Putting the social into social media marketing

So there I was last night, working my way through the Answers forum on LinkedIn and up came the question: How are you generating leads using social media? To which I replied:

“Essentially, it’s all about what the offer is and how it fits your target audience. So many people get sucked into the Facebook-Twitter thing, thinking they just need to get a ton of friends / followers and then post links to their stuff. Wrong.

The same rules apply to social media as in real life — you build relationships around common interests, and this takes time and a degree of sincerity.

I recently published an ebook about WordPress for businesses. That being my proposition, my network of friends and followers on Facebook and Twitter did the rest. But that would not have happened had I not assisted in helping them promote their own content.”

So the leads come as a result a number of factors:

1. the trust in you by those in your network
2. the quality of your network (those with the same approach as you)
3. the value of your offer to those in your network

And at its core, that’s life, and social media is not so special that anyone could make a case for its sudden departure from those simple rules. Yes, there’s more to this than a simple 1-2-3 guide to life, social media and everything in between, but that’s as good a place to start as any.

Twitter’s take on trust

This morning, my curated news source that is Twitter unearthed an interesting headline that caught my eye. By the looks of things, Twitter are readying new business features:

“After close to five months of beta testing, Twitter is preparing to launch a suite of business features tied to a central Twitter Business Center.”

So, it looks like Twitter are finally getting their act together and offering some of the features we’ve grown accustom to with CoTweet and HootSuite. But in amongst the brief overview of this proposed new direction by Twitter was mention of something that’s almost throw-away, but could have far reaching and profound consequences for businesses on Twitter:

“Other new capabilities include customization of business profile pages, verified account badges for corporations and organizations (not just people)…”

A verified account on Twitter is a much sought after prize. Why? Because it’s an indicator of trust in you as an individual and a brand by Twitter. That might not be the reason for a verified account (it’s typically used by famous people to show it’s them and not someone masquerading as them), but the value is there for all to see.

Reputation, recognition and Ra Ra skirts

For businesses, the criteria would need to be different. Yes, there’s still going to be people trying to pass themselves off as the Sony’s and the PayPal’s of this world, but for the legitimate businesses like Octane, this really is all about trust and the enormous value that brings along. However, it does all depend on what criteria they choose to use. As I pointed out in a LinkedIn Answers topic last night:

“Getting a profile verified is like knitting fog — almost impossible. Sorry, that’s not entirely correct. If you’re an almost unknown yet gorgeous US female presenter on some bizarre cable channel aimed at guys, then yes, you’re guaranteed.”

A brand new social media metric

Done right and Twitter could have a brand new metric on their hands — up there with Google’s PageRank, the much maligned but still much used Alexa rank and the very real possibility of a PeopleRank, should Facebook get their way — one used by others as an indictor of trust and to help determine the value of a business.

Recommended and related reading

• Earning trust in business
• How to use LinkedIn to promote your business
• Questionable Antics on LinkedIn’s Q&A?
• 10 personal branding habits of the professionals

Google Local really does put your business on the map, in a very real sense. Be you a sole trader auto mechanic, or a family-owned chain store with city-wide shops and stores, Google Local can help get your business found. Here’s how to make the most of Google Local.

What is Google Local?

Most people know of Google Maps, especially their excellent app’ for the iPhone. Google Local takes Maps and makes a place for business, offering people like you and me the chance to add details about our businesses, like opening times, the payment methods we accept, as well as the services we offer.

Say you’re looking for a plumber. Google knows roughly where you are and will find all of the plumbers close to where you are. If they have a listing on Google Local, you’ll have the option to view more details about them.

Put simply, Google Local highlights your business for everyone to see when they’re searching in your area.

How can Google Local help your business?

Google Local has come a long way in the past year. Now more tightly integrated with Maps than ever before, there’s plenty of reasons to get your business on the map.

Coupons — special offers, deals and discounts

You can now add coupons to your listing, which people can print, cut out and bring to your shop, store or restaurant to qualify for the offer the coupon relates to. This is ideal if you’re looking to clear stock, or to just drum up some extra trade.

Reviews — what customers think about your business

As the web becomes an ever more social place to be, customer reviews are playing a major role in the trust people place in the businesses they use. If someone writes a damning review of your business, that might not be the end of the world if it’s just one against ten others that are filled with glowing praise.

People rely heavily on the say-so of others, for things like consumer goods and especially food. And because things are much more open and publicly available than ever before, the emphasis has to be on quality.

So if you have happy customers or clients who you feel are willing to say something nice about your business, get them to write a review on your Google Local listing.

Photos — if you’ve got it, flaunt it!

