After the love-in last week from the valentines day TTU – this week is less lovey dovey, don’t worry! In this weeks fast moving marketing mellay, we’ve got olympic stories from Coke, The Queens Jubilee, Ryanair getting banned for sexism and much more! Phew… enjoy! 

Sainsbury’s and Disney to host Queen’s Jubilee festival

Sainsbury’s is teaming up with Disney to host a weekend festival in London’s Hyde Park to celebrate the Queen’s Silver Jubilee this summer. The Jubilee Family Festival Presented by Sainsbury’s’ will include live entertainment and music, celebrity performers and dancers, equestrian events, motorcycle displays, and acts inspired by countries within the Commonwealth. Both days of the festival will finish with a bespoke 70-minute Disney concert featuring many of its songs and characters. Read more…

Coke to ramp up Olympic mobile content

Coca-Cola plans to ramp up the use of mobile and “real-time” platforms as part of its Move to the Beat Olympic activation campaign, as the London 2012 Games near. A focal point for the Move to the Beat campaign will come during the Torch Relay event that starts in May and crosses the country until the Olympics start on 27 July. Read more…

Ryanair “sexist” ad banned

A “sexist” Ryanair ad featuring cabin crew staff in their underwear has been banned for being sexually offensive and likely to cause offence. The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) says that “although the images were not overtly sexual in content, the appearance, stance and gaze of the women…were likely to be seen as sexually suggestive”. You can see part of the ad here, or read more…

Social media now enters the B2B marketing mix

Although, it already had with us and businesses we work with, some recent research shows that although actual social media engagement in B2B markets is low, the marketing professionals truly believe that it holds super future value. It does and it will – in our opinion here at Fusing Creativity, building relationships will soon be the only way to expand business, ensuring you develop key skills to engage with your stakeholders and customers will put you at the forefront of their minds and wallets. Read more…

Topshop live streams Fashion Week shows via iPhone

Topshop is live streaming the catwalk shows it is putting on as part of London Fashion Week to its “fully transactional” iPhone app. Even if the brand you fancy isn’t on the Topshop stream,  more brands and press will be uploading front row and backstage footage via their Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram — and now, Pinterest — accounts. Read more…

Pinterest or Porn-terest?

You will have seen and heard lots of hype about new-ish social network Pinterest. But there has been a bit of a scuffle recently on how many semi naked pictures there are on there! Well, Pinterest are taking action! Well, kind of. Their usage policy states nudity is not acceptable, unless (in short) it’s a form of art… hmmm, bit wooly there! Read more… and if you want to follow us on Pinterest head over to view our boards (Don’t worry, no nudity!)

Go Compares goes Looney!

So we’ve all been annoyed by the go compare opera singer. Drives me nuts, but we all remember it don’t we??? Ugh. Anyway, Go compare are taking it a step further now launching a Looney Tunes-style TV ad featuring The Three Little Pigs, The Big Bad Wolf and Bambi. Sounds mental to me. Can you wait? Read more…  Or if you have to, watch it here:

Fosters gets £7.5 million injection for marketing campaign.

Heineken is putting further investment behind its Foster’s Gold premium variant, with a £7.5m ad campaign that builds on the brand’s “posh” qualities. Not sure about you, but I’ve never really seen Fosters as a ‘posh’ brand, so this should be interesting. Read more…

Sun on Sunday launches this week

After New’s international’s scandal of the News of the World – News corporation have now decided to cash in on the Sunday market by launching the Sun on Sunday. Starting this weekend, you’ll now find the daily on the shelves on the day of rest. Read more…

Wonder what Facebook will look like in 2025? 

Well someone has decided to develop an infographic to let us all know! Will we become a Facebook nation?? Find out…

As always, come and have a chat with us on our Facebook page and let us know if you ever see any marketing news you think people would be interested in!

SOCIAL MEDIA AND THE WORKPLACE – by MPM legal, Peter Beisty

This guidance note is intended as a useful overview of the main points to consider around the use of social media in the workplace. It does not constitute legal advice, and we recommend that appropriate advice tailored to your specific circumstances is always sought at an early stage.

We are seeing more and more clients asking us for help with social media related employment problems. With the continuing advances in technology giving 24/7 accessibility to the web from almost anywhere, the increased use of social media as a business to business or business to consumer marketing tool, and the blurring of the lines between ‘work time’ and ‘social time’, it is easy to see how employers need to get to grips with the potential challenges –and opportunities- that social media presents.

Social media – what is it?

In broad terms social media can be described as “a group of internet based applications that allow the generation and exchange of user-generated content”. Some of the most popular applications include Facebook, Twitter, the professional networking site LinkedIn and the digital media sharing site Flickr.

Potential issues

Social media presents challenges for employers on a number of levels. For example:

• Recruitment – can you/should you use social media to research candidates?

• Protecting confidential information.

• Legal liability for an employer for online bullying and harassment.

• Reputational damage by employees actions online.

• Productivity – what constitutes acceptable use?

By understanding these challenges there are some easy steps which businesses can take to set the standards for how social media should be used within their organisation and limit their legal risks.

