Tue 8 Sep 2009
Posted by Michael A. Charles under Uncategorized
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What’s happening on the other blogs?
Well, over in MyFrontSteps land, we just completed our big name change. A while back when we launched our Facebook app we decided to give it the name Homebook. That name only led to confusion. Now it’s just called MyFrontSteps. So much easier.
Also, on the Spokesmonster blog, I have some thoughts on health care reform. Really! …Well, no, not really.
Mon 24 Aug 2009
Posted by Michael A. Charles under Uncategorized
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As promised, we’ve begun to spend more time explaining what MyFrontSteps and StepRep are all about. We’ve got two blogs around here – the MyFrontSteps blog to explain things from the costomer’s angle, and this blog to deal with the service provider’s point-of-view – but there’s a lot of crossover, which is why you might want to check out this post.
Mon 17 Aug 2009
Posted by Michael A. Charles under Uncategorized
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You’re probably already familiar with this line attributed to the Philadelphia retailer John Wanamaker:
Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.
Hold that quote in your head for a moment while I relate an anecdote about Marshall McLuhan. You’ll remember McLuhan as the Canadian philosopher-cum-guru who coined the phrase “The medium is the message” and enshrined the distinction between “hot” and “cool” media (and had a cameo in Annie Hall).
In 1965 the journalist Tom Wolfe followed McLuhan on a speaking tour of America and watched him blow businessmen’s minds with his gnomic pronouncements on the future of the media. Wolfe describes one such encounter:
McLuhan is sitting in the Laurent Restaurant in New York with Gibson McCabe, president of Newsweek, and several other high-ranking communications people, and McCabe tells of the millions Newsweek has put into reader surveys, market research, advertising, the editorial staff, everything, and how it paid off with a huge rise in circulation over the past five years. McLuhan listens, then down comes the chin: “Well…of course, your circulation would have risen about the same anyway, the new sensory balance of the people being what it is…”
Here’s a scary thought. What if John Wanamaker was being overly optimistic? Maybe business owners should count themselves lucky if they can say with confidence that only half the money they spend on advertising is wasted.
Sometimes it’s possible to tell when advertising leads to a sale. Often it’s not.
Maybe your new radio ad brought in a dozen new customers, or maybe those customers would have found you some other way.
Maybe your business is booming because of that billboard you put up on Highway 11, or maybe it’s spillover traffic from that new Starbucks next door. Or maybe it’s word of mouth. Or maybe it’s…”the new sensory balance of the people”!
But what choice do you have? That’s the way advertising works, right? You pay for an ad, and you hope the increase in sales is greater than the outlay of buying the ad.
But what if there were another way to advertise?
What if you only had to pay after the fact, once the transaction had been completed?
What if your advertising dollars went directly to new customers…and the past customers who had referred them?
What if every time you closed a deal, it was broadcast on your customer’s Facebook page for all her friends to see?
You might think StepRep is just about managing your reputation. But that’s just one little part of our vision of changing the way businesses advertise.
We’ll be talking more about this in the coming weeks. Here’s a quick video that gives the broad outline.
Fri 31 Jul 2009
Posted by Michael A. Charles under Uncategorized
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On the MyFrontSteps Blog:
Used to be, the main page at MyFrontSteps.com wasn’t much to look at – just a bunch of links to other pages. I imagine it turned a lot of visitors off. They’d see this page that didn’t seem to have much going on and they’d say, “I don’t get it. Who are these MyFrontSteps clowns?”
Now a visitor to the main page should be able to get a better idea what MyFrontSteps is about – which, to reiterate, is connecting homeowners with experts that their friends trust and recommend. But there’s no point going into it here, because I just did a whole blog post about it.
(Or you can go try MyFrontSteps for yourself.)
On the Spokesmonster Blog:
Less consequential in the grander scheme of things, but still of possible interest, I recently had some thoughts on advertising, prompted by the new FedEx YouTube campaign starring Fred Willard.
