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Archives for May 2012

Social Media Safety Part 1: Foursquare

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With the ever growing number of social media services and users, it’s more important than ever for you to be aware of and take steps to protect you and your family’s safety. Many people don’t know the information they put out into the digital universe. If they did, they might be shocked. With stories popping up all the time about how bad people use this information to take advantage of good people, its more important than ever to understand the risks inherent in social media use and how to avoid them. This series is certainly NOT comprehensive. There are way too many social media services out there but, in general, if you know these facts and follow my advice, you’ll be much safer when using social media.

Let’s start with foursquare.

Do not check-in at home. For the love of God, people. You do not need to hand out a map to the world of where you live. Your real friends will already know. Luckily, foursquare realized the inherent risks of home “check-ins” and instituted changes to their system last September to help with this. They created a location category titled “home”. This is what it does:

  • “Only the person who created the ‘home’ and their friends can see the address on the venue page.
  • Similarly, on the venue page, only those same people can see the map pin. Everyone else will see a map randomly centered somewhere near the address, with the zoom pulled out a bit.
  • And don’t worry about the link getting sent around, or if you share it on Facebook or Twitter. The same rules apply!”

This was a good start but consider this. One of the criteria of the above changes is that it is centered around the person who created the home venue, not the actual person living there. So, even if you do not use foursquare, the possibility exists that your friends may have created, and checked into, your home on foursquare which would then mean that everyone they are friends with (and only those people ) on foursquare can see it and that’s assuming it was actually changed into the category “home”. If it has NOT been changed to that category, everyone can see it… and I do mean everyone.

Even if you do not use foursquare, you should check to see if your house is listed. If so, you can create an account and notify foursquare that the venue is your home. Once processed, it will only appear to your foursquare friends. If you don’t have any, nobody else will see it.

People that know me know that I am a very active social media user. I have over 2,000 friends on Facebook, many of whom I don’t actually know in real-life, and approximately the same amount of people following me on Twitter. On foursquare, however, I only have 83, every one of which I know. Remember, foursquare documents where you are and when you are there – or are NOT there.

This same rule applies to your children’s school, day care or any other place you frequent on a regular basis, including your place of employment. While it’s all nice and fun to promote your company, if it’s a place you work locally and visit regularly, all you’re doing is establishing a time-record that someone could use for nefarious purposes. If you’re checking in to your child’s school or day care, you could be jeopardizing their safety.

Another general rule if you’re going to check-in to a business (especially for females) is to check-in WHEN YOU LEAVE, not when you arrive. You never know who’s watching, and waiting, for the right person to check-in. While maybe only your friends can see your check-in in a foursquare stream, ANYONE AT THE VENUE, can see your check-in. In other words, say there is a particularly unsavory character at a bar. If you pull up the venue on foursquare, it will show you not only how many other people are “checked-in” but WHO THEY ARE.

Do you travel? Same perils. Except in this case, all you’re doing is telling everyone that your FAMILY is home alone.

Don’t forget that you are also given the option of sharing those check-ins via Twitter and Facebook, which can increase the danger exponentially.

I hope this helped you understand a little better the perils of foursquare and how you can use it better, or not at all.

Stay tuned for part 2 of this series coming soon.

Related articles:

“Please Rob Me” by Dan Fletcher, Time magazine

“Foursquare’s Stalker Problem” by Lisa Riordan Seville, The Daily Beast

“Girls Around Me App Confirms That Foursquare is a Terrible Idea for Women” by Amy Tennery, The Jane Dough

“4 Ways Foursquare Can Make You A Victim Of Dangerous Crimes” by Millionaire Hoy, Yahoo! Voices

Ford Says Consumer Privacy Is Impractical

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In a Yahoo! exclusive article published today, it was reported that Ford has initiated a lawsuit against 13 individual eBay sellers who they accuse of selling fake or counterfeit Ford parts. I’m not arguing the merits of Ford’s lawsuit as it is certainly within their rights to protect their trademarks and copyrights as well as take steps to protect dealer’s profits in the part business but rather to question the bigger issue encompassed by this: an individual’s right to privacy.