Social media policy

At times it seems like everything requires a policy, and before you know it your employee handbook runs to an unwieldy 500 page tome. There is certainly a view held

by some in the HR community that having a social media policy displays a lack of trust and is an unrealistic way of trying to control staff. We disagree, and recommend that a policy on social media is appropriate, not least because you can shape your organisation’s expectations for employee use of social media – whether that is a complete ban on workplace use or promoting it as a networking or business development tool. Bear in mind though that restrictions which are disproportionate can:

• Undermine employee morale;
• Lead to employee non-compliance; and
• Ultimately not achieve any real protection for the company.

Recruitment

There is nothing to prohibit an employer from using social media to find out information about a candidate. However, before deciding whether or not it is appropriate for your organisation to do so, consider the following:

× Discrimination – more likely information will be obtained which could lead to inferences of discrimination if the candidate is rejected;

× Data Protection Act is engaged if information obtained online is recorded or used;

× Candidate should be given the opportunity to comment on the information’s accuracy; and

× Candidate should be told about the employer’s vetting and verification exercises.

Steps to take:

 Ensure any enquiries are proportionate;

 Inform candidates about your vetting and verification exercises;

 Use online checks after short listing or first interviews to limit the risk of a claim that decisions were discriminatory; and

 Seek clarification from the candidate of any information obtained online.

Confidential and proprietary information

The obvious risk here is that confidential information is posted online – ranging from an employee acting wilfully and intent on damaging their employer’s business to an

employee including sensitive information posted in an online CV. Disclosing or misusing confidential information could result in:

× A breach of the employment contract;

× Embarrassment to the Company;

× A breach confidentiality between the company and a third party putting the company in breach; or

× Damage the Company’s ability to preserve its intellectual property rights.

Steps to take:

 Impose controls on the use of LinkedIn;

 Consider express contractual obligations regarding the return of information – such as that obtained online;

 Consider restrictive covenant wording; and

 Consider amending the employment contract and the social media policy.

Discrimination

It is well established that an employer could be vicariously liable for acts of discrimination by their employees.

× Tribunals apply a wide to test to the concept of whether or not an employee is ‘acting in the course of employment’.

× A employer could still be liable if the employee is using their own equipment, not physically at work and not acting under the instructions of an employer.

Steps to take:

To stand a chance of successfully relying on the ‘reasonable practicable steps’ defence you should:

 Set out in your social media policy a prohibition on harassment and bullying;

 Ensure any anti-harassment or equal opportunities policy is also consistent;

 Deal with any complaints of online bullying or harassment as you would for similar complaints made in other contexts; and

 Include reference to online harassment in any training provided on harassment.

Reputation

The immediacy and visibility of social media applications means the scope for reputational damage is high. Consider the Virgin employees who referred on Facebook to passengers being ‘chavs’ and the Waterstone’s employee who referred to his employer as ‘B**tardstone’s’ in his blog.

 Consider a ban on negative comments about the company, its employees or customers;

 Use the social media policy to set clear standards of acceptable behaviour;

 Consider amending your contracts of employment to prohibit defamation; and

 Engage with your employees about how best to maintain a positive corporate image.

Productivity

Since the use of the internet has become increasingly prevalent, most employers will already have an acceptable use policy covering both internet access and email use. You should consider whether or not it is appropriate to update those policies to refer to the use of social media – you may take the view that access to and use of social media can already be adequately dealt with through existing policies.

 Ensure your policies set out what constitutes acceptable use;

 Train employees on the policy (social media as a general training topic is a useful one to cover); and

 Monitor compliance.

Summary

The following recommendations are made in the recent ACAS research paper “Workplaces and Social Networking”:

1. Allemployersshouldhaveapolicyoninternet/socialmediause.

2. The policy should set out clear and explicit expectations and the consequences of violations.

3. Keep it simple – the message that online conduct should not differ from offline conduct may suffice.

4. Consultwithstaffonthepolicy,communicatethepolicyandreviewit.

5. Ensurethatadequatemechanismstoraisegrievancesexist.

6. Considerthebenefitsthatsocialnetworkingcanoffer.

If you have any questions or comments arising from this note, please feel free to contact Peter Beisty (contact details above) for a no obligation discussion.

About mpm legal

mpm legal is a specialist employment law practice. The firm was created based on an awareness of the changing marketplace in the provision of legal services and a desire to

break free from the traditional full service law firm. They are committed to delivering a level of service commensurate with much larger law firms at a lower cost.

