If I was a Restaurant...How Would I Use Social Media?

A Social Service

One of the industries that was expected to be hit the hardest by the recession was the eating out/restaurant sector. There were fears that consumers would cut out eating out altogether, however although they failed to materialise the industry has been through some tough times.

• US Restaurant industry trends


• Brits choosing pubs over restaurants

There is a change in consumer behavior that has and will continue to affect how people communicate with brands, what they spend money on, who they trust and what they value. Ogilvy produced a great report which makes for some interesting reading called Eyes Wide Open, Wallet Half Shut (pdf). One of the underlying themes that fits to eating out is how important family and community have become.

Restaurants are local and have an opportunity to facilitate peoples social experiences and by doing this develop a loayl customer following.

It is about being passionate about creating a difference, being an experience and building a community around the business

The Balancing Act

Restaurants have had to balance offering value for money without falling into the trap of over-discounting. Generally restaurants are having to work harder to capture customers spend and that means gettting smarter at marketing.

Restaurants have to create a clear and distinct experience and use innovative ways to create customer experiences: marketing, menus, branding...and of course menus to excite them. Our recent blog focused on the idea of value: value = benefit - cost and the need to tip the balance by focusing on customer benefits rather than cost.

Restaurants can now use new and exciting  technologies as well as social networks to interact with and engage customers. By building a community they can develop more sustainable and loyal customer base - a tribe.

Some Case Studies

In the US restaurants have recognized the importance of social media and are now focusing on utlising in their marketing.

• Infographic - how social are US restaurants on Facebook


• 2011 Most Influential Restaurants in the US
  

Notable case studies:

• Flimé – The Cannibal Restaurant Case Study


• AJ Bombers and Foursquare


• How Social Media Drives New Business: Six Case Studies (4 are restaurant / food related)


• Why Buffalo Wild Wings Takes Geo-Social Seriously


• Restaurant using ipads as menus (MenuPad)

If I was a Restaurant How I Would Use Social Media

Learn

• Review how successful restaurants use social media and understand what Social Media ‘Tools they use and how


• Have a look at successful chefs/restaurants actively engage with their community with advice and resources e.g. Celebrity chef Rocco DiSpirito, Rick Bayless , La Casa , UnoChicagoGrill

I would listen to my customers/community

Look and listen first: who is talking about you and what is being said?

• 9 reasons why hotels and restaurants should monitor social media and customer reviews


• The Best Free Tools For Making A Social Monitoring Dashboard


• Best Social Media Monitoring Tools to Enhance Business

Match my brand to my target audience 

• I would develop my brand and understand what experience I was offering to my customers.


• Here is an excellent review of how restaurants need to focus their websites on simplicity of design (pdf).

Get my menu into high quality digital pictures

• use high quality for show on website


• Put menu items on Flickr to share easily

Setup my social sites

• Develop a Facebook page


• I could have a Gallery of recipes and get a table booking app used directly within your Facebook  page – why because it is easy for people to connect, book a table and develop word of mouth marketing (interested in this then contact us)


• Twitter – use some tantalizing photos of your menu as background. Tweet regularly but about trends in the community, other people, new menu items, seasonal changes, get feedback…not just about the restaurant. I would also use Twitter to engage with other influencers in the community and ask them questions listen to conversations (you can use Twellow for this)


• Integrate the social network sites with my website e.g. Facebook/Twitter


• Have an email capture on your website for people to subscribe to a newsletter. Create a monthly email-Newsletter with the latest happenings, announcements, new menu items, entertainment news, recipe of the month etc.

Blog

• I would develop a blog. As a start point I would identify a series of articles I could write about e.g. ideas on menus for my target client audience - e.g. I could focus on quick healthy and convenient ideas for moms.


• I would hold an event and invite some people in for lessons on new menu items/recipes. Take photos and blog about the experience, people locally will share and join in creating great word of mouth marketing.


• I would have an RSS feed on my blog that people could subscribe to

Local Guides

• Make sure your restaurant can be searched and reviewed through local business guides such as Yelp.com, Urbanspoon.com, TripAdvisor.com and FoodSpotting.

Be Mobile

• Increasingly people are using their mobiles to find out information and contact restaurants. If they come across a difficult to navigate website then the chances are they will click away. Remember that Google takes into account locality on mobile searches. Get a mobile website.


• Pizza Express recently launched a mobile app that allows customers to pay directly from their phone


• Capture peoples mobile numbers for mobile marketing campaigns by using competitions and prize draws

Location apps

• How diners are using smartphones


• Foursquare - run a promotion based on Foursquare that offers discounts for checking in. For example, any bill over £25 receives an automatic £5 discount if the customer checks into Foursquare.


• Facebook deals - Facebook deals allows users to check-in to receive special offers/promotions

Build relationships with your audience/followers:

• Respond promptly to people


• Ask questions


• Develop conversations


• Host Tweetups for your Twitter community and Meetups for those that gather around topics via meetup.com

• Use Video…build a story
  
  
  
  • Video is the most natural and friendly way to promote the personality of your business. People like to connect with the thoughts and ideas that are part of how you create your meals – it becomes a story and a narrative that they tell to others
  
  
  • Use video to show people some freshly made dishes but don't stop their get some footage of people taking their first taste - that can tell people so much more than a static picture
  
  
  
  

Make your menu sharable or even liked

• Blend offline and online
  
  
  
  • Use tools like Facebook events to promote any specials/promotional events you have. Write a short piece on launch of a new menu people might like to come/ and try it. Twitter the event. Key is to make it sharable.
  