The subpoenas for the  lawsuits were granted by the court for Ford to obtain the seller’s identities and information. What is unusual about this is not that they requested it, but what they asked for after that request was granted.

As reported in the article, most ISPs and websites have policies in place that notify users when the company gives out their information for any reason except for that involving criminal activity and which is requested by law enforcement agencies.

In this case, Ford not only requested the user’s information but also asked for their bank account information (which was denied) then went a step further and asked for the court to prohibit eBay and Paypal (an eBay company) from notifying the targeted users that their information was requested and given out.

This move flies in the face of all privacy issues. With the public outcry against the recent legislation effectively designed to skirt privacy issues accompanied by Ford’s strong pro-consumer brand and social media presence, you’d think they would want to steer clear of any controversy in regards to consumer privacy.

“Much of the debate in recent months over online privacy has been spurred by bills in Congress, such as the Stop Online Piracy Act and a new bill, the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, which passed the U.S. House in April. CISPA would let companies and law enforcement agencies broadly share users’ personal information to fight potential threats — including accusations of copyright violations and counterfeit goods — without penalty, trumping any company policy.” writes Justin Hyde in the Yahoo! article.

The reason reported by Ford for this request was:

“Ford respectfully suggests this procedure is impractical and would serve to undermine the rationale for the subpoenas. The procedure would impose a substantial burden on [eBay and PayPal] to prepare, serve and enforce subpoenas and would serve to “tip-off” or warn the Doe defendants of Ford’s investigation. Under the procedure as written, the Does would have notice that Ford was seeking their identities and thus ample time to destroy evidence, the counterfeit and infringing goods, and flee to avoid service all before Ford would be entitled to receive their true identities.”

I understand why they asked the court to do this but just because it’s a good reason doesn’t mean it should outweigh the right to privacy that all citizens enjoy. This is a civil matter, not a criminal one.

Now that one court has issued what I feel is an invasion of privacy, what’s to stop other judges from following suit. I can think of plenty of GOOD reasons for a judge to do this but that doesn’t mean they SHOULD. Where does an ISP or website draw a “line in the sand”? Despite Facebook’s own internal privacy issues, they have, and are still, fighting other companies from requiring or being allowed to access their user’s information and accounts including employer’s requesting pre-employment access, schools requiring students to reveal their Facebook walls to administrators and more.

Being an eBay user for over 14 years and a Paypal user for about 12, I would hope that they would challenge and fight for their user’s right to privacy. It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out and whether any of the companies involved will take a stand for their users.

While Ford may feel that their lawsuit against 13 people succeeding is more important than our rights to privacy, I just find that.. well.. impractical.

Tip: Why (and How) You Should Buy Facebook Stock

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[UPDATE 5/22/12: According to this article by AllFacebook.com, Facebook has reversed course and decided not to issue paper stock certificates so this whole article just became a fantasy.]

First, a disclaimer: I am not a financial advisor in any way, shape or form. What I AM is an entrepreneur so take this advice from that standpoint. There is never a guarantee of future value but this is why I think it’s a good investment.. if bought in a certain way.

Today, Facebook held its IPO to much media attention, speculation and became the largest IPO ever in the history of IPOs. There is a ton of advice saying that the opening cost is overpriced, to wait, etc. and that its a bad initial investment. I disagree but only from the perspective, and using the method, I describe below.

When a popular company has an IPO, they can choose whether or not to allow investors to obtain a physical stock certificate or not. Most companies do not and, if they do, its for a limited time. Facebook chose to allow investors to request and obtain physical stock certificates.

facebook-stock-cert.top

I’ve been selling things on eBay for over 14 years and I’m always on the lookout for things to sell and make a profit so I thought about this and did some research.

When Apple had its IPO in 1982, shares cost $22 each. They also offered the option to buy a physical certificate. Without any consideration for the current market value of that share, the actual certificate itself has a market value of almost $600 on eBay. Say you bought 100 shares and asked for individual certificates. The certificates ALONE would make your initial investment of $25/share ($2500 after adding a few dollars for the certificate) worth $60,000. If you actually retained ownership of the stock itself, without consideration for any stock splits or anything else, the shares themselves would be worth $53,259 (value as of May 18 at 12:00pm PST). You can retain ownership of a stock and sell the actual certificate so your initial investment with physical shares is suddenly ~$113,259. Yes, it took 30 years to make this but it’s still a VERY healthy return on your investment.

