Strategy Blog: Post

Kara Davis - Project Manager :

There are loads of people out there who want to help charities but don’t have a lot of extra cash lying around. Since we’ve all heard the hype of what social networks and pennies at a time can do, I figured I’d check it out.

I spent some time over the last few weeks using several Facebook apps that donate to various charities. I clicked my heart out. I sent plants to friends, I tended fish, I tested my vocab skills, I even sold my (old Hotmail) address to a marketing survey company for 5,000 extra grains of rice. What I’ve discovered is that it can be quite a workout to raise money this way. As an example, here’s the breakdown for an app that sends money to The Nature Conservancy—note that this is NOT a Nature Conservancy project; They are just the designated beneficiary.

Continue reading "Pennies From Heaven"

Stephanie Hay - Project Manager :

Copyblogger‘s Brian Clark today posted an interesting story about how The Doors instituted a social strategy—inviting all their friends to L.A.’s London Fog for an audition set—to make them look mega popular.  Management was impressed and booked The Doors as their house band, but *gulp* no one showed for consecutive shows.  At least, at first.

Continue reading "The Lizard King’s Social Strategy"

Ken Yarmosh - Former Staffer :

Do you hear that? The sound of clicks? It’s current and prospective customers and they are turning to the Internet as a primary source to learn about your company.

It is not a one-way street. In fact, businesses now regularly google their partners, clients, and even potential employees. Employers check social networks like MySpace and scour the blogosphere to find any and all dirt on candidates for hire, under the guise that it’s better to discover it now than later.

First impressions are huge. And on the Web, your first impression may not actually be your Web site. It is likely going to be one of the first three results derived from a search on Google or Yahoo!.

How is your company performing in the search engines? What does the blogosphere say about your top executives?

In the Web world, people are talking about you. So, you have a choice; join the conversation or let others shape the perception of your business.

What does the Internet say about YOU?

Ken Yarmosh - Former Staffer :

Earlier this week, USA Today re-launched its online presence with a larger emphasis on engaging readers. They launched a handful of new features, including being able to create a personal profile page that tracks a reader’s contributions. Parts of the site definitely have a social network feel to it a la MySpace or Facebook. You can check out all the new features they list via their Quick Guide.

USA Today’s re-launch included: 1) adding social media elements to the site (mentioned above); and 2) changing the look-and-feel and organization of the site. Neither element of the re-launch was well received. You can browse the comments of readers on the announcement post To our readers.

Don Dodge, a member of Microsoft’s Emerging Business Team, had some good initial take-aways from the re-launch:

So, I would have introduced the new features, but applied them to the existing layout and design. I think the 92% of readers with negative comments were reacting to the layout changes, not the feature enhancements.

The lessons for entrepreneurs? 

1. Test changes carefully with a test group of users before implementing a design. 
2. Don’t change features and UI design at the same time. Do one or the other, not both. 
3. Communicate with your users well in advance about coming changes
4. Listen to user feedback and respond immediately

I’m assuming USA Today didn’t simply push this re-launch / re-design on its readers. They hopefully tested and incorporated feedback from all important stakeholders through the re-launch process. The key is having the appropriate representation of those stakeholder groups.

You cannot please everyone through as massive an undertaking as this one. But, from the comments, it’s obvious that there is a large group of readers whose voices were not heard at all. And, in the Age of Social Media, people are eventually going to be heard (whether on your site or their own). It’s better to hear them sooner, rather than later.

Ken Yarmosh - Former Staffer :

We have a secret here at Viget Labs ... we have an internal blog. And, no, you can’t read it (no, not even for the “right price").

Our internal blog is great. In fact, it often can be a breeding ground for what you read here. But, more importantly, is that it definitely reduces internal e-mail volume, yet makes our communications more useful. Here’s how:

1) Announcements and newsworthy items (including the ever-significant, “There are cookies in the kitchen.") get posted to the blog.

Note: We are currently thinking through how to maintain the long-term historical integrity of the blog by removing these sorts of posts, a process which we are calling “weeding.”

2) Knowledge-sharing as it relates to the web industry and to our clients gets posted to the blog. Unlike e-mail, the blog facilitates conversation better (follow-up thoughts are posted as comments) and provides a nice way for us to preserve the collective “Viget brain” when it comes to time-sensitive information.

Note: We are currently thinking through how to take the gems of the internal blog and migrate them over to our wiki to provide long-term value, a process which we are calling “harvesting.”

Another benefit of the internal Viget blog is that it allows Vigeteers to consume the information passively and on their own terms. Now, to be frank, that sometimes can be an issue because certain people are a bit too passive (i.e., they are focused on producing great work for our clients). But, we definitely are developing a culture that gently encourages folks to check out the internal blog on a daily basis (and, no, we aren’t on the internal blog secretly mocking the colleagues who aren’t reading it).

If you are struggling with internal dialogue, think about getting an internal blog up and running. It’s also quite helpful to start there, especially if you still are not sure how a public blog would actually work. If you’d like to know more, contact me at:

ken [at] viget [dot] com

replace the [at] with an “@” and the [dot] with a “.”