Archives for posts with tag: “social media”

Book Review: Social Media and Marketing for Veterinary Professionals by Caitlin DeWilde, DVM

September 17, 2022 //
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Writing an accessible and thorough book about a complex and everchanging subject, such as social media, is a daunting prospect – particularly when your audience is a niche one such as veterinary medicine. Dr. Caitlin DeWilde; however, has done just that.

With the look and feel of a textbook, but the format a “Dummies” or “Idiots how to” book, Social Media and Marketing for Veterinary Professionals is a how to guide to all the major Social Media platforms and to all the tasks needing to be understood for someone who is not a marketing professional or even someone that interested in social media or reviews.

With chapters dedicated to each of the major platforms making up the first half of the book this can at times feel redundant; however, the thoroughness will be welcomed by those feeling out of their depth in a brand-new field and the dedication to not making assumptions is more than admirable. The second half of the book is a much more interesting read for the existing user, touching on issues such as retargeting (when online ads seem to follow you around the internet), review bombing, return on investment (ROI), and general advertising strategies both online and in print ads.

Filled with footnotes, the book is impeccably researched as would expect from someone with Dr. DeWilde’s reputation as “The Social DVM.” The index is a little thin, but it at least has one and it covers most of the things that one is likely to need to find in a hurry. What is a surprising addition is the over 80 QR Codes that link directly to an online resource for forms and other digital content. It is a little disappointing that the QR codes only take the user to a menu structure that the reader then must navigate through to get the required content. But this is a minor quibble and is a great use of a technology that is often used and abused. The fact that these online resources exist at all, and are included in the price of this volume, more than makes up for any navigation quibbles.

While I waded through all 200 odd and large format pages in three or four sittings, this is actually a book to tackle one chapter at a time, or to dip into as required. Growing your knowledge with your own experimentation and reading. While there is some building on what has come before, the chapters generally stand on their own and therefore can be used as a reference book if so desired.

Whether it be new managers suddenly saddled with a topic they know nothing about, staff members who have only ever used social media for their own personal networks, or those looking to build their own personal brands online there is now a guide for you with no translations from other industries required. To the vast majority of its readers, the subject of this book will always be a side interest to their main passion – whether it be veterinary management or veterinary medicine. We don’t often get resources geared towards niche areas within other niche areas. It is great to see this one.

Dr. DeWilde has literally written the book on using social media as a veterinary professional.

And it’s a good one.

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Categories Books, Business, Content Marketing, Management, Marketing, reviews, Social Media, Veterinary

Book Review: So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed by Jon Ronson

August 9, 2016 //
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(Clicking on the image above will take you to Amazon where a tiny percentage goes to help fund my book buying habit.)

“We have always had some influence over the justice system but for the first time in 180 years, since the stocks and the pillory were outlawed we have the power to determine the severity of some punishments and so we have to think about what level of mercilessness we feel comfortable with.”

So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed by Jon Ronson shines a, sometimes unwelcome, light on the unforgiving nature of Internet shaming. Ronson convincingly argues that almost 200 years ago we abandoned shaming as a form of punishment, not due a lack of effectiveness with rise of the larger towns and cities, but because it was seen as overly cruel.

Ronson has extraordinary access to those who lives have been ruined because of a bad out of context joke, calling out someone for perceived sexist comments, for making perceived sexist comments, and for being too irreverent in a selfie at a national memorial. The author also cleverly focuses on those less worthy of pity; the successful author who gets found out for making up quotes, and exposes our own attitudes to shaming. And then there are those who seem to have beaten the shame cycle; the UK publicist who went to war with the tabloid press, and the small town where almost a hundred of its citizenry where reveled to be visiting a local prostitute.

As well as telling the story of the various victims of the modern age of public shaming, Ronson also tells us of his own journey and grappling with his own role in the shaming of others and of being of control of his internet persona. This does not hang together quite as well as the rest of the book. I have a hard time, for instance, that such a talented researcher cannot look back through their own Twitter history to see who they have previously shamed. However, this is minor quibble and a brave personal exploration and opening up about personal shame.

The book does end on a relatively positive note due to the miracles of Search Engine Optimization (SEO), however the real point of the book is for the reader to examine how they feel about this return of public shaming. Even for those whom it is hard to defend; the hunters seeking big game trophies, the Vet taking pleasure in shooting a cat with a bow and arrow, and the plagiarizing author, to name but a few – do they really deserve this level of life altering destruction?

For those who answer yes, this book is for you. “So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed” is, if nothing else, a testament to how much of a double edged sword internet shame can be, how cruel and destructive it is, and how uncomfortable we should all be with it. The Internet shows us at our best and worst as a culture – it is we who have to change.

Note: I have refrained from using the names of any of the subjects, or related people, in this post so as not to add to add to the problem.

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Categories Books, Business, Career Advice, Management, Search, Social Media, Veterinary

The Firing of Jeremy Clarkson

March 25, 2015 //
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Jeremy Clarkson

Jeremy Clarkson

Talk about feeling conflicted…

For my American non-car fetish readers, Jeremy Clarkson is larger than life public figure and journalist from the UK who is known world-wide for the BBC motoring television show Top Gear.

