PART ONE: What is SEO and how can it be used to improve your digital marketing campaign?

What is SEO? Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is essentially the process maximising where your website ranks in an internet search (Spais, 2010).

Popular internet search engines, such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing, store information on website content for every website available, and use ‘ranking algorithms’ to churn this information in to ‘search results’ which are ranked in terms of how ‘relevant’ the site it to your search (Beel, 2010). These search results are crucial to your business because the position your site is ranked will impact your visibility to customers (Newlands, 2014).

Try it right now, punch a few key words for your business into Google and see where your site ranks. First? Fifth? Eighth? Are you even on the first page of results? More importantly, where do your competitors rank? The higher your business rank’s, the easier it is for your customers to find you, and if people can’t find you, you’re losing access to that digital revenue stream.

So what can you do to fix it? Actually, the solution is pretty simple, and once you’ve learned to not-so-secret trick to improving your SEO, you’ll be wishing you’d applied it to your business sooner!

Here’s my two-part super-strategy for maximising the SEO for your business:

1. Sign Up to Google Webmaster;
2. Tailor you search terms;

Look simple? It is! You are two very short steps away from SEO perfection. Let’s explain these two initiatives…

First off, you don’t need to have a degree in SEO to know how to use it effectively, there are plenty of tools out there to make the whole process a lot simpler! One essential tool available to you is ‘Google Webmaster’ which essentially allows you to monitor searches to your site, assess the common flaws people make when searching for your site, and allows you to fix them (Seiter, 2014) . Take a look at this video on Google Webmaster:

Video URL: http://bit.ly/1rohOBZ

If you don’t already have a webmaster account, you can create one here: http://bit.ly/17WOXzv.

Webmaster is a fairly straightforward tool, and can certainly boost you SEO without you needing to be a data-wizard. That said, the more you learn about how to use Webmaster, the more you can tailor your digital marketing strategy to your particular business site and maximise your ROI. Google provide their own free online ‘Webmaster Academy’ which teaches you step-by-step how to master the tool, which you can access here: http://bit.ly/1eROn34.

Critique: Webmaster has had a somewhat antagonistic past, with criticisms that data provided by the tool was often inaccurate and insufficient (although, it is difficult to find any articles about this using a Google search – can you guess why?). Nevertheless, despite the flaws of the past few years, it would appear that all of these kinks have been removed, with the service functioning faster, better, and more efficiently than ever before (Cierniakoski, 2014).

Once you’re signed up to Google Webmaster, you will be able to see what search terms are used by your customers when trying to find your website, but it’s equally important for you to create some logical links of your own. Jayson Demers, CEO of Audience Bloom, stated that having little or no research on your search terms will render your SEO campaign a failure from the start (Demers, 2014). Therefore, it’s essential you do some preliminary groundwork if this initiative is going to help your business and not hinder it!

Demers went on to suggest a strategic approach to utilising key words in your SEO strategy – essentially, start by ascertaining which words link perfectly to you company,

This strategy would be better improved if you try to keep your search terms as specific to your business as possible, ie. your business specialises in hair products, but a generic search for “hair gel” will bring in floods of results, and it’s almost luck of the draw where your website will rank (short of posting the word “hair gel” hundreds of times on your landing page, there’s little you can do at this stage to boost your SEO – but do take a look at part two of this post for more advanced guidance once you’ve used each of these recommendation!). Therefore, specificity is key – what elements of your business set you apart from your competitors? How can you express this in words?

SPOTLIGHT ON THE FAST FOOD INDUSTRY: Whilst this branch of SEO doesn’t mean going crazy with your branding, when ascertaining your search terms it can sometimes be beneficial to delve into the heart of brand personalisation – this seems to have mostly succeeded in the fast food industry. One company that really took this to the next level is McDonalds, with virtually every product they sell starting with the prefix “Mc”, becoming so popular that simply adding “Mc” before the name of ANY food will make people instantly think it part of the company’s range (Patel, 2007).

Previously, it was really easy to identify these terms using Google Analytics, now however, that process has been restricted due to ‘Google encoding’, meaning you won’t be able to see some of your most popular search terms. And this process has taken a knock-on effect on Webmaster. Nevertheless, all is not lost, one thing Google can’t remove is your common sense!  Think logically, and get in to the mind of your consumers – what would they put in to Google to find your business?

The easiest way to achieve this is by really looking into the content of your website – what is the heart of your business … the essence of your website?

So what are companies are getting this right?

Here are some practical examples using magic suppliers:

Say I’m trying to find a simple coin trick, and I search for just that:

The first ranking website under this search term is GoodTricks.net, and it’s not hard to see why, lets break this down:

The word ‘coin’ appears 28 times on their landing page, and the term ‘trick’ appears a further 27 times. This is the basis of this initiative in action – the more times the terms appear in the content of your site, the more likely that site is to be ranked higher by Google. Bear this in mind when dealing with your own search terms!

Top Tip: Don’t forget, Google uses synonyms! A search for ‘simple’ above, also revealed the word ‘easy’, in fact, the word ‘simple’ only appeared on the 10^th link all other’s used ‘easy’. This is a key reminder that your vocabulary may not be the same a the aggregate vocabulary of your target market – but a simple Google search of these words will show you what the most popular terms are and these are the ones you should use the most!

So what businesses are getting it wrong?

Based on my own data analysis, Alakazam Magic UK is one of the top five businesses for selling coin tricks in the UK – and yet, they don’t appear at all on the first page of Google results. In fact, Alakazam rank 20^th on a Google search, that’s the very last result on the second page! And even more shockingly, a study by Chitika, 2015, revealed that out of the 8 million Google users, only 6% will ever click on the next page of results! (Jensen, 2015). And even then, eye tracking studies indicate that viewers hardly pay any attention to that last link (Mendenhall, 2014). In other words, Alakazam can’t be selling many coin tricks unless customers actually embed the name ‘Alakazam’ in their search, handing over that revenue stream to their competitors, and entirely neglecting the potential to boost their ROI.

Top Tip: Once you’ve created and tailored your search terms , don’t be mistaken in thinking they are all you’ll ever need to use. Part of Google’s search service uses Google Bot to keep updated on all of your new pages and content. Basically, Google Bot (sometimes referred to as ‘Spider’) is a colossal internet trawling tool that scans the billions of websites logged on it’s registry lists every few seconds of every day. This means that every time you create a new branch of your website, Google Bot knows about it, and makes that page available via the main search engine. But you should do everything possible to maximise the publicity Google Bot gives your page by updating your search terms just as you’ve done above.

