SETH GODIN: 9 Tips On Creating A Remarkable Product

In the past, effective marketing could sell even the most ordinary product or service. But that era is over. Now you actually have to create something that's remarkable.

In Seth Godin's book, "Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable," he describes remarkable as "something worth talking about. Worth noticing. Exceptional. New. Interesting. It's a Purple Cow. Boring stuff is invisible. It's a brown cow."

And here are the Tips:

1. Create demand by making your product an outlier: "super-fast or super-slow, very exclusive or very cheap, very big or very small". Godin says to "go for the edges. Challenge yourself and your team to describe what those edges are, and then test which edge is most likely to deliver the marketing and financial results you seek."
2. Playing it safe is the riskiest strategy of all. "In a crowded marketplace, fitting in is a failure. In a busy marketplace, not standing out is the same as being invisible"
3. When something's not going to work, recognize the sunk costs and move on. Instead of investing in a dying product, take profits and reinvest them in building something new."
4. Instead of trying to sell to the masses, focus on grabbing the attention of "the sneezers," the early adopters who will accept your product first.
5. "The Sneezers" will eventually enable your idea to "migrate to the rest of the masses".
6. It's easier to be remarkable during an economic downturn because everyone else is too afraid to test the waters. "Since just about everyone else if petrified of the [Purple] Cow, you can be remarkable with even less effort. If successful new products are the ones that stand out, and most people desire not to stand out, you're set!"
7. You don't have to be a genius to create a hit product, but you do need to have the right mindset.
8. If you've tried all outlets and it doesn't take off, then figure out a way to distribute it more cheaply. "If you could build a competitor that had costs that were 30 percent lower than yours, could you do it? If you could, why don't you?".
9. Once you've created a hit, it's time to launch a new remarkable product.  "Do it again (to the same audience), but also assume what was remarkable last time won't be so remarkable this time."                                                                              

Source: Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable

What is Pinterest???

4 Tips to Protect Your Small Business Against Cyberattacks

You may think that cybersecurity is only important for major companies, but think again. 

Small businesses are particularly vulnerable to cyberattacks: Without the big security budgets of Fortune 500 companies, they’re seen as easy prey by digital information thieves and corporate espionage experts. And if you’re hit by an attack, you should be prepared to face a revenue loss of up to $10,000 (or more) if your website goes down in the process. That’s a lot of money for a small business to lose, and it can happen at any time.

How can a small business protect against cyberattacks and information leaks without breaking the bank?Mashable spoke with Rick Doten, former chief scientist for cybersecurity at Lockheed Martin and current vice president of cybersecurity at DMI, a leading cybersecurity solutions provider, for his advice:

1. Smart Passwords

Doten’s first piece of advice for securing small business may also be the cheapest and simplest move: using better passwords.

“I’ve spent 10 years running ethical hacking groups, and most of the ways we got in [to target networks] was because of weak passwords,” says Doten.

What, exactly, makes up a “better” password? Doten says it should be highly complex, difficult to guess and at least eight characters — so “deJ1s4qFDAS” is much better than “superman.”

“The longer the better,” says Doten. “Penumonics help, too. Take the first letter of each word in a sentence such as, ‘Don’t forget to feed your dog.’ 15 characters, with mixed upper case, lower case and numerical symbols will be much harder for a would-be hacker to crack.”

2. Mobile Device Education

Explaining the importance of mobile cybersecurity to each and every employee is critical, says Doten. This is especially important if some employees aren’t particularly technology-savvy or if a company allows employees to connect to an internal network via a personal device, such as an iPad.

“Companies today are getting access to adversaries’ [digital] environments by hacking into employees’ devices,” says Doten. “One of the things compounding that is the rapid development of mobile devices and the ‘bring your own device’ concept. Small businesses should manage what devices employees are allowed to use on internal networks, what’s allowed to go on those devices and use encryption appropriately.”

“Small businesses can implement [device management] much easier than larger firms,” he explains. “Understand that people make mistakes, but people can do risky things that can cause an impact on the business.”

