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conversation marketing

Lawrence Prather

It’s a Wallet! It’s a Chip! No, Wait, It’s Your Phone?

Near field communication (NFC) chips might eventually make carrying that giant brick you call a wallet disappear.

The technology behind NFC is really complex and not the subject of this post. However, if you would like to know all of the detailed ins-and-out of how it works, then check out this post: Near Field Communications: A Technology Primer. The idea behind this post is similar to one I recently wrote about QR codes, a nice summary of something complex and new.

But What Are Near Field Communication (NFC) Chips?

To put it simply,

“NFC is an evolution of the RFID technology employed in “contact-less” payment systems such as MasterCard PayPass and Visa PayWave, and is mostly known in the U.S. as a means of enabling wireless payments at retail stores. That’s not all NFC can be used for, though. It can also keep track of gift card and ticketing balances, as well as personal information and consumer preferences.” ~ Jacqui Cheng, Ars Technica

NFC uses and possibilities.

NFC technology has been around since 2003, but it failed to catch. In fact, Sprint introduced a mobile phone with a NFC chip specifically for use on the BART system in San Francisco back in 2008. Unfortunately, it went nowhere. Nokia introduced a phone as well – it was available in the U.S. one year earlier – that failed just the same. In order for NFC technology to take off and be successful, it needs the support of retailers, consumers and mobile device manufacturers alike.

However, I’m sure if a certain company (who dabbles in code and search and some mobile software for mobile products) was really, really interested in this technology, they may first try subsidizing the readers at targeted retail stores. This should help kick-start this next generation in commerce, as there needs to be one reader at every cash register. How many retailers do you know of that would fork over the money to do this?

Should You Care?

Yes. Why? First off, it’s already happening under our noses – Japan has been using NFC for their mass transit system (with a rechargeable smart card). Supposedly the DC Metro (WMATA) and Vancouver’s mass transit systems are also considering bids for this technology. Secondly, it stands to replace that kitchen sink you call a wallet, that resides in your back pocket or purse.

The Nexus S, powered by Android 2.3, offers support for NFC in that the hardware inside the phone, as well as the software that runs the phone make it ready for use. By offering this, Google has the competitive advantage over Apple, RIM and Microsoft for NFC-capable devices. Microsoft is even starting to consider putting NFC in the WP7. And while Apple has more applications that are developed for making payments via iPhone, that is not the same as NFC. Making payments through your phone still requires access to the internet and a third party to process the transaction. With an NFC-capable device, the transaction is instant and “contact-less,” meaning the only thing you touch is your phone. As soon as you pass your phone over the reader, the transaction takes less than a few seconds to complete.

You don’t really need to worry about it yet, because NFC most likely won’t be going mainstream anytime soon. The type of testing involved with something as involved as this is going to be heavily monitored by all parties – from developers and manufacturers of the readers on down to the consumers – with code being tweaked and bugs worked out as they go. By the time NFC becomes as common as biometric scanning or facial recognition, these words will have been long forgotten.

In all honesty, I give it about one-and-a-half years before this starts making its way into some of the large metropolitan cities (as far as testing is concerned) and about three years before nationally televised ads start appearing.

When do you think NFC will become mainstream? What are the security implications you foresee?

Photo Credit: NFC News

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tjohnson

From Introductions to Colleagues in 24 Hours

One of the most prominent moments of my career at Incept, as an Online Conversational Results Manager, was when Nate Riggs and Sam Falletta gave me the opportunity to join a team of social media content engineers for the American Marketing Association Marketing Research Conference – AMAMRC for short.

I was to get on a  plane at the CAK (Canton Akron Airport) and take a non-stop flight to Atlanta, where I would meet up with our social media consultant Nate Riggs, as well as Cheryl Harrison, both of whom were also recruited to help with the event. Once we made it to the hotel where the event was going to be taking place, we met the other members of the team, with some hailing from as far south as Florida and as far north as Ontario.

