Dale Carnegie once said, “A person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.”
We are constantly meeting new people, and the task of remembering the names of everyone you meet can seem daunting. But when you meet someone for the second time and can greet them by name-- it is one of the best ways to make a favorable impression and build a lasting relationship.
Here are some tips to help you win at the name game:
- Focus – You can only remember a name if you actually hear it. If you aren’t paying attention, you won’t register the person’s name and you can’t possibly remember it. Focus on paying attention to the person’s name when you first hear it and forming an impression of that person.
- Repeat – When you hear someone’s name repeat it out loud as soon as possible. Repeating the name will help engrave it in your memory. Use it immediately, repeat it to yourself silently, use it occasionally in conversation, comment on it or use it when you leave.
· “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Jennifer”
· “What do you think of tonight’s event, Bill?”
· “It was great to meet you, Stacy. I hope to see you at the next meeting”
- Associate – Try to associate the person’s face with an image, sound or feeling the name suggests. If something doesn’t pop up right away, don’t worry, just by trying to associate the name you are reinforcing it in your memory.
· If you favor visual images, try creating an image linking the name to a physical characteristic.
o Mr. Hill – Imagine a small mountain on his large forehead.
o Archer – Visualize an archer firing a red arrow into Archer’s red hair.
o Chuck – Envision a duck sitting on Chuck’s head.
· If you are more comfortable with sounds, make a rhyme or song lyric associating the name with an observation about the person.
o Dave needs a shave.
o Jack has a strong back.
o Paul likes to play ball.
· If you prefer sensory feelings to remember, try linking the name to the impression the person gives you or to a reaction you have to the person.
o Paul Sheck is a pain in the neck.
o Paula is sweet.
- Ask – If you forget someone’s name or aren’t sure on the pronunciation, just ask them. It is much better to acknowledge your forgetfulness than call them by the wrong name. Asking shows you care.
· “I’m sorry I missed your name. Can you give it to me again?”
· “I’m sorry, but would you mind spelling your name for me?”
Remembering other people’s names is more than just good manners. It is good business, smart networking and the first step to building successful relationships. Next time you’re out meeting new people, try some of these tips and you will be sure to win at the name game.
Posted:
9/28/2010 10:49:35 AM by
Sarah Zomper | with
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Facebook may have decided to take some downtime yesterday, but the Digital Influence Weekly never sleeps…
Disney has announced a new campaign to solicit videos, photos and stories from those who visit their parks. This is obviously a fun idea as it brings people together with shared experiences – a key concept in social media. Many times, a client may think their service or product is hard to capture in a video or photo and may skip the idea altogether. Yet the History and Discovery Channels have had huge success by sharing experiences surrounding the lumber, fishing and trucking industries. Think to yourself, “how interested were you in these industries before someone made a show about them?” It goes to show you never know what you’ll be captivated by next. While someone is worried about how to promote their services in a social media setting, encourage them to tell the day-to-day or historical stories behind their company. What may seem ordinary and mundane to them, may be exciting to others when you can capture it visually.
Also, here's a pic of one our Pierponters we plan to upload.
Photo by Linda Block of Brian Block pre-beard.
On the flip side, we still need to be mindful of what can accidentally get out online…
General Motors recently side-stepped a potential crisis as an internal document asking employees
not to use the brand nickname “Chevy” was slipped to the public. They took immediate action to confront the issue and maintained their credibility and relationships the entire time. It got me thinking about another example I saw this week of information intended for one audience and then being distributed to another.
Photo and Tweet from May Forker
This local store must have had several instances of people coming in asking for donations. However, this sign designed for the foot traffic went digital when a photo of it was posted on Twitter with the message “Way to support your community.. this made me so mad for some reason.” We can learn at least two things from this:
1) Be nicer about how you decline sponsorship or donation requests. Give it a personal touch and the person you disappoint may still walk away as one of your biggest fans.
2) Make sure everything you do physically or on location is OK to be posted online. It’s out of your control which passers-by take a photo of what’s going on at your office.
