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You might have come across some services that offer to provide you with hundreds or even thousands of Facebook ‘Likes’, and for anyone new to Facebook with just a handful of fans, this can seem like a very tempting offer.

buying_facebook_likes_bad_move

Firstly though, you need to stop and ask yourself – why do you want to buy likes? Sure, it’s nice to look popular, but what good will looking popular really achieve? The truth is, nothing at all.

The real value of Facebook comes from genuine fans. These are the people that will be past/existing customers and people who largely, have an actual interest in your brand and what you have to say. They are effectively, receptive sales leads and as such, it is generally worthwhile investing your time into engaging with them as they are far more likely to convert into customers or purchase from you again.

Only genuine fans have a real intrinsic value to your business

The low down is, buy likes and your fans won’t have any genuine interest in your brand and certainty won’t be receptive to anything you do; in which case they are of little or no real value to you. It makes much more sense to build communities organically which is always our preferred approach. Sure, this takes a little longer to achieve, but it will result in a much higher quality of fan who will have real intrinsic value for your business.

Why buying Facebook fans is a bad move

Your new ‘fans’ will have no interest in your business or your messages – why spend your time marketing yourself to none-prospects?
Buying fans is often very obvious – a competitor or customer can easily spot a sudden explosion in the size of your community and could very publicly question this, stripping you off the trust you will have inspired in your real fans.
Buying a community is often a question of ethics and trust and won’t do your reputation any favours.
Growing a community of fake fans will do little for your business; it’s all about engagement and fake fans won’t engage with you.
Buying fans will make you look like an amateur, signalling to the competition that you don’t know what you are doing.

If you come across a service selling you Facebook likes or an agency promising you a ready made community or a guaranteed number of fans, you should be on your guard and be aware that organic growth is the only approach guaranteed to provide you with real, sustainable benefits.

I’ve found few examples of businesses that have bought likes and actually benefited; for example, sometimes ‘getting the ball rolling’ on a new community may be helped by the number of fans you have, the thinking being that a busy community is more appealing than a small one; I disagree however. If your Facebook wall is full of interesting content and lots of interaction, then regardless of that community consisting of 100 or 10,000 people, it’s going to be appealing and will grow.

My advice? Focus on growing your community organically by publishing great content and being generally engaging. Not only will you enjoy steady and sustained growth, but you’ll have a community of actual fans who do care about what you have to say and most importantly, are willing to listen.

May 16, 2013

Pin Like a Pro with these 10 Top Tips of Pinterest

I’m a big fan of Pinterest and use it extensively both personally and professionally. Here are my top 10 tips that will having you pinning like a pro in no time.

Verify your Pinterest Account

This is a simple process, requiring you to download a file and upload it to the root of your server. This helps to instill a sense of trust and authority in you and of course, displaying a link to your website on your Pinterest profile makes a lot of sense.

Think keywords when you name your boards

Make sure you think carefully and give each board you create an informative, keyword focused name. Also make sure you include a compelling, keyword rich board description. Pinterest is an excellent provider of backlinks, and remember that individual boards will get indexed by search engines.

Pin frequently

In general it’s better to pin a few things every day than it is to pin loads of things once a month. If you pin every day you will have more visibility in the Pinterest feed for more of the time.

Schedule your Pins

You might get 10 minutes to Pin mid afternoon, or just before you go to bed, but that doesn’t mean it’s the best time for you to Pin. Once you’ve figured out the best times for you to Pin (see previous tip) make the process easier by scheduling Pins in order to optimise your visibility.

Analyse your Pin responses

Keep an eye on the amount of engagement your activity generates, different types of content will be more popular with your target audience than others so keep an eye on what you do, and just like timing, find out what works for you.

Add Pinterest to your website

Make sure your website makes it clear that people can follow you on Pinterest, but don’t just include a link, give people a reason to follow you by outlining a few key benefits.

