So…it was time for a laptop upgrade.  I had a lot of requirements this time around.  I wanted a desktop replacement on a budget.  I also wanted a good processor, hard drive, and networking performance.  Quality screen, multitouch keypad, good sound were all pluses.  Decided I wanted to use Best Buy, since I have a Silver membership to their Reward Zone.  This meant a few things.  One, I had up to 45 days to return or exchange the product.  With my experience with Windows laptop builds, I figured this would be a great bonus.  Second, I still wanted to be able to physically test the laptop before buying it.  If I was going to get a desktop replacement that I would be using regularly, I wanted something I would be more-than-OK with interacting with physically on an ongoing basis.

By now the question is…where does social media come into all this?  Well, like many online shopping sites, even those that are online versions of brick-and-mortar establishments, bestbuy.com has a customer review section for their products.  The data is overwhelmingly in favor of us “consumers” trusting each other’s experiences far more than most advertising or marketing around a product.  This trend has grown so much that company’s are now wisely diverting large portions of their traditional advertising and marketing budget into Social Media Marketing, using “listening platforms” to understand how and where us “consumers” are talking about their products and brands.  But online customer reviews around products are really where this roller coaster began.

The time I spent reading the experiences of other users with their laptop purchases became rather addictive.  I changed my mind at least 5 times based on the experience of other customers, and ended up choosing a laptop brand I never would have believed I would selected otherwise: Samsung!  Even though I had follow-up experiences involving the return of my initial purchase and 4 subsequent exchanges and second-guesses (hence, the value of the Silver Reward Zone Membership), I ended up a very happy camper with a laptop chosen in large part because of the high marks given by other consumers, and less because of any advertising, marketing, or brand loyalty.  And it may be my most favorite portable computing device yet!

Moral of the story:  all else being equal, it really pays for technology manufacturers, distributors, and even retail point-of-sale facilities to include social media as a centralized portion of the buying process.  Now, I’ll find it hard to consider buying technology elsewhere for all these reasons.

(Photo credit: Xobni)

Thanks to Jeff Price at BOC International, who sent me a LinkedIn connection invitation via a new Outlook plugin called Xobni, I have hope of “taking back my inbox.” This is according to both Xobni’s literature and reviews like CNet‘s.

I had never heard of Xobni. I can tell from the spelling that our high-technology age is quickly running out of pithy utterances available from the Roman alphabet, and Norton warns me that apparently “fewer than 10 people” have downloaded this plugin. Norton can’t mean that for all of Xobni, though. What about Jeff Price and all his LinkedIn friends? We’ve only spoken a few times, but I’m guessing he has more than nine. (Come to think of it, Norton is the one that sometimes can’t count many friends, although their latest version has indeed really solved most of the problems that plagued previous ones.) I’m guessing then that that’s what its warning is about: this particular build of Xobni or something — otherwise, if I were really among the first ten users, I would have won a prize by now, right?

Nevertheless, Xobni captured my attention immediately with its seductive promise of being able to cross-reference email and social media contacts and, even better, leverage the social networking of email itself. As social-media grows there’s an increasing dichotomy between people that effective leverage twitter and all and those of us who “still use email.” If Xobni can help bridge that gap, as both social networks and email platforms are incredibly useful, then I immediately wanted to watch the video. And I hardly ever make time for that. I still need to explore it, but between an easy presentation and a clear website, to say nothing of the inherent recommendation via LinkedIn, I downloaded and installed immediately.

Then, while I was waiting for Xobni to index my PST files, I went to send an email. Outlook once again could neither auto-fill nor suggest an address that’s somewhere in my database. At that moment Xobni Plus closed the sale. A clever bit of script was able to hint the precise email address I needed: a grayed-out drop-down that I couldn’t quite select without upgrading for $30. Worth it, I thought, and now it’s telling me in a shiny new, colorful panel that has appeared in Outlook that “we’re ready to rock.” We’ll see, but so far, so great.

There are small, inconsistencies, such as fonts and sizes changing throughout paragraphs, as well as bigger inconsistencies. Bigger inconsistencies are ones that can effect whether or not visitors choose to take the actions you’d like them to take, like making a purchase or contacting you for more information.

An example: your company builds websites, yet your own website is outdated or seems thrown together. If a potential client finds your website confusing and frustrating, they probably won’t ask you to build their site.

Another example from my web travels: a site promotes copywriting services, but has significant  spelling and/or grammatical errors. Even if you’re not a writer or editor, spelling and grammar errors are a big turn-off to many site visitors.

With so many other websites just a mouse-click away, your site must make a good first-impression. You want your visitors to feel comfortable on the first page they encounter, as you likely will not get a second chance. Don’t let site inconsistencies or other errors cause uncertainty in your visitors’ minds.