Todays Tuesday Tune Up will have a Valentines feel to it, not really deliberate – it just seems all the news has been skewed this way! Although there’s a few bits and bobs non-loving related! This week we discover some new features in Facebook (no surprise there), posting your Valentines messages on the BT Tower, various Valentines apps and a flash mob proposal – sigh, if you’re not loved up, then we apologise in advance  

ITV warns Apple not to brand smart TV ‘iTV’

So it’s only a problem in the UK, but we all know ‘ITV’ as a UK television channel that brings us shows like the X-Factor (um, yay) – with the imminent arrival of Apple’s long awaited move into the TV market, the ITV we know has fired a warning shot at Apple not to call their new device the ‘iTV’. My personal feeling is that they can send as many warning shots as they like, if Apple have made that decision, they’ll probably just buy the name. Read more…

Post your Valentines messages on the BT Tower

BT is broadcasting Valentine’s Day messages on its nationwide big screens, with the best ones appearing on the “infoband” at the top of the BT Tower in London. The public are invited to send messages of love to livesites@bt.com, tweet them with the hashtag #loveisallaround or text the word love and a 120-character message to a designated number. Read more…

BMW unveil floating olympic showroom

A clever move on BMW’s part – giving them a prime spot between the Olympic Aquatics centre and Olympic stadium in Stratford. The 8000 square foot ‘showroom’ will show off the latest BMW models to the thousands of people wandering past. The ‘plinth’ looks really cool too, giving it that levitating feel. Read more…

Is Pinterest the new Facebook for the ladies?

Picture-sharing social network Pinterest has become one of the fastest-growing social sites, increasing its market share by 68 per cent in January in the UK. The site has hit 12 million unique visitors in the U.S – the fastest social network ever to hit the figure. Techcrunch says that 97 per cent of Pinterest’s one million Facebook likes are from women. Read more…

Valentines day augmented reality from M&S

Waterloo station houses a new augmented reality advert featuring ‘Katya’ – a rather attractive, scantily clad young lady! M&S have developed a new ‘Augmented REality’ advert whereby when you download their app to your smartphone and then hold the app in front of the billboard, Katya ‘comes to life’ in front of your very eyes! Needless to say, in the pictures on their website, it looks to be all men holding up their phones and laptops! Read more…

7 Email marketing tips for Valentines day

OK, so it may be a little late, but tips are always welcome and useful. Here are some nice tips in improving your ‘special day’ email marketing, including social media integration, partnerships and piggybacking other offers. Read more…

A selection of apps for Valentines day

I’m almost getting bored writing the word now, but Appadvice have posted a list of the top apps you need on your phone to make Valentines (ugh) day run smoothly. Including the likes of the great Flixter app for movies, Godiva chocolate app, Valentines recipes and even an app about ‘making better relationships’ hmmm. Anyway, read more…

New McCain marketing campaign smells like a jacket spud

McCain Foods in the UK  has launched a revolutionary new marketing campaign for its launch of McCain Ready Baked Jackets. Five lucky UK cities, York, London, Manchester, Glasgow and Nottingham, will see their bog standard bus shelters replaced by the innovative 3D jacket potato which actually heats up and releases the aroma of jacket potatoes. Surely that will just make us all hungry? Read more…

Some Facebook updates for you:

You can now hide your ticker!The constantly moving activity list in the top right of your screen on Facebook now has the option to be hidden. I personally like this ticker, but many don’t so if it’s something you want to hide from view, just click the little arrow in the top left of the ticker to hide it.

Finding any hidden posts on your page

Hidden posts on your page – with Facebook’s new ‘spam’ filtering sometimes you can get comments on your page that are ‘greyed out’ if it thinks that the commentor is spamming the page. Firstly, to ‘un spam’ the comment, you can just click the ‘Not Spam’ button at the bottom of the post, however, if you have an active page, you may not see all of the potential spam comments, so make sure you check your ‘Hidden Posts’ section from your page menu – as demonstrated in the picture.

The new Photo viewer- we think this is a lovely new way of displaying your photos. Big, wide and open, with comments to the right hand side of the image instead of underneath. You can even scroll through photos using the left and right arrows keys now too.

The new Facebook photoviewer

And a sweet one to end on – a Flash Mob Marriage proposal

I actually saw this on a TV programme on Sunday night about four people who wanted to propose to their other halves. One lad (who had only met his girlfriend 4 times at that point!) decided to employ the services of a flash mob choir in Covent Garden to help his proposal go with a bang! You can see the video below or on YouTube here…

So, a lovey dovey day and update from the team here at Fusing Creativity, as always, you can hear news first on our Facebook page, so please come and Like us over there and join in the conversations! In the meantime, we hope you have a great week and we’ll be back, with hopefully less sickening content, next week!

It’s not just the weather that’s been making things difficult, It seems people have been getting into all sorts of trouble this week with Google being fined, a man getting arrested for a Re-tweet and L’Oreal get into trouble for air brushing (again).  Here is this weeks top marketing stories – oh and our first competition! Win a Pinterest invite…. 

South Korean Man faces a potential seven years in jail after a Re-tweet

South Korea has detained a 24-year-old male for Re-tweeting a message about the late North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il. Pak Jeonggeun has been held for Re-tweeting the communist North Korean governments’ message that said, “Long live Kim Jong-Il”. Park insists his Re-tweet was purely sarcasm but still faces a potential seven years in prison. Read more…

Facebook goes public

“Facebook did not set out to become a company” says Mark Zuckerberg, the founding father of Facebook, “It was built to accomplish a social mission – to make the world more open and connected.” With recent statistics claiming the Social Network giant now has over 845 Million ACTIVE users per month; people may argue he may already have achieved this, however, with Mark Zuckerberg’s sights firmly set on putting Facebook on the Stock market he urges investors to “understand what this mission means to us”. Read more… 

The rise of ‘Pinterest’ (and our first COMPETITION!)

