Now Shaq may indeed be a Twitter super-user, and he might even coin more words than Seth Godin. But recommending him as your one must-follow was a waste of an opportunity to give real, sound advice.

The person you should follow on Twitter, if you’re a business owner and really only have time to follow one, is the person in your industry who has taken the time to become a resource for others. This person:

• Posts a ton of links to relevant reading material
• Re-tweets useful stuff – not fluff
• Engages with those who reply to them
• Follows proportionally to their followers
• Blogs passionately about the industry and links out when appropriate to their own incredible blog

Having established that setting goals is “the most important thing” you can do when getting into social media, I’d say that the second most important thing you should do is make sure you’re not wasting your time by connecting with people who can’t help you meet them.

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Bad Twitter advice from Advertising Age

The purpose of this app is to let my friends know where I am while I’m out gallavanting around, so they can join me for a drink or a meal, and learn more (through tips) about why I like the places I patronize.

The problem is, the people I’m acquainted with who are most likely to be reading my updates are not the people who are usually wondering on a Saturday night, “Where the heck is Janet? I MUST go where Janet is and hang out!” So, this may ultimately end up being one of those situations where I finally just admit I’m not the target market, and accept defeat.

Unless I can find some valuable alternate use for Foursquare – not altogether unlikely, given that I once dismissed Twitter with a “talk to the hand” flourish, only to find that later it had morphed into an incredibly valuable business and personal connectivity tool.

So here, with a hopeful eye on the future of Foursquare, are a few alternate uses for this latest bit of “I don’t get it.”

1. If you’re a professional with clients, or have friends who own businesses, you can earn brownie points by listing them as venues and then checking in. (You’re welcome, @Sambetti’s! And yes, I meant it about the onion rings.)
2. Easy way to fake a day of outside sales calls when you’re really laying on a chaise lounge at home with an umbrella drink in your hand. (Aside: Foursquare needs a plug-in that lets you schedule auto-checkins to really be useful in this situation.)
3. Useful tool for savvy burglars who can estimate, based on your latest check-in, how much time they have to ransack your house.
4. Quick way to notify loved ones that Captain Sulley has safely landed your plane (i.e., “Just checked in @Hudson River.”)
5. What, too soon?

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Alternative uses for Foursquare

The position will be a great opportunity to put to work all of my project management skills, and to learn a thing or two about agency life and methods – no doubt it’s changed somewhat in the 23 years since I last worked in that environment!

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Happiness is a new job

This post originally appeared on an older blog, MarketingIdeaBlog.com. I am re-publishing it here because I believe the information is not only still valuable, but because I really wish I’d never dismantled that blog in the first place

Maureen Rogers’s underlying point begs a really important question: do you have credibility with the “locals”? I once saw a beautiful photograph of our skyline at night, complete with a full, golden moon. Trouble was, given the vantage point from which the photo had to have been taken, the moon’s placement was physically impossible – it just doesn’t travel in that part of the sky. Most likely the out-of-towners who were the target audience of this marketinrg piece would never know the difference. It was I, the lifelong local, who knew.

I think the same can be said about your existing vs. prospective customers. Prospects, generally, will believe what you show and tell them – they’ve got no reason to doubt you. But what would happen if they talked to one of your existing customers? Will your marketing claims be affirmed by those who know you well, your “locals”? Here are a few tips to ensure that they will:

1. Ask. And by that I mean, ask the locals. Do a quick survey (free or cheap online at www.surveymonkey.com) among existing customers, asking questions about your key marketing messages. You don’t have to provide actual ad copy – just give them some key ideas to consider. And then ask, “Which of these most accurately describes our business?” Or “…most accurately describes how you feel about us?” Be sure to give an “other” for them to contribute their own ideas.

2. Test. Invite a few “locals” in for an ad testing session. This needn’t be expensive – just host them in a meeting space at your location (or even someplace more creative) and maybe provide a couple large pizzas. Show them some ad concepts or just some taglines you’re considering, and let them talk. Even cheaper: Post the info to your blog and shoot some emails to a few favorite “locals,” inviting them to comment.

3. Revise. Based on the feedback you get from your locals, how can you revise your message or rewrite your tagline so it communicates well and resonates with them? Remember, these are the messages that they will affirm about you if asked. That’s why they’re important. Sometimes it’s not what you think about yourself that’s important, it’s what your customers think about you that can open up new prospect markets.

Add your own ideas here – what is the value of knowing that your “locals” will back you up on your marketing claims? How important to your business is this concept of “credibility among the locals”?

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Does your marketing have credibility with your 'locals'?

The interview itself was an opportunity to put into practice some valuable advice I’d gleaned from recently reading the book 101 Dynamite Questions to Ask at Your Job Interview by Richard Fein. I’ve known forever that it’s a bad idea to not have prepared questions to ask the interviewer, and I’m determined to find a position that’s a good fit for me personally as well as professionally. But how to formulate my questions, and how to determine which questions to ask?

Fein’s book provides a way to break down the job, the company and its industry into distinct segments, and craft questions that will reveal information you can use to make an informed decision should an offer come your way.

For example, as a marketing professional I’m concerned with the company’s level of openness to new marketing channels. I’m personally enthusiastic about exploring online social media channels as marketing tools. So, one of my questions was designed to tell me what’s currently working for them (“What is presently the marketing channel that brings you the most new business?”), and the follow-up would tell me if they were open to new ideas (“What new channels would you be willing to explore to gain more prospects?”). The answers to these questions were very encouraging: the owner named their most productive marketing channel and stated that he would like me to formalize a program for mining that channel more effectively. When asked about new channels, he essentially said, “I’m open to whatever you come up with.” 

Of course, I also wanted to ask about the salary range for the position, but Fein had advised that this question was premature in a first interview. So I approached it another way: because the position also involved a small amount of office support, I asked about the “growth plan” for the job: “Where do you envision it in two years’ time, and how it fits into the company structure?”  I also asked whether he perceived it as an entry-level job, or whether he was seeking a more strategic, experienced marketing person. Again the answers to these were encouraging.

Other good things about this job: a low-stress commute and a small-office atmosphere that relies on committed team players to function smoothly. I hope to be called back for a second interview.

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Interview strategy: prepare smart questions to ask