In traditional media context it was all about circulation; the numbers mattered. Or did they?  For many, traditional media and particularly print offered the tangible approach. You could look, touch and feel your marketing efforts.  This was seen as a way a business could reach out and build that valued connection.  There is a great emphasis for many with traditional media on tangible elements.  As a customer we could touch the advert in the newspaper or printed media.

When it comes to social media it could be argued that the non tangible aspects are the crucial elements. Within online engagement many businesses are not allowing the penny to drop and when it does drop will it be just too late?  Will they have missed a fundamental opportunity to engage and build a relationship with their customer online?    Of course it’s one thing to be talking about building the relationship but sustaining it long term online and ensuring it blossoms into a valued connection could be perhaps the biggest bridge to cross.  It’s in our human DNA.  Let’s face it we’re social people, and we need to have a connection with other people.  It’s this social aspect which those businesses & brands need to be seeking ways to build a connections with customers and stop using and seeing the online experience as a faceless transaction.  Those businesses that give the transaction a personality are on the first step to building the connection.

Building a connection takes time, building a valued connection takes even longer, but it’s the valued connection which will benefit both the consumer and the business the most.

As a business, if we consider Social Media as a low cost, quick marketing ploy to drive new sales for our businesses we are almost certainly going to fail.  Building a relationship online has no real difference to building a relationship offline.

Now I know there will be people reading this blog who don’t agree with this statement.  But what we do need to remember is that we now live in a environment where each and every one of us communicates differently than our parents did.  As business owners we need to find ways to actively engage in this new form of connection, which will ultimately result in helping our business to succeed and build out online customer base.

Follow me on Twitter: @waynedenner

Well put simply, you cant…You can try all you want to get your IT Department to lock down access to Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and other popular social media platforms,but what benefit will it have. With the explosive growth of Smartphones, users now have a new way to access content and social media platforms on the move.

Right about now senior managers and CEOs eyes start to roll.. Not having control of their brand or businesses communication message is a big problem. The communication game has moved to a whole new level, now more than ever, everyone and every employee have a voice and what’s more they have a channel in which to communicate that voice to a sizable if not global audience.

Businesses need to understand this.

Businesses & organisations need to look at ways to harness the power of social media and look at the potential benefits enabling social media within the workplace as a form of communication.

I’ve given 5 pointers which organisations need to consider & implement to ensure social media within the workplace is working for them:

1. Strategy is key – within any businesses or organisations strategy plays an important role in how the business meets it goals or objectives. Social Media needs a strategy, many businesses are confused just to what a social media strategy is their business and how they implement. That being said the strategy will ultimately depend on what and where the businesses is hoping to get with their social media.
2. Training is fundamental – the digital landscape is changing all the time and many businesses jump on the social media bandwagon for the sake of it, or perhaps because everyone else is using it. Staff at all levels within the businesses need to be aware of social media, its benefits and indeed its drawbacks, everyone from the CEO right down to junior and new members of staff need to receive training. Social media has become such a core way in which we communicate not only within work but also outside of work on our own time that it is vital employees and businesses understand what discussions are acceptable and which are not, how they can benefit and also affect the business in which they operate in. Starting by making employees aware of the boundary between public and private spaces will help with selecting the right medium to communicate with their customers.
3. Respect Privacy – We live in a society now more than ever where things we come across we share – just look at the explosion of Pinterest and how it has changed the game for how we share content online. Many of the comments which we send out are to public spaces like Google + or Twitter which are indexed by Google meaning they WILLl appear in search results. If you are reposting or resharing make sure the original source has allowed you to do so, always exercise caution and respect the privacy of users within your community or space.
4. Have a Social Media Policy – it amazes me how many businesses or organisations today still don’t have a social media policy or guidelines – IT’S ESSENTIAL. In its simplest format a social media policy will help clear any grey areas between an employee and employer on what is and what’s not acceptable when using or engaging with social media. There is no one type fits all when it comes to social media policy and depending on the size & nature of the business will determine the policy needed.
5. Take care when mixing personal and professional – There is nothing worse personally as a consumer of online activity of coming across company jargon on social media platforms What I am referring to here is company speak and the use of company lingo to communicate with your customers or audience. As humans we like to feel when we engage socially online we are engaging with another human therefore your communication needs to have personality. For many businesses and brands when they move online they seem to lose their personality so much so that they run the risk of becoming not authentic to their customers. Just as we spoke earlier in the blog that the strategy is key it’s at this point in which we must determine what the company’s personality is online and just how it should be communicated.

