Monthly Archives: May 2015

Why companies must not neglect their websites

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Online shopping retail sales are predicted to grow steadily to $370 billion in 2017, up from $231 billion in 2012. (Abramovich. G, 2014)

I have written blogs on different social media outlets and their benefits for marketing for both small and big business. What I feel should now be mentioned is that companies webpages are still equally as important as their social media pages and here are a few of the reasons why:

Branding

On your own websites there are no parameters and restrictions like when creating a page on Facebook or Twitter. You can customise your own website to look exactly like what is desired, as best to suit the target audience and brand related goals.

Engineering Freedom

On your own website, the coding of that website is totally in your own hands. As mentioned with the branding, here you also have the advantage of being able to make small or even large changes to the webpage, you simply do not have this opportunity with 3rd party websites.

On Facebook, content and specific graphics can be changed but such entities as server speed or the overall user interface cannot be meddled with.

Content

Inventory is unlimited on a companies own personal site at their own discretion where as on Facebook it can be limited. A company can target potential customers with really well-thought-out content that mirrors why they are at the site in the first place and they then stand a better chance of getting that customer to make a purchase.

Revenues can be diminished on social platforms

On social media related products and services may not  be shown as they could be on your own website which could encourage customers to make a complimentary purchase. Below is an example of how effective a home webpage can be compared with Facebook.

ecommerce-site-sample-halloweencostumes(Murtagh. R, 2013)

Circled are all the key elements identified on this particular example that a customer will not get information for on Facebook. Live support and a search bar to search within the companies different product ranges are two extremely simple but effective ways of helping customers towards a purchase.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

If a company aim is to gain high rankings and therefore high positions in the search engine result pages as part of their marketing strategy then a website is essential. When coded and set up professionally, using relevant and broad keywords will help direct increased traffic to your website and therefore should help sales.

Analytics

Most social media entities provide analytical data related to demographics to show what kind of people are accessing your profile and how regularly this is happening. What is important to remember is that website analytical tools are able to go into a lot more detail which can help the company identify more relevant information than any social media entity can provide. This can also help the company compare how it is squaring up against its main competitors.

 

Conclusion

I am not suggesting that companies should totally ignore their social media pages, but I think it is important for business to focus on their webpages as a priority and use social media to leverage potential customers to that webpage, of course a long with other tactics such as e-mail marketing.

 

References

Giselle Abramovich . (2014). 15 Mind-Blowing Stats About Online Shopping.Available: http://www.cmo.com/articles/2014/5/6/Mind_Blowing_Stats_Online_Shopping.html. Last accessed 28th May 2015.

Rebecca Murtagh. (2013). 6 Reasons the Website (vs. Social Media) Should Be the Ultimate Destination for the Brand. Available: http://searchenginewatch.com/sew/opinion/2272083/6-reasons-the-website-vs-social-media-should-be-the-ultimate-destination-for-the-brand. Last accessed 28th May 2015.

The touch-screen revolution – mobile web apps vs native apps

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What is an “App”

App is short for application – An app is a specialised program that can be downloaded onto or used from the internet on a mobile device, such as a smartphone or a tablet (or even a modern laptop). (Gray. D, 2014)

So what is the difference between a ‘mobile web app’ and a ‘native app’?

Mobile Web App – This is an internet enabled application that has specific functionality for a device such as a tablet or smartphone. It can only be accessed through a phones web-browser (which for an iPhone would be ‘Safari’) and therefore does not need to be downloaded and stored on the device. (Viswanathan. P, 2015)

Native App – This is an application that has to be downloaded onto the device, usually downloaded from an ‘app store’ (Viswanathan. P, 2015). They can be charged for or they can be made free for download but either way they are stored on the devices memory.

Facebook is an example of a company that has both a web app and a native app, the picture below shows them both side by side:

(Mudge, 2012)

As you can see there is very little difference keeping the look as consistent as possible.

 

‘Mobile Web Apps’

Advantages

  • “Mobile applications that only require a native interface and content consumption are suitable substitutes for native applications”. (Jobe. W, 2013)
  • They have a common code base across all platforms such as Java or HTML5 (JT Mudge, 2012) – this helps developers as it keeps things relatively easy for development and maintenance (if you know the code).
  • No app store that must give the app approval to be available for download.

