amount of time and energy that goes into successfully facilitating a group is high.

Be prepared.

How To Build a Customer-Centric LinkedIn Group

One approach companies can use to leverage LinkedIn Groups is to focus on customer centricity.  These groups are essential hubs of conversation.  If executed wisely, facilitating the right conversations (that provide value to members) works to build deeper relationships with customers.  The end result is increased customer retention and a greater potential for referrals.

There are a few important things you need to consider before your pull the trigger:

• Who is your niche audience for the group?
• Does that specific group already exist?
• What type of conversation will help them do their job better?

Once you’ve answered those questions, begin mapping out the objectives of your conversation.  A good way to start is by solidifying what you want the members to take away from the conversation.  Work from the desired result and build backwards.

While you are working through this, also begin familiarize yourself with the recently updated LinkedIn Group features.  It’s a good idea to visit other groups and look at what they are having success with.  In most cases, you might even be able to connect with other group managers who can share experience and give you insider tips.

Case Study: Let’s Talk Blood Donor Recruitment

Incept is a conversational marketing firm that helps blood centers recruit and maintain blood donors to keep blood supplies on shelves.  They are a client of my firm, Social Business Strategies.

Blood donor recruiting has its challenges, and most of the blood donation groups on LinkedIn today offer a hub of conversations between professionals who donate blood.  While that’s great and folks from Incept do participate in those groups, they do little to help Incept’s customer base of blood center professionals.

In building out a new customer-centric group, where Incept can bring together blood center pros, our conversation goals are simple:

• Connect niche LinkedIn users who work in blood centers across the country and have a focus on donor recruitment
• Build a resource to uncover real issues that blood center personnel are facing today, and share “how to” knowledge to help the members solve problems
• Create opportunities for relationships between blood center personnel, industry providers and the team at Incept

LinkedIn Search Optimization

In setting up the group, we knew we wanted to rank highly in LinkedIn’s Group search results for phrases like blood donor recruitment, blood centers, and even donor recruiting.  Using correct keyword placement and density in the title, summary and description is helping to get the Group indexed highly by LinkedIn’s unique crawlers.

With that, one of the challenges we needed to overcome was to maintain Incept’s branding (developed by Next Level Thinking) while making sure that the most prominent keywords were placed towards the front of group titles.

To get there, NLT created a group logo that called out the “Let’s Talk” portion of the brand theme, placing “blood donor recruitment” towards the front of the Group title in LinkedIn.

The Incept brand tie-in was deliberately minimal, with only the type font and colors being used in the logo.  We made this decision to visually combat the potential perception that the group is sales-focused.  The critical factor is delivering on that promise by staying mindful of how Incept’s team participates.

How To Use Auto Response Messages in LinkedIn Groups

Meet Timothy Johnson.  He’s on the human business team at Incept, as the lead content engineer.

In this video, Tim discusses how he’s using some of the automated response messages in the LinkedIn Group to make it easier to respond to each person interested in joining the conversation.

(Side note: This video was shot and uploaded directly to YouTube from my Sprint EVO 4G.)

What else would you suggest, related to building a customer-centric LinkedIn Group?

It’s done.

I’ve officially broken up with AT&T and said goodbye to my iPhone.

I’ve not yet become an Apple-hater, like Shel Holtz, and still run a Macbook Pro.  But the iPhone 4 just wasn’t doing it for me.

Noodling over the decision to switch has taken about two months, starting when I first played around in the demo of the Sprint EVO 4G on the web.  It’s a slick device in appearance and functionality, and even has useful low-tech innovations like a fold-out kickstand that allows you to place the device upright on your desk (should you be watching a video or on a video call).

