Talent.me

A Facebook app that sets out to connect you to business partners.

I joined, it connected me to all my contacts (I know them already) and then set about asking me to endorse people…

It suggested I endorse someone – Alan Moore.  So I clicked and because he hasn’t listed any ‘talent’s I can’t endorse him…. well that isn’t great – what If I want to endorse you about a talent (friendliness, humour) that you haven’t listed?

I tried again, Chris Lenton, It even suggested a sentence I could use (doesn’t that negate the value of the endorsement if it isn’t my own words?).

MeetingAngels.com

Try this one – an opportunity to get meetings or set up meetings as an intermediary with targets.  I want to meet people working at the commercial ports of Auckland, Tauranga, Wellington and Christchurch here in New Zealand.  So I listed that …. now every working day I get an identical email from Omri Horowitz.  Adding no value, explaining nothing and definitely putting me off the site.  Here’s what he says

Daily email from Meeting Angels

Is ‘social business’ really happening?

Haydn Shaughnessy writes in Forbes that he fears Social Business will fail.  But that’s because it isn’t replacing capitalist enterprise, it’s trying to become something different.  He sets out a case of a wider definition than just connecting with other members of staff.

Social business on this limited definition is an adaptation of your Intranet. It might be a great, big, wonderful Intranet, but it serves the same objectives and it will look and function like an Intranet.

That will not create new business opportunities, nor allow a company to transform itself without leadership forging a movement for change that impinges on employees, customers, and partners, bringing additional value to them all. That, on the other hand, is a social business.

Doing ‘good’ and enabling connections are, in my opinion subsdiary to the profit motive and will remain so for a long time.  Rawn Shah defines social business as

“how to use the power of network relationships, and online social interactivity to empower the processes of any business”

Writing in the comments of Haydn’s article, I added

I fear for the ‘bandwagon’ effect on the combined words ‘social’ and ‘business’.

This week I’ve been exposed to two new apps: Talent.me and Meetingangels.com

Both purport to be ‘social business apps’ and both are failing to deliver. The first seems to link to my network but not offer any subsequent steps, the latter just sends me spammy emails confirming that I’ve asked for an introduction to an organisation.

I’ve also spoken to another organisation, conenza.com who use alumni networks to leverage new business development. This seems better-conceived and I’m investigating further.  

I like the idea of social business on a B2B level, it is not yet even at the starting blocks of delivering value.

Wouldn’t you love to be able to use networks of networks to get the connections you need to drive new business for your firm?  Have you tried out these apps?  Do they work for you?   Please send us your examples.

Related articles

• Will The Real Social Business Experts Please Stand Up? (darmano.typepad.com)
• Musing about shared value (confusedofcalcutta.com)
• Baselining Social Business Maturity: Why and How(serve4impact.com)

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• 2012 the year of social business and shared value (delphineremyboutang.wordpress.com)

What’s in the series?

• 8 steps you can do today for improved lead generation
• 5 ways to focus on your targets
• 2 improvements for a compelling offer

Short, easily digestible advice delivered to your in-box in five installments.

Interested?  

Where does your information come from?

It is simply from visitors targeting our website in searches – we rank high for several key search terms in branding, pitching, advertising and marketing

Tracking the source URL of the searcher tells me someone at that company is searching for that exact phrase.

Why does this work for new business development?

We find that these searches are ‘early stage indicators’ of business development activity – i.e. in the ‘research’ stage for the brand.  When a brand manager is considering new marketing activity, s/he will oftentimes do an internet search to find out more before writing a brief for a pitch, for example.

Why are some leads for contest ideas?

This is because of the search terms that our site gets found for.

You will notice that we frequently reveal the name and URL of the brand who wants a contest idea – let us explain why we do this.

1. We want to give new readers who are not yet ready to subscribe a chance to see the quality of brand names that our service uncovers
2. Many agencies find that using a contest idea as an “introduction” is a great way of ‘opening doors’ for a new brand who does not yet know your agency.

A majority of brands are not from USA

This outcome is a function of three things –

1. We originated in the UK and have a lot of British companies who read the blog.
2. The internet in native English is read by people in US, Canada, Australia, UK, South Africa, New Zealand and several other countries where English is the native language.
3. Our site attracts readers from around the globe – many of whom use English for search because the results are richer than in their language.

How can I get more leads suited to my agency?

At any one time, we cannot predict the industry, country or type of leads that we uncover.

We fully understand that these are unlikely to suit every agency all the time.  You may be a niche specialist in high tech B2B while another subscriber agency works with clients from Florida or Denmark across many industry groups.

