The evolution of the Web has in turn led to a marketing revolution. The change is not just in technology but in culture. Hard selling has been replaced by social engagement. Instead of indiscriminately shouting sterile corporate marketing messages at people who may or may not be interested in your product or service, today you can find people who are already interested in what you have to offer, by tapping into pre-existing online communities of interest – or even by creating your own. In today’s competitive marketplace you need to be findable. You need to go where your customers are, and engage them in conversation.

You need to go where your customers are.

This is a shift from ‘push’ marketing to ‘pull’ marketing, where we are attracting people towards us with engaging, interesting, valuable content that they will seek out. If you can tap into those communities of interest, you won’t ever need to sell again – people will come looking for you.

You might think of social marketing it as permission-based marketing, word-of-mouth marketing, or conversational marketing. One phrase I came across a little while ago is martini marketing – in the sense of the 1970s Martini TV ad that used the strapline: ‘any time, anyplace, anywhere’. That really sums up how marketing should work these days – going where your market is, reaching them with content they want, when and where they want you to. The rise of the mobile Web means this is now often on the move. This is a shift away from megaphone marketing – randomly shouting your message at a heterogeneous mass of people who may or may not be interested in what you have to say. By using social media, you are making yourself visible to people who are already interested in what you have to say. You can tap into these communities of interest, engage them with useful content, and build a relationship with them.

Social media marketing works for small businesses because it focuses on building customer relationships rather than sterile marketing campaigns. Resist the temptation to use that safe, impersonal corporate voice – stick your head above the parapet and be yourself!

And there is an advantage to being small. Because social media is a personal medium where authenticity matters, it is not always easy for big corporations to use. It’s perfect if you are a small business or entrepreneur: you can build trust and make connections by using your personality and being genuine. The social media marketing revolution has arrived, and you can be part of it.

This post is an extract from the Introduction to the 2nd edition of Get Up to Speed with Online Marketing. Read the full Introduction and Chapter 1 here.

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One of the things that has enabled the rapid growth of social media is the increased uptake of smartphones and mobile web browsing. More and more of us access the Internet on the move from our phones. The International Telecommunications Union has even predicted that mobile access to the Internet will soon overtake access from desktop computers. In some parts of the world, such as Africa, mobile phones have been the primary access point to the internet for a while already.

It is not just mobile access to the Internet itself: it’s all those apps. All your favourite social media sites and services are available as iPhone or Android smartphone apps. Some, such as Instagram, are only available if you have a smartphone. The fact that many of us update our Twitter or Facebook status on the move – often including photos and/or location information – is what has driven the growth of these networks. We are entering a world where all media is social, and all our social interactions are mediated via apps and updates.

What does this mean for you?

• Make sure your websites are accessible from mobile devices – discuss this with your web designer, or choose a WordPress theme that states it displays well on smartphones
• Take advantage of all those social networking apps by using them on your smartphone – it will save you time, and enable you to react quickly on the move.

This post is an extract from the Introduction to the 2nd edition of Get Up to Speed with Online Marketing. Read the full Introduction and Chapter 1 here.

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Have you noticed how visual a medium the web has become recently? In some ways this is a continuation of a long term trend. I remember when the internet was all text, with the occasional picture that took forever to download. Since then, it has steadily become more visual. The web then and now is like comparing an academic monograph to a highly illustrated coffee table book. Which would you rather read?

There are two reasons for this: improvements in technology, and diminishing attention spans. Super-fast wireless broadband means pictures download instantly, and video streams effortlessly for many people. Technological developments have made photo sharing and video sharing sites possible – and popular. The other reason is our shrinking attention spans which, online, are tiny. This is understandable – there is just so much online information to wade through these days, who has time to read lengthy paragraphs of text? We want succinct blog posts, short videos, and pictures. Something that will show us at a glance if we’ve found what we’re looking for. Something that will attract our attention and draw us in. Something that looks nice that we want to click on and share.

This is one reason why Pinterest is such a success. As an online scrapbook of images it is attractive – even addictive. As a social bookmarking site, it drives far more traffic to websites than previous text-based ones such as Delicious. There’s a reason why Facebook paid so much to acquire Instagram. But it is not just new, visual social networks springing up: the old ones are getting more visual too. Facebook’s timeline layout gives more weight to images. [UPDATE: Twitter has recently introduced timeline images too!] Facebook, Twitter and Google+ all have prominent header images on profiles now. This is becoming the norm for what social networks look like.