Do you own a plush bar and restaurant, or maybe your offices are a uniquely styled building? Then there’s a good chance you have some professional photography. They say a picture paints a thousand words. Google Local lets you add up to 10 photos, which will enhance your listing no end.

Google Local now also integrates with Street View. So if Google have been down your street, taking panoramic photos of your place of business, that’s something else for your potential customers and clients to consider.

Statistics — see how someone found you

Having a Google Local listing is one thing, but if you can see what words people are typing into Google, that brought them to your listing, that’s valuable marketing information. Google Local offers exactly this facility. In addition, you’ll see how many people searched using which words and when, and when they clicked onto your website.

Posts — mention up-coming events and special offers

Having coupons for special offers is one thing, but promoting them is something else. Google Local lets you post a quick message (limited to 160 characters) about your offer or event, which appears in your listing.

The mobile web makes every business local

Imagine you’re out in a town or city you’re unfamiliar with. You’re with a bunch of friends and you’ve all agreed on Italian food. But where? If you’ve got an iPhone, Google will take “Italian restaurant” and find the ones closest to you. It’s that simple.

Having a complete listing on Google Local, filled with positive reviews and gorgeous photography, may be the difference between a party of 3-5 people spending money with you (plus tips), or spending their evening and their money with your competitors instead. Worst of all, you probably won’t even know why.

If you’d like to know more about Google Local, or would like to add a listing for your business, why not give me a call on 07815 568 732, or contact Wayne right away?

How my ebook will help you get the most from WordPress

“I’ll be taking you through WordPress from a business perspective: what it does, its strengths and weaknesses, how to use it, how to get the most out of it, and how it can genuinely benefit your business. I’ll also be including a guided tour of WordPress, for the total beginners amongst you.”

Here’s just some of the many benefits of understanding how to use WordPress to manage your company website:

1. Take more control of your website, helping your business save money
2. Write and publish articles about your products and services in your own time
3. Share your content on social networks, like Twitter and Facebook
4. Interact and engage more directly with your customers

My ebook will help you understand and do all those things and more, and includes:

• An illustrated guide to using WordPress, including how-to videos
• Examples and links to many of the valuable resources you’ll come to rely on when using WordPress
• Learn how to optimize your business website or blog for social media
• WordPress security and privacy (managing email addresses, comment spam and software updates)
• Video tutorials, to help you with the basics

A business case for WordPress

Like any modern business, having a website is only part of the puzzle. Now, with the web maturing and becoming a deeply social arena, positioning your business as a brand at the heart of a conversation about a product or a service is probably as important than the product / service itself.

So why WordPress?

WordPress is probably the most popular content management system there is, either free or commercial. Thousands of people all around the world write Plugins for it, to extend WordPress and add additional features.

Getting the most from WordPress

It’s also very easy to change the appearance of WordPress, to suite your businesses corporate style. Also, because WordPress makes use of very popular technologies, installing WordPress is, as they say, just five minutes of your time.

If you know of any friends or family members who’re in business and interested in learning more about WordPress, please feel free to tell them about my ebook and send them the link!

All things Octane — This ebook is professionally composed, prepared using Adobe InDesign (a high-end pre-press publishing application), complete with linked indices, graphics and linked references to various other articles of my own, including a collection of short video tutorials on YouTube — yes, I wrote, designed, composed and rendered everything you see in this ebook, including the videos.

Saturday saw England lose to France in the Rugby Six Nations. As is often the case in rugby, when the attacking side gets close to the try line at the base on their opponents half of the field, all fifteen men are often gripped by “white line fever”. The parallels between business and sport are often lazily made, a cliche almost. But there they are none the less.

And so it is with those businesses easing themselves into the realm of social media management — they chase down the business behemoths and ignore the rest. But is that where the money is?

Earlier, I was to be found reading through a list of social media management systems. Yes, content management systems are now passé, apparently. Although I do well enough from them, as a web application aspect of Octane.

But, here I am, making lazy comparisons with sport again. First it was football and professionalism (no longer two words that are happy bed fellows, in light of the recent bed-hopping indiscretions of Messrs. Terry and Cole) and then it was football and questionable antics on LinkedIn, of all things.

So what is a social media management system?

Since SMMS is still relatively new, the standard features are still subject to change. That aside, here are some of the core features you’d expect to see.

Manage your social media profiles — Much like a content management system, a social media management system is about aggregating a particular kind of content. In this case, profiles for social media websites and social networks.

So, after you sign into your new SMMS, you’re presented with the option of granting access to your Pages on Facebook, Twitter accounts and YouTube Channels.

