If you have flown anywhere in the US recently, you know it’s not pleasant. First they took our amenities, then our dignity. Aside from being starved, strip-searched and charged for everything from legroom to luggage, any human help has basically been eliminated in the event of an emergency, such as a delay or missed connection. According to this CNN article, however, Twitter might be just the solution to the airlines’ problems.

I am a fairly patient traveler and have a great deal of respect for airline industry jobs. I also appreciate this country taking the necessary steps to ensure our travel safety. All things considered, it could be worse… But it could also be MUCH better (and having just flown Qantas to Australia, I can indubitably make this statement!) TSA regulations aside, the airlines themselves have deteriorated tremendously in customer service. Which strikes me as slightly odd since they are, in fact, a service industry…

Qantas, on the other hand, made flying economy feel like first class. Now granted, the fact that this was an International flight may account for some of my phenomenal experience, but not all of it! So if Twitter can be used to address passenger concerns and help alleviate some of the chaos, I am all for it! Delta even has a dedicated staff @DeltaAssist just for Twitter questions.

So will Twitter make flying a breeze?  The evidence isn’t conclusive, but the bottom line is – it can’t hurt.  Now if only Twitter could get me to and from the airport…

With literally thousands of social media tools at your disposal, it is not only important to know WHO your audience is but also WHERE they are. So much of the focus lies on, what I like to call, the Fab 4: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube. But a true social media strategy is developed by working backward INTO the tools, rather than starting with them.

First, define your objectives. Once they have been delineated, start researching!! Who is your target market? Where do they hang out online? And what is the best campaign to reach out to them? Remember, establishing an online presence isn’t about YOU it’s about THEM!! And it’s not short-term… In the late 90’s Yahoo had the lion’s share of the search engine market while Google was nowhere to be found… Just because Facebook is the biggest thing today doesn’t mean it will be in 5 or 10 years.

Finally, engage your audience. The beauty of social media, when properly integrated into a campaign, is the ability to listen to what your customers want; even if the feedback is negative, this is the perfect opportunity to improve your offering. Ironically, we often become so engrossed in what is good for our business, we forget to focus on what is good for our customers… So define them, find them and LISTEN to them. Your business and your customers will thank you;-)

It was Alexander Pope who said it best… “To err is human, to listen divine.” OK, so I added the ‘listen’ part.. It’s actually “…to forgive divine” – but that doesn’t help my cause. Listening is just that; however, and perhaps one of the most important, yet undervalued, tactics in effective communications. Actively listening to your clients is as important, if not more so, than providing solutions.

If you own a business (run a household or have so much as a pet) you understand the importance of being listened TO. But most of us focus entirely on our speaking ability as the measurement for effective communications. Now put yourself in the shoes of your client; they also want to be HEARD, they want their ideas to MATTER – and often those ideas aren’t even CLOSE to what you had in mind! As the expert, they are coming to you for answers but they probably already have ideas in mind for what those answers should look like…

So, LISTEN to them! Of course, this is a two-way street and presenting original ideas to your customers is necessary – but always keep your client in mind. People tell you what they want you to hear but you must pay attention. Take notes, get a feeling for what kind of company they are: Conservative? Edgy? What is important to THEM?! And if you don’t know, ASK! People LOVE to talk about themselves – your job is simply to listen!

3 Tips for Effective Listening

1. Let the speaker finish their entire thought before speaking; take a pregnant pause before you answer.

2. Repeat what you’ve just heard; this gives the speaker a chance to address any misconception you may have about what they’ve said.

3. Practice makes perfect – this cliché is easy to do and can work wonders when put into application. Find some chatty friends or family members and go!

Are you listening?

When I think about a bank, I want security first and foremost. I want to know my money is safe and that my bank will be there when I need it. With the problems in the economy, and the failure of many of the big banks, the last thing that someone is thinking about when it comes to their bank is luxury, extravagance and arrogance.  Apparently Chase has either forgotten this, or just chosen to ignore it.

After the buyout of Washington Mutual by Chase, their marketing team needed to come up with a powerful way to introduce themselves to the California market. Instead of crafting a genuine commercial talking about the security of the bank, all the services it can offer you, the changes they are making to improve banking in general and why you should bank with them, they crafted this:

Really? This is supposed to make me feel safe with you as my bank? This is supposed to lower the concern for what is happening to my money and my accounts. Yep, people in a diner, the dude on the surfboard and the hot air balloons scream security to me too! And what about those of us who aren’t Wamu/Chase members? How does this advertisement invite me in to learn more? What about this ad tells me that I should trust Chase to be my bank and manage my money? Leading your audience with a nonsensical video montage and a track that has nothing to do with anything (We all shine on???)  is not the way to win our trust or our money. It is a great way to embarrass yourself and your marketing team, though.

On top of their television ads, Chase has crafted a new slogan: “Chase What Matters”. Depending on which side of the coin you’re looking at, it is either insinuating that you should chase what matters to you (and they’ll give you the money for whatever you want) or they are telling you that Chase is what matters. Isn’t this how we got in this whole mess in the first place?  Don’t have the money to buy that boat you’ve always wanted? No problem, we’re a big established bank so you can trust us to give you the money to go and get what matters to you – whether you can afford it or not.  And the big financial institutions’ arrogance through this whole process!  Don’t regulate us, we know what we’re doing.  And now Chase is what matters.  Right.

What matters is that we don’t like you and we’re taking our money elsewhere.

How many times have you been having a conversation with someone, and don’t feel like they’re listening?

You talk, they nod, but you feel like it’s going in one ear and out the other.

Isn’t it frustrating?

It can be just as frustrating for others when you or your company isn’t listening. With the widespread arena of social media, dialogue is happening all around us, but unfortunately; people and companies are rarely listening.

So, what can you do about it?

Start listening. It really is that simple. Tools like twitter search and google alerts have made it easy to find out when people and companies are talking about you and your company. You can set them to monitor names, phrases, important competitors, whatever you would like. There are even tools for your desktop that can keep the searches at the forefront of your attention. This allows you  to react almost instantly to question, concerns and  potential customers.

Just a reminder, even with all these cool tools to help you monitor, an old-fashioned manual search should still be done weekly. There are many items that can slip through the cracks, and it is important to catch them. Manual searches also help you to gauge your search engine optimization and what the competitors are doing. Go google (or bing, or yahoo, or msn live) yourself. Did you expect everything you found? Probably not. Can you react to the bad, capture the good and learn from the others? Absolutely.

If this sounds like a lot of work – it is. Brand management and listening to the conversation takes a lot of time and energy. So, if you can’t do it yourself, make sure to find someone that can. Time is not an excuse for not monitoring the conversation.

Are you listening yet?