  
  • Invite local bloggers to your events
  
  
  
  


• Keywords and Hashtags
  
  
  
  • Identify keywords relvant to your target customer and restaurant
  
  
  • Use hashtags in Tweets
  
  
  
  

The Personality

Food is a social experience and the more you help and facilitate others experiences the more you will be remembered by your customers. There is a lot more I could cover but I hope this gives your a flavour (pun intended!) for what can be achieved. Of course it is important to tie it together and ensure that you do not attempt too much, spread yourself too thinly and miss out on building the relationships. Co-ordinating and developing your strategy first is time well spent.

 

Time saving tips for the working mum

An Oversubscribed Life!

You will notice the late entry of my blog this week, this is primarily down to my oversubscribed life and it got me thinking about time saving. I would imagine that lack of time is a concern for every working mother who is trying to juggle the various demands of life. Now I don’t want to raise your levels of expectation here and make you think I have discovered a magic formula, I haven’t, but I have been looking into some mechanisms that can help save a few precious minutes of time and that might even allow you to put your feet up once in a while.

This has been a testing week on the parenting front for me, there have been all the usual morning rants, “brush your teeth”, “get your shoes on”, “eat your breakfast” and as any parent knows these instructions have to be given at least 15 times each to have any impact at all. There are the numerous questions that require carefully considered responses “are all the people who live in Hungary, hungry?” and “but why can’t I marry my sister, she is a girl?” In addition to this I have started to feel like I am losing my powers of negotiation, only when it comes to the children of course.  If I’m honest I’m not sure I was up there with ????? in the first place but more recently I  noticed myself giving into their every demand just to enable me to carry on working.

This can’t be right I thought to myself, there must be another way!

Getting Organised

And so I have discovered   Tweetdeck and Hootsuite,  what are they you may ask?  HootSuite and TweetDeck are both social media dashboards. They allow the user to access multiple social networks on one screen. This way the user can manage multiple accounts in one setting. Logging in and out of each social network is eliminated and users can choose to update the same information on multiple accounts if it is necessary. Although both are social media dashboards and both are tools to help manage multiple social networks at once they are different in their own individual ways. I am currently using tweetdeck and I have to say that this does meet my needs at the current time, but my colleagues all use Hootsuite and say it is far better. You will have to make up your own mind,  here are some clips that might help you get started on these dashboards.

Hootsuite

Tweetdeck

Here is a quick overview of TweetDeck:



an here is a full list of tutorials that take you through how to use Tweet Deck stage by stage.

http://support.tweetdeck.com/forums/126043-desktop-video-tutorials

Some Tips

I am still quite new to these dashboards but it has completly revolutionalised the way I plan my tweets and posts across all the social media channels. This simple tool means that I can spend an hour in the morning planning what I want to go out on my social media platforms, schedule them all in and leave it for the rest of the day. Previously I would have been tied to the laptop panicking about the lack of communication with my followers. This really is a fantastic time saving tip.

I know what your thinking, it's not just social media that eats into my time it is also the day to day aspects of my business so before I sign off  I thougth I would leave you with my top 7 time saving tips outside of the social media forum!

7 simple time saving tips

1. Plan your next day the night before.,


2. Prioritize my list and do the most important tasks


3. Always stick to the list and tick off the item as you go


4. Take a break from working and going to the gym or just out for a walk.


5. Procrastination is the biggest time consumer, just get on and do it!


6. Outsourcing things like writing content and updating your social media profiles


7. Ask your self a simple question – “Is what I do now helping to get more visitors to my site?”

Social Media: Value equals Benefit minus Cost

What is Value?

Often on blogs, in marketing spiel and in conversations we hear people talking about value. IT becomes one of those words we simply accept without question that we are all on the same page with it. In particular social media relies on producing content that is relevant and adds value to your customers. But how do we know and prioritize what is of value to our customers?

Have a look at the presentation below by Laurent Francois who tackles this brilliantly in his presentation.

 

Although it is a complex proposition let's just simplify it to illustrate some points:



The common ground is saving money and time. So why not investigate what are ways that you can create value for your customers. If you don't want to be perceived as discounting then look for the value of saving people time.

Two examples of organisations using Twitter to add 'value':

• BtoB - Caterpillar uses Twitter to connecting with current and potential customers, and addressing service issues.


• BtoC - Zappos uses Twitter to keep customers informed of relevant company and product information, events and promotional offers

Value = Benefits - Cost

To your customers ask yourself why they should invest their time (Cost) in coming to your website, Facebook page, Linkedin Group, Twitter...if you haven't identified the value proposition and content strategy then you are unlikely to succeed.

Take a look at what your are doing: What content is most popular with your target audience? Is the content you share via social media resonating with your target audience or a random audience?

Understand your Target Audience

As we often mention to our clients it all starts with understanding the customer and NOT assuming that you know their needs. Research even done simply is better than none at all and will provide you with some ways to be relevant to them.

Here is a some articles on social monitoring and management tools that can help you do this:

• 8 Methods + Lots of Tools for Getting to Know Your Audience


• 5 New Social Media Management Platforms


• 20 free, awesome social media monitoring tools

Alternatively select some clients or customers to free lunch, prepare some questions and get their views.

• Focus Group research


• DIY: Research on a shoestring budget

This is reinforced by some research into why people 'Like' brands:

A study of 1,500 Facebook users, ExactTarget concluded that 38% of online U.S. consumers “Like” (formerly “Fan”) a brand on the social networking site.

• 40% to receive discounts and promotions


• 39% to show my support for the company to others


• 36% to get a “freebie”


• 34% to stay informed about the activities of the company

Conversely we can also see that different channels will require different strategies for brands and businesses:

• Plain and simple - Social Media: Top 10 Reasons Why Your Audience Doesn’t Like You


• Top Reasons Why Consumers Unsubscribe Via E-Mail, Facebook & Twitter (Mashable)


• Reasons people ‘Unfollow’ Brands on Twitter

Key takeouts:

• It is important to attract and gain new customers (as well as reward loyal customers) develop a clear integrated strategy that includes how you can use social media to promote your products or services strategy


• 'Freebies' can create a lot of word of mouth and provide added value to potential and existing customers. This could be information that saves people time or you could provide a mobile app e.g. in BtoB a utlity app or for a consumer brand an app that people find entertaining. This develops your brand awareness as well as provide valuable interaction and data.