To assess whether our Brands Seeking Agencies leads may suit your agency, we suggest you read back through the ‘history’ of Brands Seeking Agencies blog posts and see how many on average look likely to match your expertise and specialism.

Checking it out… will let you know more after registration information comes back from the organisers.

My list of Mac failures from today:

1. Setting up tabbed browsing – a pain to do.  Can’t work out how to open new browser and default to tabs.
2. Shortcut keys – had to search for how to do home / end / page up / down
3. Lack of a forward delete key – shortcut only.  sadness.
4. How the FREAK do you get a document to “save as”… I got save a version but it won’t let me create a new folder to save it in.
5. Once a program is open full screen (Mail, iTunes) how on earth do you close it… where did that red button go?
6. Qlock.com – my favourite timezone marker software doesn’t work on Mac.
7. Spell check on this blog has reverted to US spelling.  GET LOST.
8. Printer drivers for my Epson printer just fail to load.  “Sorry there are no matching downloads for the Epson Epson Stylus TX550W”
9. Click in a browser address and it doesn’t highlight the whole URL – wrist strain begins here.
10. So how do I synchronize Google calendar with Mail calendar?

Good things

1. Nice keyboard – though keys are offset to the right of where I’m used
2. Print to pdf is helpful

Image via Wikipedia

Robin from PromoManagers writes about the ultimate agency nightmare client.  His firm acquired the business but the client doesn’t listen to the agency advice.  The relationship has been going downhil.

But they are stuck because the agency needs the income but they also recognise this client won’t ever be a huge success with the campaigns they run and won’t make them rich due to the lack of follow-through.

He says

I’ve been part of a team of people working on “the problem child” account for almost a year now. The short of it is that (a) they need more than just marketing to grow their business and (b) they blatantly ignore our recommendations and then complain that they’re not getting results.

This is clearly a failng relationship.

His article was prompted by an Entrepreneur article where the commenters all suggest their ‘best decision’ was to actually fire the customer – interesting that Robin didn’t feel he could do the same.  But maybe he’s not the decision maker in his agency.

Symptoms to watch out for – Nightmare Clients from Hell

1. you complain to your co-workers A LOT about them
2. nearly everything they say annoys you
3. you find it hard to think of something positive to say
4. when you see them the first thing that jumps into your head is negative or sarky/snide / negative
5. you have to struggle to be enthusiastic about your work on their brand

Any others?  What do nightmare clients from hell make you do or thing?

Image via Wikipedia

Delighted that within two weeks of starting work, we got their story picked up by the leading magazine about New Zealand creative business, Idealog.   Read the article about Contegro hitting the Top 30 CMS list in the world!

Helpfully, OneSourceGraphics have written out their detailed survey which sets of the principal questions to which an agency will need answers before pricing up a brief.

So you want to redesign your website

Here are the questions you should answer:

This form will answer the question of what the site’s supposed to do for your business and what the site will look like.

First Name (required)

Last Name (required)

Company (required)

Email (required)

Phone Number

Website URL: (if available)

1. Why do you want to have a new website, or have your current site redesigned?
2. What will happen if you don’t have a new website, or have your current site redesigned?
3. Please describe your organization in a few sentences.
4. What is there about you and your background that sets you apart for a special (niche) group of potential customers?
5. What problems do your prospects have that your business solves?
6. How can your particular work background help prospects, compared to others in your industry? What’s special about your work experience?
7. Why do you believe site visitors should do business with you rather than with a competitor?
8. Do you have a slogan or tagline that clearly describes what you offer in terms of benefits or features?
9. Please describe your potential customers. Pay special attention to their income, interests, gender, age, even type of computer they use, e.g., old with dialup account or newer with broadband. If your website is a business-to-business site, what sort of companies are you hoping to attract?
10. What is your budget for this project? (required)Very Small Project $75 – $300;Small Project $300 – $750; Medium Project $750 – $1,500;Large Project $1,500 – $3,000;Very Large Project > $3,000
11. Who are the decision makers on this project? What is the turnaround time for making a decision?
12. What staff will be involved? What are their roles? Is there a webmaster on your staff?
13. What is your deadline for completing the site?
14. Please list the names of five other sites that you like. Why are they attractive to you?
15. Have you researched your online competition so you have an idea of what you do and don’t want on your site?
16. What do you NOT want on your site in terms of text, content, etc.?
17. Where is the website content coming from? Who’s responsible for updating it? Is it ready for use on your website?
18. Do you have a logo?
19. Are you planning to do online sales? If so, what is the product, and how many items do you want to sell online?
20. If you’re planning to sell online, are you set up to accept credit cards?
21. How much time will you be able to spend online, responding to inquiries that come in via your website? Once a day? Several hours a day?
22. If you were using a search engine, what words or phrases would you use to find your site? Which of these words or phrases is most important? Second? Third?
23. Other than what search engines will produce, what methods do you have in mind to spread the word about your website?
24. Once your website is completed, how long do you think it will be before you begin bringing in significant business from the website?
25. How do you plan to encourage repeat visitors and referrals?

