by Todd Hyten

A Savile Row tailor shocks industry – starts a blog!

I love the story today on the front page of the Wall Street Journal about a hub-bub among Savile Row tailors. A “star fabric cutter,” Matthew Farnes, quit his job with his Savile Row firm nine months ago and decided to go … rogue. His business is run out of his house (shocking!) and he makes in-person visits for fittings (shocking!) and he started a blog (outrageous!).

As the WSJ article “Rogue Tailor Needles Savile Row, Gets Himself a (Law)suit” reports, his former employes is suing him (alleging typical breach-of-contract issues). He also uses the word “bespoke,” which the established Savile Row tailors claim is tantamount to heresy if you’re not a business physically located on Saville Row and belong to a specific tailor’s organization.

I’m not so much interested in the controversy over the legal issues as I am in the fact that one talented person decided to make his business personal and he can be found on the web thanks to his blog. See his blog here: Savile Row Artisan.

First, I applaud Mr. Farnes for his chutzpah. It’s hard not to like someone who is willing to strike out on his own and break their industry model.

Second: look at what a great job he does on his blog — and this guy’s a tailor? Here’s the lesson folks: you can learn a lot from his blog — and how a very small, sole proprietor business can do a blog.

Mr. Farnes blogs about info that his peers would find interesting (like a Cloth Club where members can offer input on cloth production); he mentions insider tips for suit buyers; he talks about suits he’s making, and comments on what makes them special; he even has a short video post about a recent visit to New York.

His topics speak to: his peers, his potential customers, existing customers — by demonstrating his knowledge of his area of expertise.

If you have a small business, you too should be demonstrating your knowledge and experience, and a blog is the best way to do that. Demonstrating knowledge builds trust, and these days, marketing is all about trust. Customers and clients make their choices based on many things, but trust is one of the “must haves.”

Mr. Farnes could also, of course, use a Facebook account and a Twitter account too (social media’s main “booster rockets”).

But good luck Mr. Farnes! Keep breaking down those barriers.

PS: Yes, I’m aware there are other Savile Row blogs – I was having a bit of fun in the headline, which plays off the theme of the WSJ’s headline.

08.06.10

by Todd Hyten

The 3 big lessons of tech blogs that succeed

Earlier this week I saw this post from Techcrunch that’s really kind of a bummer: Is anybody out there? Tech companies #fail at social media, says study by Steve O’Hear. The post mentions a “self-serving” report by a PR company that had some findings pointing to poor social media habits of UK tech companies. Among these was this whopper: 43% of brands had never replied to a single tweet (of the 50 studied).

Wow, that is bad news. Replying to tweets is about … customer interaction (eegads! hide the young IT specialists! there are customers afoot!). So if you’re using social media and not connecting to customers, there’s really no point in doing it.

Luckily I stumbled upon a great HubSpot post 10 Technology-Company Blogs to Model Your Blog After. There’s a list and links in the HubSpot post. Now of course blogging and Twitter aren’t the same, but a good company blog is a great way to boost customer interaction. I reviewed the list and few things jumped out at me about these blogs – some common traits that other tech companies can learn from.

Lessons from successful IT/tech blogs

1.) Be as “tech-y” as you want to be: In other words, don’t worry about being a Mr. Happy-and-sunshine corporate blogger. Be as specific and detailed on IT topics as you can be. Look at The Official Rackspace Blog for an example of how specific the topics are. They don’t shy away from the jargon of their indusry either. Look at the Juniper Networks’ community blogs too.

2.) Do not worry about length: If you are going to be talking to your IT and tech customers, glossing over details isn’t going to cut it. Many of these blogs are long by conventional blog standards. Why? Because the tech bloggers are demonstrating their knowledge, which is the same as building trust. Don’t be skimpy. Look at the length of this excellent blog post by Hu Yoshida at Hitachi.

3.) Let your people blog — as many as possible: Another trait of good tech blogs is that they let employees have a platform — and often many of them. Juniper Networks has 4 different blogs but inside each blog are posts by many employees. In fact, the number of individual posts by different bloggers is staggering. To see real staggering number of bloggers, just look at IBMers’ Blog where you can scroll through the entire alphabet to find bloggers. That’s an extreme example, but the lesson here is key: to demonstrate deep knowledge you need to let many minds blog.

One huge exception to the above rules is this blog: Blogs.sun.com – an old Oracle blog space now owned by Sun Microsystems. According to HubSpot’s Blog Grader too, this blog ranked #1. This is an example of content curated site. Someone is assembling all the best blog posts and articles found on the web into one page. I mentioned content curation as the “high ground” of tech marketing in this post recently. I still think it’s a great strategy, and if you want to find out more about content curation, go to the Curata .

08.04.10

by Todd Hyten

The Boston Seaport Hotel: An example of easy social media marketing

A couple of months ago I attended one of Mashable’s Social Media Day tweetups as the Boston Seaport Hotel. It was the first time I’d attended an event there and after I got there I realized why the social media savvy types chose that hotel. The function room was beautiful with a panoramic view of Boston Harbor across seen through expansive glass walls.

It wasn’t until later I went to their and found their Twitter and Facebook accounts. They do a good job of simple social media marketing. You’d be surprised how many hotels (and even luxury condo developments) don’t do social media marketing.

The Boston Seaport Hotel on Twitter: This is a textbook example of how easy it is to get a much-followed popular Twitter account. The account has 1,799 followers and their messaging is simple and direct marketing. What do you want when you visit a hotel Twitter account? You want to get the “flavor” of the place.

They have this in spades: you’ll see they are promoting their restaurant; they are promoting their memory foam and other pillows from their “pillow library” (with a link to their amenities web page); they are announcing food specials at their bar, TamoBar (which has its own Twitter page too). The point is – you get a sense of activity and hospitality.

The Boston Seaport on Facebook: This is still what I’d classify as a “plain vanilla” Facebook page, but it is active and fun. You’ll find photos of prepared dishes by a new chef here. They post photos from guests who’ve held wedding receptions as well. And they are generally “chatty” about company news. The page only has about 526 fans, so it’s not like they are a runaway train on Facebook. But their page does show what you want to see — their “Info” tab features a detailed list of hours of operation for their restaurant, bar and fitness center.

There are a few things they could do to make their social media really shine. For instance, their Twitter page could use a custom background (like a high-res picture of the hotel or view of Boston Harbor from a function room). I’d also add an info box on that custom background too (some description, details of amenities, phone numbers, etc.).

They could also use a custom landing page for their Facebook page — one built with static FBML, which can make a Facebook page look like a web page. This is a “clean slate” on which they can do anything. Hotels should really be giving their visitors an “oh wow” moment when they land on Facebook. For example, look at what the Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group do on their Facebook landing page.

But still – the Seaport Hotel does a great job, and it is proof that it’s not that hard to do social media marketing for a hotel.