• Consistently producing content that focuses on your customers needs and is relevant. In your strategy vary the reasons so that you are not repetitive in how you add value or your content strategy. Social monitoring and customer research is not a one off event - it needs to be embedded into your marketing processes and used to adapt your strategy.


• Be obsessive about understanding your customers and you will create competitive advantage. If you understand your customers better than your competition and then act on this by producing content that is right for them and adds value (promotions, articles, blogs, posts...) you will gain market share.

Some interesting reports

In the spirit of this post I have read some interesting reports lately and they are listed below for you to take a look at and download:

A report by HootSuite on social media measurement

The Global Social Media and CSR Report by Wolfstar

If you come across any good reports about marketing in the digital age and/or social media then let us know

 

 

 

Social Media Statistics - Seriously How Big is Social Media?

Socialnomics

Socialnomics by Erik Qualman has had a refresh and some new material added in which is well worth watching. The original version has had over 2.8M views, the 2nd video over 1.6M and doubtless that this one will achieve a significant number

Idea: many people have in there own business/market or vertical amazing figures that are often not pulled together or are not even known. If you want to to create something interesting for your industry why not explore this type of infomercial video for your industry. I appreciate in many cases it might not work but in some I imagine if done well it would spark a lot of interest.


 

Some more resources for social media facts and figures:

The BtoB Guide to Social Media guide have put together a massive list of facts and they are continually updating this as well. They have categorized the list so fairly easy to explore figures for any blog or article you are writing.

The BtoB guide to social media have put together over 1000 social media facts and statistics.

Infographics

Data can be pretty tough to get your head around especially if you like to see information more visually. However, infographics can take data and present it in visually stunning ways. It has become a captivating way of explaining often complex data in a brilliant and creative way. The daily infographic has some good and easy to view categories for you to search. Importantly infographics can be a key hook and provide traffic and buzz.

• The Daily Infographic


• Flowtown


• Flowing Data


• Visual complexity

Supplement you blog or an article with a good infographic it will help illustrate your article and break up the text.

Facebook

So much news and focus in social media is around Facebook. The growth of Facebook has been phenomenal and it continues to dominate the social networks not only for the size of the user base but because they are still evolving and changing. Brands and businesses are switching budgets to focus more on developing their brand communities on Facebook and it is no wonder when you look at how many followers some brands have.

• All Facebook


• FameCount

The Reports

Some of the best figures come from the research and reports that are generated by the specialist consultancies. Many are more of a generalist research consultancy such as Forrester and Gartner who produce industry and market reports that many organisations buy. However, often the data or at least some of the graphs filter through and can be picked up for free. Hubspot produces some excellent reports and most are free to download in return for signing up to their subscription.

On the flip side consultancies like Econsultancy through their blog release some great insights and reports. Other noteworthy consultancies are Borrell Associates and

Add to this blog

If you have any other resources or websites that you think are good and are worth adding to this list let us know and we will update it with your information and of course credit you with any links you provide.

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How can Facebook deals work for me?

An introduction to Facebook Deals

I hope you all enjoyed my blog last week; I have to tell you I was incredibly nervous about putting it out there. Thank you to all those who fed back to me, your comments are invaluable.

From the feedback I have had, it seems that what my audience would appreciate most is simple and easy to use information that can have real impact on their business.

I think this is otherwise known as quick wins!

I remembered  an article that I had recently read in a local magazine and it  made me think about the number of different ways in which business’s use money off coupons, discount vouchers and deals to entice and reward their customers.

Facebook has recently introduced a similar scheme ‘Facebook Deals’ this is free to businesses in Europe and is really easy to set up. Unlike the other more familiar coupon sites like Groupon, they do not solely rely on groups and the deals can be individually tailored to suit your specific business and the customers you are trying to attract. Have a look at this clip on you tube to see how it works click on  Facebook Deals.

So why use Facebook deals?

Facebook has over 650 million members and the average facebook user has over 130 friends, this makes it a great platform to run a reward based system. There is real flexibility with the deal offerings and there are no minimum offers and no minimum purchases required. Currently this is all free of charge and this makes it especially attractive to small business's who would be hard pushed to hand over between 20% and 50% of their commission should they use an organisation such as Groupon to facilitate their deal offerings. 'Google Offers' will also be promoteing a reward based system but without the membership base that facebook has aquired, and the minimum requirement of a 50% reduction I dont see that this is yet the market place for the small business. If you want to read more about the strategy behind this new facebook scheme have a look at this article in the guardian http://bit.ly/hDOrm7 . I have highlighted below some of the more tangible benefits to running Facebook Deals.

• Hassle free word of mouth marketing


• Builds loyalty and drives repeat business


• Enables you to reach new customers


• Gets people to reccomend your business to their friends

What are Facebook deals?

There are four different types of deal:

Individual Deals

Individual Deals will create lots of attention in a short space of time. A one off offer like 20% off your   purchases for a limited time  can be offered to both new and existing customers.

Friend Deals

Friend Deals is a great way to get people to either buy from your business or visit your venue as a group. Friend Deals allow you to offer discounts to groups of up to 8 people when they check in together. Since every deal claimed will be posted to the users’ profile, this is an excellent way to spread the word.



Loyalty Deals

This kind of deal is to reward your most loyal customers and may encourage your occasional customers to visit you or buy from you more often. This type of deal can be very flexible, it can simply be a reward that   customers can claim after a certain number of check ins or purchases.