Pinterest is a new social networking tool that acts as a digital ‘pinboard’ of ‘stuff’ you like across the web. We love it and have just started using it to collate pin boards of our favourite things. You can find Jeni’s account here. It’s gathering pace FAST and apparently is sending more traffic than Google+ already! We think this has great scope for certain types of businesses – if you’re selling products and like to share knowledge that’s visual, then you need to jump on this. It’s integration with Facebook and Twitter is already superb. Read more… However, it’s invite only. – It’s lucky that you know us though! If you’d like a Pinterest invite, then all you need to do is leave a comment at the end of this blog post telling us what pinboard’s you’d like to create for your business and why –  then we’ll pick a winner before next weeks TTU. (scroll down to post a comment)

7 ways to lower bounce rates

First impressions are hugely important, you have most likely invested time and money into driving traffic to your website and there is nothing more frustrating than once arriving at the page the consumer clicks straight off. It is not always clear as to why, but there are seven recommended ways to lower your bounce rate:

1. Be mindful of ad placements
2. Lazy-load third party content
3. Contrast is key
4. Clean, Accessible Navigation
5. Your message should be immediately obvious
6. No Distractions
7. Have a responsive layout

Read more…

The evolving user for the evolving Facebook

As Facebook develops and improves we, as users have to evolve our social media habits along the way. Outdated Facebook concepts quickly get removed and replaced with bigger, better and more exciting features; most recently the subscribe button. Have you evolved to the capabilities of the subscribe button? If not, ensure don’t limit yourself to the one-dimensional capabilities we have all come to include into our daily habits. These features are there so let’s use them to the full potential. Here are some of the most recent Facebook updates and some ideas about how you can take advantage of them. Read more… 

The Dog Strikes Back

A couple of weeks ago (24/01/2012) we showed you the VW Star Wars sequel of ‘Bark Wars’, this week VW come back with the third part of the trilogy with ‘The Dog Strikes Back’. The final installment see’s the hero; a golden Labrador (yes, they kept the dog theme) inspired to get fit with the all new sport Volkswagen Beetle and a surprise appearance see’s Lord Vadar who is not too happy with some of the reactions to the ad. Watch here…

L’Oreal get’s caught retouching…again

The beauty brand has been criticised for misleading customers. The heavily airbrushed campaign for L’Oreal Revitalift Repair 10 appeared to completely alter the complexion of British actress Rachel Weisz’s face making it appear smoother and more even. Read more…

Google’s ‘Good to know’ campaign

User’s with online privacy concerns are being addressed by Google with it’s new “Good to know” ad campaign. Since 2010 it’s been a hot topic about the way Google handled their users’ private information after they used their Gmail customers’ information to feed their former social media attempt, Google Buzz. These adverts will start to pop up over the UK soon so keep an eye out for them. Read more… 

Google fined $660,000 because Google Maps is Free

French courts ruled that Google now must face a charge of $660,000 for abusing their dominant position in mapping by making them free. Free mapping from Google has caused Bottin Cartographes serious problems as they provide a paid mapping service to the likes of Louis Vuitton and several automobile manufacturers. Google is “convinced that a free high-quality mapping tool is beneficial for both Internet users and websites.” Read more… 

I told you it was all kicking off! It’s all happening in the marketing news this week, make sure you tune in for next weeks Tuesday Tune Up and as always feel free to contact us via email, phone or our Facebook page if you have any questions.

The basics of inbound marketing is the practice of attracting warm and qualified leads into your sales funnel rather than reaching out to cold, some-what questionable targets. The magnet effect.

Looking at it the other way round, the opposite being ‘outbound marketing’ this focussed on methods such as cold calling, print advertising, exhibitions and generally using techniques that focussed on getting your message in front of cold targets and warming them to that message. A hard job as I’m sure you’ll already know. These methods are dependant on your target audience stumbling across your advert just at the moment they are looking for your service – so it can be needle in a haystack marketing, as we like to call it. Of course, some outbound techniques are great for awareness, but awareness should only be looked at in terms of the bigger picture.

With outbound techniques, you had to play the numbers game, you know if you make 150 calls, you may get one bite at a sale – but how inefficient is that?

Inbound marketing allows those looking for your product or service find you – it’s that simple. Then you know at that point, they are a warm, qualified lead. They have found you because they have actively searched/conversed/requested information that you provide. It’s exactly the other way around from outbound marketing, in outbound activities – you’re searching for those people who may need your service, with inbound activities those people are already searching for you – you just need to make sure you can be found.

Surely this immediately sound more appealing? Well, it does and long term it pays dividends. However, it takes time to develop your inbound channels, time that seems like an expense that may not be worth it in the first couple of months. However, we look at it like this, you can carry on with the outbound marketing, continuing to receive that 1 in 150 potential sale OR you can look to develop a channel alongside those outbound activities that will start to generate it’s own prospect funnel that will continue to grow.