Congratulations! Now you know the secret first steps to boosting your website’s search engine ranking and visibility, why not step up you knowledge further and find out how to achieve near-perfect optimisation for your business by checking out PART TWO of this blog, due to be uploaded in a weeks’ time!

Thanks for reading! Do you have any tips to offer on how to improve SEO? Share your comments below!

Article by Kayleigh McChambell.

SOURCES

• Beel, Joeran, (2010), Academic Search Engine Optimisation: Optimizing Scholarly Literature for Google Scholar, Journal of Scholarly Publishing, Volume 41, Issue 2, page 176 – 190, page 176, paragraph 2;
• Cierniakoski, Ronald, (2014), In Defence of Webmaster Tools, Terqeet, available at: http://bit.ly/1dy6bGN;
• Demers, Jayson, (2014), 7 Advanced Ways to Improve Your Site’s SEO, Entrepreneur, available at: http://entm.ag/YGT9Pc;
• Jensen, Todd, (2015), Second Page Rankings, Gravitation Line, available at: http://bit.ly/1JcJQZa;
• Mendenhall, Ryan, (2012), You Image in Search Results – Google Authorship Markup, Rich Snippets, Mendenhall Creative, available at: http://bit.ly/1bHkhUZ;
• Newlands, Murray, (2014), Ranking Factors For Mobile SEO: Interview with Marcus Tober of Searchmetrics, Search Engine Journal, available at: http://bit.ly/1J8oMTk;
• Patel, Bina, (2007), McDonald’s Success Strategy and Global Expansion Through Customer Brand Loyalty, Journal of Business Case Studies, Volume 3, Issue 3, page 55;
• Seiter, Courtney, (2014), Five Simple Ways to Improve Your SEO Today, Buffer Social, available at: http://bit.ly/1zuZPlq;
• Spais, George, (2010), Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) as a Dynamic Online Promotion Technique: The Implications of Activity Theory For Promotion Managers, Innovative Marketing (Journal), Volume 6, Issue 1, page 6, paragraph 2;

Is the use of social media marketing coming to an end? What lies ahead for businesses:

You wake up, bleary eyed, it’s a 7am Monday start. You stayed up all night finding new data to weave into your glittering blog posts, so now you’re too tired to think straight. You pick up your smart phone and check Facebook. Two of your friends have birthdays today, so you wish them well and post a virtual birthday cake to their wall, adding a cute Pusheen for good measure. One of your friends has tagged you in a post, ‘Jeremy Clarkson Sacked for Punching Producer’ – you’re fuming, so you repost immediately, adding an ‘angry’ emoticon to demonstrate your newfound rage. Then you check your newsfeed, there’s a link to a new restaurant opening in town, so you add yourself to the invite list and tag a few friends to come along with you. You then open up a group message to find out who’s up for paintballing at the weekend, using a 30% discount you received in an email from Groupon yesterday.

With Facebook done, you check your LinkedIn account, three new professional contacts, and four profile views. Not bad, but you really want that PR job advertised by Burberry on Vine,  and you know employers will check your profile, so you quickly edit your ‘Experience’ information to reflect the two-week training scheme you secured for a month’s time.

Then you check Twitter. And there’s Jeremy Clarkson again. This time you re-Tweet to your followers, with a link to an article by the Guardian, and ‘#outraged’ – this link is already trending, and you want your point across! Maybe you’ll even Tweet this to the BBC… or maybe not. Moments later a friend has favorited your tweet, and two more followers have re-Tweeted your link themselves.

You’re barely out of bed, and you’ve already promoted your name across the vast expanses if the internet, both professionally and personally, and interacted with various followers and friends.

Craig Newmark, ‘Craigslist’ founder, illustrates the diversity of social media, stating it is for ‘connecting online, for commerce, politics, and personally… it is a big part of our lives’, and Hal Varian, Google’s Chief Economist, highlights the true effects social media has had on global relations, stating that ‘fifty years ago, emigrants left their families behind. Now… they simply enlarge their social networks, building truly global communities’ (). And this has proven a phenomenal tool for businesses, allowing publicity of the brand to spread throughout these ‘global communities’ and around the world, such as has been demonstrated by Coca-Cola, Sony, Primark, and Volkswagen – all powerful examples of Trustov’s Word of Mouth Theory (Trustov, 2009). Essentially, the global social media phenomenon has provided the perfect interface for businesses to utilise their most powerful tool for success – their followers.

Publicity and engagement via social media has always been heralded as an essential method of success for businesses, for example, even way back in 1967, Milgram ran a study to test connectivity across social media platforms, and concluded that the ‘convergence of communication chains through common individuals’ is key for business success. Now, social media has become the forefront of business interactions, whether it’s for sole traders, high-street firms, or big business names, and across every market and industry (Cudjoe, 2014).

Having only really taken hold in the last fifteen years, social media is accelerating at an alarming pace, now becoming a daily engagement for 1 in every 4 people worldwide (eMarketer, 2013), and experts are already warning businesses against the detrimental effect of not engaging with social media platforms (Rainie, 2010). But what lies in store for the future of social media marketing, and what does this mean for your business?

According to Princeton researchers, the social media platform, Facebook, will lose ‘80% of users by 2017’ (Garside, 2014). But is this just a result of past-paced social media cycle? In truth, very few social media platforms last more than a few years, with sites including Bebo and MySpace truly dead in the water, just a few years after their global take over (Arthur, 2009).

Facebook has done tremendously well to have survived as long as it has, having acquired a staggering 1.39 billion monthly active users (Noyes, 2015), and having secured its own film in the process (The Social Network, 2010). Nevertheless, are we perhaps seeing the start of a ‘privacy craze’ which has been looming over social media sites since their creation? It would appear that the need for increased privacy and data protection is becoming a desire for many users, people are ‘moving away from public sharing’ (Ross, 2015). With sites such as Facebook and Twitter making it a formal requirement of their ‘sign up policy’ that you grant them access to information on your personal account, mobile phone, computer, and emails, it would seem that want of privacy is a far cry for social media users at present but this doesn’t mean that the industry will not be reshaped to comply with user demands (Woollaston, 2014).

