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Join me and my handpicked selection of Internet marketing experts for a full day of discussing the latest tools and techniques for promoting your business on the Internet. Book now for your early bird registration discount.
Date: 14 May 2010
Location: East Midlands Conference Centre
Cost: Early Bird Registration only £195 +VAT, rising to £245
Full Details: www.theInternetConference.co.uk
Bit.ly isn’t just a URL shortener, turning long web addresses into short addresses. It’s also a social media measurement tool that counts clicks, monitors conversations, and store your data all at the click of a button.
If you ever share links via social media then you’ve probably used an URL-shortening tool at some point. Bit.ly with its extra data collection features is well worth consideration amongst the broad stable of shortners that also includes services such as Google’s goo.gl, Cligs, and the grand daddy of shorteners, TinyURL.
Just as you wouldn’t launch a website and never check how it’s performing (shame on you if you would) you need to keep an eye on social media too. Not analysing your performance on social media could be the kiss of death for your campaign. The data offered by bit.ly will help you to check how your campaign works, so let’s see what they tell you:
Number of Clicks
The basic stuff – how many people have clicked on your bit.ly link – whether you’ve tweeted it or used it in an email. Use this data to test what your customers want to read about. Find out if your method of delivery makes a difference to click through rates. Keep trying out different styles until you find one that works.
But bit.ly has a nifty trick up its sleeve. It can tell you how many people have clicked on a link to your page altogether. They can monitor any bit.ly link to your URL – so even if someone creates a different short link to your fantastic blog article bit.ly will still show you the data.
And, they’ll even tell you who’s linking to you:
Conversations
The bit.ly feature conversations pulls together all conversations containing your link into one handy place. So you can see at a glance if someone said “brilliant article…” or “I can’t believe they wrote this…!” This shouldn’t be your only guide to how people are responding to your content, but it’s useful for a quick thumb in the air test.
The one draw-back here is that you will only see conversations from Twitter and FriendFeed so if you only use Facebook you aren’t likely to find anything of use.
Traffic Data
As with every good measurement package this can tell you when people used your link, which site referred them to you and which country your customers come from.
*Warning*
If you are new to twitter and only have a small number of followers your traffic figures are likely to be low. (What do you mean 50% of my customers are in Singapore??) Don’t set too much store by this data, it should just be a useful guide suggesting the days when your target customers are most likely to read what you have to say.
Bit.ly at the moment is relatively limited in what it can measure. That said, it could help you to test, monitor and refine your social media strategies – much more than your bog-standard URL shortening tool. Data is great, but it’s what you do with it that counts – do you really need to know more?
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Katie Saxon
If Social Media is so important, then why I am I recommending that your company ban Facebook?
Facebook now has 350 million active users around the globe – that’s an increase of 40% in just six months . Of these users at least 175 million log on every single day, and they’re posting more content to the site than ever before. So it may seem inevitable that your company will jump on the Facebook bandwagon and let your staff post away.
But is allowing access to Facebook really the best thing for your business? Let’s look at the facts:
Facebook Wastes Staff Time
Statistics suggest that a large proportion of Internet use in the office is for personal business. And – even more shocking – that two-thirds of traffic to porn sites happens during office hours. I’m not suggesting that Facebook is a hotbed of pornographic activity, just that Facebook is not appropriate use of company time.
If your staff are updating their status, tagging themselves in photos and leaving posts on their friend’s’ walls they are wasting your time and your company’s money. And, if you allow access to Facebook for business use how can you tell the difference between genuine business activity and time wasting?
Facebook Strains Your Internet Connection
Research shows that a massive 50MB of bandwidth a day could be wasted on non-work activities. That means you’ll be paying significantly more than you need to for you internet connection. And any business that you do conduct online will be slowed down by the loss of bandwidth.
Not only are you throwing money down the drain but you are putting more strain on your IT department by letting staff use Facebook.
Facebook Could Ruin Your Reputation
Your previously immaculate reputation could go down in flames very quickly indeed from just a few careless Facebook remarks.
More than 8,000 Vodafone customers received an obsene tweet sent out by an employee based in local Stoke, and hundreds replied thus propogating the message over social space. Vodafone has had to do some serious grovelling to get out of hot water. And more importantly, they have had to suspend the employee.
If you allow your staff onto Facebook – and they can mix business and pleasure while they are there – it’s only a matter of time before the headlines read “Facebook Disaster for [insert your company name here]”.
Facebook Could Land You In Legal Hot Water
While the Vodafone case is a story of a stupid joke gone horribly wrong it does show how easy it is to mess up. Your company has a responsibility to keep your client’s private data private, and all it takes is a slip of a click for someone to accidentally broadcast confidential information to the world.
Not only could this be potentially damaging to you, your client and your respective reputations, but it could also put you in hot water legally.
And that’s without considering the damage a disgruntled employee could do all with the help of Facebook.
Facebook Could Get You Sued
One of Facebook’s best features is how easy it is to share content with other users – but this content isn’t always be appropriate for the office. And, if an employee is offended or intimidated by the content their colleague is sharing via Facebook, your company could be landed with a lawsuit.