So how can you do this?

There are several forms of inbound marketing, but the most common ones you’ll come across are blogging, social media, search engine optimisation/marketing and much more.

Probably the most popular within that list is blogging – keeping an updated blog can provide many benefits to your organisation and almost all of them relate to inbound marketing. Providing great, value added content helps you not only rise in organic search engine results but it also creates linkable content and helps educate your audience. This kind of content directs pre-qualified leads to your site as the visitor will have clicked your link after completing a relevant search.

Social media allows sharing of your content and conversation generation with your community. It’s an excellent way to develop relationships with your customers and reach out to new people without really knowing it.

Search engine optimisation is an important part of inbound marketing – giving yourself the best possible organic chance to be found on the search engines will increase those qualified leads.

So here are some top tips from us to improve your inbound marketing activities:

- Consider starting a blog, time consuming; yes; worthwhile; absolutely. A significant amount of our traffic to this website comes through people finding answers to their marketing questions from our blog posts. Once they’ve read the blog post, they then will go looking around the rest of the site. Once you’ve read a post that you feel is relevant and has answered your question, you start to develop trust in that brand. This is what we hope to do with our blog.

When it comes to your business, whatever industry and field you are in, you have knowledge to impart to customers and it’s this knowledge, when transferred to the digital medium that will help bring those qualified leads in.

- Offer a free white paper download on your website. Make sure it’s valuable and relevant and isn’t full of marketing fluff and adverts. People are looking for answers and help everyday, if you offer a free whitepaper for them to download you’re drawing in potential customers that need those answers. Capture their details and send a follow up email a week later asking if they still have unanswered questions – a really good one for B2B businesses.

- Conduct a free webinar online. Another good B2B option. Impart your knowledge by live video streams – and offer it for free download if people cannot get online at the right moment. Live video not only allows you to share expertise but it also shows people your personality.

- Optimise landing pages or microsites for key service or product offerings. Ensure every inch of content is keyword optimised (but don’t go overboard) for Google to give you the best chance of people finding you. With Search engine marketing techniques you can investigate what your core target audience are searching for and optimise those pages for the various audiences you want to attract.

Of course, if you have any other questions about inbound marketing or anything else marketing, please come and have a chat with us on our Facebook page.

In this weeks TTU more Facebook updates and Google+ trying to keep up, McDonalds make a hash of their social campaign and Snickers cause a stir! 

Facebook will roll out Timeline to all profiles

At the tail end of last year we announced Facebook’s new Timeline feature – we moved over to it pretty quickly and we actually really like it. Some people hated it and refused to switch over – but now, Facebook will be doing that for you. At some point over the next few weeks you’ll all be moved to the new Timeline and once you are, you’ll have 7 days to sort your privacy and make sure it looks the way you want it to look before it’s published to the world. Just a few things to remember:

1. Your cover photo is always public
2. Any ‘Life events’ are always public
3. Any historical events and updates you posted before changing any privacy settings in the past, will need to be individually changed to reflect the privacy you want.

Read more here… 

Gossip that Facebook may launch Timeline for brand pages

We’re not remotely sure if this is true or not, but a well-know Facebook gossip site has named February 29th as the day Facebook will look to make Timeline available for brand pages. There’s been no official word on this from Facebook and many are doubting the quality of the info, but it would be interesting to see the new format transferred to brand pages. What do you think?  Read more here…

Google+ opens it’s doors to teenagers

Up until now, Google+ was only open to adults aged 18 and over. Google has now opened it’s social network to those aged 13 and over. Following in the footsteps on Facebook. It’s a move everyone predicted, but it’s interesting to hear what parents are thinking with regards to understanding the network enough to protect children from any harm. Read more here… 

Snickers ads get acclaim and criticism

There’s been some significant hoo-haa on social channels this week about the new Snickers ad. Their campaign entitled ‘You’re not you when you’re hungry’ depicts some rather famous women in very out-of-character situations! The video can be seen here. Snickers also seemed to ‘pay’ celebrities to Tweet very out-of-character tweets to generate some attention – which it did, but also the wrong kind of attention, as technically you’re not allowed to do that with Twitter! A really interesting campaign though. Read more here…

Obama re-election campaign to use mobile payments for fundraising

Another tick in the box for mobile payments – a trend for 2012 we think to go big – is that President Obama will be using a mobile payments service called ‘Square’ (who also has investment from Sir Richard Branson) during his re-election campaign to generate fundraising. Obama was at the centre of technology during his first campaign for office using Twitter ridiculously effectively to generate support. He continues his technological revolution by moving with the times and giving people a really easy way to donate to his campaign. Read more here…

Google change their privacy policies

This update takes effect on March 1. It simplifies all privacy policies and makes it clear that if you’re signed in, Google “may combine information you’ve provided from one service with information from other services. In short, we’ll treat you as a single user across all our products, which will mean a simpler, more intuitive Google experience.” Read more here…