Make it easy for people to Pin your content

Make sure you have a Pin button on key content and product pages on your website. Making it super easy for people to share your content on Pinterest is important, but it’s amazing how many retail websites don’t have a Pinterest button installed on their product pages!

Make use of the lack of height restriction

Keep the width of Pinterest images to a maximum of 554px but make the most of the fact there is no vertical size constraint. Narrow, long Pins are much more eye catching than short images – the longer the better as you’ll instantly grab more screen space, making your content really stand out!

Choose awesome cover images!

On every board you set up you are able to select a cover image. Go through each board and choose images with the wow factor to help your boards stand out and look as appealing as possible.

Don’t just Pin products, Pin your latest blog articles or eGuides

Arty shots, great photography and the latest must-have products are all very well and good, but don’t miss out on the chance to Pin a greater range of content. Blog articles, eGuides and eBooks are gaining in popularity and are being more frequently Pinned as people realise it is a great resource for collecting all sorts of content, not just pretty pictures.

My best advice for Pinterest, and the unofficial 11th tip in this article, is to show personality and have fun!

Shell Robshaw-Bryan is a marketing consultant at Surefire Media, the Cheshire based web design, eCommerce and marketing company. Shell specialises in organic search, content strategy and social media engagement for both B2C and B2B companies.

If you’d like to find out how Surefire Media can help your business, get in touch!

April 24, 2013

So you want to be a social media manager? Find out what it really takes

The Social media industry is still rapidly growing and as a result, over the last couple of years there has been an explosion in demand. Now widely accepted as a highly effective communications tool, the growth trend shows no signs of stopping any time soon.

Get paid to post on Facebook – what could be easier right?

Whilst awareness is at an all time high, many businesses wrongly regard social media as ‘easy’ to do, after all, what skill does it take to make a status update? When businesses try and fail to execute social media activities effectively however, they begin to appreciate the fact that there is actually much more to it.

The ‘anyone can do it’ approach is being perpetuated by a slew of get-rich-quick websites, reporting social media management as being the easy way ordinary people with no related training or experience can get rich doing.

This positive can-do approach is something i’m all for – whilst I have an academic background in Management and Marketing, everything I know relating to social media is self taught or has been learned over many years of working with a vast number of different clients. This ‘anyone can do it’ ethos is meant to empower people, encouraging them to get into social media management, usually after they part with sums of money for a webinair claiming to teach them all the secrets they need in just half an hour. This approach however devalues the social media industry and leads to unskilled individuals being put in charge of marketing activities they are ill equipped to carry out.

Whilst no one is infallible and we all make mistakes, doing a job you don’t fully understand and have no past experience of can be a recipe for disaster. Any mistakes a social media manager makes are highly public and often can’t be ignored or swept under the carpet. In this industry where an individuals name is their reputation; make costly mistakes early on and you may find it hard to distance yourself from them. Don’t kid yourself that just because you have a Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr account that you have the skills necessary to run activities for a business.

Businesses also need to understand that they get what they pay for. If they are only offering intern money, that’s what they will get and the results are very likely to reflect that. Chasing Likes and community growth is all well and good but if you are considering social media management as a career choice you really shouldn’t be pitching your services until you understand that Likes don’t mean squat.

Managing and growing a community is senseless if it’s done interdependently of other marketing activity and isn’t strategically driven

Clients consistently underestimate just what it takes to deliver social media activities successfully. Once educated or once they try it for themselves and fail, most soon realise that they simply don’t have the time or expertise to handle activities in-house and look to outsource instead. There is no denying there is a market for social media managers and whilst i’m always happy to knowledge share, discuss best practice, techniques and encourage those wanting to work in this area, I am increasingly unnerved by the gung-ho ‘anyone can do it it’ mentality which stands to devalue this incredibly important, diverse and often misunderstood role.

I don’t agree that ‘anyone’ can be a social media manager, I think it is a complex role that demands a lot of different skills and experience to carry out.