What does this mean for you?

• Make sure you use plenty of images on your social networking sites
• Make sure you use images on any web page or blog post that you want people to ‘pin’ to Pinterest – they can’t share your content if you don’t have a pinnable image!

This post is an extract from the Introduction to the 2nd edition of Get Up to Speed with Online Marketing. Read the full Introduction and Chapter 1 here.

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When did we all join the media business? How did the internet make this possible? When British computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee invented this thing called the World Wide Web in 1990, he could scarcely have imagined what it has become today: a ubiquitous part of our everyday lives. Fully integrated into our social lives, an essential business tool, and a creative multimedia platform. It has also progressively become a more media-rich visual medium, and it is now with us wherever we go thanks to that other technological trend of the age: mobile phones. These trends are interconnected, and now have a direct impact on the way we do business.

The Social Web

What is sometimes referred to as the ‘social web’ is now really just the web. We no longer say ‘motor car’ – we just say ‘car’. It is taken as read that our cars are motorized. So it is has become with the internet – it is a given that we use the Internet to connect with our friends, express our personalities and opinions, publish our photos or watch a video. It is the same with online marketing. Social media has just become the way we do that.

Social media is the currency of the social web. Most people might think of it as a collection of tools, websites and online services. For our purposes it is also helpful to think of it as an approach to marketing, and a subset of online marketing tools, which more broadly include websites, search engine marketing and email marketing.  If you need convincing of just how much of the Web is social, you need only look up the top sites ranked by Alexa. The top three have for a long time been Google, Facebook and YouTube; with Wikipedia, Twitter, Blogger, LinkedIn, Pinterest and WordPress.com all occupying high positions.

Having a presence on social sites is a necessary but not sufficient prerequisite for successful social media marketing. Yes, you might have a gazillion followers – but are they buying anything? It’s easy to get carried away with the metrics and forget why you’re on social networks in the first place – to engage with your community. Get Up to Speed will help you with that.

What does this mean for you?

• Ensure you have a presence on the main social websites, so that you are findable in the places your customers spend their online time.
• If you want to build relationships with your customers, social media is now the way to do it online.

This post is an extract from the Introduction to the 2nd edition of Get Up to Speed with Online Marketing. Read the full Introduction and Chapter 1 here.

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One of the newer social media tools, and the subject of one of the new chapters in Get Up to Speed with Online Marketing, is Google+. I know. “Not another social media tool” was my initial reaction too; especially after so many false starts and abandoned forays into social networking by Google. But it pays to at least be aware of Google+ and the possibilities it can offer. And there have been a few recent interesting improvements that might encourage you to look again at Google:

1. The design has improved. Instead of a massive header image that takes up most of the screen, the look has been slimmed down, the header looks more stylish, and the posting area looks – well, Facebooky. In fact, you might consider using your Facebook header image, to reinforce your personal (or business) branding.
2. Automatic hashtags. Google+ now automatically adds keyword hashtags to any blog posts or articles you post to your profile, which saves you a job and helps other people find your content. You can edit these, or remove the automated option altogether if you want.
3. Personalized URLs. This was only a matter of time, and something long offered by other networks. A personalized or ‘vanity’ URL is useful not only for the search engine benefit, but so you have something a little snappier to put on email signatures or business cards than a long string of numbers. Here’s how to claim your personalized Google+ URL.

1. Do you qualify?

First of all, to qualify, you first need to meet some basic eligibility criteria:

• Personal profiles – at least 10 followers, an account that is more than 30 days old, and a profile photo
• Business pages – must be linked to a website or, for Local Google+ pages, be a verified local business.

Once you qualify, you should see a blue Get URL button at the top of your screen, in the middle of your header; or click Get URL under the Google+ URL listed at the top of your Links box on the About tab on your profile.

2. Decide what you want to change your Google+ URL to

The first bit of your personalized URL – the bit after google.com/+ – will be your name (or the name of your page). If you’re lucky, this will be available. Otherwise you will need to add some more characters t make it unique.