When I say larger than life, a serious aspect of Jeremy Clarkson’s public persona is his often outrageous and politically incorrect statements in private and on Television. Some might say that everything has come to a head with the presenter multiple times in the past; however, for most the head was reached today when Clarkson was fired for punching a producer during an argument over food following a days filming.

The personal conflict comes from my love of Top Gear and Clarkson as a broadcaster. As a person, I am sure he is not someone I would like to spend much time with (I’m not a fan of his writing or politics.) However, the deeper conflict is how the media in the UK has essentially manufactured and over blown any number of remarks into career damaging scandals. The culture of bullying by majority over remarks or misunderstood events, by the major media and the social media hordes has to stop. We risk complete disengagement by future generations due to the risks of getting involved – it is just not worth it.

Finally, the human resource and management side of me applauds the BBC for having the courage to fire a key employee for completely unacceptable behavior in any workplace. Sorry Jeremy – but to needed to be fired for that.

The scandal is not the punch, the scandal is not incidents over number plates, or ill chosen remarks. The scandal is that television personalities and programing will be a little more bland and a little less interesting because we can’t just dismiss a personality as an idiot and not watch them if we disapprove.

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Categories Management, Social Media

Book Review: Unselling. The New Customer Experience by Scott Stratten and Alison Kramer

October 5, 2014 //
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(Clicking on the image above will take you to Amazon where a tiny percentage goes to help fund my book buying habit.)

“Scott, we have a problem with social media. People keep going on there and complaining about our products. We just don’t know what to do!”

“Well, for starters, how about you make a better product?”

Unselling is about sales and how the rules of selling have fundamentally changed.

After two fun books (that I reviewed here and here) on the good, the bad, and the ugly of social media and customer service, Scott Stratton and Alison Kramer have given us a great and insightful book on taking the pulse of our customers and where our businesses should be aiming. These concepts of pulse and aim (you’ll have to buy the book for the definitions) tie together a lot of what Scott has been talking about online and on the Unpodcast for the last couple of years.

What Unselling manages to achieve is to create a structure and understanding of why certain methods work and why others don’t. It is one of the frustrations, for example, to here about customer service failures and successes that can seem to contradict each other. Unselling provides keys to unlocking these mysteries. It also debunks a lot of nonsense that other marketers and marketing books talk about.

An extremely easy read, with short chapters, this is not Scott Stratten the borderline stand-up comic and keynote speaker, this is Scott Stratten the insightful and intelligent marketer who had risen to the top of his profession (the jokes almost get in the way). While the previous books concentrated on the how and the what, Unselling is very much about the why.

This is not a book for sales people, or a book for marketing people, it is a book for business people, and people in businesses, because we are all sales and marketing people now.

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Categories Books, Business, Content Marketing, Customer Service, Marketing, Social Media

Social Media, ROI, and the Cost of Talking to your Customers

July 29, 2012 //
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I am all for Return On Investment (ROI).

However, defining ROI in any small service business, particularly in marketing, can be incredibly difficult to be even remotely useful. Most businesses don’t bother except when it is easy. But for some reason, when it comes to social media, ROI is mission critical.

Why?

You can place an ad for discounted services, with a coupon, running for a month, and a unique web address, and  a unique phone number, and track that (but honestly how many actually do this?) But how can you track the person who becomes aware of your business through that ad, spots your sign one day while driving by, and then six months later needs and uses your services unrelated to the ad?

What is the ROI of your fax machine?

What is the ROI of customer service?

What is the ROI of a strong brand?

How do you place a value on communicating with a significant proportion of your clients every day?

Most businesses consider word of mouth one of the most important forms of promotion. It is essentially free and it is highly effective. With social media, we have the opportunity to insert our businesses into the “word of mouth” of our customers, and thereby their friends, and their friends friends. Why would you not get involved and take advantage of that?

Facebook for my business probably takes up 15 minutes of my day on average. An email, or even a call by the time I’ve documented it, to an upset client can easily take an hour. Should I not deal with an upset client when I don’t have to because the ROI is lousy? Yes, you can place a value on a client and on retaining that client. You can even track that you do get some clients from Facebook, but you may also get clients because you have an email address or a telephone number. When was the last time that anyone figured out the ROI of their email system? Even when buying a new phone system most businesses to not justify it with ROI, but rather than as the cost of doing business.

Small businesses often look up to companies such as Nike and Apple and see their devoted, and almost rabid, fan bases as evidence of marketing in action. I would argue, however, that companies like Apple and Nike create devoted fan bases is by being approachable and interacting with their clients – Apple in particular. I’m not the greatest Steve Jobs fan, but there are lots of examples of Steve taking the time to reply to ordinary consumers and being very interested in what they had to say. HP, Dell, et al. for a number of years, sold dramatically more computers than Apple, but it was Apple who held Mac World every year. Nike became cool because they did not go after deals, they went after people who actually used their shoes – athletes. They engaged their most high profile target market.