Tue 30 Jun 2009
Posted by Michael A. Charles under Uncategorized
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Seems like these days I barely have time to absorb, blog about, and Twitter my excitement over the latest StepRep update before it’s shouldered aside by yet another StepRep update. Every two weeks or so they push out a new version. The changes are usually pretty small, but they make a big difference to usability.
Take this week’s improvements to the Customers tab. You may have been ignoring this tab because, if you live in an area without many MyFrontSteps users, the tab probably contained nothing but an empty page.
But now, there’s a handy filter that allows you to filter by location (city, state/province, or country) or by service category. It looks kinda like this:
So if, like me, you’re located in MyFrontSteps world headquarters – Saskatoon, Canada – and every day you’re inundated with Asks of questionable relevance, you can use the filter to focus only on the ones that interest you. Or, if you happen to be one of the five lonely StepRep users in West Virginia, and there’s no action in Charleston or Wheeling or wherever, you can flick the filter to Pennsylvania or Ohio or Kentucky and see what’s going on over there.
Other changes
We also spent some time styling the Homepage. Now when you respond to an Ask your identity will be visible to everyone. If you’ve uploaded a photo to your profile, your photo will appear right there next to your answer, with the word “Expert” underneath. What an ego boost!
Sometime very soon we’ll give you the option to make your replies anonymous to other service providers.
PS. If you have no idea what I’m rattling on about with this whole “Asks” business, you might want to read this post from a couple weeks back.
PPS. Or just log in to your account and check out the improvements.
Wed 24 Jun 2009
Posted by Michael A. Charles under Uncategorized
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It’s a bit risky to give your promotional cartoon a title like “Goin’ Viral” when it might not, in fact, go anywhere. But seeing as the cartoon is meant as a kind of meta-commentary on the concept of “viralness”, I think the title fits.
“Goin’ Viral” tries to explain, at the most basic level, what MyFrontSteps is about for consumers. As our CEO Brendan King says in the video, “MyFrontSteps connects homeowners with local experts that their friends trust and recommend”. Speaking to all you StepRep users out there – you’re the experts. As for the homeowners, they’re just starting to trickle in. Their numbers will be increasing soon.
If you’ve logged into your StepRep account lately, you’ve been seeing a steady stream of questions from MyFrontSteps early-adopters. We encourage you to get out there and answer them. Mix it up. Show everyone how smart you are. Maybe pick up some new business. StepRep is about building your reputation, and here’s a perfect way to do it.
Anyhoo, the cartoon’s over on the MyFrontSteps Blog.
Mon 22 Jun 2009
Posted by Michael A. Charles under Uncategorized
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The worst thing about the new “Asks” feature in StepRep is the torrent of bad puns it has unleashed around the office. I’ll leave it to your imagination.
The good thing is, these Asks seem to really be taking off. If you take a look at your StepRep homepage (which I discussed last week) you’re going to see a whole ream of questions from all over the world. (So far I haven’t spotted any from outside North America, but StepRep does have quite a few users in Europe, so I’m sure it’s just a matter of time.) Just now – mid-afternoon, Monday June 22 – I can see Asks from Boca Raton, Florida; Vancouver, BC; Arroyo Grande, California; and Weddington, North Carolina, among many other locations. Many of these Asks have multiple answers, both from local experts and from helpful folks halfway across the country. It’s pretty cool:
Now, since these Asks are just getting started, we’ve got the filter set pretty wide, which is why you’re seeing questions pertaining not just to your area of expertise, but to every area of expertise – and not just in your local area, but everywhere. In the near future we are planning to give users the ability to filter the stream themselves, so you can look at Asks from your state alone, or in your profession alone. Give us a little time and we’re gonna make this thing really cool. We’re on our way.
If you haven’t logged into StepRep for a while, maybe it’s time you checked it out again. There might be somebody out there who can use your assistance.
