Allan & Steve are the chubby founders of LessEverything. This is their blog, hear them rant, praise, give advice and talk about Just Stuff, Less Accounting, Lovd by Less, More Honey, Events, Less Memories, Code, Business, Design, Marketing
Don't filter yourself into being lame
written by Allan Branch on April 17th, 2009
Social marketers rely on numbers, number of followers, number of comments, number of unique visitors. They can't offend, they can't lose any of their hard earned numbers. Everyone has a filter, you shouldn't kick puppies and trip old ladies (unless they deserve it). But constantly thinking, "oh my, will this tweet upset my followers" is total bullshit. Yes it's fucking bullshit. See how I made that extra offensive to prove my point? Did you stop reading it? Probably not, the ones that did stop reading, thank you for leaving, I cannot handle the pressure of living up to your expectation. I am relieved to have weeded you out, worthless, piece of garbage that your mother wishes she had never shit out while squatting in some humid, grassy rice paddy in Minnesota. But since you read that, obviously it doesn't refer to you.
Those of you still here, pat yourself on the back you're not a douchebag. I lose Twitter followers all the time; personally I don't care. I am more worried about being lame than being offensive, but that's just me. Be yourself, if you're a mild mannered dude, be it. If you're a loud mouth jerk, be a jerk. Be yourself, be real and don't suck, most people suck.
Customers looking for a deal
written by Allan Branch on April 15th, 2009
Everyone is on a budget, but beware of the customer that picks you JUST because you're cheaper than another company. Most of these customers are quick to leave, quick to complain and rarely the happy. If your service is a great deal be prepared to do volume, which will weaken your ability to bring service to the table. The good news is there are few people looking for a great deal. What? Yes, do you buy generic cereals? Probably not. Most people will spend a few dollars more for a better product or service. When all products/services seem to be on a level playing field, the potential customer will pick the cheapest price. Can't position yourself as the value proposition? Perhaps it's time to find a new playing field.
What are you selling?
written by Allan Branch on March 19th, 2009
When a potential customer looks at your website what do they think you're selling? Web development?
You provide web development, but what are you selling? Are you selling yourself? Are you selling a development methodology? Are you selling a certain technology? Are you selling piece of mind for your customer?
What answer(s) is your potential customer looking for when they're looking at your website? What question do they need answered before they call you?
Hint: they're not looking for web development.
Great marketing is about patience and creativity
written by Allan Branch on February 10th, 2009
Let's not confuse marketing genius with spending a bunch of money on advertising. Spending money can make you appear to have marketing skills, you can buy ads and get on the top of search engines, but its a false sense of cool. Who clicks on banner ads anyways? We (Less Everything) could hire a couple folks to go to conferences talk to people pass out schwag and shmooze popular bloggers. But isn't that just creating the fake sense of cool? Instead of searching for the next great colorful piece of schwag, why not spend that effort and pour it into the product, the service and kindness of your company. Marketing is about getting the word out and buying ad space is the easy choice, attending SXSW and giving out buttons is the obvious path for marketing. It's easier to throw money at it than chip away at the market. Great marketing is about patience and creativity.
Personal Examples... We're receiving thousands of LessAccounting.com signups from WeAllHateQuickbooks.com. But we saw very little returns from a banner ads on major css design directories. We received a ton of traffic for releasing LessFriends.com and very little for ranking highly for "Small Business Accounting Software".
- Releasing Rails like 37Signals did is marketing genius.
- When Seth Godin posts amazing articles daily to his blog, that's great marketing.
- When you return a pair of shoes to Zappos and they make the process so easy, that's great marketing.
- When you call Wesabe.com, and speak to the CEO, Marc Hedlund, that's great marketing.
- When you tweet about Comcast Cable they answer your tweet and help resolve the situation that's good marketing.
- When you get your wisdom teeth out and the next day the oral surgeon calls you to check up to see how you're doing. That's great marketing.
