Archives for June 2012

Local vs Location Business Marketing

When it comes to business marketing, there is an important distinction to be made between local and location.

Local businesses have a distinct advantage due to their physical location – proximity to a population of potential buyers.

Yet, ever business can capitalize on local, because in addition to location, it is affected by a number of influences – including consumer interests, social behaviors, and all types of human interactions.

The intersection of these influences creates a number of ways to interpret local, and any one, or a combination, can be used to create distinct advantages for your business.

The Primary Location Advantage is Time

Location marketing rightfully capitalizes on one component – proximity, which translates into convenience and the time savings associated with it.

You can charge more for convenience – or not, but it nevertheless can be incorporated into your marketing plans to accomplish specific business objectives.

Time is a valuable commodity that you can effectively use to be more local to the markets you serve. The only challenge is building a business model to uniquely capitalize on it.

The Internet enabled non-local businesses to effectively become local, with Amazon, Zappos, and Warby Parker being just a few that have used different business models to benefit from consumer desires for convenience and saving time.

You can get products shipped to you within a day or two from Amazon and pay little or no premium for the benefit. That’s convenient.

Zappos allows you to purchase shoes and other products, while having a full year to return them for a refund – and shipping is free both ways.

At the Warby Parker website you can virtually try on eyewear frames by uploading your photo. After narrowing down your choices, they send you up to 5 frames at a time to physically examine for 5 days, with free shipping both ways.

Hmm, I wonder where they go that idea?

After that, you place your order online.

Local Advantages are Many and Interrelated

Local is much more than location.

You can define local in terms of many different criteria, with location being just one of them.

Local is alignment – which may be due to proximity, but is also influenced by the people you are with and the complex social behaviors that result from those interactions.

Local is multi-faceted because people are.

Let your imagination run free to find the ones that are right for your business. Hint: They all lie at the intersection of social, local, and mobile.

Here are a few to consider.

Interests – We are naturally attracted to those who share our interests. This is the magic behind Facebook and other social networks such as question and answer site Quora. They bring together people with shared interests, despite their physical location.

Influence – We are all simultaneously influencers, and influenced by others. The greater the influence, the stronger the alignment or local effect. Klout is a site that attempts to measure and analyze this.

Social CirclesGoogle+ allows you to create circles to organize your connections. You can create large or small circles of connections, while also placing circles within circles to respect those social connections that are closest (or local) to you.

Industry – We all spend the majority of our waking life at work. So, it stands to reason that our industry colleagues are just as local to our daily lives as our families – if not more, because they help us support our families.

Take advantage of the physical location of your business if you have one.

However, if your business does not have a physical location for customers to visit, you can still be a local business.

 How are you using local and location to advance your business objectives?  Leave a comment below – and feel free to share with your community. 

Until next time,  Jeff

Photo Credit: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Friends Help Friends Stop Twitter DM Spam

You know your friends well enough to know the language they will use and content they are most likely to share. You can also probably discern the same for the majority of your Twitter followers.

When you get a spammy DM (direct message) similar to the one above, stop it right away. 

Take these two actions:

#1 – Do not ever click on the links – despite your curiosity.

#2 – Advise your friend to change their password – via a channel other than Twitter.

Many of us do not check our DM’s. Nevertheless, not wanting to miss an important message, my Twitter settings are adjusted to receive email notifications of DM’s.

More than one spammy message from the same user is usually an indication their account has been hijacked.  This means that in addition to you, they are spamming all or most of their followers – and they usually are not even aware of it!

Do them a favor and take the time to send an email or message via another channel to to change their password.

What I have seen some do is send a message (sometimes an angry one) back to the user via Twitter. This only encourages the hijacker, while also increasing the chances of your account getting hacked.

This happened to me about 4 years ago when I was managing the Twitter channel for an association event. How embarrassing is that?

Fortunately, one of my colleagues gave me the heads up via an email and I was able to rectify the situation. I posted an apology to my followers, while also acknowledging my appreciation for the good turn of my friend.

Help your friends and followers stop Twitter DM spam. They won’t forget it, and they’ll likely return the favor.

Everybody wins.

Twitter is a remarkable channel for sharing your message, and extending your influence and circle of friends. How are you helping to keep it clean?

Leave your questions and comments in the box below – and feel free to share with your community.

Until next time, reach out to me on Twitter,   Jeff

Stories Sell and Set You Free

One of my first experiences involving the successful use of story for practical business purposes was as an aspiring landscape contractor – the owner of a mainstream small business. My company was beginning to deliver really nice quality work, but we had yet to land that special project that we hoped would distinguish us in […]

Read the full article

10 LinkedIn Tips for Growing Your Business

This original article by Jeff Korhan (now updated) was published earlier at Social Media Examiner. Why should you use LinkedIn for networking? With 161 million business members, and a reputation as a trusted network, LinkedIn may be the most powerful business networking service both now and moving forward. How are you using LinkedIn to grow […]

Read the full article

3 Habits and Conditions for Creating Art

If you are challenged with consistently creating what is meaningful for both you and your audience, then you may want to consider a few habits and conditions that consistently work for many writers, artists, and creatives. Even if you do not consider yourself to be an artist – you are, because the creative process is […]

Read the full article

Facebook is Friends and Google+ Business

Recent events involving Facebook, Google+, and other social media channels suggest businesses are now facing important decisions with respect to the allocation of their social media networking and marketing resources. Today I was preparing to make a legal right turn into a clear lane after stopping at a red light. Just as I was about […]

Read the full article

Google+ Local Pages – A Game Changer for Every Business

The trend in search is toward social and local content for consumers who are increasingly mobile. Google just made a bold move to bring it to the forefront by automatically converting existing Google Places pages into new Google+ Local business pages. In other words, if your business had a Google Places page it has now […]

Read the full article