Why I Switched From AT&T & the iPhone to the Sprint EVO 4G

• AT&T’s phone service is terrible and their customer policies are a joke.  While I have had some helpful and polite reps on the phone, I’m sick of fighting through their system every time there is a problem to address.
• The Sprint EVO 4G has a larger screen.  It’s wonderful.
• My friend, Chris Simmons, really likes his Sprint EVO 4G and he was one of the first people I knew who purchased one.  I respect his opinion.
• I no longer need a Wifi card and a phone.  The Sprint EVO 4G does it all and does it well.
• I’m saving about $70 per month switching to the Sprint EVO 4G.  The pricing plan is clean-cut, affordable and includes some added benefits, as opposed to AT&T’s plan.
• Free mobile-to-mobile minutes with Sprint – across all providers – is a huge hook.
• I wanted to try out Android because I never had.
• Even though we Ohioans don’t yet have 4G, the Sprint EVO 4G is a super-fast phone, even on the 3G network.
• The 8 MP camera (with a dual flash) and the HD video camera (shoots in 720p) have become a business necessity for what I do as a blogger and content engineer.  The ease of sharing what I create is certainly a plus.
• From the times I’ve played with the iPhone 4, I didn’t like the feel of it aesthetically.  From press, blogs and other reviews I’ve seen, there seem to be tons of issues Apple’s newest device.

I’ll provide some more details on the finer points of my reasons listed above in subsequent posts, as I review the phone in detail.  Trust me, I’ll be looking for things I don’t like and that don’t work.  They’re there, I just need some time to test out the device in my normal usage patterns.  There’s more to come so stay tuned…

For now, if you are thinking about making the switch to the Sprint EVO 4G, here are some must-have accessories you will want to look for when you buy.

For reference, below are links to the accessories I mentioned in the video.  All of these are Amazon links, simply because that’s where I purchased the extras.  I am not affiliated with Amazon at this time.

• Car Mount Adjustable Phone Holder for HTC EVO 4G Sprint
• Seidio Multi-Function Battery Charger for Use With HTC Droid Incredible, HTC EVO 4G, Droid Eris & Touch Pro 2
• Seidio Inno 1750mAh Extended Life Battery for Use With HTC Touch Pro 2, HTC Hero (Black)
• HTC EVO 4G/HTC A9292/Supersonic Screen Protector
• Premium Orange Rubberized Snap-on Case Cover for HTC Evo 4G, Seamless Design Rear Case Only
• HTC EVO 4G Retractable Sync & Charge USB Cable

What would you add to this list?

I’m not a huge basketball fan, but I will say that Dan Gilbert has gusto.

He also seems to get how this social media stuff, and human business on the Interwebz, is working these days.

Some NBA critics are cringing at his Open Letter to Cavaliers Fans - claiming that it’s an emotionally-charged, knee-jerk reaction.  I, however, completely disagree.

To me, this open letter seems like a very calculated tactic that’s been extremely well executed, in terms of using social media to gain viral reach for the fans’ position.  It’s a rally cry.

Why?

• Placement of the letter as a redirect on the Cavs’ homepage leverages the natural query volume generated by LeBron’s television announcement.  High potential to go viral VERY quickly (which, it already has on Twitter - to the tune of about 30-40 mentions each refresh).
• Gilbert is talking directly to his paying audience: fans of the Cleveland Cavaliers (most of whom live in and around Ohio)
• It’s passionate as heck.  He’s leveraging what Chris and Julien call, “One of Us.”  The copy uses “we” and “our” all over the place.
• Gilbert is turning the folks who are upset about LeBron’s move into a motivated and technology-enabled tribe
• The choice of using Comic Sans as a web font is unique enough to spark up its own conversation
• Gilbert knew that this rebuttal would spread like wildfire

Basketball fan or not, what’s your take?

I feel like I haven’t really been keeping you up-to-date on what’s happening at Social Business Strategies.

For the sake of time, I’ll just let the video do the talking.  Okay?

I often struggle with what I write here.  On one hand, I feel like what I’m working on – from a business standpoint, in building out SBS - might not be that interesting to you.  But on the other side, I sometimes feel like there are lessons I’m learning as I go that might be helpful.  Either way, the enveloped is being pushed.  And that won’t change any time soon.