Let’s say you really don’t want to retain ownership of the shares as an investment. You buy the shares and order the physical certificates. Wait a couple months to receive the certificates, then sell the shares. Let’s say the shares have tanked and they are only worth $10 each at that point. You’ve recouped $1000 of your initial $2500 investment so you’ve lost $1500 BUT you still have 100 stock certificates which are, at this moment, worth $60,000. So your $1000 investment netted you $59,000. Best case, the share price is up and you can make a profit on the initial investment and, again, still have the actual certificates, in this case, for no investment.

People like collectibles and owning a piece of history. If you’re going to buy the stock anyways, pony up the extra couple of bucks a share (Make sure to get individual shares on each certificate rather than multiple shares on one certificate to maximize the potential future sale as people are buying the certificates themselves. There is no difference in value between a certificate that is for 1 share or 100 shares.) and have the extra potential return.

Other examples:

My guess is that a certificate purchased on (or near) the actual IPO date would be worth more to a collector in the future (as in the Apple stock certificate example). I also believe that the initial stock shares will be signed by Mark Zuckerberg based on similar past IPO certificates.

Of course there’s never any guarantee that the certificate will be worth anything in the future and this is certainly a long term investment whether you keep the shares AND the certificates or just the certificates. Whichever you decide to do, there’s more POTENTIAL in having the certificates then in not having them. In addition, due to the high demand for the stock itself, I don’t believe Facebook will be offering paper certificates for very long so you could have a narrow window to take advantage of this.

Most stock certificates won’t sell like this, of course. The examples I use are exceptions but I believe Facebook will fall into this category. If an old AOL floppy disc (that were everywhere “back in the day” and that they mailed to everyone once a week, it seemed) can sell for almost $10,000 on eBay… well, you get my point.

Either way, in my opinion, it’s kind of cool to own a piece of history.

Coffee Is For Closers: A Social Media Success Story

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For many small businesses, social media is a daunting, unwieldy task with results that are typically discouraging. Many businesses either don’t see the point in doing it or they try it and quit after not seeing any interaction. How many Facebook pages have you seen abandoned after a short life-span? You go to their page and the last post was 6 months ago. In my career, I’ve seen many.

Recently, an independent coffee shop in New Hampshire came to my attention through social media. I live in Southern California and have never even stepped foot in the state of New Hampshire so a local independent coffee shop would have never been on my radar much less caused me to start paying attention to it.

A&E Roastery is a small, independent coffee shop located in Amherst, NH. I became aware of them through a social media contest they started on their Facebook page celebrating their 10th anniversary. A&E Roastery bought in to social media. You can see that they began using Facebook as a business in January 2010. They have a corporate Twitter account, a foursquare account and a blog that is regularly updated with fresh and relevant content.

The contest was brought to my attention by someone in my social media network (and industry) who is a regular customer of theirs.

The genesis of the contest was the shop’s involvement in a local baseball league consisting of 8-9 year olds. A&E Roastery and their local PR firm collaborated on ideas with which to gain exposure for the shop in conjunction with their sponsorship. The contest was simple. Customers participated in and gathered votes to be proclaimed the MVP of the shop and win free coffee for the rest of 2012.

My involvement started only as one of supporting a friend in his quest to win this contest at a business he obviously frequents and loves. Over the next 9 days, it slowly started dawning on me that A&E had accomplished what not many small businesses (or large businesses for that matter) have been able to do… engage with their fans. You see, it’s easy to GAIN fans. Many people judge social media success by quantity. The more fans or followers I have, the better job I’m doing when, in fact, a more accurate measurement of social media success is engagement. How do the fans you have, regardless of the quantity, engage with you?

A mutual friend suggested I write a blog post about this contest. My initial reaction was skeptical. To be blunt, I didn’t believe there was much there to write about.

As I began digging in and really looking, I found amazing statistics and results from a contest that is still ongoing.

These statistics begin on May 7, the date the contest started.

