So many times I am sat in front of potential clients looking at whether Social Media Marketing would work for them, and after they have gotten over the initial shock of how much work is involved, and that it can’t be done well by any computer robot, and that it actually takes human involvement and a lot of it. The next question that you can see is on the tip of their tongues but they are just too apprehensive to ask and I wish they would:
Does it make Return of Investment?
As a Sales person by trade I was taught to ask questions including the most important which is ask for the order!
Whilst the analytical people of the world scramble to bring managers ‘Dashboard functionality’, with no doubt a lot more inane acronyms, where they can justify their positions and they have a reporting procedure to satisfy their board. The rest of us actually see first hand what it’s doing for us.
Dashboard
My 5 websites with the best keyword researched domain names with consistent weekly content and then posting that weekly content to all my Social Media the 5000 friends on Facebook, Linkedin800, Twitter1000 etc then book-marking and pinging to all the top websites which means that all my websites are first, second or third on Search engines for the keywords: Social Media marketing’, Internet Marketing, Online marketing in Thailand’ brings me around 2-3 quality leads a week.
Socialmediabandwagon
So sometimes I ask the question for the clients dying to ask, so;
What would 2-3 new leads a week do for your business? Consider your average order value then times that by two per week, and that’s what your ROI will be after 3-6 months of SMM work. To find out what a decent Social Media Marketing campaign costs see my previous blog.
Posted in Social Media Marketing by .
Jan 11
22
The death of Bloggers?
Redirecting the internet has become the choice of many Social Media Marketers and the use of real time networks are growing over the traditional blog style.
Blogs, according to GlobalWebIndex report – “2011: Welcome to the Age of Social Entertainment” are loosing ground to quick real times ‘snippets’ of info like Twitter, Friend Feed, digg and other micro-blogging sites, where you promote a link, however I see it as, many trying blogging but only a few who really enjoy it and go to bed at night thinking “
Oh whoopee I can write my blog tomorrow”
To me, this equates to people finding their ‘own style’ in business. Social Media Marketing is like anything, people will excel at what they enjoy doing, and therefore do it better.
Frustrated Blogger
We are seeing people ‘taking their place’ in the online world as in:
Bloggers concentrating on blogs
Website designers honing their design skills
Programmers building new applications.
Gamers building new games
Photographers taking better snaps on Flicker
The world is full of different people and this is what makes life on Earth special
“If everybody looked the same we’d get tired of looking at each other”
Groove armada
The report forecasts the decrease of browser based searches and more Mobile applications which has seen a 25% growth this year. And many commercial enterprises will see this as a huge opportunity to build sustainable business through packaged Internet platforms such as TV and e-readers.
Saying all this ‘packaging yourself to certain interests’ will never open yourself to new discoveries, imagine you told the Internet you like Thai and Indian food, so all you ever get is applications for those types of foods however when will you ever experience Middle East Cuisine or Chinese food if there is no open platforms?
There is a huge growth in video with 66% of all global internet users watching video, 27% watching entire TV shows they’d downloaded, it’s all about convenience and choice. Over 10% had illegal downloaded entertainment, Social Media Marketing played a pivotal role in exposing this media.
All in all somebody has to create something for it to be shared, this is where we all find our place.
Twitter and sharing
I don’t see the end of Blogging, just less, but better blogs but with more professionalism as writers of talent will excel, but I do predict the growth of micro-sites as everyone loves quick info, I mean you don’t walk into work first thing Monday morning and start to explain for an hour and a half the exact moments of the ball game on Saturday pass by pass and bore the ass of your colleagues, you just say
“The Nicks won” and if they want more info they will ask and investigate.
Social Media Marketing mirrors life more than you think!
Posted in Search Engine Optimization by .
With a lot of friends on Facebook and perhaps the fact I use a single status which technically is true… honest! I get my fair share of people popping up in the text messenger box saying ‘Hi’.
I always respond, time permitting, with ‘Hi’
However if the next sentence is: ‘What’s your name?’, or ‘What job you do?’, I instantly un-friend, sounds harsh? Well the way I see it if someone has not bothered to read a few simple lines on your profile to see your name, where you are ,and what you do, then regardless of whether English is their first language, they are either under 15 years old or have a similar IQ!
