Key is to create balance:

This throws up a problem that any company operating in the social media space can potentially come across; the issue of creating a balance between not biting the hand that feeds you on two fronts! On the one hand, you need users to get advertisers interested, and on the other, the more you can offer advertisers in terms of presence, the more appealing your space will become. But potentially at the cost of your users..the loyal folk that got you to this charmed position in the first instance!

Treading on the toes of Google+ and Facebook

Twitter intend to offer “brand pages”. Users will still have the option to decide whether they want to visit a brand page or not. So it should not be too intrusive. Furthermore, an enhancement of the “hashtag” system will result in users being able to view content based on their interests and location.

The redesign of the company pages will essentially allow for more customisation from the brands. It will give brands more control over the look and feel of their page, and give them the ability to show embedded multimedia.

Brands signed up already:

Coca-Cola, McDonalds and Disney are just some of the companies that are already signed up. However, it will not be available to companies in the UK until some time in 2012. The objective in social media is to engage in innovative ways with in the desired audience. All you tweeters out there, be sure to let us know if these companies succeed in achieving that through these new channels!

You need two websites nowadays:

One thing that this should flag up for businesses, is that a social media presence, has become, at the very least, as important as your web site. Any product-focused operation needs to be where its customers are. Social media’s power to engage an interested audience, and to enable customers and prospects to advocate your brand for free only strengthens this argument.

But there has been a backlash among the Internet population about the control online behemoths such as Facebook and Google seem to have over us. These brands are much maligned in the media..we are constantly told that these people cannot be trusted.

Facebook and Google: Friends or foes??

People have a choice. There are plenty of search engines aside from Google. There are numerous other ways to organise and enhance social lives, or to promote your brand in a positive way, other than Facebook. These are just two of the best at what they do. We use them for convenience and for the quality of their service if nothing else.

If Google started to give erroneous and irrelevant results on a regular basis, we would soon turn away. And the same with Facebook..if it was really that intrusive and “Big-brother”like, we would soon delete accounts…and the population would fall at a much faster rate than Facebook users are currently jumping ship.

Friends for sure:

Rather than being perceived as dominant and oppressive control freaks in the online space, these two brands should be embraced and appreciated for the great things they are. There are very few people reading this, who will not have benefited from either brands myriad of great services. If that wasn’t the case, we would soon be off to use someone who could give us what we want!

With so many apps and services now available to consumers, how can you gain a march upon your rivals. The answer is the same as it has always been. Content. But rather than you producing the content, it is the consumer’s content that you want. Our put another way, their data. Their tweets, their photos, their purchase history, and social relationships. Once you know what they are about, then you can communicate with them in a useful manner. This is how you create value for your customers and build long-term relationships.

To achieve this, the old buzz words still apply. Transparency and trust. Consumers have the control because they are the owners of the data. So the best strategy is to give them more control. By giving control to consumers, we have seen the advent of citizen journalism and brand advocacy. Citizen journalism has helped significantly to bring down governments (Egypt, Tunisia) and brand advocacy is the “sweet-spot” for e-tailers or indeed anyone with a brand. Through working with audiences more effectively, the results have been tremendous.

Those brands who have achieved success have given up some control, in order to gain a voice and social influence. They have basically put people before technology. All brands should follow suit.

Some are so used to e-commerce, that they are reluctant to embrace f-commerce fully. In fact, that out of most major retailers, there are only 10% or so, that are generating decent sales via Facebook.

But interest is starting to grow both from retailers and users alike. Consumers have more trust in Facebook, and are therefore seen as more likely to use it as a buying channel. Moreover, the introduction of Facebook’s only currency; Facebook credits; and the enthusiasm of Facebook to make it more widespread, is making transactions easier too.

Facebook is already seen as a great source for online discounts and deals. Companies are incentivising their followers in a variety of ways to acquire that all important Facebook endorsement; a “like”!

If you as a retailer, can make the prospect of buying on Facebook attractive, then you will do well. It just simplifies a process by eliminating a funnel or link in the chain. Followers see a deal, and they can click on the Facebook shop page of the relevant retailer and buy more easily. And buyers live simplicity a lot. If you can attract conversions without users having to leave Facebook, your sales and return on investment will go up significantly.

Social media takes away the control that was the norm for traditional advertising. Now you need to tell a story, and not sell one. And it is those with PR experience, who you should look to as your first port of call. They are the ones that are well versed in persuasion and conversation. When you initiate a social media campaign, you are embarking upon a relationship with a consumer.

Social media eliminates the boundaries between brands, consumers and media. It empowers the consumer to choose whether they engage with, ignore or even campaign against the brands vying for their attention. It’s not about your campaign budget.

Gauge the mood of the people:

To make it work, you need to capture the mood of the people at any one time. Ascertain this, and then give people interesting content, which they will want to share and discuss. This will propel your brand in the social media space.

Be creative and you will go far:

The best looking Facebook page means nothing without great content to inspire conversations. You need the technology to deliver the message, but it is the ideas in content that can have the most measurable impact, and deliver the best ROI.

Create content with “talkability” – something that will kick-start a conversation and make your message stand-out. Always have this in mind: anything your create should always be worth sharing.