  • From January 2010 to January 2012, A&E had accumulated approximately 500 fans (approximately 20/month). Over the next 3 months (Feb-April), they added 107 for an average of about 35 per month. In the month of May alone, they’ve added 219 fans for an average of 14 per day.
  • On May 6th, A&E Roastery was averaging 5 new likes per week with 30 people talking about them according to Facebook Insights. Within 6 days of beginning the contest, they’ve increased their likes per week by 5,100% and the number of people talking about them has increased 660%.
  • Since the contest’s inception, the company itself has contributed 28 posts which accumulated 99 likes and 169 comments.*
  • Since the contest’s inception, the company’s fans have posted on their wall a whopping 100 posts with a total of 271 likes and 134 comments.*

In 9 days, A&E Roastery’s Facebook page has seen 128 posts that have generated 370 likes and 303 comments.*

To put this into perspective, I looked at the Facebook page of the Penske Automotive Group. For those who don’t know, the Penske Automotive Group is the second largest publicly traded automotive retailer in the United States as measured by total revenue. As of January 18, 2012, (they) owned and operated 166 franchises in the United States and 169 internationally encompassing 42 brands. They are a Fortune 500 company with 15,000 employees. [Wikipedia]

Over the same period of time, Penske posted to their Facebook wall 6 times which generated 98 likes and 76 comments. Penske’s Facebook page has almost 16,000 fans.

A&E Roastery had more than triple the engagement with 15,000 fewer fans.

A&E has hit the equivalent of a social media grand-slam home run with this contest. The passion their customers have for them is evident in not only the engagement their contest is seeing but in the exposure it is generating for them.

I spoke with Emeran, the shop’s owner, about her thoughts and goals for this contest. She felt the key to the contest’s success to this point is the social media saavy customers she has that have contributed to generating the buzz. The question she’s looking to answer is one that’s all too familiar to social media professionals and business owners – “How does that translate to growth in business?”. She went on to say that “the challenge is to assess what our new network looks like now and how to target those new people and translate that into revenue growth on both the retail and wholesale areas.” She felt it would be interesting to see not only if it did but by how much even though she shared that she knew this would be a difficult task to accomplish. Some of her new fans being from outside her local market is actually one that works in her favor as, in addition to the operation of this local shop, she has a thriving wholesale business selling the coffee beans they roast themselves. A&E currently has quite a few local businesses that serve her beans to their customers and she certainly isn’t opposed to expanding her wholesale business to other areas of the country.

The initial round of voting for the MVP nominees is scheduled to be reduced to 9 at the end of this week with a new round of voting on the remaining contestants beginning. The contest itself is scheduled to end a the end of this month.

To all my fellow automotive coffee enthusiasts, you might want to give A&E Roastery coffee a try. In the age of Starbucks, not many independent coffee shops can generate the loyalty and following from their customers that A&E has managed to do.

There’s probably a good reason for that.

*Statistics complied through May 16, 2012 at 8:30am PST.

Do Consumers Want It To Take All Day To Buy A Car?

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I answered a question posed on Quora about 6 months ago. The question was:

Why does it take so long at a dealership to buy a new car?

“Once the price is agreed on, the loan or lease is approved and they have your down payment, why do new car dealerships drag the car buying process out by making you talk to sales managers, account managers, loan managers, etc. etc.  and have you sit and wait for their people to sign paperwork.  Used car dealers don’t seem to do this.  Why is buying or leasing a new car a multi-hour inconvenience for the customer?”

My answer was as follows:

“In many cases, it only has to do with the inefficiency which that dealership is run. Typically, all these people are talking to you so that you don’t get upset for the wait so they’re just trying to keep you busy. They may also be waiting for a response from banks about the loan (keep in mind that many sales managers base the interest rate on their knowledge of what the banks will “probably” give you and not until a deal is accepted do they actually input all of your information and send it to the bank for an official approval. Whether they do this will depend on your credit.) They also have to get the vehicle ready for you to take delivery. This entails a thorough washing and detailing as well as putting gas in the vehicle. The finance manager has to get all the paperwork ready for you as well. There are many factors that could be a reason why you have to wait BUT many dealerships nowadays have made the process more efficient for customers as they know that many people feel like you so they are making their processes more efficient so that your experience is more pleasant.”

