3 Points About The Walmart Blog

(1) The Walmart blog FAILS! because big companies won’t devote the right resources to social media projects, if they devote any at all. Keep in mind that I work for a very large company and have for the past 12 years. I am a middle manager.

I am also the guy who has been quite outspoken when it comes to bending the ears of all the top execs at every chance I get, urging them to jump head long into social media and blogging. So far, my big mouth has really not made much of a difference because the lawyers have warned the c-level execs about the “dangers of social media.” But one good thing happend recently: the head of sales for our entire company took a pop shot at me at a high level meeting by snidly remarking, “well, if you need to get ahold of Allyn Hane, just go to his blog… har har ha ha…”

My company is stuck in the dark ages, so I applaud Walmart for at least giving it a go, but to be honest, the failure of the Checkout Blog actually speaks volumes more. It shows me that the giant Walmart does not see the value in blogging and web 2.0 style interactions. If they did, they’d hire 4 or 5 people who did nothing more than just blog, full time. But instead, the large team of writers for the Checkout Blog are middle and senior managers who are already very busy and stretched in their other responsibilities –meaning the blogging takes a back seat when things get busy. They also have no direct incentive to make the blog profitable, so they don’t.

Can you imagine the great things that could be done on a Walmart blog that was alive and full of passion and human interaction and cared for by a full time staff of fully invested employees? Let’s talk more about that in the next point ok?

(2) Without a doubt, blogs are the ULTIMATE social media tools for business and personal uses. Any so-called social media professional who does not value blogging for business is a fake and a liar, straight up! In the case of Walmart, their blog was started for the wrong reasons: this is obvious as it has been left to die a terrible death on a well-designed page.

Here Is What WALMART Should Do With Their BLOG

So what could the Walmart blog be? Let me run with it… after all, I am just a blogger myself…

Right now, it is spring time, and the Walmart near my house is loading the parking lot with all kinds of great landscaping supplies, trees, shrubs, flowers, fertilizers, top soil, garden statues and other cool outdoor decor. If Walmart had a full time lawn and garden blogger, that person could hold a small workshop teaching people how to build a beautiful flower pot bouquet with annuals. The entire workshop could be conducted in the local Walmart garden center and could be filmed, edited and posted on the blog. Cool right… and guess how many flower pots you would sell across the country? Probably more than a few, but you wouldn’t come off as pushy of overly marketing! You’d offer value locally at the store, and nationally on the blog… coolio!

Let’s go a step further: what if that lawn and garden Walmart blogger got together a group of Walmart employees and they went to a local nursery school in an economically depressed area and re-landscaped the front of the school using eco-friendly landscaping principles and native plantings that require little water? What if they also set up a compost bin and taught the kids some of the principles and uses behind composting? Video tape it and blog it boys and girls!!!!

How many compost bins could you sell at the local stores? But more than that, what great public relations feelings would this spread about the Walmart brand? How good would those volunteer employees feel about the good they did? How cool would it be for them to be on video or in pictures on the blog that is viewed by hundreds of thousands of people?What if the local TV news picked up the story? What if you tweeted about it? The possibilities are freeeeking endless!!!!!

Are you getting the point here guys? More than that, why is Walmart NOT getting the point?

(3) Big companies dumb down their employees and outsource creativity to people who are not personally invested in the business, thus harming their message and killing the passion dead! (I’m guessing a little here, but I bet many jobs that were performed by actual Walmart employees 20 years ago are now outsourced… not necessarily overseas, but they are outsourced to companies that are not directly related to Walmart) …So when mid-level employees are afforded a chance to be creative, like on the Walmart blog, they have forgotten how to be real, fun and passionate about their subject. They instead are used to following rules and staying inside a safe box of cold corporate guidelines. These Walmart employees are not in creative positions like marketing and design as those functions are now outsourced. They have also forgotten how to interact with humans who also happen to be customers. It’s become all about numbers, counts and profits, not relationships and meaningful interaction.

You guys tell me what you think. I am very interested in your opinions. By the way, this is EXACTLY why I am teaming up with Steve, Josh and Brian on a new project, Echelon Social Media Consulting. It’s about time.

So how does this relate to internet marketing and online biz? Well, if I don’t like the way your website “serves” me as a customer, I certainly can’t go off and make a scene… but I can get to that “back button” and go find another site that will serve my needs!
Thoughts?…

Wait… keep reading for a perfect example of what I am talking about in relation to websites. Magic Hat #9 beer is great, their web presence is douche-baggedly-annoying!

Beer served up in this vid: Magic Hat #9
Seriously, their website sucks ass! A perfect example of shit that frustrates me to no end! Look Magic Hat Beer people, I wanna learn about what makes your brew so damn good; like drinking a bowl of flowers… but I don’t want to navigate your gay-ass pseudo-flash bullshit graphics. I am a beer drinker, not a kid playing a video game! Here is the Magic Hat Blog that IS pretty decent. Done!

After the project is over, the boss man looks at the participants and says, “Well, great job, but while the chicken merely contributed to the project (by laying eggs), the pig was truly committed (by giving his life).”

So as the story goes, I have seen senior VPs and such send around the story via email and use it as a rallying cry for all of use “pigs” to get committed to the “company.”    (full story here on Wikipedia)

So here is my vid on that, and then you’ll need to do a little more reading than normal afterward in order to get point.

