Image via Wikipedia
Reading the rules the IOC is imposing on athletes competing at London 2012, makes me cry out loud. IOC, STOP and THINK. You are potentially challenging the largest consumer-powered communication engine to a fight to the death and I think I know who’ll win.
What is social media best known for – quick updates and fast thinking sound bites. Here’s what people accredited for the Games can do “…postings, blogs or tweets should be in a first-person, diary type format and should not be in the role of a journalist – i.e. they must not report on competition or comment on the activities of other participants or accredited persons.”
So I can say what I’m doing but not that I just beat someone else or noticed them eating, breathing or taking off an (unbranded) shirt.
All sounds unworkable and just too onerous – except that the threat of being chucked out and de-accredited may mean athletes decide just not to do any social media at all to be on the safe side.
As one commentator, Chris Matyszczyk, says
…the IOC might not yet understand the instant impulses that tweeting engenders. You grab your phone. You cradle your laptop. Out pop words whose speed is that of a Usain Bolt from the blue.
The long history of regulation and control of the Olympic branding and logo is well known (A client of ours, Rowperfect even got a “cease and desist” letter in 2000 for using a photo of an athlete in GB kit and mentioning that they trained using their product).
So the rules include the statement “Participants and other accredited persons must not use the Olympic Symbol – i.e. the five interlocking rings used alone on their postings, blogs or tweets on any social media platforms or on any websites.” You also can’t create a website with the word olympic in the URL but can create a sub-page like rowperfect.co.uk/olympics – for the duration of the games….till 15th August 2012. What’s the point? Make and leave a legacy not create and take down.
And above all there’s full personal legal liability AND the Games police will be watching from the Olympic offices www.olympicgamesmonitoring.com password protected and restricted access.
Read the full IOC Social Media Internet and blogging guidelines.
How big does your company need to be before you use marketing professionals?
For brands who are growing and becoming profitable there comes a time when you choose to professionalise your marketing. Many businesses decide at this point that they have two choices: to hire a staffer or to buy in expertise from an agency.
Why you need better marketing
The needs are clear – you want more traction with your marketing, you suspect that there are better ways of doing promotion and marketing to get inbound leads and you can afford a budget just for marketing. These are good signs.
You have identified clearly that your brand has a need and the possible shortcomings of your current set-up.
Hire versus buy: the dilemma
There are advantages and disadvantages – the internal member of staff will need to have well-rounded skills in a range of marketing disciplines (web, advertising, PR, copywriting, print design) and therefore a senior hire with this range of skills is more expensive than a junior.
Using an agency also requires decisions about their skills and area of expertise compared with the type of marketing and communications activity your brand has done in the past or plans to do in the future.
Costs are usually the determining factor
It may be less costly to hire external advisers compared to the cost of a senior member of staff – compare the full cost of hiring and paying (including office costs) a new senior marketer with the price an agency would charge you.
Have a couple of ‘chemistry’ or getting-to-know-you meetings with local marketing agencies and ask their advice. Also ask to speak to a couple of their recent clients to see if they also made the same transition.
A third option worth reviewing is using a freelancer. You don’t have the full hire costs of a full time person but can often get very experienced people at lower fee rates. Check out the freelance hire websites like eLance.com and Freelance.com, Freelancer.com and guru.com. I’ve successfully hired people for my agency and for clients using eLance.
Creative Agency Secrets has two current clients who use us for mentoring work. They hired a junior marketer and we speak weekly to review their work, priorities and give guidance. Could this work for you? Give us a call – we always offer a free 20 minute first call.
In the meanwhile here are a few other articles that may help you figure out what to do
- Advertising – do it yourself or hire
- Hire a PR firm or do it yourself?
- Do it yourself internet marketing, or hire
- Hubspot offers inbound marketing tutorials for people using its website / content marketing system.
- Read Creative Agency Secrets’ assessment of Hubspot and how to do it yourself
- SEO do it yourself or hire a professional
- Small Business marketing – DIY or hire a pro?
- Web design – do it yourself or hire someone
- DIY or hire a market research company?
