Where should you be seen online? Google or a Social Network?

There’s news today that for the first time, Google has been overtaken as the most viewed website in the UK – by Bebo.  A ComScore report found that social network Bebo attracted 8.6bn page impressions during August, ahead of Google and associated sites with 8.46bn.  Hey – what’s a few hundred thousand page impressions between friends…

CEO of Bebo Michael Birch told me a few weeks ago that Bebo has been ‘bigger than Google’ in Ireland for some while now and naturally he’s very excited about it.  There are also some stats to show that people spend more time surfing Bebo than any other social network.

How seriously are you taking Social Networks as a marketing tool?

Philip

Do Social Networks ‘work’ for business?

There was an interesting question on Ecademy yesterday: Does Facebook work for business?

I guess it depends how you define ‘work’ and what your required outcome is.

One of the characteristics of social networks is that many members do not want to be sold to, though they are generally happy to be engaged with. As an example, I set up a new group on Facebook yesterday called What Are You Selling?  The group picked up 34 members in a matter of hours, and is designed to attract attention to the new Simply Sales Jobs Club on Ecademy, which in turn is intended to attract attention to the specialist sales recruitment site Simply Sales Jobs.

The people at Simply Sales Jobs see the opportunity to promote their business in social networks, but they realise that for it to ‘work’ they have to add value and enagage with the community. So the idea of the Facebook and Ecademy clubs is to a) add value to people who have already registered with Simply Sales Jobs and b) to attract new people to register on their recruitment site – whilst at the same time building the Simply Sales Jobs brand, creating value, implying expertise and building Community.

Selling and marketing on social networks has many facets and requires patience and constant experimentation. The point is that you can and at next to no cost. If it was as simple as ‘post it and sell it’ we’d all be multi-millionaires by now.

Philip

Does your face fit in Facebook?

There are certain social networks like Xing and Ecademy where your profile page will come up in Google search results. 

The news that Facebook’s public listings results will soon be picked up by Google too is probably good news for people using the site as a tool to raise their business profile. There won’t be much information visible (name and photo alone), but it’s a good start.  At the very least, business people should be reviewing the photo they use in their social network profile(s) as this is the first item that visitors use to decide if they are going to read further.  In fact I’ve tested this out with groups of business people to gauge their reactions to profile photos, and almost without exception profiles with poor (or no) photos were dismissed. 

Just as celebrities put a lot of effort into managing their image online and in magazines – so should all business people – particularly if you use social networks.  If you need a good photographer to make you look good, please get in touch!

Philip

Another brand makes a move into Social Networking

Back in April, Chairman of the Ecademy network Thomas Power, posted a Blog on behalf of Nokia asking the question “What would you expect from a Nokia Business Club?”.

I added a response along the lines of wanting to be able to interact and engage directly with Nokia Management and sat back.  I kind of expected a few regular Ecademy bloggers to post a few things about reliability, service, pricing etc, but was pleasantly surprised to see over 170 posts being added – the overwhelming majority of which were articulate, well thought-through, detailed and knowledgable comments about Nokia and the global mobile communications market.

As at today, over 9,500 people have logged in to read the thread.  I would imagine that Nokia would have been extremely pleased with the response – going some way to prove that such ’strategic blogging’ can be very powerful as a communication and feedback gathering mechanism.

Ironically, I see this week that according to PR newswire, Nokia has acquired Twango.  Twango provides a comprehensive media sharing solution for organising and sharing photos, videos and other personal media.  And by doing so, Nokia will be able to offer people an easy way to share multimedia content through their desktop and mobile devices.  In addition to key assets, through this transaction Nokia is bringing on a seasoned team with strong social media and Web services expertise.

Watch out for more big brands looking to get involved with social networks…

Philip

How are you using Social Networks in your business?

The Internet offers exciting opportunities for businesses to discover new customers. 

In fact, online advertising has grown year on year since 2003 and people are spending less time with newspapers, print magazines and radio – and considerably more time online.   Not surprising then, that online advertising is taking a larger share of overall marketing budgets.  Whilst there’s still plenty of room for growth in online advertising spend – differentiating your web marketing is increasingly challenging. 

Creativity is crucial – but that costs money too and is out of reach for many SMEs. And whilst Internet users expect to see advertising while they surf, the very creativity that’s needed (e.g. expanding banners, pop-ups etc) is often intrusive and a big turn-off.  Not surprisingly, advertisers have turned their attention to social networks where growth has been phenomenal.  But here too, consumers are wary of promotional activities – with some showing outright hostility to companies that advertise at them. 

Despite this, social networks offer significant opportunity for companies of all sizes to promote their services.  But for your ’social network marketing’ to be truly successful, you need to know how to connect, interact and engage with their users.  

Calvert New Media – Experts in Social Network Marketing 

Whether you’re a one-person SME or a multi-national brand, talk to Philip Calvert about how your company can use social network marketing to interact and engage with your target customers.  We work with companies like Reuters, Zopa, Passion for the Planet DAB Digital Radio, SimplySalesJobs.com and ECVV.com (China’s largest B2B online marketplace) – helping them to use social networks to: 

• Communicate effectively
• Build Community around their brand
• Add value to existing customers
• Discover new customers 

If you don’t have the budget or are not yet ready to build your own social network, we’ll help you to put a toe in the water by creating a branded online business club or ‘mini social network’ within established forums like Ecademy, Facebook, MySpace and Xing.  We’ll work closely with you to establish your strategy, Blog on your behalf, moderate your forum and build your online club into a powerful and compelling extension of your website.   

