A disaster that’s waiting to happen

Many medium and large sized companies have left their social media marketing with their IT department, a junior executive or a self proclaimed social media marketing guru.  Other companies have given the task to a member of the team that is frequently using a social network such as Facebook or Twitter.  Contrary to the popular notion, if a person uses Facebook regularly or is always tweeting it does not mean that they know how to market a company online.  Would you trust a TV campaign in the hands of a friend with a movie camera?  Would someone who can make you laugh at the pub be a good stand-up comedian?  The answer to those questions is probably no.

While social media marketing may use Facebook and Twitter, it is primarily about “marketing”, the networks are simply the tools.  The social media marketer must be able to effectively interact and achieve the desired goals for their companies.  Representing your business requires marketing knowledge and a thorough understanding of social networks.  There has been numerous reports of organisations that have tried to experiment with Facebook interaction or posted Tweets themselves and have had their accounts deleted or their reputation damaged.

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Facebook will release its new Facebook profile designs to the public over the next few days. The update which offer a range of new features. As the video above shows, users profile pages will be transformed into online scrapbooks known as “Timelines”. The pages will allow people to view their friends life stories, showing images of the most important parts of a person’s life from birth to the present day. Individuals can add images of themselves as a child and other important moments in their life which may currently not be on the social network.

Let us know your thoughts on the profile redesign below;

The press have been using the term “Facebook killer” since the site hit the mainstream. In the past few years social networks have come and gone, with Myspace being the most famous networks to lose its crown in recent years. The idea of a social site being the most popular for a long period of time seemed implausible. People would surely get tired of seeing the same website each day, wouldn’t they? Facebook has gone against this law and through a mixture of clever management and luck the site has amassed over 750 million users.

Each week we hear about a new social media network that will become our top destination on the web. Google’s new network; Google Plus and past sites such as Google Buzz and Wave have all been stated as rivals to the Facebook crown. Other websites such as Meetup, Bebo and hi5 have also tried to become the top social site but haven’t attracted enough fans. I believe that toppling Facebook is possible but no site has yet been good enough and it will take several years to achieve the task. Twitter and Linkedin are probably the closet to the goal but both provide separate services. I happily use all three networks and find each fits a different purpose. Therefore I believe for anything to beat Facebook it will have to offer something completely different.

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Google + is the new social network from the search giant. The website feels like a Facebook clone with the added benefit of grouping users together in what Google calls “Circles”. The US Company has been trying to get into the social market for several years with both Google Wave and Buzz failing miserably in the past. Many people have questioned if Google could take Facebook’s crown with Plus, we look further into this below;

At the moment the website is only accessible to users that have been invited directly from Google or from friends already on the program. In the coming weeks everybody will be able to create an account and at that point the site will float or sink. We have already been interacting on the new network and are learning what it has to offer.

The site gives users many of the same features as Facebook, from options to upload images and videos, to a way to chat with friends and share your thoughts. The main addition Google Plus brings to social is its “Circle” grouping element. The idea is that instead of posting a piece of information to all of your friends you can post to just your college friends or to your family. While this sounds like an interesting idea some early adopters have found grouping friends to be difficult and unnecessary.

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Over the past few years consumers have changed their mobile buying habits and have bought smart phones instead of normal feature phones. Iphones and Android products have taken over and according to recent data; more than 35% of the UK now owns a smart phone. 59.3% of these smart phone users are now interacting on social media networks through their devices.

As smart phones get even more dominant a considerable amount of the population will be turning to their handset for information and recommendations on what to buy or where to go. Location based marketing is the next step for a company’s social media campaign.

What is location based marketing?

There are several location-based social media networks but the most popular are Foursquare and Facebook Places. Using one of the location based smart phone apps a user will be able to “check in” to a business. “Checking in” simply means that the user has shared their current location with their friends on the social network.

The system works through the phones GPS chip, the same chip used in sat nav’s to tell you where you are on the road. On some occasions users also leave a review of the location at the same time as “checking in”. If a friend was in a good restaurant he/she may check in to the restaurant and leave a positive review of the meal. Other users that visit the restaurant afterwards will be able to see the review and may be more likely to buy a certain meal. While location based media is relatively new the programs have gained large amounts of users in a relatively quick amount of time. Foursquare recently announced that it has 10 million users worldwide and this is likely to keep growing.