What drive and destroys value in a Social Media experience? 50% of an experience is about emotion. Learn 7 strategic questions that must be addressed. Colin Shaw`
#beyphil
What is loyalty?
It’s an emotional attachment. ”I have this really great family, they’re a lot cheaper to run than your existing family – wanna swap?”
- Experience psychology – understanding
- Social media – personal, business, customer perspective
- Neuro Science – how this affects the customer experience
Focusing on the rational part of an experience is no longer sustainable e.g. price, product, quality. Technology is driving monetization teh key differentiator has to be around the experience you give your csustomers.
This is about rational PLUS how customers feel.
What is the experience you are trying to deliver?
What emotions are you trying to evoke in your customers? Loyalty is an emotional attachment. How can you pick out what customers really want? We know when Disney do customer research into what they want to eat at theme parks – they say they want salad but they don’t eat them… they choose hot dogs and hamburgers.
Your business does things for customers – you stimulate emotion – and that comes out in the response, in value.
What customers want + what drives value
Which emotions drive and destroy value?
www.beyondphilosophy.com for slides on Monday
]]>Here are the slides for the training course I’m running with the Otago Southland Employers Association.
First initiation was 10th February, next one Invercargill 24th February.
Please download and use for yourselves.
Image via Wikipedia
I met Lynnaire Johnston, Word Wizard at two recent networking events. You know when you bump into the same person within such a short space of time you should notice “coincidences” like that and take action.
So I phoned her up and found out more about what she does. Lynnaire helps businesses get noticed by writing dynamic online and offline marketing material. She particularly enjoys sharing information that helps businesses communicate more effectively with their clients through her Facebook page and her website .
She also kindly shared this document 50 Digg-Tactics for Internet marketers
Download it for yourself.
Image via Wikipedia
Devising appropriate ways to measure your social media campaign for new business development is key to proving that your work is delivering results.
Today we suggest some ways to measure the success of your work
- The number of Followers on Twitter
- The number of Fans on Facebook Fan Pages, Events
- The number of tweets & RTs on Twitter
- The number of Shares & Likes on Facebook
- The ratio between Followers-Friends
- The authority of the people that follow you
- The authority of the people that share your content
- The average quality of your previously shared messages
- The number of unique mentions/shares (similar to Link Diversity)
- The rate and the source of links that you share
Moreover search engines are expected to use Social Media buzz to determine:
How fresh a particular post is
If an page is still useful/valid/up-to-date
What are the current trends
Which terms are related to the particular post. They are likely to use the keywords and the hash tags that can be found in the content of the shared messages.
The theme or the topic of expertise of each author. Users that tend to post high quality messages about a particular topic are likely to be considered as experts. Bing already uses this feature by recommending users on Twitter.
This is a guest post by Kath Pay from The Email Academy. She will publish another 3 articles over the next few weeks.
For most companies, your database is essential and list growth is one of your key aims. Ideally the subscription process needs to be as easy as possible – my mantra for building a quality list is: ‘Make it easy – and they will subscribe’ (with thanks to the movie, Field of Dreams for inspiration). So let’s have a look at some of the most common barriers which can prevent your list from growing at a healthy rate.
1. Assuming that your all signup procedures are still working and in place. When was the last time you actually went through the entire signup procedure? Not just to reassure yourself that all the links work correctly (it’s surprising how many sites I’ve visited that have this problem), but also to check on the ‘Friendliness’ of the procedure. It’s advisable to schedule a 3 monthly check up with all of your points of subscription and make sure all function as they should.
2. Only advertising your signup on your website. Don’t forget there are many other places and mediums which lend themselves to promoting your newsletter or email sign up. Some of them include:
- Social media pages such as Twitter, Linkedin, Facebook etc
- Company blog
- Transactional process
- Customer Service/support
- POS (Point of Sale) customer forms
- POS registration by salespeople
- Events, Trade Shows, Networking Events, Webinars etc
- Also – Don’t forget to add FTAF (Forward to Friend) and SWYN (Share with Your Network) tools to your email communications.