Wed 17 Jun 2009
Posted by Michael A. Charles under Uncategorized
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If you’ve recently logged into your account, you may have had a “What the heck’s going on?” moment. Instead of being popped right into the Reputation Monitor, as usual, you found yourself on a screen that looked sort of like this:
Mwuh? Wazzat? Where am I?
Don’t worry, you can get back to your comfort zone by clicking the orange Reputation Monitor button at the top of the screen. But while we’re here, let’s explore this new homepage you’ve landed on.
What you’re looking at is a feed of your most recent activity in StepRep. Right now that means you’re probably seeing all the latest stories that the Reputation Monitor has dug up. But as StepRep and the MyFrontSteps community continue to grow, those search results are going to be crowded out by other new stuff:
Trusts and Endorsements
As we keep on telling people, StepRep isn’t only about monitoring your reputation and managing your presence on Google and other search engines. It’s also about building your referral network by connecting with your customers, their friends, and your fellow service providers.
Whenever your network grows – when somebody adds you to their Trusted List or endorses your services – it’ll show up on your feed here on the homepage. You can see who you’re connected to by clicking the orange StepConnect button.
Asks
We could’ve called ’em “Questions”, but we didn’t want to pre-suppose how customers chose to use the feature. An Ask might be a question, a call for help, or a request for an estimate on a project. An Ask is an open discussion thread where anyone in the MyFrontSteps community can throw in their two cents.
Pictures can also be posted inline, so that customers can be more explicit about what they’re talking about: “Here’s my window – how much to have blinds installed?” That kind of thing.
If you click on the orange Customers button, you’ll see where these Asks are coming from. There might not be that many in your hometown right now – heck, there might not be any. But when you do start seeing Asks that pertain to your area of expertise, we hope you’ll take the time to respond to them. It’s a great way to connect with new customers and pick up business.
Pop over to StepRep and check it out.
Fri 5 Jun 2009
Posted by Michael A. Charles under Uncategorized
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Robert Scoble, Vanessa Fox, Alice Myerhoff (of Inman News) and Jennifer Pahlka (of Web 2.0 Expo) answer the question, “What have you done to make your house a home?“
Wed 3 Jun 2009
Posted by Michael A. Charles under Uncategorized
[2] Comments
Sometime over the last few days, while my back was turned, the developer guys pushed out a new version of StepRep. It’s hard to keep up with ‘em.
As usual, a lot of the changes will be invisible to slobs like you and me. But there are two big changes that I should draw your attention to:
Promoting stories to Faceboook
A couple weeks ago I alerted you to a workaround for getting your StepRep widget to appear on your Facebook profile. Now there’s a way to publish stories right into your Facebook stream.
Each story now has three options under “Promote”:
When you click on “Publish to Facebook” you’ll get a little pop-up asking for your Facebook credentials (unless you happen to be logged into Facebook already). Then you’ll have the option of adding a personal message to the story before it appears on your profile, where it will look something like this:
Interacting with members of the MyFrontSteps community
Most of our users probably don’t pay too much attention to the little orange buttons across the top of the screen, the ones that say “StepConnect” and “Referrals & Quotes”. That’s okay; so far there hasn’t been much to do on those screens except watch some Spokesmonster videos.
But if you click on “Referrals & Quotes” now you’ll see…well, depending on which city you live in, you might not see anything at all. But I’ll show you what it looks like for my hometown, Saskatoon:
Y’see, the table displays questions from folks in the MyFrontSteps community – specifically, from our new Facebook application Homebook. Click on the entries and you can interact with whoever posted the question. You can offer an answer, request more info, or post photos. Your replies will be visible but anonymous to other service providers, but the customer will be able to see who you are.
Right now when you visit this screen, the questions may or may not be relevant to your business; but as the action picks up in your town, we’ll narrow down the table so you only see questions related to your line of work.
This probably isn’t something you need to worry about right away. We’ll soon be adding a way to notify users when a potentially interesting question comes in. Just letting you know that, as always, there’s cool stuff coming your way in StepRep.