Charity Deals

This is a great deal if you or your business cares about poverty, the homeless, disease or abandonded puppies for example. If this is the case you could consider setting up a Facebook Charity Deal for your business. As an example of how this could work, you could promise  to donate a certain sum to your chosen charity, every time a new customer checks-in at your venue.

To see how to use the deals click here.

What should I do next?

Facebook Deals could really work for your business, if you take the right approach.

• Register your 'Place' on facebook, use the clip above for guidance.


• Until you have a 'place' your customers will not be able to 'check in' with you or search for rewards that may be available.


• Who are your customers,  what kind of rewards would they use and recommend.


• Run a series of different deals and change them regularly to keep your content fresh and your customers interested.


• Use other media to create awareness - window posters, newsletters, email... to raise awareness


• Vary your deals to suit individuals, groups and loyal customers.


• Make it fun!

I would love to know if you have found this helpful and if it has given you some fresh ideas, if you do set up a facebook place or deal please let me know about it. What do you think about Facebook Deals, a replacement for Groupon or not?

Until next week, Alison!

Is Social Media the working mum's life line?

Being a Parent
Firstly, let me introduce myself, I am 35, married and mother to a daughter (9) and son (6) like all parents I will describe my children as being extremely wonderful and special human beings and whilst this is true all the other parents among you will know that this is not the whole story.

So, wanting to be the best parent I could be, I made the decision that my working life needed to be adaptable and give me the ‘work life balance’ that would enable me to live this Brady Bunch style existence. In this vein I decided that working for myself was really the only option. I am now 8 years down the line, I have established and sold two successful businesses and I now have some experience that I wish I had had way back then.

Lessons Learnt

In an attempt to use this experience in my next venture, define what it is that I have learnt over the years and maybe see others benefit from this I thought a blog would a way forward.

There is no denying the fact that being a working mum is a real challenge and no disrespect to the fathers out there but it seems that paid work for a mother is an addition to all the other roles they play and not their primary role so finding time for it is somewhat difficult.

So first things first and one of the biggest mistakes I made, was understanding the difficulty of getting a new business off the ground. When you first get started it is so easy to get bogged down with the stuff you feel confident in, for many people that I have come across this is often:

• doing what they are good at, their skill (not looking at how to sell/market their business)


• talking to just clients they know well


• producing business plans that reflect their view; rather than some customer research


• working on their service; instead of marketing, networking and selling

So in all of this it is easy to forget some of simple, basic but  important aspects of establishing a start up.

What is often neglected is the face to face interactions that will put the personality behind your brand and use this to make yourself memorable. People buy from people, see the (AC Nielsen Report), so whatever you product or service it is important that your customers have a feel for who you are and what you are about.

With the rise in social media you can network, arrange meetings and cover a lot of ground before meeting people as well as give people an idea of who you are. It is becoming easier and quicker to build relationships, it is also a working mothers dream.

I am only touching the basics here and pointing out the opportunities so here are a few good tips to get you going. It is important to develop your confidence. Choose 1 platform, research and learn how to use it well; perhaps use 1 for a week and then move onto another. Find out from speaking to potential customers what they recommend, it starts a conversation! and you ideally want to use the same platforms that they use.

Some Introductory Guides

A starting point for Face Book:

• Six questions to ask before launching a Facebook fan page


• 10 Secrets of a Winning Facebook Fan Page

A starting point for Twitter:

• Keep It Short and Tweet: Intro to Microblogging Using Twitter


• So what the hell is Twitter anyway?

A starting point for Linkedin:

• An introduction social media (slides with Linkedin tips near end)

The use of social media platforms to give your business a personality and get people talking about it is manageable from home and is not restricted to office hours, it allows us working parents to blog, tweet and post around the kids social lives, I say kids social lives because I clearly no longer have one of my own!

So for all out there who aspire to run their own business’s, get into social media this could be the opportunity for you to get the building blocks in place. You will still be able to take the kids to school and pick them up, attend all their clubs and school events and ferry them around to the never ending stream of parties. Don’t forget that all social media platforms can be managed from smart phones so just think next time your sat watching your children run riot at the park you could be building your business profile.

Let me know some of the challenges you face with the 'work life balance' myth.

Next week I will be taking you through how to use some of these tools in more depth, look forward to connecting with you.

Alison

The Royal Wedding on Social Media

The Social Royal Wedding


The brand and publicity surrounding the Royal Wedding reverberates around the internet and the social channels such as Twitter, much of this being driven by the US.

For more ways check out PCMag's Complete Guide to Watching the Royal Wedding Online and here are a few more:

• ABC News is focusing much of its social media efforts on Twitter for both storytelling and engagement. To capture what people are thinking to help shape the online conversation, they are experimenting with “hashtag polls.”


• The BBC has its royal wedding Facebook page. And The Associated Press is featuring a live video feed on AP Live’s Facebook page.


• CNN is issuing an open invitation for people to share their royal wedding experiences via iReport, and it will then share what it collects through the Open Story feature.


• Euro RSCG Worldwide will debut a Royal Wedding microsite (http://bit.ly/f2xud4)


• The Royal Hashtag, by the way, seems to be #royalwedding — that’s what Clarence House has been using the most but others have adopted the hashtag #rw2011


• The official Royal Wedding site - http://www.officialroyalwedding2011.org/

• Some people will use TV and others Facebook or both (infographic)

So what is the sentiment so far





Some will have some moments of fame

The Birth of Brand Kate


We can only wish the royals the best for the future, but that future could be a precarious balance between public and private life as the media seek to feed the growing global interest in Kate and William.

During the build up to the wedding Kate has been constantly in the news with much of the attention focusing on her choices in fashion. Kate's young and vibrant image seems to have made a real connection with many women; everything she wears benefits from a huge boost in sales and rafts of copycat outfits rapidly flood the high street.

It is estimated according to ABC News, the wedding itself is expected to cost between $20 and $70 million. Yet this can easily be offset by the estimated boost to retail sales alone of £620 million. However, the Mirror expects the loss of £6Bn as a result of the effect of the additional holiday. So whilst the short term debate over the financials there is an undeniable in the young couple that will drive a longer term momentum in the economy; some estimate the value of this to UK economy is over 2Bn. The Kate Middleton brand is now established and has been seeded internationally.

What do you think should someone like Kate Middleton now be viewed as a brand and asset to market? What do you think her role should be?

Brand Coverage


The royal wedding will be watched by over 2Bn people across a multitude of channels and formats: TV, YouTube (www.youtube.com/theroyalchannel), mobile...



At least 9,000 comments a day are being posted online generally, according to Internet research firm Greenlight, with a 700 per cent surge in interest since March, and "fans" of the wedding outweigh opponents by a ratio of six to one.  Already there is a best selling dolls of Kate Middleton for sale, the largest retail search on the internet for w/e April 16th, one of the latest in a growing selection of Royal Wedding memorabilia that already includes tea towels, mugs, plates, coins, stamps cakes and, err, condoms. So how do you start to understand and manage this new and growing brand?

Managing the Kate (Catherine Windsor) Brand Socially

As the Daily Mail reports courtiers plan to warn businesses that using Kate Middleton's (Windsor or Princess Kate/Catherine) full name on products could put them in violation of copyright laws. Whilst many are making comparisions to Princess Diana's turbulent relationship with the press it is clear that the world has changed.

Managing a brand is far more about openness, honesty and transparency. The Kate brand will be tracked through social media for it is there that the tone of the relationship with the public will tempered. The Royal Family has already embraced and started to use these channels to at least provide some level of content and engagement that satisfies the public interest and curiosity.

But the question remains as to how that will continue after the hype of the wedding dies down. Whilst sentiment can be tracked and reputation managed and responses made it will be interesting to see how or if they adopt and pro-actively use social media to manage the new Duchess Catherine brand.

How do you think royalty should use social media to manage the Kate brand?

Tips for Getting the Most from Your Facebook Page - Social Business

The Anatomy of the Facebook Page



A - The Brand Image & Photo Strip

You can use this space for your brand to allow you users to quickly recognise you. This is the image that shows up when people search. It can be up to 180px by 540px, but if you do this then make sure your main logo fits right for search.

Once you’ve done that, you can turn your attention to the new photo strip. At the moment you can't control where each of the images (they need to be 97px * 68px)  that are in that strip will go – they are randomly sorted by Facebook. They can’t be ordered like they can on personal profiles.

Top tip here is to use images with a similar design so they create a more uniform look. Alternatively you could use QR Codes or Tag to go here as well; offer your customers specials or exclusives - it is one of the biggest reasons people visit brand pages.

B - The Tabs

Each tab can now be linked to an icon which makes it visually easy to differentiate tabs. Our tip here is to keep it tidy - delete old tabs, keep a menu that is relevant and label them clearly. If a tab is not being used change the content, question if it is needed and if not remove it. We often see tabs like discussion with no posts, events with no events...keep it simple and up-to-date.

C - The Heart of the Page

This is the biggest part of the page and where you are looking to interact and engage your fans. Some key points:

• Point out the like - don't forget to remind people to like you


• Share - the share button invites people to share your page with their friends

A word of caution here, don't get absorbed in the tools - understand your customers, research their interests, passions and behaviours and you will then produce content that is relevant and engaging for them. Once you've decided on this the content production and delivery follows naturally.

Most brands now are using video on their pages to entertain / engage / interact with their clients. If you look at this link you will see that video is becoming interactive. The point is you can integrate virtually anything into Facebook now, graphics, copy and even e-commerce.

Use a video to:

• make a personal commentary about your business or products


• provide some interesting ideas that you are working on and ask people for their comments/feedback


• provide testimonials of happy customers and why they use you


• video interviews of why your people like working with your business


• you can also use motion graphics or animation here to explain your products or services in an entertaining way

You can even get people to try your new products!



D - Make it Easy to Find your Brand on Other Social Sites

Coca Cola also highlight their other networks - something few brands remember to do. You don't have them exactly in this position but remember to make it easy to find and recognise the icons for the other social networks like Twitter. Often this is on the information page which people don't often look at.



E - Make The Page Worth Exploring

People are increasingly spending more time on social networking (nielsen) and Facebook is the dominate player. Providing a a set of rich experiences on your Facebook page means that people spend more time with your brand than your competitors, are more likely to stay on your page and more likely to share your content. Use the page to enable people to explore opportunities.

Don't forget to also offer specials/exclusives to fans. The top two reasons to follow a brand are for promotional benefits (84%) and because the fans already enjoy the product (89%). 83% of fans would like more exclusives from the Facebook page, whether via special offers or Facebook-only content.

F - Highlight and Link to other Products Brands or Partners



If you have other brands/products or services then you can like them as a page; these then show up in the space highlighted as F in the Coca Cola example above. If people like your brand then the chances are they might explore and like your associated pages.

A FEW MORE TIPS

Information page

Take a look at the Pepsi and Nokia information pages. Pepsi has been a bit lazy just duplicating links whereas Nokia have made a clear statement for their followers. Use this space wisely and fill it in to tell people about why they should follow you and how you want to build your relationship with them.



Frequency of Posting

Posting too frequently is the 2nd most cited reason for unfriending a fan page. Most experts recommend 2-3 times a day as a maximum. Here are some reasons as listed on Mashable and some further reading. To see some other great examples of how brands are using Facebook here is a list from Econsultancy.

