Blogging Your Retail Experience

One of the reasons to start a company blog now is to get ahead of the curve. Your customers are growing aware of the fact that online media gives them the ability to offer their opinions on your services to a broader area.

Services like the Better Business Bureau and Consumer Reports provide resources for the consumers to track your company's reputation, but what happens when local blogs start talking about your services?

A recent post on Digg talked about buying a computer. Four outlets, Best Buy, Circuit City, CompUSA and Fry's Electronics were all mystery-shopped for the experience of buying a computer.

This is good information, but not necessarily relevant to the average customer. We don't want to know what Circuit City in Baltimore is like unless we live in Baltimore. We want to know what service is like in Ourtown, USA, complete with the name of the store manager, the difference in prices, who will negotiate, and how service is after the sale.

That ability is now live in cities across the country. Retail dealers of automobiles, mortgages, home builders, home repair, carpet, electronics, furniture - even restaurants and bars are now faced with the looming prospect of detailed information about their sales process and staff being made available specifically to their customer base.

We're not talking about a lone individual angry at a perceived slight who jumps on an internet chat board and mouths off. We're talking about educated bloggers who have built up traffic, who have built an audience, and when they write on your company, the author and their credibility are already established.

That should be a terrifying thought to a lot of businesses, but the news is not all bad. A company that starts a blog now at least has a sense of what is being said, and can learn to respond, perhaps even fixing problems before they become public relations nightmare.

Currently, only national brands face these kinds of issues. Soon, the general public, is going to wake up to the power of transparency. What companies will be ready to face the onslaught?

Retail blogging examples:
Photo Shop Bait and Switch
Apple Store Visit
Car Salesman Tells All.
Buying A House

Should Corporations be Monitoring Blogs?

Shel Holtz writes on the way in which Fortune 500 companies monitor the blogworld. He wonders if blogmonitoring should be a specialized function, or integrated into other media-gathering information.

How organizations deal with the blogosphere needs to be thought through carefully; there are significant differences between blogger relations and media relations, as Stowe Boyd suggests. How we monitor, though, should be based on a holistic view of the world as it intersects with the organization. We should add blog monitoring to the mix, not create a new function that fails to reconcile the intelligence obtained from the blogosphere with that obtained from the multitude of other channels in which our organizations are fodder for conversation.

Blogs are not a silver bullet, and blogs rarely solve problems on their own. They are great as force-multipliers, which is to say that blogs supplement and complement traditional marketing. I'm guessing then that blogs do a great job of supplementing and complementing traditional media-gathering.

This is the conclusion Shel reaches, and that tracks well with my personal experience writing market research reports. The best blogs are linking back to original sources, which is to say non-bloggy material, whether newspaper articles or research documents. The idea that blogging is separate, rather than already integrated to traditional intelligence gathering would seem to be a misunderstanding of why a blog is effective.

On a side note, if you're paying a set-up fee of $20,000 and $10,000 a month for an online tool to monitor blogs, you're overpaying. I'll do a better job and it's only $2000 a month.

Lou Fusz Ford Service Department: Chesterfield, MO

Local Marketing

It was past due time for my 3000 mile oil change service, and I was going to run it up to Jiffy Lube for the $19.95 early bird special, when a piece of direct mail came to me from Lou Fusz Ford.

Normally, I throw away direct mail, but the timing was right, and I take the car in for work I can't do myself. The piece was part of a Service Advantage Campaign, personalized to my car, with descriptive articles, money-off coupons, and a chance to enter a contest by going into the dealership. It was sponsored by Ford Customer Service, and the promotion was for all Ford/Lincoln Mercury Dealerships. Not a bad little promotion.

I was focused more on the oil change, so I ripped off the little coupon and went down to the dealer. $21.95 for an oil change. I like the guys in the Service department at this dealership - when I go to Valvoline or Jiffy Lube I have to listen to the sales pitch of someone who knows less about cars than I do, and there always seems to be bit of an oil smell when I'm done (they're not smearing oil on the filter before putting it in).

I went to pick up the car, and to my surprise, the bill was $33, instead of the $21 promised in the promotion. When I was asked about the discrepancy, a comment was made about using different oil, but I never requested a specific oil, and the car is a 2003 Ford Taurus - pretty generic.