If you aren’t already a prolific user of social media, how can you hope to use a social network effectively for a business? Without a strong grounding in marketing communications, how can you effectively engage people and fulfill business objectives that are more diverse and challenging than simply growing fans or followers? If you don’t know your CTR from ROI how can you analyse and understand the data that is critical in gauging the effectiveness of your activities? If you don’t have customer facing skills or don’t have the ability to resolve problems, how will you deal with irate customers posting on a clients Facebook wall? If you’re written communications aren’t great, how will you create compelling content and great headlines? I’m sure you get my point.

Just some of the skills a social media manager needs to have

Strong interpersonal and networking skills

A good understanding of planning and strategy

Customer-centric approach

Clear understanding of Google Analytics (or similar) and the ability to set up effective campaign tracking

The ability to interpret data and gain insights

Lots of creativity and personality (even the stuffiest brand needs to show some personality to succeed on social media)

Up to date knowledge of guidelines for all the platforms you are active on

Excellent copy writing skills, in particularly the ability to write good headlines

A good understanding of business objectives and the ability to craft effective calls to action

The ability to create custom graphics to accompany posts

Excellent time management skills and high level of focus

If you don’t have all of the above, of course there are things that you can pick up or learn along the way, but personally, I wouldn’t trust something as important as my businesses social media activity to an inexperienced trainee.

The fact remains that social media is the current, hip thing to be involved in and for very obvious reasons, has massive appeal as a career. Get paid to surf the net and post on Facebook all day? What could be easier! My advice however is not to be blinded by all of the companies making money off your naivety, offering training that will turn you pretty much over-night, into a wealthy social media professional. If you don’t have the experience to back up your claims, knowing a bit of marketing theory isn’t enough and before you’ve even got properly started, you may find your reputation damaged.

Theory means nothing, you’ll build a repuation based on the results you get and the knowledge and insights that you share

Spend all of your time and efforts into branding yourself as a social media expert now and what happens in a few years time when social media has come of age? Demand won’t always remain as high as it currently is – how appealing will your CV look in a few years time when all you can boast is social media management when it is no longer quite so shiny and new a skill to have?

To survive and prosper in this industry you will need many more strings to your bow than simply being able to use any given social network. Social media is just one part of the marketing mix and just one of the communication methods open to businesses. Invent yourself as a specialist in social media and in a very short time you might find that as the industry matures and moves on, you get left behind with narrowly defined, outdated skills.

An individual who can grow a Facebook community is valuable right now and yes, many people are making careers out of doing just that. Keep in mind though that it won’t be long before businesses realise they need to turn not to social media managers, but to marketing strategists who understand the bigger picture and will be the real driving force behind successful, sustainable social media activities. Don’t risk staking your career on social media alone, which when taken in isolation will become obsolete faster than you can say “Friendster”.

April 12, 2013

Social media really does actively influence sales!

Perhaps you are a business owner that’s still not convinced that investing in social media can result in making more sales? If that is the case, then this personal anecdote is for you and very clearly illustrates how social media really can convert customers and drive sales.

La la la laaaaa we aren’t listening!

I’ve discussed in the past how critical monitoring your social media channels is if you want to avoid social media fail. Brand mentions are occurring all the time – dive in and respond at the right time and you can actively influence the buying decision and bag yourself a sale. Don’t believe me? Read on to find out what happened to me earlier today.

One Friday afternoon in April 2013, I Tweeted and included the hotel @ManchesterMal in the message. I stated that I was thinking about booking a room last minute for that night as a birthday treat for myself but that I hadn’t quite decided one way or another yet.

Clearly, I was primed, poised and ready to convert, also take into account the fact that i’ve booked with them in the past and have said positive things about them via social media previously.

Can you think of a better/easier sales prospect than that?

I was 99% of the way to making a booking with them, but doing what I do for a living, curiosity got the better of me and I decided to put the ball in their court to see if they do care about their customers and to find out if they were monitoring their social channels. Turns out that they weren’t.