So what does this mean for your business?

With the popularity, and success, of social media marketing already clearly cut, it is very unlikely that use of these social platforms will ever cease for businesses. Nevertheless, this doesn’t mean that the shape of social media marketing won’t be undergoing radical transformations. New sites will, evidentially, be created, and blossom in popularity just as Facebook has, alike its now extinct predecessors. So how can your business keep ahead of the social media market? Here are my top three tips:

1.  It is more vital than ever that you, whether you’re a sole trader, high-street retailer, or multi-story business success, keep ahead of the social media market (Sprung, 2014). Keep engaging with new platforms as, and when, they rise to fame, because that is where your customers – and your revenues – will be heading. And one of the best way to do this is by keeping a check on social media Bloggers, Vloggers, Tweeter’s, and Posters! Put simply, follow people who make it their job to keep the world updated on all of the latest technological advancements that can assist your business. Here are a few suggestions of social media guru’s you can follow in Twitter (suggested by Harrison, 2013):

• Mashable (@mashable/social-media)
• David Pogue (@Pogue)
• Jeff Bullas (@jeffbullas)
• TechCrunch (@TechCrunch)
• Jordan Gillette (@JordanGillette)

For more tips to keep up to date with new social media developments and trends, check out this article by Anderson-Gray, 2014: http://bit.ly/1FocWpg. And remember, if you don’t interact with your customers on social media, your competitors will.

2. Just as importantly, you should link each of your social media platforms to one another, to maximise your engagement with customers (Conely, 2014). You can achieve this, for example, by tweeting about you exclusive Facebook offers, or posting on Facebook about your YouTube channel. More importantly, most social media sites will allow you to embed a call to action button (CTA) from one site to then next. ie, you can link you Facebook page to your Twitter page using a CTA.

This is a brilliant method of ensuring engagement on each platform, as well as promoting the publicity of the various branches of your social media campaign. For a fast and easy guide on how to do this, take a look at this article: http://bit.ly/1Kk8cko.

3. Finally, be brave. The world of social media had never been static, there are always new tools and app’s being developed to assist business’s using social media. For example, just a few months ago, Facebook launched a new tool to help businesses promote their events (see http://on.fb.me/1QwycNT) as well as a whole new package of tools to assist with brand publicity (See http://bit.ly/1ABKY4Y), which in February 2015, helped artist Zena Holloway achieve global fame:

For more information on Zena’s Facebook success story, take a look here: http://on.fb.me/1E8JKjU, However, be aware that not all of these new developments will work for you, or even be relevant to your business industry, but that doesn’t mean you should shut off all new methods of engagement entirely. They are simple little tools to revitalise you digital marketing campaign, and will help to keep customers engaged, rather than loosing interest in the same old site (Lele, 2015).

What are your thoughts on the future of social media? Share your comments below!

Article by Kayleigh McChambell

Sources:

Arthur, Charles, (2009), MySpace and Bebo are Running out of Friends,  The Guardian, available at: http://bit.ly/1GLq9d0;

Conely, Megan, (2014), A Beginners Guide to Social Media for Small Businesses, Social Media Examiner, available at: http://bit.ly/1ft7oJU;

Cudjoe, Dan, (2014), Customer-To-Customer Electronic Commerce: The Recent Picture, International Journal of Networks and Communications, Volume 4, Issue 2, pages 29 – 32;

eMarketer, (2013), Social Networking Reaches Nearly One in Four Around the World, Social Media eMarketer, available at: http://bit.ly/1dT40fp;

Garside, Juliette, (2014), Facebook Will Lose 80% of Users by 2017’, The Guardian, available at: http://bit.ly/1c4j6w5;

Harrison, Heather, (2013), Five Ways to Keep Up With Social Media, Outbound Engine, available at: http://bit.ly/1aGCEI4;

Lele, Shruti, (2015), Re-Engaging Dormant Users: Bringing Your App Back to Life, Business to Business Marketing Interventions, available at: http://bit.ly/1A1QWKL;

Milgram, Stanley, (1969), An Experimental Study of the Small World Problem, American Sociological Association, Volume 32, Issue 4, pages 425 – 443;

Noyes, Dan, (2015), The Top 20 Valuable Facebook Statistics, Zephoria Internet Marketing Solutions, available at: http://bit.ly/1lbTJPy;

Rainie, Lee, (2010), Tech Experts Reflect on Social Media, Pew Research Centre, available at: http://pewrsr.ch/1cwvl8a;

Ross, Eleanor, (2015), Bye-bye Facebook: The Future of Social Media for Small Businesses, The Guardian, available at: http://bit.ly/1nBS5rs;

Sprung, Rachel, (2014), How to Consistently Keep Up With Social Media Trends, HubSpot, available at: http://bit.ly/Xqo7uJ;

Trusov, Michael, (2009), Word of Mouth Marketing, Journal of Marketing, Volume 73,  pages 90 – 102;

Woollaston, Victoria, (2014), Is Facebook Reading Your Texts?, Daily Mail Online, available at: http://dailym.ai/1d60MyG;

Exercising Caution with Social Media Marketing:  Be Aware of the Risks Involved in Using Social Media to Promote Your Business!

This is the final of my three-part advisory posts for businesses embarking on a social media campaign, and gives you practical advice regarding the risks associated with social media marketing. My other two posts are available on these links, part one concerns the different types of social media, and how you can use it to benefit your business, available here: http://bitly.com/1EsIBVU, and the second contains a spotlight on Facebook, and provides the basics on how you can best utilise this social media platform, available here: http://bitly.com/1b3vjDi.

Over the past decade, social media platforms including Pinterest, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook have been readily adopted in the daily activities of millions of UK inhabitants, currently standing at a combined figure 56,200,000 users (White, 2013). And this has provided a copious source new potential customers for businesses using social media in their digital marketing campaign, but what are the risks involved in using social media to promote your business and interact with followers?

For many businesses, using sites like Facebook and Twitter is pretty failsafe. They cost nothing to set up, and little time goes into managing them. Worst case scenario, you page crashes, you lose a few followers, or get the odd negative comment… right?

