How to Become Ubiquitous

Dorie Clark

Here is an excerpt from an article written by Dorie Clark for the Harvard Business Review blog. To read the complete article, check out the wealth of free resources, and sign up for a subscription to HBR email alerts, please click here.

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This post is part of the HBR Insight Center Marketing That Works.

It was 8 a.m. on a Tuesday, and I stumbled into my local coffee shop. Laptop in tow and shaking off jetlag, I steeled myself for the onslaught: replying to the hundreds of emails that had built up while I’d been on a luxurious 12-day vacation to Spain. Like many professionals, I have a complicated relationship with holiday — coveting the idea of relaxation, while dreading the idea of being out of touch. (Even with absurd data roaming rates, it’s hard to resist the siren call of email.)

The trip had been incredible — the best of Barcelona, Madrid, and Marbella — but I returned feeling guilty and slightly panicked. What had I missed? What moves were competitors making in my absence? And that’s when I spotted Mimi, one of the most connected players in town. She smiled and walked over to my table. “How’s it going?” she said. “You’re everywhere.”

In that moment, I realized you don’t have to be present in order to be ubiquitous.

Ubiquity, of course, is a major marketing goal. You want to be top of mind for your customers, so they’re calling you (not your competitors) when they need a lawyer, a website redesign, or more widgets. But how do you pull it off without sleeping in your office and surgically implanting your Blackberry? Here are four strategies to consider:

[Actually, here are the first two. To read the complete article, please click here.]

1. Schedule your social media presence. It’s true: the blogosphere never sleeps, and you do (unfortunately) lose face if you haven’t updated your blog in three months or you’ve let your Twitter feed languish. If you’re intent on building a strong personal (or corporate) brand, you need to be consistent. But that doesn’t mean you can never escape. Every few months, I’ll lock myself away for an afternoon and come up with a few hundred nuggets to post on Twitter. You can schedule them weeks or months in advance via services like Hootsuite or Tweet Deck. Sure, you’re not replying in real time — but at least you’re putting something out there when you’re lolling in your cabana. Similarly, you can use WordPress or other services to schedule upcoming blog posts.

2. Respond quickly when it matters. When you’re away from the office, practice triage. If you have a corporate assistant, ask him or her to monitor your email and call you if anything urgent arises. If you’re a solo practitioner, shell out for a virtual assistant through a service like Elance. Tim Ferriss provides tips on selecting the right person and scripts to use with them in The 4-Hour Workweek. Most of what passes over the transom can be safely ignored — but you don’t want to miss a new client inquiry from that account you’ve been hoping to land.

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Dorie Clark is a strategy consultant who has worked with clients including Google, Yale University, and the National Park Service. She is the author of the forthcoming What’s Next?: The Art of Reinventing Your Personal Brand (Harvard Business Review Press, 2012).