Rules and Policies

Some brands ignore this and don't put up a clear statement of their policy for their walls. However, best practice is to post up a clear statement that allows people to understand what is acceptable and what is not.



Brand Engagement on Facebook

Here is Jeff Ragovin who gives a great talk on Facebook brand engagement - enjoy :-)



If you have any questions or are looking for advice you can post on our Facebook wall and we promise to get back to you with an answer - you never know by sharing it we may help other people with the same question.

Have you noticed that not all Facebook pages are equal;  not just in the presentation of the brand, but the interactive media, the conversations on the page, the comments and likes. In getting a Facebook page to look good there are some basic points you need to consider.

We are going to take you through some key areas of a Facebook page and what to do to make it stand out from the crowd and how to make sure it works for your customers.

Why Facebook is important

Here are the number of fans/likes for celebrities and brands, so you can see the who's who on Facebook popularity - Top pages on Facebook and here are some further figures. Brands are due to increase their Facebook investments to $4Bn this year. According to a new white paper (pdf) from Webtrends:

• Websites that do not engage in e-commerce are losing traffic to their Facebook pages at a startling rate


• Websites with e-commerce activity seem to sustain traffic in spite of Facebook's influence, but are experiencing drops in unique visits compared to last year - signs of losing traffic in the future to Facebook


• This proves a gradual shift in traffic from a brand's website to its Facebook page and hence the need for marketers to closely measure their Facebook activity

and highlights on Social commerce:

Facebook stores are very efficient at traffic acquisition acquiring visitors at no cost through wall posts and establishing a store monthly user base equal to 1-10% of the retailer's fan base

• Facebook stores on average generate a 17% social engagement rate (merchandise "likes" and "shares" per visitor)


• Facebook commerce conversion rates ranging from 2% to 4% are on par with Commerce websites.


• Facebook commerce conversion rates range from 2% to 4% and are on par with e-Commerce Web sites. (avg. 3.4%, according to Forrester/Shop.org).

If you haven't got a Facebook page now is the time to get one. A good start point is to plan how you want to engage with your target audience and here are a few tips on how you can do this.

5 Reasons Why You Should Have a Mobile Website

The Rise of the Smartphone

The smartphone is rapidly gaining ground in market share and with manufacturers bringing out an ever increasing array of models it is hailing in a new and exciting era of change in how we communicate. The scale of the smartphone adoption has also been aided by the rise of Android (see infographic).

Some figures that illustrate the growth:

• The Coda Research Consultancy predicts global smartphone sales of some 2.5 billion over the 2010-2015 period.


• Morgan Stanley Research estimates sales of smartphones will exceed those of PCs in 2012.

We have reached a focal point with the smartphone for its use; from social networks to gaming to

The explosive success of the iphone and the app store has propelled people to argue over how people will in the future access content and services. It’s not what the phone does, it’s what the user does.


App vs. Mobile Website

The argument over app and website will change. It is not about either/or it is about choosing the right tool based on the customer strategy. As Forrester point out; frequent users of services like banking and brokerage will want curated experiences in the form of apps; they will also play games. However, consumers will want ubiquitous access to content and services. This will force service providers to sync content via the cloud to maintain a consistent experience across platforms.

A recap on the app numbers:

• In 2010, apps accounted for $1.7 billion in revenue globally


• There were 7.9Bn app downloads in 2010


• In three years over 300,000 mobile apps have been developed and how they are being used

For years marketeers have struggled with the where and when of marketing. Now though mobiles enable brands to be involved in a moment and deliver value at that time and place — when there is a heightened need. It changes the game and presents new opportunities.

The mobile experience

Mobiles offer brands the create unique experiences from the moment of exploration to purchase. It is extending not only where media is consumed but the how. The real time element added to location based capabilities enables more personalised and relevant services to be delivered to customers. Many of thes uses of these technologies are only just being explored.

However, mobile sites are fast becoming a necessity for businesses. Just like in the early 1990s when the internet was in its infancy the business who did not adopt the “website” trend soon started to struggle as their competitors began to dominate the digital market.

5 Reasons Why Businesses Should Have a Mobile Website

1. Mobile search - Despite all the media hype, and vast sums pumped into developing and promoting native apps, more consumers use their browser than apps in developed nations.

• Mobile Websites are Organically ranked in Local Mobile Search Engines


• Gartner (March 2010) predicts that in 2011, over 85 percent of handsets shipped globally will include some form of browser.


• 33 percent of respondents have used their phone to access a retailer website


• The power of local mobile search (infographic)


• Google has seen a 500% growth in mobile search from 2008 to 2010 and a 67% increase in mobile queries in the last quarter alone.


• It is estimated that less than 3% of businesses have a mobile website yet local searches on mobile web account for over 9 out of 10 searches.


• Google has a separate index for mobile content. Ranking on mobile is easier because Google has a much smaller index of content under mobile, as this segment is still in its infancy. If businesses get a mobile site today, they stand a very good chance of being highly ranked.

2. Mobile Commerce - People are using their mobiles to buy products and services

• 62% of smartphone users said they have purchased physical goods from their mobile devices in the last six months (Source: Adobe Survey, 2011)


• By 2015, it is predicted that mobile shopping will account for $163 billion in sales worldwide, 12% of global ecommerce turnover (Source: ABI Research, 2010)

3. Consumer experience - how customers react and use a mobile website

• Consumers are 51% more likely to purchase from retailers that have mobile-specific websites (via Mobile Shopper session at NRF 2011)


• 56% of shoppers with smartphones believe using their phone during the shopping experience will make it more enjoyable (Source: Accenture, reported by Internet Retailer, 2010)


• 73% of shoppers with smartphones prefer to reference their mobile device while in-store rather than ask a sales associate for help (Source: Accenture, reported by Internet Retailer, 2010)

4. The Right Information Easy to Access

The size of a mobile screen limits the amount of information that can easily be seen. Scrolling up and down for information makes it incovenient and hard to navigate. Added to this many sites if developed in flash will simply not work on an iphone. Often customers when searching simply might want to call you, so finding your number easily could make the difference between a sales or a lost opportunity.