A new answer was posted a couple of days ago that floored me:

“I feel your pain… but unfortunately I think most people like the fact that it takes so long, and that’s part of why dealerships continue to do so.

Buying a brand new car is a big deal and has huge significance economically and, more importantly, culturally.  I don’t think most new car buyers would be happy if it was as simple as swiping their credit card at the grocery store (though I would be) because they might have buyers remorse immediately after… things wouldn’t add up… this is such a huge deal, why didn’t it feel like it?

By taking all day, and exhausting you, I think they lessen the chances that you will change your mind or be unhappy with the purchase… because it’s going to feel like you just ran a marathon… and no one will walk away feeling like their big day wasn’t just that.

Also they love having you in the dealership all day, it’s the perfect way to maximize their chances of selling you add-ons with your purchase and have you look at your next dream car.”

It certainly wasn’t an answer I was expecting. (The person who answered is a mechanic but it’s unclear whether he’s an independent or at a dealership.) Personally, I always wanted to complete a transaction as quickly as possible (both when I was on the floor and while in the internet department) and had no interest in being tied up with one customer all day. It never crossed my mind that a consumer may actually want it to take all day to complete the transaction.

Do you think there’s any merit to his theory that consumers WANT (or NEED) to take all day buying a car to emotionally satisfy their large purchase?

Facebooks Potential New Feature Could Kill Your Newsfeed

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Facebook has always been experimenting with ways to generate revenue. It’s mostly been focused on businesses through Facebook Ads and Sponsored Stories but now it’s contemplating a revenue stream generated through users.

TechCrunch reported last night that Facebook has began testing a feature it calls “Highlight”. The basic functionality of this feature is that a user can pay a one-time fee to have a single post shared with more of their friends. Facebook’s algorithm is designed to identify and deliver what they believe is the content most interesting to any individual. According to the TechCrunch article, only about 12% of any given person’s friends see any given post. (People that utilize EdgeRank to maximize the potential that their posts are seen probably have a slightly higher average.)

facebook-highlight-status-updates1

In my opinion, there are only a few legitimate uses for for this feature by an individual that wouldn’t annoy the heck out of their friends: “I’m moving”, “having a baby”, “someone died”, “help me raise money for a good cause” etc. would all be legitimate reasons, in my eyes. However, I don’t see too many people actually paying for increased exposure to other legitimate types of status updates even if it were available. (“Legitimate” in my eyes being a valid, non-spammy type of status update.)

More than likely, the people willing to pay for increased exposure for their posts would be people selling something.. whether that’s recruiting for a multi-level marketing “opportunity”, advertising their business or services, and, in the case of the automotive industry, delivering the many different ways of saying “come buy a car from me (or my dealership)”.

With many car dealers still stubbornly clinging to Facebook profiles versus Facebook pages, I think it’s just going to be way too tempting for them to pay the small fee to make sure more of their “friends” see their sale ad, highlighted vehicle, or “come buy a car” message. It will also be tempting for individual vendors to ply their wares on your Facebook newsfeed paying a couple of bucks for increased exposure to all the car dealerships they’ve friended.

The potential for people to newsfeed spam is way too high, in my opinion. I put up with an “occasional” plug from my Facebook friends. I mean, everyone needs to earn a living and rule #1 in sales is to make sure everyone you know is aware of what you sell. There’s nothing more frustrating than being a Toyota salesperson and having someone you know buy a Toyota from somewhere (or someone) else. That being said, I do have a line that a person can cross when the volume of those types of posts by them gets annoying to me.

I’ve never been a huge fan of Facebook choosing who they think I want to see posts from. I would personally like to be able to control that option but, for the most part, it accomplishes its goal. I also think I’m probably in the group of people that actually tells Facebook who and what I want to see by hiding people, creating lists, knowing (and using) my privacy settings, etc. as the more you do this, the more accurate Facebook’s algorithm can be in delivering relevant content. It’s unclear whether “Highlight” would circumvent these settings (ie. delivering messages from people I’ve hidden or normally wouldn’t see status updates from just because they’ve paid for that increased exposure).