They made a correction, altering the bill down to $25 (which is what the promotion coupon said was $21.95 + tax and misc charge0 and I happily paid the bill and left.

Lessons learned.
Always check your bill and read the fine print. Always read the bill and ask what specific charges mean (don't let official sounding acronyms fool you).

Other oil change tips:
1) Change the Air Filter and the Cabin Air Filter yourself before you take the car in. Sometimes shifty mechanics will show you a dirty filter to get you to buy a new one. It's cheaper to do it yourself, and takes about 30 seconds.
2) Know the difference in different types of oil. If you're going to buy synthethic oil, make sure you know what the difference is before you get sold $70 worth.
3) Time your oil changes with major car repair. You can often get the oil change discounted if you have a major service done.

STL AMA Marketing Questions on Blogs

What can be expected from a successful blogging campaign?

1) Corporate blogs primarily are used for national branding. They allow companies to present accurate information without the filter of the media or advertising.

2) Marketing blogs can be used to amplify marketing messages through traditional channels. The use of a blog allows a company to provide a destination of information for consumers, from commercials to promotional coupons, to directions on how to use products.

3) Employment blogs allow a direct connection to online communities, increasing the number of qualified applicants by identifying communities of interest and building a loyal talent pool.

4) Public Relations blogs allow a corporation to put a human touch in place of the often used “corporate-speak.” From pictures of employees to CEO blogs, to instructions on how to interview, public relations blogs remind readers that your company is staffed by real people.

What examples are there of corporate blogs that have been successful?

Microsoft, GM, T-Mobile, Emerson, IBM, Pfizer, Boeing, Google, Sun....and that’s off the top of my head.

Wells Fargo just started a corporate blog. They’re talking about the San Francisco Earthquake. What does that have to do with banking, home loans, and insurance? Nothing, and everything. The blog is a public service that puts the Wells Fargo name in front of people who are curious about history (and happen to represent a great demographic to sell to). At the same time, Wells Fargo gets to talk about insurance risks without talking directly about themselves. That is a great blog.

The other companies on these lists use blogs to become thought leaders, improve Public Relations, discuss employment strategies, create communities of interest, and get focus group feedback on new products.

The real question is what happens when smaller companies are successful in using blogs to communicate a message. A small company with an active blog and high traffic can compete with multi-million dollar budgets of larger companies. Those are the blogs that should be studied for successful strategies.

AMA questions on corporate blogging

What are the potential risks of starting a blog?

There are four main categories of risk:

1) There are significant negatives in your company’s reputation and you aren’t prepared to respond to them.

Some companies are targets for anti-company activists. If your company is in the spotlight, starting a blog about your company is not a good idea. Walmart, Halliburton, and anyone whose CEO is under indictment are bad candidates for blogs, because the issues surrounding the company are going to bring readers who are interested only in embarassing the company.

That said, there are few companies that are in that position. And even in those cases, solutions exist to use blogs to pitch a message without significant feedback. You do not have to open comments. You do not have to answer every question posed. A company blog is still under your control. To blunt or negate criticism, you need to pick topics that are related to your industry but not necessarily your company.

The goal is not to tell the world how wonderful your company is. No one will believe you. Instead, your goal is to educate the public about some facet of your industry in order to build credibility in your field. Blogs are educational tools that can help brand you; they are not marketing tools that regurgitate a carefully crafted message vetted by your marketing department.

2) You don’t have set guidelines in place that define what your blog, and is not.

If a company starts a blog, they should have a clear purpose and a clear statement of what they intend. Honesty is the most important factor here. Set expectations and meet them. That doesn’t mean that your blogger is responsible for answering every question. An employee blogger will know nothing about marketing, and shouldn’t feel obligated to discuss any issue but those they want to write about.

The blog is your communication vehicle. If you’re clear what you want to write, and it’s relevant to your audience, you get a pass. If you start a blog about a subject and refuse to answer tough questions directly related to that subject, that’s when you’re accused of falsehood and deception.

This issue will come up - but if you are prepared, you can answer the question with a simple, “that’s not my area,” and move on.

Having clear guidelines also protects the blogger. Firing a blogger for revealing company information is worse than never having a blog. Set clear guidelines that allow the blogger maximum freedom, and periodically review what can and cannot be discussed.