So what should it look like - see our mobile site this should give you an idea



5. Reach - Be where your customers are

A mobile site extends the reach of your business to the mobile Web, allowing you to provide your mobile visitors a fast and easy way to learn about your business and contact you with one click. While your existing web site is aimed at giving a full and comprehensive picture of your business, a mobile site allows you to deliver immediate access to what matters most when on the go; it extends the reach of your business. The two sites are complimentary and work together to make sure your customers are getting the most appropriate experience for their context and their device.

Now is an opportunity to be one of the first in your niche to have a mobile design of your site. You’ll attract more visitors and make more sales.

It is the future - what do you think?

PSFK presents Future of Retail report

Content - Do You Know How to Add Value?

Efficient with Knowledge


“The greatest challenge of the 21st century will be managing the productivity of the knowledge worker.” asserted Peter Drucker, the father of modern management.

Whether you are a business owner or a community manager, you will recognise the need to efficient with information. We are all constrained by time and that is our most valuable asset. But being part of the knowledge economy means we need to find, aggregate, filter, select curate and often publish high quality information relevant to our work or interest. We will strive to personalise it and make it relevant to our interests. This is both a personal and business issue and for Enterprises it is estimated that between 16% - 25% of knowledge workers time is spent searching for the relevant information.




Why you need to be a curator?

First it is important to understand the differences between aggregators, curators and indexers. Being an authority and expert in your field establishes a trust and builds your reputation with your customers. By becoming a source for other you build on-going relationship with customers, which in itself helps generate word of mouth marketing and drives important traffic to your site. By harvesting important content from the sea of information and sorting, filtering and producing contextually relevant material you are adding value.

Developing Quality Content

Many of us have tried RSS feeds and "thematic" or "topic-based aggregation" utilizing a selective number of quality sources of published content on specific topics. But TechMeMe and social sites like Digg whilst helpful are still aggregators. The solution to the ever-expanding cacophony of consumer content lies in using the intermediate layer of human filters and the use of ‘smart’ systems (algorithms based on preferences).

“Interacting directly with an automated news engine makes it clear that the human+algorithm combo can curate news far more effectively that the individual human or algorithmic parts.” - Gabe Rivera - Techmeme.

There are many tools to help now but it is how you add value that will separate you from your competition.

Some useful 'aggrefilters'

Clearly we need to be more efficient with tiemly and relevant information and part of this is the ability to quickly assess it as it comes to us. Whilst current tools do not have the 'smart' or learning capability yet, they are some useful tools to try. As curation becomes more important, new solutions are emerging all the time. It is worth exploring which suits your needs best. Often this will be determined by how each tool pulls through information and from what sources e.g. friends vs. blogs.

1. Scoop.It



Scoop.it offers users the opportunity to “be the curator of your favorite topic”  by collecting useful and insightful information among from social media streams. You can then publish it to people sharing the same interest. You can setup up topics as themes and then update them as new content is discovered. Content can be added via a bookmarklet or using a post button on the topic page. You can publish to Facebook and Twitter.

2. POSTPOST


PostPost resembles the mobile app Pulse and the iPad app Flipboard but the main difference is that , PostPost is a browser based application. PostPost imports links, videos and photos in real time from your Facebook friends and produces a newspaper display that can easily be adjusted as needed.

3. Paper.Li

Paper.li you can create up to 10 newspapers based on links shared by your Twitter and Facebook accounts. Each newspaper can be distributed via Facebook or Twitter. Paperli is easy to use and provides a nice recap of daily or weekly content. One great way to use Paper.li is to use it along with Listerous which enables you to find a list on almost any subject you can think of. You can take any one of those lists and create a newspaper out of it in Paper.li

4. Flipboard

You can browse photos from your Flickr streams, stories from Google Reader as well as content shared by your Facebook and Twitter friends, all in Flipboard‘s magazine-style format. You can also post Facebook status updates, tweets and photos from anywhere within the app and easily share favorite content across networks (e.g., share a favorite tweet to Facebook and vice versa).

Other sites worth looking at:

The Tweeted Times

The Tweeted Times (formerly known as The Twitter Times) is a real-time personalized newspaper generated from your Twitter account. The Tweeted Times aggregates news in your Twitter stream and ranks them by popularity among your friends.

Pinyadda (in beta testing)

Using Pinyadda you have a customizable way of developing a newsfeed. Users can follow a person, topic, or website, and comment on and share news stories with the Pinyadda community as well as their own social network.

Spotery

Unlike many others Spotery uses people to edit and filter its top news stories. Spotery is is good at integrating content curation with social news. Visitors to the site can follow the selected news stories, or the follow the live stream of submitted links.

Storify

Storify uses existing content from across the internet and gives you the ability to drag and drop elements into storylines. Tweets, photos and videos can be searched on multiple social networks. You can also order the elements and also add text to give context to readers.

How to use the information - your daily or weekly

When thinking about your market and customer it is vital to get to understand the issues and problems that they face with their business. By listening and focusing on topics that concern them you can start to set out solutions that can help them: save time, be more effective, market themselves better, do more for less, help them with market information...

A solution focused approach will separate you from your competitors. Focus on topics and subjects that you can easily research and provide some insight on to help your customers; conduct a survey of customers and produce your own market report. You may also find out topics within your market that are relevant, 'hot' and worthy of your effort. In producing a blog or free reports to attract customers.