McDonalds promoted Twitter campaign goes horribly wrong

McDonalds recently launched a Twitter campaign asking fans and followers to Tweet their best experience under the #McDStories hash tag. As you can imagine, some McD’s haters did exactly that, posting negative comments about food poisoning and unpleasant facts about the company’s food. McDonalds had to pull the hash tag pretty quickly. Read more here…

House of Fraser targets students through Facebook

House of Fraser is embarking on a major social media push targeting students, with an emphasis on appealing to those who have not the considered the brand before. The department store is to promote itself as an online shopping destination for students. It has partnered with the National Union of Students’ (NUS) Extra Card, to launch a vouchering app on the House of Fraser Facebook page. Read more here…

Nicknames now allowed on Google+

They call it a more ‘inclusive’ naming policy. What do you call it? A greater ability to hide who you are? Last week, Google announced the ability to use a nickname on their Google+ social network. They basically say they’ll be adding support for multiple names, which may be nicknames, birthnames, or names in another script. Read more here…

Twitter revenue predicted to be $540million by 2014

Ouch. That’s big. Who wishes they’d thought of sharing tiny sentences?! A report undertaken by emarketer is predicting that Twitter’s advertising revenue will triple over the next three years to hit $540 million by the end of 2014. The research, which is reported by Bloomberg, claims that the microblogging service chalked up $139.5 million in ad revenue last year, but an increase in usage in the US combined with the service’s growth in users and advertisers outside of the country are likely to propel its income to new heights. Read more here…

YouTube hits 4 billion DAILY video views.

Wow. This is a 25% increase over the last 8 months. With “Roughly 60 hours of video are now uploaded to YouTube every minute.” the site doesn’t seem to be seeing any kind of slow down. Read more here…

In this weeks TTU – The BBC win the xmas social media war, Facebook unveils some new apps, VW ‘Bark wars”, David Cameron’s stance on betting ads and much more…

BBC win the social media battle over xmas

The BBC has beaten ITV in the Christmas social media battle, with the broadcaster airing eight out of the ten most tweeted about programmes over the festive season. Measured by the number of Tweets sent with the shows #hash tag. Read more…

Facebook shows off new timeline apps

Facebook has added 60 applications to its Timeline profiles, which will enable users to further personalise their online experience with details on what they are doing. Read more here…

VW ‘Bark Wars’

VW continue their Star Wars theme within their advertising with a new one bringing the woof back into marketing (no idea, don’t ask) we love this ad, it doesn’t necessarily make me want to buy a VW but it’s certainly compelling to watch! Watch on Youtube or below:

David Cameron shares his opinion on betting ads

Online gambling sites may be limited with their advertising on after the Prime Minister said he was concerned by the “aggressive” publicity techniques of online betting firms. There seems to be a lot of these ads about at the moment, so it will be interesting to see how this pans out. Read more…

Who owns your Twitter followers?

A really interesting case has come up in the States rearing a question about ownership of your Twitter followers. A man is being sued by his previously company for taking the 17k Twitter followers with him when leaving the company. It’s certainly one to think about and understand who is running and owning your social media account? Always make sure that you have an admin say – that way you can always regain control if you need to. Read more… 

The top 40 brands on social media unveiled

Socialbakers have completed some recent research to show who the top 40 brands are on social media. Unsurprisingly, some big names top the bill like Coca Cola and Disney, however when you look at the broken down values over the different channels, Google+ shows that the top brands are still the tech/social news sites like Mashable and Techcrunch – maybe brands are still being slow to respond to Google+ integration. Read more…

Is direct mail on the comeback?

As I said in the intro, a lot of businesses are re-investing in their marketing for 2012 and one of the most common requests has been plain old traditional Direct Mail. It’s certainly making a comeback and with great data and targeting facilities out there, why not? Read more…

US websites go on strike!

Last week you may have noticed the likes of Wikipedia, Google (US) and WordPress take a day off! Wikipedia shut down it’s English version, Google censored it’s logo and WordPress went on a blackout. All in aid of protesting against ‘SOPA’. The States were trying to pass two bills in order to try and, in essence, ‘censor the web’. Needless to say, they were thrown out. Read more…

We’ve compiled a little list of things that you can do to try and help conversion on your website:

 1. Understand it’s objective. If you are a company selling jewellery online, then the objective is for people to actually get their credit cards out and buy something. If you are a B2B business looking to generate potential leads to follow up, then you need to encourage people to pick up the phone or send you their details. Work backwards from this – there’s no point going in for the hard sell on your website, if your sales cycle is three months long – think about what you can say in your copy or demonstrate on your site through testimonials or reviews that will achieve the actual objective. Leave everything else out.

2. Know exactly how well it’s performing. If you don’t have a web analytics package installed on your site. Get one. Google Analytics is free and allows you to see exactly when your audience is visiting, where they are coming from and which pages they are interested it – only when you have this data can you improve what you have.

3. Think about the important parts of each page, it’s called ‘eyetracking’. Where will people be drawn to first? Where do you WANT them to be drawn to? Highlight important information and either leave unimportant information out or keep it out of the way. This way you can guide your visitor around the page in the way you want them to experience your site.

