Tasha Harrison

As we draw closer to the general election we should be prepared to be bombarded by the usual political marketing/propaganda. After the excitement of the Obama campaign we shouldn’t be mistaken for thinking that Cameron or Brown may look at how to leverage social media. It will be interesting to see how this pans out. Both have used Youtube, perhaps not very successfully, and Brown does have a Twitter account, as does his wife Sarah.

Perhaps one of the best examples of a politician’s use of social media is Andrew Marshall, the Councillor for Swiss Cottage. He has a blog and Twitter account in which he posts updates about key issues affecting his constituents. This has recently been highlighted by his reaction to the bad weather, where he has asked people to update him on road reports and problems he may not be aware of. He is not trying to sell people a political ideal, he is simply using social media as a tool to improve his communications and make him a better councillor. Essentially, he is building trust.

This is how far:

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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?

We’re all busy people, always have been. The most overused excuse in business is that people don’t have time. Which is why social networking seems like it’s going to take too much time to be worth it. Many people read about Twitter and LinkedIn and learn how great they are for their business, which they can be, but, having joined up and filled out their profiles, realise they don’t have enough time to really make the most of them. It can be pretty intimidating when you first get on Twitter and follow a few people. You’re not really sure what you’re supposed to do and you quickly realise that it’s not just a load of people talking about making tea, as many people suppose.

The most important thing when joining an online network is to make sure you’ve got enough time to invest in it and to ensure that it is the right network for you and your business. This can be a matter of trial and error, but if you invest the time at the beginning you will find that the benefits far outweigh the time it costs you.

This video reminds me of why I do what I do.  I constantly find it astonishing how powerful the internet is and how important social media has become in such a short space of time.  Enjoy!