3. Agree to the Terms of Service

Once you have a URL that is available (indicated by the green tick), tick to agree to the Terms of Service and click the Change URL button.

4. Verify your mobile number

Google has an extra security feature built in to make sure it is really you who is changing your URL. Choose your country fronm the drop-down menu, enter your mobile phone number, and click Send code.

5. Enter the verification code

A code will be texted to you – enter this then click Verify.

6. Confirm your choice

You will see a preview of your new Google+ URL. Are you absolutely sure you want to change it to this? You can’t change it later! If you’re sure, click Confirm choice.

7. Success!

On the About tab of your profile you should see your new Google+ URL at the top of your Links box.

Google+ is another place for people to find you. It’s worth having a profile, even if you don’t plan to use it much, for the search engine benefit. If someone Google’s your name, one of the first things to come up will be your Google+ profile – especially if your name is part of the URL for your profile. And if you’ve filled in some links to other places people can find you online, they can connect with you there, even if you don’t use Google+. But, now that the interface has improved, you may be tempted to use it more.

Find out more about how to market yourself with Google+ in chapter 14 of the 2nd edition of Get Up to Speed with Online Marketing.

My background is in publishing. I worked for various publishing companies for 10 years before starting my own business. In 2005 I studied part-time for a Postgraduate Diploma in Digital Media Management at Birkbeck, University of London – one of the courses I now teach on. This was the first time I came across social media – or ‘Web 2.0’ as everyone was calling it then. I started out building websites, creating digital media – and advising on social media. I narrowed my specialism to social media and continued to share what I had learned with others. Teaching is central to everything I do, whether it’s lecturing, running a workshop or in-house training, writing books or producing online learning materials.

Yet I’ve almost come full circle, because part of my business is now publishing magazines, ebooks and other learning resources at Publishing Talk – the online community of authors and publishers I have built up over the last few years. So, you might still call me a publisher. But here’s the thing: whatever your business is, if you are using social media you too are a publisher. My experience of publishing, social media and running a small business has made me realize just how interconnected these things are.

You don’t have to run a content business or a training business to benefit from social media. You don’t need to run a high-tech business or sell ‘information products’. You don’t even need to sell products from a website. You just need to have a presence online, use the social networks that your customers and prospects use, and give them a reason to connect with you. But you can’t just do a few tweets: you need to publish some content. That content is the starting point for your online marketing campaign, as you use it to reach and engage with potential customers and clients who will seek it out with their online searches.

The principles apply whether you are a carpenter or a bike shop. Anyone with an internet connection and a bit of creativity can now communicate with the world via the written word, audio, video and images. You don’t even need a computer – you can do it from your smartphone. A radical power shift of content creation and distribution from large media institutions to individuals has taken place over the past few years: everyone is a publisher now.

This post is an extract from the Introduction to the 2nd edition of Get Up to Speed with Online Marketing. Read the full Introduction and Chapter 1 here.

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When Get Up to Speed with Online Marketing first published in 2010, you might have needed some persuading that social media marketing was something you needed to do. Today, you may need little convincing. There is no longer a battle between social media and mainstream marketing. Social media is the mainstream. Facebook has over a billion users, Twitter has over half a billion accounts, and people spend more time on social networks than they do on email.

Concentrate on being findable.

While “everyone else is doing it” isn’t a good enough reason in itself, if your competitors are on Twitter and Facebook and you’re not, you may be missing out. More importantly, it is likely that the very people you are trying to reach with your marketing messages are also on these sites. If your customers use social media, you need to use it too. The user numbers speak for themselves: these sites are neither faddy nor niche. A broad range of people use these sites, and some are your ideal clients, customers and prospects. Concentrate on being findable. If you can make your products or services easy to find online, you’re halfway there.

Social media is mainstream. If you’re not using it yet, you need to get up to speed – and quick. The good news is that you don’t need to do everything, and it’s easy to learn the basics. This website and accompanying book will show you which bits to focus on and why.

This post is an edited extract from the Introduction to the 2nd edition of Get Up to Speed with Online Marketing. Read the full Introduction and Chapter 1 here.

