Under the bonnet of Twitter & Facebook
Quality of fans & followers versus quantity
The phrase quality over quantity is nothing new – even in business – but the first thing to point out is that even if you do follow this old adage you will have to preach hard to almost everyone you meet that that is the right approach. It’s human nature that we want answers, quantifiable results, etc. The modern marketing world is dominated by ROI (return on investment) stats but social media works best in ways that are more difficult to quantify. There are methods that claim to help evaluate improvements in brand awareness, customer opinion and loyalty but even those are difficult to relate back directly as a result of social media. So many people turn to the number of followers and fans as a symbol of how well they are doing in social media terms. As we pointed out back at the start of this guide – B –Buying fans and followers – there are plenty of places offering you the chance to boost your follower and fan numbers if you are prepared to part with some cash, but that’s like holding a party and inviting loads of people you don’t know and who don’t know you. Sure some will come, curiosity for many others just looking to see what’s in it for them, others because they have nothing better to do. In which case they are of very little value to you as the party host and you are highly unlikely to ever see or hear from any of them again. The same is true of this un-natural fan or follower. Quality of fan and follower should be your focus and that means someone who appreciates what you are doing, is likely to be inspired to spend some money with your business and hopefully may even want to spread the word about how good you are. One fan telling their own set of 500 fans how great you are is likely to be so much more productive in the long run than you just buying in 500 fans. Better quality fans can be advocates for your business by spreading the word, but also can be your ear to the ground. The chances are they are already your customer. Their opinion could be an indication of how other customers are feeling too, so if they make suggestions or start grumbling…pay attention. Use social media to get to know your customers not just to gain statistics you can show off without meaning. An example of why quality of followers over quantity works, is the celebrity twittersphere. Almost every pop-star, football player even politician has a Twitter account with 10,000 or more followers, yet very few actually interact with those fans who have chosen to follow them. In fact, often they are the worst Tweeters and people to follow. If they tweet at all, it is usually inane references to their unreal lives. The fact that most celebrities with large numbers of followers only themselves follow a handful of others on Twitter, also shows they don’t care for the interaction, it is more self-promotion and while it has worked for some Twitter is more about relationships than just one-way PR. The better quality your follower the easier you will find it to interact with them – there will be more shared ground and knowledge and desire to interact. Your aim should be to develop relationships, interact with your followers and become an influencer over their habits. That will help drive sales back to you and that will also help improve your status as a social media guru.
Photography and art sharing
Sharing and hosting images on the internet is by no means a new concept, in fact even in the early days of the internet it was possible to view images on web pages. But for a long time the only real way to host an image was to have that image directly on your website which meant manually creating your website and uploading the image. People would then visit your website and see your image. The whole process was possible but not easy for anyone as back then the internet was a much more unforgiving place for novice users. Now things are much different, it is easy for anyone to easily share their images over the internet thanks to social media or photo sharing sites. Sites like deviantArt, Flickr, Photobucket, Picasa, SmugMug, Zooomr and even Facebook allow users to easily upload and share images. But how easy is it really to upload your images and share them with the world? The real answer is very easy, most smart phones allow a one click upload of images onto your favourite social media site. What that actually means is you can take a photograph, press one button then within 30 seconds have your photo online. One main advantage of these sites is that the images are hosted on their servers which means you do not need your own web space. Some people use this to their advantage and use these free services to host the images they used in their blogs and even in their eBay auctions. Instead of needing to do the whole process yourself these photo sharing services meet you half way and take care of the difficult bit allowing you to just share the images and not needing to worry about the technical details behind it. Most photo sharing sites offer two different types of accounts; the first is free and allows users to upload a limited number of photos. The second type is a premium service that allows an unlimited amount of uploads. The images can be made private to a select group or made public so the whole world can see. If a photo is publicly available anyone can see it without needing to sign up for the sharing service. This gives restricted access which is very good for sharing but can pose possible issues as well. Online theft and fraud has become major issues in the photo sharing market as when certain images are made public they can be misused. When using such sites it is important to be warned of the dangers of posting personal pictures to public sites. But really you should just use your common sense, remember if you are posting a picture publicly it can be viewed by anyone so if you don’t want everyone to see if just don’t post it. Sharing photos through social media networks has become increasingly popular. In August 2011 it was reported that Flickr was hosting more than 6 billion images and by the end of September 2011 Facebook was hosting more than 100 billion photos. The internet is growing all the time and it is making sharing media much easier than it has ever been but as it is so easy we need to use our common sense and only post what we feel happy for the world to see. What do you think? Are photo sharing sites a good thing or do we need to be cautious?