Disadvantages

  • “Mobile web applications that require hardware interaction such as using the GPS, GPU, or camera are not yet viable alternatives for native applications” as they do not perform well. (Jobe. W, 2013). So basically they have a very limited ability to interact with many of the features on the phone.
  • Having to support multiple different browsers for different devices can result in higher costs.
  • There can certainly be performance related issues with web apps as well because they rely on a good internet connection which people don’t necessarily have all the time. (Lionbridge, 2015)

 

‘Native Apps’

Advantages

  • Native apps perform better than web based apps because they function in harmony with the devices built in features (Viswanathan. P, 2015)
  • Any applications downloaded from the ‘Google Play’ Android or iPhone app store will be safe for the phone as they are rigorously tested.
  • Native apps can be updated regularly so they constantly keep improving.

Disadvantages

  • Much more expensive to develop than web apps because they have to be designed for multiple different platforms i.e. iOS and Android where as web based apps as mentioned can be compatible across multiple platforms.
  • This also means that app maintenance and upgrading is more costly for companies.
  • “Content publishers have to share information about their subscribers with the app store, an arrangement that frustrates publishers (particularly media companies)”. (Lionbridge, 2015)

 

Conclusion:

Clearly native apps are the best choice if the application is hardware intensive (Jobe. W, 2013). However if a company is looking to save costs and the app doesn’t need to depend on phone hardware then perhaps creating a web-based app would be more beneficial because of it’s cross-functionality across multiple platforms.

 

References:

Gray, D. 2014, “Smartphone Apps”, Professional safety, vol. 59, no. 6, pp. 46.

Jobe, W., Stockholms universitet, Institutionen för data- och systemvetenskap & Samhällsvetenskapliga fakulteten 2013, “Native Apps Vs. Mobile Web Apps”, International Journal of Interactive Mobile Technologies (iJIM), vol. 7, no. 4, pp. 27.

JT Mudge. (2012). Native App vs. Mobile Web App: A Quick Comparison.Available: http://sixrevisions.com/mobile/native-app-vs-mobile-web-app-comparison/. Last accessed 26th May 2015.

Lionbridge. (2015). Mobile Web Apps vs. Mobile Native Apps: How to Make the Right Choice. Available: http://www.lionbridge.com/files/2012/11/Lionbridge-WP_MobileApps2.pdf. Last accessed 26th May 2015.

Priya Viswanathan. (2015). Native Apps vs. Web Apps – What is the Better Choice?. Available: http://mobiledevices.about.com/od/additionalresources/a/Native-Apps-Vs-Web-Apps-Which-Is-The-Better-Choice.htm. Last accessed 26th May 2015.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) – Strategies for companies to stay relevant

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What is Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)?

This is the “process of ensuring that search engines are more likely to find and access your Web pages. SEO’s purpose is to improve the volume and quahty of Web site traffic generated by searches”. (Kay. R, 2007)

Without a rigid SEO strategy your company is going to lose out on potential customers, all of the most successful online companies have understood and kept their SEO strategy and utilisation current.

Now in 2015 it is more important than ever to get SEO correct for companies because as of April, Google have changed their SEO policy and this means that SEO will be favouring ‘mobile friendly sites’. (Google, 2015)

 

5 strategies to stay relevant:

1). Use ‘Mobile Traffic Optimisation’ – If a company does not use mobile traffic optimisation then because of Google’s new policy it will hinder their ranking (meaning that they will display further down search results). If you are a company without a mobile responsive webpage then the smart thing to do will be to invest and reconfigure.

Page speed is a huge search engine optimisation guage, for this reason experts prioritise page load optimisation. A study concluded 69 percent of mobile responsive website designs were deemed “unacceptable” after a speed test was conducted therefore hindering their rankings. (Gesenhues. A, 2014)

Responsive Design Website Smartphone Load Times:

Trilibis study - load times

“According to the study, the slow load times were the result of image-heavy sites”. (Gesenhues. A, 2014)

2). Study how penalty/negative SEO can occur – When you are hit with negative SEO or a Google penalty it is going to create a decrease in rankings quite significantly. It is important to recognise the issue as soon as possible, this means that someone should be regularly monitoring the search engine optimisation information.

3). Use concise keywords with a broader scope – Don’t use long-tail keywords. They may still aid the campaign in a broader sense but the Hummingbird algorithm released by Google means that long tail key words are now less useful than broad keywords. (Sullivan. D, 2013)

This will cause a bigger problem as Google continues to evolve, so make it a point to keep both present on your site. As google is constantly evolving in this direction it will become a more augmented issue therefore companies should use primarily broad keywords.