3) You‘re boring.

This is more important than it might first appear. A boring blog is a waste of time and money, and will bring a bigger backlash because it clearly is an attempt to tap into the power of blogging without adding to the conversation.

Outgoing links are important. No one likes a lecture, and outgoing links to new articles, studies, and other bloggers are good ways to avoid being boring. Most of all, treat the blog like you would your personal life. No one like the person at the party who talks only about their lives and their wants. If you’re going to start a blog, make it about something besides yourself.

I might sit and listen to someone discuss golf for an hour, but listening to someone tell me their golf scores for an hour isn’t worth my time. For companies, this is difficult because the natural impulse is to discuss the company. Your company should make up, at most 20% of the blog postings. Any more and you start sounding fake and full of yourself.

4) Comments left by readers leave the company liable to lawsuits.

One of the early concerns to corporate blogs was the threat of liability for reader comments. This danger can be entirely negated with comment moderation, which requires an approval before each comment is published. If a company prefers a more open approach, they can host the blog informally - maybe providing sponsorship to a local blogger instead of directly writing the blog. They can also list a comments policy that specifically denies liability for comments made by public commenters. Your legal department should be involved, and a corporate policy in place, but if set guidelines are in place, most legal risk can be averted (nothing’s perfect).

Answers to AMA Marketing Questions

These questions have been compiled on a white paper that will shortly be available for download.

Who is Reading these blogs?

The majority of blogs are written by the young. The youth demographic, led by My Space has dominated the blogging numbers and thus much of the coverage. At the same time, the expert information found in blogs by professionals has given rise to class of people called “influentials.” These top 10% of any demographic drive public opinion from local politics to international economic opinion.

As blog growth grows, so does the number of readers. The first blogs focused on politics and the media. They have altered the balance of power and changed the way that large institutions package their message. Bloggers were driving forces behind the resignation of Dan Rather from CBS News and the recent electoral defeat of the Canadian government.
The input of millions of people, led by the elite opinion of the influentials, has the ability to drive sales (as in the case of media and entertainment), ruin marketing campaigns (product launches with poor execution or sub-par products), and soon, begin to affect company stock prices and personal reputations of company executives. The bloggers are a creative and destructive force that are just beginning to touch the business world.

Why should a company start a blog?

Companies who read blogs get first notice of breaking news, emergent trends, and the changing nature of public opinion. Company blogs executed well build credibility and project a message of self-confidence. Examples of reasons to start a corporate blog would include;
Employment Branding, Product Launch, Public Relations, Marketing Campaigns, Consulting Services, Vendor Relations, Media Relations, and Innovative Ideas used to established Industry Expertise.

Blogging evangelists often speak of a conversation taking place in marketplaces. Participating in the blogging world gives companies a competitive edge in that conversation. Bloggers are early adopters, expert networkers, and skilled at gathering competitive intelligence. Companies who start a blog can bring those skills in house and learn the language and etiquette of blogging, learning to engage these individuals in achieving goals. Companies that fail to engage in this conversation now will find themselves playing catch-up for years to come.

talent bloggers ~ the world of wireless recruiting: Job Seekers - what sources do you use to gather info about job openings?

Who is reading your corporate blog?

The people you hire are prime candidates. Dennis Smith from T-Mobile has hit recruiting team blogging to build a talent pool of candidates. Check out the the graph in the link that shows 38% of the candidates used information from the Internet to research a company.

That same group had 58% using the company website, ahead of 45% who call someone they know at the company.

The next question to ask yourself is what is more effective than a blog and putting information on the internet that job-seekers want to read.

talent bloggers ~ the world of wireless recruiting: Job Seekers - what sources do you use to gather info about job openings?

AMA Marketing Luncheon: Questions about Blogging

Franki and I had the opportunity to go to an AMA meeting today at Maggiano's in Richmond Heights.

The speaker was Barry Gavril, of Adamson Advertising, and his topic was Learn How Blogging Can Benefit Your Marketing Efforts: The topic was a hot one, and Barry was speaking to a full house.

He approached the topic well, laying out the basics of what a weblog was, how to build one on blogger.com (he did this live) and how it could be used by marketing clients. The information on his presentation should be up soon, along with links to his source materials.