There was Simon Chen, who was in charge or organizing the website for the AMAMRC, a team of bloggers, content engineers in videography and photography (which was going to be a majority of what Nate and I did, along with a few others), and website coordinators that would take all the uploaded information and disperse it on the site. Each and every member of the team was also charged with tweeting about the conference (noting the #AMAMRC hashtag) and engaging with others who were doing the same.

The fun part about organizing a team of content engineers for the event, hosted by Chairman Mike Brown of Brainzooming, was that he recruited each of us from around the country and put us together in what could ultimately be our first and last time working together. We had to introduce ourselves to one another (providing a quick overview of our background), ask any questions we had and then get to work immediately. Nate and I, who did the majority of the event’s content capturing, shot everything from the Ballroom Hall presentations to the individual sessions.

We each took a Flip camera and recorded quick 30-second follow-ups after each presentation. After that, we put in about 15 hours a day to edit and organize the videos and photos to create a conference-culminating montage. Many of the mornings started as early as 7 a.m. and almost every conference “meet-and-greet” event lasted well into the late evening, with the city of Atlanta still buzzing alive with things to do into the wee hours of the morning.

For many of us, we were forced to become colleagues and business partners before we had the opportunity to become friends and associates. The advantage of taking this seemingly backwards approach on business relationships was that, upon meeting each other, we all had a common reason for being there and a common goal towards which we were working. We each relied on one another to work diligently, consistently and prove to everyone why we were chosen as the only social media team for the entire AMAMRC.

Being a 23-year-old college dad and Conversational Marketing Expert (CME), it was important to prove my levelheadedness and work ethic, whether I was interviewing the VP for Coca-Cola International or having a quick conversation with the chairman of the event. All of the follow-up interviews after the individual speakers, divvied up between members of the film team, had to not only encompass everything that we had learned in listening to them but also include something they would want to share with potential clients, business partners and future colleagues. It’s important to pay attention to the content you are listening to and also to know exactly what questions your customers want answered. Sometimes a bad interview can simply occur because of poor question selection, not necessarily due to poor answers.

A lot can be said about a team that works together while bypassing the whole “getting to know each other” phase. This is why Incept’s approach of “listening and leading” to develop the most dynamic analysis of personalized intelligence for our clients continues to exceed expectations. When you develop a relationship with your customer and client – truly taking the opportunity to understand and learn where they are heading – then begin to put together the tools and steps necessary to ultimately reach the goals you each have set, you’re taking a new approach to interviewing altogether.

With regard to better understanding your business partner, client or customer, what ways do you believe you may be missing out when interviewing them?

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tjohnson

Your Success Descriptions

I had a feeling Incept had an inside scoop on the benefits of setting goals when our President, Sam Falletta, mentioned setting up a new goal program within the contact center.

This Goals Group, also referred to as the Accountability Group, was grouped randomly, meeting every week to help hold each other accountable to the goals each person has set – three personal goals and three professional goals. Everyone from the Conversational Marketing Experts (CMEs) to the Vice President of Contact Center Results were able to sit together and talk about personal goals that they had setting, getting a completely different kind of help than you would normally expect to receive from your place of employment.

This exercise ended up working out so well that we decided to film some of the people within the goals program. I enjoyed my time within the Goals Group tremendously, since we were not only able to get help accomplishing our professional goals, but there were also people from other groups giving me information and contacts that could help me to accomplish my personal goals. As I’ve moved up within the company, I’ve been unable to meet with the Goals Group each and every week, but now receive similar results from our success descriptions.

Success descriptions include everything from completing tasks within the Client Results Department to increasing my Twitter followers to 1,000. When we first meet, we evaluate what challenges we encountered over the last month, some ventures we are hoping to start or have completed by the end of the two-month term, company-wide goals and personal goals. We then put a point value on each of the success descriptions and give a weekly progress update, in which they are checked and replied upon by your immediate supervisor. The key to conversational marketing is to make sure that there are thorough conversations taking place continually throughout the process of any task, project or action item. These success descriptions not only give us the opportunity to update our progress each week, but also allow supervisors to see our progress and have any number of conversations in the meantime, relating to the descriptions, on the same platform.

