Invision Plus Blog

Last March Mark Cuban was fined $25,000 for complaining about NBA referees on the social media website, Twitter. It was a risk Cuban was happy to take, and when he was interviewed afterward he said that he was, “fine with it.” With the sites exponential growth it was inevitable that this was just the start of sports related Tweet-fines.

During training camp Antonio Cromartie of the NFL’s San Diego Chargers was fined $2500 for complaining about his team’s unsatisfactory food.  In the tweet Cromartie wrote, “Man we have 2 have the most nasty food of any team. Damn can we upgrade 4 str8 years the same ish maybe that’s y we can’t we the SB we need.”  NFL commissioner Roger Goodell came down hard, and early in the season, making his message clear.  Goodell did not want players in his league using Twitter to discuss anything NFL related, even if it was just training camp food.

Earlier this week it was Kansas City Chief’s Pro Bowl running back, Larry Johnson, who was made the ultimate example of. He was fined $600,000 and could possibly lose his contract for a tweet that included gay slurs. Some NFL stars, like Ustream sensation Chad Johnson, seem to have effectively embraced the technology, capitalizing on its reach.  Other players, like Larry Johnson, are obviously finding the reach and visibility (that are the products of these types of social media) of Twitter hard to cope with.  Because of this tweet Johnson is in jeopardy of losing his $19 million guaranteed contract, and it is very clear that, for better or worse, we now accept a tweet as seriously as if it had been said at an official news conference.

If you are interested in social media management to ensure you are not the result of a Larry Johnson type slip up you should look into the training and management services offered by Meritocracy Consulting.  It’s a steep learning curve and everyone is watching…

With thousands of applications and millions of users every company should be utilizing social networks like Facebook and Myspace.  Applications are great because they allow a company/brand to extend its influence over their customers in a more dynamic way than  by simply filling out a profile.  Creating a profile is the first step to enable customers to connect, but creating an application is where you really have the freedom to dynamically connect with potential clients.

Many of the clients Meritocracy builds Apps for are first time Facebook users, and are often skeptical about paying to create an application that they believe has no “direct effect” on business.  Doctors’ offices, mixed martial arts promoters, and even local mechanic shops can leverage Apps on Facebook to help improve their business.  For example, a doctor office can use a Facebook App to remind clients of upcoming appointments, and help fill vacant spots and cancellations.  Much of this can be automated to help cut down on overhead costs. The mixed martial arts promoters can use the Apps to create buzz for an upcoming fight, sell tickets, and help catalyze betting within their communities.  One of the most significant benefits that almost every company we build an App for realizes, is that by developing a connection with such a large community of interested, resonant customers, they are able to get timely, accurate feedback that is extremely useful for future promotions.

Meritocracy can develop a custom  online community that is located at, and operated by your current website.  Everyone acknowledges the utility of websites like Facebook and Myspace, so why not create your own completely customized social network? 

Meritocracy worked with author Bill George on promoting the release of his new leadership book, True North.  Meritocracy built a custom social network that interfaced directly with the website he was already using.  The development that Meritocracy did enabled users to get an anonymous 360 degree assessment of their leadership capabilities, helping to promote George’s book.  Tens of thousands of people have used it, virally making its way through most of the major investment banks and fortune 500 companies.

Social Media is the newest and most flexible way to communicate, and for businesses, one of the most innovative and timely ways to receive feedback from customers.  Meritocracy Consulting has worked with clients in multiple industries to develop and execute creative uses of social media.  The term social media itself is vague and the spectrum of ways to leverage social media is limitless, but the one constant is that it is increasingly proving itself as the most valuable way to communicate with potential new customers, existing customers, industry partners, coworkers and the media.  Additionally, while success is never guaranteed, the successful utilization of social media can unlock incredibly valuable opportunities for a very small initial and ongoing investment.

Let us share with you a great example use of Twitter by Kogi Korean BBQ in Los Angeles, CA

Kogi operates 4 unique taco trucks that drive around Los Angeles to essentially “drop-off” tacos to waiting customers.  Typically, mobile food vans must find a location and wait for the occasional customer.  Kogi has flipped that situation on its head…its customers do all of the waiting, all thanks to a very creative use of the leading real-time communication tool, Twitter.

