@BasilPuglisi

Content & Strategy, Powered by Factics & AI, Since 2009

Business

Google+ Pages Open the Doors for Brands and Businesses

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This past June, immediately after Google launched it’s highly anticipated Google+ social network, internet savvy businesses like Ford, Dell and Mashable.com rushed to create pages for their brands. Only to have them removed a few days later. Google’s announcement soon followed: “In the meantime, we ask you not to create a business profile using regular profiles on Google+. The platform at the moment is not built for the business use case, and we want to help you build long-term relationships with your customers. Doing it right is worth the wait. We will continue to disable business profiles using regular profiles. (Christian Oestlien Ads project manager on Google+)

One hundred days later Google delivered on its promise. On November 7, 2011 Google+ announced the grand opening of Google+ Pages worldwide.

Google+ Pages allows businesses, brands, and organizations create their own page and establish a circle of like-minded people who enjoy the brand and want to talk about it. Not only does the page allow having a conversation with brand representatives in a way of personalized customer service, it also allows the group of followers to have a conversation with each other.

As Google+ puts it, when it talks about the customers: “…we want to make sure you can build relationships with all the things you care about—from local businesses to global brands… this means we can now hang out live with the local bike shop, or discuss our wardrobe with a favorite clothing line, or follow a band on tour. Google+ pages give life to everything we find in the real world. And by adding them to circles, we can create lasting bonds with the pages (and people) that matter most.” (Google’s blog)

Not only brands and businesses are involved. Google+ wants to enlarge the circle of users to local business, products, corporations, institutions, organizations, arts and entertainment, sports teams and more. They have been working with businesses since the launch in June to understand the needs and requirements of brand names. You can see the pages of these businesses already active:

  • Dallas Cowboys
  • Macy’s
  • Pepsi
  • Toyota
  • Anderson Copper 360
  • X games
  • Zen Bikes
  • The Muppets

Having pages for brands and businesses is nothing new, but Google+ has a few advantages over the competition:

  • People can recommend the brand easily by pressing the +1 button, and start sharing immediately.
  • A brand can have more than one page. A car manufacturer, for example, can have a page for each of its models.
  • Although Facebook has over 500 million users, and Google+ has, so far, about 50 million, the biggest advantage of Google+ has to do with the billions of queries made every day on the search engine, most of them looking for businesses or services. Google will include Google+ pages in its search results.
  • Direct connect – The easiest way to find a band you like to follow or a product has been amended as well. Typing the sign + before the query will take the searcher straight to the brand page. (Try it with + Angry Birds)

The official announcement on Google’s blog ends with these words: “With Google+, we strive to bring the nuance and richness of real-life sharing to software. Today’s initial launch of Google+ Pages brings us a little bit closer, but we’ve still got lots of improvements planned, and miles to go before we sleep. So stay tuned.

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Facebook Ad Campaigns – Are They Working?

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A World Obsessed with Facebook

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With so many potential customers on Facebook, Facebook ads should be a profitable and beneficial to your business. With over 850 million users, and 225 million of those in the United States, there is quite an audience to target through the use of Facebook ads.

How Facebook Ads Work

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The Facebook Ad Marketplace

Like other online advertising options, Facebook ads are a type of marketplace where the user bids on how much they are willing to pay to reach their prospective consumers and how much they will pay if those consumers take action.

Facebook has become a common place for businesses who are using customized Facebook Fan pages to increase the amount of fans on their page, thereby increasing their consumer base. Fans are simply customers waiting to happen. So how do you make sure you are getting a good ROI from the investment on the ads?

Basic Marketing 101 – ROI

To determine your ROI you should take your gross profit, subtract the capital spent on your Facebook ad campaign, then divide by the expense. This should give you a good comparative measure in which to determine which of your marketing expenditures are most effective for your business.

Has Anyone Had Real Results from Facebook Ads?