There are of course other areas which need to be considered in relation to social media and its usage within the workplace but one thing that is for sure – Social Media is here to stay, its been a fundamental shift in the way we communicate both personally and professional and also the way we do businesses –it can’t be ignored and is an area which businesses both small and large need to hae a clear understand of.

The big change for many businesses, brands & marketeers using the social media platform is that Facebook is getting rid of default landing tab on its pages landing tabs specifically the default landing tab have proved very useful for many businesses, brands, products & indeed services as away to increase likes on their page prompting a call to action via the custom landing tab. All however is not lost and I for one have begun to like many of the new developments which they have started to roll out with this new update. Facebook it seems has taken this step to allow brands a new way to deliver more focused content to their audience which helps convey the overall brand message. Now for Facebook this is all relevant how? Well the latest set of changes now allows Facebook more than ever to fit into the greater marketing communication plan of the Brands & Products who are using it.

So what can we expect with the new changes I’ve picked out 3 of the changes which have made an improvement.
1. Cover Image
This is one of the core changes to the new Facebook Pages. Many of us have already begun to use this feature on our personal pages and guess what its being rolled out on pages too. Brands & Businesses have one big image to showcase what they are all about, lets face it the cover image will be the first thing your visitor see when landing on your page. Below is an example of how Red Bull has embraced the cover image feature.

2. Applications
More new applications have become available but as mentioned earlier the default landing tab has been removed but no need to panic if you have created a custom welcome tab they are still there along with any other applications which you may have added. The new changes allows for up to 12 applications to be shown with up to four appearing on the main area below the cover image. Personally I feel the new position of the Apps will make it easier for users to engage with the content provided giving better exposure to competitions and possible and guess if you had previously created one you can still include your welcome tab – a sigh of relief for many.

3. Milestones
Just as in our life & in our personal Facebook profiles we can now create and set Milestones. If used correctly Milestones have the potential to be of huge benefit to brands as they begin to personalise themselves for their users. Milestones will allow then to create and tell people about events both small and big in the life of the Brand or Business. Another reason they are of benefit milestones allow users to follow a brand journey experience and take a step back and a look at milestones which have been achieved or watch for those yet to happen.

For all page owners once the 30th March arrives the change over will take place automatically which will present a whole host of new opportunities for brands to engage. Facebook has said that the new pages will help businesses, organisations and brands a new opportunity to share their stories and connect with their users. I see this as a new way for Brands & Businesses alike to see these changes as a  unique opportunity to engage followers in a new way and making them become part of the businesses or brands journey, feeling better connected and part of an experience which can only help the business or brand prosper.

If we step back in time, say 12 years ago, most of us should be able to remember the Internet was a much different place in terms of digital marketing and online advertising. Back then advertising such as banner advertisements and email marketing were pretty much all we were exposed to.

Lets, for a second, take a look at email marketing and how for many of us, our inboxes are being consumed by vast amounts of none relevant messages, which we aren’t remotely interested in. For me, and I’m sure for many, the sheer amount of junk mail received can be somewhat over whelming to say the least, so much so, we select and delete without even opening. So let’s look at long term relationship which businesses want with their clients. Are they really happening? Are the messages and advertisements simply washing over us? as they hit our inbox or display on screen. As marketers we are constantly searching and seeking out new ways to create channels in which to target consumers; but perhaps it’s a step back which is needed to really look at the message which we are sending to our customers, standing in their shoes and looking with their eyes.