A potential customer, 99% of the way to making a purchase. Lost.

All it would have taken was a Tweet back from Malmaison,with a playful ‘go on, you know you want to!’ or even better, the token offering of a free Birthday cocktail (worth what six or seven quid?) or similar, and i’d have booked the room straight away!

I never received a response from Malmaison Hotel Manchester, which tells me they aren’t monitoring Twitter for brand mentions and if they are, they aren’t willing to engage and don’t care about filling rooms.

Businesses take heed – Ignore your customers on social media at your own peril! To read more about the importance of responding and engaging via social media see my article Companies step away from providing customer service via social media, and Keep track to avoid social media fail.

Edited to add: Later that evening I spoke to the manager of Manchester Mal about what had occurred and to convey my disappointment and he admitted that all accounts had been inactive for some time as the business was being sold and no one was currently responsible for social media as a result. A real shame, as i’ve always rated Malmaison very highly. I still love them as a brand but the shine has been taken off somewhat!

April 11, 2013

Facebook Basics Part 2 – 15 practical Facebook tips and activities

Following on from my Facebook Basics Part 1 - Understanding the business benefits of Facebook article last week, this is the second and final part and looks at some Facebook facts and tips that will help you get the most out of your Facebook activities. You will also find some suggestions for engagement activities that you can take away and implement on your own Facebook wall straight away.

Some Facebook Facts

Facebook has over a billion worldwide users, making it the world’s biggest social network.
Almost half of the population of the UK now uses Facebook.
Functionality differs on Facebook pages for individuals and Facebook pages for businesses. People can follow (become a fan of) your business page by clicking ‘Like’ rather than having to make or accept a friend request.
Whenever you post to your Facebook wall, your page fans will see your content show up in their own Facebook news feed.*
Building a community takes real, sustained effort to achieve and does not happen overnight.
Facebook is continually evolving, with the new Timeline introduced in March 2013 and Facebook Graph Search rolled out around the same time.
A Facebook advert or cover image must contain no more than 20% text.
There are countless Facebook apps for smart phones that make it super easy to monitor and post content to your page when you are out of the office or away from your desk.
1 in 3 small businesses actively use Facebook.
Facebook insights provide you with in-page analytics which will help you identify the type of content people like the most and the days and times when engagement is at its highest.

*This is not always the case. Facebook’s Edgerank algorithm governs exactly what your fans will see in their feeds (or not) and it is possible for people to become fans of your page but choose to ‘turn off’ your content so that they don’t see it in their feed. People only tend to do this if the content you post is not relevant to them (which means they are highly unlikely to become customers) or your content may be relevant but annoying due to repetition or too high a posting frequency.

15 Facebook Tips

Facebook has lots of rules and guidelines. Fall foul of these and you could find your page shut down. Not much of a problem for a new page with few followers, but for an established page with a thriving community this can be devastating so make sure you have a good read of the rules before you do anything.
When you set up your business page make sure you choose the most appropriate category to list your business under.
Your page should be called the same as your business name and don’t forget to set up your vanity URL so the link to your page doesn’t include a random string of numbers.
Unlike on your personal Facebook page, your profile picture should usually be of your logo or something clearly branded and immediately recognisable.
Make sure you make the most of your business page by including a clear, attractive cover picture and by filling in all of your company information including your website address and contact details.
If you are the admin for more than one page, make sure you post on the wall under the correct company identity, by selecting the “use Facebook as” dropdown option at the top right of the page
Always post pictures to accompany your text – not only does this increase engagement, but this also means that you can then edit the text content of your post should you need to.
Include calls to action whenever you post sales or action oriented content, ask people to click for more information, ask them what they think and so on.
Include product links or links through to information pages on your website whenver you post to make it super easy for people to find out more or buy from you.
Use a URL shortener whenever you post links such as Bitly or goo.gl to make long URLs easier on the eye, that way they don’t detract from your content as much.
There is nothing more off-putting that an unloved Facebook wall. Avoid sporadic posting, if you can’t do an update once a day, then at least a couple of times a week, but even if you only update a few times a week, you must monitor your wall at least daily.
Don’t put too much effort into building an audience for your page until you’ve got some content on there. If you go to the effort of attracting new visitors and your wall is empty, they won’t have any reason to like your page or to stick around. Try to aim for around half a dozen posts on your wall before you start actively promoting.
Make sure time is built in every day, to monitor your Facebook wall – this is critical in allowing you to join in and shape the conversations that are evolving and to be available to answer customer service or any pre-sales questions.
Track and analyse your Facebook wall stats and you’ll gain valuable insights into what activities work best for you.
Be creative! Engaging people isn’t easy and takes a flow of almost constant creativity to achieve; always be on the look out. What has worked for you as a consumer responding to a business’s posts? What have you seen that you could adapt to suit your audience?