Excerpt from LA Times:

The result: The Kogi Korean BBQ taco truck. (@kogibbq on Twitter) After celebrating a Nov. 20 soft opening, the roving vehicle has emerged as a social-networking juggernaut, drawing 300 to 800 people each time it parks (often several times in an evening) and spawning a burgeoning cyber-hippie movement affectionately referred to as “Kogi kulture.”

http://www.latimes.com/features/printedition/food/la-fo-kogi11-2009feb11,0,3007869.story 

While this situation immediately provides ideas for restaurants, we encourage everyone to contact Meritocracy Consulting to discuss how their ideas can help your business achieve the holy grail—customers that want your product/service so badly, that they will wait for it.  Not sure if your business or organization can benefit?  Don’t be afraid to ask, they have worked with large Fortune 500 companies, media companies, traditional retail, obscure services, hospitals, non-profits, schools, and much more.  If your business interacts with people, you should not wait to contact the experts in social media strategy.  They will evaluate any existing ideas you may have and provide a free estimate as to the cost and likely impact of that idea.  Of course, they primarily are engaged to develop, design and deliver new ideas in the area of social media, but their expertise in custom software development of any kind is unmatched.

If you don’t know how to use Facebook already, then you have probably decided that you won’t ever use it, and some day the fad will fade.  Unfortunately, the reality is social networks are here to stay, and the sooner you get on board, the better.  Meritocracy Consulting works with companies to help develop their presence in social media.

Facebook may be popular, but there are actually hundreds of relevant social media or social networking sites that your business should consider.  Meritocracy Consulting regularly works with companies to determine their needs and what sites are the best fit. Despite most of these sites having free membership, the best strategy is to focus on establishing a few key accounts that will remain active…rather than to join every site you can find.  Seem confusing?  Fortunately their team can walk you through this process, develop a strategy and then implement that strategy (or design systems and processes for your internal team to implement). 

We all know our employees are using social media sites, but when can that become a risk?  Unfortunately, all too often people, without considering the consequence, post photos or documents that shouldn’t be public to their profile or blog.  Obviously, if you’re a public figure you understand the importance of maintaining your image, but even if you are a high school teacher, using social media to connect with students (for example) can pose large, unforeseeable risks.

Meritocracy can do a few things to help people who are in this situation.  First, they can educate them about all of the potential risks.  A public school teacher will have different risks than a doctor, and so it is important that the client is aware of everything.  Also the capabilities these communities have evolve so quickly you may be up to date one month, and still behind the curve the next.  If you need complete social media management, as opposed to training, Meritocracy can provide that also.

Basic Social Media Management ensures that your profiles on (at least) 3 social networking sites will be checked and updated on a weekly basis.  Some of the social networking sites regularly used are Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, Blogger, and Google Groups to name a few.  Once the profiles are created, Basic Management includes status updates, photo uploads, and friend management.  Meritocracy will ensure that each week your links within the community grow.

Dynamic Social Media Management includes everything that Basic Social Media Management does, while taking more active steps to further develop the clients persona and role within the online communities.  This involves daily updating of a clients status, bi weekly wall/comment posting, and weekly friend recruitment. 

Premium Social Media Management is for clients who want to fully leverage Meritocracy’s five years of social networking expertise.  We will 100% manage your company or personal presence on all the top social networks that are relevant to your industry (typically Facebook, Myspace, LinkedIn, Twitter, Blogger, and industry specific sites). This option improves upon the Dynamic Social Media Management package by making all tasks a daily occurrence, and adding instant messaging to the list of Meritocracy’s tasks.  The final, and most notable difference is that Premium Social Media Management ensures that your pages will be popular by integrating and developing customized creative content.  For one client this may mean producing a short video to post on YouTube, while another client may need a professional blog writer to post a weekly column on one of their profiles.

With the amount of reach that social networks provide, companies can no longer ignore them as legitimate communication and PR channels.  Rather than playing catch-up and trying to learn which sites to use and how to use them, work with Meritocracy’s team of marketing, PR, and communication experts who are the leaders in navigating and maximizing the effectiveness of social networking websites.

Thanks Meritocracy Consulting for you help last month.  When it comes to technology consulting, we give them our stamp of approval.