Just as with our interactions offline we need to learn to forge and build relationships with our customers online for our campaigns to really be effective.

Building relationships with customers is the crucial and critical component which needs to be at the core of every campaign. This takes time, time to research and learn what your customer wants, listening first is key.
Those brands, businesses that build relationships with their followers, fans or within their community are the ones who stand to benefit.

I come across way too many businesses that see Social Media & Digital Marketing as a quick fix towards marketing efforts. For most businesses there is no real gain in Social Media in the short term but those businesses that stick with it, build relationships and engage with their followers, fans or community online will see a real boost in their bottom line. As a businesses when a person likes your page engage with them as you would a real customer, take time to get to know them, listen to them and personalise your relationship. Following these steps should make the purchase pattern happen a lot easier as apposed to hitting them up with an offer or a discount as soon as they like your page.

Let’s be clear ‘Long Term Relationships built either offline or online equal Long Term Business & Returning Customers’.

Follow me on Twitter @waynedenner

Why is blogging important?
• It creates awareness – it gives your business more chance of being found online and makes you visible among search engines who just love content.
• Demonstrates the business or your authority, passion, expertise and experience in your business industry.
• It drives traffic to your website
• It refreshes or updates your website’s content on a regular basis; major search engines such as Google love nothing more than new content.
• It helps spread your business message beyond the reader by making it sharable on social media platforms such as Twitter & Facebook
• It shares links about your regular blogging and is another great way to drive traffic back to your website and for users to find out more about what you do – you could look at this as lead generation.

For many businesses the next questions can be “Where will we find the time?” or “What will we blog about?” . Here are a few tips which I have found helpful along the way..
• Blog regularly – When I started out blogging I won’t lie, it took it a little while to think about what it was I wanted to blog about and trying to make it interesting. Reading other blogs and getting ideas makes the process a little easier.
• Give your blog a personality
• Keep the topic relevant, picking something which is currently in the media or fashionable is always good
• Engage your reader
• Try to write it so that people can understand it, nice simple flow always works best – but people need to be able to read it.
• Don’t over think your blog & aim for 350-400 words
• Keep SEO in mind – use keywords as often as possible.
• Write in the same way you talk – let your blog be flowing, friendly & conversational

Now it’s your turn. Blogging is one of the most effective organic ways to improve your visibility on the web but blogging regularly will also help build trust with your customer. It will help you become a recognized voice in your industry which can and will open doors for your business.

These things are great, all fine in principal and have a role to play. But for many businesses actually approving any spend on this sort of marketing activity depends on what bottom line this will generate, if any. For me, many of the well known Brands and indeed those smaller businesses using the platform as part of their marketing efforts are missing the key element.. ‘Engagement’. Many of the pages which I visit just don’t engage with me as a consumer. I may go onto the page, have a quick look and then I’m gone without even liking it. Typical of the bounce rate on your website if you will. There are also those Brands who have used Facebook very effectively and run a campaign which has ticked all the boxes, and been engaging, only to let activity dwindle away to nothing once the campaign has finished. It’s one thing to ‘Build it and they will come’ but what about sustainment after the campaign?

To get it right and offer more rich engagement with your target audience, not just on Facebook, but other social platforms, it can’t all be a one way street. Businesses need to adopt a two-way communication process, which allows both the business and the consumer to engage. Way to many businesses are using Social Media as a way to Sell, Sell, Sell.. with very little, if any, listening to their customers.

Engagement is key not just during the campaign but ongoing.

Using social media as a way to communicate your businesses message can prove very effective if you are open to listening to your customer. Have a think about your actual quality of likes and what they mean to the ROI of your business. For me, I would rather have the businesses which has 2500 Likes or Followers (whichever platform your using) of which I am regularly engaging with the users, building relationships, and converting leads into sales than the page with 20,000 Likes with no return to my bottom line. Which category is your business in?