Subscribe to get these emailed to you each week $19 per month!  Get over to Brands Seeking Agencies.com

Agencies

• Acxiom - global interactive marketing services, London UK
• TMP Worldwide, the digital brand authority, London UK
• Willoughby PR, public relations services, Birmingham, UK
• Prova PR, passion purpose and results from Warwick, UK
• Mainframe, motion graphics, animations, London UK
• Kubik, brand experiences and trade shows, Mississauga, Canada

Brands

• United Parcel Services, courier and logistics, Germany
• MPhasis, IT services supplier to the Insurance industry, Perth, Australia
• Brad Depasse, the Ark Recording Studio, Appleton, WI, USA
• National Endowment for Sports and the Arts, NESTA London
• Juice Plus, promoting eating fruit and veg juices, San Diego, USA
• NTS Tech, specialized in turnkey solution for  telecommunication testing, Hong Kong
• Kelway, value-add IT services, London UK

Brands Seeking Agencies

• Wembley National Stadium wants twitter competition tweet examples, London UK
• Marine Tourism Holdings Vacation company looking for twitter competitions, Auckland New Zealand
• Bank of America wants to know “What to charge for advertising on social applications”, USA
• William Hill sports betting wants “Internal Creative Brief template, UK
• Essent Belgium, energy supplier wants “Agency pitching electricity supplier”, Belgium
• Global Crossing IT solutions provider, needs lead generation competition ideas, USA
• Microsoft Corporation seeking a “branding pitch”, USA
• Colorado Youth Soccer ‘what do advertising agencies charge per hour?’ CO, USA
• Object Management Group, IT standards organisation wants “List of creative agencies, London”, Needham, MA, USA
• Microwarehouse, IT distributor wants “Twitter competition”, Dublin, Ireland
• Bank of New York Mellon, wants “creative agency”, London UK

• Stroma, construction company, wants “holding page example” West Yorkshire, UK
• NSW Rural Fire Service wants “Queenstown ad agency”,  Australia
• US Department of State searching for “Marketing ideas for Football”, US
• Center Parcs holiday company wants “creative agency brief template”, UK
• YMCA Qualifications health and fitness wants “good ideas for competitions”, London UK
• ECN Internet Solutions wants twitter competition  ideas, Australia

News

• Ministry of Defence in Glasgow wants a marketingservices agency to promote in-house publications, UK
• ANZ is reviewing its media account Australia

RFPs

• Marketing services for University conferences, New Hampshire, US
• Fiberon PVC manufacture of decking and railing issued 3 RFPs for Public Relations services,  also wants Media Planning and advertising creative North Carolina
• Website redevelopment for City in Colorado, USA
• Consumer awareness brand marketing expert aimed at high school ages, USA
• California city wants website redesign and implementation
• Georgia county wants website design and creation
• New Hampshire university and constituent colleges wants marketing services and high quality advertising partner
• Community Outreach communications and press relations services for California San Diego CCDC (Development Corporation)
• Certification commission wants marketing and communication strategists
• Indiana transit organization website redesign needed
• New Hampshire state wants an advertising agency including social media, promotion, media buying
• Content Management System for Maryland Government
• Washington Regional Fire Authority wants Website design and CMS
• Graphic design and visual identity needed for non-profit, Ontario, Canada
• MPower Loans RFP for marketing services
• Alberta community based social marketing project, Canada

We are working with a new client – APC technologies is the leading supplier for computing solutions in rugged environments, aka, they make computers that can withstand dirt, liquid, industrial hoses – when they say rugged, they mean it.  We began by tackling their website, asking the questions that we’ve just put forth to you, and we found that we were looking at a lot of blank space.  You want your website to be packed with useful information while retaining navigability.  The photo on the left is the original page before we dug our fingers into it, and the photo on the right is our re-written version, including additional links within the text, SEO tags and fewer products for distraction.  We will be editing every page of the website, because every page is important, and if it isn’t, delete it.  You can call it spring cleaning for your website and it can be done any time of year!