I’ve been looking at what’s going on with internet commerce these days and how folks are dealing with the explosion of websites, blogs and users. I’ve come to realize that for many practical reasons the cost of SEO (search engine optimization) has put it out of reach for many small businesses. It’s an overstatement to say that SEO is dead, but it is definitely dead as far as most small businesses are concerned. The good news is, we don’t need to do more than the basics SEO work to thrive because internet marketing has changed.

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I came across a recent article from a person who is a sales trainer (no names to avoid embarrassments and conflicts) and who seemed to have suddenly awoken to discover that consumers and businesses are no longer buying the way they used to buy. “Gosh,” I thought, “where the heck have you been?” On the other hand, the comments made the point that I and others have been making for over a year now – maybe close to two years, namely that things have changed and they aren’t coming back.

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I admit to feeling inadequate. It seems as though I’m supposed to be able to multi-task, according to what I’m told by many people and according to what I observe others doing. But I can’t really. I try sometimes, but it just doesn’t work for me. I am not interested in “chatting” if I’m watching a television show (I rarely watch TV, it’s got to be something of immediate interest to me). I get annoyed if I’m deep in the middle of a spreadsheet, writing a blog post or wrestling a PC problem to the ground and the phone rings. I can’t read and also listen to music or radio or podcast.

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For lots of reasons, I love my work. One of the reasons is that I get to address a wide variety of challenges in a wide variety of companies and industries. Yet, while the details and personalities are different, many of the issues boil down to being pretty much the same. This week, I was revisiting the issue of an executive totally frustrated with business forecasting. He was “losing sleep” over the feeling of helplessness at missing a forecast through no fault of his organization. It was causing major stress in his life.

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In part 1 of this series on Social Media Marketing I gave a brief overview of what seems to be going on in this young medium. In part 2 of this series, I walked through some of the tools that I’ve found to help me with managing the task of getting involved in Social Networking sites. Next, I’d like to share with you some of the additional tools I’ve found to help me manage the time involved. As I mentioned, I’m doing all this from the experience of a Novice. It won’t take you long to zoom past me once you get started.

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I’m sure it’s obvious from my last post on this topic, that I am definitely NOT and expert in Social Media Marketing. I am only interested in passing along what I’ve found so far. Also in that post, I mentioned I’d share some tools to help with Social Media. There are “tons” of them and they are growing everyday. So this post is not comprehensive by any stretch of the imagination. I’m sure that some of you will already find other tools as or more useful. My intention is to share with you what I’ve found so far and leave any “improvements” for future posts. After all, that’s what this is all about, right? Sharing useful information.

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I’ve been thinking about the Toyota “sudden acceleration” problem. Back in 1984 Charles Perrow published a book entitled “Normal Accidents: Living With High Risk Technologies” (ISBN 0-691-00412-9). Few lay people seem to understand the theory. A system accident is an “unanticipated interaction of multiple failures”[1] in a complex system. This complexity can either be technological or organizational, and often has elements of both. In today’s world, we are seeing complexity increase exponentially: from the cars we drive to the devices we use to listen to music or view video, and to the way we gather information and news, our world has become incredibly complex. That complexity in itself creates more complexity for us.

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My father insisted that if I didn’t get a college education I would suffer in life. I got the message. Dad also was quick to shake his head and mutter, “More college, more dumb,” when I did something he felt demonstrated a lack of common sense. He seemed to hold this duality of admiration for people with higher education (he was not able to attend college himself), and at the same time a bit of disdain for those same folks because they often had no “practical experience” or “common sense.”

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Part One listed four of seven things companies can do to retain their top talent without spending a lot or giving increases in compensation.

The first four from Part One are:

1) Verbal Praise

2) Achievement Awards

3) Learning and Development

4) Fun and Recreation Events

Each of these can be done at the department or company level. Each demonstrates a culture that rewards people for outstanding effort, provides a positive culture, and a culture that signals respect for the employee.

The last three are:

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I remember working with colleagues in Japan and marveling at how smoothly their business meetings went. It’s well known by now that the reason for that was almost every issue is resolved outside the meeting environment. The meeting is simply to give public voice to the decisions already made. No drama. No conflict.

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