“All the lonely people where do they all come from?” wrote the Beatles
With nearly 45 million people reporting themselves single on Facebook there are certainly a lot of fish in the sea, so what are my top tips for finding a decent partner online:
Facebook relationships
Your Picture
Prime importance is a recent Profile picture of you, if you are nearing your seventies, and you have a picture of yourself doing the jive at a Billy Halley concert in ’59 it doesn’t really help!
Full length pictures of you if you are a lady, this way if you are full figured or stick thin, at least the gent knows from the outset what he is likely to expect. For gents I‘d suggest a close up face picture, ladies can read so much into your wrinkles you wouldn’t believe!
Smile, look happy, law of attraction works here, nobody will contact you if you look like a wet weekend!
For the rest of your photos try to be conservative, photos of you on the beach with ten bikini clad Brazillian honeys on your last trip to Rio will not really give the right impression.
Looking for love
For ladies if all we see are pictures of you with all your male friends it doesn’t help either. Nor do any pics of you drunk at various events send the right messages.
Drunk lady
Also too revealing photos, even if you are beautiful and a top model like my good Thai friend Xanny doesn’t always help nearly 10,000 likes on her page and alas she’s still single, many men may feel intimidated by such beauty.
Info
Facebook have a great info page, and I’d suggest you take a lot of time with this and write about yourself. Tell us why you are single, if you are in the ‘State Pen’. For heinous crimes don’t worry about it (well worry, but don’t think you will never find someone) be truthful without sounding neurotic saying:
“If I don’t get a man soon Teddy gets it!!”
Actually on second thoughts that appeals to me …lol
You can appeal to the right person with a well thought out info page, and there are no excuses for not writing it, or not even adding your favorite music or books, they even have interests, it looks very lazy not to write or even incompetent, you do not have to be a great English Author either, if you struggle with English, just keep it succinct, easy to read. You can establish great rapport with this page and save a lot of time finding out later that he’s a Donny Osmond fan, and you are a full body tattoo’s Whitesnake roadie well,.. that will be your undoing!
Also if you are not really someone who spends their entire life on the coach avoiding all social interaction, then remove all the game invites from your home page wall, it’s a first impression!
Relationship status
Over 3 million people claim to be in a complicated relationship on Facebook, well sorry that to me ‘complicated’ screams ‘Bunny Boiler’ or ‘Jack the Lad’ choose ‘Single’ or ‘in a relationship’ and stick with it. Few things cause more aggravation than your wife finding your relationship status says single!!
Contact
After you have fully read and understand where this potential suitor is, what they do for a living, and they are single, over 18, and you are physically attracted to them,
Then say ‘Hi’ the rest I am afraid is up to you and fate, but, if you follow the above tips I am sure you will get a lot further than before, perhaps even to the next level.
On a sour note (sorry)
At this point I will point out that some much younger people pose as older, and a few men pose as much younger, please never ever go alone to a first date from a social networking site, and always tell someone where you are going and always go somewhere very public, sadly there is still a lot of Human trafficking in this world don’t be a victim!
Posted in Search Engine Optimization by .
With LinkedIn growing enormously last year with a plan to be one of the first big social media companies to go public on Wall Street, seems everyone has woken up to the idea of LinkedIn.
What’s the attraction? Well it’s been bandied as the ‘business network’ which is a great ‘USP’ as profiles are more business like, and it’s a lot harder to invite someone as you at least have to know their email or be in a similar group.
Many business people see it as a way to openly talk about business which as far as Facebook is concerned can only be done on Facebook pages, which seems to be an after thought on Facebook’s part, as they cornered the games/photos and friendlier side of Social Networking early on, and too many people were using groups for business so ‘Facebook pages for businesses’ suddenly appeared.
LinkedIn is awash with Recruiters as it’s like a CV database and it is heaven sent for them, they can see millions of C.V’s for free!
So how to optimize your profile to get the best from it, and maybe that connection you are looking for?
making-connections
1) First Impressions! LinkedIn is the business network, so no ‘party pictures’ have a decent business picture, and make sure you can see your face, as that potential prospect from the networking event last night, may be looking for you on LinkedIn, and they may miss you as your photo is in-distinctive.
2) Unique URL easy done in edit profile make it a decent name, your company or your USP I chose http://th.linkedin.com/in/alanjbangkok feel free to join me if you are interested in all things online marketing. Once added, no one else can take it, nor can it be changed so take your time!