Create and share content — Like any marketing campaign, your efforts need to be coordinated, possibly across a team, across time zones, different languages, in addition to the various social media channels.

Analyze and measure engagement — All of your furious industry counts for nothing if you don’t know what happened to all of that great content you’re creating. So here’s where comments, clicks, votes, sentiment and distributed discussions are pooled and analyzed, helping you put a pounds and pence value on your investment.

All eyes on the prize

The list of social media management systems is concise, but sadly, the emphasis in most cases is on the enterprise prize at the expense of every other business, which prompted me to comment thusly:

There appears to be a mad dash towards the enterprise (a noble venture, assuming they have the time time and money to stick out the sales process through the myriad departments they’ll have to navigate), with hardly a look over the shoulder at the vastly more populous SMEs / SMBs who would be serviced and served just as well.

After all, if it wasn’t the case that small-to-medium sized businesses were being neglected in the social media gold rush, I would never have written my ebook, The Beginner’s Guide to Social Media, which wouldn’t have been downloaded well over a thousand times, and I would never have picked up new clients via social media as a result.

Whatever the reasons, these guys have their sights set on the enterprise. Perhaps it’s at the behest of their investors. Who knows. Either way, there’s a gap in the market, an opportunity for someone to develop a social media management system for the masses of businesses out there not in the Fortune 500 list, who don’t have a fleet of private jets, no international offices, nor a politician sympathetic to your cause.

Look at it this way, just the one client worth £30k a year might look better than ten clients worth just £3k. On the face of things, managing one client would appear to be simpler. But if you had to lose just one client, which would prefer; one worth £30k or one worth £3k?

So as I stand, looking across the field of play, the prize is staying true to the strategy, being mindful of the be-suited potential suitors in the executive box, but keeping in mind the goal of creating a genuine crowd pleasing, seat filling spectacle for years to come.

Image credited to Flickr and Jessica.

When I walk into my gym, scattered on the reception counter is a collection of flyers and printed pamphlets promoting their various events. They’re on cork boards, stuck to walls, they’re announced over the speaker system, displayed on the flat TV screens in the gym, the changing rooms and the bar area — they’re promoting events everywhere throughout the gym.

Brilliant, eh? Well, nearly. To some extent, the strength of the message is being lost on those that are head-down busy like me; you’ve either got time or you haven’t. Promoting internally will have results, but people are increasingly becoming “ad’ blind”, and just don’t even see adverts. What’s needed is an elective process, one that people subscribe to.

Put your business through its paces

Much has been made of Facebook and many people labour under the impression that it’s is just for kids. Thankfully, that’s not the case. Because if it was, Octane wouldn’t be there.

For a business like Octane, community is a more difficult end goal to build because my offering is different. Blah, Blah! Technology has a very healthy Page, currently heading towards 400 fans. People appear to enjoy not only science, technology and social media.

So, my gym. They have a website, which I doubt is doing them an ounce of good. They have all of these great offers, promotions, give-aways, competitions etc, but the uptake isn’t as good as it could be.

Right now, they have all of these members, most of which elected to give up their email addresses when they joined. This being a private gym, membership isn’t exactly cheap — but the service and the facilities are excellent, I hasten to add! I reckon their demographic has a healthy bulge in the 30-35 year old area. I would say it’s not a great leap of speculation to imagine many of that group of people being on Facebook. And we already know they have a disposable income, so that’s a given.

Run a Page on Facebook

So let’s say my gym got themselves a Page on Facebook. What next? People. Specifically their members.

They’d need do a mail merge and ping out emails to all of their members with an announcement for their Page, with a list of features and benefits. The gym looks pro-active and score points for being in the face of their members.

Advice on Facebook — Creating a Landing Page for Twitter, Facebook.

Brand

Next up, they start a structured campaign of posting links to relevant content and internal promotions, such as:

1. dietary planning;
2. local sporting events (football, rugby etc);
3. competitions / give-aways;
4. up-coming acts at their very own night club and bar;
5. healthy eating ideas and recipes;
6. family events and kids sports days…

… offering up some good, sound advice to their members, for almost zero cost — they’ve usually got 3-4 people downstairs handling calls and shuffle paper around, all of whom could easily take on this task.

This is valuable know-how and advice, with experts on hand (those being the gym staff) to field questions, book one-to-one sessions, join classes etc.

In subtle but measurable ways, the perception of the gym shifts from just a company and to a brand — and from a gym to a place to meet people and build on your social life. The members now value what the gym represents and begin to talk.

Advice on branding — 10 personal branding habits of the professionals, Manage personal brand like a porn star.