For the longest time we have been dealing with several Gigabytes of spam data every day.  We have worked on these challenges for years, with some successes, but just as we were making some final changes to our servers (so that we could get the Site Creator back up and working) we received a huge amount of spam from fake users, fake sites and what we believe to be a targeted attack from someone operating a botnet.  We thought we had solved these problems, but the fact that sites were going offline or loading very slowly was a clear indication that we did not yet find a true solution.

Looking to not just “delete” the spam and turn the servers back on, we contacted Meritocracy Consulting to come in and create a permanent solution to our challenges.  Their team of website optimization experts came in and quickly reviewed our application from top to bottom, immediately pinpointing areas of vulnerability and devising a prioritized plan for making updates to stop spammers.  That plan consisted of optimizations to improve the application performance, automated tools to identify spam, tools to poll our servers to send alerts if they ever slow down or go offline, updated anti-spam features and much more.

Throughout the process, the Meritocracy Consulting team spent many weekends and mornings in our datacenter, but the real surprise was how well they communicated with us throughout the process.  The difference between their company and others we have worked with in the past was like night and day.  Not only did we see results immediately, and constantly throughout the process, but with each update came a concise but complete explanation of the problem, the solution, what it took to fix it, and how long it took.  At no point were we ever in the dark, and I felt like they cared as much about our problems as we do!  When we were initially referred to them, we were told their expertise was application development and social media, but clearly from years of running large social networking websites, their expertise in dealing with server challenges is extraordinary…thanks again!

CRM (customer resource management) software is essentially a collection of tools for managing all company communication.  A good solution includes much more than phone numbers, and actually allows all business processes to be managed seamlessly and securely…as they occur.  When a sale is made, does someone other than the sales person need to get involved to deliver the product?  Does it take more than 1-click to initiate the next step? (billing, new customer training, payment processing, etc…).

Meritocracy has developed CRM (customer resource management) software for an array of companies who want to manage their contacts and communication more efficiently.  Most recently, Meritocracy developed a custom CRM for All Row, a Greek web development company.  All Row has grown from a single person offering high quality websites for fraternities and sororities, to a growing team of passionate sales people, designers, programmers, managers and campus reps. While growth is a great thing, often times critical organizational needs get overlooked.

Prior to contacting Meritocracy Consulting, the majority of All Row’s business info was stored in spreadsheets and word documents…sound familiar? 

Meritocracy Consulting built an entirely custom solution that allows All Row to track and search all the contacts, tags, and associations that each lead was connected to in the excel sheet.  Also, automated reminders and follow-ups were integrated into their CRM to ensure that no appointment or task gets overlooked.  Aside from making the company’s information more acccessible, the new custom software application nearly automated much of the sales process allowing the same team to reach and manage more leads each month.  If you run a business, you probably already know how valuable it is to empower your sales team with more time…can something like this be of use to your business?

• Can other people see my TodoList?
  • Only if you want them to.  Tasks can be just for you, but optionally you can choose to share any task with others from your site…or the public
• How do I add a New Task?
  • Simply write the name of the task in the empty bar below the “New Task” tab, and click “Add.”  Also, you can click “add” from the week view or month view.
• What do the three buttons on the right of each task do?
  • Once you enter a task, there are three buttons that you will use to control it: Note, Modify, and Delete.
    • Note, allows to to add a note to the task which is visible on your ToDo List.
    • Modify, allows to add a note, as well as edit the task’s priority, due date, and tags.
    • Delete, completely erases the task from your TodoList.
• How does the tagging of tasks work?
  • Each tag you enter is stored in and pops up when you start typing it again.  By clicking on the “Tags” button near the top of your list you can see all the tags that have been used in your TodoList.  The ones that are larger mean they have been used more often.  After adding a few tasks you will start to see patterns in the tags you are using.  You can also click on a specific tag to sort by it.
• How do I complete a task?
  • To complete a task on your list all you need to do is click the checkbox to the left of the Task entry.  Once completed, that entry will fade from the list (although you can view tasks you have completed by changing the view)  Deleting a task will erase it all together, so if you want to keep track of which tasks you completed, click the checkbox rather than deleting it.