• Nearly 2,000 visitors to my blog post (I’m not showing off, just showing how the incident stirred up a lot of local people)
• Some very heated comments on the blog, covering all opinions
• A write-up in the Shropshire Star and a brief appearance on BBC Midlands Today

Nothing from Tesco; more on that later.

And the lessons learned/to be learned?

For me:
1. If you stick your head above the parapet, you’re going to get shot at.
This came mainly from Tesco staff members directing comments towards me and others who commented on my blog, upset at the abuse they had received from Tesco customers during the gridlock. For the record, my original blog post was in no way directed at the Tesco staff, they should NOT receive abuse from customers under any circumstances, individual staff members had no control over the whole situation and it saddens me greatly that they received such torrid abuse.

2. The loyalty of Tesco staff
I’ve been amazed at how personally some of the Tesco staff took the negative press that came out, clearly a lot of them are very proud of where they work and in this day and age seeing that loyalty was great to see.

For Tesco:
1. Poor online customer service
I deal a lot with clients looking to use social media to enhance their customer service offering to customers. From the outside looking in, Tesco seem no different.

During the gridlock, I received 2 tweets from Tesco, then silence, which as a customer I found frustrating and disappointing on the day. Since then, other than asking for their postal address, I have received no tweets from Tesco despite numerous mentions from me (but they have replied to others replying to me and mentioning Tesco). If I’d been really rude or aggressive in my tweets, fair enough. But my tweets have been professional, measured and human.

Even if they’d responded by saying ‘we do not publicly comment on others blogs’ or ‘we have nothing to add to this, it has been referred to our customer service manager’, that would have been something. But by saying nothing leaves this deafening silence and a feeling that they just don’t care.

Furthermore, I posted my open letter/blog post on Tesco’s Facebook page on Sunday 5th. Not only did I not get a response, I notice it has disappeared. This I really do not understand. Go and take a look at some of the negative comments posted on that page (most of which get answered). My post was again professional, measured and asking for their thoughts. Deleting it tells me they don’t care or are wanting to hide from the situation….

2. No ‘human’ to send my complaint letter to
When I enquired who to send my letter to, I was told just to send it to the customer services department, not to any named individual. In a time where trust and knowing who you are dealing with is paramount, this is a massive fail for me and again makes me feel they don’t care and it’s going to go in the bin. I’m not saying that is what will happen, just how it makes me feels as a customer.

3. No public statements
Apart from a small paragraph sent to BBC Midlands Today stating that they were sorry and had offered tea and coffee to all customers (factually incorrect but I’ll let it pass), Tesco have not said a word publicly about what happened. Again I find the silence somewhat deafening. – do they not care, do they have something to hide and why on earth would they not at least put out a statement in defence of their poor staff who received such torrid abuse. Why should it be their staff that have to (generally anonymously) speak online about the abuse they received?

4. What happens next time?
The gridlock in the Tesco car park will happen again, it’s happened before many times. Can/will Tesco develop a contingency plan to ensure customers are safe and looked after or do they think their duty of care stops at the door to their store?

I can’t help feeling that if they took more proactive steps in the first few hours of gridlock before the accident occurred (e.g. Offering a cup of tea or checking those stuck were ok, effective marshalling, more effective signposting etc), they would have nipped a lot of the abuse suffered by staff in the bud (not all of it, I’m not unrealistic, sadly there will always be those who feel it is acceptable to abuse staff, whatever they are offered).

I, and many Telford residents, would like to know if they have a contingency plan or whether they are considering developing one.

By the council:
1. Good online customer service
I have to congratulate Telford & Wrekin council for being the only affected party who I contacted on Twitter to respond immediately to thank me for my open letter and to me it had been passed on. Of course I have no idea if they did or not, but the fact they responded at least gives me hope.

2. Site access
A lot of the debate on my blog post and on a LinkedIn discussion have centred around access to the site and why there isn’t a relief road or something else being done to improve what is known to everyone locally as an awful bottleneck. I truly hope that what happened last week at least restarts the debate between the council, Tesco and the retail park. I understand that Tesco has campaigned for a relief road which is great to hear, but the council ultimately refused it. It would great to get a statement from the council as to whether this access issue is back on the agenda.

By the general public:
1. Heed the weather warnings
We all knew it was going to snow. I’m sure many people, like me, felt they had essential journeys to make but undoubtedly a lot of people could have avoided the traffic problems by just staying at home. One day, maybe, we’ll learn to listen to the warnings we receive.

2. Prepare for cold weather
If you do go out, follow the AA’s advice as to what to take with you and what to do in case you get stuck.

3. Don’t be an idiot
I’ve heard countless tales of dangerous driving, running red lights etc when the gridlock happened. Seriously, not good. Treat others as you would want to be treated and don’t break the law!

4. Stand up and be counted
If you are unhappy about the access issues on the site, or the way you were treated by any of the retailers on the Retail Park, get in touch with the council, the retailers and your local councillor. Poor service and local issues can get changed if there is enough voice behind it.

So, there you go, my thoughts a week on – I’ll be sending off my letters to interested parties this weekend. Not to have a rant but to offer a customer’s and local residents’ perspective on something that went badly wrong.

TTFN
Jan

Image from afiftabsh.com

Whilst a number of reasons contributed to it, including fast falling localised snow and traffic accidents, my main issue was the almost complete lack of planning and customer service from Tesco when the snow and the gridlock started. Below is an open letter to Tesco which details my story, what went wrong and suggestions as to what should have happened:

Please note that any calls and tweets made by me were done when my car was stationary with the engine turned off, as it was for most of the 4 hours. I was annoyed and frustrated, not stupid

“To whom it may concern

Yesterday was a bad day, for me, hundreds of other poor souls and your Wrekin Retail Park store in Telford. Let me explain…

1pm – I arrive at Wrekin Retail Park, Telford. The traffic is heavy and it’s started to snow a little. No surprise the traffic is heavy; this Retail Park has long been a bottleneck, especially at a weekend. As I enter the Tesco car park at the bottom of the Retail Park, I note it is almost full and getting gridlocked, again nothing I haven’t seen before here. I consider turning round but I think of my 2 poorly sons at home and I want to buy them something nice for tea and need some more medicine, so I park.

1.43pm – I finish my shop and head back to my car – I’m confronted with total gridlock in the car park, every access lane is rammed bumper to bumper. My heart sinks. I consider going back in the store until it gets better but I want to get home to my boys, so I get in the car.

2pm - I manage to reverse out of my car parking space – I started at 1.45 as someone kindly left me room but the gridlock was in full flow so I couldn’t move. Now I’m in the gridlock I cannot move or park my car, so I cannot go into the store or leave my car.

I call the Tesco store (obviously I can’t talk to the store itself, god forbid, it’s a regional customer service centre) and advise them to stop traffic coming into the Tesco car park due to the gridlock. I’m promised this will be passed on to the store immediately and the man I spoke to was perfectly polite and helpful.

About 90 minutes later, traffic is finally stopped entering the car park (not sure if someone actually stopped it or if it was due to the lorry crash – see below) – strangely enough the damage is more than done by then…

For the next 90 minutes I move about 25 metres and I see 2, and finally 4, Tesco staff in the car park, they were doing a lot of chatting, moved a few bollards and that was all I saw. The staff did not talk to people trapped in their cars, or suggest they go back in the store, or in fact, anything.

I, and a few other people trapped in the car park, contact our brilliant local radio (@BBCShropshire) to let them know to tell listeners to avoid the Wrekin Retail Park area at all costs. As far as I heard/am aware, Tesco, or any of the other stores, did not – too busy at the tills?.

3.15pm I hear on the radio that there has been a large accident just outside the retail park, which means everyone in the retail park is now properly trapped. I’ve also heard the M54 just up the road is down to 1 lane (and then gets shut, exacerbating the problem further).

3.45pm I find and contact the Tesco twitter customer service account, @UKTesco, to suggest there was a lack of contingency planning. The plus side is they replied within 15 minutes and apologised, the negative is I was told there were staff out in the car park and free hot drinks in the cafe. 4 intermittent staff who clearly had no plan to what they were doing (and 1 of whom felt the need to swear at me when I didn’t move my car forward 20cm instantly – to be fair had I been in his shoes, I may have done the same).

Oh, my car was GRIDLOCKED – if I had gone into the cafe for my free cuppa, I would have had to have abandoned my car, making matters even worse for those behind me. Oh, and I knew there was free hot drinks because I’d found the Tesco twitter account and got in touch, 99% of those trapped had no clue because NO-ONE told them.

I don’t know if Tesco had any legal duty of care to make sure those stuck were ok, but surely there is a moral duty of care - would it have been so hard during the 3 hours that I, and many others, were within their car park to send a member of staff to each car, let them know there was an accident blocking the exit, that they could park if safe to do so and get a drink in the cafe, or better still take drinks out to those who couldn’t leave their cars? Is customer service totally dead at Tesco – sadly, I think so.

4.50pm - I finally crawl out of the Tesco car park and now just need to get out of the retail park and drive the 3 miles home. I arrive home 45 minutes later. The driving conditions around the retail park exit were absolutely treacherous, which would have been avoided if the initial gridlock had not been allowed to get as bad as it did. Never have I been so glad to get home, my nerves were shredded.

I’m not pointing the finger of blame entirely at Tesco; however, ineffective/non-existent emergency planning by Tesco had a snowball effect. Everyone local knows that car park is a total bottleneck, I find it incredulous that Tesco do not have a plan in place for such a situation. My thoughts are:

• The car park itself needs one-way signage. When the gridlock started and the snow had covered the road markings, that’s when it all went wrong as everyone headed towards the exit in the middle of each lane, blocking all access. Effective marshaling with communication would also have made a massive difference and helped to calm those stuck.
• Tesco should be obligated to stop access to it’s store when such a gridlock occurs, cars should not be allowed in for up to 2 hours after, just appalling.
• A human touch, coming to tell those trapped to come back in the store or bring out tea and coffee to those trapped – the difference that would have made would have been massive.
• There needs to be a meeting between Tesco, Wrekin Retail Park, the Police and Telford & Wrekin Council to debrief what happened, what can be learned and changed to ensure this never happens again. There was talk a few years ago of another relief road from the M54 straight to the Tesco car park – can’t help feeling someone out there must be kicking themselves….yesterday was proof of why that is needed, more than ever.
• BBC Radio Shropshire tried to contact all the stores on the retail park, all were directed to a regional/national head office – have national retailers lost the ability to communicate at a local level, just to save costs? If local radio can’t inform it’s listeners about what is actually going on, what’s the point?!

 
Thankfully, I had Twitter to keep me sane and I must say a massive thank you to everyone who virtually kept me company, kept me informed and entertained during the whole afternoon (you know who you are). A great example of Twitter doing good and proving invaluable information. I pity all those trapped who didn’t have access to such real time information and virtual company. Also I pity those who had kids in the car, I cannot imagine how terrible an ordeal it would have been if my boys had been with me.

I really hope the powers at be at Tesco read this, this isn’t a rant, I’m actually trying to help to ensure this can never happen again. I also hope Tesco apologises. The second and only tweet I received from @UKTesco informed me the gridlock was all due to the lorry accident near the retail park. As you can tell from the above, that is poppycock – take responsibility for your poor planning and poor duty of care to your (maybe no longer) loyal customers.

Finally Tesco, if anyone trapped there yesterday actually still wants to shop at Tesco in the future, compensation for them would be more than appropriate.

I look forward to your response.

Yours Sincerely

Jan Minihane (an ex-Tesco shopper)”

I would love to hear others thoughts – were you there or affected by it? Do you think I’m being too harsh? And for local people, is it time Telford & Wrekin council put the traffic pressures around Wrekin Retail park back on their agenda?

If you’re still reading, I thank you for taking the time and please share it – keep warm and safe everyone!

TTFN
Jan

Image from www.retailing.com

I was thinking of having a few months off from organising but then I received a very generous offer from Grays Hotel in Telford town centre (just off J.5 of the M54) to use their facilities on a temporary basis.

They have a terrific room for us to use – it’s between the main bar and the pool/snooker room (see left), bangs goes the work productivity Oh and they show the football live and it’s curry night on a Wednesday…need I say more? There is plentiful free parking also.

There will be space initially for 20 attendees, no charge as always for a Jelly event in terms of free space and wifi. You will be able to buy your lunch (from £4.75) and get tea and coffee at a special rate of £1 per cup.

Telford Jelly will continue on 3rd Wednesday of the month, so the first one will be on Wednesday 18th January 2012.

As always, you need to reserve your space so head on over to Eventrbite to book.

See you there Jellyers!

Jan

The aim of these workshops is to provide advice and hands on training to allow businesses and organisation make sure they are maximising their return from Social Media, or get going with how to use it effectively, while applying a healthy dose of reality in terms of what is achievable in our busy lives.

Each session stands by itself (but obviously we’d recommend you come to as many as you can to get the most benefit for your business!). All the details for each workshop is available on the Shropshire Chamber via the links below:

Jan 25th 2012 – Auditing your Online presence for enhanced return

Feb 1st 2012 - Using LinkedIn proactively to develop quality business leads – SOLD OUT

Feb 7th 2012 – Using LinkedIn proactively to develop quality business leads

Feb 22nd 2012 – Setting up a Facebook Business Page

Feb 29th 2012 – Advanced Twitter: Using Twitter to find & engage with your target market

Mar 7th 2012 – Advanced Facebook: Using Facebook to build your Online presence

Mar 13th 2012 – Blogging: How to optimise your Blog content for better engagement

Mar 21st 2012 – Latest Social Media developments & top tips for Online Marketing success

Please note that session 1 and session 8 are interactive workshops, sessions 2 to 7 require a laptop to get the most out of the session, if you do not have one or cannot borrow one please let Shropshire Chamber know at the time of booking and we will do our best to ensure you have one.

If there are other workshops you would like to see me do, please let me know in the comments below and I’ll see what we can magic up

Hope to see you at the workshops soon….

Jan

I’ll explore here why businesses do it, what’s wrong with it and the benefits of using a business page. I’ll cover using Facebook groups in a separate post.

[NOTE: I'm not talking about one-man bands/small businesses who are themselves on Facebook, I'm talking here about personal profiles being used with a business name, not a person's name]

Why are businesses using personal profiles on Facebook?

1. You don’t understand Facebook and set it up as a personal profile in error – I like to give people the benefit of the doubt and some genuinely have no clue.
2. You think it will be easier to collect ‘friends’ than ‘likes’ – to a large extent, they are right. On average we have 130 friends on Facebook but only ‘like’ 10 Facebook pages on average.

So what’s the problem then?

Either way, you need to understand that they are violating Facebook’s T&C’s. As a result, Facebook can [and have] suspend you from Facebook with immediate effect which means the businesses lose their loyal fan base in one fail swoop – oops…., bet you didn’t write that part into your online marketing risk analysis eh….

What’s so special about business pages?

There’s plenty already written about the many benefits of a Facebook page, including:

1. Facebook advertising – you need a page to do advertising on Facebook, it’s growing in popularity and is a very useful tool to have in the marketing toolbag for most businesses.
2. Insights & analytics – why are you using Facebook (or any other social media site for that matter) if you’re not tracking the success and impact, or otherwise, of what you are doing?
3. Added functionality – you can offer a better user experience by adding plugins/apps to your page such as surveys,
4. Multiple admin function – for many businesses you have a team operating the page.
5. Welcome tab – you can make your page have the same look and feel as your website which offers a seamless online experience & a welcoming effect.

Eek! So I need to convert my profile to a page, what do I do?

Go to the Facebook help pages here and follow the instructions – just note that:
- your ‘friends’ will become ‘likes’
- your profile picture(s) will be carried over
- your content will be LOST so be sure to download a file of anything important as you’ll have to build the content up by scratch

Don’t risk Facebook closing you down and undoing all your hard work – convert now and reduce the risk to your business.

Do you see personal profiles being used as pages? Does it bother you? As always, I’d welcome your thoughts….

TTFN
Jan

I decided to run a quick poll to test the water of whether, if it was easy to take your friends with you, people would jump ship. I posted it as a Facebook poll but pointed to it from all my social media presence to make it as fair as possible. The results are intriguing:

Yes: 15 votes (52%)

This one surprised me, I thought those vehemently annoyed with Facebook was a small majority, apparently not! I think it shows that a lot of people are starting to feel trapped on Facebook, they don’t like a lot of the changes but don’t have the energy or enough inclination to try to start again at the moment. Google+ should take heart from this.

No, I want accounts on both: 8 votes (28%)

I wonder if this number is fairly high due to that fear factor or feeling ‘left out’ or ‘left behind’ or thinking they have to be everywhere? Managing multiple accounts is increasingly problematic to do well as you need to find a new context, style & message for each one to work well, otherwise you’re duplicating not innovating.

Depends on what the majority do: 4 votes (14%)

This result also intrigued me – if there is enough buzz about a new site or enough people do the same thing, the ‘pack’ mentality comes out. For Google+, this is key that there is enough buzz on a continuing basis to make users feel everyone is moving over.

I’d rather move to Diaspora: 1 vote (3%)

The Diaspora blog says that this is an open-source and distributed community of social networks run by users that enables you to own your own personal data, control with whom you share, and discover cool stuff throughout the Web.

It looks spookily cose to Google+, but you’re in total control, if it gets the press it could be a very valid alternative to Facebook due to handing control back to the user. I’ve heard some great things about it already and I’ll certainly be trying it out!

What’s Google+: 1 vote (3%)

As big a brand as Google is, yes there are still some people who don’t realise that Google+ is the new big social network on the scene – 45 million users and growing in just a few months (knocking the spots of Facebook and Twitter’s initial growth – Google+ has benefited from launching when the world is more social media savvy and it being one of the biggest brands isn’t a bad thing).

No, I’d just stick with Facebook – 0 votes (0%)

Again, I was surprised, I thought there would be a few die hard Facebook fans out there (or maybe they were just less inclined to vote as they are happy with Facebook?).

Conclusion: As with all polls, you have to apply a heavy dose of salt as what motivates people to select one option over another can’t be fully captured but I think it makes intriguing reading, if Facebook don’t start REALLY listening to users instead of just imposing changes that they think users want (or at least add more ‘opt in, opt out’ features), they may live to regret it!

If you do want to move over to google+ and import your friends, you can do it via http://www.friendstogmail.com/ (thanks to @liveflex for that link!).

What are your thoughts, I’d love to know?

TTFN
Jan

I’ll also discuss how you can make the most of connection requests you receive.

Inviting people the right way

Hands up if you’re fed up of apparent “friends” wanting to connect on LinkedIn who use the standard “I’d like to add you to my professional network” garbage but for the life of you you don’t know who they are?

It’s my single biggest gripe on LinkedIn – if you’re going to connect with someone, whoever it is, make a blinking effort eh! So rather than using the pre-populated “I’d like to add you to my professional network”, try “Hi Bob, I was reading your profile with interest and I see we both escaped the big smoke a few years back, would be great to connect on here.” or “Hi Sam, long time no speak, you’ve sure done loads with your career since we worked together! How are you? Would be great to connect on here.”

The difference is if you ask a question or at least make some effort as to why you want to connect, there is more chance they will accept and engage with you - this social media malarky is all about developing relationships isn’t it? 

And if you have to choose ‘friend’ as the reason why you know someone but you don’t know them, make light of it when you send them the connection request so they know you’re not trying to assume you’re friends.

And the one trick most people miss when accepting a connection request?

Do you accept a request, if it’s from someone you want to connect/looks interesting and do nothing with it? OOPS – you should (pretty much) always send a message to them, from a simple “thanks, great to connect” to a “thanks so much for the connection request, I see from your profile that…”. Don’t sell, just ENGAGE and if you can, ask a question to get the conversation going! You’ll be amazed where those conversations can take you.

Overal, just remember, zero effort = zero return.

Do you have any stories where you’ve developed a lead from making a good connection request (or any disaster stories)?

TTFN
Jan

Those that do use LinkedIn proactively don’t always respect the unwritten etiquette of LinkedIn.