The easiest way to avoid the potentially unlimited payouts from a discrimination claim? Block employees access to Facebook and other similar file sharing services.
So when you consider the additional costs to your company and potential damage to your reputation, can you really afford not to ban Facebook?
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Katie Saxon
Welcome to Katie Saxon, who has joined Hallam as an SEO Executive. She’ll be part of the team writing blog postings, and this is her Social Media Checklist for New Employees.
Welcoming a new member of staff into your company? This is a good time to run through the essentials of a good social media presence.
Build a LinkedIn Profile
An absolute must – not only does it help your company by boosting your online presence, but also new employees can connect with your staff, partners and clients in a quick and easy way.
Remember to include a keyword rich link to your company.
If your newbie is at all shy or not good at remembering faces, this is an ideal way to introduce themselves while showing their credentials.
Take a look at my LinkedIn profile.
Get Blogging
Does your company have a blog? (If not, why not? Blogging is an important SEO tool, ignore it at your peril.) Ask your new member of staff if they would write a post for your blog.
The exact angle is up to you – they could write about their first day/week/month on the job. Maybe you want them to give a beginners perspective on some of your expert knowledge. It could be as simple as asking them to write a short piece introducing themselves.
Just go with whatever will work best for your company blog.
Start Tweeting
If you’re on twitter perhaps your newbie could write some twitter posts for you. It’ll take them less time than writing a full blog post, so they might be happier with doing this.
Maybe you don’t want them to tweet on behalf of your company, but could they use twitter professionally?
If they have their own profile, which establishes them as an industry expert and employee of your company they can tweet about relevant content that interests them. It helps you to build your company profile, without you necessarily needing to monitor what they say.
Follow @ksaxoninternet to see my latest tweets on Internet marketing
Sign up to Delicious
This is a really good way for any new member of staff to start knowledge sharing. I’m always stumbling across interesting articles online that I want to share with my colleagues and connecting on Delicious is an easy way to do this.
If your staff already use Delicious then this is a great way of pointing your new employee towards the articles you want them to read. You can see what I’m reading on my Delicious profile.
Create a Google Profile
This is another useful way to build your company’s online presence. And if you’ve got your staff tweeting, blogging, connecting on LinkedIn and bookmarking on Delicious their Google profile can direct you to all of their other social media profiles. Take a look at Susan Hallam’s Google Profile.
There are of course lots and lots of other social media applications that your staff can use to enrich their experience of working for you – and to increase your web presence. My checklist is just a starting point – you just have to decide which are most appropriate for your business.
Hope you find this useful, I’ll be writing again soon, Katie.
Google has announced its search results will display a dynamic stream of real-time content from across the web, pulling updates from Twitter and Facebook, or postings from blogs and news sites.
Latest Results is yet another addition to Google’s already cluttered search page.
Many apologies in advance, but if you haven’t seen it in action, I thought I would demonstrate by doing a search the key phrase X Factor.
Taking a look at this snip of the Google results, you will find my Twitter post mentioning X Factor in the new Latest Results section:
I’m preparing my new Social Media Marketing Training course, and I think the big question for small businesses for Latest Search are:
What phrases are going to trigger Latest Results? At the moment it appears to be predominantly entertainment and news stories. As an example, the BA Strike is triggering Latest Results. On the other hand, Swine flu triggers News results, and Blog posts, but no Latest News.
What kind of content could your business generate to take advantage of this ephemeral content in the search results? Search engine optimisation doesn’t just mean web pages, but also means blog postings, and YouTube content, and Images, and now more than ever participating in the social media sphere.
What UK Centric phrases will trigger Latest News? It’s early days, and we will need to wait to see just how Google integrates this live stream into the search results. Google provides a service called Google Trends that shows hot topics, but I just don’t believe today’s UK data. Are so many British searchers really looking for this kind of data:
Learn more by taking a look at Google’s video introduction to Google Latest Results:
Event Date: 20 January, 2010
Maybe you use Twitter, Facebook, or YouTube in your personal life; maybe you wouldn’t know where to start.
Either way, using them for marketing your business is a whole new ball game. This one day training course is your opportunity to find out which of these tools could help you and to start thinking of exactly how and when your business can benefit from using them.
The Social Internet is putting control into the hands of your audiences, giving them new ways of communicating, new ways of learning about your products and services, new ways of engaging with your business. So your business needs fresh strategies and practical methods of connecting with this highly connected audience.
In this one day session, you will learn how you can take advantage of a broad range of free and low cost Social Media marketing tools. Learn how they can be used as part of your audience development strategy, see practical examples of these tools in action, discuss what these technologies mean, good or bad, for your organisation.