Actually, the risks can be a lot higher, and the consequences can be a lot more serious if you enter your digital marketing campaign blindly. Here are my top three issues to consider before embarking on your social media strategy:

1. Legal Implications: As a business owner, you’ll probably already be aware of the various forms of intellectual property that restrict the use of imagery, literature, and other media. If this is new to you, I highly suggested taking a look at this basic guide to IP law produced by the UK government to familiarise yourself with the concepts: http://bit.ly/1a9XaSc

As a general rule, you should always obtain written permission before using any third-party content (ie. anything that has not be specifically created for use by your business, like stock photos and product information from suppliers) to avoid litigation (Bently and Sherman, 2014). And bear in mind that anything you post will be stored in some permanent form somewhere, even if you delete it, so an offensive post you remove two years ago can still be held against you one day (Neal & McDevitt, 2010). The only real way to avoid this is to use your common sense – if you think there is even the most remote chance that your post may be considered offensive, then don’t take the risk. Even some of the biggest businesses don’t have the revenues available to survive the costs involved in a costly court trial. If you really are concerned, it’s always better to seek professional legal advice.

Top Tip: if one of your followers, or someone who visits your page, posts something offensive, deal with it quickly and effectively by reporting the post to the social media provider. In the worst case scenario, block that user from accessing you page again. For more information about legal implications, check out this YouTube video by Networks Northwest below:

Exercising Caution with Social Media Marketing

2. Competitor Implications: this issue ties in with the intellectual property issue above, whatever content you post, or campaigns or promotions you run, your competitors will take notice. Doubtless you will the same of theirs. Most of the time, copying won’t be a major issue, whether you are being copied, or copying someone else – there are supposedly ‘good’ (innovation) and ‘bad’ (theft) types of copying. For more information this, and how to avoid crossing the line of illegality, see this useful article by Raustiala, 2012: http://lat.ms/1PFuaS9

Generally, copying won’t be an issue where it’s used to ‘improve’ what you’ve already created, for example, most big business names didn’t actually invent anything, just improved it using other’s techniques – Steve Job’s has been said to have used this very process himself (Halpern, 2014).

But there are also times when copying can cross the border of illegality. You may then face a situation where your campaign is being copied by one of your competitors, and taking your customers with them (Robinson, 2013), or where you are being accused of the very same thing. This is rare, but is does happen. Once again, the best you can do to prevent a competitor mirroring your campaign, and stealing your clients, is by obtaining intellectual property on your strategy. For guidance on identifying which type of Intellectual Property you require, and how to apply for it, take a look at this government website: http://bit.ly/1xlxEzD. This will likely incur and initial expense, but if you’re confident in the success of your strategy, then it’s worth doing, because if you are copied in future, you’ll be able to seek a prohibitory injunction (an order to prevent the illegal action) against the other party, and claim remuneration from the damages you incurred in the process. Without legal protection, there is little you can do to prevent theft of your techniques (UK Government, 2014).

3. Security Implications: Social media hackers, unfortunately, do succeed in hacking business pages. Some do this to gain access to your finances, but more often than not, they simply do it for the fun of messing with your company information and sending spam emails to your followers (Robinson, 2014). However, this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t engage in social media marketing, not does it mean you should spend your time counting the days until your site gets hacked – but it does mean you should look out for signs of hacking, and take appropriate steps if such a thing were to happen to you. For tips on understanding hacking, and how to avoid it, take a look at this article by ‘Hakin9’: http://bit.ly/1PFA9X3;

The Infosec Institute (http://bit.ly/1z3bthx) provide a list of signs to look out for that may mean your page has been hacked, including:

• messages sent from your account, but not by you;
• An extensive amount of advertising has been posted, via your account, to your business page, but again not by you;
• you start receiving messages from users that your account has been hacked – usually these are not practical jokes, and you should take them seriously.

Typically, for social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter, when there appears to be evidence that something unauthorised is going on with your account, the site will temporarily freeze your account, and ask you to complete security tasks when you try to log in.

The easiest way to avoid hacking is to change your password regularly, and don’t use the same password you do for other sites such as your email or main website. For further practical advice on steps you can take to minimise you chances of being hacked, take a look at this article by Burn-Callendar, 2015: http://bit.ly/1PFBay8.

If your account does get hacked, first and foremost, do not panic. Delete any and all content that has been posted or sent by the hacker. As a precaution, put a main post to your followers that your site has been hacked and to ignore anything untoward. The report and delete this content. For more guidance, see this article by Business Bee: http://bit.ly/1GxFKgm.

While these three issues can be serious, you shouldn’t avoid using social media to promote your business. It’s a phenomenal tool when used correctly, that can significantly improve your digital marketing campaign. That said, do not go in to it blindly, keep these three issues in mind, and be prepared to deal with them if and when they arise.

Article by Kayleigh McChambell.

Have you experienced any of these issues? What advice would you give to other business persons? Please leave your comments below!

SOURCES:

Bently, Lionel, and Sharman Brad, (2014), Intellectual Property Law, Fourth Edition, Ofrod University Press;

Halpern, D, When is it Okay to Copy Your Competitors?, 2014, Social Triggers, available at: http://bit.ly/1D4A89q;

McDevitt, Top Ten Legal Issues in Social Media, 2010, Neal & McDevitt, Intellectual Property and Marketing Attorneys, available at: http://bit.ly/1gOSRs4;

Poulsen, L, 4 Ways to Avoid Social Media Hackers, 2013, Business Bee, available at: http://bit.ly/1GxFKgm;

Qamar, A, Social Media Hacking: Mitigation Strategies, 2015, Infosec Institute, available at: http://bit.ly/1z3bthx;

Raustiala, Kal, (2012), Apple v Samsung: Is Copying Theft or Innovation?, Los Angeles Times, available at: http://lat.ms/1PFuaS9;

Robinson, C, The Risks Associated with Social Media Marketing, 2013, Tailwind Blog, available at: http://bit.ly/1uUMjCc;

United Kingdom Government, Intellectual Property and Your Work, 2014, Government Guides, available at: http://bit.ly/1IRErGv;

United Kingdom Government, Intellectual Property Crime and Infringement, 2014, Government Guides, available at: http://bit.ly/1GTPtMo;

White, J, The Demographics of UK Social Media Users, 2014, The Last Hurdle, available at: http://bit.ly/1a9XaSc.