4. Surveys. I know, I heard a collective ‘ugh’ when you read this, but every now and then, it does no harm to ask your visitors and customers what they think. No one understands why they did or didn’t buy/connect with your website better than them.

5. Be contactable. Not everyone will want to read every bit of information to the tee before making an enquiry or buying online. Put contact details in a prominent position on every page – don’t make your customer have to search for a phone number – it could be one click away from losing their interest.

6. If you sell online, make sure you have a good guarantee. People feel the pangs of ‘buyers guilt’ much stronger when they buy online as they don’t have the tangible product there and then once they’ve handed their money over. Once they’ve bought and during the process of buying, make sure you’re setting their minds at ease that if they change that mind – it’s easily reversible. Combatting buyers guilt is a really important factor in selling more online.

7. In line with 6, be there for every step of the buying process. We all go through certain steps before we buy stuff, whether online or offline. We discover something, work out if we really need/want it, explore for more information, investigate the options, see where it’s sold, check out prices, check out reviews and then choose a place to buy it from. Make sure you’re there for every stage of this process – if they don’t need to leave your site to find out the reviews, the competitive prices and the best information – why would they buy elsewhere?

8. Prove your worth. Sounds like an easy one, but an easy one to forget or add as an aftermath – don’t forget your case studies and testimonials. And don’t always put your biggest and best clients or sellers on there, think about your market. If you did one job for a large, well known corporation but the majority of your work is for SME’s, don’t just plaster the big jobs – the customers won’t relate. Make sure you have a selection of testimonials that are easy to navigate and cover a wide variety of applications,

9. Don’t make your images too small. Its so annoying when you can’t see the image properly and it’s impossible to zoom. Make them obvious and zoomable for product sales.

10. Don’t forget those ALT tags and captions for images. ALT tags are great for SEO and captions allow people to read what the image is. Sounds silly but sometimes people like things explained to them.

11. Don’t make any forms or registrations too long. People hate filling them in so make them snappy and easy – only taking the essential information – you can always prompt them to fill in more later.

12. Adopt a customer mindset. What are the most common stumbling blocks or objections? How can you overcome them with your website? Address them all…

13. If you don’t offer any discounts, don’t have a discount box! Simple…

14. Add as much credibility as you can. If you’re endorsed by someone, add their logo. If you partner with companies that will add clout to your message, make sure they’re visible.

15. Dreaded internet explorer. A lot of people are defecting away from Microsofts’ web browser – we hate it here. Make sure your website is available for all browsers and works perfectly on all.

16. Mobile, mobile, mobile. A ridiculous amount of people are now looking at your website on their mobile device – iPhones, iPads, Blackberries and such-what are becoming increasing popular for web browsing. Does your website firstly work well on a mobile device and secondly, is it easy to navigate and see???

17. Be human. People like to see who they’re buying from or dealing with – get your mug shots on the website. People like to buy from people, not machines. (we’ll be adding our mugshots soon, as soon as we’ve airbrushed all blemishes )

18. Encourage the viral spread of your message. If you have something interesting to say, allow your visitors to share it! Have social share buttons available and allow customers to invite their friends in order to receive additional money off.

19. Content. This probably should be number one really. Does the content on your site really reflect you and your business? Are you talking to your customer? Using the words ‘You’ makes it feel much more personal. Remember Google looks at the content of your site heavily, so make sure it’s explicitly easy to see who you are and what you do.

20. Keep an eye on competitors. Copy them if necessary. Obviously don’t build your strategy on this! But keeping an eye on how the competition stack up – see what they do well and make it your own.

So there we have it! A few ideas to help turn those clickers into converts…. Please let us know in the comments field below if you can think of any more.

It seems that over the past week a lot of brands have been implementing new marketing strategies, new developments and new features. There’s a lot happening out there and we’re beginning to see even bigger movements towards increasing marketing spend, it seems businesses decided to cut marketing budgets last year and have now seen the error of their ways! Clever and well executed marketing can really keep you ahead of your competition…

Anyway, enough of the sales patter, in this weeks TTU – it’s an all online or social! Including – a ridiculous amount of Facebook updates; Google on the heels and a Youtube bringing a great new feature to video…

Facebook improves it’s location insights for pages

I’m yet to see this work, but Facebook have updated their insights on your business Facebook page to reflect any changes in location, so for example, if a user likes your page and they live in London, then they move to Milton Keynes, previously the ‘Like’ would still be attributed to London, now however, Facebook insights will reflect any profile changes in location – pretty good for those businesses who depend on location data. Read more here…

Sponsored stories are now appearing in News feeds on Facebook

We’ve seen these new ‘sponsored stories’ appearing in the sidebar of our Facebook newsfeed, but Facebook will now integrate them into our newsfeed soon. It’s a bold step we think – especially as during the interview recently on BBC TV, Facebook couldn’t really answer the question between advertising and sponsored stories. Read more here… or come and let us know your thoughts about this on our Facebook page…

