Tag: Social Media

Social Media Lessons from… a Taxi Driver?

Dana PhelpsBlog, Social Media + Influencer Engagement, , , 12 Comments on Social Media Lessons from… a Taxi Driver?
I'm not the first person to notice @ChicagoCabbie's social media savvy. Chicago Dispatch just wrote about him, too.

How many times have you heard someone say “social media doesn’t apply to my business,” or “we can’t really use social media for what we do”? Are you guilty of saying that yourself? If so, this post is for you! I hope it will open your mind to new ways of working and thinking about customer service.

It all started when I was in Chicago a few days ago. My friend and fellow PRSA‘s Counselors Academy member, Lisa Gerber, offered to tweet me a cab. That’s right. Not call me a cab. Tweet me a cab. Lisa is social media hip like that.

I eagerly awaited the arrival of @ChicagoCabbie as my mind flooded with questions I wanted to ask this tweet wielding taxi driver. Based on his answers, here are my top three lessons that could apply to any business (or person) looking to create or raise a social media presence:

  1. Be curious. @ChicagoCabbie was an early Facebook adopter. When he heard about Twitter, he wanted to see what it was all about, too. Initially, he didn’t love Twitter, but he continued to experiment and wonder how he could use it.
  2. Ask yourself: What can I offer? After 13 years of driving passengers around the Windy City, @ChicagoCabbie knows a thing or two about the taxi industry. He also has a lot of general knowledge of the city and how to get around in it. People have questions. He has answers.
  3. Be honest about what you want out of it. And what you are getting out of it. “Are you getting more customers?” I excitedly asked, thinking I knew the answer. “There are still the same number of hours in my shift,” @ChicagoCabbie answered. True, very true. But consider this — as his last customer of the day, I was the fourth out of eight or nine passengers who requested pick-up via Twitter. Let’s just go with the easy math and say that’s 50 percent of his customers that day and think about the experience for the “Twitter half.” Qualified customers. Satisfied customers. Customers who like to tweet about his good service. And for @ChicagoCabbie, maybe it isn’t more customers, but I have to think these things ultimately mean more tips for him and I suspect increased job satisfaction.

Are you in a business that you think can’t benefit from social media? If so, we’d love to hear from you. Challenge us to help you come up with some ideas!

 

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InSpired by Our Clients

Dana PhelpsAwards, Blog, , , , ,
Proud of Clairemont's First InSpire Awards!
 

Last week during the PRSA Counselors Academy conference, I was talking with other agency owners about the nature of our business not allowing much time for celebration of our successes because we rush from one deadline to the next. When I was creating the prosperity plan to launch Clairemont, I put in writing that we would take time to stop and do just that — celebrate our wins. So, despite the fact that Josie has already blogged about Clairemont’s night at the NCPRSA InSpire Awards, I want to recognize the hard work of our team, coupled with that of our incredible clients who share in the honors.

 

I’ve blogged before that an early mark of Clairemont’s success in setting out to effectively blend traditional communications and social media is the fact that all of our ongoing clients do in fact rely on us for this blend. Now, as another mark of accomplishment, our work has been recognized including best in category awards for Integrated Communications with Briar Chapel, Social Media with Thomasville, Websites/Blog with Drexel Heritage and Brochures with Drexel Heritage. Additionally, we received awards for events, community relations and a social media audit — with a grand total of 14 NCPRSA InSpire Awards. Not bad based on Clairemont’s first year in business, and the first time we were eligible to enter!

 

Thanks to our clients for giving us the opportunity to build such amazing programs with them and to the Clairemont team members who worked so diligently on the quality execution of our client strategies and the preparing of our award entries. Cheers!

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Myrtle Monday: Simplify in the New Year

Dana PhelpsBlog, Inspirational, , ,

 

Happy New Year! If you visited our blog last year, you might have noticed that while we love social media and “newer” forms of communications, we have a strong appreciation for traditional communications, as well. We especially love when we can build a client campaign that blends social and traditional communications.

 

We began blogging about Myrtle’s postcards because we love this old-fashioned form of correspondence, and we like to draw the comparison to Twitter. Since postcards don’t allow for much space, we like to call them the original Twitter.

 

For today’s Myrtle Monday and the first of the New Year, we share a postcard that comes from Upper Canada Village. We chose this one because it features a place that is all about a more simple time, and we think a new year is the best time to think about how to simplify your life. Is it a better organizational system for your files in the office? Clearing your closet of clothes you never wear? Maybe it’s a shift in your business to specialize or focus more time on fewer clients. Whatever it is, we hope the end result looks something like this photo… what could be better than fresh eggs, a table of vegetables and someone to put blooming flowers in your vases? Happy New Year, everyone!

 

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Myrtle Monday: All About the Details

Dana PhelpsBlog, Free Advice, Inspirational, , , , 1 Comment on Myrtle Monday: All About the Details

This week’s Myrtle Monday is all about the details! Upon arrival in Vienna and touring the Hofburg Palace and Schonbrunn Castle, Lela writes about silver and gold china, original furnishings and beautiful artwork. I can only imagine that when Lela returned home, she became the charming tour guide for Myrtle, recreating each and every detail of the trip.

With the holidays upon us, it seemed appropriate to blog about details — talk about going from blah to voila! A plain package is transformed with some pretty ribbon. A table goes from everyday to holiday with the addition of a festive runner. For me, a mood is created by the burning of a scented candle.

As a communicator, details are important to telling our clients’ stories. What details help paint the picture? Which are the best details to share? Where’s the balance between interesting and overkill? My friend, Karen, LOVES a detailed story. “Details, girl. Give me all the details,” she’ll say. But not all audiences have the time or the desire to hear ALL of the details.

 Of course you also have to consider the medium and method of sharing the details. Back to my original Myrtle Monday point of postcards being the original Twitter, sometimes you are limited by space. I love that that never stopped Lela from making Myrtle feel like she was right there with her, seeing the world from her armchair in Small Town, USA.

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Social Media in Recruiting and Hiring

Dana PhelpsBlog, Owning a Business, Public Relations, Social Media + Influencer Engagement, , , , 1 Comment on Social Media in Recruiting and Hiring

In need of communications professionals with an understanding of social media, we posted our job descriptions on our blog and then tweeted and Facebooked it out to our contacts. To help spread the word, our contacts did the same.

 

When Clairemont launched, it was our goal to find the perfect blend of traditional communications and social media for our clients. We proudly do just that for our clients, with a high majority of the day-to-day work falling on the social side. That’s why I was impressed when one candidate creatively demonstrated that 1) she understood the importance of social media to Clairemont clients and 2) that she had a working knowledge of how to use it by sending me a thank you note in the form of a blog post. (It was the “Thanks, Dana” sign that did it form me!)

 

She then took the blog entry and posted it to my Facebook page. To continue using social media as part of the hiring process, I asked my Facebook friends (many of whom are other communications professionals) to like the post if they thought I should hire her. Twenty-five likes and 19 comments later, Continue reading “Social Media in Recruiting and Hiring”

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