Social Media Marketing: Using Facebook to Build Your Client Base

This advice is intended to follow on from my previous blog post ‘BEAKING DOWN SOCIAL MEDIA: Part One’ regarding the basics of social media marketing and why it is important for your business, available here: http://bit.ly/1EsIBVT

For many, the social media site ‘Facebook’ is daily addiction. In Europe alone, there are 223 million users, and 890 million of those log in to Facebook at least one a day, which is an 18% increase from 2014 (Noyes, 2015). Facebook is a way of communicating with friends, following trends, and keeping updated on the big stories in the media, but it’s also rapidly becoming one of the most popular tools for businesses to build the client base and publicity. With 31 million followers to date, and five hundred new profiles created globally every minute, Facebook is the biggest social media hot-spot for businesses to revolutionise their digital marketing campaign (IACP Statistics, 2015).

But how can you get your business involved? And what are the costs and benefits? Whether you’re just starting your digital marketing campaign, or looking to revitalise your existing one, you can use Facebook to accesses thousands of potential customers, keep followers updated on your latest new products and promotions, and use your Facebook Business Page as an interface to interact with customers, gain feedback, and ultimately, promote your business (Sterling, 2015). Even if you’re already doing this on you main website, using Facebook gives you access to a much wider ‘potential client base’ because your page will spread throughout the millions of users, including people above and beyond your target market, rather than just those who access your main website (Chaffey, 2013). And the best part, setting up your Facebook Business Page is absolutely free! What have you got to lose?

Here’s my quick-start guide to creating your own Facebook digital marketing campaign in Four easy steps:

1. Step One: Set up a page for your business – After creating an account – and this can be a personal account – or using an existing one, you can create your business page here: http://on.fb.me/1DT4J9E.

The process is fairly simple, but if you need a little extra guidance, check out my video below: N.B. In the fourth stage – Preferred Page Audience – I only added ‘United Kingdom’ because I created a page for my Blog, which can be accessed anywhere, but if your business has a shop-base, then you should add the address there!

TOP TIP –  Once you’ve set up your Business Page, Facebook will ask you to ‘Like’ your page, and invite your connections to do the same. While the ‘Like’ is a vital tool that will assist the success and publicity of your business page (Sigworth, 2013), you should hold fire on this for now! You may have the framework for your Business Page, you don’t currently have any content, and you want to entice more and more customers to view the page, so it’s better to do this after Step Two below.

2. Step Two: Personalise your page – You want your page to reflect the essence of your business, what it is you do and why others should get involved. According to Jamal and Coughlan, 2012, personalisation of your social media page is key to increasing customer engagement. The easiest way to get started is to update you cover photo. You can download Facebook cover photo’s from several websites, but I would recommend CoverFanatic as its offers a range of smart and professional covers, already formatted to the correct dimensions, and available to download for free at: http://bit.ly/1JnNDmQ. For guidance on how to change your cover photo, as well as editing you company information, and creating a call to action button, check out my video tutorial below.

Once you’ve personalised your Business Page, you can start populating your page with content by posting information about promotions and new products. You can also upload photos and videos of the products you sell. Once you’ve added a few posts, you can start inviting people to like your page, and kick-start your Facebook digital marketing campaign!

For more guidance on how to create a successful business page on Facebook, check out this useful article by Ginny Sosky: http://bit.ly/1ckFBsr;

Top Tip: Whenever you post about a new product, discount, event ect, make sure you always include the correct, and fully operational, link back to your website! For example, if your post offers ‘20% off Bench Sunglasses’ ensure that the link you provide will take the viewer to the page of your website that displays Bench sunglasses that have 20% off. If the link is incorrect, or doesn’t work, your followers will very quickly loose interest (Anneh, 2015). Also, if your link is too long, you can always shorten it with a tool like Bitly (https://bitly.com/).

3. Step Three: Measuring the Response to Your Business Page – Once you have completed the top two stages, you’ll want to check that your Business Page is having the desired effect by measuring the growth of your responses. It is essential to do this as digital marketing strategies should be unique, and what works for one business may fail for another – so you should monitor the success of your campaign even in these early stages, and use that data to tailor and personalise you own campaign (Flores, 2013). Facebook allows you to measure responses directly from your page, so there’s no need to invest in a costly, and often inefficient, programme to do it for you:

On the right-hand side of your business page, you will see a menu that tracks the number of Likes, and number of clicks on your call to action buttons, per week. You should regularly record these numbers because you are looking for a pattern increase as you digital marketing campaign progresses!

You can also access a visual line-graph of this data by clicking on the overhead links, for example, clicking ‘Like’ will display a similar graph to the one below, taken from the John Lewis Facebook page (http://on.fb.me/1FiOWoB):

TOP TIP: Don’t panic if the numbers do not grow immediately! Using Facebook as part of a digital marketing campaign relies on a chain-reaction spreading across the social media network, which may take several weeks to access. Each time a member ‘Likes’ your page, that actions will appear in their newsfeed, where their friends and followers will see it. This, in turn, will trigger more people to like you page, then more people will see it, and so on. The more news feeds you page appears in, the more publicity your page will gain, but this will take time before you start hitting the big numbers! Be patient and ye shall prosper!

In the mean time, for more tips on how to increase Facebook Likes, check out this article by Loomer, 2013, on the secret to the success of Facebook Likes: http://bit.ly/1bkHCuy

That said, do bear in mind that being unique is the key to success! As I mentioned earlier, no digital marketing strategy should be identical, so getting your customers to Like your page is just as dependant on you posting content that is relevant and interesting to them. While getting this wrong initially can be rectified, continuing to get the right balance of content wrong over a long period of time could be detrimental to your campaign – for a better understanding, and tips on how to avoid this, take a look at this article by Rosales, 2013: http://bit.ly/1z1ZRRk

Need any more tips? Facebook have produced their own little guide to aid businesses like yours in their digital marketing campaigns! My guide above provides the basics, but this guide produced by Facebook will give you more advanced tips to assist you once you completed the above three stages. Click here to view Facebook’s business guide: https://www.facebook.com/business/overview).

Thanks for reading! Are you currently using Facebook as a part of your digital marketing campaign? Do you have any of you own tips to share? Please leave your comments below!

Article by Kayleigh McChambell.