So how do you find your success descriptions? Only you can answer that question. But there are a few steps that I take to help me determine my goals from my success descriptions. Specificity is key. Consider these two goals: (1) to get a car or (2) to get a car under $2,500 by the end of December. Notice the difference?

Here are the things I always keep in mind when preparing to make my next list of success descriptions:

  • Note your last success, and set the bar higher. This can often be more difficult than you would imagine, since whichever goal you just met most likely took a large amount of work, communication, consideration and learning. The goal is to thoroughly examine what worked very well the first time, what took some time to work and what did not work at all. Use all of that as continuing education, and estimate where you believe you will be able to grow with this knowledge. Remember, it’s not a complete loss if you do not reach your goal, because that will help you make the adjustments necessary to meet it next time.
  • What is something that you have been trying to accomplish for some time? This is a great opportunity for you to take ventures that you have been considering doing and establish a beginning step for them. This is usually more of a personalized professional goal, like developing your areas of creativity while keeping a very realistic view on balancing it with the rest of your re-activating priorities. I previously set a goal to establish the pilot episode for our Incept Live video series, and even though I did not accomplish this goal, it was only because I realized the amount of time it would take away from my other goals. So, now I am able to determine when I will have time to put this back on my list when other priority tasks have been completed.
  • Take a method that works and multiply. If the newest members of the team have been coming up with some really great ideas to get projects moving along, let those members own their next idea and continue to develop it. When we realized that the trivia questions on our Facebook page had been generating a lot of engagement, we decided to not only post two questions a day – for the day and night shifts – but have our iCMEs find additional trivia questions to save time on searching for new ones. Being able to assign and strengthen the areas in which we’ve had strong results, allows us to focus on the areas where we have not to determine whether they can be fixed or need to be replaced altogether.
  • Hold yourself accountable. There is a large and obvious difference between setting a goal, working towards it, finding the ways that work from those that don’t and still missing the success, as opposed to not truly attempting to succeed on your success description. Since you initially create these goals, you update them weekly and you respond to supervisor comments, you truly own the progress (or lack thereof) in your success descriptions. You will always be held accountable by others for your actions in the workplace, but now you have that complete ownership to know just how close you were to succeeding and why.

These are a few things that I have done to help myself continue to create challenging goals through my success descriptions. What are some things that you think you would be able to accomplish if you set them into goals?

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tjohnson

Why the New Year is Your Year

Develop a blog, create an online social network (be it on Facebook, Twitter or Myspace), throw a couple videos up on YouTube and you’re pretty much an inner-circle celebrity.

Whether it’s among your friends, team, colleagues, classmates or other aspiring entrepreneurs, having an online footprint makes you twice as impactful – and more likely to have a continuous presence available for the people interested in you. What better way for the family to see how well college is going out of state than to check up on you via your Facebook page? What better way to sell your original paintings (that you do in your free time) than on your personal blog, filled with contact and purchase information?So, with the exception of the number of tools for developing your social presence growing by the week, in what other ways is 2011 lining up to be your best year ever?

Here are a few ways available now (or soon) for individuals to become entrepreneurs in 2011:

