I remember Gordon the Tramp!

Many years ago, I lived and studied in the beautiful seaside town of Bournemouth, and remember quite clearly the resident tramp of the square at the bottom of town – Gordon – the hobo who never had a watch but always knew the time.

And now, 18,000 likes later he’s become quite the celebrity, as people champion Gordon to be the official Olympic torch bearer.  Oh the power of Facebook.

It saw Gap ditch their new logo, Rage Against the Machine beat Joe McElderry to Christmas number one and made the utter disgust for the new Haribo advert extremely public – and now a beardy wrinkled man from the South Coast may be heading to our capital city with a flaming torch.

Or will he?! Facebook is a great tool for lobbying some really worthy causes and campaigns.  And the more of a voice we as individuals can have, the better.  But surely it won’t be long before we have to start being a little more clever – after all, who hasn’t thought of starting a Facebook ‘save the’ or ‘ ban the’ page these days?!  Is it old hat already?

Don’t launch a magazine, go and guest edit someone elses

I read in The i Paper last week that Essentials magazine is rising up against the decline in women’s mag sales by inviting real women to guest edit for them.

This is a really smart move in my eyes and something that is happening more and more.  Not only does it make the magazine more connected with its audience; with an often far smaller editorial team than in the past, it helps with workloads too.

I know that Netmums had the UK’s top mummy blogger Tara Cain of Sticky Fingers guest edit for them during the summer which worked hugely well for both party – a fresh approach and content from a mother than many aspire to be like.

The i Paper article starts by saying that magazine sales are plummeting because of the recession and because the supermarket aisles are quieter, resulting in fewer impulse purchases.  I would disagree and say that it is because we can get far more of our celebrity gossip, fashion advice and beauty tips from Twitter, Facebook and a handful of good blogs.  We still have to food shop – the recession hasn’t stopped us from eating.

So to me the opportunity lies in adding content to magazines that is unique – and guest editors including real women (and men) is a great way to achieve that.  Essentials also puts a real women on the cover each month, showing us that there is no reason why our own lives aren’t worthy of a makeover and 15 minutes of fame.

Tesco also do this – covering the dilemma of a real woman and giving her the budget wardrobe she needs to look good doing what she does.  And yes, I was one such cover star once upon and time.  I’ll leave you to use your Google skills to track me down.  Chocolate related prize if you manage it!

So, what of it for the average business – well, it means that there are big opportunities with big titles.  Choose wisely and if you put your mind to it, you can leverage guest column, guest editor, reality TV contestant opportunities to your advantage.

I’m not suggesting people shoehorn themselves into totally unrelated publications because you’ll find that the powers that be don’t want to talk about your business, just your background.  But do your homework and there are some great ways to generate exposure for your brand out there for the taking.

 

Everybody’ tweeting about….staying in for deliveries

Image courtesy of Lydiashiningbrightly Flickr Creative Commons

We’ve been keeping a close eye on general chit-chat across social media over the past day to see what’s getting people talking, and this week it seems to be staying in for deliveries.

So many aspects of shopping and customer service are super flexible these days – we can apply for or order most things online – I ordered a brown bin and completed the census forms online this week.  We can do our grocery shop, submit meter readings, chat with friends, talk live to a real person about a technical fault with a washing machine or seek medical help for a child.

But the one thing that doesn’t seem to work in our favour yet is delivery times.  We can order online around the clock – if you do so before lunchtime on some sites, you can have your goods the very next morning.  Yet, you might have to wait in for 13 hours like Chrissie did for her Toys R Us delivery after she was given an 8am – 9pm delivery window.

After recent news that Yodel are considering starting Sunday deliveries, do we really want to add another day to the week where there is a possibility we won’t be able to go anywhere?  And do we really think that Virgin Media will come at 8am so we can get to work on time when they’ve stated it’s an 8am – 1pm appointment?  Of course not, it will be 12.59pm (this actually happened to me).

Some firms fare better than others, texting you an update on the morning of your scheduled delivery or appointment, narrowing the time down to a two-hour window.  Others, like Argos once did, call at 6am to tell you they’ll be there by 7am.  I’m not sure what’s more annoying, having to drag yourself out of bed for a delivery, or staying in all day and waiting.

In a way this could be an opportunity for the high street – come in, choose what you want, ask as many questions as you like, take it away with you and get on with the rest of your day.  It’s a reason for businesses to focus on customer service – we’ll travel to a shop, pay to park and EVEN walk to the shop in question if we think we’ll be greeted by a happy assistant ready to be happy and assisting.  And then there’s the power of browsing – you’re bound to pick up something else while you’re there so the business gets two sales not just the one.

Often customer service is the strongest form of PR and the quickest way to get good, or bad word of mouth to spread.  Get it right and you’re 99% of the way there.  Which leaves us wondering, why are we so awful at it?!  Good service can be make or break for a company.  I wouldn’t mind if my hot chocolate was luke warm if the person who made it was apologetic, made me a new one and put a marshmallow in it for good measure.  It doesn’t take much to please me – or the majority of people.

Over on Twitter @befabulous tweeted ‘Hmmm 2nd day of waiting in for a #Next delivery and NOTHING – tracking site is of no use to anyone. They used to be so good. major #Fail‘

It would be interesting to find out if they monitor Twitter and pick up on this and use it as an advantage to address the disappointment for this customer.

A friend of Chrissie’s posted on the Toys R US Facebook wall and a conversation began, Toys R Us joined quickly and promised to look into the matter for her.

Thinking about it, husband has been waiting for a next day delivery for three days (he decided not to wait in), and last week the postman signed for a special delivery himself and left it on the doorstep! It was an hard drive full of thousands of family photos so Royal Mail were extremely lucky it was still there when we got home from work.

With social media giving every consumer who wants it a voice, can companies allow their delivery firms to let people wait in all day anymore?  What do you think?  I bet most people have moped around the house and grumbled about the cabin fever setting in having been stuck inside all day – and inevitably it’s on the one and only sunny day of the summer!