Posts Tagged ‘Charleston’

Ashley T. Caldwell of The Modern Connection and I were invited to lead a Twitter workshop for The Center for Women. Live5 News in Charleston came over to talk to us about Twittercide and how to stay out of trouble.

Twitter is a great tool to help you connect to current and potential customers, just be careful what you say.

Within the last several days I’ve noted a number of new followers on Twitter (@cheryl_smithem) as well as many more #CHS (that’s twitter for Charleston, SC) followers.

I think we’re on a roll in Charleston with WCBD TV2 getting all their on camera and production/executive staff on Twitter. Jared Smith wrote a warm welcome tutorial for them and for all of us who’d like to learn more about the major tools on Twitter.

And with the Charleston Metro Chamber hosting a Web 2.0 seminar for their members, sleepy Charleston is cresting into the new age.

Many here are already tweeting away and you can find out what’s the latest to cheep about by searching Twitter using #CHS.

Even though my 22 year old son does not get Twitter, many journalists do. You can find who at Business Week is using Twitter and many other major publications such as the New York Times.

In order to share your news with these publications, follow first, learn their personalities and then when appropriate you can possibly even tweet a story idea. However, make sure to develop a relationship with all you follow and add to the conversation. On Twitter it gets pretty boring when all you do is promote your company and products. Try to befriend and assist. Share resources. Be transparent about who you are. But remember the twitterverse is live and what you tweet lives on.

Be sure to follow me @cheryl_smithem

Photo courtesy of flickr’s Creative Commons and nagillum

Charleston is a wonderful region in which to live and do business. A new website in our area asks what inspires us–that is those of us who live and work in our region.

My comments were submitted and I was selected a winner in the contest that they had to stimulate entries. There are so many wonderful stories posted–from so many different types of area residents. There is such incredible vibrancy in our area. I’m happy to live here.

Thanks Charleston Inspired!

Just as Justin Nathanson’s amazing rage against death/circle of life film was spooling out, I got the back of neck tingle that I associate with hitting my creative stride/sweet spot. I realized just how happy I am these days consulting with great clients; sharing what they are doing with the rest of the world.

Pecha Kucha Charleston took place on Wednesday evening at Memminger Auditorium. The gathering reflected almost every creative art that I know of. I saw friends, some of whom are poets, painters, architects, graphic designers, software engineers and web developers, chefs and musicians eagerly chatting and chowing down on the tasty bites from the super talented Trident Technical College’s Culinary Arts program.

It was clear that there is much energy and joie de vivre when creative types mix brains and cocktails or in this case beer. We all work in silos, separated, and apart. Events like Pecha Kucha bring us together, out of our studios, out from behind our monitors, away from our blank white sheets of paper to cross-pollinate and believe that our creativity will change the world.

I am really into Twitter. Searching for interesting Charleston people to follow, I have come across the most creative, well written folks who have just incredible websites. One blog that just is real, honest and well written is Thatsathought. She’s a stay at home mom and photographer. Her writing is funny and insightful.

Found Slant Media whose site starts up in dynamic flash with the classic, Percy Faith, (There’s a) Summer Place from the movie of the same name. I remember this all from my early years. It takes me so far back…I think I’m back in the ’60s. My mom in her dress, with her hats and gloves on Sunday. Makes me think of the radio on in all the houses I went to as a child. Elevator music was not a bad thing in those days.

Then there’s the great stuff that I’ve seen from other creative, inventive and wonderful folks. I’m lovin’ this 2.o life.

In a report last week someone stated local is the new green. And that makes more sense to me than all the stories of products made from sustainable goods. Local is the only way to go from my perspective. “Back in the day” each town was sustained by the work and goods of all the area’s residents and businesses.

A survey of closed businesses in the small South Carolina towns I drive through along U.S. 178 tells the story. One can see shuttered local banks, local groceries, even cold storage facilities for homes where there were no deep freeze units (anybody remember that?) and local department stores. Few and far between are the open businesses that are strictly local.

I come from a family that owned Coca-Cola bottling plants in the South. We had plants in Dorchester and Allendale Counties, South Carolina and some in Missouri. The bottom of the bottles even had the town name on them from which they were produced. Today, you would be hard pressed to find a locally bottled Coke–they’re all regionally bottled by larger Coke bottlers–few to none are the local, family owned bottling plants.

The same goes for flour. Every region had flour mills and people purchased their own flour or took their wheat to be ground. Today in South Carolina there are a few left that make really great Southern soft wheat flour. The slow food movement is celebrating and promoting the development of opportunities to buy local, cook local, eat local. The rise of farmers’ markets in all areas shows us that there is a desire for locally produced vegetables, meats and other foods.