Bottom line is that if your newsfeed becomes littered with individual advertising-type posts rather than being filled with relevant content from people you want to interact with, people will either start hiding or unfriending more people or they’ll use Facebook less.

According to TechCrunch, the feature is currently being tested in New Zealand.

All Salespeople Are Liars

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For almost 3 years, I have been posting a comic every day on my Facebook account. I do this because I like to think I bring a smile to at least one person a day. I look through comics every morning in my attempt to share a “good” one. Yes, believe it or not, I do put effort into choosing which comic I post. I’ve started noticing a disturbing trend. Many comedians use reality-based comedy and it seems this also translates into comics. Syndicated comics, by their very nature, are designed to be funny and appeal to the masses. I see comics like these below on a regular basis and, personally, I do not find them funny. In fact, quite the opposite.

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We all know that the history of sales (especially car sales) has earned us a bad and, some would argue permanent, reputation amongst consumers as being deceitful, manipulative and… well.. liars.

I think everyone can agree that, as an industry, there have been a lot of changes in how car dealers do business. Some of these perception-shifts have been due to the fact that consumers not only have more access to information but also because they have access to more dealers. In the past, consumers were limited to dealers in their local area. The number of dealers they could realistically get prices from and shop was limited by how many they could physically visit and how much time they had on their hands.

The increase in the amount of information available to consumers brought the ability to access more dealers in less time. It has also brought consumers a quick and easy way in which to analyze not only different prices via internet quotes but also to identify who they want to do business with. There have been many debates and opinions over time in various automotive industry forums on how dealers should interact with customers and how much information they should share as well as hostility towards consumers, vendors, OEMs and websites for sharing information which effects a dealer’s ability to profit from a sale. In my opinion, this only fuels the stereotype. Consumer’s have access to this information and it isn’t going away. Attempts to take it away and/or make it less available only serve to promote the negative image. Consumers already don’t trust dealers. Hiding (or reducing) the amount of information available to consumers will only make them trust dealers less.

No matter what you do, you will not be able to change this stereotype for our industry as a whole. You can, however, change how you do things at your store… which is a step in the right direction.

Here is my opinion on best practices:

  1. Be transparent. If a customer asks for information, give it to them. It doesn’t matter if they ask you in person, over the phone, via an e-mail or via a 3rd party lead submission. Chances are they already know the answer. Any attempt to dodge, evade or avoid answering the question will make the customer think you have something to hide.
  2. Establish and maintain a solid online reputation. Yes, consumers are increasingly looking at the various review sites and using that information to help decide whether to do business with you.
  3. Give consumers “real” numbers up-front. Many consumers already know most of them anyways. Don’t try to undervalue trade-ins or manipulate numbers on a pencil. The days of “scraping them off the ceiling” are over. This is an “old-school” mentality and its only outcome is detracting from your dealership’s integrity. They may still buy the car but they won’t leave with a great impression of your salespeople or dealership. Of course consumers are looking for a “good deal” but, I believe, they appreciate honesty.
  4. Get rid of bad apples. If you have salespeople or management staff who lie to customers, play games, or fudge numbers or information. Fire them. They will only hurt you in the long run. Customer don’t have loyalty because you didn’t earn it from them.
  5. Take care of your customers. Your customers are your life-blood. Dealerships have more income potential in fixed-ops than in sales. Treat them like royalty and they will come back.
  6. Pay attention to your customers. Many dealerships never contact customers post-sale until the dealer believes they may be in-market again. Follow-up processes should not simply be about selling them another car. It should be about appreciation. Call them on their birthdays and anniversaries. You have a better shot at selling them another car by not trying to sell them another car.
  7. Stop treating salespeople as expendable. Most customers don’t expect their salesperson to work at your dealership long. Be a company people want to work for. Reward and encourage employees to stay around. Get rid of managers that are quick to replace salespeople. Customers will notice.
  8. Engage your customers. Don’t just pop in and out of their lives to tell them about your upcoming sale. Once you’re in their lives, stay there. Use social media, blogs, newsletters, customer appreciation events, and any other tools you can to remain not only in their lives but in their minds.

While doing these things won’t change the perception of our industry as a whole, it CAN change the perception of the most important person in existence….

Your customer.

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