Why Can't Marketing Just Be Kindness?
written by Allan Branch on February 9th, 2009
If you watch Twitter for "Quickbooks" you'll see literally hundreds of people everyday needing help, having confusion and feeling the pain of Intuit software. Instead of giving away money to a certain few people. Why not provide free tech support for a month during tax season for everyone? Help the user that's crying out for help everyday.
It's much easier to throw money at a problem than to fix it. It's easier for Intuit to give away 300k than to provide great customer service. It's easier for you to buy Google AdWords than to evaluate yourself and then change. It's easier to get highly ranked with SEO than to provide a service people love. It's easier to have a giveaway than to provide kindness everyday.
My Favorite 2009 Super Bowl TV Commercials
written by Allan Branch on February 2nd, 2009
Did I miss any good ones?
Why do users participate (and return back) with an app?
written by Allan Branch on January 6th, 2009
So this got me thinking, what qualities do successful apps contain that engage their viewer? With blogs, every site has an rss feed, what user emotions are needed to get the viewer to leave their RSS reader and comment?
Kathy Sierra (whom I have a crush on) says you must make the user feel like they're kicking ass, but that's only true for business apps. Let's talk about social networks/apps.
Feeling = "I'm missing out on the content (links and opinions) from my peers)"
Feeling = "I want gossip"
Blogs
I agree or disagree so strongly that I need to comment on that post.Feeling = I want to be heard and I want to hear what the blogger has to say.
Flickr
I need to see a full sized view of that image.I want to explore other photographers pictures.
Feeling = Intrigued by beauty
How do you build a site that makes a user feel like they must contribute?
What are current apps doing to make their users feel this way?
What brings you back to your favorite websites again and again?
Does your content need to lose weight?
written by Molly Bermea on November 25th, 2008
If your content seems to be failing you and people aren't catching on to what you have to say you're probably boring them to death with long droning content. No one wants to spend 10-minutes reading your blog post. Time is money, make it snappy!
Keep it Focused
Quickly settle on your main point. Don't let your topic go into left field on tangents (if you have tangents, those might be good alternative articles). Your first line should cover what the entire article is going to be about - directly.
Trim the Fat
Make it lean. Keep it Minimal.
- Quickly jot your main point(s) keep it to less than three if you can or divide it up nicely.
- Talk/Write like a human-being not a robot. These days, people hate formality so stop stressing on getting it grammatically correct and just write the dang article. Trust me. You're reading our blog right?
- Leave it alone for a few hours or days then revisit and rephrase. If you don't step away for a bit you will end up spending more time than necessary on it. I usually go through my article and chop it up at a fast pace so I don't talk myself into keeping crap around. Don't try to be detailed unless it's absolutely necessary.
- If possible, send it to someone for feedback even if it happens to be your mum or your little sis.
Seth Godin, Jason Fried, Kathy Sierra and Gary Vaynerchuk
written by Allan Branch on October 3rd, 2008
- Jason Fried - be simplistic
- Gary Vaynerchuk - love everyone, be everywhere
- Kathy Sierra - help your users kick ass
- Seth Godin - everything you do is marketing
no real reason to make this graphic besides a laugh.
Less on Twitter
written by Steven Bristol on September 25th, 2008
Did you know you can follow Allan and Steve on Twitter? It’s true! Here are our twitter pages:
If you signup you can follow us and get regular zany updates.
Our applications have twitter accounts too:
Reasons People Don't Actually Read Your Blog, part ii
written by Steven Bristol on September 24th, 2008
In response to our post about why people might not be reading your blog, Eugen Minciu wrote his thoughts.
My thoughts about Eugen’s thoughts about Allan’s thoughts:
I am afraid that he missed the point entirely and also illustrated the problem. The real problem isn’t that posts are too long or readers are too dumb, the real problem is that posts aren’t interesting enough. I gladly look for forward to Cringely’s post every week. When it comes, I set aside 10 – 15 minutes to read it. I read every word and I don’t skim. Because it’s INTERESTING. If you have something to say and can say it well, then take as much type as you need. But have more respect for me and don’t waste my time with your self-indulgent blather. Use the fewest number of characters to make your well written point.
