Think again if you want to build a business

What’s the point?

Sure, you can buy bulk fans and followers but that’s all there is. You will pride yourself with the enormous number of accounts (!) following your timeline but how many of them will ever read a line you write. What are the odds that any of them will reply to one of your posts, share it with their friends, talk about your business or buy one of your products? Close to zero.

You can invest a lot of your time into writing unique content and then sharing it on your social media accounts. But then you might be disappointed to discover your paid fans or followers have no interest in what you’ve spent hours working on. Genius!

If you’re paying money for a person, you know that that person is not really interested in your business. They will NEVER visit your website, recommend you to their friends or try your services. They are just there because you paid them to be.

Connect with people that are interested

Try to find those people who are genuinely interested in what you have to offer and treasure the ones who already prove that they care. Make the effort to connect to as many people as you possibly can and ensure that they’re keeping an eye on you. Share original content, ask people questions, listen to them and then talk. When you buy people, you only get to talk because no one is actually listening.

How to find them

Finding people that are interested in your brand is easy if you are able to create a unique experience that they can’t find anywhere else. Consider running contests to show appreciation to the ones that are already your fans. They will spread the word and other users will want to be part of your community.
A contest is a perfect approach to building exposure and getting people to talk about you. However, make sure the contest is targeted because if you offer a free iPhone in exchange for a Like, you might find that you’re home alone once the contest is over. Instead, offer them an experience that they want to be part of.

If you start your social media journey by buying people, you will get no results and end up wondering what’s the big fuss. On the other hand, you can attract those interested people by:

• Publishing original content
• Running contents that require them to get involved other than clicking a Like button
•  Interact with them on different topics
• Ask questions
• Get to know them online
• Organise events to meet them offline

All you have to do it get them to want to be your fans or followers. When you’re building a brand with a playful and interesting personality, people will definitely want to at least stop by and say hello. Now that the ball is in your court, engage them and get the conversation going.

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How to integrate social media into your business

Any business, regardless of its domain of activity, has to adapt to change. Nowadays, this means shifting to online because that’s where customers are spending most of their time. Social media has become vital for business owners, especially when they’re running important marketing campaigns. It’s an incredibly powerful tool for business promotion. No matter the size of a business, it’s important to know how to take advantage of this mass based communication – called Social Media – that brings so many benefits. To help you start and integrate social media into your business, here are a few simple steps that you can follow.

Start with research

Almost every campaign can be promoted through social media, but first you need to take the time to learn some of the things about the social media tools available and see which ones you would most benefit from. Aside from Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn – which are the most popular – you can also look for groups where people usually interact. Find those groups where people would be interested in the products or services that you offer. Read what people are writing, observe and then get in to the conversation.

Consider your approach

The way you approach people is extremely important. No one likes aggressive sales agents that only talk about their product in a desperate attempt to make a sale. On the web, people can easily ignore your message if they realise you’re only trying to sell a product. Therefore, you should mainly focus on engaging with people and building relationships. Once you’ve managed to gain their trust, it will be easier to mention your products.

Give them “something”

If you want people to “Like” your Fan page or “Follow” you on Twitter, give them a reason to do so. Most web users won’t stick around unless you give them something: an irresistible offer, a discount, a free e-book, a limited offer. They need to know what’s in it for them once they hit the “Like” button on your Facebook page. Find out what would make a great offer and give it to them.

Get them to spread the word
Word-of-mouth advertising works amazingly well on social media. If your product is innovative, clients will want to tell their family and friends about it and they have all the tools to do so very easily. On the other hand, you have to be careful about what your product promises because if clients discover it’s worthless, they will ensure everybody knows about it.

Social media for marketing campaigns

Once you’ve gathered a satisfactory fan base, you can start putting together and running marketing campaigns. Make them creative enough so that your fans and followers want to share it right away. At the same time, take advantage of the attention and interact with them as much as possible.

Include your employees

Social media is even more powerful when the employees of your company take part in your efforts. Encourage them to participate so that the public feels privileged to be part of such a great and united community group. However, take them through an online etiquette training first to ensure no one says something that could harm your company’s image.

Social media is an incredible tool to promote your business if you’re willing and patient enough to learn its ways. Take a look at what other companies do and see what would work for you.

This is the first part of 26 articles that will run every Monday and Wednesday on the 123-reg blog over the next 13 weeks. Don’t forget to read them all and move your business to the next level in terms of social media.

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You may have already seen, but Facebook has introduced a new Page Insights dashboard.

Great, there’s more information and more knowledge to utilise…but we only just got used to using the old one! For now Facebook is running the old insights (you will have to opt int to use the new version) but the company has already begun notifying page administrators that the old insights tool will be phased out on December 15. No more data collection from then, with the archives completely disappearing on February 15 2012.

That doesn’t leave long to learn the new one, which offers insights into Facebook’s latest metric “talking about this” and reach instead of impressions. Yet, this time around Facebook have been pro-active in helping those looking to maximise their metrics understanding.

