Get over your email ego - own your communications

So many professionals have lost professionalism and have fallen into a sick egotistic assumption-consumption pattern with email.  To be clear, I am talking “assume” as in in makes an “ass” of “u” and “me.

I see a overwhelming trend occurring worldwide that plagues professionals.  It seems that they subconsciously assume that when they send an email, the ownership is off them….their egoism assumes that their recipient is at their desk anxiously awaiting the incoming message and have to take immediate action.   (Admit it, you’ve been on the sending and receiving end of this!)  Funny, true or sick, email ego-assumption-consumption is a marketing no-no….

Get over passive email ego stuff and get over yourself, your web marketing will thank you for it.

Emails tend to have a lifespan of THREE DAYS.  If you don’t get a reply, do not assume that you will. Try a new communication medium.

Own the process of finding the communication mediums that work for your customers.  This is not a one size fits all process.  Some folks like phone, some like snail mail (I cringe as I type this, but direct mail still works on some markets) twitter, text, Facebook, podcast, RSS, radio or TV (or a melange ofseveral to reinforce messages!!)

I am flooded on a daily basis with passive-aggressive comments like “I sent you that email” or “It’s in the email I sent” comments.  What I hear from these folks (translation from the therapist) is: “I choose to not be accountable for my marketing communications and I am assuming that my email was delivered to you perfectly and I assume you have nothing better to do then read my email start to finish, totally understand it, write me back and take action.”

(Actually, the likelihood that your emails are read and understood from top to bottom is very unlikely, delivered or not!)

web surfers scan, they don’t read

So in the name of making this web writing fast and scan-able, I’ll be brief and wrap this rant up.

Get over yourself when it comes to email and test it, track it, find alternative ways to connect and OWN IT if you don’t get email replies!

I love email and share information but the gargantuan egos that assume you people are eagerly waiting your email is…well….very ego-y…

Someone has to call out this behavior and get it out in the open!!!  Spread the “fight email egoism!!” post and help make the web world a better place!

What are people saying about you online?

In the past, we’ve recommended web marketing must haves for monitoring your brand, including free tools like Google alerts. This recent article in MarketingProfs gives us Six Free Tools for Online Reputation Management! Yes, SIX great tools- and they’re all FREE.

This is perfect for those of us with control issues. You can learn how to leverage sites like backtype.com, boardtracker.com, and Friend Feed to connect with your target audience and take your marketing strategy to a whole new level!

As Dan Schawbel points out: Part of your brand is in the hands of others, so it’s critical that you monitor it before a flame becomes a forest fire.

So get busy employing these great web tool in your online reputation management program.

Thanks for the great tips, Dan. I’m looking forward to your Spring release

Additionally, we also like to employ a little tool we call - Go Google Yourself!

It’s always good to know what’s coming up on your search engine results pages (SERPs). The question that most people come to me with is: What if I see something undesirable in the search results?

There are several things you can do. You can join in the conversation with the goal of educating consumers and clarifying your business services and/or products. You can also contact certain sites and ask that any defamatory statements about your company be completely removed. It’s been my experience that ethical consumer advocacy sites will take down false and libelous statements.

What if you are unable to shake an online blemish? The good news is that if you are already engaged in web marketing best practices, you can make sure your online reputation won’t be permanently impacted by continuing to create quality content that outranks any online imperfections in the SERPs. That’s the beauty of publishing content that you can control yourself via your web site, blog, social marketing platforms, online press releases, etc.  By using these tools to control and fill your SERPs, you can preserve your online reputation and make sure that any negative associations with your brand never see the light of day!

Rules of Corporate Blogging

So I admit it, I check my Facebook page one or two times a day (okay, maybe more like 4 or 5 times a day) and update my status and read my friends status updates and look at their photo albums. I am, what some might consider, addicted. I can’t help it! I like getting the 3 second snippets of their lives, I love seeing the newly posted pictures.

Last night, some of my friends were playing a game with their status updates…the rules are as follows:

1. Pick up the closest book
2. Turn to page 56
3. Find the 5th sentence
4. Post that sentence as your status

So, that may not sound like web marketing therapy…but I promise I’ll tie it all in for you! My closest book was David Meerman Scott’s “The New Rules of Marketing & PR”. This is an awesome book-and gives amazing, easy to use information…we highly recommend you pick up a copy!

Ok, back to page 56! It speaks to organizational fears about blogging. My status is currently set to

” …company executives seem to be getting their collective knickers in a twist about blogs”.

So why would they be concerned about blogs? Execs are concerned that company secrets will be divulged, others are concerned that the information will be inaccurate. How should an organization deal with employees blogging? Mr. Scott recommends that guidelines can be set for what employees do at work, but specific blogging guidelines are a no go! Corporate policies should cover behavior, non-disclosure and ensure that their employees never talk about the competition! After that, you have to let it go!

Stalking is Google Approved

Small Business Owners in Marketing Therapy – LISTEN UP!  If you are doing all the wild web marketing work to make your small business BIG with web marketing (like article distribution, online press releases, blog content and more), then it is time to start obsessing over yourself and see what is being found about your organization on the world wide web!

Your domain is probably one of the most (if not the most) valuable pieces of real estate to support and build your business. Why risk having someone tap your brand, positioning and identity and build their company under a url that is the same name (with a different suffix) as yours?

I am Lorrie Thomas, I built my first company called Lorrie Thomas Web Marketing in 2005, and I own www.lorriethomas.com but I also got over myself a long time ago. There are other Lorrie Thomas’ out there in cyberspace. When you Google my name, the SERPS usually pull a combo of my websites and the ones of very successful realtor named Lorrie Thomas in Georgia.

To secure my SERP (search engine results page) space for the future, I gobbled up the other domain versions of lorriethomas – dot- whatever just in case.

Web Marketing Tip – buy all the versions you can of your domain name.

.BIZ, .MOBI, .INFO., .NET and versions of your name (Example if you are a web marketing therapist buy marketingtherapist and themarketingtherapist domains)

Sometimes being a control freak is ok, especially if it is securing the hard work you are doing to build your web credibility, visibility and sell-ability.