What do you think?  Do you want to hear more stories about Social Business Strategies and what’s happening as this business grows?

As a blogger, sometimes new ideas for posts flow like a river.  At other times, however, your brain can run dry for days.

Part of blogging is realizing and accepting the fact that, on occasion, you will get stuck.  Another part of being a blogger is finding ways to get yourself unstuck and continuing to feed the system with your content.

Stuck or not, your audience awaits.  They read and subscribe and tell other people because they want to read what you will type next.  Attention spans, however, keep shrinking. If you keep them waiting too long, they will simply move on.

One of the tricks I use to get unstuck revolves around LinkedIn.  As a community and a communication tool, LinkedIn allows me to get directly to the humans that make up my target readers.  LinkedIn is now up to 70 million members across the globe, and is typically used by professionals of all shapes and sizes.  In terms of finding my audience, it’s a pretty safe bet that they are users.  Here are some of the things I do when I get stuck:

5 Tips for Using LinkedIn to Develop Blog Content Ideas

• Ask questions and get answers to seed questions around your topic areas and gather qualitative feedback.  Pay attention to the comments that folks leave.  There’s oftentimes golden-nugget ideas that can easily be turned into entire posts.
• Build and launch polls for more targeted questions, or for current topics of debate, around your focus area.  Not only does this give you a good feel for where potential readers stand on any given issue, but it will also deliver you a list of new readers to send your finished post.  The graphics that LinkedIn produces (with results) also make great images to include in your post.
• Launch a discussion on specific groups around the topic you want to write about.  In doing this you will be the facilitator of that conversation.  This approach will take some time, but also give you the chance to connect one-on-one with new, potential readers.
• Send InMail or use Introductions to connect with people who might make interesting interviewees for your blog.  This is also a great way to get the ball rolling in relationship development with interesting people by using the social graph.
• Use TripIt to set up video interviews with interesting people who will be within a cab ride of your next distance meeting.  This also doubles as a great way to build relationships with the folks who fit your business’s customer profile.  Why?  Most people will say yes to giving you 30 minutes to interview them on their business and what’s important to them, before they will give you time to pitch them on what’s important to yours.  Don’t ever cheat this one.  Get the first meeting for the interview and a relationship.  Ask for the pitch well after you’ve had time to get to know the human.

How else do you use LinkedIn to come up blog content ideas?

Photocredit: the talented Becky Johns

In the past two days, I’ve been a part of two very powerful hugs.

The first was with a childhood friend when she and her husband came for a visit to Columbus and Community Fest.  At the end of a wonderful (and much needed) evening, one final hug goodbye reminded me of how and why we’ve stayed friends after all these years.  The second hug was with my mom.  Just before dinner one evening, I could tell by the expression on her face that some of the health issues she’s been facing recently were wearing on her spirits.  Without knowing what else to do, I hugged her.

Both of these hugs were real hugs – not simply the “pat on the back” type of hugs that we have all become so used to giving and receiving.  In that moment of real hug, a small chemical reaction occurs in the brain of each human involved.  The chemical emitted produces certain emotions and, with it, a sense of behavior.

Powerful Hugs

One of the most fascinating things I’ve read yet this year was a Fast Company story documenting the work of  Neuroeconomist Paul J. Zak, a professor at Claremont Graduate University.  Paul so believes in power of a hug that he makes a point to hug just about everyone he meets.  That behavior is one of the many things that has led to his Claremont campus nickname, Dr. Love.

Zak is responsible for popularizing the term “neuroeconomics,” an emerging field that combines economics with biology, neuroscience and psychology.

With an eloquent writing style and a good sense of storytelling, Fast Company’s contributing writer Adam Penenberg details his time working as one of Zak’s test subjects in three-part experiments.  Why is this important?  Dr. Zak has discovered, for the first time, that social networking triggers the release of the hormone Oxytocin, the chemical present in our brains that produces emotions of generosity and trust.