If you watched the video above, you heard from Bob Ford, a representative for Papa John’s Pizza. He describes how an ad placed on Facebook increased their Facebook fans by 130,000 fans overnight with a one day engagement ad.

Starbucks ran their own event on Facebook ads for World Aids Day and had an overwhelming 950,000 people who agreed to attend the event. Alex Wheeler, a Starbucks PR rep shares, “I think it (Facebook) is really effective because its part as the content experience that people have on Facebook. They can interact with it. They can actually participate. We can have these shared ideals with our customers.”

The Value in a Facebook Ad as Part of Your Marketing Campaign

The ultimate benefit, just as the Facebook developer in the video states, is that Facebook itself provides not only the venue to advertise to direct demographics, but that its very nature encourages other Facebook users to share the content with their network. This means that with an effective Facebook ad campaign, many of your connections could be made for ‘free’ in the form of users who willingly share your content with others. This digital version of ‘word-of-mouth’ advertising has proven to be highly effective for some.

“The conversations are happening, with, or without the brands participation.”

Do you want to be a part of the conversation?

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#SMWF: How Hilton Does Social Media

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Hilton has one message from their industry that rings true into their social media campaigns. Hospitality is social. If it isn’t, the execs at Hilton think it should be. Their studies into how social media integrates with travel accommodations has shown:

  1. Those who travel often are commonly also active on social media networks.
  2. Those who use these channels do expect their favored businesses and locations to be listening, available, and willing to respond via these networks.
  3. Those using these venues are not only interested in deals, but often also travel advice, and to deal with customer service issues.

Hiltons Wide-Reaching Social Network

Hilton has made finding information on an incredible variety of things on social networks of all types, quite easy. They regularly post interesting videos on YouTube that show a myriad of benefits for choosing Hilton accommodations when you head out for your next vacation.

Check out this video about a spectacular special drink created by one of Hilton’s own bartenders at the Hilton Hawaiian Village® Waikiki Beach Resort.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4xZJbW5uBY]

Not only does this create an interest in this location and its amenities, it also builds upon true customer engagement by giving them a real taste of what to expect on their next trip, but also a familiarity that many can appreciate.

None of the above even takes into account that not only does Hilton engage their customers with this type of open information but they have also effectively engaged the employee. It looks like Hilton has taken the proactive stance that many other businesses have by utilizing their current staff to share the big picture through social media networking.

@HiltonSuggest

Social Media Guru for Hilton, Vanessa Sain-Dieguez, helps implement training for their employees on how to use social media to help take care of their customers. In a comprehensive study on using social media with their guest, they noted one very important issue, customers do not just expect their favored businesses to be ‘listening’ to them, but they also expect them to act.

A highly active Twitter account known as @HiltonSuggest stays on the lookout for those who Tweet messages like:

Although none of these Tweets specifically mentions Hilton, @HiltonSuggest still doesn’t mind offering immensely helpful suggestions based on exactly what folks are looking for in the Twitterverse. Also noticable is the fact that not all of the blurbs thrown into the Twitterverse have hashtags, which shows that Hilton is really listening, the replies show that they are also willing to act, even when it doesn’t mean a direct consumer experience for their industry.

It turns out that dbmei author had written an article that had personally touched him and his family, and yes Hilton was behind it! Check it out here.

Defining Social Media in the Hotel Industry

A panel co-hosted by HVS Executive Search and ESSEC Business School Paris was held on February 7th, 2011 to discuss what the rise in social media means for the hotel industry. Attendees were students, hoteliers and other staff, all of whom declared they are active on at least one social media network.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhg4vug1yZM]

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“Privacy” is a great way to stay unemployed, unconnected and extinct [Opinion]

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Social Media does not create a brand, it takes the brand (or character impression) and carries it. Just like in the “old” days when you worked in a community and everyone knew everything about you anyway, social media has played into the global business revolution.