I believe that it’s the same for all business activities. In the advertising and marketing world, many feel that if it comes from a huge national company it’s credible. I believe that if it comes from a local strategic marketing firm that has “local knowledge” that the message can be more credible.

So, all you entrepreneurs and business owners who believe that going out of your own market to the bigger firms, ask yourself this, “Does that out-of-market-big-ad-PR-firm really know your town, your customers and your environment?”

For the last several years I have been an avid reader of PR Fuel. Recently its author Ben Silverman described his experiences with two parts of the hospitality world, specifically, hotels and restaurants.

Silverman lauded two managers, one from a boutique hotel and one from a fine dining restaurant who understand the short communication channel between online forums, blogs and sites such as TripAdvisor and Chowhound and one’s hotel, inn or restaurant. Specifically, he lauded the hotel manager for responding on TripAdvisor apologizing for customers’ bad experiences and then celebrated the restaurant owner who responded to an e-mail with a personal phone call to set up an evening’s celebration.

If more managers and owners would realize how important monitoring these forums is, the more who would see a dedicated customer group who acts like a loyalty club. I had a client who in the past when asked why he didn’t have a dedicated customer service rep (who followed up on results for tech service visits), “It’s too expensive.” My response is it’s too expensive not to! Why spend more and more dollars to acquire new customers when causing your current ones to delight in your service and recommend you is not only more sound but less costly? This isn’t a new idea, but a very old one. The jeweler I worked with 40 years ago provided free jewelry repairs, even it the piece didn’t come from his store…and guess where the customer went when they needed a new piece of jewelry?

When I was Director of Business Development for Maverick Southern Kitchens, I lead the team that created Maverick Collection, a fine dining loyalty program for the restaurants of the group. Not only is the loyalty program still around, but it’s still gaining members (after 7 years!) and is the best channel the company has to promote their special events and properties. People are loyal to those businesses who care about them and show it.

Everyone wants the best service. The fact that service is provided by humans means that sometimes we make mistakes. Standing up, apologizing, fixing the mistake and making sure the system is not broken or that this was just a one time glitch, will go a long way in keeping transparency and authenticity in your business.

Yes, sometimes you do have really difficult customers for whom nothing will ever go right and when you get one you are justified in firing them. Just make sure that when you do, you have tried everything you can to fix the situation. Don’t jump to a conclusion to fire the customer when your business is the side of the equation that isn’t balanced.

Today’s Post & Courier contains an article about the Gibbes Museum of Art’s resigning executive director. I posted a comment there that reflects my perspective on the arts today:

“Until the Gibbes Museum trustees recognize what many other museums have, that for the majority, entertainment is what causes people in our culture to part with money and not art from the past, we will not see increasing attendance. Museums, like symphony orchestras, are often relics of the cultures that established them. In order to continue to breathe, they need to take in the air of today. Mixing current art that has integrity, with what has come before gives relevance to the whole. It can create an interesting conversation, something that is entertaining and draws the people in. If I’ve seen Childe Hasam’s Green Gown 100 times (and I have and it is amazing and beautiful), I may not want to come back to see it unless it is allied with art whose perspective is now.”

I’m not always a fan of pop culture, but I am a fan of engaging people where they are now. And we in the U.S. aren’t part of a history of nurturing a love of the visual or performing arts. We all enjoy watching our children in the Christmas pageant or the school play, but other than that, we aren’t huge patrons of the arts. Gian Carlo Menotti realized that in the 1940s by producing his short two part opera The Telephone / The Medium on Broadway. He continued to do so for many years. Gian Carlo brought his art to the people.

Americans are generous with their money and time and if engaged will contribute, participate and enliven any dialogue. But most people less than 40 today, don’t care about art or music from one hundred years ago unless as was suggested in Moulin Rouge! it’s “Spectacular, Spectacular.” (And in case you didn’t realize it, Moulin Rouge is loosely based on La Boheme.) It’s painful for museums and symphonies. Look at how the circus was brought to the interests of today with Cirque du Soleil.

I love the concept of art for arts sake, but in these days of pay your own way, it’s important to realize that the world is a marketplace and unless you have a patron as did Mozart, Bach, or DaVinci, you will not be able to engage in the pleasures of art for arts sake.

The one area where we seem to support the arts and urge them forward is in our arts magnet schools. These schools are showing that when our children (read something we care about) are allowed to study the arts as an integral part of their curricula, they become engaged and their parents become engaged which leads to high achievement in school. But for heaven’s sake, please don’t “expose” them to art. Engage them in the arts.

Cheryl Van Landingham Smithem was executive director of the Charleston Area Arts Council from 1990-1995.