To sum up, as mentioned earlier in the blog, don’t get hung up on pushing out content with a sell, sell, sell approach on it. Nor focusing on increasing your number of Likes. Bottom line is, if you have good, engaging content this will naturally happen, likes or followers will increase organically as well users wanting to share content from your page. The rule of thumb is that ‘Content is still king’ so think about your customer base. Good content on your website and in your social platforms will reward you with stronger search engine rankings and most importantly higher conversation rates adding towards your businesses bottom line.

We like to keep our clients up to date on the latest marketing tips and tricks so if you want to find out more, let’s grab a coffee and discuss. Have a fantastic Christmas & New Year.
Follow on Twitter @waynedenner

No matter how wonderful your brand, product or service is, if you don’t advertise people wont know about it. Time and time again we hear companies saying ‘We don’t need to advertise, we’re doing well without it’ but not everyday is the same, especially in the current economical climate we are living in. Not every customer you serve today will come back for more tomorrow.

Here are 5 steps to get you thinking about advertising your brand, product or service this Christmas…

1. Research – But don’t just hop onto the World Wide Web (facebook & twitter included). Look at how & where your local competitors are advertising. What can you do better? Look at local press, local billboards. Ask all the customers you serve today a simple question like, what’s your favorite product? Collect adverts you’ve seen, even if there is only one thing you like about them.

2. Plan – A plan for any advertising campaign is essential. Doing this at the start will save you a lot of time and money throughout the overall project. How long do you want this campaign to last? Where do you want to advertise? How much money are you willing to spend? As this will help make sure every penny you spend is used correctly.

3. Engage – Many companies miss this out completely but this is most important as it’s where you connect with all your customers (both old and new) get feedback and MAKE MONEY! At this point if you’ve just thought about blowing up your company name to fit a 48sheet (3m x 6m) billboard for your next advertising campaign. Don’t expect a big turnover, Why? It’s just your name but bigger and that’s not engaging.

Engagement starts at the planning stages of your campaign. Tell customers and clients, that you are about to do something BIG (don’t tell them what exactly, obviously). This will create a positive buzz about your company even before you yourself, have thought about what exactly you want to advertise and could even lead to a mini campaign leading up to your big campaign.

The language you use should be creative and draw peoples attention. Using local slang, being blunt or even just ‘Thanking Betty at No.22 for coming in every Thursday for a paper and a pint of milk’. It all works and before you know it the whole town will be talking about YOUR BRAND PRODUCT or SERVICE because of YOUR NEW BILLBOARD.

4. Call of Action – You have less than 10 seconds to get you message across to your consumer. So forget addresses, phone numbers and opening times. This is where the online world comes in, web addresses, facebook and twitter mentioned anywhere on your campaign is enough to get your customers in BUT make sure your campaign follows through to them as well. It has to be consistent, and if you don’t already have a website, facebook or twitter page GET ONE, if you don’t know how? 10thstep is here to help!

QR codes (which have been introduced to the 10thstep service) are the newest way to engage immediately with your customers. I’ve seen them used recently in a lot of print adverts and I am a big fan. In advertising less is more, so always keep it simple.

5. The End – When your campaign is finished TAKE IT DOWN! Nobody wants to see an out of date, faded billboard. Your next campaign should be ready and waiting to go. Even if it is just a facebook/twitter competition, you need to keep those customers engaged with your brand, product or service.

Advertising doesn’t like to wait. Waiting loses you customers and money. So lets get together and see how 10thstep could help grow your business through your next advertising campaign.

Using social media to help market your business, product or brand has opened up a whole new channel of communication for businesses and one which needs to be listened to and tracked.  It has become a great way to increase the market reach of any business both locally and globally and is cost effective way for businesses of all sizes to engage with their target audiences and customers alike.