3. Social Media Education

Doten acknowledges that companies should allow employees to post online about the company in a positive light, but cautions that employees who use social media too carelessly can give away sensitive details about a firm’s internal business.

“Depending on what your business does, you might be tipping your hand to competitiors to what you’re doing or who your customers are,” says Doten. Social media’s great from a competitive counter-intelligence point of view. I can learn a lot [by] following tweets.”

Doten says that employees should be encouraged to tweet, but should be taught how to do so in a way that doesn’t reveal any trade secrets to the public or competing businesses.

“We’ve got a generation of employees sharing a lot,” says Doten. “And that can pose a risk.”

4. Risk Management

Finally, Doten says that small businesses should look at cybersecurity from the perspective of risk management.

The core of your business, says Doten, will determine how much focus — and budget — you should place on protecting your systems. An e-tailer whose entire business is online and done on the front-end, for example, stands to lose a great deal of business if its servers are knocked offline for a substantial period of time.

“Companies should be asking themselves, ‘What do we have to protect?’ And, ‘What would impact our business the most?’” says Doten.

Doten also points out that cybercriminals often use lesser-protected small businesses as a “digital bridge” to attack larger firms with which they have a relationship. That, says Doten, can make unprepared small firms a less attractive business partner in the future, getting in the way of potentially lucrative business deals. That prospect, he adds, should be weighed in calculations about cybersecurity budgets.

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Continued Education

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Doten acknowledges that cybersecurity is an ever-changing field, and small businesses must continually adapt to new attack methods. He recommends that small business owners regularly visit the National Cybersecurity Alliance’s StaySafeOnline.com, which provides information about cybersecurity issues.

“If someone goes and looks, there’s a lot of information out there,” says Doten.

Source: American Express OPEN Forum - www.mashable.com

Debemos ESCUCHAR al cliente ¿Cómo? Usando los medios on-line

Debido a que los medios de comunicación social son abiertos  y públicos por  naturaleza, escuchar no sólo es bienvenido - se espera.

Escuchar significa encontrar los espacios sociales en línea, donde el público ya está en comunicación, el seguimiento de las conversaciones que suceden allí, y la recogida de información que puede utilizar para comprender mejor a su público.

Cuatro formas de empezar a escuchar

• Configurar Alertas de Google. Alertas de Google son actualizaciones por correo electrónico de los últimos resultados relevantes de Google basado en palabras clave que usted elija. Puede configurar la frecuencia de las alertas. Comience con el nombre de su organización.
• Establecer algunas búsquedas - usted puede buscar sitios como Google Blogsearch, Technorati, Bloglines y BlogCatalog. Al igual que con las Alertas de Google, puede obtener actualizaciones de los resultados relevantes, pero dirigida a la blogosfera.
• Establecer búsquedas en Twitter y ver si la gente está "twitteaandoo" sobre su marca o empresa o destino.
• Buscar el nombre de su marca o empresa en LinkedIn. Usted puede encontrar que su nombre aparece porque hay varios miembros del personal actual o anterior utilizando esta red y que aparece en sus perfiles.

Elegir las palabras clave:

Los marca o empresas deben desarrollar una lista de palabras claves (keywords) relacionadas con su producto y la ubicacion del mismo. No solo hay que monitorear el nombre del marca o empresa sino el lugar donde esta ubicado y cualquier actividad que se desarrolle en el mismo.

Paso 1: en primer lugar quiere ver quién está hablando de ti y lo que están diciendo. Palabras clave incluyen los nombres y siglas de su organización, productos, publicaciones y eventos.

Paso 2: ahora está listo para ver cómo se comparan. Nuevas palabras clave incluyen los nombres, productos, publicaciones y eventos de sus competidores y otros líderes del sector. En esta etapa, puede comenzar la evaluación comparativa de su participación en línea y los esfuerzos de relaciones públicas y comunicación de los resultados a su liderazgo.

