"Cool" Companies

Do you work for a "cool" company?  Or maybe a "hip" organization?  Does your company culture promote a fun work atmosphere, give back to the community and make you feel like part of the family?  If it does, then you should be talking about it in your marketing - especially in your social channels.

I can think of many occasions where I gained some insight into the core fabric of companies I was doing business with or considering for a relationship.  Unfortunately not all of these insights were positive, and it affected my opinion and willingness to strike an agreement.  However - when I have learned of great cultures, happy employees or some just plain cool things that organizations did for their employees - I always felt more inclined to give them my trust.

If all you do is push your products through social media, relentlessly soliciting business from your followers, then you are missing a great opportunity to show off the kind of team you have - and earn some "warm fuzzy's" with prospective clients.

Image of the Day 3.27.2012

A few weeks back, Google ran this great print ad in the USA Today (Google Inc. 20, February 2012. Did You Really Mean Grizzly Pears? The USA Today, p.8b)  Of course we have all fallen victim to typos when using our favorite search engine, and Google has become very adept at deciphering our intentions.

As marketers, however, how adept are we at deciphering our target customers intentions when they are using search engines?  It is critical that we understand the language our customers use when looking for the products and services that we hope to sell them.  If you are stuck in the internal lingo rut, and aren't connecting with your customers on the web - step back and compare their keyword language with yours.  Google may know you didn't mean "grizzly pears" - but they probably don't know when your keyword list is full of internal jargon.