LinkedIn – are you?
LinkedIn is one of the most popular social networks but it is often overlooked as it is seen as a recruitment tool or somewhere to show off your CV. But LinkedIn is so much more than that, it can be a very powerful B2B communication tool and can be one of the most powerful ways to promote your brand or business. But how do you promote your brand using LinkedIn? Here are a few ways to boast your presence and utilise the full potential of LinkedIn for your brand… Search engines Your LinkedIn profile is indexed by search engines; this makes all the details of your profile searchable. Be sure to fill out all your profile information, your website and contact details, the services you provide and include a company logo. The more information you provide the better as it will widen the search terms used by the search engines and enable you to be found more easily. LinkedIn groups It is important to find and join groups that are not only related to your industry but groups that are also of interest to your target market. Groups can be a great way of meeting people and getting your name out there. Think about joining the kind of groups where you could find potential clients discussing their problems. Questions and Answers It is always beneficial to participate in question and answer sessions. Use your knowledge and expertise to get involved and answer questions posted. This will raise your profile and show you are not only there to help but you also know what you are talking about. This gives your brand a more human quality and makes you more approachable. Recommendations One of the best methods of building your brand with LinkedIn is by getting and giving recommendations. Getting endorsements from your peers and leaders in the industry can add instant credibility to your brand as can recommendations from your customers. Once your brand’s profile has been boasted you can also move on to giving your own recommendations which in turn will elevate your own status and broaden your reach. Keep updated There is nothing worse than leaving old information on your profile, it makes you look unprofessional and makes it seem like you hardly ever use LinkedIn. Always keep your profile up-to-date, make sure all information is current and remove any links or content that is no-longer relevant. It is important to maintain an active presence. Employee profiles Many people use LinkedIn to find a new job and you do not want to give the impression that your employees are looking to move on. Your employees’ profiles should not say “I’m looking for a new job” but instead should say “I love my job and i’m good at it”. Your employees profiles should be written to address the needs of your clients and should show that they are there to help. No hard selling It may come as no surprise that people are more receptive when they are treated like human beings instead of being pushed into buying your products. Sometimes you will get a sale but most of the time you will just scare them away. Don’t go for the hard sell instead get involved in discussions and offer your help and opinions. Make sure your brand has a reputation for getting involved and you can sell your products but let that come secondary. If you follow all these steps you will be one step closer to boasting your brands status and reputation using LinkedIn. The thing to remember is that social media networking takes time and effort; it is an ongoing process and the more you put in the more you get out. How do you promote your website using LinkedIn?