  1. I  See You Everywhere: If I were to bet you that I could tweet something without touching a phone, computer, or any electronic device for the entire day, you’d be getting out your wallet. How? For those of you heavily engaged in the Twittersphere, you’re likely already aware. Schedule your tweets in advance. As a matter of fact, I could schedule a tweet, post on Facebook, update on LinkedIn and then send a completely different tweet from a different account simultaneously from one platform. Did I mention this is a free platform (HootSuite)?
  2. Count Your Opinion In: Went to Red Lobster, and had a dining experience out of this world? Or maybe you went to a four-star restaurant and had what can only be remembered as a living nightmare? Odds are you’re going to share it verbally, on Facebook or on Twitter, to the several hundred to tens of thousands who are friends or followers. Certain organizations have taken the time to adopt a social media presence so they may engage and become a part of the conversation with their customers (like the opportunities we present in our Listening Reports). These issues may be resolved. But, more often than not, the organization doesn’t have the revenue to fund a online presence. That’s unfortunate, because such a presence is more instant and impactful than the surveys that may be done on behalf of the organization.
  3. Industries from A-Z: With social media, we have now officially become the era of consumer sharing. Because of the easily customizable and accessible avenues for consumer sharing, tools like blogs have now become living archives for human opinion. With hundreds of thousands of bloggers across the world, you can find blogs on anything you could possibly imagine. Do you really like cheese? Check out this cheese blog I found via Google. Have an soft spot for my old childhood heroes, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? Not only did I find a blog for the Ninja Turtles, I rekindled my infatuation with the pizza-loving reptiles. The information highway has now begun to stem from the minds of the deeply opinionated, engaged or involved consumers of any brand.
  4. Creating Your Community: So, with all this going on, what will ultimately be the best part of capturing, defining, representing and producing your opinion, idea or brand? It’s the community that follows. People will begin to engage with the content you produce in the form of comments, retweets (RTs), replies or even a ‘like.’ Engagement will become more consistent, the more content you generate. It’s likely that you will have regular, active users and be able to review what content does and does not drive further engagement. A time will come when your community may even take the opportunity to post their own content. In this case, another active user is likely to comment on the community content, giving your community a life of its own.

The opportunities for individuals to create their own community have become more accessible than ever. Organizations have some of the most compelling content to share, though many have more difficulty than the individual to stay consistently active online. The only question is this: What is the first step to take, in terms of delivering yourself online? Unquestionably, moving your persona onto an online social network will benefit you more with every passing day you engage.

How difficult is it to move yourself or your brand online?

[Photo Credit: City lights]

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tjohnson

Including Your Customers in Your Decisions

Surveys are great when it comes to developing a content strategy for improving results to better serve your customers.

Polls, like the ones we develop and publish weekly on Incept’s Facebook page, give our employees (and our customers) the ability to have their voices heard and their votes counted. These polls also allow them to see the progress made while helping to drive more traffic to the page to support their cause.

Why do you think American Idol is so popular? Some people believe it’s because it gives aspiring stars in America a chance to finally see the spotlight and generates the next, newest music sensation. I, on the other hand, believe it’s because American Idol was one of the first major shows that incorporated viewer votes – votes that ultimately determine the fate of the same show capturing their hearts - into on-show decisions.

How much more can you involve your customers, fans or employees than when you allow them to determine the final decision made within your organization?

Mountain Dew did it when they asked America to develop their newest flavor, as well as the new can design and limited edition bottle. Reality TV has also capitalized on it. YouTube can turn regular Americans into top-story superstars literally overnight. Consumers now have the ability to shape their pop culture and economy through politics without all the, well, politics. Is there any better way to deliver exactly what your customers want than by letting them grab the wheel and turn your organization in the direction they’d like to head? This allows your organization to not only maintain its identity – its still the vehicle, regardless of who’s driving – but also avoid any pit stops (or getting lost) as you travel towards where your customers truly want you to be.

You can drive this message home as many times as you want, but the fact remains that it’s smart to include your customers in all of your future business decisions. That’s normal. With the boom of reality TV, company’s were encouraged to allow customers to make the changes they’d like to see. Nowadays, with the advancement and proliferation of social media, you are able to (and, again, encouraged to) have real-time, personal conversations with your customers to not only find out what they would like to change about your organization but why.

The closer you can get to your customers, the greater and more beneficial the relationship will be (and the easier it will be to strengthen). The smallest instance of customer service excellence has the ability to create a lifelong customer, contributor or even blood donor. This is the age of sharing your life and stories with the world. What better way to market to your customers than by allowing them to help with the legwork, marketing your brand for you to their closest, most trusted contacts (i.e., their fans and followers).