If recent information is credible, blogging is a topic that is important be aware of. In the room, though only a few people raised their hands to a question about how blogged, two-thirds of the room admitted to reading them.

Blogging4Business puts it bluntly.
Ignore Bloggers at your Peril!

According to new research by Julian Smith at Jupiter Research, bloggers, though small in number, are having “a disproportionately large influence” on society. Today’s Guardian quotes Smith as saying that a vocal minority of Web users — from my reading, it’s looks to be maybe 20 percent (and rising) — are turning to blogs, message boards, UseNet forums and the like to voice their critiques, concerns and praise for the brands and people they interact with every day. In doing so, they are shaping public opinion on news stories, company reputations and social trends.

Back to the Marketing Luncheon. I wrote down the questions that people asked, thinking it might be good to give some written answers if anyone was searching on the conference. There's also the added dynamic that these questions are great for finding out what marketers are asking when it comes to blogs.

Question 1: How do you get people to read your blog?

Question 2: Who is reading blogs?

Question 3: How do you promote your blog to a specific audience?

Question 4: How do you deal with negative comments? What do you do about censorship?

Question 5: How many posts should you write before publicizing your blog?

Question 6: What is a company's legal exposure to the blog?

Question 7: What is the difference between a blog and a message board?

Question 8: What steps do you take before you launch a blog?

There you go folks, real live questions from real live marketing people. They're curious about blogs, and they need to know more. We've been blogging for over four years, and in this business, that makes us experts. Over the next week or so, I'll answer each of these questions and put them into posts, eventually turning them into white papers.

Some of these questions are answered on our FAQ's. In the meantime, if you were at the event and would like some more specialized answers, e-mail us at the contact page.

Millennial Bloggers get a Bentley

A recent contact sent me the url for a college marketing project. A marketing class at Bentley College has started a marketing blog where the students stake out a website, post the best ideas, and discuss their opinions about hot marketing topics.

First off, let me just say bravo to the teacher. Colleges teaching real world applications, especially cutting edge real world applications, actually prepare their students for, uh, the real world.

Second, let me applaud the students. The posts they are selecting are first rate, and it's clear they are soaking in the right lessons from the blogosphere.

I don't know how tech-savvy these grads are, but let's see if they are using technorati or talkdigger to see who is talking about them.

RSS feeds blocked at the Firewall?

Shel Holtz writes on why companies should be embracing Rss feeds, not hiding from them.

The blocking of blogs and Rss feeds at the corporate firewall is a serious one for online bloggers. When I was inside, there were a lot of innocuous sites I couldn't see because my Sentian filter thought they were "pr0n" or games. As it turns out, blogs are sometimes hosted on the same server and similar IP's as other sites, which means filters block essential information in addition to the NSFW sites.

Let's not fool ourselves. Blogs are read by people at work, with huge dropoffs occuring on weekends and holidays. If corporate America decides to block Typepad or blogspot addresses, a large portion of the blogging community will effectively be shut out.

Blogs, to me, are now as ubiquitous as my cell phone. Banning my blogs would be the equivalent of banning my cellphone (which some companies do indeed do). It doesn't strike me as the best policy to drive your most web-savvy people out of the door with anti-blog policies. But then, what do I know? I left because they wouldn't let me plug in my flat-screen panel from home.

Selling the Story.

David Kippen asks a question about sales pitches that lack narratives.

The question is one of presentation - Powerpoint slides and marketing materials are not written to sell, but to provide a focus for the people selling. Consequently, powerpoint slide printouts and slick glossies may jog the memory of a client, but they do very little for someone not in the room for the original pitch. Anyone who has sat through or given a sales pitch knows that passing our printouts causes most people to read the printout rather than listening to you, and in extremely painful situations, all the presenter does is read from the Powerpoint.

David, who happens to be the VP, Brand Communications and Realization for TMP Worldwide, asks the following questions about what happens when the client forgets your pitch and has only the materials and a hazy memory to rely on.

If your client can't connect the dots, maybe he'll call you in for a bit more work.
-But what if he leaves?
-What if implementation of the other four pillars falls to someone who didn't know you before the meeting that day?
-What if that really important caveat about launching one and four together didn't stick?
-More importantly, if the knowledge leaves the room in your head, whose fault is that really?