3) Make sure your Headline is distinctive, give it some thought, what says a lot about you in as few words as possible? It should not be hard; if this is difficult then perhaps a rethink about your career for 2011 is in order.
4) In the first box where you can edit your present position and websites concentrate on ‘advertising’ your websites better, don’t just you’re say: ‘my blog’ or ‘my company’ <yawn> does that make you want to open it? Try ‘Latest inventions’ or ‘Free book’… get creative!
5) Add your Twitter to this section…WHAT no Twitter?? Go back to start, do not collect 200 pounds, loose one turn!! Make sure you ‘want’ people to find you on Twitter, if your Twitter is all about where you are, your party antics, and your Yoga class, best leave it out!
6) Your Summary is probably the most important piece of literature you will ever write, and volumes have been written on this, the first few lines should jump out and ‘grab’ the reader and tell them exactly what you and your business are all about, the rest should be a glittering account of your achievements and skill sets. However saying this, there are few things more boring things than a whole account of your life, people are just not going to read it!
7) A gray hat trick is to add your e-mail to your summary somewhere, so that people can add you if they don’t know you.
8) Join as many relevant groups as you can, make sure you find the group interesting as you will get a lot if updates from the groups in your e-mail, but the best thing is you can engage the groups, pose questions on a forum style, and comment on other forum issues, and start discussions, this way people see you and add you if they see you as expert, and as you share the group, you do not necessarily have to have the persons email, so fresh meat for you!
9) Add all keywords and tags in the right places.
10)Add your company to the company’s pages it gets indexed and picked up well on the search engines.
11)Ask for recommendations there is nothing more powerful than a third party referral.
12)There are many good apps and if your business is visual, Slide share looks great and your Power Points can be seen clearly on your profile page. If you are a writer, your articles can be seen as a feed.
13)Like any network if you are inviting people to add you, write a reason why!
14)Be consistent revisit your profile regularly and change things as you need, you will soon see on the right hand side that you are showing up in more searches and your network is growing, but like anything you have to be consistent to be successful, but hey you said Facebook was too friendly so here is the business network …so what’s your excuse now??!
Posted in Search Engine Optimization by .
Dec 10
25
New year’s Social Media resolution!
Many new people just don’t get social media, I sometimes get a blog written by a client for submission and it’s more of an advert. Bah Humbug that will never do.
People do not want to be sold to, especially this time of year. You ask them to write a human side of ‘why they do what they do’, or to tell us a few trade secrets, in a bid to try get something a little more creative than “BUY MY STUFF!!” and many don’t even know why they get up every morning. I heard a quote on a movie I watched recently (The Great Buck Howard)
“If you keep doing what you love long enough the money will come”
I always try to ask myself what the moral of the story was or I feel like I have wasted an hour and a half, am I the only one who does that?
There is a gulf between how much of themselves they will share about their personal side, and many times there is an abject horror of them writing about their feelings online You do not have to tell people your waist size or pictures of yours wife’s Christmas Underwear, just engage us with your ‘passion’ in your work.
Miserable at work
So for 2011 try to remember what made you choose what you do. Personally I hate the phrase ‘what do you do for a living?’ I prefer to use: ‘what do you do each day that floats your boat?’ And the answers I receive more often than not, does not concern what they do 9-5 so, if work is not floating your boat, time for a rethink for 2011 because if you don’t love what you do, you very probably will never be successful at it, and how on Earth can you write about it. We as the reading public, would love to read a blog about why you hate your boss, much more than a half hearted attempt to put some ‘fake passion’ into your blog about what you would rather not do!?
Happy at work
The point of a blog is to write about what you know, and GIVE away some of yourself and a few secrets, don’t worry if you are David Copperfield or some other famous magician we are not all going to go and make a jet plane disappear, or if you are Coca Cola we are not all going to make our own Cola! But by sharing how you did it with us, you are endearing yourself to us and thus making a following, and we, the general public accept that once in a while you will have an offer for us and we will probably follow it because we TRUST you!
Posted in Social Media Marketing by .
I gave my card to a lady at a recent business networking event and told her if she ever needed help on Facebook or Social Media just drop me a line I’ll be glad to help, and she looked at me as if I was Bernie Maddoff. The lady began to explain that she avoids all kinds of Social Media as she finds it all intrusive.