What our delegates say:
Has certainly opened my eyes to the advantages of social networking when it comes to certain ventures. Most helpful: Video blogging, use of Twitter and how this can be linked to your website
I have attended a number of courses that Susan has delivered before, and am always delighted with her accessible and pragmatic response, she is always willing to answer questions specific to our business and is very helpful
This course is being offered on two dates:
20 January 2010
17 March 2010
09:00 – Registration & Coffee
09:30 – 16:30 Course
16:30 – 17:00 Informal Q&A
Hallam Training Suite
2 King Street
Nottingham NG1 2AS
£395.00 + VAT
Includes comprehensive course notes, lunch, drinks and snacks.
Please select the “Other Payments Options” if you would prefer to pay by cheque or pay by Invoice.
This course has been designed for business owners and managers who need to understand what is involved in Social Media Marketing. You may be using these technologies already, or they may be new to you. This practical day will give you an overview the range of social tools, practical examples of how other businesses are using them successfully, and a framework for planning your own social media campaign.
You will leave the day with a written plan of action detailing the specific steps you need to take to start using Social Media as part of your marketing mix.
Susan’s workshop materials are constantly updated as the industry shifts and changes, and this workshop will reflect the latest strategies to reflect the evolving social media landscape.
You will be provided with a comprehensive set of course notes, articles and reference guides. Following the course, you will have access to Hallam’s password protected online library of social media support resources.
Susan Hallam one of the UK’s leading Internet marketing trainers and consultants, with more than 20 years experience in the information industry.
She is a regular speaker at conferences including Search Engine Strategies, InternetWorld, and is a Qualified Google AdWords and Google Analytics consultant.
Internet marketing means we have more communication tools than ever before. And, what’s more, the speed at which they are being introduced – and at which the public are lapping them up – doesn’t seem to be slowing down.
Here is a 5 step framework for your Social Media Marketing strategy to help you to review which digital marketing techniques work for you, and create a plan which is right for your organisation, your budget and your audiences.
What are your objectives for using Digital Media?
Are you looking to:
Step 1: Planning
I have to confess, I like to do the planning bit after the next steps, but all the text books say planning has to come first…
Step 2: Listening
Step 3: Conversing
Step 4: Responding
Step 5: Measuring Your Success
I had the most extraordinary comment written on my blog earlier this week, the author having taken the time and effort to write a response amounting to more than 2,632 words. That’s five pages of A4 paper, single spaced using a 12 point font.
Take a look, it is Comment Number 11 on my BT Web Clicks Review article.
Unfortunately, the comment would appear (perhaps, possibly, allegedly) to be written by someone who is in some way associated with the reviewed service.
My question is this: how much did this comment help BT’s cause? And would it have been better to just bite your tongue when negative reviews are written about your business?
Perhaps he was trying to drown out the other comments on the posting? Unfortunately, it only served to make the blog article even more keyword rich, and it ranks happily in the top ten results for searches.
Perhaps he was trying to genuinely persuade us of the merits of his service? Then this side of the argument might be best left to the genuine customers who jump to your defense, or at worst case the marketing department.
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We all fear bad reviews about our business. Bad reviews can be unfair, misleading, and just plain inaccurate.
The temptation might to write a rebuttal review, pretending to be a happy customer. You’re hoping to that your own positive review will shout louder than the bad reviews.
But it is illegal to write fake reviews about your business, particularly if you are pretending to be someone you’re not.
As an example, take a look at the rather extraordinary streak of bad tempered commenting going on about the BT Web Clicks service over on the HM2K.com website.
And right smack in the middle are a few people defending BT, who look suspiciously like they might be employed by BT, or working on behalf of BT.
What they don’t do is put their hands up and say who they are. Who they work for. What part they actually play in the business.
Instead, they might be hiding behind generic user names, and implying they might actually be BT customers.
And the other members of the discussion think they’ve rumbled a fake contributor, and fingers are being pointed.
If “Steve” or “Joseph” or “Junior1138″ are indeed connected to BT then they are making a mistake. Big mistake.
I think negative reviews can have a positive impact on your business. They can help to build trust and credibility when handled correctly.
Negative reviews demonstrate that the opinions are expressed by real people, and show that you have an open channel of communication.
Steps for handling negative comments:
The laws governing social media marketing, including reviews.
Many thanks to Chris Rand who signposted me to the BT Web Clicks debate.
Google is experimenting with pulling through additional information from various social networking sites like LinkedIn, Facebook, and their own Google Profiles. The search results are displaying not only a simple link to the site, but creating “added value” by selectively displaying additional information contained within the social networking profiles.
I’m seeing more of this activity in the .com version of Google; some of these are not yet available in the .co.uk version, but I would suspect it is only a matter of time.
I have seen Google pulling through a snippet of information from my LinkedIn profile, inserting an additional line of information regarding my job title:
As for Facebook profiles, Google is now also displaying an extra line of text showing who your friends are. Is this a good idea, or not such a good idea? Apologies to whomever Mary Smith is for using her as an example:
Facebook friends appearing in Google results
And finally, Google is choosing to also display users’ own Google Profile in the search results, as well as prompts to discover people using other social networking sites like Classmates and MySpace. I’m not entirely sure how I ended up with two Google profiles, but that is something I need to get fixed:
