Conversation Agent - Valeria Maltoni

3 Reasons Why Your Brand will Have a Google+ Page

As I wrote a couple of years ago when FriendFeed was acquired by Facebook, there's a lesson in tools changing or disappearing for all of us who spend time with social media, interact with customers online, or guide corporate digital outreach. Here it is: We are playing in somebody else's yard. And we can be told to go home at any time. Social media is like sharecropping. Social media is not a replacement for traditional forms of contact with your staff and customers. Don't sacrifice one for the other. Social media is also not the answer to an ailing business... Read more →

Launching Business and Technology Trends Series

Many business executives in large organizations are quite busy focusing on their specific deliverable and industry, and seldom have the luxury of looking beyond the quarter. As well, startup founders are immersed in getting their product nailed and off the ground. Part of SmallServices℠ Reading the news together is one of the SmallServices℠ I provide to clients. Deconstructing and connecting the dots on technology (and business) trends and case stories, which contain a kernel of a trend (or more) already happened is something I do on a daily basis. Thanks to Google, I'm not experimenting also with a brand page... Read more →

The Impact of Decision Making on Your Business

Leave early or stay late? Wear a suit, or dress more casual? Keep that document on your desk, or file it in the pending folder? The number of decisions -- conscious or automatic -- we make every day is astounding, when you think about it. It becomes very complicated when our decisions intersect those of others. That's where the expression right place, right time comes in. Multiply all the other places (that may or may not be right) by the number of times (that may or may not be right) you're called to choose in social networks. What to post,... Read more →

Do You Have a Buy Strategy?

When Google switched off the social sharing features in its Reader in an effort to draw together content and sharing recently, I asked: Is Google looking for greater market penetration and willingly trading the brand experience of Google Reader for greater flows? It's a business question. I do wonder especially in light of the recent launch of business and brand pages on Google+. And yes, I created a page for my practice to start testing some of the upcoming features slated for roll out. I'm linking my business site to that page. In light of the G+ pages rollout, it... Read more →

What Makes Proposals Hard

How many proposals do you write a year? A month? A week? Do you consider your internal reports and presentation decks a form of proposal? When they're tools utilized to persuade, inform, and demonstrate, you should. Even as you do the writing or pulling together inside a department or group in an organization, you still represent that business and brand. Which is why you would think of your proposal, report, or deck as a promise made. My definition of brand is the sum of promises made, promises kept and the unbounded expectations market. Value is about closing the gap --... Read more →

7 Ways to Make Writing Your Creative Habit

Content is one component of the online experience — good material provides a solid platform for action while offering the reader bonus insights. For a writer, it's about the pleasure of turning a great concept into a story worth sharing. For a business is about trading its knowledge asset to make better promises. Many have asked me over the years: How do you face that empty screen, the blank digital canvas that stares back at you? Day in, day out looking to come up with ideas. You power up the computer, open your program, look at the white space and... Read more →

Customer Conversations on Twitter Are Good Brand Management

In digital media, listening is so much more than monitoring. Knowing what you're listening for is half the battle, and the first ingredient in most practice. Knowing when and how to respond is more than good etiquette. It's become an integral aspect of brand management and can mean the difference between a flop -- or worse, a crisis -- and a deposit in your company's reputation bank. It's easy to dismiss Twitter's usefulness as a tool. That is until you figure out that on Twitter you can find mentions of your brand and you can actually connect with customers directly... Read more →

Speaking at the WOMMA Summit

On the heels of the three-hour keynote session with attendees at Social IRL in St. Louis last Thursday, where the topic gathered excellent feedback, I'm preparing for my session at the WOMMA Summit. Like the massive Death Star in Star Wars, the accumulation of social media fans for its own sake can create a false sense of power for today's companies. Eyeballs by another set of media (than mass) are still a danger. Accumulating fans lulls organizations into a false sense of security. That they have a strong and resilient model upon which to trade. Business is looking for answers... Read more →

The True Story of Paul Revere

The story goes that Paul Revere was so influential that when he rode from town to town to warn his fellow Americans about the impending British invasion, people listened to him. Except for this is not exactly what happened. Paul Revere was not alone on the ride. It turns out he was accompanied by two other men. All three were stopped on their way to Concord after leaving Lexington, and held by British troops. Revere's two companions escaped. When he finally escaped, Revere has no horse and had to walk all the way to Concord. The ride sounded better, I... Read more →

Giving, Getting, or Being the Inside Scoop

Which one would you prefer? I asked the question a couple of days ago both on Twitter and in G+ and the responses where evenly split among the first two. The third was a suggestion voted in by the community on G+, namely being the inside scoop. Most of us have an immediate gut reaction to dualistic kinds of questions -- yes and no, either/or, this or that, fight or flight. Once we start defining the question in more specific terms, our likely choice crystallizes: giving news about gifts to children for Christmas getting new information about a deep tissue... Read more →