Sources:

Anneh, Microsoft Outlook – When Hyperlinks Fail to Work, 2015, Productivity Portfolio, available at: http://bit.ly/1FimCCB;

Chaffey, David,  (2013), Social CRM Strategy Definition, Smart Insights, available at: http://bit.ly/1EEYtXa;

Facebook, Face book Basics: Guide for businesses, 2015, Facebook, available at: http://on.fb.me/JjkhwJ

Flores, Laurent, (2013), How to Measure Digital Marketing, First Edition, Palgrave Macmillan, available at: http://bit.ly/1E5xMGq;

Hussain, A, How to Create a Facebook Business Page in 5 Simple Steps, 2014, Hubspot Blogs, available at: http://bit.ly/1gBbswj;

IACP, (2015), Fun Facts, IACP Centre for Social Media, available at: http://bit.ly/1fklY9K;

Jama, Arshad, and Coughlan, Jane, (2012),  Mining Social Network Data for Personalisation and Privacy Concerns: A Case Study of Facebook’s Beacon, Brunel Business School, available at: http://bit.ly/1OrKZTs

John Lewis Facebook Page, Likes, 2015, Facebook, available at: http://on.fb.me/1FiOWoB;

Noyes, D, The Top 20 Valuable Facebook Statistics, 2015, Zephoria Internet Marketing Solutions, available at: http://bit.ly/1lbTJPy;

Sigwoth, Will, (2013), Facebook Likes: How Important Are They To Your Business?, Social Media Today, available at: http://bit.ly/1FO3FFj;

Sterling, Greg, (2015), Messenger Business: Facebook Turns in to Customer Service and Commerce Channel, Marketing Land Insights, available at: http://mklnd.com/1CZrc8s;

Want to know how social media can revolutionise your business? Look no further!

Social media marketing has taken the business world by storm. In the past decade, sites such as Facebook and Twitter have exploded onto the business scene, with a staggering 47 million users of the two sites combined (White, 2015). According to MarketingTechBlog.com, 46% of customers use social media when making a purchase (Karr, 2014), and yet, some business owners are still reluctant to engage with social media due to personal opinions that that the use of social media will down-grade the appeal of a ‘classy’ company, or through fears that it will be too complicated to manage; or cost too much. And indeed, if you are not someone wholly confident with social media sites, it can be difficult not to get lost in the vast expanse of technology: Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube, Vine, Instagram – Where would you even start?

First of all, let’s remove those fears. Social media often gets slapped with the ‘it’s only for teenagers’ tag, or brandished with comments like ‘my daughter spends her life on there!’ and ‘no-one cares what Kim Kardashian is doing today!’. But this isn’t the essence of social media at all, in fact, this is a very small snippet of negativity that, more often than not, stems from people who have never used social media before, and don’t really understand how broad the network is, or what benefits it offers.

In truth, almost all successful business engage with social media sites, regardless of the industry, target market, or size of the company. For example, John Lewis has 833,000 followers on Facebook (http://on.fb.me/1w3ICgB), Nike have 4.6 Million followers on Twitter (https://twitter.com/Nike), and Starbucks launched their entire ‘white cup’ marketing campaign on Instagram (http://bit.ly/12zeOuI) which gained mass-media attention. Even smaller business, such as Choccywoccydoodah (http://bit.ly/1gbf986) and Franco’s Barbers (http://bit.ly/1JeN0fh), based in Brighton, use Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google+, and Pinterest to boost their publicity. Social media is all about communication: between your business and its customers, and other businesses. It’s an instantaneous interface that allows engagement with your business environment above and beyond simply selling products and answering queries on your main sales site. And, according to Schroeder, 2013, this level of interactivity is a highly powerful tool that you can use to revolutionise your digital marketing campaign!

And if you still don’t believe in the power of the web, check out this short YouTube clip about the sleepy town of Obermutten:

Social media doesn’t have to be a barrier holding back your business success. There are plenty of ways to utilise the web that are simple to implement, efficient in both time and money, and effective in securing new customers; improving publicity; and increasing your brand loyalty. So, how can your business benefit from social media? Here are my three key pieces of advice for businesses entering the social media mainstream:

1. Think about what type of social media site will best benefit your business – This is crucial because social media platforms are not generic, and different audiences will be better accessible on different sites (Duncan, 2014). You have to select the correct platform to maximise for the potential of your business, and connect with your target market (Levy, 2013), so think about which site suits your business best. For example, if your business is centred around innovative kitchen appliances, YouTube will allow you to upload video demonstrations, as well as receive customer feedback in the comments chain below. Equally, if you are in the fashion industry, Instagram will allow you to upload pics of your latest ‘must have’ item, not only drawing in attention to the items you retail, but also keeping your ‘followers’ up to date with all of your latest offers and promotions.

2. First impressions mean everything! So your social media profile needs to be ENGAGING: Sklar, 2013, states that effective customer engagement is the main driver of company and brand messaging, so whatever profile you create, ensure that it reflects the company vibe! If you run a day-car nursery, make you profile colourful and child-friendly, if you are a free-lance solicitor, keep it smart and functional. And, particularly if your are engaging with Facebook, always ask customers to ‘Like’ your page – more Likes means more publicity, more publicity means more sales, and more sales means your company makes more money, whilst further increasing your customer base and brand loyalty.

3. Stay active: (and I don’t mean by taking up tennis or wrestling!). According to Go-Gulf Web Designers, one of the five main reasons why customers ‘follow’ retailers on social media sites is to get instantaneous info Promotions and discounts… So give your customers what they want! Regularly post information on offers and promotions, and always make sure to post the correct link to that offer on your website to drum up sales.

And remember, there’s no need to spend hours a day managing several social media sites. Allocate a small amount of time, each day or each week, in which to keep up with posts, promote products, and answer customer feedback (Lohana, 2014). Though do keep in mind social media may not be right for every business. Think about your client base, are you customers currently engaging with social media sites? If not, getting involved in the social media market may not be an immediate priority for your business. That said, in the words of social media enthusiast David Fernando, ‘always keep in mind that, while your customers of today may not be social media enthusiasts, your customers of tomorrow almost certainly will be’ (Fernando, 2014).

Thanks for reading! Are you currently using social media sites? Has this impacted your business?

Article by Kayleigh McChambell.

