That new social networking site – Do you need it?
(We’re definitely in with the Beanie – are you guys?!)
Hardly a month goes by without “the next big thing” in social networking being launched. It seems only yesterday that Quora was about to take over the world, then it was Empire Avenue. More recently we’ve had Instagram, Pinterest, and Google+. In the last few days, I’ve been invited to a new network targeted at the Fitness industry.
And today’s winner is….
All of these were launched with enormous fanfare, and often followed by a lot of talk about exponential growth, how they’re going to wipe out Facebook, and so on.
Some have done incredibly well at picking up users, but don’t see much activity after that. Others have made a big impact from an awareness point of view, but still have a relatively small number of users; these reasonably recent statistics suggest that Pinterest is punching well above its weight in that regard, still having only an estimated 200,000 users in the UK.
Don’t just panic. Evaluate.
For anyone in charge of an online marketing strategy, the big fear is always that the next “next big thing” would be perfect for them, and that they’ll be missing out catastrophically if they don’t jump on it. That’s still the only thing, in our opinion, which explains the growth of Google +. Actually, the far bigger risk is that you waste a lot of time on something which won’t help you meet your objectives, and potentially damage your efforts on other more established sites in the process – nobody can be everywhere at once.
Choose your weapons logically
If you were fighting a duel and a new five-ton rocket launcher came out, would you abandon your handgun for it? Probably not, because although it might be bigger and theoretically more powerful, it’s no good if you don’t have a huge truck to get it where you’re going. Social media is no different – you need to evaluate whether the “bigger and better” elements of a new platform are vital for the task in hand, and whether you have the resources to work with it anyway.
So, next time you’re told about an amazing new site you need to check out right now, ignore all the blather about growth and potential, and ask yourself whether you can answer “Yes!” to any of the questions below.
I know that (a section of) my target prospects are there, and I want to reach them
This is a great reason to add a new site into your strategy. If there’s reasonable evidence that a certain demographic, or business type if you’re B2B, is using a site – especially if you’re not reaching them effectively through the rest of your marketing mix – then it’s worth investigation.
For example, if you’re looking to improve your brand’s visibility or perception amongst younger, more educated, design-led people, then a clever Instagram stream might just do the trick. Of course, Instagram just provides the opportunity, it’s down to you to come up with great content which’ll catch their imagination.
I know that many of my customers are there, and want to use it as a communication channel to my brand
The mobile phone companies’ (notable O2 and Vodafone) use of Twitter is a good example of this. They’ve done some great work building loyalty and community with their customers by being where those customers are.
The platform includes unique functionality which will be valuable
We’ve all been guilty of getting a bit overexcited at “cool” new functions, and the function might just be the key thing you need to move forward on a marketing objective.
A word of caution, though: firstly, make sure that it’s genuinely useful as well as cool – and that it’s realistic for you to make use of it. The Google+ Hangouts feature is an example of this – in theory, being able to run mini-videoconferences from within the platform is definitely cool. If you’re working in B2B marketing and have ten major clients and a relatively small pool of prospects though, the chances of getting enough people together at one time to make practical use of it may be slim.
Unless you know that the entire country has signed up overnight, you also need to be confident that you’ll be able to bring your customer or prospect community along with you. Remember that, if they’re not already there, getting people to sign up for a new site (and revisit it regularly) is a BIG ask in today’s oversaturated world. So be sure that that killer function is absolutely compelling.
5 reasons social media isn’t working for you – and how to fix them
Disappointment. Not a word anyone usually wants to hear in a business meeting, but music to our ears.
The theme of this last week’s work with some new clients has been disappointment – feeling that they started investing time in social media because the world and his dog had told them it was a sure fire route to business growth, and it’s not turned out that way. But as with so many things in life, the devil is very much in the detail – So here are our top five social media failure points, and what you can do about them.