This is a video clip from the article, but I also suggest you go back and read it for yourself.  It’s truly amazing thinking and research to follow.

Future of Social Media

I believe that Zak is on to something bigger than we can fully see right now.

Decades ago, the media of the time (television, radio, and print) changed the way that we humans consumed information.  With that, the way we processed information also changed.  Our paradigms, our culture and maybe even our sense of societal norms shifted, as humans spent more and more time in front of the TV, or with the car stereo tuned to to their favorite station.  Over time, the business landscape, and how humans conducted business, changed too.

In the early 1980s, primitive computers and BOD modems started that shift yet again.  Humans started using more technology to communicate.  Communication led to the formation and maintenance of mass amounts of human relationships, developed across geographic and socioeconomic boundaries.

Is This Evolution?

Zak’s work, and maybe even others like Dan Zarella, always leave me with this one question on my mind:

As humans continue to evolve the interwebz, are the interwebz also evolving us as human beings?

What’s your take?

I’ve subscribed to SurveyGizmo for about three weeks now.

It’s an online survey and polling tool that has a bit more meat on its bones than PollDaddy.  And in my mind, it also has a much nicer user interface than SurveyMonkey.  I’ve used all three and landed here from my own projects.

What’s interesting – from a marketing angle – is that I never saw an ad, read an article or blog post, or even received a tweet from the company.  Nope. Nothing.  I found SurveyGizmo while taking a recent survey that Dan Harris included me on.  It just so happened that, at the time of Dan’s Q&A, I was about to start looking at survey tool options.  Serendipity, yes?

I was so impressed with how clean Dan’s survey was designed, I decided to try SurveyGizmo on for size.

I currently have three client surveys out and I’ve been impressed with how easy they have been to set up.  There’s also a good amount of pre-build logic for questions.  I’m planning some more surveys and polls for research for a few eBooks in process over the next few weeks.

Then on Friday afternoon, SurveyGizmo did something VERY important, in terms of growing a business.  With a heartfelt, creative, and highly humanized piece of direct mail, the folks at SurveyGizmo converted me from a happy customer into a raving fan.

Guess what else happened?  I’m now telling you the story.  See the connection, friends?

Here’s what I mean:

Let’s Review What SurveyGizmo Just Did

• Focus on Making a Great Product – SurveyGizmo invested in developing a product that delivers and is impressive.  It’s not just a shiny marketing campaign.
• Go Viral by Making it Easy to Spread – SurveyGizmo’s customers spread the word virally by using the product to conduct surveys, such as how I learned about it from Dan.  Genius.
• Get More Personal with Customers – New customers are immediately embraced and thanked in a very personal offline way that is rather unexpected.
• Humanize Your Company – Rather than send a catalog with more products (like some companies still do), the team at SurveyGizmo sends a creative mailer with introductions to the humans who make up the company.

While I don’t have any access to the data to prove this, I’m willing to bet that a possible outcome of SurveyGizmo’s efforts is an extremely high customer retention rate.  (Folks at SurveyGizmo, please feel free to share that in the comments if you’re willing and able…)

Being Reminded of Little Things
I used to be really good about taking time for the little, personal human touches.  Treating people like human beings is how I built my network of friends, as well as professional connections.  Yet, somewhere along the path, I’ve gotten away from things like handwritten notes and simple, personal phone calls to say “congrats!” or “happy birthday.”  I use Facebook for that now, along with almost 500 million other users and hundreds of thousands of companies who, like me, buy into that machine and set of norms and processes.

As I type, I find it ironic that a single customer experience with SurveyGizmo and the humans behind their business has reminded me about the foundation upon which my own business has its roots.

What have I learned?  I need to readjust.  I need to do better at getting back to my roots.  Stay tuned…

What about you? Where are your business roots?  Are they still important or have the been buried under overgrowth?