Choose Less Expensive, More Available Laptops and Desktops.
Before we get into talking about why you should shop HP Inc. (HPI) for all your desktop and laptop needs, I have a fun fact for you. I have always been a devotee of strange or obscure “did you know” type facts or trivia.
These days, we are inundated with fun facts on our social media pages, so it is harder to find obscure pieces to share. However, I think I have one for you today. If someone were to ask you, “Who is a bigger movie star, Adam Sandler or Brad Pitt?” what would you say? If you are like me, I would say Brad Pitt without hesitation. I mean, his movies are always well publicized and celebrated. He has a very famous wife and friends who attend his movie premiers. Seems like there just is no doubt, right? Well, as Lee Corso would say, “Not so fast, my friend.”
Did you know that according to the website Box Office Mojo, Adam Sandler has had more movies that have grossed over 100 million dollars than Brad Pitt (15 to 11)? Or that Adam Sandler has a higher average gross per movie than Brad Pitt ($83,155,354 vs $67,023,468)? I can imagine you are thinking, “This can’t be! Brad Pitt is a mega A list star, and Adam Sandler is…well…Adam Sandler. Sure, his movies are entertaining (sometimes), but he is not like Brad Pitt!” This surprise factor is what makes this bit of information so entertaining to me. Perception and hype do not always meet up with real world results.
I find that this same lesson can be applied to our everyday jobs. For me, it is especially true in the world of Desktops and Laptops. It seems that the perception for our industry is that Dell is the manufacturer that is less expensive and has more available product. With other companies, like HPI, you have to pay a premium for a “higher end” product. Or in some cases, you’re just paying for the darn HP name to be branded on the product.
However, like the example above, the real world result is very different. HPI provides hundreds of pre-configured and in stock promotional “Smart Buy” options that can be delivered fast (in most cases overnight) and are at a very aggressive price point to their competition. What is even better is that even if these pre-configured models do not meet your specification exactly, HPI provides their partner community the upgrades to make changes to these Smart Buys quickly and easily.
Again, I can imagine what you might be saying: “Hundreds of options, I do not have the time to sort through all of that!” That is where your friendly neighborhood partner (Zunesis 🙂 ) can come in handy. We are just a phone call or email away, and we have the knowledge and information to find you the right product and get it shipped to you quickly!
10 years ago we got our breaking news from radio and TV. Remember being glued to the television when a big news story broke?
Today, the tables have completely turned. We all know how social media has changed the marketing forefront, but it doesn’t get enough credit about how it changed the entire public relations industry.
Five years ago, news and media outlets didn’t want to start pushing their content on social media. They were forced to. Independent journalists starting using various digital tools like Twitter, Evernote, and Facebook to start reporting on topics “live” during an actual event. Quickly, bigger media/news entities starting seeing the traction these independent journalists were getting. These journalists, who were using social media as a PR tool, were actually hurting ratings of corporate media outlets.
This was when the whole PR industry changed.
Now integrating social media in your public relations strategy is PR industry standard. The PR world embraced social media with open arms, and has used various digital tactics to advance how everyone uses social media in their public relations strategy. Listed below are three tactics on how you can use social media as a critical PR tool.
1. Social Media Listening
One of the reasons why everyone loves Twitter is because of the live trends you can see all over the world. Twitter gave us the ability to listen and see the most talked about topics online.
Having the ability to listen to industry specific conversations online is powerful. Having strong data like this in your back pocket to help you understand multiple online audiences that are custom to your industry can be HUGE to your PR strategy.
2. Turn Press Releases into Blogs
Press releases are a great way to get information about your company into the right hands when it comes to media outreach. One thing we’ve seen companies fail to do, however, is turn their press releases into a nice blog post. Yes – You will have to make some minor layout/format changes, but if you have a BIG announcement, then you should be sharing that content across multiple channels.
In today’s world, content is king. Most well-written press releases are great pieces of company content. And the truth is, most press releases never get picked up by the media. So why not, since you invested the time in creating valuable content for a press release, turn it into a blog post? This allows you to have a new and different set of eyes on your release.
Not only should you turn your release into a blog post, you need to make it shareable. We believe this is a best practice with all your blogs, but especially a press release that includes a product launch or big-time company event and announcement. No longer should companies be sending their press releases “down the wire” in hopes it gets picked up. They should be sharing it across multiple channels, allowing their key audience to not only see the release, but share it too.
3. Customer Service – Reputation Management
Not only has public relations changed because of social media, but so has the world of customer service. Social media now gives our customers a platform to engage with us in both a positive and a negative light.
Social media gives our customers the option for reviews, feedback, and questions. This is why many businesses now have full time staff or an agency helping to manage their social media.
How your company is seen on social media is a big for your overall reputation management within your industry. If your company has a lot of negative reviews on Facebook, obviously you can see how this could hurt your brand and reputation.
On the flipside though, if you have a lot of positive engagement and reviews, this can increase your reputation. Having a strong customer service presence is key in today’s social media, which helps your overall reputation.
We now live in a day where we have to be responsive to our clients and customers online. If we aren’t, this could really hurt our overall brand from a public relations standpoint.
As 2016 begins there are two very large IT contributors going in opposite directions. On one side of the coin, we have Dell looking to acquire EMC for $67B, which is beyond comprehension. On the other side we have HP splitting itself in 2 and trimming itself down to better address the changing Enterprise market challenges. Which will rise to the surface may take a few years to know for sure (assuming we ever find out).
DELLware
Looking at – not sure what they will call themselves – DELLware (my choice) we see two giants trying to fill the whitespace neither has covered. Adding in the VMware factor on the EMC side and the majority Nutanix ownership with DELL gives rise to potential interesting future offering. That is if NSX has the legs necessary to carry the somewhat marginal offering in the Network space today. The acquisition price will surely require a large selloff of valued assets; and with all this, will there be any $’s left in R&D to make this new offering viable? Time will tell as it tells all.
Hewlett Packard Enterprise
While DELL/EMC are beginning their journey, HP has completed theirs and will be looking to hone its Enterprise offering in a more targeted way. HP has lost its voice over the past few years, and many of its longtime customers have “broken up” with HP technology. Cisco has made a huge dent into the Blade market, hurting what once was the cornerstone or HP’s future. Improvements in server density offerings like Moonshot should be well positioned for future high performance application scaling. HPE’s acquisition of Aruba has certainly improved HPE’s Network offering. With Openflow already being available on certain HPE switches, they are positioned nicely to chip away at Cisco in the Virtual Switch space.
HPE – being smaller and having taken the Capital hit needed to split off – sits in a very strong position for acquisitions to grow their portfolio…DELLware not so much. Stay tuned, this is going to be an interesting next few quarters as all of this comes into focus.