1. Inconsistency
This one’s really a failure to integrate social media properly alongside the other regular key tasks for your marketing. You’re set up on all the main social media sites, but only find time to check and update them sporadically. From your contacts’ point of view, that means you’re either swamping them with updates (“might as well post everything I can think of on Twitter while i’m here“) or absent and not holding your end of the conversation. You’d not dream of leaving your email inbox unchecked for a week or more, so why do the equivalent on social media?
The remedy: Decide how frequently it’s realistic for you to post – and stick to it. Even a regular monthly update on your Facebook page is much better than nothing for three months, and then three posts at once. Scheduling tools like Hootsuite or Tweetdeck are your friend here. Secondly, make your social media part of your regular schedule, or get someone else to do it for you. You need to be checking your incoming contacts daily as by tomorrow, they’ll very likely have moved on and not be listening to your response.
2. Lack of reach
Like any marketing activity, only a small proportion of people seeing your communication will either read or act on it – so good reach is vital. By “reach”, we mean a sufficient quantity of first degree connections (ie direct Followers, Likers etc) and a willingness for them to interact with you in ways which make you visible to their own networks ( a Twitter re-tweet, or commenting on your Facebook posts for example).
DON’T confuse reach with the absolute number of your Followers or Likers – here’s what happens if you do.
The remedy: Sit down and take a half hour or so to develop a “good follower” profile. What type of people, in what area of the world, do you need to reach out to?
This list will have something in common with your target prospect characteristics but probably won’t be the same; remember to allow for influencers who may never buy from you, but who can be very effective in increasing your visibility. Then start building relationships with those people, rather than just increasing your follower count with meaningless numbers.
3. The PR trap
We still see lots of businesses who haven’t understood the difference between social media and their other marketing channels, and constantly post old-style “push” marketing content. If most of your content could be summarised as “look how great we / our products are” then this may be your problem. Nobody, and I mean NOBODY, gets a social media account so that they can receive advertising, so your contacts are most likely tuning you out completely.
The remedy: This all comes down to value. You need to be offering something of value to your contacts BEYOND what they’d get from reading your corporate website or trade magazine advertorials. So, brainstorm all the types of content you could post which provide some kind of value. For example, are you tapped into industry developments and able to be their first port of call for breaking news? Can you search out content which helps them solve problems (like this article, for example 
)?
That’s not to say some of your content can’t subtly promote your key marketing messages, but put yourself in your contacts’ shoes: a photo captioned “here’s Emma in her pyjamas at 5am because we’re leaving for X trade show” is much more fun to read than “we’re exhibiting at X trade show on the 12th of June”.
4. Tumbleweed
AKA, total lack of engagement. You’ve got a good, relevant following, but they don’t converse with you or advocate on your behalf. Your @mentions Twitter tab is empty apart from spammers, and your Facebook page is a one-way conversation with yourself.
Remedy: This one isn’t easy, we’d be the first to admit. People are busy, and often they’re happy to read but don’t feel the need to engage. To help make them reach for that “reply” button, compelling content helps (see above), as does asking the odd direct question and making them think less hard about responses – yes, sometimes that does mean you’re going to end up talking about what you had for lunch. What’s so bad about that – would you refuse to discuss anything but hardcore strategy in a face to face meeting?
5. Bad Manners
You get past all the previous tests but relationships don’t progress beyond an initial contact. They comment or reply to you once, or maybe just follow you and say Hi. Then you turn them off with what they see as poor etiquette, and you don’t hear from them again.
The remedy: Make sure you’re polite and considerate at all times. On Twitter for example, consider greeting new followers IF they’re genuinely relevant and of interest to you, and starting a conversation. Check their bio before you respond . Our names are clearly in our bio, but we lose count of the responses addressed to “Rose” – not a huge deal, but not endearing either. Think about your followback policy on Twitter (and following Facebook comments by Liking the originating page). Thank people who share or otherwise pass on your content. And obviously, always reply to messages or Facebook comments!