Well I can kind of understand that. Just recently I was a local restaurant getting a burger in Bangkok and due to the fact that I sell my soul to ‘Social Media’ a chap came up and asked if I was Alan Johnston I replied with a smirk,
“Yes” and he replied
“You look taller on your Facebook profile”
ha ha bl$$%dy ha!! I am 5’7 OK I am not Dutch or a midget either. But seriously many find the intrusion a nightmare and many scarred by identity theft are very cautious.
Online Secrecy
So can you use Facebook without the fame? ..Yes you can
You will see many profiles that are clearly not who they say they are, I mean are some hip parents going to call their offspring ‘slap up pancakes?’ I don’t think so.
Facebook are clear use your proper name and don’t sell on your profile it only takes a few ‘reports’ to get investigated and banned so using a company name or keyword spin off for a profile name is a no-no and asking for trouble!
You can sell and solicit to your hearts content on pages, that’s what they were created for.
So how do you use your proper name and run a business anonymously?
Facebook pages that’s how! The only people that know who is running a page is you and Facebook and you can keep your profile very private and only add who you really know, however the background of what Facebook does with your info is another blog for another day, but just on the page no-one in the public knows who it is.
Online privacy
The facts About Facebook Pages
- You have to have an account on Facebook in order to create a Facebook page.
- Your Facebook page will be linked to your personal profile as the admin of your Facebook page; however, only you and Facebook know the connection exists.
- You can have an unlimited number of Facebook pages.
- You can have an unlimited number of fans (Facebook users who “Like” your page).
- Facebook Pages are public—anyone can find and view your page whether they are logged into Facebook or not.
- All content posted on your Facebook page gets indexed on Google.
- You can target your posts by location and language.
- You can add applications to your page, including your own custom content—video, rich text, graphics, opt-in box and more.
- You can add additional admins (highly recommended).
- All admins have equal rights to administer your page, including adding and removing other admins (choose with care!).
- You can’t post content on your Facebook page from your personal profile (unless you use an @ tag from your profile and have your settings for that post set to everyone).
- Select your page title and category carefully as they cannot be changed once set.
Start here to create your Facebook page
Posted in Social Media Marketing by .
Dec 10
10
Facebook ads or Google ads?
“Success always comes when preparation meets opportunity” Henry Hartman
I am often asked whether to use Facebook or Google to run pay for click ads for clients.
Google has always competed with the information on the pages of websites, Google reads the script of the site, and makes an educated guess and includes the ads in the site based on keywords and content. The amount of times I have reviewed a large company’s websites and find that the keywords are omitted and the content on the site is not very well related. Google uses robots/spiders to add their ads to these sites based on what the site owner has added, and we are not all experts. I have seen a Google ad for marriage, on a ‘divorce website’ I can kind of see where the keywords are related, but totally opposite messages.
Google vs Facebook
Facebook on the other hand have really worked hard on the ‘profile interests’ as a tool for the profile to give the best and honest appearance. Very few profiles I see now have no interests. And generally it works well, the ads on the right will more often than not reflect what you have said you like on your profile.
The Interests are based on new ones being added everyday, as in if they don’t have your interest in you can add it as a new category. Whilst researching interests for ‘wealth management’ it came up with over 8 different interests for ‘Investing’ i.e. ‘Investing’ ‘Stock Investing’ Shares Investing’ et al
Facebook or Google
Go through the Facebook ad process, and you can pick age , gender, and a variety of interests and then they will tell you how many people of that age group, and gender in that country/city/town have said they are interested in what you have, then the price per thousand impressions. Facebook can collect feelings and emotions much stronger than Google as Facebook is all about engaging the audience the very essence of Social Media. Facebook are also using Bing which is now the default search engine, which puts the site in a position to enhance its advertising model even more. By offering search on the site.
So a quick comparison:
What?
Facebook: Keywords are optional
Google; Required
Who?
Facebook: Targets age interest country/city birthday/age
Google: Location and keywords
Where?
Facebook: Ads direct on profile pages
Google; Up to them whatever sites they think works
Who’s the biggest?
Fcaebook : Relatively new to ads
Google: Still the granddaddy of the block.
Posted in Search Engine Optimization Social Media Marketing by .