How much do you consider your customers when making your business decisions?

[Photo credit: Lisa Mason Lee, Jarvis Holliday, Beth Walburg]

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tjohnson

The Formality Shift

Formality, defined as the rigid observance of rules of convention or etiquette, has given me a glimpse into how it currently moves within the world.

What’s my speciality? Customer relations. My job is to tell, show, express and present the great things that others are doing around me – be it in a video (which is my favorite form of communication), blog post, email, tweet, post or comment. But, as etiquette would suggest, by knowing how behaviors change and conversations morph, you can be a better communicator. It’s almost like listening to the mood of your communication channel.

How so, you ask? Well, when I’m talking to Sam, Incept’s President, through our company email, it’s very likely going to involve task management, project coordination, recognition, thoughts and action plans. However, when I talk to Sam on Twitter, it could be about how my father’s campaign was going, sharing the news of Sam’s wife receiving her PhD, and RT (Re-tweeting) quotes that drive seven Facebook ‘likes’ on my page within the hour.

Take that same situation and bring it into client relations. Individuals within a particular organization may be more inclined to discuss their personal view of their current professional field via their choice of non-work-related communication mediums. So their favorite social networked form of communication, outside of their job, can lead to a relationship that may suddenly and beneficially shift into the workplace.

When Rebecca Crosen and Kathie Manchester both wrote guest posts on Incept’s blog, it was after forging an initial relationship on Twitter. How? By listening to keywords that we both shared: blood donation, blood donor recruitment and blood center. [I give credit to Nate Riggs’ for introducing me and our Internet Conversational Marketing Experts (iCMEs) to HootSuite, as well as Stephen for finding these great blood awareness experts.

So how do you benefit from this formality shift? The first method is to develop a portion of your organization to focus on social media. Whether you designate three content engineers to reach out on behalf of your organization, or set up your own personal LinkedIn account, it’s easy to break into the social networks without a financial commitment. Once you’ve claimed your corner of the social web, relax.

There are fewer inhibitions when you communicate personally on an open, widely used network. In other words, there will be less formality because there are less clients and more customers. But if you treat the individuals you converse with like customers, you risk losing them as friends. Treat them like friends and you’ll gain them as allies forever. I have made hundreds of connections on Twitter (818 to be exact) who range from business partners to high school friends and fellow dream-chasers. This means I’ll have the ability to point the spotlight to another organization for their great efforts and always have “ears” for when I need to vent after a rough week.

The formality shift. Knowing the difference between a suit and a tux; being able to switch over from a business professional to a friend with a career. There is a very flexible way that anyone can shift between two types of conversation. It’s crucial that you listen. Listen not only to the conversations forming around you, but also for the keywords you search for and the goals of your business (to know exactly how, when and where you should engage with your customers).

These aren’t your everyday listening skills we’re talking about, but rather things that can be learned, trained and improved upon. How are you behaving in the transitioning communication forms? Have you adapted to the formality shift?

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sfalletta

How Am I Doing?

How often do you ask your clients about your performance?

I don’t mean in terms of a toll-free number printed on a receipt or an automated survey or an email or having someone else call them. I mean, how often are you talking to your customers personally and asking about how you and your organization are doing?

I’ve recently had a few meetings with clients where I had the opportunity to ask for feedback and realized I am not doing it enough. We often think that maybe we need to use objective third parties to guarantee honesty – or hire some other organization to do it for us – and while this can be helpful, it can also defeat the purpose in many cases.

A one-to-one conversation, during which you are asking for suggestion on how you can improve, shows your client how important they are to you. It strengthens the relationship, which is the entire goal of the process in the first place.

Here are some conversation-starters that you can modify to fit your own situation: (Keep in mind, these same principles work wonders with your boss, spouse, friend, vendor, etc.)

  • How am I doing?
  • What could I be doing better?
  • If you were me, what would you do more of? What about less?