We’ll provide you with visitor and activity statistics and help you to create new income streams from your club.  We’ll even give you access to ‘Blog Mining’ experts who can extract hard data, comprehensive statistics and trends from your club so that you maximise the return on your investment.  If finding new clients in social networks excites you, contact us today.   

Through personalised consultancy, interactive seminars, breakout sessions or keynote speeches we can help SMEs and large corporates by: 

• Revealing how to create profitable new income streams from social networks
• Helping you to identify social network marketing opportunities
• Teaching you how to build your reputation and create community around your brand within social networks
• Teaching you how to create powerful and compelling blogs within social networks
• Teaching you how to use strategic blogging as a marketing tool
• Teaching you how to communicate and network effectively within social networks
• Helping you to create a robust social network marketing strategy
• Creating and co-running your branded online business club 

Call Philip Calvert on +44 (0)1483 548 666 or +44(0)7773 359 619 or visit Philip’s Ecademy profile page at this link.  Please send emails to philip at calvertnewmedia.com

Another UK High Street brand see the light by engaging with Social Networking

According to New Media Age and others, Waitrose relaunch their website soon with a Food Forum in order to interact and engage with its customers.

Waitrose marketing manager Fiona Hall said, “Our stores are known for offering the highest standards of customer service and information and we really wanted to bring that experience online.”

She added, “From research we found that the customer wants to have this dialogue with us, they want to comment on recipes and ask for advice, they want their online experience to be the same as the one they have in store.”

Great stuff – another organisation that understands the benefits of complementing and enhancing their face-to-face business with new media technologies. They enhance loyalty to their brand whilst adding immense value to their customers.

Waitrose will also benefit by receiving feedback from it customers that will be rich in its value to them – and that feedback will in turn find its way back into the stores.  And guess what – we all benefit.

My guess is that the site will be a winner.

Phil

What role do you play in Social Networks?

According to a paper entitled Visualizing the Signatures of Social Roles in Online Discussion Groups published in the Journal of Social Structure, the authors assert that 2% of the online forum or usenet culture consists of “answer” people who spend a disproportionate amount of time answering questions for the online public at large.

This Blog at Variocreative.com makes interesting reading and suggests that these people are of extreme importance within social networks and that quality of the community is often directly related to the quality of the “answer” people – especially in small niche communities.

Are you one of them?
What value do you add to online communities?

I’ve asked the same question at this link on Ecademy to see what happens…

Phil

Philip is having a cup of tea whilst networking online

When Twitter launched their new service recently, many commentators thought that the ability to continuously update your friends and contacts on what you are doing at any given moment in time, was a step too far in social networking.  Yet, it’s not only been embraced, but is seen by most people as informative, valuable and fun – adding a further layer of immediacy and intimacy to social networking.

It’s amazing how much creative writing can be found in just one sentence – with some great examples being found on Facebook.  Even business people are doing it now at the Ecademy network.  The ‘Current Status’ feature was introduced last night, and after they’ve got through the initial novelty factor, business people on Ecademy will figure out ways to use it as another powerful brand, credibility and trust-building tool.   Love it.

Visit Ecademy here to see what it’s all about.

Philip 

An astonishing new SMS technology. Trust me, this is awesome

An exciting new SMS tool is about to be launched, which will revolutionise the way shops and businesses promote themselves and gather customer data.

The new system identifies mobile phone users within 250 metres, identifies their name and mobile number, and sends pre-planned messages direct to them – prompting immediate opt-in action and response.  The system is ideal for pubs, clubs, bars, entertainment venues, restaurants, estate agents, fashion outlets, retail shops, professional service providers, sales people, marketing experts, seminar hosts, conference organisers, professional speakers and any business wishing to attract the attention of individuals within a specified geographical or local area.

I’m looking for potential distributors and customers.  If you would like to learn more, please contact me.  Don’t delay.

• Through Ecademy private message at http://www.ecademy.com/user/philipcalvert&xref=53930
• Email to philip @ calvertnewmedia.com

Philip

How are you using Social Networks in your business?

Once upon a time there was MySpace…

And the rest is history.  Marketers everywhere are scratching their heads wondering how to apply the magic to the business environment.  But they haven’t quite got it right yet.

You see, Community members aren’t really there to be bombarded with advertisements.  And heaven help anyone from a big Brand who ‘pretends’ to be a happy customer of a particular company – they soon get spotted and seen off.

So how can Social Networks be of benefit in the business world?  Until companies start to integrate Social Networking techniques into their service proposition (a subtle difference from advertising in Social networks) –  the easier they will find it to engage with consumers online.   And before they know it, they will be creating Community around their brand.

And the more value they add to that community, the more trust they will build and the more loyal customers will become.  And the more loyal they become, the more friends and business associates they will tell.  And so the wheel turns.

Social Networks are not just a big advertising platform.  They are a tool for adding value.  The more you give, the more you’ll get back.

Phil