Facebook has created an online tutorial about the new page insights over at  The Learn Page Insights site. Here a  series of videos hosted by Facebook Product Marketing Manager Fidji Simo, guides you through the new dashboard step-by-step, so you can get up and running quickly and making the most of the new tools. It is well worth checking out.

How are you getting on with the new insights?

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There may be a sort of irony in those who have chosen the freelance way of life joining together but freelancing is more about efficiency and work-life balance than working on your own.

Today is the third annual National Freelancers Day celebrating the freelance way of work and in current economic times it is an option more and more individuals and companies are looking at.

As the official site says: “It is more than a celebration – it is about adding credibility to a crucial method of working in the UK.”. To many it is “the future of work”. Minimising overheads and maximising expertise. Naitonal Freelancer’s Day 2010 focused on ‘Freeing up potential’ and the 2011 campaign aims to build upon that and promote the fact that freelancers offer increased efficiency and productivity to help grow small business and aid economic recovery in the UK.

National Freelancers Day is organised by PCG an associaton representing the needs of freelancers in the UK. You can follow the event on Facebook and via the twitter hashtag #NFD23NOV

Are you a freelancer? What is the biggest hurdle you face on a daily basis?

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If you are serious about your new project, then you should be considering covering all international options in terms of your domain name. You may be starting off in the UK, but if things go well, it is very easy in the modern online well to have a service or range of goods that appeals to people of all countries.

So grab the .uk domain, grab the .com and .co, but also grab the .de and .in -a few pounds now could save plenty of headaches in the future.

It makes sense too to grab the same ‘name’ with different extensions, but just be careful. Google Translate will help to an extent but if you are creating a brand the same name is probably better than a translation. However, if you are not an expert in the languages of the other nations you could be heading down a slippery slope.

For example your very English name could sound great to most of the world but in specific countries it could offer a completely different suggestion as to what your company is about. The easiest way to show this is by people’s names. There are planty of Dave’s Cabs, John the Plumber type company names, but they wouldn’t necessarily cross the channel very well.

For example ‘Adam’ could be your name and you may fancy selling PC parts, so AdamPC might be attractive as a name. Not so attractive in Arabic countries however, where Adam means skin!

Alan another great English name, but Alan Funeral services would not be the best choice in Indonesia where alan is used to refer to a comedian. Equally Susan may not be ideal in your global domination as the word means cemetery in Thai.

OK, those examples may sound a bit far-fetched, but that’s partly the idea, to make you remember and make it stick in your mind. Names are what brands are built upon, and just as the Plop chocolate bar from Scandinavia has never caught on in the UK, so your choice of name for your company, brand and domain may not have the global appeal you first thought.

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User experience between the desktop and the mobile device

Tips from user interface guru – Jakob Nielsen

Jacok Nielsen is an expert when it comes to web usability and user experience. He’s actually the founder of usability science and his contribution has helped a lot in understanding how human-PC interaction works.

He recently published a few reports on mobile usability and his research turned out to be very insightful, as usual.  In a recent interview, Nielsen pointed out the key differences between the user’s behaviors when accessing the Internet from a PC and when he’s accessing it via a mobile device.

The usability guru explains that mobile users are less committed and less focused. That’s because they’re using their phones while on the go – while waiting for the bus, while watching TV or while shopping – which means that this is actually not their primary activity, so they’re not 100% focused.

App vs Site

Nielsen also talks about the advantages of apps over sites, which he states are a lot faster and include plenty of features that people enjoy using, such as location.

Nielsen recommends

Using larger touch  targets – such as links – so mobile users can easily tap on it and navigate to another page.

Eliminate the nice-to-have content or design elements and instead focus on including only what’s relevant for the users. He says that “when everything is prominent, nothing is prominent”.

Include little content. Short copy is too long. It should be ultra-short, he explains.

In conclusion, when it comes to mobile usability include as little content as possible, but enough to engage with your mobile users.

Check out Jakob Nielsen’s website for more great resources on web and mobile usability.

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10 million people are expected to take part in this year’s Global Entrepreneurship Week  which begins today,

40,000 events in 104 countries have been organised, suggesting there’s quite a few committed to addressing the current global economic crisis by getting out there and just doing it themselves.

“Every business starts with a conversation. Start yours today.” is the slogan heading the UK campaign, aiming at creating a “national conversation about entrepreneurship” the aim is to help people connect, share and act upon ideas that may have been lingering in minds for months even years. It is all about action and positivity. Being an entrepreneur isn’t easy but if you can learn from the downs and rise on the ups there is every chance of success.

As one weekend tweeter put it “Make yourself a promise to increase both ‘who you know’ & ‘what you know’ by Friday!”

Here at 123-reg we believe entrepreneurship is a desire, not a science, a commitment not an art. With online business on the constant increase and set to offer a bumper Christmas there’s never been  a better time to give it a try. Whether creating a website for an offline offering or going for a full-on ecommerce solution we can help you get your business up and running quickly and efficiently.

