CEO Paul Zahra has linked DJ’s poor performance with the Federal Government’s Carbon Tax, and has had a spate of stinging attacks due to this comment on social networking sites.

David Jones’ Facebook page has [...]]]> The David Jones department store finds itself in another pickle today after comments by the current CEO.

CEO Paul Zahra has linked DJ’s poor performance with the Federal Government’s Carbon Tax, and has had a spate of stinging attacks due to this comment on social networking sites.

David Jones’ Facebook page has been inundated with angry and disappointed people who feel it is poor form for the company to blame its financial woes on the yet-to-be introduced carbon tax.

This article by the Herald Sun seems to have been a catalyst for people’s anger as it quotes Mr Zahra:

The carbon tax is impacting customer sentiment. It is very important. It targets our core customer.

Since then, many people have voiced their disappointment over the CEO’s words on David Jones’ Facebook page:

Profit slump’s the fault of the carbon tax?! Stop treating us like fools David J! -Alice Meredith

I’d rather shop at retailers with more conscience. -Lucianne Vandeleur

I shop at DJs from time to time and I think it’s appalling that DJs is blaming the carbon price for poor sales results. It’s absolute nonsense. A disgusting example of political opportunism. Shame. -Patrick Gibb

The true fail in all of this for David Jones is however a PR and social one.

As of writing, not one comment on DJ’s Facebook page has been addressed. Does this mean that they don’t care? Or that no-one is watching their page? Or are they waiting for their PR people to draft a response? For what ever reason, DJ’s silence on this issue is in very poor judgement.

Not addressing people’s concerns immediately is not only poor social media etiquette, but gives the impression on a massive scale that they simply don’t care (whether or not that is true).

Addressing people’s concerns, especially on such a wide scale, is a must when you have a presence on social media sites, like Facebook. And highlights the importance of having a plan in place for such events.

Why be on Facebook at all if you are not goig to connect with your fans?

What do you think – is DJs failing at social media?

I am talking about the furore that took place over a propsed merger of local and independent Maleny Credit Union with Credit Union Australia (CUA), Australia’a largest credit [...]]]> Over the last few weeks there was a storm brewing and breaking over Maleny and it has just finally abated with a resignation.

I am talking about the furore that took place over a propsed merger of local and independent Maleny Credit Union with Credit Union Australia (CUA), Australia’a largest credit union.

The deal went south after a community out-cry and a vote of 637 members to 464 against the merger.

If you are unfamiliar with how credit unions work, each and every member (customer) gets an equal vote in what happens at the credit union. That’s the power of a credit union over a bank – each and every customer has a say.

This chapter in the Maleny Credit Union’s history is now over with the resignation of its CEO, Greg Stevens, who said “it has been an extremely stressful period in my life and my family’s lives, having to deal with personal attacks in the community, in the social media and particularly the untrue defamatory statements made at Saturday’s meeting.”

But it is what he said next that struck me as odd:

I had no opportunity to provide answers to the questions posed, leaving me in an embarrassing position publicly. It is very difficult to recover once those sorts of comments are made.

No opportunity? In today’s connected, viral, blogger-happy world? Seriously?

I find it hard to understand how Mr Stevens, or anyone for that matter, could say in today’s world that they “had no opportunity to provide answers”. Where was his blog? His Tweets? His Facebook posts? For that matter, where were his old-school press releases? Or even a simple email to members?

If he was personally attack over his decision to merge with CUA, and I don’t condone this, why didn’t he Tweet about it? Set the record straight. Why not get on his blog, which I am sure would of been closely watched by that stage, and correct what had been said about him? This would of been extremely easy and quick to do.

Mr Stevens also stated that he “acknowledged the credit union didn’t completely understand the culture of MCU in that it originated from a co-operative.”

This demonstrates two things to me: firstly, he didn’t have any idea of what a community was; and secondly, he shouldn’t of been in that position for that credit union in the first place.

These days it is imperative for a business to understand where it came from, who its customers are, and what community it has and is trying to build. It’s no good just running a business – you need to create a community around your business and cultivate it, not try and destroy it.

What do you think? Do you have a community built up around your business?

The site simply showcases good examples of Twitter and Facebook posts that make people click.

I started this site mainly because I myself found it useful. For a while now I have kept a record [...]]]> Yesterday I quietly launched a new website that is a side project of mine, called Social Flashlight.