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The Property Podcast

Soon after its launch in March 2013, the podcast was manually selected for promotion on the iTunes podcast homepage, appeared in the ‘New and Noteworthy’ list, and regularly beat the BBC’s own podcasts to rank #1 in the business category. By the end of its second month, it was achieving over 20,000 downloads per month.

The Robs deliberately selected a format that keeps episodes snappy and informal, while sharing valuable information in a medium that previously lacked any kind of property content. It balances entertainment and education, and incorporates plenty of listener interaction. They knew that reviews were important in determining their iTunes rankings, so they made a point of asking for reviews and reading them all out on the show – racking up 65 five-star reviews in their first three months.

The accompanying website, www.thepropertypodcast.com, includes transcripts (which help Google rankings), a call to join the show’s mailing list, and a way for listeners to leave questions as voicemail messages.

Get the idea: Think about something you’re passionate about which is currently poorly served – other people will be hungry for that information too. Decide on a format and a posting schedule, get some attractive artwork, and make the most of the first eight weeks when you’re eligible for the ‘New and Noteworthy’ chart. Above all, never try to sell anything to your audience: interact with them, ask for reviews, and drive them back to your website to get more useful information. The trust they’ll build up by spending half an hour a week in your company will generate sales leads without you even having to try.

This case study appears in chapter 7 of the new edition of Get Up to Speed with Online Marketing. Rob and Rob included the book as their ‘resource of the week’ in The Property Podcast, 07 Nov 13 (from 25.50). You can hear the episode on The Property Podcast website, by playing the embedded player below, or by subscribing on iTunes (well worth doing if you’re at all interested in property investment!)

The starting point for your website is your design brief. You should think this through and put some ideas down on paper before contacting a web designer or developer. The questions below are the sorts of things they will ask. And even if you’re doing it yourself, it’s still a good discipline to go through this process. It will help you stay focused on the core aims and marketing objectives of your site. Think of it as a mini business plan for your website.

Things to consider include:

1. What type of website do you want? E.g. a simple online brochure, an e-commerce site, a business blog?
2. What is the main purpose of your website? What are its marketing aims and objectives?
3. What look and feel are you after? Should it follow a specific brand image or colour scheme? Which sites do you like the look and feel of? Who is your competition? What are their sites like?
4. Who is your target audience? E.g. specific business sectors, individuals, current clients, prospective clients? Are you selling to other businesses or to consumers?
5. What is your main ‘call to action’? What do you want people to do once they arrive at your website?
6. How many pages will your website have? E.g. home, about, contact, services, products, individual product pages, clients, news, etc. How will the site be structured?
7. What functionality do you need – e.g. a ‘contact us’ form, shopping cart functions, online booking system?
8. Do you already have images or do you need your designer to source these?
9. What media do you require? E.g. audio, video, Flash animation?
10. What is your schedule? Do you have a critical launch date, e.g. to coincide with a product launch or marketing campaign?

Other things to bear in mind when hiring a designer/developer:

• Designer or developer? Although I use the terms ‘web designer’ and ‘web developer’ fairly interchangeably, I would usually expect the former to be able to do some graphic design work and the latter to be more of a coder. What can yours do for you? Will you have to hire a graphic designer separately to come up with a graphic design concept?
• How will the process work? Will the site just be uploaded when it is finished and you have approved it? Or will it be an iterative process that you can comment on while it is in development?
• Will it work on all devices? Can your web developer ensure your site will look good not just on a range of web browsers but on a range of devices, such as smartphones and iPads? Will the site adjust itself to fit the device it is being viewed on (often known as ‘responsive web design’)? This matters more than ever now that so many people access the internet in this way.

Find out more about creating your business website in Chapter 3 of Get Up to Speed with Online Marketing.

Hashtags cause a lot of confusion but are simply clickable keywords within tweets. Put the # symbol immediately before a word or phrase (with no spaces or punctuation) and it becomes a link. Yes, keywords with or without the # symbol can be searched for on Twitter, and show up in the list of ‘trending topics’. The difference is that, when you include a hashtag within a tweet, it becomes a clickable link. In the way that the @ symbol before a username turns into a link to that person’s profile (e.g. @jonreed), the # symbol before a keyword becomes a link to a new timeline made up of everyone who has included that hashtag in their tweets (e.g. #TheArchers).