Want to read more practical advice for your business? Follow me on Twitter: @KayleighDigiLaw

Sources:

Choccywoccydoodah landing page: http://bit.ly/1gbf986

David Fernando, How Can Social Media Help Your Business?, 2014: http://www.terrafermamedia.com/how-can-social-media-help-your-business/;

Duncan, Mark, (2014), How to Find Your Target Audience on Social Media, Linked-In Pulse, available at: http://linkd.in/1AJrtYy;

Franco’s Barbers landing page: http://bit.ly/1JeN0fh

Go-Gulf Web Designers: http://bit.ly/1CdwWIA;

Jules Whittle, The Demographics of UK Social Media Members, The Last Hurdle: http://bit.ly/1a9XaSc;

John Lewis Facebook page: http://on.fb.me/1w3ICgB

Karr, Douglas, (2014), 24 Statistics and Trends for Businesses on Social Media, MarketingTechBlog.com: http://bit.ly/1vDa9PR;

Levy, Scott, (2013), How to Choose the Best Social Media Platform for Your Business, Entrepreneur, available at: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/230020;

Lohana, Pooja, (2014), 5 Top Social Media Dashboard Tools to Manage you Social Account, Digital Kit Bag, available at: http://bit.ly/1DwVAVb;

Nike Twitter page: https://twitter.com/Nike

Obermutten on YouTube: http://bit.ly/1g3iDyf

Schroeder, Harold, (2013),  The Art of Business Relationships Through Social Media, Ivey Business Journal, available at: http://bit.ly/17glqAo;

Sklar, Corinne, (2013), How to Use Social Media to Understand and Engage Your Customers, The Guardian, Media and Tech Network, available at: http://bit.ly/1Hgz8Sy;

Starbucks ‘White Cup Challenge Campaign’ on Instagram: http://bit.ly/12zeOuI

White, Jules, (2015), The Demographics of Social Media Users, The Last Hurdle, available at: http://bit.ly/1a9XaSc;

30^th November 2014

Don’t let click through rates cripple your cyber sales this Christmas! Find out how your business can make the most of this digital cash injection!

Tag Words: Cyber Traffic, Content Delivery Network, CDN, Website Crashing, Solution.

Increased email discounts; ‘festive free delivery’; and massive savings on digital purchases, have made in-store shopping is a thing of the past, with many more shoppers predicted to complete this year’s Christmas online. A staggering £74 billion pounds is expected to have been spent by the end of December – standing as the highest figure in the whole of Europe. (Boyce 2014) However, IT experts are already warning that with the predicted 125,000,000 hits on retail sites that will take place in the next 24 hours alone, and steadily rising over the Christmas period, ‘retailers will be at risk of losing sales’ when websites crash under the sheer volume of cyber-shoppers.

Following the sales frenzy of the British ‘Black Tag Weekend’ and ‘Cyber Monday’, many websites struggled to complete sales after crashing under the sheer volume of cyber shoppers, loosing considerable profits to more equipped competitors. If you’ve been in this position yourself, then… congratulations! Having that level of customer interest certainly isn’t a bad thing, but the festive season is only just beginning, and cyber-sales certainly aren’t going to slow down any time soon, so it is essential you amour your website now to harvest its full profit potential!

But what does this mean for your business, and how can you ensure your company makes the most of the festive profits?

In preparing for the digital downpour, it is essential to consider is attaching a Content Delivery Network (CDN) to your website. Put simply, a CDN is a cloud-based server which works in tandem with your existing web hosting account to speed up functioning and cut server pressure. This allows your site to accommodate a larger influx of click-through rates and server traffic without continuously crashing. The advantage is that you don’t need to change your website, and you can install a CDN just for the period you are expecting the influx. This keeps your costs to a minimum whilst allowing your website to rake in profits from cyber-sales, whether they’re completed on a computer, tablet, phone, or otherwise. A CDN can be purchased from several online providers, including Amazon, Akamai and CDNetworks, but the service provided by CloudFlare would be most appropriate for the particularly non-tech savvy as they provide 24 hour support and a jargon-free breakdown of the service (see Balkhi, 2014, at www.wpbeginner.com).

A CDN has the added benefit that if you choose to employ one full time, it does more than simply assist with filtering cyber traffic, but also prevents other essential content from crashing you site, including video clips, audio files, and photo’s, all of which may just be the clincher to many more sales! (McDonald, 2013). It may also be worth considering if you are a new business with a particularly large advertising campaign; if you are undergoing a merger with another company; or if you are simply trying to grow your existing client base.

So how much does a CDN cost? Costs for implementing a CDN vary between providers, and are dependent on both the size of your website and, if you choose a short-term plan, how long you employ the CDN for. Costs may be charged for each successful purchase made on your website, or on the number of views your website receives, so it is essential to choose a plan that best suits your content, and volume of sales you expect to incur. (Belicove, 2012).

But bear in mind that if you are a particularly small business, or do not experience huge spikes in cyber traffic, that your website may be crashing for other reasons, such as a faulty server, which a CDN will not fix, and you will be wasting money by using one. If you are concerned about your cite crashing due to internal faults, rather than cyber traffic, it can be equally damaging to your sales, and cost you a lot of money implementing as CDN that will not solve the problem. If you are not doing so already, you should monitor your click trough rates using Google analytics, or a similar program, which allows you pinpoint spikes in cyber traffic and see whether these correlate to the website crashes. You should always seek advice from a website specialist.

Has your website been affected by cyber traffic? Are you currently using a CDN? Why not leave your comments below!

Article by Kayleigh McChambell.