4). Combine SEO with ‘content marketing campaigns’ – Patel. N (2014) lists the most effective ways of achieving this:

i. Create content that even wikipedia would love to link to – “One of the best sources of relevant traffic is Wikipedia. It ranks for almost every search term on Google, and it’s one of the most popular sites on the web”.

ii. Write content based on keyword data – Don’t just blog for the sake of it, use blogging to target your consumers while at the same time targeting your keywords.

iii. Create quality content before you aim for large quantities – Google’s algorithm is now highly sophisticated meaning they can distinguish between high quality and low quality content.

iv. Don’t forget about FAQs – Always ask visitors to your page their reasons for not purchasing.

v. Target industry blogs for guest-posting opportunities – If you want your rankings to be higher, then ensure that you have a sufficient number of links to relevant blogs.

vi. Don’t forget to cross-link – “Adding content to your site isn’t enough. You have to cross-link your content”.

(Patel. N, 2014)

5). Understand the discrepancies of expressed and implied links – Basically express links actually provide a link but implied links simply state that there is a link to the relevant resource but do not actually provide it.

 

Limitations:

Relevant content – Keywords must mirror the actual content of a page, so HTML text must be present. Pictures are great… but it isn’t possible for a search engine to read a picture so therefore potentially miss words that could increase a sites relevance and ranking. (Kay. R, 2007)

 

Conclusions:

SEO is a highly complicated and sophisticated area and companies must use experts in the field of interest if they are to keep their ranking high and therefore stay relevant. With Google becoming smarter with every search that is ever entered and

 

References:

Amy Gesenhues. (2014). Load Times For 69% Of Responsive Design Mobile Sites Deemed “Unacceptable”. Available: http://marketingland.com/study-load-time-69-mobile-sites-deemed-unacceptable-81126. Last accessed 25th May 2015.

Danny Sullivan. (2013). All About The New Google “Hummingbird” Algorithm. Available: http://searchengineland.com/google-hummingbird-172816. Last accessed 25th May 2015.

Google. (2015). Finding more mobile-friendly search results. Available: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.de/2015/02/finding-more-mobile-friendly-search.html. Last accessed 25th May 2015.

Kay, R. 2007, Search Engine Optimization, Computerworld, Inc, Framingham.

Neil Patel. (2014). 7 Smart Ways to Combine Content Marketing with SEO for More Qualified Search Traffic. Available: http://www.quicksprout.com/2014/01/20/7-smart-ways-to-combine-content-marketing-with-seo-for-more-qualified-search-traffic/. Last accessed 25th May 2015.

Micro-blogging, are companies fully understanding what this entails?

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What is micro-blogging?

“Micro-blogging merges the one to-many broadcast model of blogging with an immersive network model like Facebook. It allows users to stay in touch with a large number of friends, but avoids information overload by limiting the size of each update. In Twitter’s case, this is 140 characters, or just a little bit less than a SMS”. (Ng. K, 2008)

Twitter is a micro-blogging website to explode onto the scene back in 2006 growing to over 302 million active monthly users by 2015 (Twitter, 2015). Twitter is the single biggest (most popular) micro-blogging site in the world today (Timely, 2015). It’s main competitors are ‘Google+’, ‘Friend Feed’ and ‘Tumblr’.

In recent years micro-blogs have taken off and become among the most influential and popular social entities available. The number of Twitter users, increased from 94,000 in 2007 to 200 million in 2010 and further to 517 million before July 1, 2012 (Semiocast, 2012). Twitter users post one billion messages in merely one week (Damak et al., 2011).

High PR Micro-blogging sites: (Liu, 2014)

NO. WEBSITE URL PR
1 twitter.com 10
2 google+ 10
3 tumblr.com 8
4 friendfeed.com 8
5 plurk.com 7
6 yammer.com 7
7 dipity.com 7
8 flattr.com 7
9 dipity.com 7
10 yammer.com 7
11 identi.ca 6
12 tout.com 6
13 meetme.com 6
14 identi.ca 6
15 blip.pl 5
16 twitxr.com 5
17 mysay.com 5
18 heello.com 4
19 meemi.com 4
20 plerb.com 4
21 rememble.com 4

This table illustrates the fact that Twitter, Google+, Tumblr and Friend Feed are the biggest micro-blogging sites available.

 

So how does micro-blogging provide an opportunity for companies to market new products/services?

It is quite simple, companies can advertise new products with a simple ‘tweet’ (micro-blog) stating that a new product/service will be released in the coming time period, they can also provide short promotions (for a limited time only) to make consumers panic into grabbing a deal.