This blog post will address the most common grumbles I hear about LinkedIn group users.

What are LinkedIn groups?

Groups are online forums, usually based on geography (e.g. Shropshire Business group) , industry (e.g. Social Media Today group) or business sector need (e.g. FSB group). Wherever you live and whatever your business, you will more than likely find useful ones for you and your business. Anyone can set one up (they become the moderator) and they can be open or members-only.

How can they benefit me and my business?

Give – contribute to discussions where you add your professional or personal opinion on issues, relevant to your business or not. Join groups where your target market hang out! The result: raise your profile locally or in your industry.

Take – join industry groups and see what your peers and/or your target market are talking about. Invaluable insight and you can keep up to date on what’s going on in your industry.

Top 10 ways to disgruntle other LinkedIn group users

1. Starting discussions that are a blatant business plug and not intended to engender discussions e.g. Putting your latest blog post as the discussion title with a link through – that should just be an update on your profile, not a LinkedIn group discussion! One group I contribute to quite regularly is going down this path and it’s a slippery slope.

2. Contributing ‘too much’ – I’m all for encouraging contributions on LinkedIn, but too much and you start to look like you’re monopolising the group and I always wonder why you have so much time to contribute all the time – no work maybe?

3. Being aggressive/generally unprofessional – I’ve seen a few humdingers where someone’s passion for what they offer and think everyone should do loses its emotion online and ends up looking rude or aggressive. Always think and review before you post a reply!

4. Posting events as discussions – there is an events tab in each group – use it!

5. Posting job opportunities and other promotions as a discussion – again, there is a promotions tab for that – please use it. Keep discussions as discussions, not any other news!

6. Contributing to discussions with a direct marketing hat on. Being generous on LinkedIn works -give your help/advice freely, you don’t need to say you can fix there problem if they just give you a call, they can easily check out your profile and see that for themselves, don’t ram it down their throats. If you’re seen as a helpful contributor you will benefit from a raised profile, if you’re seen as marketing all the time you won’t, it’s that simple.

7. Only contributing to discussions relevant to your industry/expertise – I’ll caveat this one by saying if you contribute to an industry group then fair enough! Otherwise, be social (remember, this is SOCIAL media); contribute mon general business discussions, have a balanced approach if you want to be seen as a valued contributor.

8. Using text speak or poor language – if you wanted to be taken seriously a a professional, you need to adjust your tone from what you use on twitter/facebook. LinkedIn is very business focused, make sure your language and tone reflect that – that’s not to say you shouldn’t show your personality!

9. Not using a good title – e.g. don’t call your discussion ‘Mobile Marketing’ – that’s not a discussion question that’s a statement. Call it ‘Are you using Mobile Marketing yet in your business?’ – readers are busy and lazy, use a ronseal approach to get them interested. You have 200 characters – use them.

10. Not using the ‘add more details box’ - often 200 characters to initiate a discussion is hard so use the extra details box to add more flesh to your question bone, ask more questions, add a link to a relevant article (not to your website preferably!).

LinkedIn can be a very powerful tool for many businesses as long as you know how to use it proactively and then commit time to it on a consistent basis.

Did I miss any pet peeves on groups use? Add them below!

TTFN
Jan

Is someone annoying you or hassling you on Twitter?

Not sure how to block someone?

I’ll take you through the basics of what blocking someone means, when you might want to do it and how you can do it. We’d all rather live in a world where we never had to do it, however….

1. How do I block someone?
As with all Twitter things it depends which tool you are using – I’ll just cover twitter.com and Tweetdeck here:

Twitter.com – click on a followers user name and then click on the silhouette icon on the right-hand side of the screen. You can now either block (click on ‘Block JanMinihane’) or block and report the user for spam (click on ‘Report JanMinihane for spam’)

Tweetdeck – click on a users picture, highlight the cog (other actions), click user, then click either ‘block’ or ‘block & report spam’.

2. What are the consequences of blocking someone?

I’m all for not reinventing the wheel, so this Twitter help section gives you the low down on the impact – the headline is that really, a block is not a total block (and Twitter really should find a way to make it more categoric). There is also a handy section on blocking & reporting spam.