3. Not having explicit permission. Ok -so legally you may be covered (depending upon the legislation of the country you’re sending from and mailing to) and your list growth may zoom, but using methods such as pre-ticked checkboxes and ‘conjunction’ acquisition (subtly adding a clause to your T&C’s or Privacy Policy) methods will generally only result in a short term list growth and possibly cause deliverability problems due to the number of spam complaints you receive.
4. Not stating the benefits. Why should they sign up to receive email communications from you? State these benefits clearly and up front. Write the copy with the subscriber in mind. They will be looking to see ‘What’s in it for me? Think of it as a value exchange. What are you giving them in exchange for their valuable data? If you don’t have the available room to do this at the point of subscription consider linking to a page which provides you with more room to fully state the benefits.
5. Not providing enough value within the value exchange. If your subscription form tends to look like an insurance form, chances are that you’re asking for too much information. If your aim is to grow the list, you may have to consider which is more valuable to you – fewer subscribers with more data or more subscribers with less data? A nice compromise is a two-step form. On the first page you simply ask for their email address and possibly their name (or whatever data is absolutely essential) and then after they click subscribe, they are then taken to a landing page which could be their Preference Centre. Using some wonderful copy i.e. ‘ in order to enhance your experience, we’d love to find out some more about you….’ you then incentivise them to fill in the empty fields – however, make it clear that this is not compulsory and that it is for the subscribers benefit and you may be surprisingly pleased with the results.
6. Using a stereotypical, bland Call-To-Action (CTA). What’s wrong with standing out in a crowd? The below example comes from www.whichtestwon.com, with the results being that Version A increased signups by 23%. Test your CTA and find out what works best for you and your product/offering.
7. Not asking the subscriber to whitelist. Requesting that the subscriber whitelist you or add you to their contacts used to be beneficial, but now with the Gmail’s Priority Inbox and Hotmail’s inbox changes and with the other ISPs soon to follow suit, it will soon be an essential element to your subscription process. Ideally it should be requested on the Thank you page after subscribing, the Welcome email, as well as within all future emails. The trick is to make it easy for them and give them full instructions on how to do it (taking them to a landing page). It could look something like:
Please add name@companyname.com to your email address book or safe senders list. Click here for instructions how to do this.
8. Not setting expectations. What are you going to be sending them? Can you show them an example? How often will they be hearing from you? These are all questions the subscriber will be looking to find answers for. Again – if space is limited, link to a page which outlines all of these, along with an example of an email they can look forward to be receiving and/or past archives if it’s a newsletter.
9. Hiding the subscribe form on your homepage and not having the subscribe form on every page of your website. We all know that the website’s homepage is prime real estate and you have to fight for space within it, however, having the subscribe link/form below the fold isn’t doing anyone any favours – least of all your aim to grow your list. Ideally the subscribe form/link needs to be placed above the fold on the homepage and don’t stop there – add it to every page. Remember our mantra – ‘Make it easy – and they will subscribe’.
10. Not flaunting your Privacy Policy. Reassure your potential subscribers. Spell it out in plain English. Be transparent. If you aren’t going to share their data with a third party – then flaunt it! State this right next to the email field. It could look something like this: ‘Don’t worry – we respect your data and won’t share it with anyone else. Read our Privacy Policy’. Be sure to link to your Privacy Policy again on the Thank you page as well as within every email that is sent.
11. Not optimising your Landing/Thank you Page. Your landing page is an often neglected afterthought in the subscription process. However, it can make or break a relationship with a new subscriber. Continue as you started – make it easy. Have everything your subscriber needs for a wonderful experience with your brand within reach on this landing page. Don’t let it become a dead end. Where would they like to go next? Suggest something to them. Maximise this opportunity to delight and help them.
12. Not testing. Testing is essential for your subscribe form(s)and landing page(s). Don’t just accept that the ‘norm’ works for you and your company. Your company’s subscribers are the best people to judge as to what works. Test factors such as; placement, copy, number of fields, one page form VS two page form, landing page elements etc. This can be easily achieved by using Google’s Optimizer which allows you to set up multiple forms/landing pages and will disperse the different pages to your readers. You can then check the reports to see which form/page succeeded in more conversions.