Social media platforms such as Twitter & Facebook have become an essential for businesses to listen, discover and learn just what their customers are talking about in relation to their products, services or indeed their brands.  It has also given those already monitoring these channels an insight into just what customers are saying about their products and services.  There are of course, other reasons why as a business you would want to monitor communication via social media in relation to your business, brand, products and services.  These include:

• Customer Service – Twitter in particular has become one of the real time platforms for customers to reach you and get answers.  In the past week alone we have used twitter as a way to get quick responses to queries.  We recently contacted a businesses support department via email and four hours later had still no response. We then contacted the same company via Twitter, had a response 3 minutes later and within 5 minutes the issue was resolved.  This example clearly shows that the company are constantly monitoring their social media channels, and were enabled to deal with our query and resolve it, resulting in another happy customer.
• Public Relations – Social Media has become the essential tool to communicate to the mass and quickly.  It has now been proved to be a crucial platform for Crisis Communication in real time situations.  Take the Volcanic Ash incident, which happened earlier this year in Iceland.  Generally this caused major issues for travellers, with flights being grounded and safety concerns.  However for the Airlines using social media to engage with their customers  offering  them real time updates on flight disruptions, this became a powerful pr tool, assisting in minimising disruption, mis-information and ultimately saving them money. Despite the frustrations many travellers were at least kept informed and had access to the most up-to-date information for their airline via twitter.  Social Media served the airlines as a way for them to be the First Responders to questions and inaccurate information, providing much needed damage limitation in a rapidly changing situation.

So tracking your businesses on social media is just as important as tracking other marketing campaigns, not least for ROI.  Many businesses, particularly those small to medium in size may believe monitoring this area is not justified, but it will cost time and effort, (sweat time).  You  need to know it’s working.

According to a survey carried out by Mzinga & Babso, over 80% of professionals do not measure ROI for their company’s social media programs.

Key metrics you need to be aware of when using social media as a marketing tool:

• Measurement of both positive and negative mentions.  So you’re very active on Facebook & Twitter and your business, product or brand is getting a lot of mentions.  This in turn results in users talking about just what you offer or do
• Conversation Cycle.  Lets face it.   As a business your overall goal is to convert your fans or followers into sales.  For this to be successful you need to measure all types of conversations and chart them over time to get a picture of the conversation cycle.
• Virality – Is your content being shared on Twitter or Facebook?  Is the content being shared relevant to your company and how soon afterwards are they resharing the content and who’s doing the sharing?.  Friends of Friends?
• Loyalty/Average time on site.  Being aware of things such as bounce rate and average time on site are important to keep track of, but as a business, are you taking time to narrow this down and look at which social traffic is bringing visitors to your website.  Take the following example are visitors from Twitter spending longer on your site than those from Digg referrals? or are visitors who have come from Facebook spending more time .   Moniter where traffic spikes; have you recently run a campaign? Or perhaps posted a new engaging blog which has resulted in a surge of conversation or traffic to your website.  Having a sound understanding of  which referrals from social sites create more page views per visit and time spent on sites can provide invaluable insights to business owners.

Social media monitoring does not need to be complicated.  We believe in keeping it simple and  focused.  Monitoring activity will help you benchmark and track your efforts and successes over time and will help show you just what ROI you are receiving.    If done correctly it should help you draw comparisons and results from your posts, tweets & blogs.  Monitoring your social media channels will allow you to listen and respond in real time, and protect your brand, product or business from negative word of mouth.   We work with many different brands and businesses in a variety of sectors and can help show you just how to make the most of your social media efforts.

