Posted by Lesley-Anne at 23 February , 2010

In my last blog I talked about why using social networking sites can be such powerful business tools and why thinking in terms of ‘conversations’ rather than ‘campaigns’ is so important. I also looked at some of the most influential social networking sites on the market today, in particular Twitter and LinkedIn.

In this blog I want to start building on these themes and explore two more important social network sites that should be considered as part of your overall business profile raising strategy. These are Facebook and Tube Mogul.

Facebook

The rise of Facebook has been phenomenal by any standard and despite some negative publicity relating to parental control and occasional misuse; the site owners have recently tightened up their act and made Facebook an extremely powerful tool. Incredibly, if Facebook were a country it would be the 8^th most populated in the world, just ahead of Japan with approximately five billion minutes spent by users on Facebook every day.

Until very recently I tended to view Facebook as purely a ‘social’ site, using it mainly as a way of keeping in touch with my son who is overseas, and the thought of using it for business purposes never occurred to me. However, Facebook is actually more versatile than you might think and there are some useful features for business and professional purposes that should be considered as part of any overall social networking strategy.

In essence a Facebook page should be viewed as a customisable presence for any business or organisation and therefore as another mechanism to raise awareness of a brand or service. The ‘Wall’ tab can be used as the central point for new information and new content where ‘fans’ can also contribute. ‘Fans’ in the business context are all potential advocates of your brand and should always be considered as such.

The tab structure of Facebook provides the facility to organise information in a structured way so topics like events, reviews and discussions can all be arranged in a way that is easy to navigate. Facebook, like other social networking sites, is all about creating a persona on the web, regardless of whether it is a ‘personal’ persona or a ‘business’ persona. One of the best ways to demonstrate your company’s personality is by using specific applications like the ‘extended info app’. This app allows you to create things like question and answer categories which can be created specifically for business purposes. The key to success is making the content topical, interesting, creative and accessible.

These ideas are only the tip of the iceberg, however. The key message is to think creatively of how Facebook can be used as a business tool to attract viewers to your products and services through a communication medium that is easy on the eye, easy to navigate and easy to understand

Tube Mogul

If you are looking for an application to distribute your videos across your various social media sites then ‘TubeMogul’ is definitely worth a visit. In order to reap the benefits of this site you will firstly need to set up accounts with all your existing video sources and then link them into Tube Mogul. Once you have done that you can use the facility of TubeMogul to distribute your videos. So what exactly is Tube Mogul?

Basically Tube Mogul claims to be the first online “video analytics and distribution company” serving publishers who need independent information about video performance on the Internet. It also provides an automated upload to the top video sharing sites currently on the web including: YouTube, Vimeo, Blip TV, DailyMotion and Viddler.

Tube Mogul’s web site states that its analytic technology aggregates video-viewing data from multiple sources to give publishers an improved understanding of when, where and how often their videos are watched. It also tracks and compares what’s hot and what’s not, measures the impact of marketing campaigns, gathers competitive intelligence, and enables the sharing of data with colleagues or friends.

In my next blog I’m going to take a look at two more useful social networking sites – Ping.fm and Postlater.com – until then, see you in cyberspace!

Don’t forget that if you want any further information on any of the above topics then please do get in touch. On The Go is already helping successful businesses implement their social networking strategies from helping them set up a consistent company profile through to scheduling their media messages giving them a 24/7 web presence.

Tags: Advocates, Business Context, Business Profile, Business Purposes, Business Tools, Campaigns, Conversations, Facebook, Five Billion, Japan, Linkedin, Mogul, Negative Publicity, Networking Strategy, Parental Control, Presence, Professional Purposes, Social Media, Social Networking Sites, Themes, Twitter
Posted in: Social Media | 1 Comment »

Posted by Lesley-Anne at 10 February , 2010

Sometimes even the experts get it completely wrong. In the same way that very few people managed to predict the phenomenal growth of the internet, today it is ‘social networking’ that is taking the on-line world by storm. Social networking is a catch all phrase for the way we use the internet to communicate socially and is one of the fastest growing trends in the computing industry.

Even a year or two ago social networking was still in its infancy and most of the websites that offered this facility were considered as nothing more than time wasters for teenagers. How things have changed! Today websites like “Facebook”, “My Space” and “You Tube” are considered to be mainstream applications and are only the tip of a rapidly growing iceberg that business is just waking up to.

So why exactly should businesses take an interest? The answer is simple if you take notice of the figures. Today two thirds of the global internet population visit social networks and it is the fourth most popular online activity, which incredibly, makes it more popular than email. In short, if your business is not operating in the social networking ‘space’ then it is not being seen. By utilising the power of social networking as an essential part of your marketing mix, and as part of a wider strategy, your business can be made accessible and visible across the globe 24/7. It can open doors to new customers and new sectors of the community and will also keep your business at the cutting edge of this revolution in communication.

Choosing which social networking sites to adopt is the first challenge. From humble beginnings the pioneers of social media have grown to staggering proportions but their dominance is now being challenged by new social media sites launching at the rate of approximately five per week. With this amount of new opportunity opening up it might seem difficult to know which sites to focus on so the best option is to start with some of the more established social networking sites. Let’s take a look at some of the market leaders.