T: @kathpay
E: @ kpay @ theemailacademy.com
There have been a few good quesitons around recently with Public Relations agencies in particular seeking ideas for competitions that can run on Twitter.
Running a competition is a good way of building new followers for social media communication channels – it also helps for brand awareness. A contest doesn’t need to be expensive, or complex but the prize must fit the audience and be desirable.
Here are a few suggestions for Twitter contests:
- Short story – include an opening, middle and end in 140 characters
- Announce a photo theme and get uploaded photos on the theme
- Trivia question – allow funny, serious and absurd answers
- Buy a product and announce the invoice number on Twitter to enter a contest for a free prize
- Threadless tweet submisssion for printing on a t-shirt
- Collaborative songwriting / include your phrase or name in a song
- Joke sharing like the #bandfoodpuns on May 17th
- Munich beer contest to promote an expo – visit site and when the beer glass is empty the last person to RT the URL wins
Some marketing management suggestions
- Hashtag# the contest so you can track entrants
- Unique phrase with retweeting gets topics trending
- Contest entry added to follower request builds a following/community
- Use the contest to relaunch your twitter identity
- Frequent $100 prizes beat a big $500 prize
- Short deadline contests create urgency
Twitter competition prize ideas
- money
- music album downloads
- free product from your company
- a digital gadget – camera, phone, MP3 etc
- gift card from a recognised store
- a free service from your company
- a trip
- pay for a service for them from the winner’s favourite supplier (massage, haircut, car wash, online data backup, membership of a group / team fanclub)
- Music prizes – albums, concert tickets,
An example of a current twitter competition
Take a look a the Social Media Experiment at Glastonbury 2010 running now which I learnt about from the Chinwag group on LinkedIn.
The Social Media Experiment will take place on Friday the 25th June between 1pm & Midnight, and will feature a number of comedians, musicians, performance artists and live shows incorporating social media and interactive web technologies. the prize is the chance to perform live on stage at Glastonbury
In order to win, visitors to the site are asked to join the competition group on Facebook and post a link to prove that they are a in a band, an artists etc. The winning act will then be chosen from the group at random in this ‘flash mob’ style competition.
This question is a great one and was prompted by a reader enquiry (thanks Kate). Many agencies seeking to integrate social channels into their campaigns want to know whether they can charge their clients for the work.
Our view is that this should be a chargeable service that you can provide.
First check a couple of things
- Does the client have a PR agency? (they may be better suited to doing the work)
- Is there anyone on the client side team who is already an active social media user? (Could you train them up)
And so here are a few things to think about when considering your proposal and pricing
- Social media coverage is often time intensive and so a per hour fee may make it look expensive, consider a retainer or success fee combined with per hour billing
- Learn how to use as many ‘time saving’ applications as possible (Google alerts, Tweetdeck, TweetLater) so you can cover several client social media brand accounts simultaneously
- Offer a strict time-limited service so staff don’t over-do the time spent on social media. Set up alarms so they know when to stop work.
- Transfer your skills into the client organisation as ‘training’ – you can charge more for this
- Ensure you set the strategy for social media execution and specify this work separately and charge appropriately
Any other advice you can offer?
Other resources
Five things to ask a social media agency before working with them (FreshNetworks)
Social Media Group has a template RFP for brands looking for a social media service partner (Social Media Group)
Related articles
- Social Media RFP: Ask the Right Questions, Find the Right Partner (socialmediatoday.com)
- How PR Pros Are Using Social Media for Real Results [Mashable] (joshdilworth.com)
- Twitter for Business (slideshare.net)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=b8fe865e-6547-4123-8e5b-420b293e1d2d)
The Independent’s business extra pull out from Tuesday has journalist Kate Hilpern writing about how social media is the perfect new way to get your products “across to customers”.
What on earth does that mean?
Well her quotes are from some nice statistics and some new factoids I didn’t know e.g. Linked In is helpful for SEO. And congratulations to Lucie Bickerdike who as a lowly AE succeeded in getting quoted amongst titans of her competitor companies.
She got hired from a Tweet. How ‘of the moment’!
]]>