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Facebook ads are the little images displayed on the side of the website; they are usually informing you of a product or service while browsing your friend’s profiles. Many people think of them as online versions of billboards with the added business benefit of a website link. They allow a business to inform and persuade their potential customers and then allow them to simply click on the ad to visit the company’s website.

Why use ads on Facebook instead of other sites?
Facebook has already become the largest social network and is likely to soon become the most visited website on the planet, surpassing even Google. Despite so many different types of people visiting the website, its creators have designed an easy to use system. A person with a wealth of online ad knowledge will be able to utilise the platform and drive considerable amounts of traffic. Facebook gives Marketers a list of options, from which gender and age group you want to market to, all the way down to the activities they like and groups they have joined. If you sell fishing equipment in Kent wouldn’t you want fishermen in Kent to know about it? With users giving so much information away on Facebook it makes it easy for trained marketers to target the ideal customer.

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When people think of social media their first thoughts are usually Facebook and Twitter. Facebook is an ideal place to market within the UK because nearly 30 million people are on the site. While many of its users are below 25 years old, 28.5% of the UK audience are actually between 35 and 54. Marketers advertise where their customers are and Facebook is definitely home to millions of potential buyers. But why is Twitter now mentioned in the same breath as Facebook? Is Twitter really the other great place to market on the social web?

Twitters Background

Twitter was created in 2006 by Jack Dorsey as a way to communicate with a group of friends through SMS. While the network first promoted itself as a way to inform friends of your day-to-day life it quickly progressed. The website is now used by 106 million people worldwide with over 10.9% of the UK’s online population on the site. Twitter continues to grow in UK popularity accounting for 1 in every 184 UK internet visits on May 21^st 2011. People have changed how they use the network, sharing information and having conversations with each other. According to a recent poll more people heard about Osama Bin Laden’s death through Twitter than through TV or Facebook. That shows that Twitter is a great way to spread information whether you are informing people of news or a product.

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While many companies create social media profiles simply to advertise their products and services, some customers will expect to be able to interact and voice any queries with a brand through social networks.

Twitter is one of the most famous ways to communicate with brands online. Some users now tweet questions and problems to companies instead of calling or using email. Due to the fear of receiving negative comments many companies have shied away from online interaction. However what many are forgetting is that even if you aren’t on the network, users will still have the option to complain publically about any problem they have with your product or service. If you’re not able to reply to the customers issue you may well lose them, if you can solve the problem quickly and efficiently the customer may be more likely to use your business again.

Dell has taken social interaction to the extreme and has set up a “Social Media Command Centre”. The Nevada based office tracks mentions of the company online and responds in less than 15 minutes to consumer enquiries and issues. The company have stated that they track 22,000 posts related to the company each day and have trained over 5,000 Dell employees in social media interaction. The company has taken social media very seriously over the past few years and has reported that it earned $3 million from social media interaction in 2009.

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This week Facebook celebrated its 4^th Birthday and despite lawsuits, the social network has had a great 4 years. The network, dethroned MySpace, passed 600 million users and has even had a film made about it. Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been transformed into a geek celebrity and many other companies have tried to create a better social environment, including Google but no one has yet come near.

What about Businesses?

Facebook currently has 1.5 million business pages online and a recent Virgin Media Business survey stated that 32% of the UK businesses they questioned were on Facebook. With 50% of active Facebook users logging into the network each day it makes sense for companies to create their own pages on the network and interact with their customers. 79% of Fortune 100 companies now use social media and Facebook business pages combined now have more than 5.3 billon fans.

There have been many reasons for businesses to join the network with social interaction giving them a way to resolve problems quickly and users on networks being more easily persuaded to purchase. Ebay stated that online communities spent 54% more on their site than non-community users.

While many companies don’t list their exact profits Dell has reported they gained $3 million in sales from social media sources, a great example of how businesses  have created their own pages and increased their profit.

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Tumblr is a micro blogging website but unlike Twitter it takes the form of a normal blog with fewer words. The internet start up was created in 2007 by David Karp and Macro Arment and allowed users to post images and video as well as text directly on to the network. Currently the site has been populated by Fashion users and creative’s that want to share own creations as well as great content they have found elsewhere.

Since 2007 when the platform had 75,000 bloggers, the site has grown dramatically and gained 18.8 million users across the network. The site which has a team of just 27 employees has transformed 250 million page views in July 2009 to 250 million page views in one single day in May 2011.

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