Quick Summary:
Tell your story. Take pictures. Record Videos. Check your bad attitude at the door before you publicly respond to community requests.
Have a great weekend everyone!
Posted:
9/24/2010 2:48:36 PM by
Digital Influencer | with
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I am not sharing this theory with you because I studied it at UT, was brainwashed by my professors (just kidding) and have nothing else to write about. I am sharing it because it is a great tool when figuring out what channels to use when communicating to an audience. So prepare to let James E. Grunig, creator and master of the STP (Situational Theory of Publics, not Stone Temple Pilots), teach you how to apply this theory when deciding what medium best fits your publics, i.e. your audiences.
This STP theory divides people into three types of publics. To demonstrate how the theory works, I will use the following crisis situation as an example.
Crisis Scenario: Toy manufacturer accidently produced harmful toys.
Public #1 (Impacted by the crisis but not aware): Kids and parents who posses the toy and do not know it is harmful
Public #2 (Impacted by the crisis and aware): Kids and parents who possess the toy and know it is harmful
Public #3 (Impacted by the crisis, are aware and take action): Kids and parents who possess the toy, are aware it is harmful and take action against the manufacturer
All three audiences are similar – yet different. Choosing how to communicate to the parents in the different publics is crucial. The STP theory explains how to do this.
Since public #1 is not aware of the problem yet, they have not formed a negative opinion toward the manufacturer. As a result, announcing the news to them directly through a press conference could be a good idea. That way the parents would hear the manufacturer’s side of the story first, eliminating misunderstandings and negative perceptions the parents may have had if they first heard the story from someone else – or the press.
Since public #2 and #3 are already aware of the problem, negative perceptions toward the manufacturer probably exist. Being aware of this is beneficial -- now you know to change the way you communicate to these audiences. These parents may not trust the manufacturer, so the company must communicate to them through a channel they do trust. Using a local figure with a trustful interpersonal relationship with these parents might be the most effective way to talk to them.
Determining your audience categories helps you understand how to communicate with them. This helps you avoid wasting the wrong communication strategies on the wrong audiences. To learn more about this theory and how it can help with you communicate with your audiences, check out the book “The Future of Excellence in Public Relations and Communication Management.”
Posted:
9/23/2010 9:36:06 AM by
Sylvester Palacios | with
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McDonald’s saw a 33% increase in foot traffic at their locations using the location based social service Foursquare. For those not familiar with it, Foursquare allows you to “check in” at a location using a laptop or mobile device letting others know where you are. Many B2C companies use this to offer special discounts to those who participate. Of course, this poses the question, “do you really want people to know when you’re at McDonald’s?” Probably not this guy –
And now, on to the Digital Influence Weekly.
According to commercials, Gatorade is always training athletes in swanky labs while hooked up to heart rate monitors and drinking Gatorade. What they haven’t highlighted until recently in the
Wall Street Journal was their command central for social media activities. They have a special team and headquarters designed to monitor and engage those online talking about Gatorade 24/7. While they have seen great success in growing engagement, they’re not sure if it affects the bottom line. But with a company that large, can they afford not to at least monitor and engage? By doing this they have built up a base from which to assist not only marketing efforts, but media relations efforts as well. Should a crisis arrive, they are now well prepared to track it and respond accordingly.
Yesterday was the Interactive Strategies Conference at the House of Blues and it was a blast! Many of Houston’s social media/web development community came out to learn and share strategies and trends in interactive marketing. Famous cartoonist Hugh Macleod was our keynote speaker talking about how to create smarter conversations. You can view his notes on the topic
here, but here are few of his points from his site to wet your whistle:
1. In the seminal book, “The Cluetrain Manifesto”, the great
Doc Searls famously declared,
“Markets are conversations”. If you buy that premise (and I do, wholeheartedly), then
quod erat demonstratum, if you want your marketing to be smarter (i.e. more effective), you need to be having a
“Smarter Conversation”.