Some of you may begin to think I am some sort of liberal who hates rich people. Truth is, I am not the type who you can fit into a box like that, but I do despise CEOs and the like who are in positions of leadership that they did not truly earn. (yeah, I don’t think a guy deserves a lofty position just cuz he sits/sat on a board of directors, or because his great uncle sits/sat on that same board, or because he went to the same school as some other ass-wipe at the top, etc)

I could ramble more on that…

But I have yet to see/meet/hear about a Fortune 500 CEO who started on the front lines of a company and worked his way to the top and NEVER lost his since of being a real/normal dude or dedette. They all go to the other side and become ass-hats. (some are already ass-hats when they take over a CEO spot… ever wonder why they only last 4-5 years or so?.. because there is always a bigger-ass-hat above them, LOL)

So back to this topic. Is it just me, or is it completely arrogant for a business leader to think it is “ok” for a worker to “give his life” for the business? Is the business so important as to ruin a man’s home life and deprive him of his family?

On a further note, some of you may begin to get the idea that I am not thankful for the fact that I have a job in this economy. On the contrary my friends; I am very thankful to have a good-paying job. I am thankful that the company I work for is extremely healthy during this time. However, does that mean it is ok for the company to use the bad economy as an excuse to work employees harder and make them choose between work and family/home life?

Where is the big company that will take the high road and say, “Dear employees, you guys are awesome and because of you, we are soaring in profits during this economy and we are going to give you more benefits and perks (like time off) as a way to say ‘thanks’ and earn yet more of your loyalty!”

Or maybe this one? …”We know that home life is important and if your family structure is healthy, your work life will be healthy, so we want all of you to work from home 1 day per week.”

Anybody know a company like that? Or are the healthy ones using a bad economy as an excuse to beat the sheep, or, in other words, sacrifice more pigs?

Does your boss tell you, “you are lucky to have a job!” …to me guys, that is arrogance!

Lastly, I am a HUGE supporter of small business and entrepreneurship! That is why internet marketing is so great! It holds great potential for those of us who went to community college and didn’t join the rich kids’ fraternity.

Thoughts? …all are welcome…

vid entry music courtesty of Steve at BloggerLens

I actually had a guy who is a true IT professional criticize my methods and tell me to “get off the internet.” (I will admit I provoked him, but still).

Since I served in the USAF for four years, do I have a right to tell that same elite internet marketer to “get the hell outta my USA?” Watch the vid and tell me if you have noticed the same thing or not.



Good thing I found Vic and Griz. They are wildly successful online, are “old school,” and NOT elitist! I know you guys agree.

Site Buildit is not a scam, just bullshit… There is a big sh*t storm going around the blogosphere right now. It is around the “Site BuildIt Scam” and if it is just that or not. My good friend, Lissie, from make passive income online started this thing. She wrote an article about the Site Build It Scam a few days ago. She was just giving her honest opinion to the readers of her blog (and I totally respect that)…but soon enough … some of the Site Buildit ass-hats started attacking her. So, of course, her friends (including me in this video) had to back her up.

What I think Of Site Buildit…

Site Buildit is a lot of things. It is a quick set-up-a-website-for-a-fee (like $300 fee) type “system” that claims to make things easier for internet marketing newbies to get started making some cash on line. They even have a quote in one of their promo vids that “you don’t need any computer knowledge” in order to get started making money with Site Buildit… and THAT is the part that strikes a cord with me! Hey ass-hat Site Buildit drones: are you freaking kidding or what?

Guys, if you are going to start a business on the internet, I certainly hope you have some (or a lot) of computer knowledge! (do you know what “shut down” means?) In true fact, you need to look at internet marketing as a CRAFT that you continually learn about and GROW with! (Sheesh, are you kidding me you site buildit bull-shitters? You should burn in the pits of Hades for making our business seem so ‘simple’//scammers!) This business of internet marketing IS NOT simple and it IS NOT easy. It takes knowledge and skill… a lot of it!

Honestly guys, if you want to start a “website business in a box” type thing… go start a bunch of Squidoo lenses and Blogger blogs! Those are freaking free and really easy! But if you really want to know how to make money online with internet marketing, you need to know the “ins” and “outs” of the search engines and also have intimate knowledge of HTML and code and hosting and link structure and permalinks, tags, CSS, etc. If anyone tells you anything else, they are bull-shitting you! Thank God that Vic, my mentor, is 100% brutally honest with this stuff!

Ok, so since the making of this video (over 170 comments too) I have had literally hundreds of people email me and ask “ok smarty, so then how to you make money online if you claim Site Build It is a scam?”

Until now, I would refer them to Vic, Court and Griz.. but the problem there was that most folks DO NOT have the patience to wade through hundreds of pages of content on 3 websites. In addition to that, because some of the stuff we do is a little tricky, it is often tough to comprehend it on a blog post. But now I have found a book that actually spells out clearly and step by step the EXACT methods that I have been taught by my mentors over the last couple years. Court has a training program that starts with the very very basics and moves into more of the advances ways we make money online. There is also extremely valuable software inside for keyword research and also a guest posting system where you can get solid, anchored links. Click Here and Sign Up.

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