The site simply showcases good examples of Twitter and Facebook posts that make people click.

I started this site mainly because I myself found it useful. For a while now I have kept a record of tweets and posts that made me click so that I could use them as inspiration for my own engaging and clickable tweets and posts. It didn’t take me long to release that if I found this useful then others would as well. Thus Social Flashlight was born.

I hope you find it useful and feedback is always welcome.

Social Flashlight

I really hate to complain but there are some severe holes in your customer service that really need to be [...]]]> Due to my current job I have recently started using you, MelbourneIT.com.au, as a hosting company and I have to say that my experience over the last few weeks has been less than average.

I really hate to complain but there are some severe holes in your customer service that really need to be fixed. So instead of just whining about it I wanted to help you by giving you four ways you can improve your services to us, your customer (and make life a hell of a lot easier for us too).

I really hope that you take this on board.

(This is just what I have observed during the last 3 weeks or so, so there may be more issues waiting for me, but to have so many in such a short time must demonstrate to you that you have some major issues)

Number 1 – WordPress Install
It is great that you have a one-click installation for WordPress but please can you give us the ability to install it on the root domain name. I don’t want to install it to mydomain.com.au/wordpress, and I doubt many others would want to either.

Number 2 – Some Awesome Tech Support Needed
Each time I have bought a new domain from you your sales people are on the phone to me in under 5 minutes asking if they can be of any help and if I would like to add any other services to my purchase – all well and good and I like the fact that they are looking at what’s happening.

If your sales people can do this, then why can’t your tech service team? Here is an idea – have your service team monitor people’s clicks in the help areas of your website (and when one of your customers submit an online help query) and call them back as quickly as your sales guys do just to see if they can help in any way.

Sure, I understand that you wouldn’t get any direct extra sales from them but you would get one happy loyal customer from it. And repeat customers are a business’ best friend. And if they aren’t yours then you are doing something wrong.

Number 3 – Changing DNS Names
You are making life overly complicated for your customers. Quit making us change DNS Name Server addresses. I am not sure why you do this but I have never met a domain host who has required me to do this before.

And I am happy you send out an email with some how-tos on how to do this, but this should be for information purposes, not absolute have-tos.

Number 4 – Calling You
Finally, please re-order your phone choices when someone first calls you – you have way too many. I have to press 4 numbers to get to tech support – that’s 3 too many. Keep it simple and you will make it a whole lot less frustrating for your customer.

Your Sincerely,
Russell Allert
A customer hoping you take some notice

I have done this as my original intention for the domain RussellAllert was as a sort of resume or CV of sorts with a blog attached, but I am now going to be using this domain as my main blog on [...]]]> Well, this blog has moved from blog.RussellAllert.com (no longer exists) to just RussellAllert.com.

I have done this as my original intention for the domain RussellAllert was as a sort of resume or CV of sorts with a blog attached, but I am now going to be using this domain as my main blog on social media for small to medium business.

I find that a lot of business owners are too busy or just don’t have the knowledge to set up a successful social media business, which is presently, and will still be in the future, such an imperative in today’s economy.

I will be using this blog as a piece in a much larger strategy to help businesses get started with and use social media and social networking to grow their business.

Keep watching as more will be revealed soon.

This is my fourth week in and I have to say that [...]]]> I am now working for Queenslanders Credit Union who are fairly small but robust and have 7 branches dotted throughout Brisbane, Ipswich and Townsville in Queensland, Australia. I am their Social Media Coordinator and I must say that I love it!

This is my fourth week in and I have to say that working in the social media sphere for a company (as opposed to working on your own projects) is instantly rewarding and quite different.

Also, it’s great to work for a small company that understands its customers and genuinely wants to help them. Before starting at Queenslanders I was working for Suncorp Bank and while the staff there are nice (at least the ones I worked with), the company is getting to the size of corporation level and around 98% of the people who work for them I didn’t know and have never met. I like working for a company that has teams of one or two, where you can get stuff done quickly.

It’s also refreshing to see a company that is excited about social media. Everyone, even those who don’t quite understand it, are excited and keen to see what’s happening. And also inquisitive. And that’s exciting.

I will post more about my work in the social media space with Queenslanders but in the mean time I will share with you my first major project for them, which was to launch a Facebook competition, and you can find out more about that over at the Queenslanders Facebook page.

The truth is not always the same as the majority decision.

I wonder if he realised the irony.