When Danny Sullivan asked the Search engines direct whether re-tweeing affects Search ranking …this is what they confirmed
Bing : We look at how many people you follow, and how many follow you, and this can add a little weight to a listing in regular search results. Yes. We do calculate the authority of someone who tweets.
Google: Yes, we do use it as a signal. It is used as a signal in our organic and news rankings.
Tweets are now as valuable if not more valuable than links which is a sock in the eye to Link Farms and back link companies. Organic is the theme here and if someone is telling someone else in real time like they do on Twitter or Social Bookmarking, it is deemed of heavier quality than a static link to a site on another website. The more re-tweets the more valuable the weight Again if a blogg is good content and you have written a quality article of lasting value then anyone anytime may re-tweet even if it’s months old this is really valuable, as the S.E.’s deem this very highly So write quality period!
The quality of the people you follow is very important too, this is what people don’t ‘get’ about Twitter only follow people who’s topics you are interested in, that way they are more likely to follow you back, and when you post a link they will be more likely to follow it. Twitter and the Search engines even rate you on ratio of followers to following, and if you engage with your followers and re-tweet a lot, or whether you are following more than people following you, and of you don’t engage them much, means you haven’t really got the Jist of ‘Twttering’ at all.
- Twitter adds weight to SEO official
The war on organic searches is truly on, and for the online surfer, it’s all good news!
Posted in Search Engine Optimization by .
The airlines are no stranger to Facebook and are using social networks to engage their audience in surveys and customer feed-back; hey it’s cheaper than a market research company. Here according to Beta 2.2 application are the top most liked pages for Airlines.
Number 1 Dallas based South West Airlines at a staggering 990, 426 likes perhaps they will be the first to hit the million mark.
South West Airlines
2) Jet Blue 367 939 likes
3) Emirates 171,894 likes
4) Philippine airlines 155,202 likes
5) Malaysian airlines 150,641 likes
6) American Airlines 77,922 likes
7) Jet Airlines 73,539 likes
8) Singapore Airlines 69,818 likes
9) Tiger Airways 60,930 likes
10) Turkish Airways 57,854 likes
Runners up: Finnair 34,626, Qatar 26,119, Thai airways 15,915, British Airways 12,589, and surprisingly Arab Emirate Giant Etihad at a lowly 5,734
Posted in Social Media Marketing by .
One thing I like about the Internet is the guy who thinks of it first usually makes the most from it.
Groupon is certainly reached its potential in the West and especially USA where it was born with 4.5 million subscribers and with 98% of its deals successful. Groupon.com turned its profit in 2008 the same year it was born.
If you are unfamiliar with Groupon here is the gist, they post various Merchant offers every day on their home page, their USP is the product/service is 50% plus off the R.R.P., however the merchant has to see a certain pre agreed number of buyers confirmed and paid before the offer is released, when the exact numberof buyers is achieved, the buyer receives a voucher they can print it off and head to the store for their Ice cream or new suit or car whatever the deal was. Groupon take a percentage of the coupon. The fun part is a determined buyer will market to his friends through Social Media to make sure the number of buyers is achieved and this is very effective marketing for Groupon.
Quickly the online world scrambles to copy the model, and it surprises me that there is no patent on it, weren’t we told not to copy at school!? And now at the top of the bell curve where everyone is trying ‘social coupon’ sites and the effective drops off, where’s the creativity of people?
Here in Thailand people started talking about Groupon and about how effective it is back in early 2010 and one of the first sites to pop up was ‘Ensogo’ a decent enough site, a little bland, but it gets the message across, then ‘promochan’ all exact clones of groupon. However the effectiveness of these sites is very much dependent on the products and how well known the brands are. ‘Tittokthai’ have jumped on social media and had a very good start offering free pints in Bangkok’s pub the Black Swan and chocolates just for signing up to their Facebook page.
The original groupon found over 130 million in Venture Capitalism and is not without it’s doppelgangers in the west ‘Livingsocial’ has just raised 14 million to compliment it’s own startup costs and ‘scoopst’ and ‘buywithme’ are major contenders giving the customer cut throat deals. Where does it stop? It all sounds like a capitalistic time bomb to me where eventually the merchant is selling his product for less than he can make it, but to thousands, this is where quality looses ground to quantity!
vouchers
Posted in Social Media Marketing by .
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