Klout is about… Time to measure your efforts
In this time of social media madness wouldn’t it be great to have some way of measuring your influence across the different social media networks? Well that is exactly what Klout was created for. Klout analyses your social media activity on Facebook or Twitter and assigns a number between 1 and 100 to indicate the strength of your social influence. Klout uses over 35 variables to measure True Reach, Amplification Probability and Network Score. But what does this really mean? True Reach True Reach is the size of your active audience and is based on the number of your followers and friends who react to your messages. Amplification Probability Amplification is the probability that one of your messages will cause an action such as retweets, likes, @messages Network Score Network score shows how influential your audience is and it directly correlates to clicks, comments and retweets. The Final Klout Score After taking all factors into account the final Klout score represents the impact of your social media activities and how successfully you are engaging your audience. Tools such as Klout are being used more and more to measure social activities and are seen as a good indicator to show your success within the social media platform. So much so that many companies are starting to request a minimum Klout score when hiring an agency.But how accurate is Klout and is it really a good indication to your true social media activities? Well this is where many experts are divided. Even more so since Klout decided to revise some of its scores near the end of 2011 to massive criticism by many who saw their score drop. It is true that Klout does give an accurate representation of your social media activites and allows a comparison with other companies to see how you stack up. So why do many people believe Klout to be flawed in its approach? The main issue that people have with Klout and other social media measuring tools is the actual way it evaluates your social activities. It is true that the variables used can give a good indication of your activities but Klout can also effectively be tricked by users using forms of automation and other methods to satisfy the Klout variables – Klout claims its latest changes make that less likely now however. This effectively removes the social element and really misses the point of a social network. If you are hiring an agency based on their Klout score you would hope that it indicated they knew what they were doing. You would hope they were able to interact within a social environment build relationships and be socially active. But this is sadly not the case, the Klout score shows they are active within the social networks but does not show enough detail of the actual interactions. At this moment in time Klout is a great indicator of social influence and should be used as a guide for measuring your social activities but only as a guide. It is dangerous for businesses to rely on externally created numbers and Klout is not yet refined enough to be able to offer any real leverage. That being said Klout is the best tool out there to measure your social media activities and actually have something to show your boss for all that time you spend on Facebook. It may have its flaws but it will only get better with time. The people behind Klout are slowly improving the way it evaluates your activities and the accuracy will get much much better very soon. Do you think Klout shows and accurate representation of your social influence?
Jumping – It may be fun jumping from one social media network to the next but be careful
Some people believe it is a good idea to have an active presence on as many social media networks as possible. They believe the more networks you are part of the more people you can reach out to. This is technically true as this does increase the number of potential followers but in practice this can be harmful to your social media efforts. In an ideal world for each social media network you would have a team of people working to maintain your presence, interacting with your followers and working to get new ones. However, in reality you will be very lucky to have more than a couple of employees dedicated to the task of maintaining your social media presences. So the more networks you manage the more work for your employees and the more difficult it becomes to focus on any one network. Spread your resources too thin and you will not be-able to maintain an effective presence on any of your networks. Do not make things too complicated for yourself, keep it simple. Instead of connecting to all social networks and jumping from one to the other choose a small number and focus your efforts. It is much better to have 2 good social media network presences than having 20 okay presences. To succeed in the big world of social media it is important to have some direction and to have some form of strategy so you know who you are targeting and what you want to achieve. But any strategy is meaningless if you do not put in the time necessary to achieve your goals. The key to achieving your goals is focus, if you have too many networks to maintain you will be unable to give your followers the attention they deserve. By choosing a small number of networks you are able to focus your efforts and build an effective presence. It is important not to over extend yourself, there is nothing worse than appearing unprofessional and delaying an important response just because you were working on another network. Social media is used by your customers to contact you if they are having trouble or to complain about your service. Such contacts need to be dealt with as soon as possible and cannot sit there and wait for you to finish your work on another network. Time is of the essence and the way you deal with such issues reflects directly on you as a company. Acting in a speedy manner can turn a bad situation around or can stop a bad situation getting even worse. Your customers need your social media presence to be interactive and they expect a quick response. Think of your social media profile like a phone, if that phone rings you had better be ready to answer it because the longer it rings the more customers you will lose. So in essence the important thing to remember is to give your social media activities the attention they deserve. Have a clear strategy and focus on only the networks that are beneficial to you. Jumping between networks is ok but only if you have the resources to ensure the quality of your social media activities does not suffer. How many social media networks is too many?
