Facebook is the fundamental ingredient, says Facebook
I read this interesting article earlier this week on Ad Age, Sheryl Sandberg (Facebook's Chief Operating Officer) speaking at the Association of National Advertisers in Phoenix last week.
Sandberg had a few key messages to share which I've summarised here:
Make marketing (and business) "social by design" - yet given her position at Facebook she is really saying make your marketing "Facebook by design"?
For Facebook not only is overall sharing doubling every year via "Zuckerberg's Law," she noted, but the number of daily fan page "likes" also has doubled in the past year to 100 million daily
"If you look at the numbers for almost any brand, but certainly any brand that's invested any time or effort on Facebook, the number of people who are your Facebook friends massively dwarfs the number of people who visit your website,"
"So I think one of the questions this industry…
I'm hoping to offer some insight into how a small but growing and ambitious multi-channel retailer intends to use social media to promote our online brand, The Emporium Direct - I am by no means an expert in social media nor is my organisation's present social media activity up there in comparison to the big brands. But I do run our marketing, therefore I can share hands-on experience on what has worked for us and what we're planning.
Before I get to how we're using social media, here is a brief snapshot of our organisation.
Company Background
We have a large High Street store in Maldon, Essex and a growing e-commerce business, The Emporium Direct. Like many, we originally started trading on eBay, then moved onto Amazon and eventually our own website.
Marketplace tips
Our success has been down to the following: (more…)…
Comscore data highlights consumer mobile behaviour
More than 72 million Americans accessed social networking sites or blogs via their mobile devices in August, 37% up year-on-year from the same time last year, according to data via comScore.
Here are 5 quick observations we can pull out of their data:
Nearly one-third of all U.S. mobile users are now accessing social media services
More than Half of Mobile Social Networkers Access Sites on a Near Daily Basis
Facebook Mobile Audience Approaches 60 Million Users
70 Percent of Mobile Social Networkers Posted a Status Update While on Their Mobile Device
More than half read a post from an organisation, brand or event while on their mobile device
There is no doubt that social networking via mobile devices is on the up-and-up. This is inline of course with sales of such devices, especially smartphones. Comscore also suggest that “This…
6 key questions to ask about how a brand uses social media
I work in the travel industry which, most of the time, seems like a great place to be for a digital marketer. It lends itself to rich, original content and has allowed the pioneering (but not always dominant) brands to develop online in ways never before possible with traditional media (think of brands such as Travel Zoo and Trip Advisor).
On the other hand the travel industry is being squeezed from all sides, (costs are rising almost everywhere let alone in travel) whilst the industry becomes increasingly fragmented and even more competitive. It’s also an industry which has had the way it does business entirely turned on its head thanks to the wide scale adoption of the internet.
In this post, I share my experiences from our initial work with social…
Is social sign-on in the plans for your site?
Like everyone else, we’re planning upgrades to our site and have been thinking how to increase interactions with our readers. Social sign-on is one approach of how to do this, so I've written up my thoughts and interested in how you see it. Is it only a win-win through increase participation and conversion rates or could there be privacy concerns for customers?
What is social sign-on?
Social sign-on/login is an approach we’re seeing on more and more sites now, although it's not written about so much. You’ve almost seen this on sites like Mashable or TechCrunch which enable commenting through logging in / authentication through Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or OpenID.
When I’ve looked into this to see whether there is wider adoption on sites other than blogs/online publishers like retail or travel transactional sites. I’d assumed this is because of security concerns, but I’ve changed…
21 tips to help you review your approach to getting value from your social media marketing
You hear this question a lot: can social media actually drive sales? It's a key question with all the ongoing interest in social media.
My answer, when asked, is that social media primarily grows permission through lead generation if you're approaching it as a "sales acquisition tactic". But it's actually often a more relevant tactic for customer re-engagement. Once you have permission then you can develop the relationship and earn the right to sell. With this in mind, Dave and I thought it would be good to give you a whole bunch of ideas to think about how you use social media to generate leads.
First, start with an evaluation of you current online lead generation process and figure out how well it’s working through your website. Also, consider where you're turning people off - and correct…
An introduction to business use of social media for marketing
Talk to a non devotee about social media and they will still tell you that it's either a tool for geeks or for students that have nothing better to do than share what they had for breakfast. Although many of us eat, sleep and breathe social media marketing, I still talk to many businesses who don't believe and aren't active in social media marketing.
But as usage of tools like Facebook, LinkedIn, Google Plus and Twitter continue to escalate, even laggard-like companies are belatedly starting to think about getting a slice of the action. In this post I'll show approaches you can try to convince your colleagues, clients or even friends that social media investment pays.
Here's a taster, when I’m faced with a room full of social media sceptics one of the first things I do is show this video:
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Six key questions to answer in your social media strategy
Assuming that you're clear on what you need from social media in terms of goals and objectives, there is often a key missing ingredient from a social media initiative - a fully considered strategy. It sounds a little glib, and yet it remains important to be clear on the how and why of implementing and integrating social media marketing into the business.
There are multiple benefits to getting this right:
Get buy in from budget holder, project sponsors and senior management
Clarity on vision, purpose and direction with business context
Ability to scale both the size and scope of the social media programme
Budgeting and resource management against objectives and goals, to understand the return against any other marketing activity
I find that strategy is generally misunderstood, and it appears that this is even more the case in social media where focus is so often about…
How to overcome company resistance to social media marketing?
I read the title of this blog somewhere in the Now Revolution (a great book by Jay Baer & Amber Naslund) and it occurred to me again recently on train journey home. You see, I have spent a lot of time over the last year working with a number of fantastic people to improve their social media marketing and I've often left feeling a little frustrated for them. Despite their talent, hunger, professionalism and creativity they're held back by the brand(s) that they want to shout about, despite sometimes seeing their competitors trail-blazing ahead in social media. The worst part is that it's a common problem, so far as I can see.
The problem is a lack of trust
The leadership team are clearly not daft people, and yet there's no trust in management, trust…
Where do you start with such a big area? "It's about relationships", says Charlene Li, founder of Altimeter Group. There are some great slides in her presentation and the overall message I hear is: are you, your business or your organisation ready for the necessary change required in a truly 'open' social media strategy? A strategy that goes beyond marketing. Our summary of the slides are below - the full presentation is inserted right at the end. There are some big themes to take on here - what's your take? Let us know.
Strategy
Learn: Invest in analytics to learn from your customers once you understand their socialgraphics. This process requires listening, having the right software in place and using metrics that are relevant to your business.
Dialogue: Have the conversation with customers that they want to have, think specifically off-site and in sites and communities where they already are. Be responsive to…