“Privacy is for old People” but perhaps we misunderstood “old”? It was my interpretation, it was for people who try to “network” the “old” way. Keep sending out those paper resumes, no really keep doing it, in the mean time those that are out in the digital space that have embraced transparency are taking all the job leads and finding and creating careers.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pexGCUPlUeA]

“Think Digital, Act Social”, this is the best way to find a career and not a job. Your resume starts with one word, Google! This is what almost 90% of hires will go through before they get a job or enter into their career. The power of LinkedIn is not just in its ability to connect, it’s in the uniformity that the professional social tool provided.

A resume was traditionally put on a piece of paper that had a million different formats, was presented in infinitely different ways and contained a variety of info that could range from too little to too much. The paper resume then needed to be mailed, emailed, uploaded into a system that could scrape keywords, if you knew how and where to put them.

LinkedIn created a space that provided basic continuity in your digital resume, then provided you the flexibility to be different without losing the Education, Experience, and transparent influence.

If your concern is privacy, then good luck, your “old” way of thinking is what has you unemployed or in a dying industry.

Here lets show you a example of why this is so important and relevant.

  • Position: Writer
  • Duties: On a regular basis produce a variety of articles on subject “A” that people want to read to help increase site/paper/blog readership.

How will you apply? How will you be evaluated?

  • Traditional Applicant: Resume with impressive samples, clean resume, quality education, phone numbers for references.

vs.

  • Digital Applicant:  LinkedIn Account, this includes a good work history, quality education, samples of articles from the connected blog. The impression that you understand digital, with 500+ LinkedIn connections, a Twitter account with 3,000 followers a Klout score that shows that you influence people in a call to action style with your tweets/articles. A Facebook page that shows who you are as a person, Spouse? Parent? Sports Fan? Alumni? Hobbies? the things that provide comfort about the applicant being hired is of good and cohesive character to the organization. How about the power of say 12 “Recommendations” on LinkedIn from people who you can see are reputable, professional and also of good character.

If you’re going to spend money on mailing paper resumes or email spam, you might want to consider target marketing ads on Facebook or LinkedIn, as you’ll only pay for who you target when you know they have looked at you.

Why this matters?

Social Media transparency is better than the traditional background check, this gives you a look into what has been legally off limits and even though you may say it doesn’t belong as part of the hiring process, the data shows that it clearly is! Now consider the business model, the writer with the traditional resume path only tells they can do the work, the digital resume can show you that they can do the work and generate revenue!

How?

Writers generate content to create readers, the first shows they can create content that people might be interested in, the second using the digital resume shows that they CAN and DO produce followers and views for their content. If you’re an online media source, like a news paper gone digital, you NEED the second writer more. Advertising revenue is about “eyes” the more eyes you get on your content the more valuable the ad space is, the second writer shows that they can generate more “eyes” or views from the start.

Now the same can translate to PR positions, Sales, Business Development and any position where reaching people is important. Then imagine you’re a prospective employee that can show a following or influence over 50,000 people across the social networks that drives 10,000 clicks or views a month, you’re on your way to being your own business. Big brands got to their ivory towers on the shoulders of their employees being representatives in their communities, social media is an extension of that practice.

This is why it’s important to “Think Digital, Act Social”. Having transparency allows you to show value by using digital means to display who you are, the professional and the personal. Things like video, websites, social sites create a foundation that then allows you to act social by reaching out in both traditional networking and digital networking methods.

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Social Engagement Statistics 2011 [Videos & Infographs]

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How has social engagement helped to create marketing opportunities for building brand awareness? One reason that seems likely is that when social networking first came into our digital lives, many had no idea how to take it, how to monitor it effectively, and how to aggregate its contents to be the most effective use for each account owner.

Tweetdeck, TheTweetedTimes, and Summify are great ways to keep in tune with trends and news on your social network sites and can supply you with a smaller method of mining your own social engagement statistics.

Think Social Media is a Fad?

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Think Again!

The internet has grown by 14% since 2009. There are 1.9 billion internet users worldwide. As of December 2010, there were 255 million websites. There are 152 million blogs around the net.