We hope these help you in the direction of a great social media presence, and if you’re still struggling, why not book one of our private consultancy and training sessions? One of our clients this week summed up the benefits perfectly:
“I really enjoyed {the session} and found it extremely useful. It was so great to have you focus completely on our business and make the real time changes to our pages. I felt you really understood our products, market and strategy.”
- more music to our ears!
Facebook Timeline privacy settings – the check you STILL need to make
NOTE: as of today (31st January 2012), the below is only of concern if you’ve upgraded your personal Facebook profile to the new “Timeline” format. If you haven’t (or Facebook hasn’t yet done it for you, as it will do eventually), you need to come back and check your privacy is intact AFTER the change 
Reading through today’s social media news, I came across an article just published on the Guardian’s website, asking “What if your Facebook Timeline was read instead of your CV?“. Not a huge concern to me personally, I tend not to post anything hugely personal and / or incriminating on Facebook, plus I was pretty sure I was on top of my privacy settings. But the mention of changes around the introduction of the Timeline format gave me a nagging doubt, so I thought i’d revisit my settings and just, y’know, double check. Continue reading
Custom Facebook Page URLs now available immediately – but read this first
When you set up a new Facebook Business page, the default URL (web address) for the page is something like http://www.facebook.com/pages/JB-Focus-Photography/152681298122046. Not exactly user friendly, they are long and awkward for inclusion in printed marketing materials, and impossible for customers to remember.
Facebook does allow you to create a “custom” URL for your page – like www.facebook.com/RoseMcGrory – but until a few days ago, anyone setting up a new Facebook Business page would have to wait until they had at least 25 “Likers” before Facebook allowed them to set that unique name and address for their Page.
That’s now changed, so that you can set a custom URL straight away (and look out for a LOT more over the next few weeks – there’s a big conference for Facebook developers tomorrow, where we’re expecting many new developments to be unveiled). Here’s how to do it, and some of the things to consider when you do.
How to set your business page name and web address
Using Facebook in Admin mode for your page (Account > Use facebook as page, and click the Switch button next to that page)
1. Click the Edit Page button on the top right of the screen.
2. Click “Basic Information” from the menu that appears on the left (indicated below)
3. Click “Create a username for this page” (indicated below).
4. You’ll then be given a box into which you can type your choice of username – the bit you’re adding is what will come after the “www.facebook.com/” so in our case, it’s just “RoseMcGrory”. Use the check availability button – if you have a business name with commonly used words in it, you may find that someone else has already claimed that address and you’ll need to have a rethink.
Once you get the popup confirming that your latest choice is available – DO NOT hit “confirm” until you’re absolutely sure that’s the name you want. Previously, you could amend the username until your page had a certain number of Likers, now you are stuck with it for ever!
Things to consider when naming your Facebook Page:
You need to make sure your URL is as user friendly, memorable, and idiot proof as possible, so that you don’t lose potential “Likers” along the way because they can’t find your page. Make sure you think about
Length
If you have a very long business name, a shorter form will be less cumbersome for customers to use; and don’t be tempted to stuff the URL with keywords at the expense of useability! “marketinganddesigninLeicester” might cover all the bases, but isn’t going to be easy for your users!
Spelling and difficult words
Again, if there are keywords you’d like to use but which are prone to mis-spelling – a problem we have all the time with the “McGrory” part of ours – you might consider going for an alternative naming route. This cuts down on the chances of a customer putting a typo in, getting a “page not found” message, and giving up.
Translation from “heard” to “printed”
The classic issue here is with the use of underscores, hyphens, and other punctuation marks. www.facebook.com/brilliant_marketing_ltd is great on the page, but as soon as you have to pass it on in a spoken format, there’ll be trouble – many people don’t know the difference between an underscore and a hyphen, and you’ll have to go to great descriptive lengths to make sure they get it right.
