Tasha Harrison

Back in the day, before Facebook and Google, a website was no more than a catalogue.  Generally it generated little business, but made the company appear professional and was usually no more than a supporting sales tool.  Now a corporate website is the cornerstone of any company’s marketing and sales. It is often the first place a potential customer will go once your sales people have made an initial appointment.  Most websites now generate a fair few leads for companies.

In the past couple of years it has no longer become enough for a company just to have a website.  People no longer access the internet through search engines alone, they use social networks, instant messenger, forums and blogs.  Some people now access the internet via their games console and mobile phone.  For businesses this increases the opportunities to communicate with potential and existing customers.

It is, therefore, key for companies to have a presence where their customers are ‘hanging out’ online.  Find out where your customers are and create a presence in that place, whether it be a fashion forum if you’re selling jewellery, or a business forum if you’re selling corporate gifts.  And you don’t need to sell yourself too hard, just join in the discussion and the leads will come.

Last week Rupert Murdoch announced that his newspapers would start charging for online content.  One of the main challenges News Corp will face is that the majority of their competition is offering the same product for free.  All of the big UK newspapers have free content, so the only hope that Murdoch has of making money is that either people are willing to pay for his content, or that his competitors start charging as well.  His belief may be that eventually other newspapers will realise that they have to charge in order to make any money and that his decision will save the industry.

The big problem facing newspapers is that people can read news online for free.  They no longer have to buy a newspaper to find out what’s happening in the world.  The online news is more up to date, sometimes instant.  The way people receive news is changing, the internet offers real time information.  Blogging and micro-blogging are creating a whole new type of journalism, where anyone can report an event almost instantaneously.  Blogs give us the opinions of not only a selected few journalists, but of regular people, not influenced by editors who need stories that sell.

In his book, Flat Earth News, Nick Davies explains how Fleet Street has become increasingly corrupted by the need to make money.  Fewer journalists covering less space has led to a greater reliance on news and PR agencies, which has led to the rapid deterioration of the quality of our news.

The internet has simply highlighted the plight of an industry already struggling.  The same news stories are repeated across all the major news outlets, usually taken from the same copy written by a single journalist at the associated press.  Many people now receive their news through a Google newsfeed on their iGoogle homepage or from a real time micro-blogging feed such as Twitter.  With sites such as the BBC able to offer free news as a public service, online newspapers don’t really stand much of a chance in the longterm. But far from being the fault of the internet, it is simply their inability to react to a fast changing world.

Read “Is Murdoch’s Plan to Charge for Online News Doomed?” for an excellent insight into how the subscription system could work.

If ever I saw the benefits of social media for a brand it was last night and today via Twitter. I live at the end of a half mile lane in the Sussex countryside (at the moment). Recently some BT engineers were spotted undertaking some work at the bottom of the lane, a few hours later our broadband went down. A stressed phonecall to my neighbour, who is a web designer, revealed that our landline numbers had changed. The BT engineers had somehow got the wires crossed!

From this address we currently run four businesses, two of which are online based, so this obviously caused massive problems. After some heated discussions with BT personnel in a call centre we were promised normal service by the end of play the following day.

Once I had recovered from my anger I decided to test BT’s customer service and, knowing that they were one of the biggest brands to venture onto Twitter, I tweeted my disgust.  This is the tweet: “Little rant about the idiots at BT: not only have they cut off our internet but they’ve changed our phone number! So annoyed, not surprised.”

The following day, once I had got my internet back I found this from @BTCare: @TashaHarrison Oh dear this does not sound good at all, Can I help you?

It might have come after the problem was fixed, but it made me feel like they were listening. It also delighted me that I was part of a successful internet marketing strategy by a massive brand.

If anyone ever doubts the power of Twitter and the role it can play in customer service then think about how easy it was for them to make me feel better about their company. It doesn’t take long to monitor the internet and then say a few kind words.

Previously we’ve seen what social media is and how it can help people meet online. It can also work for your business. This fantastic video demonstrates how this is possible.

Social Media in Plain English by Lee Lefever

In essence social media is simply sites that are social.  These include social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter, and any kind of online community like a forum or a blog.

The reason social media is so important (and why the media talk about it constantly) is that it enables us to communicate with people who share our interests and passions via the internet. Before the internet people would join clubs and groups in order to meet people with similar interests. For some people this was difficult as there may not have been a group in their area. The internet enables us to meet people online more easily.

Sites like Facebook help you to meet up with old friends and acquaintances. MySpace helps new bands easily showcase their work online. Youtube enables people to share their videos.

There are many more sites that are aimed at smaller communities. LinkedIn is a networking site for business people across the world. It enables you to build a community by connecting with people you already know and their contacts as well. So if you go to a networking event and meet five people, all of whom are on LinkedIn, you can connect with them on the site and then have access to their networks.