The solution is to make your marketing pitch a narrative. Tell a story. Tell your story. After all, the whole point of branding is communicating a lifestyle that consumers want to emulate or already see themselves as representing. From Starbucks to Gap to Virgin Atlantic, branding is about telling good stories.

So why would the the marketing reps trying to sell your company's story give you bullet points and expect you to fill in the blanks?

And for the record, I think that selling a story is a postive aspect of marketing. We identify with what we admire, and the job of a marketer is to find what customers and employees and the general public admire about a company and broadcast that message. If there is nothing to admire, well, that serves a purpose too.

What would those guys at Hornstein do?

It's a great line from one of the new "Life Takes Visa" TV spots. The campaign has been in full swing for a while now, but the commercials are worth rewinding your TiVo to view - and view again.

Funny and relatable, the spots inject reality and humor into otherwise drab TV commercial territory. Our new favorite is called "Inspiration," and if you've ever sat in a brainstorming meeting the scene will ring all too familiar. The commercial and campaign are incredibly straighforward, but clever enough to deserve mention.

The best change, in addition to the new tagline, is Visa's willingness to commit to online media advertising. Visa is using strategic interactive placements, including viral videos and a dedicated web site. The Life Takes Visa site is full of "life takes__" videos allowing consumers to relate to little universal truth moments. But the company also offers all of its commercials on visa.com, something more companies should be doing.

One of the core initiatives is to reposition the brand and differentiate Visa from the pack. While everyone else is vying for the top spot as the biggest and baddest, Visa is making an effort to seem small and relatable. The goal is to build a bond between the brand and the consumer - and it just might be working. I've certainly gained a new appreciation for Visa's creativity...or at least that of TBWA\Chiat\Day.

Curious? Find out how the campaign came to life...

MicroBusiness Blogging

A microbusiness is a company with less than $1MM in annual sales.
Here are some reasons on why to use a blog for your micro business:

1) A blog is cheaper than a website:

If you are a microbusiness, a professionally built blog looks better and is easier to maintain than 95% of the small business websites out there. They may not do everything an e-commerce site does, but they are easier to update, and companies who just need a web presence are better off spending $2000 on a blog than $4-$5,000 on a site that needs costly maintenance to update.

2) Blogs will make you money.

For a national brand, blogging is marketing. Large companies try to build brand loyalty, but measuring the impact of the blog is problematic because warm, fuzzy feelings are hard to measure. For a microbusiness, you simply count the number of people who read your blog, contact you, and then buy your product or service.

3) Websites are static they give very little information about our company, and cannot create an emotional connection with your clients.

A blog connects you to your audience, allowing you to give your information to those who most want it - consumers. People turn to the Internet for information before making purchases, but they don't always trust what they read. If they are reading you - you get the first shot at selling them.

Durbin Media Group can build you a microbusiness blog and get you started for $2000. The site will improve your search engine rankings, present a personal side to your business, and you'll get the instruction you need to use your blog to effectively market.

Please have a seat in the lobby, Sir

Starwood Hotels and Electric Artists have developed a terrific blog, created to keep guests on top of the latest travel trends. This will quickly go to the top of the "must-read" list, as it combines several of my favorite topics: travel, consumer goods and technology.

The Lobby is written by a team of travel writers covering topics such as noteworthy portable devices, great travel apparel, nifty luggage and even featured locations. This is a perfect example of a company leveraging technology to deepen their relationship with customers. They even allow you to add de.licio.us tags or Digg a story. It's clear they understand what makes travelers tick, but equally obvious is their understanding of blogging.

According to the site, April is National Napportunity Month, so pack your bags and head on over to your local Starwood for some much needed R & R. But check out the blog first, you might just learn something new.

Blog Measurement still requires people.

Found a new blog today - KDPaine's PR Measurement blog, where she discusses, well, the measurement of PR activity.

The post I linked is about the use of blog monitoring services, which scrape content from the main page of the blog, but rarely the comment sections (where much of the interesting action is taking place).

And what it means is a lot of manual analysis, despite all the assumptions about automation. Yes you can certainly go in and scrape content off blogs to see what people are writing. But what you aren't getting automatically is what's in the comments -- and that can contain far more important information than the original blog.