He makes a few comparisons that I’d like to address:
- College: One has a real reason to be there and it’s not entertainment.
- Books: No one expects a book to take five minutes. But getting to the end of a non-fiction book and wishing the author had just written a five minute blog post happens way too often.
- Films: The expectation is that they last longer than five minutes. I usually will sit past five minutes, but if it still sucks after 15, I bail. Same for documentaries.
- Newspapers are exactly what one should be striving for. Short (hopefully), well written posts about one subject that can be read quickly while still absorbing all the information. There is no expectation that everyone will read the whole newspaper; people just read the parts they are INTERESTED in.
Do you see the pattern here? It’s about respecting your reader’s time (and expectations) and giving them something of value that they will come back for. I’m sure Eugen tackled all these points by the end of his post, but the truth is it was too long and not interesting enough to keep me. I started skimming and then when I didn’t see anything except the same long winded point, I decided to stop reading. (That’s not true, I did skim all the way to the end, something I can no longer do with Steve Yegge posts.)
3 Reasons People Don't Actually Read Your Blog
written by Allan Branch on September 22nd, 2008
Sure, you might have a few subscribers, but do people actually read your content?
People like software that’s easy to use. Software that has a low pain threshold. The same is true about blogs. Your blog should be about your reader, not about your ego.
Here are some mistakes authors make when writing blog posts:
1) They have no personality and their writing is reflective of this.
2) Their posts are too long and filled with fluff. I could go on and on about this point. There are a million, billion things to say about people who take up space on the page as thought their adwords revenue is based on the number of characters they use. There are also countless examples of blogs that are way, way, way to wordy. Sometime one word will work better than writing a whole paragraph. Do I really need to say more about this?! Wake up people I am trying to tell you something here.
3) Their posts are pure vanilla and contain no opinion on the topic. Unless you are reporting the news, give your opinion, that is why people are reading you.
Still don't get it?
Who has 15 minutes to spend reading a long post?
Who wants to wade through the fluff to find your point?
If you have a point, make it clear and don't be ashamed of your view.
Make your writing an example of good UI. Make it thoughtful, filled with expressive language and to the point.
If you do these things, I guarantee you will have as many readers as we do. Which is two. You and a guy in Slobozia with an internet connection so whacked that the only pages he can load are this one and TechCrunch. Poor guy.
5 Most HATED Companies Online
written by Rhea Drysdale on April 21st, 2008
5. Verizon
Google Search: “Verizon Sucks” = 17,100 results
Google Search: “I Hate Verizon” = 7,530 results
TOTAL VERIZON SUCKS POINTS = 24,630
Best of the Worst:
How Bad Can a Cell Phone Company Get?
4. Wal-Mart
Google Search: “Wal-Mart Sucks” = 19,100 results
Google Search: “I Hate Walmart” = 17,700 results
TOTAL WALMART SUCKS POINTS = 36,800
Best of the Worst:
3. Comcast
Google Search: “Comcast Sucks” = 26,900 results
Google Search: “I Hate Comcast” = 10,900 results
TOTAL COMCAST SUCKS POINTS = 37,800
Best of the Worst:
Comcast Technician Sleeping on Couch:
2. AOL
Google Search: “AOL Sucks” = 41,000 results
Google Search: “I Hate AOL” = 10,800 results
TOTAL AOL SUCKS POINTS = 51,800
Best of the Worst:
Canceling AOL Account:
The MOST HATED COMPANY ONLINE is…
1. Microsoft
Google Search: “Microsoft Sucks” = 64,800 results
Google Search: “I Hate Microsoft” = 81,800 results
TOTAL MICROSOFT SUCKS POINTS = 146,600!!!
Best of the Worst:
Chris Pirillo Calls Microsoft Outlook Tech Support:
This public service announcement to rude customer service departments and frustrating applications is brought to you by We All Hate Quickbooks, developed by the creators of Less Accounting. We make life less annoying.