Engagement

Pages on Facebook include the option to add Discussions, which are forums for people to discuss different topics. From personal experience, these either work or they don’t. But as a gym, they could post on a wide range of topics (protein supplements, types of pre and post work-out stretches, effects of alcohol, etc) and get people talking, asking questions and engaging.

When a curry night or a horse racing day comes up (among many others), they create an event for their Page, which then shows up on peoples front pages. The members then elect to say whether they’re to attend, not to attend, or say they’re not sure.

Over time, the gym can better gauge uptake for an event (what works, what doesn’t, when and why) and get an idea of how many are likely to attend. Plus, since people can share events with friends, they could invite someone as a guest, who might just turn into a member later on.

Conversation

The events go down a storm, as they usually do. The members and staff who were there took loads photos and recorded the odd video of dads dancing on their mobil phone, and later over the course of the following week post said photos and videos to the Page, tagging staff and other members.

People laugh, share comments, “like” photos, reminisce, strike up friendships and start conversations.

Community

Before long, members are organizing nights out, inviting fellow members and friends to fun runs, races, competitions, hiking trips, the list goes on. We’re no longer just members, nor are we just friends — we’re now a community.

Brand. Engagement. Conversation. Community. They’re all right there, for pennies. All without even breaking a sweat. Well almost. Like anything else that’s good in life, it takes time and effort. But if you invest both, then you invest wisely and be a winner.

If you’d like to know more about how social media and internet marketing can help your business, get in touch right now.

Image credited to Flickr and “I like”.

This is big news, because not only does this justify the efforts of many businesses like Octane that are banging the big social media drum, but it also helps clarify what is and what is not acceptable, in terms of a marketing messages and adverts. What the ASA is proposing is simply an extension of existing regulations:

“The proposed amendment to the Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP) Code — expected to be in force by September — will extend the regulatory framework currently in place for paid online ads to all other online marketing communications. As a result, claims from marketers on their own Web sites and third-party sites like social networks will now be subject to ASA scrutiny, as they are in TV, print, and other forms of online advertising.”

However, the introduction of any new legislation brings with it the specter of ambiguity; do we comply? To some, this will be a challenge, while to others, this will be an opportunity. As a business that sells information, a lot of what I and Octane do is educate people as to the possibilities and the potential of their business on the web.

As a pre-qualifier, if I feel that a prospective client has questionable intentions, I make my polite excuses and leave. I have no intention of ruining my hard-earned 10 year old reputation for a project I’m not happy with.

So how do these planned regulatory powers affect businesses using social media marketing?

Dispelling the social media myth — size isn’t everything

The biggest problem I have when explaining social media to someone is the very thing that makes it such a compelling channel to promote a business — it’s size. Because social media marketing is so relatively new — certainly for the vast majority of businesses out there — the prospect of a free way of marketing their business is just too tempting to pass up on.

There’s so many ways to use social media, and so many different ways to enter it, it can be overwhelming. The myth that social media is mostly free doesn’t help, either. Yes, most of the tools and websites out there are free to use and join, but it’s still your time spent learning these things, which is where the cost comes in. And it’s often an unrecoverable loss of time (and ultimately money) if you can’t make good of your efforts.

Avoid anti-social networking

So if you now overlay social media with the extended laws, enactable by the ASA, and then add in the aforementioned ambiguity of compliance amongst those businesses new to social media who have probably never done any advertising or marketing before, there’s a potential for inadvertent illegality.

Because the web is such an open venue, your business has the potential of reaching out to far more people than any regular marketing channel, such as mail shot, or a telesales campaign. Many of these people will not be native to Britain. So that tongue-in-cheek joke on your home page or a recent blog article could be hugely offensive to some.

I don’t want this to sound like a scare story, or to look like a cattle prod to marshal you, the reader, towards Octane. I just hope that, between now and September, the government and the Advertising Standards Authority do a good enough job of educating businesses.

Limiting your liability

There is always risk. That’s life. As a business owner, I create risk every time I engage in a client project. If I can limit the liability of a client in some way, averting an advertising snafu, or a marketing mishap, that’s a job well done.

Caught on camera

So you want an example? Photography. This is one of the most misunderstood areas in design. Photography can be a machine-like process, such a product photography. But it can also be an art form. It is often in the case of the latter that a photograph is used without permission and without a royalty payment to the copyright owner.

It’s a huge problem, but it’s so huge, people often feel it’s not like breaking a real law. And because it’s such a huge problem, it’s only those who make the mistake of infringing copyright in huge way (like in a TV or magazine advert, a poster campaign, or from September, if in a social media marketing campaign) that get caught.

