Tasha Harrison

Facebook is a lot more difficult than people anticipate for marketing. There seems to be a myth that you can simply create a fan page and people will come. The problem is that often there is no reason to become a fan. The page is never updated and once you’ve become a fan you never hear from them again. Often people don’t have time, but usually they aren’t really sure what to do with their page once it’s set up.

Now Facebook have created new rules regarding competitions. You can’t ask people to interact with you on Facebook in order to enter a competition, they can only interact with a third party application. Gone are the days of getting more fans by encouraging them to join you in return for maybe winning something. Now marketers have to be more imaginative in the ways they get fans to sign up. In fact this may not be a bad thing, because simply building up a large fan base and bribing them to interact with you isn’t going to build up a long term relationship.

A few brands that do this really well are Howies and Staples. Howies communicate with their fans, their entire wall is a constant conversation. The fan pictures are terrific, you can tell that the people have really bought into the Howies’ brand. Staples appear to have a really strong presence and you can really see the enthusiasm people have. They’ve built some excellent third party apps as well – I Shred U enables users to delete embarrassing pictures of themselves.

If you are going to embark on Facebook ensure that there is a strategy or some kind of purpose. Is there the possibility of building up a strong community based around your products or services? Or are you running a marketing campaign that will be strengthened by a presence on Facebook? Most importantly, do you have the time to really make it work for you?

Just when no one thought technology could move forward any quicker Apple launched the iPhone. The effect of the iPhone on how we live can already been seen. It is crazy for me to think now that I looked online at Google Maps and printed out directions to where I was going. That’s almost as insane as me carrying an A-Z about all the time. Now I just happily type the destination into Google Maps on my phone, which tells me exactly where I am and guides me to where I need to go.

If I’m going to a party or a gig that I have been invited to on Facebook I don’t even need to remember the address, I can arrive at the nearest tube, vaguely in the vicinity and Facebook will conveniently link the address on the event page to Google Maps.

I’m off to see a new client and I never bothered to write down their telephone number, but I’m running late (not going to get lost because of Google Maps) so I simply visit their website and there is their number.

In fact, I never need to remember anything ever again. Aeroplane tickets are sent via email – on my phone. Train tickets – email me a number to use at the station to pick them up. Event tickets – soon to be bar code on my phone. Voucher coupons for my supermarket shopping – barcode on my phone. The possibilities are endless.

The most important point I’m trying to make is that my phone is now the centre of my entire existence. And thanks to apps (applications to download onto your phone) people are adding functionality to my phone everyday. This, plus the ridiculously easy to use interface, makes the iPhone probably the most useful item I have ever owned, by miles.

This is why we need to all take notice of how businesses can tap into this emerging market. How can marketers use this information to connect with consumers? By integrating mobile into every campaign and moving it to the centre of all of our thinking.

For further reading see:
Mobile Platform Status Report
Mary Meeker on the iPhone and Mobile Marketing

A few months ago I went to see a new online business with the view to working with a PR company, myself doing their social media. Unfortunately we didn’t win the work, they chose a PR agency with some large companies in their portfolio, who were big players in their industry.  Of course it was sad that we didn’t win the work (and I’m not going to name names btw!), but throughout the two meetings I had with them it really struck me how the impact of the internet has crept up on a lot of business people without them realising.

Their plan was to sell their service for, say, £25 and then sell products on behalf of another company. It seemed a lot of money when people wouldn’t be 100% sure of what they were getting. I worked hard at researching competitors, all of whom offered a similar service, but for free. The client said their service was better than all their competitors, which I had to take their word for.

In our final pitch meeting I tried to explain that their targets were unrealistic and that they would be hard pressed to pursuade enough people to spend the money.  The internet is a crowded place and throwing money at something won’t make it a success. In a futile attempt to win the account I tried to explain why Spotify is such a success – they allow people to try before they buy. They offer their customers the option of paying a monthly subscription with no adverts or they can have the service for free, but with adverts. People realise what a great service it is and consider paying a monthly fee. Some people don’t mind the adverts, so they continue with the free service, which is still great for Spotify.

(Sadly, Spotify now only offer the service free with an invitation. But this is because they were so successful!)

Now they sell music as well, which they make extremely easy to buy. They built mobile applications on both the iPhone and Android platforms. They could well beat illegal downloads and save the music industry (maybe I’m getting a bit carried away!).

The point of the Spotify story was to show them that people online will spend money, but first they need to trust the company they’re buying from. The internet is so overcrowded with various services that people don’t give a lot of thought to something and certainly won’t spend money on something they’re not sure about.

Number one rule if you’re starting an online business – be prepared to give things away for free. If your product is good enough people will spend money with you.

In the 1990′s, many businesses built their first website.  It included details of what their business did, why they were great and how to contact them.  In other words it was a copy of their corporate brochure.  As the web grew, business owners and marketing managers were left wondering why their sites weren’t generating any business.

The problem was that most of these sites were aimed at all the key target audiences – clients, potential clients, potential employees, potential investors, suppliers etc.  A company would have several different brochures aimed at each target market and different literature for employees and suppliers.  It makes sense to target each audience differently as they have different needs and so the messages are specific for each one.

So how do you target your website at all your different audiences?  Put simply, you don’t.  A website isn’t a brochure, it’s a website and people use websites differently from a brochure.  The majority of people online will visit social networking sites, like Facebook, or read news sites.  These are sites that are useful to them, they will return to these sites many times in a day, have them favourited and easy to access, possibly have them on their mobiles as well.

So businesses need to consider why someone would visit their site repeatedly, especially if they are not selling anything online.  They need to create a site that is a hub of industry focussed information, which in turn will reflect their knowledge and expertise.  It will also build up their online presence, adding value to their brand.  It will open up communications with their core audiences, building trust.

A website should not replace a brochure, a brochure can still be an important selling tool.  It doesn’t necessarily have to be in a printed format, it can be sent as an email newsletter, but it is still the most effective way of targeting a specific audience with a targeted message.

Writing the meta data for your website can be one of the most laborious tasks, but it is also one of the most important parts of launching any new site or improving your existing site.

There are three types of meta data that relate directly to search engine optimisation (SEO). They are:

• Title tag/Page title: this is the title that your browser will give to the page. It is also the first port of call for the search engines when they examine your site. It tells them exactly what your page is about. Search engines use this title in your listing.
• Meta description: this should compliment your page title and give a little more detail about the content of the page. Search engines use this description in your listing.
• Meta keywords: keyword stuffing used to be a common ‘trick’ for getting your site to rank highly on Google and as a consequence the meta keywords were given a much smaller significance.  In essence they are a way of telling search engines which keywords your page is relevant to.

The reason the page title is the most important is that it holds the highest relevance for search engines, so make sure that each page has a unique page title that explains exactly what that page is about and remember to keep it brief. I always like to put the name of the company in the title to help build brand recognition in the listings on Google.

For example, a site called Clothesonline will have a page title for its blue jeans of:

Blue denim jeans – Clothesonline

For the black jeans page:

Black denim jeans – Clothesonline

And so on – it really is that simple, but very effective.