2. “Conversation” is a metaphor. Making your product sleek, elegant and graceful while all your other competitors make their product look cheap, plastic and clunky is a smarter conversation. Not all conversations need words.
One of the overarching themes of this speech and the conference was that we can be the ones who cultivate and lead smarter conversations. Rather than going with the status quo, we should figure out how we can change the way we talk to others. There’s no need to allow a conversation to remain in one particular format if we can create a better way to facilitate and fuel smarter conversations. I suggest you take a look at his notes.
Have a great weekend everyone!
Posted:
9/17/2010 12:57:56 PM by
Digital Influencer | with
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Communication today – whether we’re talking about public relations, journalism, advertising or just plain face-to-face conversation – is built on the principles of authenticity and transparency.
Out of these principles have sprung the wonderful new communication tools of social media and blogging. From a branding and search engine optimization perspective, Pierpont and many of our clients have found blogging to be invaluable. The idea that people do business with people they know still holds true, but what has changed is how current and potential customers get to know the people they do business with.
In addition to word of mouth from friends, colleagues, neighbors and family, people looking for goods and services now turn to the web to get to know companies before they buy. Frankly – most of the time they are checking you out before you even know they are interested in what you have to sell.
Hosting a blog on your company’s website is one of the best tools available for showing current and potential clients who your company really is and what it is like to work with you. A blog is your platform to talk about what’s going on at your company, what your perspective is on industry events, and to educate readers about key trends and issues that they need to be thinking about for their own success. In other words – it’s a free tool you can use to show everyone how awesome you are!
The big catch in taking full advantage of this platform is that you actually have to sit down and write keyword rich entries. They also have to be informative and interesting or you’ve defeated the purpose. Harsh but true. With that in mind, one of the most common challenges everyone faces is finding the time to sit down and write a good blog entry. When I was reminded that it was my turn to contribute to Pierpont’s blog I found myself thinking, “I really want people to know how smart I am but I absolutely don’t have time to write a blog entry.” But I discovered I was wrong – not about being smart, but about having time to write a blog- so in that spirit, I wanted to share some of our favorite tips for creating and maintaining an interesting, smart blog, while recognizing that everyone has a full plate of other responsibilities.
Don’t make it your fulltime job –share the wealth. There is no hard and fast rule that one person has to author and write every single blog post for a company. At Pierpont, we divvy up the entries so each person writes about once every two months. For us this has two major benefits, no person is overburdened with the writing and it has resulted in a good variety of topics covered on our blog. One note here, it is still important that one person coordinate all blog content. This makes sure that the tone is under control; topics are not repeated, etc.
Have a plan. In addition to breaking up the responsibility into manageable chunks, we also have bi-monthly brainstorms to generate potential blog topics. This means when its your turn to write you get a friendly reminder from the marketing team and a list of possible topics to help get you started.
Don’t make it harder than it has to be. This is simple advice can be VERY hard to follow. Yes. It’s your blog entry and your voice, but it also needs to represent your company and your brand and offer valuable content. But don’t feel like you have to find a topic that is completely original (writers will be able to relate to this common version of writers block). Look at what is going on around you to find inspiration.
Think about what your company is doing. For example, what events have you or a colleague attended recently that you can report back from? What issues are being discussed in your office? What challenges have you or a client recently faced and learned from? What interesting articles or books have you read recently? Mine all the content available to you. This will save time and the writing will come easier than if you start from a completely blank page.
Ask for help. Guest posts from clients and vendors are great sources of content. Like varying a blog’s authors, guest posts add new perspective to your blog and can offer expertise in broader areas.
Keep it short. This blog entry is about 800 words long and frankly that puts it on the long side. Don’t make your blog unmanageable by setting out to write 1,000 word posts on a regular basis. Shorter, more frequent posts with good tips and information are much more valuable to your readers than longer infrequent posts.
And with that you’re off to the races, and I’m back to work. Hope you find this helpful! Please share other tips you use to make your blog manageable.
Posted:
9/14/2010 1:24:27 PM by
Lindsey Donnell | with
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