Since its creation in 2006 by Jack Dorsey, Twitter, more than any other social networking site is considered the front runner. So what exactly is ‘Twitter’? In essence it is an “instant” messaging channel that allows you to spread your message, whatever that might be, within the constraints of 140 characters (which can shortened by subscribing to http://bit.ly.  The number of ‘tweets’ that are posted now average 27.3 million per day and rise significantly when a major news story unfolds. For example, when Michael Jackson died the explosion of tweets temporarily shut the Twitter site down with over 22% of all tweets related to the announcement of his death.

LinkedIn was founded in late 2002 by Reid Hoffman and has steadily grown in popularity reaching 55 million members in over 200 countries. It is more business focused than other social networking sites and is an excellent place to start if you want to create a business profile. It is a very easy site to navigate around, provides the opportunity to make recommendations and allows you to link up with friends and colleagues who you may have lost touch with.

So both Twitter and LinkedIn are social networking sites that are worth looking into as part of your overall marketing strategy but a word of warning first – don’t just jump in and start selling. It is a mistake that a huge number of businesses make and, believe me, nothing will turn people off as much as blatant sales chat. In the world of social media you need to stop thinking of the online community as prospective clients and be a little more creative. Instead, you need to learn from the experts – the people who are reaping enormous successes from using social media – by adopting a very important principle and it is this. Stop thinking ‘campaigns’ and start thing ‘conversations’. The online community is just that – a community, and communities are all about open and honest communication and interaction. The best way to raise your profile therefore is simply by raising interesting topics of conversation and posing questions. Don’t even consider ‘making a sale’ just be as interesting and engaging as possible. Getting people to listen to what you have to say is the key to success. The sales will follow naturally in time.

So the message is clear. Firstly, wake up and join the social networking revolution before your competitors beat you to it. Secondly, have a clear strategy so that you are clear about what you want to achieve and how you are going to achieve it. Thirdly, choose the social media that best meets your needs and fourthly – as the title of this blog makes clear – think ‘conversations’ rather than overt ‘campaigns’.

Don’t forget that if you want any further information on any of the above topics then please do get in touch. On The Go is already helping successful businesses implement their social networking strategies from helping them set up a consistent company profile through to scheduling their media messages giving them a 24/7 web presence.

In the next blog we are going to cover some more important social networking sites and how they can be used to grow your business and grow your profile. So do come back soon!

Tags: Campaigns, Conversations, Cutting Edge, Dominance, Humble Beginnings, Infancy, Internet Population, Internet Today, Mainstream Applications, Marketing Mix, Networking Space, Phenomenal Growth, Pioneers, Sectors, Social Media, Social Networking Sites, Social Networks, Staggering Proportions, Teenagers, Time Wasters, Two Thirds
Posted in: Social Media | No Comments »

Posted by Lesley-Anne at 13 October , 2009

I decided to take some time out and go through emails I had marked up as “read in the future” and came across two  posts by bizSugar - http://www.bizsugar.com/outframe/five-financial-rules-for-starting-a-business/ and http://www.bizsugar.com/outframe/101-small-business-mistakes-and-what-you-can-learn-from-them/ the content of which made me realise how much valuable information they contained.

As a self-employed person I am always looking for ways to improve my services, what can I add and what should I get rid off.  I subscribe to numerous newsletters but very rarely get to read them all the way through. It’s a bit like going to a website – if after a few seconds nothing leaps out at me I come out of it.  However in doing so – what piece of valuable information have I missed?

There are some very useful tips in the above two posts on starting up a business (wish this post had come out two years ago!) and in the second it was somehow refreshing to read that we all make mistakes no matter how large or small our business is.

So take time out to read the newsletters you have subscribed to – you never know what snippet of information you might come across that will benefit you and your business.

Tags: newsletters
Posted in: On The Go Blog | 1 Comment »

Posted by Lesley-Anne at 4 August , 2009

The past couple of weeks have been interesting and frustrating!
 

Interesting because I did my first Podcast with Jules Addison of 4 Part Music Ltd All I had to do was provide plenty of coffee and cakes! I was very impressed with the set up and Jules and I have agreed to do further Podcasts on various topics as and when the mood takes us!  On The Go – Podcast 1  Also Chris Hatch of Zedoary put my blog on to my website so I now have to learn all about WordPress ……each and every day I learn something new!

Frustrating because I am literally “hacked off” with spammers and the like intruding my social media space.  Be warned if you get a pop-up menu from Windows System Suite do NOT take any notice of it. If you are unlucky and it has infected your machine then go to Remove Windows System Suite and follow the guidelines.  Likewise Twitter has been driving me mad with people popping up here, there and everywhere that I am not following.  Emails notifying a client that they need to change their password and then the link they provide not working, resulting in the account being out of action.  It never ceases to amaze me that there are people out there who obviously have nothing better to do than cause havoc!  Rant over – but seriously a lot of time has been wasted trying to sort out one social intrusion or another.

Most amusing day was last Thursday when I went to my first FSB meeting.  Well that wasn’t amusing – it was business – but afterwards Mike Palmer and Jules Addison came to join me after the meeting so Mike could take some photos of me.  Thanks to Chris Slay and Jules Addison there was plenty of laughter so some very natural photos were taken. 

Tags: Frustration, Interesting, Media, Social, Twitter
Posted in: On The Go Blog | No Comments »