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If You Talk the Talk, You Better Walk the Walk

Written by: Rebel Brown

Article Overview: Walk your Talk. Someone will find out when you don't. Thanks to Web 2.0 - that bullet can be shared around the world. Besides, it's the right thing to do. Keep your integrity and do what you say. You may not win all the time, but you'll win more than most.

If You Talk the Talk, You Better Walk the Walk

Businesses large and small are jumping into a social media presence these days. It's a great opportunity for real communication with your audience. If you walk the walk. But what happens when the talk isn't the walk? When a customer pushes past the social persona. Do you walk the walk - or do you crash and burn?

Two cases in point.

CASE ONE: The Social Media Guru

Take a certain large corp that's into social media big time. This company is a rare deal - a successful business in an industry that is going down fast. Well, I had a nightmare customer experience with my brand new, high dollar product from this same company. One of the worst. Trust me, that says a lot.

A friend suggested I ping the social media exec with my story - to give him the feedback and let him work his magic. My initial reaction was that my complaining to a big corp wasn't going to matter. I'm a gnat on their derriere.

But my friend persisted and so I Tweeted the social media guru. Guru Tweeted back an email address and asked me to share my story. Good! So I did.

• A week later, no response. I thought maybe he was just too stunned to reply. So I Tweeted and asked what was up (a private DM).
• DM a few hours later. "Sorry, I'm busy, my email is backed up, I'll get back to you soon." Not exactly endearing, now was it.
• I DMd back that thanks to him, I now fully understood my importance to the company. (Note: I know, bad form, but at the moment I just couldn't stop myself.)
• Response in half an hour. "I can't respond because I need feedback from others. I'll get back to you."

Why the change in attitude? "Guru probably just now read your email, figured out he's in deep *** and is making excuses," says my social media maven/sis. It never even occurred to me that he wouldn't have read my email after I DM'd him with my plight.

That night I watched as Guru Tweeted on and on about sports, movies, the Stanley Cup, great restaurants and more. Yep, he's WAY too busy to care about me and my issues.

Fast Forward Two Weeks: To be fair - I had a different ending written for this story until Sunday night. But the company called me on Thursday. We set a time for Friday but they were late for the call. A whole 7 hours late. But they left a message so I'll call them. There is hope. Still....

CASE TWO: A Young Internet Entrepreneur

I responded pretty strongly to a pesky Twitter MLM peep who wouldn't take NO for an answer. Don't ya hate it? Snakeoil. Ick. Ping, an immediate reply. "What the ..." I opened the email, ready to blast away. Stopped short. It was from a totally different person and company. Seems I replied to the wrong email. OOPS!

Sy Whitehall, the voice of myebook*, had emailed and offered to introduce me to his site personally. I'd responded to his email with my, er, blast. He told me later he felt 'chucked in the gut'. What had he done, what was so bad about his website, his offering? What could he do to help me?

I quickly replied, explained I'd made a big boo boo and thanked Sy for his responsiveness. Poor guy! He chatted with me on email for a while, and then we Skyped late last week and he gave me tips and pointers. Good stuff here, I'm using it on my website now!

I left a happy and satisfied user - impressed by Sy's dedication to his business, his customers and his own brand of social outreach with such a personal touch.

Who's Walking the Walk?

You can decide for yourselves. For me, it's pretty obvious. Right now I'll do everything I can to help Sy get his business going. That's why I named him in this blog. He deserves a BIG and public pat on the back for his dedication to his business and his customers.

As for Guru? The jury is still out on that one.

The Bottom Line

Walk your Talk. Someone will find out when you don't. Thanks to Web 2.0 - that bullet can be shared around the world. Besides, it's the right thing to do.

Keep your integrity and do what you say. You may not win all the time, but you'll win more than most.

______

*myebook is a FREE site to create and distribute interactive, multi-media eBooks. Try it out!

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  Demonstrating Effective Leadership By Learning How To Walk The Talk One Step At A Time
  The 5 Major Skills you need to become a Great Manager
  Exercise and work
  If My Dog Could Talk

Article Tags: attitude, audience, big time, customer experience, derriere, dollar product, email address, exec, gnat, guru guru, half an hour, initial reaction, li li, magic, media guru, media presence, nightmare customer, plight, successful business, ul



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Ideas on Using Twitter for Business - 1. Build an account and immediate start using Twitter Search to listen for your name, your competitor's names, words that relate to your space. (Listening always comes first.) 2. Add a picture. ( Shel reminds us of this.) We want to see you. 3. Talk to people about THEIR interests, too. I know this doesn't sell more widgets, but it shows us you are human. 4. Point out interesting things in your space, not just about you. 5. Share links to neat things in your community. ( wholefoods does this well). 6. Don't get stuck in the apology loop. Be helpful instead. ( jetblue gives travel tips.) 7. Be wary of always pimping your stuff. Your fans will love it. Others will tune out. 8. Promote your employees outside-of-work stories. ( TheHomeDepot does it well.) 9. Throw in a few humans, like RichardAtDELL, LionelAtDELL, etc. 10. Talk about non-business,
Re: Hi all from Australia!! - Hi Mark, Welcome to the forum, I am sure your 10 years of experience will come in useful and your contributions will be of interest to all the members. Talk of Amway certainly takes me back, LOL, regards, Mal.
Re: Ideas on Using Twitter for Business - [quote="evieparsons":2o69rd2a]1. Build an account and immediate start using Twitter Search to listen for your name, your competitor's names, words that relate to your space. (Listening always comes first.) 2. Add a picture. ( Shel reminds us of this.) We want to see you. 3. Talk to people about THEIR interests, too. I know this doesn't sell more widgets, but it shows us you are human. 4. Point out interesting things in your space, not just about you. 5. Share links to neat things in your community. ( wholefoods does this well). 6. Don't get stuck in the apology loop. Be helpful instead. ( jetblue gives travel tips.) 7. Be wary of always pimping your stuff. Your fans will love it. Others will tune out. 8. Promote your employees outside-of-work stories. ( TheHomeDepot does it well.) 9. Throw in a few humans, like RichardAtDELL, LionelAtDELL, etc. 10. Talk about non-business,[/quote:2o69rd2a] Hey thanks for these tips. Basically, help others in your market out and build relationships with people. Be someone who gives, not takes. I'll keep them in mind if I go back to social media marketing. I'm currently in the SEO phase of my business.
Re: regrets - Terri, Your decision is understandable and I appreciate you posting this instead of just leaving and making us wonder what happened to you. Come back every once in a while when you get a chance. You don't have to be a mod to give us your insight on things. Talk to you later, Trent
Re: Hi from Ireland - Hey Mal, welcome to the forum! Yep you are definitely a familiar name/face to me. I guess we've "known" each other online for about 6 years now. Just replied to your PM too. Talk to you later. Trent


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