Practical activities you can carry out now!

Post a poll – Ask your fans a relevant question on a topic of interest. For example, you could ask them who they think is going to win the big game, what their plans are for the weekend or anything that means they can express their opinions or get involved.

Post a picture – People respond to visual imagery far better than they respond to text alone, so you’ll find that engagement levels increase when you post pictures to your wall. Post a picture of your latest new product, your latest advert, a picture you think is cool or anything you think is relevant or that your fans will like.

Show some personality – Interacting with a faceless brand carries little incentive, if fans can relate to the human side of your brand however, they are more likely to interact with you. We all love a good laugh, an inspiring quote or breath-taking landscape from time to time; these kind of posts can work well, putting a smile on people’s faces is a great way to build relationships.

Get behind a good cause – If you are involved with any charities, local fundraising or perhaps sponsor a team then you can use your Facebook wall to spread awareness or raise funds and generally leaverage your community for a good cause – proving it’s not all about hard sell and profit is good every now and again.

Gain some insight – Ask your customers what they like most about your goods or services, ask them what they’d like to see more of, don’t be afraid to use them as a focus group. As with polls, people love making their opinions known, just make sure you monitor things closely. The last thing you want is to find your post to backfire and turn into customers sharing negative experiences (as was the case with McDonalds now legendary 2012 Twitter campaign, dubbed McFail when their hashtag was used to highlight negative customer experiences). Monitoring all activity remains key, allowing you to step in and respond in real time should the need arise. You also have the added benefit of having far more control over your Facebook wall too.

Give your fans credit – A simple thank-you can go a long way to making your community feel valued. Acknowledge the part they play and thank them for their support and participation. If you want to go one step further you could create a regular ‘super fan’ contest, or every now again hold a flash sale where you give your Facebook followers a special discount code.

Run a competition – Create a Facebook specific competition where you use your wall to tell people about a competition running on your website, or use a Facebook app to run a competition right there on your Facebook wall. By using an app, you can also make it a requirement that people share and/or like your competition in order to enter.

Create a Facebook-only promotion - You can publish a special voucher code on your Facebook wall, or better still, use a ‘fan gate’ app to incentivise none fans to ‘like’ your page to get access to the promotional code.

April 9, 2013

Facebook inforgraphic – How social media users feel about brands on Facebook

1,000 social media users were asked how they felt about liking and interacting with brands on Facebook. This infographic from Lab42 lays out some of their key findings.

Courtesy of: Lab42

April 9, 2013

Free people graphic image

Time for another free image! Below you will find two free graphics for you to use that feature a group of people, the first graphic is in shades of gray.

Here is the second variation of the free image, showing a colourful group of people. This free image is ideal for use on your blog, your website or in your direct emails.

Please feel free to download and use these images – I place no restrictions on their commercial use, all I ask is that you leave me a comment letting me know you’ve used the graphic(s) and a link to where you have used it so I can take a look!

Enjoy!

If you’d like to find out how Surefire Media can help your business, get in touch!

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