Want to read more practical advice for your business? Check out my other blog posts and follow me on Twitter: @KayleighDigiLaw

 Sources:

Balkhi,S, Why You Need a CDN For Your WordPress Blog, 2014, WPBeginner.com, available at:  http://www.wpbeginner.com/beginners-guide/why-you-need-a-cdn-for-your-wordpress-blog-infographic/

Baye and Gao, On the Optimality of Clickthrough Fees in Online Markets, 2011, The Wall Street Journal, available at: http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/04/16/google-says-paid-clicks-jump-26-as-cost-per-click-drops-9/  

Belicove, M, How to Prevent a Website Crash After a Traffic Spike, 2012, Entrepreneur.com, Available at: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/223636

Boyce, L, British Shoppers Spend More on Christmas Presents than Anyone in Europe – and Are the Most Likely to Get in to Debt Doing it, 2014, thisismoney.com, available at: http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/saving/article-2850200/Shoppers-Britain-spend-money-festive-gifts-Europe.html

McDonald, S, 20 Content Marketing Tips to Boost Traffic, Engagement and Sales, Search-Engine Online Journals, 2013, available at: http://www.searchenginejournal.com/boost-traffic-engagement-and-revenue-with-20-actionable-content-marketing-tips/61209/

Wood, Z, Christmas Shopping Frenzy Moves Online for Cyber Monday, 2014, The Guardian, available at: http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/nov/29/cyber-monday-christmas-shopping-frenzy-moves-online

Following the sales frenzy of the British ‘Blag Tag Weekend’ (the UK’s attempt to match Black Friday) the business economy’s been jumping from strength to strength after its political downfall, but tomorrow the sales market is set to receive a festive booster-shot in what the media are labelling ‘Cyber Monday’.

Whilst most people purchase their presents in-store, the online discounts offered by retailers, coupled with ‘free delivery’ and ease of ‘click and collect’ shopping have had lured many more shoppers to complete this year’s Christmas online, with an expected £1.5 billion pounds to be spent by the end of  tomorrows Cyber Monday, according to Butler and Wood (2014). But what does this mean for businesses? IT experts are already warning that with the predicted 125,000,000 hits on online retail sites that will take place in the next 24 hours will put ‘retailers at risk of losing sales’ when websites crash under the sheer volume of cyber-shoppers.

Butler and Wood state that ‘Amazon reported that Friday was the busiest day ever on its UK website, with more than 5.5 million items ordered at a rate of 64 items a second, beating its previous record on Cyber Monday 2013 of 4.1 million items.’ – but surely a cash injection of this volume will be good for the economy? Well that depends on how many retailers supply products online as well as in-store. With the majority of shoppers switching to cyber-surf from their sofa’s, only the bigger businesses such as Argos, Amazon, Top Shop, and so on, may survive the festive period, with smaller high street outlets feeling the strain as Cyber Monday hits the economy. What are your views? Please comment below!

Source: http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/nov/29/cyber-monday-christmas-shopping-frenzy-moves-online

Kayleigh McChambell

Want to read more? Follow me on Twitter: @KayleighDigiLaw

Key Words: Big Data Drive, Cyber Monday, Economy Boom, Sales, England,

According to Moyle (2014) large commercial firms pay around 36% of their advertising budget on website design alone, yet IBM (2011) published a report stating that 62% of online purchases are abandoned before the ‘Call to Action Buttons’ (CATB’s) are used. But why is this? Hernandez may have found the answer. Whilst there is obvious importance in the ‘style’ and ‘layout’ of a website, there seems to be an exact science in the placement of CTAB’s. The simple fact is that the reader’s brain will switch off if the CTAB isn’t immediately obvious, and so may never complete the purchase.

Apparently, every time we view a webpage, our eyes move in a specific pattern in an attempt to ascertain the relevance of the page. For example, some use the ‘Z Pattern’, quite literally starting top left, moving right, down to the bottom left, and finishing bottom right. This is typically used when scanning a webpage for ‘navigation menu’s’, or the ‘Zig-Zag Pattern’ starting top left, used to scan large volumes of information for specific topics or key words. Whilst both are effective methods, the former misses large chunks of the webpage, and the latter simply takes too long.

Hernandez states that this is the reason for the astonishing ineffectiveness of the CTAB’s on company websites that are simply never used to complete a purchase. If the CTAB is placed outside of the Z Pattern, then it will never be seen, or if it’s surrounded by volumes of text, the reader (using the Zig-Zag Pattern) will get bored and never get as far as CTAB. However, the solution may not be so far fetched.

The Gutenberg Model suggests that information should be ranked in order of importance, and placed in a diagonal line across the page, starting top left, down to bottom right. And this appears to be the big winner, with far more CTAB’s used on pages following this pattern than any format. This means more CTAB’s will be found by customers, more purchases will be completed, and companies ultimately make more money.

 

But does this work for everyone? What pattern do you follow when you first see a webpage? Please leave your comments below!

Kayleigh McChambell

Want to read more? Follow me on Twitter: @KayleighDigiLaw

Key Words: Big Data Drive, Gutenberg, Call To Action, CTAB, Website Layout,

Reference: Hernandez, A., & Resnick, M. L. (2013, September). Placement of Call to Action Buttons for Higher Website Conversion and Acquisition An Eye Tracking Study. In Proceedings of the Human Factors, available at: http://pro.sagepub.com/content/57/1/1042.abstract

Budding scientist, musician, sculptor and weather researcher, Nathalie Miebach, doesn’t just study the weather, she turns it in to art. Miebach extracts meteorological information from the world around us, recording data from events such as thunder storm and hurricanes, and displays the numerical recordings on spreadsheets – but rather than simply spotting patterns and predictions, Miebach does something amazing. Each number from a spreadsheet is attached to corresponding color and object, so a pressure bar may be a red bead, or a temperature recording may be able string or a green piece of read. Miebach then arranges each of these objects the follow the life action of the weather system to create a wild and strangely beautiful sculpture.

But she doesn’t stop there, Miebach has taken her creations a step further, and transposed her weather data in to notes which can be played on corresponding instruments, producing magnificent symphonies that have no logical reasoning or thought process behind them – listeners are quite literally listening to the music of Mother Nature.

But what does this mean for business? The world of business revolves around data collection, every action and reaction by a costumer; seller, or buyer is monitored and recorded by companies. Being able to visually see all of this data is an incredible advantage for businesses, and most of the larger companies pay a fortune employing teams of analysts to sort through it and spot trends. However, feeding large volumes of company data into visual art form creates a quick and easy method of spotting, for example, which products sell the fastest, simply because that area of the sculpture is more complex, or covers a larger area, saving companies valuable time and money.  Could this simple trick of technology be the financial way forward for firms? What are your views? Please leave your comments below!

Source: http://www.ted.com/talks/nathalie_miebach?language=en

Kayleigh McChambell

Want to read more? Follow me on Twitter: @KayleighDigiLaw

Key Words: Art, Weather, Business, Data, Creative Business Development, Nature, Miebach, Big Data Drive,

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