The problem is the comments section is a crap shoot - it can be better than the original article, or full of social gossip, or a flame war, or a mixture of all of it, including people typing "First!" if they are the first to comment (it's an old game).

Information scraping services have a place, in fact I used Cyberalert to find Katie's blog - but to follow a thread of conversation requires human pattern recognition abilities. When I search blogs, I'm reading the original posts, comments, trackbacks, outside links, sitemeters and checking other posts to look for relevant material.

No software in the world - and no software company, can match a web-savvy human brain for relevant content. At least not yet. We are, as media monitors, still employed in the area of "useful human work."

As an added bonus, I found a site called Re:invention Inc, a site for and about enterprising women.

241 blogs on Cars, no dealers in site.

I'll admit it, I'm on a wild pitch to sell car dealers the use of marketing blogs to increase their monthly sales volume.

In my opinion, within two years, every car dealer out there should have a blog talking about their people, their sales process, their inventory, and their customer feedback. So last week, I went searching for car blogs.

There's the Carpundit. The Auto Prophet. Mark Tapscott. Even Edmunds has a blog. 237 other people do too (although far too many of them don't have RSS feeds).

Not one car dealer in the bunch. What do you think it will take? Will a dealer read about his dealership and look for ways to get his own name out there? Will an enterprising web design firm pitch a blog as a cheaper way connect to the public than a television commercial?

Or will there be an article in Wards Auto telling dealers that blogs are the wave of the future? (paid registration required).

The beginning of the article by Cliff Banks can be found at Keep Media.

Retail Blogging - Car Dealers

If Business Blogging is going to work, local blog consultants like Durbin Media Group have to bring their knowledge of online communities to local retail businesses. Local retailers use a comprehensive multichannel marketing strategy refined over decades to bring customers in to local storefronts to make on-the-spot decisions.

Get them to sign on the line that is dotted. That is the nature of retail sales. Salesman on the floor are taught to close today, right now, or the customer leaves your store to purchase elsewhere.

Of this fierce breed, car dealers are the best. Car dealers are the best natural marketers on the planet, and when then start using blogs to bring in customers, every marketer is going to follow suit.

Car Dealers spend thousands of dollars each week in a mix of media communications from radio, television, newspaper, trade publications, and now, the internet. Consumers are researching prices and options online, but when it comes to car purchases, there's almost always a middleman in the form of a dealership or a broker.

So how would a car dealer go about using a blog to connect to customers? Can the owner start writing about best deals/best prices/best cars/crazy savings?

No. The exisiting mediums already provide that avenue of "branding." What is needed is a dealer blog that builds a community of readership around their product.

Something like this, like BMW has done. Or perhaps the same treatment Infiniti is running in the Wall Street Journal. Luxury car brands are certainly a good market, because luxury car owners love to write about their cars. But what about a dealer? Dealers sell many brands, and many types of vehicles. They need something more than a flashy picture and a few lines of comment.

So here you go. My top three ideas for car dealers to use blogs to market their cars:

1) Showcase your people. Dealers can help their images by putting stories up about long-time employees on blog sites. Blogs put a human side of the face on companies, and dealers who have the employees to feature will have an advantage in the marketplace over dealers who just show pictures of cars. New technologies like webcams allow you to post videos, snapshots, audiocasts and a whole slew of other cool tools that let the public know your dealership is staffed by real people with families, lives, and a sense of humor.

2) Give secrets on the proper way to buy cars. No, that doesn't mean expose your entire selling process to the public and your competitors, but some of the most egregious abuses that customers are warned about are things you should talk about. If your dealership doesn't do it, you ought to be offering this up to the public. People search the internet for information on how to get the best deal. They aren't afraid of spending money, but no one wants to get taken advantage of. if you're honest and forthright about the biggest mistakes that your customers make, you're building a reputation for honesty that will mushroom.

3) Used Car Reverse Auction: When a dealer purchases a used car, they fix it up and put it on the lot. Every day that car sits on the lot costs the dealer money - say, $75 a day. Every car dealer knows exactly how much it costs them to have that car out there. The price on these cars is changed, usually once a week, dropping until the car is sold or until the dealer tries to wholesale the car to recoup some investment.
So why not take the car that has been on the lot the longest, put it on a blog, and create a reverse clock that counts down how much the car will cost if purchased? No gimmicks, no tricks, just a way to have one car that will probably never sell on its own counting down until someone buys it, maybe for as low as a $1.