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Timing Matters

Facebook Statistics

  • Facebook has over 800 million active users
  • More than half of them log on daily
  • The average Facebook user is connected to at least 80 groups, pages, or events
  • Facebook users install apps over 20 million times each day
  • Over 350 million Facebook users access the site through a mobile device
  • Facebook beats Google Weekly news in traffic in the US
  • Facebook users post 60 million status updates daily

Studies by KissMetrics have shown that the best time to share content on Facebook is at noon and then again at just a bit after seven pm. The best day to share is on Saturday.

Some Facebook users increase their following by utilizing aggregators such as YouLikeHits,  Get FaceBook Friends, or sites like Get Fans Fast for Facebook Fan pages.

Twitter Statistics

  • Twitter is the most popular among working adults
  • There are one billion tweets per week
  • That is a 280% increase over tweets in 2010, so far…
  • There are currently over 460 thousand new accounts created every day
  • Mobile Twitter users have increased 182% since 2010
  • Twitter marketing jumped from 3% of businesses in 2008 to 49% in 2009

Statistics show that the best times to tweet are between 9 to 11 am ET and 1 to 3pm Eastern Standard Time. Even tools like Timely can help users to figure out the best times to post for their particular crowd and then schedule them for tweeting.

The optimal time of day to get retweeted is between 3 pm and 6 pm, while the best day for it is on Friday.

Twitter users often utilize sites like FollowMania, Twiends, and TwitterShuffle to gather more followers for expansive networking.

LinkedIn Statistics

  • LinkedIn has over 120 million users, in over 200 countries, and more than 2 new members signing up every second. This equals one million users every 12 days.
  • Almost 2 billion people searches were conducted on LinkedIn in 2010
  • More than 2 million companies have LinkedIn Company Pages

The best time to publish content on LinkedIn can always vary from network to network. Since many networks may be exclusive to their own locale or country, general optimal time to post during US times can be early morning, around 7 am Eastern Standard Time for those who are coming into work and checking status updates. Again in the early evening starting between 5 pm and 6 pm  catches many users at the end of their workday.

The best days to post on the business networking site are Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Do not post on Mondays when at all possible. Friday is considered an ineffective posting day as well. While some laud the benefits of weekend post, you can expect many users will only read or research so deep during their own personal downtime. Post light reads or quick updates on weekend days.

There are many groups on LinkedIn that offer increasing connections and open networking for businesses looking to expand their local networks into global entities.

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YouTube Statistics

  • YouTube has more content uploaded in the average 60 days than three of the major television networks have created in 60 years
  • YouTube may have the broadest demographics of the big four social networks with users averaging between the ages of 18 and 54 years old
  • YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world
  • YouTube receives over 100 million views per day
  • 84% of internet users view videos online

Sites like TubeIncreaser and Gain YT Views that can help YouTube channels increase their viewers and subscribers. While sites like these have legitimate benefits utilizing them overly can have negative effects. The fact is, many YouTube viewers will not even expend the time to check out a video if it has little or no views, so increasing views on your videos can actually increase the views on your video. Make sense?

However, nothing goes further when creating videos for your business than to go by helpful guidelines during the creation process. Keeping top tips in mind is the best guarantee that your content is relevant, high-quality, and a source of leveraging brand awareness for your business.

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Social Media is NOT a Marketing Plan, think Brand!

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It’s important to realize that Social Media is a tool, a very powerful one but far from a keystone for any business. Social Media tools like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are only as valuable as the brand and the marketing campaign.

  • A Brand is an identity that a company, organization or individual facilitates.
  • Marketing is the practice of delivering content to society in a manner that leaves a memorable impact or sparks action.   

This cannot be done by simply setting up a Facebook Page or Twitter Account, in fact the most successful consultants an agencies still struggle developing their own Social Media because they spend so much time on the brand and their campaigns. Social Media is part of the campaign, and anyone with a successful business or organization will tell you there was a lot that came before social media or a lot that was done in addition to social media.