Facebook brings the comments box to mobile

Facebook has launched the Comments Box plugin for mobile, which aims to help media sites interact with readers across the web and mobile devices. If this is something you use on your site already, it should automatically update to mobile. Read more here…

Facebook accounts for 2.7 percent of online advertising spending

Ad-buying agency Efficient Frontier examined data from over 15 advertisers and 20 million fans from a load of different industries within the retail, entertainment and consumer markets (and more) to discover that Facebook has accounted for 2.7% of total online advertising spending during the last quarter of 2011. They also predict that number to reach 5 % by the end of 2012. Read more here… (you’ll have to download the doc)

Facebook adds new ‘Listen in’ feature

As we announced on our Facebook page last week, Facebook have launched a new “Listen With” feature that allows you to tune in to what your friends are listening to on the Spotify app on Facebook. I actually find it really annoying to see everyone’s track list announced to me on Facebook – although it is quite funny when you see your rock out friend is listening to Chesney Hawkes “The one and only”. Find out more…

Google Socialises it’s search with G+

Google is pretty quickly implementing Google+ into its core products such as Gmail and Youtube. Well this week it announced a pretty big one – adding it their search engine. It’s trying to demonstrate that it not only understands content, but now understands people and relationships. Pretty clever. The update is called “Search plus Your World” introduces three new features Personal results, profiles in search and people and pages. Sounds exciting, we’re yet to see it in action. Read more here…

Screen sharing now in Google+ Hangouts

After it’s big social search launch, Google then turned it’s attention to Hangouts – the video feature within Google+. Now allowing you to share your screen. Read more here…

Google to launch maps ‘game’

Called ‘Your world’ Google have announced a maps game that allows you to play with a location. A little like marble madness on your iPhone. It’s going to be launched in February and as yet we’re not sure of he value for business but it will be interesting to see how it’s received! Read more here…

Youtube add storyboard feature to videos

YouTube has introduced a new version of its video player, which will enable users to hover a mouse on any point of the video’s timeline and view thumbnail images of specific frames. The storyboard feature could be helpful during tutorials – it would allow a user to skip to the part in which he or she is experiencing an issue – or perhaps your marketing team would like to skip to the part of the video in which your brand’s product or service is mentioned. Read more here…

Trust and familiarity.

Don’t reel off your sales pitch and tell them every single bit of your service. Take the slow road. It starts off with a simple phone call to learn a bit about the potential client, what makes them tick? What is the reason for you to meet face to face with them? Grow your relationship slowly and meet a couple more times to build that trusting relationship. Read this article on ‘Selling to Consumers in a Tough Economy’ for a better understanding on how familiarity and trust can be used to create a profitable relationship. Nothing will inspire trust more effectively than familiarity and friendship. We think 2012 will be all about building those relationships way beyond the levels we’ve seen up to today.

The waiting game.

You may have already come to expect this, but have you noticed how companies are putting off spending until the very last minute? Thus you must be prepared for long delays since your last conversation, to suddenly be needed and meet that deadline. Companies are staying flexible and keeping their options open as long as possible in order to save cash. You cannot rush the process so unfortunately this piece of advise is that, if you want the account, make sure you are ready and raring to go when they’re ready for it.

Utilise the networks created on social media. Does a friend or contact know your prospect?

An introduction or referral is a great way of making a memorable first impression with your prospect. Using social networks such as LinkedIn to find a friend (or a friend of a friend) who is already engaged with your prospect is a great way of gaining a better understanding of them, thus, allowing you to tailor your approach more appropriately.

Make an offer that can’t be refused.

To generate the opportunity for a phone call or meeting, offer the potential customer something that they cannot refuse. Maybe some interesting results from a survey or a competitive overview? Whatever it is, make it something they will find valuable and not expect to receive and make sure it’s truly free. Think to yourself would I want to receive this? The documents should be detailed enough to create interest but not so detailed that they can implement the idea or thought process without you.

Don’t call to confirm a meeting, once it’s been set up.

Don’t set up an opportunity for the potential customer to cancel. It doesn’t matter how many hours of time and planning you’ve done, they may turn around and say, “it’s not a good time” or “we’re too busy today”. If they forget the meeting – then they owe you, bringing you one step closer to gaining their trust because, of course, you “completely understand, maybe next week?”

Always have an idea of the next step that could be agreed on impulse.

Always try and prepare for the next step. When you’ve had the opportunity to communicate with a lead, whether over the phone or face to face, plan to be ‘just around the corner’ (we have done this on may occasions) because they are more reluctant to schedule a formal meeting than a quick ten-minute conversation, which they might agree to on impulse.

During difficult financial times, businesses are required to be smarter, more organised and more dependant on the resources they are able to use to win over new clients. No one said it was going to be easy but these top tips have proven useful to us and so we are grateful to share our experience. Any questions, please feel free to ask.

Oh, and we hate the media banging on about the recession and the financial crisis, we believe there are great businesses doing great things out there, however we think these tips are valuable at any time and really add value to your product, service and more importantly your brand.

Please come and share any other tips you may have on our Facebook page.