Here are 10th Steps’ Top 10  Tips on engaging your customer with your business and geting more out of your social media efforts.
1.Encourage your customers to join your conversations & share their experiences with your business, products or services.
2.‘Connect’ with customers or people who want to connect with your business.
3.Don’t get wrapped up with constantly trying to add or get people to like your page.  Many small businesses spend way too much time adding people who have really no interest in their business or brand.  Our view on this is if you have good engaging content this process will naturally happen.
4.Be local.  Be sure to work at connecting with people in your local business geographical area.
5.The saying “Build it and they will come” is not always the case when it comes to social media.  Many small businesses simply think that just by setting up a page on Facebook or Twitter and leaving it to its own devices is enough.  Sending message after message to users asking them to like your page will also alienate your potential customers and will not convert into potential sales.  It’s all about being proactive and interacting with your customers.
6.Stand out in the Crowd – at 10thstep we’re all about being different when it comes to your social media you need to be just that.  Have something different when people land on your page or profile.  For example, creating a landing page using the Facebook Static FBML app and creating a special offer which will capture attention and engage your customer gives something to them and keeps them interested.
7.Avoid the direct sales approach by trying to sell, sell, and sell all the time as the only result this will have is to turn people off your page.
8.Listen.  This is very important in social media.  Too many businesses are not actually listening to what their customers say. This is invaluable market research!.  Use your social media efforts to improve your customer service and overall customer experience on how they interact with your products or services.
9.Engage, engage, engage.  Find new and innovate ways to interact with your customers.
10.Monitor activity – Use tools to monitor your marketing efforts.  There is little to no point investing time and effort using social media for marketing purposes if you don’t monitor its progress.  Lets face it, social media is not really free,  as the small business owner it will cost you time and effort.  Using Facebook insights for example will give you access to a lot of great basis data on just how your page is performing, it will show you relevant information on what your total fan base is, top fans, or how effective your ad campaigns are.

There are of course a whole host of other tools you can avail of which will help you track and monitor your social media efforts and we’ll be discussing some of these in our next blog so keep an eye out.  In the meantime if you can’t wait that long for the next instalment why not pop us an email or call to arrange a coffee with one of our team and we’ll show you how to get more out of social media for your business.

The Benefits of Twitter for Businesses

I have previously only had experience of using Twitter under the 10thstep account (@10thsteps). We use this to engage with our customers and clients, interact with other businesses, share advice and expertise and keep ahead of the constantly changing marketplace in which we work. These are just a few of the benefits of Twitter for businesses that I have noticed. Here is a more comprehensive and concise list that may help your business take the leap and go social on Twitter;

1. Promotes Brand Awareness~ Twitter allows businesses to create completely bespoke and branded Twitter pages and Tweets  as well as keeping their customers up-to-date on any promotions and events that they will be running. This could mean Coca-Cola (@CocaCola)  running 125th Anniversary celebrations to TaskMaestro (@TheTaskmaestro)announcing the launch of their new product model.

2. Engage your customers  directly~ Never before have customers had so many ways to give companies their feedback! I can directly message McDonald’s (@McDonalds) in 140 characters and they can re-tweet to respond to my opinions. This can work for and against businesses but if handled correctly,  Twitter can  be a brilliant source of PR for every business.

3. Position yourself as an industry leader~ businesses often pose questions and ask for solutions to their problems. If the solution lies within the sector that you specialise in then get involved! Twitter provides you with the platform to showcase your organisation’s talents and abilities which can only be positive for future business.

4. Make your blogs go social~ by Tweeting your latest blog, you can make your blog reach a wider audience. Although there is specialised software that serves this purpose, (which will be covered in later blogs) this is still a great way of keeping your customers and folowers up-to-date on what your business is doing at this moment in time.

5. Improves your SEO~ Twitter can be used to drive traffic to your website and as a consequence, increase your search engine rankings.

These are only a sample of the benefits that Twitter will provide for your business.

In using Twitter as a personal account, you increase your career opportunities and can easily interact with proven successful business individuals such as Richard Branson and Lord Alan Sugar. These may be more showbiz examples but even a a more localised level, if you need to get in touch with a prominent figure in your industry, get on Twitter and give them a Tweet. It is that simple!

I have no doubt that I will now be hooked and completely fascinated by Twitter for the foreseeable future, so if you ever want to get in touch or feel compelled to find out more, look me up at either (@10thsteps) or (@C_McConville). I can’t wait to hear from you!

If you want to take the leap and go social, get in touch today and let’s see how 10thstep can add value to your business.