The first step is starting the conversation. This week, ask at least one other person this simple question: “How am I doing?”

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tjohnson

How to be Conversational Online: Twit-etiquette

During our weekly meeting with the iCMEs (Internet Conversational Marketing Experts), we went over our progress report for the previous week regarding Facebook, Twitter and blog analytics.

As I was reading off each individual iCMEs stats for Twitter, including their followers, following, klout score and updates, I realized that one of the iCMEs had lost a follower from the previous week. Knowing exactly the probable, I stated how they may have forgotten to thank that particular Twitter user for following them (2-3 days after they started to follow) and they decided to unfollow. I learned from Nate Riggs that heavily engaged Twitter users will check their accounts daily and manage their accounts to the ultimate optimization. So in that particular follower’s eyes, they followed the iCME, there was no response for 2 days, and they took it that the iCME was an inactive user and unfollowed.

Surprisingly enough, this was a type of “Twitter etiquette” that was new to the iCMEs, since they weren’t aware people would actually unfollow someone due to those circumstances. As I continued to answer the questions they had about Twitter, while also relaying dos and don’ts, as well as tips and tricks to better optimize their accounts, they suggested I actually write a blog post about this type of etiquette on Twitter to help people who may not know. I couldn’t have agreed more.

Following Meredith’s series on How to be Conversational Online with Facebook and Blogs, I wanted to make sure I could touch on the importance of the types of conversations going on within Twitter and how to properly engage. At first, Twitter can be overwhelming, and I initially thought it was much more than I wanted to do or deal with. However, HootSuite can dramatically change the way you look at Twitter. Again, there are different levels of conversation on Twitter, depending on your goal for establishing your account, so let’s look at this from the perspective of a professional Twitter user:

  • Word Travels Fast: One of the most impactful things about Twitter is how easily your message can be delivered, spread and magnified. If I wrote a new blog post on how I have increased productivity by prioritizing my tasks (based on urgency) and tweeted the link, it would go out to the 785 followers that I currently have associated with that account. But, if @nateriggs retweeted (RTs) the same message and link, my blog post has now been made available to his 18,186 followers. So make sure before tweeting anything that you are comfortable and capable of delivering your message to a large, mass audience.

  • Your Tweeple: The people on Twitter, or Tweeple, frequently do not enjoy having conversations with corporations or organizations. Twitter is a very personalized message-delivery network, so encompassing wide corporate tweets may get little or no response (unless using some sort of promotion). A lot of times, you will see the individual personalize themselves within the company through their account name or signature. We have @InceptResults and @InceptSaves, but we have been utilizing our personal accounts, @timothy_incept and @stephen_incept to make the connections with other content engineers. People like to feel as though they’re speaking with an actual person and be able to personalize with that person, as opposed to speaking with a company as a whole and every or anyone who may generate content  for said company. Think of this as the difference between having a technical problem on the phone solved via a live customer service rep and an automated response.
  • A Lot of Content: Saying there is a lot of content on Twitter would be an understatement, at best. Whenever you send a personalized message to someone, they may not be able to respond back to you immediately (which is understandable, especially for someone who has a large number of people they follow). So once you have sent a message, leave it at that. Try not to be overly persistent. You are more than welcome to respond back in a few hours or send a direct message (DM) if there is an urgent issue. Otherwise, there is a good chance your message will be responded to after they have gone through all of their mentions. For any urgent or high priority action items that you need to get out, it’s best to stick with your primary e-mail source.
  • 3:1 Ratio: Another important grain of wisdom that Nate Riggs gave me – from the vast fields of knowledge he possesses in this particular field – is to always mention and thank people three times as much as you ever mention yourself. The most powerful impact you can make on Twitter is giving recognition to someone else or for someone else. Not only does it show that you are able to highlight what someone else is doing (which can often be the most powerful aspect) but that you are putting yourself both in a position to receive appreciation for that recognition and have your recognition RTed by them to all of their followers. If the tweeted topic is popular enough, it has the potential to be retweeted several times by individuals you may not be following at all. For example:

RT @timothy_Incept: RT @Stephen_Incept: RT @PublicityGuru: The Top 150 Social Media, PR & Marketing Blogs:http://bit.ly/9pGFFP

As this increasing social network continues to boom and diversify itself from the other engagement-driven social networks, you can guarantee there will always be new tricks to learn and new ways of making content engineering more impactful on your customers and efficient for your employees. I severely underestimated the power of Twitter initially and now use it to its fullest potential.

