Neal Schaffer

The following is a true story.

It was late at night when I arrived at my hotel, a little past midnight.  It was a long day and I had a morning meeting with a client scheduled for the next day, so I was looking forward to getting to sleep as soon as I could.  Unfortunately, circumstances would not allow me to do so: after asking for my name, the hotel, which is part of an American hotel chain with a very well-respected brand image, told me that they had an overbooked situation and had no room for me.

This was the beginning of a very tiring 15 minutes of life, mainly because the person at the front desk as well as the “manager” that was called over to deal with me made me feel like I was the guilty one.  No feeling of apology expressed.  No explanation of how to get to the hotel that they prepared for me.  No mention of the free Internet and parking that I should have gotten at the hotel which had my reservation.  I felt like they were just trying to get rid of me....

I am amazed by how many small businesses do not utilize social media to the maximum.  Think about it: social media, like the internet two decades ago, allows any business to compete with larger, more established entities.  Come on, what are you waiting for?

What further amazes me is how few small businesses maximize their presence on LinkedIn and instead just follow the trend of Facebook and Twitter.  Why would a niche B2B company establish a Facebook Fan Page when their potential customers may not be social on Facebook yet are already used to networking on LinkedIn?  I’m confused.

That’s why, as a social media strategist, I took the approach of first blogging and thereafter writing my first book on LinkedIn, not the other popular sites.  In fact, as I said in my recent speech at Gravity Summit at UCLA, “...

As social media begins to envelop every part of a corporate organization, it becomes important that every employee begins to have a certain level of literacy in using social media tools.  This becomes even more important in outward-facing rules where “social business” is changing the way companies engage with present and potential customers over Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and blogs.  At some point, just as companies emerged that used the Internet as their platform (Amazon, Netflix, etc.), we will see new companies arise that purely use social media as their platform.  And when that happens, it is a natural that they will only be finding and recruiting people over social media, because they...

Social media is a fascinating and new medium for businesses.  If done right, social media can be an incredibly viral way of spreading the word about your company, brand, or product.  However, because of its “viral” nature, companies are learning the hard way that social media can amplify the good, and the bad, about your company and/or products.  All it takes is one mistake in social media etiquette to damage your brand and have bloggers and tweeters from around the world spreading the message about what you did wrong.  That harm can be tremendous and should not be underestimated.

Today we look at the major Twitter mistake that a big Japanese company, UCC Coffee, recently did on Twitter.  What did they do wrong?  And what are the six important lessons that businesses and professionals can learn from it?

I will be honest with you that, when I am in Japan, I am an avid...