A competition like this would cost too much to put out on the television or radio, and explaining it in newspaper would cost too much. But how about a blog? If a dealer had an audience reading the blog, this promotion would be one of a kind in driving traffic to the dealership - and getting customers on the lot is Job One.

Overall, you need to be as transparent and honest as possible. A car dealer without comments on their site is going to get a lot of negative publicity. Leaving comments on gives you the opportunity to respond to complaints, which will at least give you the opportunity to respond.

And the point is bloggers are already out there talking about your dealerships. Some of them have large readerships and can trash your name in the search engines with relatively little hassle. By building a relationship with the online community now, dealers can give themself a voice in internet world. In doing so, they will give themselves the opportunity to sell more cars.

Tag, you're it!

Technology companies are truly beginning to embrace the merging of our on and offline worlds. Take LivePlanet for example, they have developed a social netorking game called PhoneTag. Co-founders Matt Damon & Ben Affleck are taking an old-school game to the urban playground. The game combines elements of paintball, tag and capture the flag for mobile phone users.

By leveraging Location Based Services, players (which might consist of friends or strangers) use mapping technology to find one another and "tag" other players. To begin a game, players are text-messaged an invitation to play. Using their phones, participants use maps to find their target while they themselves are being pursued by other players. By getting within a few feet of another player you can "tag" them via your mobile phone. Location-based games like this can be played in busy metropolitan areas or on college campuses. The latter being a likely location, since the game will be rolled out in partnership with Amp'd Mobile which targets younger mobile users.

Taking it one step further, LivePlanet is also planning partnerships with chains such as Starbucks to become "safe havens" where users can temporarily cloak their location as they down a double espresso. Besides being a natural cross-promotional opportunity, it allows players to extend the length of the games as well as add to the complexity of "tagging" opponents.

One of the biggest hurdles companies like these face is getting subscribers to understand how easy it is to download new features. By targeting younger users, Amp'd Mobile and LivePlanet will likely avoid this pitfall. Not only are Amp'd subscribers early adopters, they already rely on mobile devices to connect with friends.

This is just one of several mobile phone entertainment options headed our way this year, but PhoneTag is best positioned for success. It ties the existing relationship we have with our phones to a clever viral marketing plan. Keep your eyes on Amp'd Mobile for details.

April Fool's has gone and past, now you're the biggest fool at last

April Fool's went by without any major incidents. My 4 year-old niece tried to convince me April 1st wasn't April Fool's - but it was! April Fool's!

Pranks were a big part of my growing up, from Ketchup inserted into Toaster Pastries, ice cubes made of other substances, and one time, a lottery prank pulled so well that no one speaks of it anymore. In fact, April Fool's isn't allowed at a certain household I know.

That will teach you.

Spoofs can be fun, which is why Wired put out the 10 best Internet Spoofs of all time.
In there, you'll find the "Bill Gates wants to give you money" e-mail, the boycott certain gas stations to force them to drop gas prices e-mail, and my personal favorite, Bansai Kittens.

Outside of clogging e-mail inboxes, spoofs can have other affects. My best prank was in 1998. I sent a company-wide e-mail out to announce my impending resignation to join the Peace Corps in Bosnia to teach Serbs how to speak English. I received over 100 e-mails of congratulations and kudos, even though the bottom text of my e-mail explicitly said it was an April Fool's.

There was just one problem. There was a Bosnian working in the mailroom who didn't appreciate the prank. That, and of course, certain bosses of mine didn't think much of the time wasted.

After I sent out an apology, I evaluated both the amazing response, and the aftermath. I had spent two years building up an image that made the hoax credible - and in doing so, got my first taste of the power of a viral marketing campaign. And yet, my ability to function within the company (read: community) was compromised, as was my ability to pull a second hoax in the future.

In the Internet Age, the ability to build a reputation is just as difficult. It takes time to let people know you are a straight-shooter, and it can all come crashing down with one ill-timed prank or internet flame war.

When determining the success of a viral marketing campaign using trickery, you should take into account the affects after the buzz has worn off. Is your cleverness going to come at a price you weren't willing to pay?