Everywhere you look, you’re told to get on social media because “it’s a great way to market your business”. This is true, however most don’t understand why they’re doing it or what to expect from it. The truth is, success in social media is challenging. Most businesses don’t succeed due to failure to plan and execute. Here are our top 2 signs that you’re on a fast track to social media failure, with tips on how to avoid it: Warning Sign #1: You have unrealistic expectations One of the most widely held assumptions is all social media is viral. Companies launch into social media expecting to be met with likes, followers and comments en masse. When this doesn’t happen, most businesses give up. However, social media is no overnight miracle worker. if your company is just starting out with no online presence, you have to commit to long-term participation before you start seeing a return on your time investment. You need to be realistic in terms of...

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Pinterest - It needs no explanation. By now you’ve likely been inundated with best practice guides and case studies. We won’t weigh you down with more how-to’s; we’re more interested if Pinterest is a valuable time and resource investment. Outside of Pinterest follower counts, there are few ROI metrics available to explore. Pinterest is still a marketing experiment, with its potential currently being explored by brands, businesses and retailers alike. Here’s what the statistics tell us so far: From Q2 2011 to now, Pinterest has grown from representing 1.2% of social media revenue for e-commerce sites to 17.4%. This figure is predicted to grow to 40% by Q2 2012; Pinterest drives more referral traffic than YouTube, LinkedIn and Google+ - with its share of social media referrals growing steadily; A report by RJMetrics found Pinterest is retaining and engaging users as much as 2-3 times as efficiently as Twitter was at a similar time in history; Over 80% of pins are repins, demonstrating ...

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With the surge of mobile uptake in recent years, email subscribers are now viewing emails in a diverse ecosystem of desktop, mobile and social contexts. Therefore, it's imperative to design your email marketing campaigns with mobile in mind, to ensure that your mobile recipients are getting the best user experience from your messages. If you’re not optimising your email marketing for mobile, you could be missing valuable opportunities. Read on to find out how to optimise your EDM campaigns for mobile audiences. How do I know if I have a mobile audience? Web analytics and surveys can help you decide. Most email marketing software includes email analytics to collect information on which email clients and devices your subscribers are using to view their emails. A gener...

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B2B social media is on the rise, connecting businesses to prospective clients and providing value to current clients. However, despite its relationship-building benefits, many businesses have trouble converting social media interactions to leads and sales, and proving their social media programs are contributing to business revenues. According to a White Horse marketing survey, 86% of B2B firms are using social media, compared to 82% of B2C firms. However, B2B firms aren't as active in their social media activity - only 32% engage on a daily basis, compared with 52% of B2C firms. In addition, a BtoB Magazine survey found that 59% view lead generation as their greatest online marketing channel. But, it doesn’t have to be difficult. So, how do you make social media an efficient, cost-effective channel for finding new customers and clients online? Step 1: Consider Your Staff, Channels and Customers To ensure your business or brand is maximising social media for lead generation, you need a dedicated social media team or group who can plan, create, monitor and measure on a daily basis to ensure your social media presence is timely and relevant to the ta...

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Within the next month, everything you know about Facebook Fan Pages will change. Facebook Timeline for Brands is now being rolled out, and will be the default by March 30. It’s different to what you’re used to, with the demise of popular features including the famed default landing tab, but with all new layout, marketing and administration features to take advantage of. Read on to discover the new changes, and best marketing practises for brands transitioning to the new fan page format. LAYOUT: COVER PHOTO AND CHRONOLOGICAL TIMELINE Facebook Timeline for Brands is similar to Timeline for personal profiles, focusing on the past as much as the present. This feature presents an opportunity for brands to emphasize chapters in their history that are relevant and interesting to fans. Did you know American Express began as a courier service in the late 19th century? Or that Coca Cola was invented as a treatment for headaches? Sharing a brand’s back story - right back to it’s humble beginnings - stimulates conversation, and helps humanise a faceless business. Go through your company’s history and mark milestones (business founded, product launched, store openings, new staff) to construct a narrative for your audience. Accompany your milestones with images for full effect. For example, Ben & Jerry marked the introduction of "More Fantastic Flavours" as a milestone in 1999. When users navigate via the timeline sidebar, they can view key events throughout t...

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If you thought Google Plus was going to fail, think again. Google has made a big move into the social space with Google Search Plus Your World, which transforms Google “into a search engine that understands not only content, but also people and relationships”. This is the Googleverse, after all. But what does this change mean for your social and SEO strategy? Read on to find out. What is Search Plus Your World? Google Search Plus Your World is the integration of Google Plus with Google Search. When you’re logged into Google Plus, the new social search algorithm returns “more relevant” results by aggregating data from your network - such as people in your circles and the pages they have recommended - and bumping these personalised results to the top of the search results page. Google calls this access “your web”, because “you should be able to f...

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Facebook, the best known and most widely adopted social network, is a crowded place. So crowded, that the average fan page status update only reaches 7.5% of it’s fan base. 70-90% of your fans will never see your status updates because Facebook categorises content with an algorithm to hide content that it assumes users won’t want to see. If a user has never visited your fan page or interacted with you, he or she won’t see any new content you publish. If a fan has commented once or twice, they might see one third of your new status updates. However, to get the most out of Facebook, you want all, or at least most of your status updates to be visible in your fan’s streams. In this blog, we’ll break down Facebook’s EdgeRank Algorithm to show you how to beat it. Let’s start with some definitions The EdgeRank Algorithm is relatively straight foward. A status update is called an Object. When a user interacts with an Object, they create an Edge (i.e. like, comment, share). To find an object&rsqu...

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It’s common knowledge that web-enabled mobile devices have transformed the way we interact with technology and information. Today, more than ever, users are searching the Web, purchasing products and networking with their peers on smart phones and tablets. However, most businesses don’t prioritise creating a mobile presence to equal their Web presence. This represents a missed opportunity to harness the ever-growing mobile market. As more consumers wake up to the idea of mobile connectivity, businesses also need to evolve and adapt by providing a new connection to users with mobile communication needs. It’s time to give your website a mobile makeover. But the question remains; create a mobile website or a mobile application? Mobile website v mobile application The two most prevalent means of reaching consumers on mobile devices are mobile websites and mobile applications. Both apps and mobile websites can be accessed on a handheld device such as an iPhone, Android or Blackberry, however the similarities...

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To stay relevant in 2012, we’re moving toward a more focused and cohesive approach to social media; one that intersects social media marketing and SEO (Search Engine Optimization) to create Social SEO. In a nutshell, it involves optimizing your social presence for search engines, effectively killing two birds with one stone. But how are they related? The social web and search engines are becoming increasingly linked, as Bing and Google’s search algorithms advance with how we use the Web. Social networks, in particular, produce an immense amount of data. In this way, linking to and from social networks is influencing a URL’s ranking in search results. Therefore, any digital content shared on social networks is an opportunity for optimizing your visibility in search engines. Take Blendtec for example. The brand’s “Will It Blend” YouTube series has attracted thousands of links on Facebook and Twitter, resulting in a top ten ranking on Google for the word ‘blender’. ...

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