Advantages:

1. Buzz – Twitter in particular can create a real buzz when a company announces the launch of a new product or service, especially if it sounds interesting, this creates the ‘word-of-mouse’ phenomenon that has people sharing the information with each other (going viral) across social media and this is an extremely effective way to raise huge awareness of a product or service before it has even been released. (Ng. K, 2008)

2. Brand loyalty – “results from (Zhang. H, 2015) suggest that if users are committed to an enterprise micro-blog, develop a habit of following the micro-blog, and actively participate in the micro-blog, then they become loyal to the brand of the enterprise”.

3. Get closer to the customer – As with all marketing across social media it unquestionably helps a company to get closer to it’s customers as it can communicate with them directly, it is always a nice touch when you see a huge multi-national company tweet back to a customer comment whether it be with some banter or genuine information. Below is an example of two well known companies having some ‘Twitter Banter’:

Old Spice criticized Taco Bell because its famous Fire Sauce isn't actually made with fire. Taco Bell accused Old Spice of not actually using "old spices" in its deodorant. It seems like Old Spice won this round with its last word.

4. Both customer praise and customer complaints can be analysed by companies to see what they are doing well and what areas need improvement. (Ng. K, 2008)

Limitations:

1. Followers – Everything is subjective to the amount of followers a Twitter (micro-blog) account has, obviously if a small company tries to advertise a product launch through a micro-blog the more followers they have, the more awareness and ‘buzz’ it could potentially create. Improving your following is one of the fundamentals of successful marketing across micro-blogs. (Burgess, 2015)

2. Word Limit – Twitter as mentioned sets a quite short word limit so this can make it difficult for companies to get the message across, this is why it is very important for them to be concise (Burgess, 2015). In my opinion it would defeat the object of micro-blogging if companies could advertise without constraint, keeping posts short is an effective way to keep them captivating and companies can be almost certain that the vast majority of people are going to read it all. (Ng. K, 2008)

3. Think before you spea… type – Even a huge company with a solid brand image and loyal following can lose a large proportion of followers in an instant if they post a message that is perhaps intended to be funny, but ends up being perceived as rude. For example Vodaphone gave itself a PR nightmare when a company subordinate posted an offensive, homophobic tweet from the official company twitter page – the employee was subsequently dismissed but the damage was already done (Bhasin. K, 2012). Building brand reputation is a long process, no company wants to see that go in reverse so they must be careful who has access to the page and the team in charge of tweeting should be a mix of different cultures to understand different perceptions.

 

How to gain followers for smaller (less established) companies:

 

Conclusions:

It is clear that Twitter is an ocean of potential customers similarly to other social media sites but a company has to tackle its marketing strategies across micro-blogging platforms slightly differently. If they are a smaller company they should focus on growing their followers for the initial stages of marketing because otherwise it is very difficult to reach out to the far corners of the digital sphere.

 

References:

Burgess, J. (2015). 7 Ways to Set Your Twitter Feed on Fire. [Blog] Entrepreneur. Available at: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/241789. Last Accessed 27th May 2015.

Damak, F., Jabeur, L.B., Cabanac, G., Pinel-Sauvagnat, K., Tamine, L. and Boughanem, M. (2011), “IRIT at TREC Microblog 2011”, TREC, Proceedings of the 20th Text Retrieval Conference, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD.

Feng Liu. (2014). List of High PR Microblogging Sites. Available: http://siteber.com/list-of-high-pr-microblogging-sites/. Last accessed 27th May 2015.

Kim Bhasin. (2012). 13 Epic Twitter Fails By Big Brands. Available: http://www.businessinsider.com/13-epic-twitter-fails-by-big-brands-2012-2?op=1&IR=T. Last accessed 27th May 2015.

Ng, K. 2008, Microblogging, Haymarket Business Publications Ltd, Hong Kong.

Semiocast (2012), “Twitter reaches half a billion accounts more than 140 millions in the US”, available at: http://semiocast.com/publications/2012_07_30_Twitter_reaches_half_a_ billion_accounts_140m_in_the_US. Last accessed 27th May 2015.

Thomas Timely. (2015). Top 10 Microblogging Sites. Available: http://www.gurugrounds.com/uncategorized/top-10-microblogging-sites/. Last accessed 27th May 2015.

Twitter. (2015). About Twitter. Available: https://about.twitter.com/company. Last accessed 27th May 2015.

Zhang, H., Zhang, K.Z.K., Lee, M.K.O. & Feng, F. 2015, “Brand loyalty in enterprise microblogs”, Information Technology & People, vol. 28, no. 2, pp. 304-326.