Think Foundation:

Ask an architect, builder, or perhaps a homeowner about the importance of foundation, they’ll all agree that while how it looks is important, the value is in the foundation. The same is true for companies, organizations and individuals. Think of the job search environment, HR professionals will tell you how sometimes the most talented people get missed because of things like poor resumes and grooming.

Brand is the key to building anything that you want to be memorable or spark action. This means thinking about the basics and it all starts with a mission.

  • What is the purpose of what you do?
  • What need are you meeting?
  • How will you meet that need?
  • What will that experience be like?
  • Why  do you meet this need better than others?

Now think about the marketing campaign, and remember it’s not just about introductions, it’s also about follow up and retention.

  • Who is your target audience?
  • When do they have this need?
  • Where are they when they have this need?
  • What value are you offering?
  • What will make them talk about or share what your offering?
  • Why will they buy from you? Now and in the future!
  • How will you use these efforts to become more efficient and responsive?

Think Campaign:

Once you have answered the basic questions, now it’s time to think about the campaign and decide how and where to execute it. Marketing takes time and the brand will develop its ultimate identity from the consumers, so when you think about the campaign think in six month intervals.

Do not confuse marketing campaigns with advertising. The marketing campaign is the process by which you answer the questions above and meet the purpose of those answers. Advertising is the components of the marketing campaign.

Advertising is in the same structural campaign issue as Social Media, both have costs associated with them. Advertising may require you to buy ad space, generate flyers, purchase pay per click ads on search engines or social media sites. The same is true of Social Media, it cost time, either yours which is likely better spent on your business, or the marketing agency, consultant or local self proclaimed guru.

Each type of Advertising or Social Media investment should work together for the brand in a manner that accomplishes the campaign mission.

If you make commitments in advertising and social media do so with specific intent and purpose, do not stick with the product (advertising or social media) if it is not where you are getting traction. However, do be prepared to come back to it at a later point. If your purchasing advertising space it had better be brand specific, but have a fresh new look every month.

Social Media as a Tool:

Social Media is great for a lot of things, once you have a brand and a plan that is. Social Media accounts like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn require a lot of resources, well if you’re using them correctly that is.

Facebook garnishes a lot of everyday activity, but did you know that it’s highest value comes on Saturdays? Facebook is a networking event that never ends, the highest value for Facebook is the ability to interact, or engage and once you stop the value in it is diminished almost completely.

Twitter is one of the best sources for specific information or content, the limit to #140 characters does a great job at reducing the amount of useless or irrelevant words. Likely when you search for something in twitter you’ll find it, if it’s there… are you? Twitter’s highest value comes from our societies need for instant gratification, the answers are short, to the point and in the most successful brands, come almost instantly.

LinkedIn is for professionals, so leave you beach photos, family photos and weekend adventures on Facebook. LinkedIn is for professional networking and problem solving. This social media tool is a great place for the actual business owner or professional to get hands on with who they are and what they do. LinkedIn allows for a transparent look at who the people are you connect with. The profile page can include work experience, education, social media sites, websites, ongoing blog entries, twitter feeds and more. It is the most efficient way for someone to get an entire look at the professional  they are communicating with. Why is this important, well LinkedIn helps identify needs, if you have a product or service that can meet that professionals need, you likely have a client. The groups feature is also a great place to learn and showcase your expertise.

Summary:

Connecting a product, service or talent with consumers and clients takes a lot more than just a social media account. Given the limited resources that most businesses and organizations face, it is far more important to think about the brand and the campaign first, then find out if and which social media tool fits into that plan. Social Media is a powerful marketing tool, enter into it with a long term plan, a purpose and brand expectations above sales expectation. As Arthur Germain, a fellow professional asks his clients and professionals “what is your brand story?” because social media does not change your story, it helps carry it.

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