Keywords vs Company name
We’ve heard conflicting opinions about whether including the keywords your business targets for search purposes, for example “social media training UK” for us, has any benefit from an SEO point of view (any SEO gurus reading, please feel free to comment!). If you’re going to do this, do consider both useability and also consistency; while you can use a long URL on Facebook, you couldn’t keep that username consistent on Twitter, for example, because of the length restriction.
One final point – it seems that, at least for now, you may only be able to get an immediate custom URL for one page. If you manage many pages with few likes, choose carefully which one to change first. This may just be a way for Facebook to prevent an avalanche of URLs being registered and may change soon, but if it doesn’t, anyone needing multiple new-page custom URLs will need to talk nicely to their friends who haven’t yet used up their Admin allowance!
How to be a star on LinkedIn
This is the second part of our “basics” article for LinkedIn – designed to get you thinking about making the most of LinkedIn for your business. If you missed it, part one is here: LinkedIn – the basics for business.
Onwards and upwards
So, you’ve seen how LinkedIn can support and accelerate your professional networking efforts. Your business has a credible and effective company page, and your personal profile is complete and ready to go.
Here are our top tips for using LinkedIn effectively and strategically.
1. Rock your recommendations
The Recommendations feature is a great way of substantiating your own statements about your abilities, but only if you use it well. Be scrupulous in only requesting recommendations from people who can truly comment on your work, as it puts people in an awkward position if you ask for a recommendation and they barely know you, or have worked with you very briefly.
On the flip side, be discriminating about who you recommend, and particularly try to avoid an “I’ll do yours if you do mine” approach – readers can easily see whether all of your recommendations are reciprocal, and this may undermine the credibility of both the recommendation and your personal integrity.
2. Connect consistently.
Do you want your network to consist of colleagues and regular contacts, or are you happy to connect with people you’ve met briefly at a networking event – or perhaps someone you have never spoken to, but share a common interest group with? There’s no right or wrong answer to this; in some industries, a small, “close contacts only” network might work best, but remember that the larger your connection list, the more likely it is that someone you want to approach on a professional level will be within your wider network.
You may see people using the acronym “LION” in their profile heading – this stands for “LinkedIn Open Networker” and indicates that they are happy to connect with all comers.
You might want to include a short statement about your connection policy within your own profile, especially if you’re restricting to a small group for some reason.
3. Perfect your profile.
On the top menu, click “More..” and then “Get more applications”. This will show you a number of apps which can be added to your profile, ranging from being able to upload presentation to connecting up your blog so that new posts show on your profile. Certain professions, such as the Legal sector, have a number of sector-specific applications. Have a look around and add anything that will give additional depth to your profile and help to show off your strengths.
4. Be clever with your Groups.
Join a manageable number of relevant groups, but think out of the box a little – rather than hanging out where all of your sector colleagues are, give some thought to the kinds of groups your prospective customers might join, and get involved in those too.
5. Be a brilliant contributor.
Respond to discussion threads in your groups – but make sure you stick to your areas of knowledge and experience if you’re going to give advice or make bold statements, because you can be sure someone out there will call you on it if you don’t!
Avoid posting “naked” links – those with no commentary about what the link is to and why it might interest your fellow Group members – especially if those links are at all self promotional, ie to your company website / press releases. That section of the group is called “discussions” for a reason! Posting a lot of links to what is basically advertorial just looks low rent, and doesn’t do anything to enrich the value that your fellow members get from the group.
If you’ve got a point to make about something you know well though, absolutely do start a discussion thread. If you hit on something interesting and / or controversial, these threads can take on a real life of their own! Here’s a thread we started about the commercial value of Twitter followers which drew over 141 comments, and drove a significant amount of traffic to our website over almost a month. “Follow my Facebook page / Twitter account” threads – are we all kidding ourselves?
So, those are our tips for starting to become a LinkedIn superstar. What have we missed, that’s worked really well for you?