The most effective social media networks for Digital Marketing

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“The challenges facing global businesses and the people who lead them are now, more than ever, intertwined in the direct empowerment and involvement of customers and stakeholders. The world wide web – described by Sir. Tim Berners-Lee (founder of the internet) as (“an interactive sea of shared knowledge”) – has dramatically accelerated the shift to consumer-driven markets. For millennia, power has rested with those resources: first with land, then capital, and most recently, information. In a socially connected marketplace, shared knowledge is now emerging as the ultimate resource. Information wants to be free, and in these new markets it is: free of constraints on place, free of control on content and free of restrictive access on consumption”. (Evans. D & Dawsonera, 2011).

 

There are 7 main social media websites consisting of – Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Youtube, Google+, Pinterest and Instagram. Some are more useful than others for marketing and this blog will discuss which is the single best social media platform for marketing.

Commonly Used Social Media Platforms:

% of online adults who use the following social media websites, by year

Facebook is by some margin the most popular social networking site followed by Linkedin. All social media entities are showing growth over the last 3 years although Facebook the least. (Duggan. M et al. 2015)

 

The following results are based on data from the ‘Social Media Examiner, 2015’, the data was based on quantitative information from a questionnaire circulated among 3720 marketers, 61% of these marketers focus primarily on business to consumer (B2C) marketing and 39% primarily focus on business to business (B2B) marketing. The age of the participants was primarily 30-59 years old (69%) but all age ranges were involved, respondents were primarily from the United States.

Most important social platform for marketers:

Interestingly it was Facebook that was disclosed as being the most useful social media platform for marketing and growing a business with 52% of respondents selecting Mark Zuckerberg’s company. Linkedin came in second with 21% and Twitter third with 13%. (Stelzner. M, 2015)

 

So what makes Facebook in particular such a popular choice among these Marketers that responded?

1. The sheer number of users Facebook has (over 1 billion worldwide!!!), this means Facebook has the largest market share in it’s industry. (Kiss. G, 2014)

Facebook users(Kiss. G, 2014)

2. One of the biggest strengths is that when a user interacts with a company page on Facebook it is displayed on the ‘News Feed’ which then exposes all of the users friends to see the companies page. (Lesidrenska. S, Dicke. P, 2012)

3. “It’s extremely simple to update certain types of content on a Facebook page, including posts, photos and brand videos. This makes it easier to facilitate conversations about the brand and give fans a reason to make repeat visits to the page”. (Lesidrenska. S, Dicke. P, 2012)

4. Facebook allows a company to have direct, personal contact with it’s customers which can help the company to find out exactly what the customer wants and/or doesn’t want. (Lesidrenska. S, Dicke. P, 2012)  (What the customer wants it something that Amazon has focused on since their start-up and has resulted in huge success).

 

 

The single biggest benefit of social media marketing was stated to be “increased exposure” with 90% of respondents stating this. (Stelzner. M, 2015). If a company markets through social media effectively they can reap the benefits of many of the advantages listed on the chart all at once.

 

Conclusion:

It is clear to see that Facebook is an infinitely valuable resource for companies to tap into consumer ‘wants’ and ‘needs’. With a staggering 52% of respondents stating Facebook was their platform of choice for marketing (Stelzner. M, 2015) it is a fairly clear cut decision for both small and large businesses to get their Facebook pages set up to help raise awareness of their company. It should be noted that for a business to be successful it would be beneficial for them to market across all digital channels, a combination of Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and Youtube together can only help promote the company, increase awareness and therefore increase sales/profits.

 

References:

  • Duggan. M, Ellison. N, Lampe. C, Lenhart. A, Madden. M. (2015). Social Media Update 2014. Available: http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/01/09/social-media-update-2014/. Last accessed 27th May 2015.
  • Evans, D. & Dawsonera 2011, Social media marketing: the next generation of business engagement, Wiley Technology Pub, Hoboken, N.J.
  • Jemima Kiss. (2014). Facebook’s 10th birthday: from college dorm to 1.23 billion users. Available: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/feb/04/facebook-10-years-mark-zuckerberg. Last accessed 27th May 2015.
  • Lesidrenska, S. & Dicke, P. 2012, “Social-media platforms and its effect on digital marketing activities”, Marketing ì Menedžment Innovacìj, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 44-52.
  • Michael A. Stelzner. (2015). 2015 Social Media Marketing Industry Report. Available: https://www.scribd.com/fullscreen/265458196?access_key=key-4mEDwlcvEMMQ5UZ1sf0O&allow_share=false&escape=false&show_recommendations=false&view_mode=scroll. Last accessed 27th May 2015.