Online Strategy Divas Talk Biz

Thanks to Anne Clelland of Handshake 2.0. Anne is one of my Twitter colleagues (@Handshake20) and she recently interviewed me about Intellicore Design Consulting.  We talked about how PR firms, and their clients, can benefit from teaming with us.  Check it out!

Handshake Media is a digital media public relations agency.  They specialize in the use of social media channels, social networking sites, and Web 2.0 tools to create strategies in accord with the visions of individuals, corporations, organizations, and enterprises to produce desired business results.

Handshake is also a part of the is a member of VT KnowledgeWorks...And Virginia Tech Hokies? Always of the good!

How Intellicore Design Consulting helps companies strategize & implement social media

Navigating through the social media world can be challenging, especially for companies new to these channels.

Part of the challenge is the breath of social media.  To do it right, companies need to consider the both user needs and business needs.

Bridging user and business needs is our speciality and that's why we can help you.

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4 in 5 adults participate in social media -- Companies need Social Media Strategy

Think social media doesn't have an impact on your company?  Think again.  And yes, that's true even if your business is B2B.

Forrester just published its third annual Social Technographics Profile.  Some of the highlights can be found on the Groundswell website or you can purchase the full report from Forrester, entitled "The Broad Reach of Social Technologies.” The company gathered and analyzed data from across North America, Europe, and Asia.

A few of the stats that popped out at me are these:

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Rackspace Email – Integrating customer service & interaction via multi-channels

Bob Warfield recently wrote a article on the need to integrate Customer Service and customer interaction.  Additionally, he also pointed towards the very real possibility of how sometimes being too social can be the wrong move for a company.

Bob’s observation highlights the customer service challenge of finding the right mix between offering self-service options mixed with help from real people via phone and via also social media channels.  It’s about providing service in ways customers want and need.

Circling around all this social challenge, companies also still need to be cost-effective in managing their businesses.

Break it down and the challenge is about finding a balance between business need and user/customer needs.  That’s a driving motivator behind whole Social CRM movement.

Rackspace Email (formerly Mailtrust) is an excellent example of a company who is successfully hurdling the challenge as they offer excellent service delivered by a variety of avenues.

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United Breaks Guitars – Dave Carroll's social media payback for horrid service

Did you see the United Breaks Guitars video, which has now been seen by more than 5 million Youtube viewers?  It's a damning expose about United's horrid handling of  Dave Carroll's Taylor guitar-- and he used social media to slam back. Most successfully.

The video puts a glaring spotlight on how the quality of a company's service offerings will be transparent -- for bad and good. If a company doesn't provide the transparency, customers will.

And it also doesn't matter whether a company is participating in social media. Customers are.

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Website site architecture considerations for SEO

So much gets written about SEO in terms of content it’s easy to overlook the other half of the optimization equation.  That would be site architecture – or the behind the scenes contribution to the SEO challenge.

Let’s look at three contributors to site architecture – headers, page layouts, and navigation -- and how to use them to your benefit.

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