BlogPosts from September, 2011

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Are you human?

It’s a serious question. Are you? Well, of course you are. You know that, because you’re sitting here reading this. But do your customers? After all, you’re just a name, or a business, or a product on their computer screen. You’re just a voice on the phone. You’re just words in an email.

Technology can make us unsociable. Technology means we can forget basic etiquette that we instinctively use when meeting people face to face. You can ignore an email. Speak your mind without seeing someone’s hurt expression. Be self absorbed and only talk about yourself. Be rude. Inundate people with unwanted information.

Well, this blog is a gentle reminder not to let that happen. Isn’t the world tough enough without adding to the experience? And, just as importantly, the online perception of your brand is at stake.

How you act online, day to day, is your virtual cv. It’s a footprint of behaviour that never goes away. Every shirty email, flippant response and dodgy joke is there for posterity. Similarly, every cold, impersonal interaction stays up. Every auto response. What we’re saying is, you need to act human…humanely.

You don’t have to spill your love woes to prove you’re an individual, but you do need to speak with an individual voice. Are you fond of corporate speak and marketing lingo? Then you’re probably not speaking as an individual. Of course, you need to sound professional, but let’s face it: when your mate asks you what you fancy doing over the weekend, so you really reply: ‘I’ll give some top level, highbrow thinking to that and come up with a comprehensive cross functional strategy to tackle your dilemma’?

Well, if you do, read no further. But if you don’t, start reading your content with fresh eyes.

Do you sound like a person you want to be friends with?

Do you sound like a person at all?

3 Simple Steps to Planning your Content Marketing Strategy

Social media has no relevance to your life, interests or activities cluttering up your Twitter feed are the equivalent of being trapped at a great party with someone telling you a really boring story. They might even be able to tell you’re not interested, because they can see you’re not really responding and your eyes are darting around the room in desperation, but they still keep talking. Why? Because they don’t know what to say – so they say anything.

It’s easy for businesses, especially those just starting out in social media, to fall into the Twitter trap of alienating their customers through uninteresting, uninspiring and frankly useless tweets, because they think it doesn’t matter what they say as long as they say something.

Wrong! But if that’s you, then worry no more. What you need is a content strategy – and that’s what we’ll give you.

A content strategy stop you from being the boring-story guy hovering around the buffet table, and instead be the fabulous-story, charming guy surrounded holding court at the bar. And it’s not as hard as it seems; just follow four simple steps to put yours together.

First, look at your business goals. Twitter itself isn’t a business goal – but what you can do with it is. For example, consider offering a reduced customer response time to queries, or first-sight of discounted products and sales.

Second, know your audience. You might use Twitter to enhance customer service, but are your customers there, on Twitter itself? Are they the right customers, if so? Your content is only relevant and interesting if you’re actually reaching the people it’s meant for.

Third, plan your social message. Everything you say not only reflects on your brand, but stays there. A couple of ill-considered tweets won’t go away anytime soon. And don’t go in all guns blazing and then tail off after getting your customers interested – they won’t come back in a hurry. At the heart of every tweet should be the customer – ask yourself, what does this tweet give my customer? Can they use it? Does it help them?

Fourth, measure and evaluate. Watch carefully to see how your customers respond. Perhaps they are more engaged in the evening, or at lunch. Adapting your strategy accordingly is a sure-fire way to give your customers what they want, and need. Make sure your goals are achieved, and work out how you will know you’ve achieved them – if its to grow your sales, how will you plot the customer journey from Twitter to checkout?

Time to get your content strategy together – and don’t touch Twitter without it!

Tweet yourself successful

With businesses falling over themselves to set up Facebook marketing campaigns, you might be forgiven for wondering when Twitter was going to jump on the bandwagon. Well, it’s started. Promoted tweets are exactly what it says on the tin – tweets that promote your business.

Why pay for promoted tweets when your own organic tweets can do the same thing? we hear you ask. Well, although promoted tweets are clearly labelled as such (including all the things you can do with organic tweets like retweet, reply, and favourite) they do enjoy some advantages that can help you reach a wider audience or more of your existing followers – sparking the type of engagement that can really help your business go stratospheric.

Mainly, your promoted tweets can be seen in a variety of places. They pop up at the top of relevant search results. If the targeted user is a follower, then promoted tweets appear on their own timeline.

Tweets with hashtags that are also being promoted by an advertiser mean that those clicking on the tweet will see a promoted tweet in the details pane. They also see one when they click on a shared promoted trend.

But don’t forget that whilst the differences between promoted and organic tweets are important, the similarities are too. Promoted tweets start out as regular tweets, so they fit into the Twitter landscape easily, differentiating them from traditional advertising. At the moment they are only available on Twitter.com, but their popularity means that syndication with Hootsuite and TweetDeck is fast approaching.

Fancy being an early adopter? Check out Twitter Help to find out how to get on board. It could be the break your business has been waiting for!