How is your Twit-etiquette?

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Dave

Listening to the Message Between the Words

Listening can be defined or interpreted to mean so many different things.

Some think it’s just hearing the words that another person is saying.  Some think it’s being able to hear the words and then respond appropriately.  Some think it’s just acknowledging the speaker often with nonverbal cues like nodding, or verbal cues like saying, “uh-huh.”  To some extent, they are all partially correct.

I want to give you more of my view of listening to the message between the words.  By this, I mean, listening to the subtle sounds, tones, the sigh, the delayed response or the quick response.  These are just a few nonverbal cues, but they all tell you part of the story.  They are all part of the conversation.  What you choose to do with these cues will likely dictate the path your conversation takes.  In the end, how well you pick up on the message between the words will determine if your conversation strengthens the relationship or not.

If you notice that your customer/donor is giving quick answers, you should hear the message that they are busy or in a hurry right now and acknowledge it.  You can do this by getting to the point – or even verbally recognizing it by mentioning something about them being busy – and then telling them the purpose of your call.  If you hear long pauses between responses, your customer/donor may be confused by what you are saying or somehow distracted by something else.  Acknowledge that by slowing down slightly, make sure you are speaking clearly, but put extra compassion or inflection in your voice – making yourself even more interesting to listen to.  You may also want to ask the distracted customer/donor a question or two in an effort to get them engaged in the conversation.  There are as many tactics to effectively use the nonverbal cues you hear in a conversation as there are nonverbal cues.

Remember, nonverbal nuances in a phone conversation tell you the truth.  They can arm you with the ability to progress your conversation into one that will strengthen the relationship.  The key is to acknowledge them by taking the action that those nonverbal cues are suggesting.  Maybe you shorten your conversation or maybe you go off-script for a short time. The true art of listening to others comes into play when you learn how to hear them and, next, what to do with them.

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tjohnson

Are You Waiting or Creating Your Opportunities?

A question that often arises from many Conversational Marketing Experts (CMEs) at Incept, with things being finalized in our new Internet Conversational Marketing Expert (iCME) division, is this: “How do I get in?”

Many of our CMEs have additional talents – some that we try to spotlight in our video series, such as writing, filming, editing and blogging. I tell them the things that would make the biggest difference (from an outside perspective) and see where they stand with their ability or dedication to social engagement. I always tell people the things they need to do to prove they’re interested in joining the department prior to our next opening:

  • Engage on the page. Incept’s Facebook page isn’t just the main channel of fluid communication, from the new CME still in training all the way up the VP of Contact Center Results, it also embodies our company culture in videos, photos, recognition and new updates. If any CMEs become a part of that engagement, they become a part of the content we engineer every day. Even our President was able to tell me how funny it is that when he walks through the contact center, he now knows certain CMEs by name simply from seeing their faces on the Facebook page.
  • Create engagement driving content. Can you come up with an idea, statement, question or content that will ultimately drive another person to engage afterward? There are several different topics, approaches and visual affects that encourage engagement from various people. Being able to understand and leverage this for each business is an important step of lead generation.
  • Bring ideas to the table. The best people to work with are the people that are overflowing with ideas, suggestions, possibilities and goals. Genuine enthusiasm to help the group (as a whole) always outweighs the individual that merely wants to become a part of the department because it’s something they would like to do. Staying open-minded and looking at ideas from every angle helps to uncover just who the linchpins are within an organization.

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