Global Entrepreneurship Week is the perfect way to find inspiration. The conversation this week is set to be lively on Twitter and on the hashtag #GEWUK. Have a look at what events are taking place near you too and get involved.

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Whether for business or at home, the chances are you are flowing a considerable amount of sensitive documentation via a wireless network. Technology is amazing at allowing us to get away from wires, but just as the boffins have enabled us to move around a lot more while still accessing data, so other boffins have evolved new ways of hacking wireless networks too.

The chances are you probably set-up your wireless settings when you bought your router and haven’t looked at it since. That could be leaving you at risk of security breaches that are very easy to solve. Here’s a couple of tips on how to make sure you are still operating securely.

Forget WEP – it really is out-dated

Wired Equivalent Privacy or (WEP) security is a prime example of WiFi technology moved on.  The encryption is the sort of thing that would-be hackers like to train on. Even newbie hackers find it easy and quick to break WEP security. If you are using it. Stop now. Upgrade to WPA2 with 802.1X authentication. If your equipment isn’t compatible – check the manufacturer’s websites for firmware upgrades – then invest in new equipment, it will be well worth it.

WPA/WPA2-PSK is almost as bad

Wi-Fi Protected Access is another old school technology that while less likely to be hacked, is vulnerable especially within a business or shared-office environment. The PSK in WPA2-PSK  stands for  pre-shared key, which probably best identifies its risk. The same pre-shared key is used and entered into each client. To maintain security then, you should change the key each and every time a laptop, etc is lost, stolen or an employee leaves. In a shared-office environment it should probably be changed every day. Impracticable in the modern world.

802.11i offers greater protection

If you want to be secure, make sure you have the EAP (extensible authentication protocol) mode of WPA and WPA2 security enabled. This uses 802.1X authentication instead of PSK and thus the ability to offer each user their own login credentials. In practice the actual encryption keys are change regularly and silently in the background, with the security actually controlled on a central server, rather than  each client.

Keep Network components out of temptation

Security extends beyond just encryption, it is also about common sense and removing temptation. Complete your security by making sure all wireless access points are kept out of reach. Out of view, out of reach and out of harm’s way will prevent ‘accidental’ resetting to factory defaults and potential compromising of your security.

Just as you would MOT your car once a year, it pays to build in some regular checks on all your IT. Defrags, software audits and hardware reviews all go a long way towards making your business more efficient, more secure and more effective.

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Do you know how much traffic Twitter is bringing to your site? Wouldn’t you like to get in-depth information on how your content is being shared across Twitter?

With Twitter’s new Web Analytics tool you can measure the amount of traffic that Twitter is sending to your site and see exactly which type of content your followers enjoy more. This is actually a useful tool to measure the effectiveness of not only your Twitter campaigns, but your overall activity on this social network. It is not available for all Twitter accounts but comes as part of the Twitter for Business package, with analytics provided for both promoted (paid for) activity and free activity.

The Twitter Web Analytics tool is powered by BackType, a social analytics company acquired by Twitter a few months ago, so it was only normal that it would be put to good use. Fortunately. the tool, currently in beta, is free to use and every site owner with a Twitter account will get the chance to test it out in a few weeks.

What does Twitter’s Analytics tool bring to the table?

According to their official blog entry there are three main benefits of using this tool. Once you use Twitter’s Web Analytics tool you should get a better understanding of:

How much your website content is being shared across the Twitter network

You will see in detail how much of your site content is being shared across Twitter. You will get more insights on the number of tweets and those of click-throughs to your site. Unlike Google Analytics, which most of us are using to get some of this information, with Twitter’s Analytics tool you can also see the path that the user took to get to your site. You’ll get to see how and who is sharing your content across Twitter.

The amount of traffic Twitter sends to your site

This is the kind of information you can currently find using Google Analytics, but it was only normal to have access to it using this tool.

How effective your Tweet Button integration is

This is also something you can currently do with several website plug-ins but it would be interesting to see how much in-depth information will Twitter’s Analytics tool be showing us.

Why you need Twitter Web Analytics

Well, that’s obvious – we’re all using Twitter but we still know little about how effective our marketing efforts are. This is a tool that can help all marketers determine what they’re doing right, what type of strategies generate results and which ones need to be improved.

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An article in the US business magazine Bloomberg BusinessWeek suggests two of the world’s biggest brands don’t think new gTLD plans will affect them using their traditional .com. The article includes confirmation from representatives of Procter and Gamble and Hewlett Packard saying that they don’t plan to apply for new top level domain names.

That’s interesting especially since HP are are one of the companies known to have complained to ICANN that the new domain extensions won’t include two letter extensions which will remain reserved for country codes – obviously .hp would be a lot more appealing to them if it were available.

The article says none of the 21 companies out of the top 500 ranked by Standard and Poor have yet set down plans to apply for one of the new domains – applications for which open in January next year. The US$185,000 for each domain suffix appeared to be a barrier at the start for all but the top brands, but with top brands possibly even shying away it could make the existing .com extension even more valuable.

Are you considering applying for your own gTLD? Would you take preference over a brand that used its own domain over a generic one?

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