Hashtags are often used to play word games (for example #foodfilms – you know, The Hills Have Pies, Doctor Who and the Garlics, Cheeses of Nazareth etc.), or to discuss and follow an event in real time such as a television show or a conference. This may all sound a bit frivolous, but one of the best ways to get to grips with hashtags and how they work is to watch your favourite TV show and live-tweet it – whether it’s #XFactor, #doctorwho or #Downton. This simply means watching TV while tweeting about the show, making sure to include the hashtag in your tweets. You and other viewers tweeting along can then follow the discussion on Twitter on the hashtag timeline page, or by using an app such as Twitterfall.

I tweet along to or comment on TV or radio shows a lot on my personal @jonreed account (something I wouldn’t do at @getuptospeed or @publishingtalk, as it would be off-topic – no one wants to hear my opinions on #newsnight or #bbcqt there!) But those of you who follow me at @jonreed will notice I’m mostly tweeting about long-running UK radio soap #TheArchers on a Sunday morning, for example.

If you click on a hashtag, you will see at the top of the timeline ‘Results for #Downton‘ (or whatever hashtag you clicked on). Underneath this are three links to Top / All / People you follow. These help you filter the tweets you see. Top displays the most popular / retweeted tweets containing the hashtag; All shows you absolutely everything in real-time (and can include spam from people ‘hijacking’ a popular hashtag); and People you follow shows only tweets from people you follow who have included the hashtag.

Keep clicking the grey bar at the top that says (e.g.) 20 new results to see the latest tweets. This updates automatically without you having to refresh the page.

You don’t need to register hashtags anywhere – just make them up. However, conventions emerge. #doctorwho is more popular than #DrWho, for example, and it is a good idea to pre-announce the hashtag for a conference, since it can be confusing if there are several different versions flying around until the most popular one emerges.

Conference hashtags can be a great way to vicariously follow the action at conferences that you are interested in all over the world, as people tweet what is being said in the conference sessions from their smartphones or laptops. Some people wonder if conference organizers object to this or if their permission should be sought first. After all, people have paid to attend a conference, and now others can follow the action of a free! The truth is that most conference organizers want people to tweet from their events, as it gives them greater exposure. Sometimes they will even pay someone to be the official conference tweeter, or at least give them a free ticket. Attending a conference is a very different experience to following it on Twitter. It also enhances the experience for delegates present at the conference since they can comment on and discuss what is being said via a Twitter ‘back channel’ during the sessions. Sometimes tweets are even shown on a Twitter wall projected behind the speakers – though I think this can be distracting and counter-productive!

A number of hashtags have become popular on specific days of the week:

• #MusicMonday has been used to promote bands
• #CharityTuesday is a similar idea for highlighting charities on Twitter
• #WriterWednesday is used to give a shoutout to writers or share writing tips
• #FollowFriday or #ff is used on a Friday to suggest people to follow.

Use hashtags to tweet from conferences you attend, to recommend people to follow (using #ff), or to highlight industry-specific keywords within your tweets that people may search for. Or how about starting a hashtag word game on a theme related to your business?

You can also use hashtags to tweet about current events or other topics that are trending – so long as this is directly relevant to your business / what you are tweeting about and you are not gratuitously and randomly hijacking a popular hashtag to force your way into a timeline. You know the sort of thing: “Never mind the #uksnow, buy one of our supermops!” Or, more seriously, that notorious tweet from UK furniture store @HabitatUK in 2009 during political unrest in Iran: “#Mousavi Join the database for free to win a £1000 gift card.”

Finally, hashtags are no longer just about Twitter. They have also caught on with other networks: they can also be used in Pinterest, Google+ and Instagram – and now even Facebook.

FAQ: That’s all very well – but where is the # symbol on my keyboard??
Answer: A PC will normally have a # key visible on the keyboard – usually at the right-hand end of the middle row of keys, just next to the Enter key. On a Mac keyboard in the US, it is usually visible too, on the number 3 key (press Shift+3). However, UK Mac keyboards often cause confusion, because Shift+3 is the £ sign, and there is no # printed on the keyboard. Use Alt+3 instead.

Find out about marketing yourself with Twitter in Chapter 13 of Get Up to Speed with Online Marketing.