How To Pick The Best
Selecting social networks for your business Businesses are investing more and more time and money into promotion, lead generation and alternate customer service on social networks. However, before putting a budget aside for social media, ensure that you’re choosing the right networks for your business. There’s no point in building a pretty house with a white fence if you’re building it in the wrong neighborhood. Social media is great and it works, but only if you’re using the right channels for your business. If you’re setting up countless accounts on all sorts of social networks without doing your homework first, you’re just wasting time. Find out where your customers are and only then you should consider joining the crowd. What are you looking for? Can Flickr drive traffic to you site? Is Twitter good for SEO? Is it worth setting up a YouTube account? Find out what’s the unique selling point of each of these major social networks and then make your decision. Also, take the time to figure out what you want to get out of it. You might want to improve your customer communication, increase your brand exposure or get more traffic to your site. Which one to choose Before you join a social network, whether it’s Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, ask yourself why you’re joining it and how will it help you business. What are the benefits of having a Twitter account? Are you joining because most brands are doing so, or do you really believe it will help you get what you need? If you can’t figure out how that social network can help you, just say “pass” and find move on to the next one. How much are you willing to invest? Building a presence on social networks takes time and time is money. Figure out first how much time and money you’re willing to invest in to maintaining a Facebook or a Twitter page. Is it an hour a day? Two hours a week? Fifteen minutes a month? If you’re not dedicated, you won’t be successful and it will only be a waste of your time. These are social channels and by definition you need to be social and interact with web users to build relationships and brand awareness. Don’t be just “another account” You can’t create an account and just leave it at that and expect your brand to become famous. You have to work for it! If you set up a Twitter or a Facebook account, then you need to update is constantly, interact with people, share useful resources and respond to other users’ posts. On any social networks, you’re expected to do something. Otherwise, you’re just “another account” that no one is going to want to follow because it’s no fun.
Ecommerce on Facebook
Developing a strategy that sells goods, services and brand How to generate revenue from Facebook. Facebook is the world’s largest social network. Today brands are investing more and more money on this platform in order to attract new clients and generate revenue. Nowadays, the success of a company is no longer measured by the numbers of fans it has on Facebook, but by the number of people from that database that are generating revenue. However, social networks should not be used to sell, but to influence the intent to buy. There are a lot of e-commerce tools available on Facebook that companies can use to facilitate the purchase of products and services and create a one of a kind shopping experience for its customers. Facebook can be a powerful sales vehicle for those who know how to take advantage of its features. Listen The first step to creating social revenue is to listen to your customers. Monitor constantly what they’re saying about your company and don’t hesitate to interact with them when you feel it’s necessary. Social media plays an important role in purchase decision making these days and that’s because people search for information on products and services on forums and social networks. Users trust reviews of your products written by other people and are more likely to buy it if the reviews are positive. Today, word-of-mouth is more influential than ever. Create a one of a kind user experience You managed to get users to visit your page and become fans. But they can very easily unlike your page, so how can you get them to stick around? As a business, you can take advantage of the various APIs available on Facebook that can help you create a unique ecommerce experience for your fans. Some of the most important are Share, Like and Reviews (fans can comment on your products or services and then forward it to their friends; this can lead to more product views and can ultimately generate sales). The great thing about Facebook – and social media in general – is that your message can reach your members and then it can also reach the friends of your members, through friend suggestions. The impact is more powerful and the opportunities endless. Guarantee an easy purchasing process No matter if clients are purchasing directly from your website or from Facebook, they need to be reassured that the purchasing process is simple, secure and can be completed within minutes. However, Facebook provides some extra features that support “online window shopping” and these allow a client to purchase a product directly from the company’s Facebook page, without even having to visit its website. Companies can also integrate a payment system on Facebook for clients to use when paying for a product. Measure results Companies can use Facebook Insights – the platform’s internal tracking system – to track results. You can also get insights on your fans – such as age, location, etc, which can help when preparing marketing campaigns for Facebook. This tool can complement the web tracking systems you might already be using, such as Google Analytics. Run social campaigns Aside from these, you can also run various social campaigns on Facebook to generate revenue. For example, you can run contests with prizes in order to promote your products and also share posts with the promotions and special offers that you have in your store, such as “deal of the day”. Consumers are spending more and more of their time online, especially on Facebook, so it’s important for companies to focus on clever ways to market products and encourage people to purchase.