3. Why would I block someone?

The main reason is usually because they are pestering you: personally I’ve not had this problem (I obviously live a sheltered life!) but I know others who have, unwanted admirers, ex-partners etc. Either they keep tweeting you incessantly or for reasons unknown to you become abusive and rude.

There is a great article here on 10 Reasons NOT to block someone.

4. Why would I block someone and report them for spam?

They are Spambots – and I block a lot of them – you know the ones who as soon as you put out a tweet with a certain word in, e.g. iPad, you get autofollowed and a tweet offering a competition to win, guess what, an iPad. These usually have very random usernames and rarely a picture.

There is more here on the Twitter support pages about what classifies as spam.

5. What about if someone’s tweets annoy me but I’m worried about their reaction if I unfollow them or block?

If you use Tweetdeck (and a host of other twitter tools), there is a handy ‘Global Filter’ tool via ‘Settings’ (the spanner in the top right of the screen), where you can filter out tweets from a person, a source (eg. autoposts from Facebook, Foursquare) or that contain certain keywords or hashtags. This is such a handy little tool sometimes.

Otherwise my advice would be to just unfollow them as unfollowing seems a lot less drastic and final. If they don’t like it, ultimately that is there problem, not yours!

Either way, don’t let the odd user on twitter detract from your enjoyment of it, as we all know it’s a wonderful place to be

Have you had to block anyone, and why?

TTFN
Jan

Image via Squidoocool

Every tweet is logged and searchable on Twitter, so why not use this function to go and find your ideal customers (remember, as consumers, we’re lazy, we expect you as a business to come to us).

I’ll use an example of a restaurant in shropshire wanting to raise it’s profile and find customers.

1) Do a keyword analysis – what kind of words would someone put in a tweet that would make them your target market?

e.g. shropshire restaurant, shropshire dinner, shropshire lunch, shrewsbury dinner – you get the picture…

2) Set up some twitter searches using these keywords and save them (either in twitter.com or the likes of tweetdeck)

e.g. “shropshire restaurant” OR “shropshire lunch” (brings back tweets that contain both Shrpshire and restaurant OR Shropshire and lunch) or restaurant near:shropshire (brings back tweets that contain the word ‘restaurant’ from anyone tweeting near shropshire)

To set up searches:

Within twitter.com – type your search into the search box, if you like the tweets that come back click ‘save this search’ then you can access it agin within the ‘searches’ tab on the homepage.

Within search.twitter.com (twitter’s own search engine) – type in your search parameters and it will show you the results within twitter.com

Within twitter clients – each client has it’s own process – within e.g. Tweetdeck, click on ‘+’, enter your search term, click search and review what comes back.

This is the part that takes time, time to work out what searches bring back useful tweets. Don’t forget when you are searching by an exact phrase that you need to use speech marks: e.g “shropshire restaurant” will bring back tweets that contain that exact phrase, whereas just searching for shropshire restaurant will bring back any tweet with those 2 words in it somewhere.

3) Review your searches and see which bring back good results (there will be plenty of noise to work through so this is the bit that takes work) and scale down your searches to a manageable number.

4) If there’s a lead, follow that person and then THINK about how/if you want to approach them. The original tweet will dictate whether it’s appropriate to just follow them or whether to tweet something to? If you do tweet something to them, ideally keep it very light and not too “we’re brilliant, use/visit us”. An example:

Tweet: Can anyone recommend a nice restaurant for a birthday celebration near Shrewsbury?

Action: follow them, possibly tweet them, say you saw their tweet, you know you’re biased but you think you’d be perfect? (And consider a discount/incentive e.g. free bottle of wine if they mention the tweet).

Often just following them, engaging with them on a human level will work just as well – remember you’ll sell on Twitter by not selling.

5) Review your searches as often as you can and the leads will be there for the taking…..

By the way, as with all Social Media, if you’re going to do this and want to see the return, do it properly and spend time setting up the right searches for your business – there are no real shortcuts to success but with some work up front you will see a return!

Hope that’s useful to you!
TTFN

Jan