The data can be tracked and recorded via the Google Dashboard.  You can do this by setting up search alerts for data points included in your Google profile, like your name and email address. It has long been possible to set up these type of alerts using another section of the dashboard, but now it takes fewer clicks.

Managing your own online identity and being able to remove content are key aspects of this new feature. You need a Google account of course.

We are in the age of the Super Injunction , and businesses have been created on the back of this. These businesses use similar approaches as we have outlined here to manage the content for both individuals and businesses.

For us mere mortals, we can now keep an eye on what is being said about us on the web. Moreover, it is highly effective, and considerably cheaper than hiring a lawyer and taking out a super injunction!

If you need advice on setting this up, or would like to know more about our own Online Reputation Management service for our clients, please get in touch.

Recently launched for father’s day, Marks & Spencer have set-up a pop-up store. With Facebook shops quick and easy to set-up, the pop-store strategy lends itself well here. So for seasonal sales or one-off promotions for a limited time period, f-commerce could be a smart move. It is a great way to drive traffic to your store and ultimately probably your web site.

Other companies have opted to use Facebook as a means of driving customer advocacy. They are the ones that are primarily after “likes” – you liking what they have will make them visible to your friends in a positive light. ie. you are “advocating ” the brand in question to your friends. Ways to achieve this have included setting up fan stores offering fan merchandise (Coke) , or by offering fans exclusive content before anyone else (Mercedes-Benz)

You could also take the ASOS approach, where their facebook store is all about sales. It takes the form of a real e-commerce store, and one of the spokes linked to a multi-channel retailing hub if you like.

Another emerging trend in f-commerce is the use of this medium as a customer loyalty platform.(Starbucks) Mobile phone companies for example as well as Starbucks allow users to deploy Facebook as a means of topping up loyalty cards and acquire rewards for doing so.

Facebook did not set out to be about raw sales..just another retail platform to process transactions. So perhaps this latest emerging trend has the most legs. Rewarding loyalty, and convenience for the customer by seeing Facebook as a CRM platform in this manner, may turn out to be the most effective outcome of f-commerce..we shall see.

So success in our social media strategies is not contingent upon money or staff. Many have succeeded without either of the above.

One of the main challenges social media staff face is get their colleagues and bosses to come on board with them. To give them the support and encouragement they need to make their efforts count. There are so many conflicting forces at work within an organisation, that politics and human nature can provide formidable stumbling blocks.

You, as the new kid on the block, may threaten the long-standing budgets of the marketing department or corporate communications, or of IT, depending upon how your company makes its budgeting decisions.

And what if your early efforts show signs of working? It may result in you making some of your colleagues look bad. They may get resentful of your success.

Your top priority as the in-house social media expert is to educate your colleagues and bosses. Your company, possibly for the first time in it’s history, now has to be open, transparent and communicative. Some of the older members will need to be convinced! This will take time, patience, and also some useful metrics that show how your efforts are working. The key thing to remember is that if “it’s not well understood, it’s not going to be well-funded! “

As more and more brands realise the potential of social shopping, f-commerce is being embraced. Multi-channel retailing is advocated from all sides, but what makes the difference between success and failure?

Facebook commerce is not just about sales. It can tell you a lot about your customers too. Most talk about insight into the customer..how they interact with the brand, and the importance of all that. Personally, I think that is all over-inflated marketing jargon. Facebook users react first and foremost to interesting content, and that takes precedence over the brand providing the content. It may enhance their reputation among facebook users if they have had an engaging experience, but content, as always is King.

Mercedes-Benz are masters at engaging Facebook users with their brand through content. They offer exclusive content FIRST to Facebook users, and then they disseminate it via other channels. The point is that by “liking” Mercedes-Benz, you get access exclusivity. And we all crave exclusivity..the flash sales market is indicative of that. But don’t take my word on it; Mercedes have well over 3m Facebook users.

Treat Facebook as another sales channel only, with no differentiation on price or content, then your efforts will more than likely fail. After all, why use Facebook to buy things, when there are much more tried and tested channels around. Convenience is something else we crave.

Engage through content. Get people talking about and sharing what you give them. It will get you extra sales.

From a marketing perspective, large companies have the budgets to take out big ads in leading publications, and on TV channels. That closes the small guy out. But the customer or prospect in social media is primarily concerned with something of interest to them. Give the person content and engage with them in a meaningful manner, and they will not care whether how big your company is. Solve a need and they will advocate your brand for you.

More good news is that vast armies of staff are not required for you to take the social media space by storm. The average dedicated social media team for companies between 1000-5000 employees comprises  3 members.

You have another distinct advantage compared to the large organisation. You are nimbler, more personal, more attentive to your client’s needs. You are a speedboat that can change course at the flick of a switch. Large frigates have to have endless committee meetings before budgets are altered and courses replotted.

Large frigates are cumbersome. Change is hard and invariably ruffles feathers; delaying it further. If you have a huge advertising budget to play with, you will not want to give any of it away to those upstarts in the new “social media” team. Then when you get the funds, company politics will dictate that you spend swathes of time justifying being given said funds.

So embrace the fact that you are a small fish in a large ocean. Keep your eyes open for what the other fish want. Steaming over them in the form of traditional marketing is over in any case. Listen to your fellow fish and they will swim with you, and get others to also. They no longer want to be told which direction they have to swim in…they are looking to companies like you for guidance.