Paso 3: ya ha identificado los habladores más influyentes y ahora es turno de la investigación y recopilación de información sobre los temas que más les interesen. Nuevas palabras clave incluyen temas de actualidad de la industria. En esta etapa, usted puede comenzar a identificar las tendencias de la industria y las oportunidades potenciales de ingresos para su marca o empresa.

¿Ahora qué?

Ahora empieza la diversión. Asegúrese de que no apresurarse - acaba de leer lo que la gente dice acerca de su marca o empresa y su destino.

Los patrones comienzan a surgir. Tal vez usted ha encontrado suficiente gente a LinkedIn o Facebook para que la creación de un grupo de oficiales que vale la pena.Tal vez la gente está discutiendo su destino en Twitter y está listo para añadir su granito de arena. Tal vez unos cuantos bloggers debaten periódicamente su destino y está listo para comenzar a participar con ellos comentando, la creación de su propio blog, o incluso invitar a los bloggers para blog para su organización.

No se desanime. Su público no puede estar listo para crear contenido en redes sociales, blogs o Twitter. Siga escuchando, sin embargo, porque con el tiempo, más y más personas de cada grupo de edad se están convirtiendo en participantes activos en espacios sociales en línea.

Ya sea que su público es ruidoso o silencioso, escuchar es la mejor manera de averiguar cómo el público se involucra en línea. Una vez que averiguar donde su audiencia en línea está cobrando y lo que están diciendo, usted puede comenzar a desarrollar una estrategia para colaborar con ellos.

Asegúrese de que cualquier estrategia a desarrollar es acorde con los objetivos claros.

¿Desea aumentar la visibilidad de su organización?

Atraer a nuevos miembros?

Proporcionar información oportuna?

Ser reconocido como un líder?

Los medios de comunicación social puede ayudarle a alcanzar todos estos objetivos y mucho más. Pero primero, tienes que abrir los oídos y empezar a nadar en las aguas sociales.

Fuente: hotelmarketing

Brian Solis on Five Common Social Media Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

Brian Solis is known to many in the tech scene as a man about town. He's a social media connoisseur, speaker, author and is currently a principal analyst at the research firm, Altimeter Group.

Digital disruption seems to be hitting every business right now, but it's also causing many to thrive. Here, Solis offers five tips on how to avoid common social media mistakes:


1. Showing up isn't enough. Customers and prospects are busy, connected and interacting with everybody but you today. While creating a presence is a start, it is how you engage with people that attracts them to you. This requires an engagement program -- that is, a plan for using social media to meet goals -- that extends beyond the typical marketing of "follow us on Twitter" or "Like us on Facebook."


2. You can't be everywhere, nor should you. Many entrepreneurs are excited about technology and they overextend themselves because they want to be part of the latest trend. The key is to only be where your customers, prospects and those who influence them engage.


3. Authenticity and transparency are nothing without a connection. The two magical ingredients to a successful social media effort are: authenticity and transparency. The only problem is that they don't really equate to a strategy. Rather, these two traits contribute more to a "digital way" or "guiding light" than they do as a form of effective engagement. Without delivering value, conveying a meaningful mission and vision, or establishing a connect-worthy presence, authenticity and transparency have nothing to reinforce.


4. Talking to people isn't a business strategy. Some people run effective social media programs by listening instead of actually saying anything. But no matter if you converse with customers or not, you must have a purpose before you can engage. They want tangible value and through research, you'll learn what a desirable engagement program actually looks like. Don't get caught up in only replying to brand mentions. Your real opportunity is to also engage and convert those people not already talking about you.


5. Keep your core customers tuned in. Companies believe that uploading a video to Youtube is the key to anything going viral. What they don't know is, 48 Hours of video is uploaded every minute to Youtube. The chance of your video going viral naturally is basically nil. However, with the Old Spice and Evian Rollerbaby examples, they identified all of the potential influencers in their space and reached out to them in advance of and during the video release. They sought help to make sure that the video was shared. Remember though, going viral only counts if it impacts your brand. If it creates lift, leaves an imprint or if it drives action or outcomes, that's when you're going viral. 


Source: www.entrepreneur.com