UPDATE – Some additions to the list:
If you can think of other companies that should be on here, please share them in the comments below or on digg.MySpace
Google Search: “MySpace Sucks” = 110,000 results
Google Search: “I Hate MySpace” = 70,700 results
TOTAL MYSPACE SUCKS POINTS = 180,700
(I think we have a winner, can anyone beat it?!)
Best of the Worst:
The Megan Meier Story:
(thanks to Drew from Digg)
Google Search: “Google Sucks” = 132,000 results
Google Search: “I Hate Google” = 27,000 results
TOTAL GOOGLE SUCKS POINTS = 159,000
Best of the Worst:
Note: The Google Sucks results are tainted by posts like this one from a friend, Barry Schwartz, who purposefully wrote about it in a humorous post and encouraged others to do the same. Also, the sheer number of Google users that are technologically advanced versus say a Wal-Mart customer is probably a huge difference. This means when a Wal-Mart customer gets screwed they probably turn to a lawyer or watch group rather than their blog.
You’ve Been Googled:
(I posted a video about Google, but on further examination it was clear that the beliefs of Less Everything weren’t in alignment with those of the speaker. We personally love Google and use all of their tools, so it didn’t feel right saying negative things about them. Besides I used Google to google everything, which seems to negate many of these comments. Also… Steve made me do it! So, enjoy this cute puppy!!!)
Building Online Communities with Jeremiah Owyang
written by Rhea Drysdale on April 10th, 2008
Where does your company fall in the social media spectrum?
Jeremiah Owyang, Sr Analyst at Forrester Research, was recently interviewed about building online communities by Shel Israel.
Despite of all of the drama surrounding Shel Israel’s interviewing skills I really enjoyed what Jeremiah had to say.
Jeremiah Owyang Interview Take Aways:
- Power has shifted to the participants.
- Conversations = marketplace. Corporations shouldn’t miss out because they’re scared of giving away control.
- Understand the difference between marketing and community managers.
- Should you build your own social network? Or join others like Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, etc.?
- Your brand doesn’t have to be the face of your community presence, instead empower your employees or supporters.
- Widgets and social networks aren’t going anywhere.
- Don’t just hype yourself, show value. What problem did you solve? That sticks more than fluff.
Reputation Management - Lesson #1 Homework
written by Rhea Drysdale on April 3rd, 2008
What is Online Reputation Management?
Dictionaries cite corporate reputation management or public relations as synonyms, but for me that doesn’t paint the full picture. So, I polled some friends and got their definitions of online reputation management:
“Realizing that the perceived value of your brand is defined by information found on the Internet; therefore requiring your constant monitoring and participation in these web conversations.”
- Andy Beal, Author of “Radically Transparent: Monitoring and Managing Reputations Online“
“Monitoring the buzz and chatter about you or your brand on the Internet, proactively seeding good stories and information, and proactively addressing or correcting bad buzz/info.”
- Carolyn Shelby, Online PR Expert
Lesson #1 – Do Your Homework
The BEST strategy for online reputation management is to not need it! You can avoid problems by simply doing your homework. A quick search on Google, Yahoo or even Mahalo can return thousands of potential weaknesses in your product, service, brand, campaign, etc. Did someone already think of your idea? Is there another service with your one-of-a-kind name? Is your concept perhaps in poor taste given recent industry or news? Is a certain technique or language out of date?
This is focusing on half of the old school SWOT Analysis: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats. In today’s web 2.0 world we spend ridiculous amounts of time marketing our strengths and forging our opportunities. How often do you not just think about your weaknesses and threats, but also collect specific information to support your strategy and understand your place in the greater world? I would wager that if you truly consider the missing pieces of the puzzle and account for them early on you will be ten times more successful.
So, take 5 seconds out of your busy day to do your homework and you could avoid a potential reputation management disaster. You have enough on your plate to begin with, tackle the small stuff before it grows.
And, help manage our reputation by adding us to your favorites: Technorati Profile