Social Media: what’s nice and what’s naughty?

The fast-moving world of social media means that often we can barely keep up with the latest changes – let alone work out what rules we should apply to them. Every retailer knows that a social commerce branch on their business tree is essential in the 21st century, but many shy away from getting stuck in and reaping the benefits because they’re unsure about the rules of engagement, including how to safeguard their employees online, and protect their brand.

If that’s you, worry no more. All you need are clear guidelines for your business– read on to find out our top ten tips for creating your own:

  1. Start out by clearly defining who is covered under the guidelines. Hint: it should be everyone. Social media is becoming a ubiquitous part of life, and it’s likely that almost all employees will contribute to some form of social media content, whether professionally on behalf of the business, or personally through their online profiles and networks.
  2. If they want to talk about the brand online, make sure they know who the right person to contact for permission is, and that they know they have to speak to them before any activity goes ahead. Don’t be in a position where you’re shutting the stable door as the horse disappears over the hill!
  3. Be clear about what topics the business will never comment on, and ask employees to bear these in mind even during personal, private interactions.
  4. Maybe you want the employee to talk on your behalf – this can be a great opportunity if handled correctly. Make sure they are transparent about the company they’re speaking for, that their profile is professional and represents the brand accordingly, and that they use their real name…
  5. …but whilst it’s great to be transparent, be careful confidential data doesn’t slip out! It’s okay to say if something is private or classified. This particularly applies if the company is under litigation or other legal matters.
  6. Employees might be tempted to speculate, or answer a question with an answer that they’re not 100% sure of, or perhaps post an badly-worded or offensive response, intentionally or otherwise. Once it’s out there, it’s out there! Make it crystal clear what the consequences are and always advise them to seek expert advice if they’re not sure about anything.
  7. Be diplomatic, both when talking about the competition and when encountering opposite opinions. Employees should be polite, stick to the facts, have the appropriate permissions, and above all, avoid getting defensive!
  8. Pull the plug in a crisis situation – employees should not be discussing the situation online and should flag any activity to the person in charge. Even anonymous comments can be traced; make sure they know this.
  9. Credit where credit is due – links, credits and trackbacks should be provided for external sources (unless of course they want to be anonymous).

10.  Of course, your employees will have their own rich social media life, and whilst this is perfectly fine, make sure that any that could be seen as being related to your company have               a ‘views are my own’ disclaimer.

Tweak as appropriate for your own internal documentation, structure and strategy. We recommend holding an introduction seminar or meeting to outline the guidelines and give people the opportunity to ask any questions. Social media isn’t something to be afraid of; with the right guidelines you’ll have nothing to worry about, so get stuck in. Good luck!

We-commerce: e-commerce meets social media

Social media doesn’t stand still for anyone – or everyone – and its spin-off phenomena is no exception. Not a day goes by without some new development and we’re on hand to make sure you’re up to date with them all. The latest news is that ecommerce is now we-commerce.

Customers are increasingly turning to their online communities to help them make the best purchase decisions. Instead of painstakingly phoning round their friends, they can poll as many of their friends, family and colleagues as they like within seconds.  If the internet is the new social shopping space, then social networking profiles are the new water coolers.

This has brought some interesting new business models into existence, capitalising on the new consumer-to-consumer marketing channel. ShopSocially is a subscription-based service that lets retailers embed a ‘share’ widget on their checkout pages, so customers can share their lovely new goodies with everyone they know on Twitter, Facebook and a host of other social sites. Kaboodle on the other hand has gone a step further and created their own network, allowing users to create profiles specifically to discuss fashion and build wardrobe wishlists. It now has 1.5 million users.

Don’t just take our word for it – the stats speak for themselves. A new study shows that 63% of online customers talk about their electronic purchases online, 43% talk about clothes, and 41% about applicances – as well as using their social networking in other aspects of their buying activity. Electronics buyers are streets ahead – a fifth have made a purchase based on an opinion on social networks, and almost half follow brands online for exclusive vouchers and discounts – but the rest are catching up.

Yet on the flip of the coin – and this might surprise you – there’s increasing evidence that some customers are researching their purchases online, before reverting to traditional, ‘bricks and mortar’ shopping to seal the deal. This way, they avoid the perceived high costs of shipping they associate with online shopping, and get to look over the products in person before committing to the purchase.

Experts are calling this commerce 3.0 – a beautiful marriage of online and offline sales, or ‘web-influenced sales’, or as we say, ‘having your cake and eating it’. The beneficiaries are the consumers, who don’t have to pay or wait for delivery, and local businesses, who can satisfy the need for instant gratification and capitalise on the 45% of shoppers who buy an extra item once in-store.

The lesson we’re learning is that as online and offline sales become increasingly blurred, they also need to be increasingly seamless, with quality customer service. Commerce 3.0 is here to stay – don’t get left behind.