The advise I give to my clients is simple; buy the photograph that you like. Once they do that, we’re all covered.

Demonstrate your difference

James Good, a design and illustrator uses the slogan: demonstrate your difference. It’s as succinct a question anyone could ask of a business. In this sense, it’s perfectly applicable, because it demands that we demonstrate not just how good we are, but how much trust our clients have in our abilities.

By working within the remit of legislation, and making this clear to my clients, I would be demonstrating a level of knowledge that instills a sense of trust — I would be, in effect, protecting my client (and myself) from possible prosecution.

Of course, I’ve yet to encounter a situation where I was asked to do anything that was offensive or misleading. But a knowledge of the law hints at a greater understanding.

So what do we take away from this new regulatory extension? First of all, we work within those regulations. Secondly, we use our knowledge of not just advertising standards but of any other law that our clients would benefit from. And thirdly, we keep on teaching as good as we learn.

Image credited to Flickr and Richard Carter.

So who’s Wayne Smallman and what does Octane do?

Wayne Smallman is many things, but he is mostly known for his writing, his designing and his web development.

To pay the bills, Octane is a provider of web design & development and internet marketing services to a variety businesses of all shapes and sizes, scattered hither & yonder around the British isles, of which case studies are available for your perusal.

As for the writing, I, Wayne Smallman am the man behind the Blah, Blah! Technology blog — a mixture of science, technology and social media commentary and how-to guides (amongst many other things), all wrapped in my own unique style of opinion, observation, dark humour, all underpinned by an unbending faith in the soul of humanity.

I also write business support and advice articles right here on Octane, via my blog — less so the inimitable commentary and more a series of practical guides to help you steer your business through calmer waters, based upon my own years of experience, beginning in 1999, which is the year when Octane was founded.

In addition, I write for a growing number of publications (both printed and electronic), sharing the aforementioned knowledge and experience further afield.

I’m also the author of the popular ebook, The Beginner’s Guide to Social Media, which has been downloaded many hundreds of times by an eclectic mix of people from all over the world, eager to learn more about social media, and how it may benefit their businesses.

What’s your Twitter follow policy?

The question itself might be a little misleading if you’re new to Twitter. When you follow someone — or at least when I do — I don’t expect those people to automatically follow me back.

As in life, we don’t always find that we have that much in common with the people we meet, or we feel that the person that just followed us isn’t adding the right kind of ideas, thoughts and observations to our stream of Twitter updates.

As an example, if you’re an up-and-coming singer / songwriter and you were to buy the latest album of a famous singer, would you expect them to return the gesture? Of course not, because that’s not how it works.

I’m neither famous, nor am I singer. But the fact of the matter is, we are all different and to reciprocate for the sake of reciprocation is disingenuous.

So I might not follow you back if you follow me. And of course, the opposite holds true, too. Obviously, some people feel very differently about this, but this is my Twitter follow policy, and I’ve at least demonstrated my honesty on the subject, if nothing else.

Ideally, we’ll have many things in common, so here are a few things I look for before I follow anyone, or follow back:

1. A profile bio that tells me something about you, what you do and what you’re interested in.
2. A link to a website or blog that tells me more about you what you do.
3. Plenty of updates, so I know you’re an active Twitterer.
4. We both speak the same language, i.e.: English.

So is Twitter the place to be?

That really depends on what you want from Twitter. I could go into all kinds of detail, but ultimately, you need to know what you want from a thing before you invest time & effort in it — which, incidentally, is where my social media ebook might prove useful, if you’re in any doubt.

Facebook is another social network which you could also join, but it is a quite different venue to Twitter, in the sense that it isn’t public; your network of friends is closed to external sources.

Twitter commands a huge audience, so your efforts are as well spent there. So if you’re hoping to form allegiances, find friends and allies, or you simply wish to learn from those in your industry, Twitter is the place for you.

What now?

That’s as open ended a question as you could ever hope to ask! If you haven’t already, you could follow me on Twitter and join the conversation. And finally, thank you for your time. Always a pleasure.

Essentially, this is still an elective process, but with social media exploding in popularity, it has become a route few can afford to ignore.

Wayne Smallman, FSB member, founder of web design and development consultancy Octane Interactive and author of The Beginner’s Guide to Social Media, says:

Be careful about being too candid, entering into heated and bad-tempered debates and arguments, or making disparaging, negative and very public comments about clients, as well as other people. Unless you’re absolutely certain of the people in your social network, apply the ‘mother rule’ – would my mother be offended if she read this?

Social media websites and networks can be used to support and publicize a company, while firms should also take care to integrate social media within marketing, Mr Smallman explained.