Good curated content often saves people time and demonstrates your understanding and/or opinion on a subject. Don't foget to make it your own and add your thoughts and ideas.

If you don't have the time then look for an agency that can help you. Often it costs less than you imagine and you can really make a difference in your own time if you recognise that you don't have the time or resources to produce consistent levels of high quality content.

If you are focusing on your improving you Blog or looking for ways to add value to content, we have for you:

1. Build a story and invite others to contribute to your ideas. These may be new thoughts around a change in your market, technology or subject. By expressing some ideas, supporting them with some links and content and then asking for input you will develop conversations.


2. Add and use a mix of media to bring a subject to life. Mix rich media like video's illustrations, infographics...


3. By developing a case around an opinion, thought or subject you can add links, references, resources and then provide a framework to help people understand sometimes complex ideas and see the bigger picture.


4. Produce some daily news or weekly summary of things that you have found interesting, topical, illuminating or new and controversial. Mediocrity rarely achieves much so sometimes you need to take a stand or have an angle.


5. Ask for feedback and find out what people like.

Are you building your story or the story of your customers?

In the spirit of looking for feedback we would like your thoughts on where you think the world of curation, news and content is heading - join in and let us know your thoughts.

Customer Engagement - is it relevant?

Why is engagement so important?

The more engaged your customers the more content and word of mouth advocacy is generated and since people trust people this can attract new customers, develop sales opportunities and lead to sales.

Some communities take time to develop and this is where a clear strategy and engagement plan helps - see below for 4 stages of a community.





People have an identity, a voice and an ability to choose to listen or not to brand communications. Products are becoming commoditized, price differentiation is no longer sustainable and customers increasingly are more demanding.

Brands need to engage customers. Engagement is important for organisations because done well it can lead to web traffic, sales, and brand loyalty. On-line these outcomes can be measured and tracked against marketing communications and by channel. But what measures should be used and what is engagement really?

What is engagement?

“Engagement is turning on a prospect to a brand idea enhanced by the surrounding media context.” - Advertising Research Foundation definition.

“Engagement is an estimate of the degree and depth of visitor interaction against a clearly defined set of goals.”   — Eric Peterson

Here is a list of many more definitions.

Our preferred definition is “a consumer interaction with an aspect of a brand or media property.”

As you will realise there are many models and definitions. Forrester use a model called the 4'is and their video goes someway to explaining the importance of engagement.


However the 4i's don't readily explain consumer products that may not aspire to involvement and focus on influence. Conversely, a hotel brand needs to make sure intimacy and influence are optimized over interaction.



We have produced a scale that reflects how users develop their engagement over time and reflects their interactions both online and offline e.g. if you are a passionate Harley Davidson owner you may be active on-line, but may also attend offline events and possibly help organise them. For Adobe you might dedicate time to developing tutorials and tips for other people and share these on-line whilst hosting off-line training days. For more information of measures check our earlier posts on ROI.

The Value of Engagement

As organisations look for ways to develop their brands,

the main question arises of how engagement relates to acquiring and retaining customers. Clearly brands not only want loyal customers but they also want those customers to tell their friends about the brand about how good it is (and post good reviews, generate positive sentiment, produce content....); the new goal is advocacy.

By developing a brand community organisations can listen to their customers, communicate easily, reward contributors, gain data and insights and shorten product development life-cycles by sourcing feedback form the community. However, in order to earn peoples trust and develop the relationship brands must participate alongside their customers openly and transparently, and deliver value.

Organisations are placing more value on understanding people’s behaviour, passions, interests and ideas. This broader context of society and networks moves brands from a model of manipulating messages to purchase to facilitating solutions and experiences; from campaigns to relationships.

What is the benefit of engagement?

The Engagement db study evaluated the top 100 brands and their use of social media. Brands were rated more "engaged" by the more channels they participated in, and the depth of engagement within that channel. The report shows how engagement varies by industry.



What does this mean? Well clearly some industries are not actively using social media to engage with their customers e.g. Finance and may be facing challenges with how to use these effectively inside and outside the organisation.

For those organisations that are actively using social engagement there is a causal relationship to their financial performance. The key take out here is that those transitioning there marketing to social engagements and building communities develop more profitbale customer relationships.



Other reports that relate to this are:

1. How much is a Facebook customer worth

2. Some Social Media & Marketing Case Studies

Brands need to get closer to identifying how to develop user experiences that matter, but not just to trigger emotional responses to buy. This is manipulation for short term gain whereas moving from campaign to community develops sustainable relationships These depend on service, reputation, continued development of insights and facilitating customer solutions.

What are the trends that will affect customer engagement?


How can this be used?

It is important to understand how engagement fits within the overall social business strategy. Firstly it is worth researching and benchmarking your current position; what interactions take place and in what channels, who are the customers….

Aligning objectives to what experiences and solutions can be developed is a key starting point. Remember it is about customers first not your business. Use the insights from understanding customers to bring clarity to your content strategy – this is the fuel of engagement. Set out clear measurements and map your budget against where you can effectively develop your touchpoints with your customers. Monitor customer behaviour and engagement on an on-going basis to analyse what is working well and what needs to change, make this a continuous improvement process so that you are in touch with how your customers are changing in this fast paced landscape.

Challenges

Forrester Research noted in a recent study that “Marketers must wrestle down the numerous

data sources to capture the presence, value, impact, and degree of customer interactions across

channels.”

There are many potential metrics and these will need to be chosen based on your specific engagement strategies, media and channels. A key point is to keep it simple, easy to measure and stick to basics as a first step.

Organisations need to move away from campaign transactions and think strategically about share of wallet, share of lifetime - good brands recognise the long term benefits relationships can yield. Now is the time to build your brand community, your tribe.