Of course, there is a lot of other marketing involved, but remember Apple’s most famous ad only ran once in most markets. Apple, and Nike for that matter, opened their own stores that operate on a quite a different model from other retail outlets. There is some argument that this was to help control the customer experience, but I also feel it was to be able to respond, and engage, with customers. Like all companies, they do not always get it right, but I do think that it is the willingness to attempt true engagement, and a real concern for the customer experience, that breeds fierce loyalty.

Social media is not a strategy – engagement, however, is.

So how to do social media and get some results and some traction?

To me, a major issue for small businesses is when they are on Facebook, Twitter, Google +, YouTube, and are doing all of them badly. Focus on one, and only one, and do it well. Then you can move on to another one.

Create things,or provide a service, using social media that other people will value.

Share other people’s content sparingly.

Self promotion has to have value, or at least not look like self promotion.

Don’t be afraid to ask questions of your fan base or ask them to share.

Drive fans to your website, or blog, from places like Facebook or YouTube not the other way round.

Pick your social media sites carefully. In my opinion, YouTube, for example, is very useful and can expose you to an enormous audiences, but the attention span is fleeting and the sense of community is almost non-existent. Embed videos in your site or page. Facebook works for my business and my previous business. Twitter does not. However, Twitter will almost certainly work for my new business, and it works for me personally. This has a lot to do with the small towns versus large cities and the  nature of my business – it may well be different for yours. Google+ has some personal value, and some SEO benefits, but has little real world value at this point in time in my opinion. But it does look very pretty!

Numbers of likes or followers are pretty irrelevant. It is the level of engagement that counts. I’d much rather have two hundred relevant, and engaged, fans or followers than 6,000 just making up the numbers. As someone much smarter than me once said: “If you believe business is built on relationships, make building them your business.”

And finally, don’t cross post, post from one social network to another, unless you really know what you are doing.

And even then just don’t do it.

Please.

I beg of you.

I see people I respect and who should really know better, cross posting and it is counterproductive. Content for Facebook does not translate well to Twitter because of the character limit. Twitter’s special characters are not understood by most Facebook users.

There are social networks where cross posting seems to work pretty well, but again, it is a black art, and if you are questioning the ROI of any social network, cross posting from a different network is not any kind of an investment.

To sum up this long, and sprawling post, the ROI of social media is the ROI of engagement. If talking to existing and new customers is not for you then I wish you well.

That just means more customers for the rest of us.

Many thanks to my friends and colleagues on the Marking in Veterinary Medicine LinkedIn group for the conversation that this post was cannibalized from. Also many thanks to Ali Burden-Blake (@inkspotsocial) for her excellent blog post: “Stop! Why using social media won’t work for your veterinary practice.” which inspired the conversation in the first place.

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Categories Business, Content Marketing, Customer Service, Marketing, Social Media

Social Media Envy

November 8, 2011 //
3

For a field supposedly bereft of metrics, social media is full of them.

I have more Facebook fans / Twitter followers / blog subscribers than you do. My tweets get re-tweeted more often, more people are talking about this on Facebook, and every blog post has a hundred comments. And, of course, the crowning achievement, my Klout score is higher than yours.

I’ve had a couple of run-ins lately with social media envy. The first was a blog post that was very popular for all the wrong reasons – I took a position that lots of people disagreed with. I don’t regret that post (or the sentiment it contained), but it did get me thinking on the nature of why that post was so “popular” compared to others on my blog. Certainly, it has been a long understood concept that controversy boosts readership (just ask a tabloid journalist). However, what really made me start thinking on this topic was why would readers engage more just to tell me I’m wrong? Does this kind of thinking carry over into more corporate blogging? Should I start my next vet practice blog with the words “I hate pets?”

Obviously, you won’t find any anti-pet blog posts from me any time soon. But it led me to start reassessing as to why I decided to start blogging in the first place.

The next thing that really set off the social media envy was Facebook. Working in small communities, and have having a very successful Facebook presence on the two major pages I have run as a veterinary practice manager, I believe I am justifiably proud of both the number of fans and the level of engagement, without vast sums of cash being sunk into the pockets of Mark Zuckerberg. My pages have had significantly better engagement, and fan bases than my competitors, or other local businesses. Of course, it is therefore disheartening to come across others who seem to be doing a better job – with more fans and better engagement, even if they are not in your market. Social Media envy I hate you.

The bottom line, however, is that social media envy, like envy and jealously in general is pointless and stupid. The real questions to be asking ones self when faced with social media envy are:

1: Does my presence achieve what I want it to achieve?

2: If someone else is achieving more than I am how can I learn from them and is it even possible for me to do something similar? There is a big difference, for example, in running a Facebook page for a rock band versus running a page for a veterinary hospital or a restaurant.

3: Am I making forward progress and do my clients, and potential clients, like what my online presence delivers for them?

Social media, is a element of a marketing strategy, not a marketing strategy in itself. It is a tool to achieve your goals. And those goals can be quite ethereal. If social media is not working for you, then it is time to try something else or learn from those who doing what you want to be able to do.

It is not a race.

It is not a competition.

It is a tool.

It makes no sense to judge yourself, or even the tool, by how others use it.

Comments, good, bad, and indifferent are always welcome – flame away!   

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Categories Business, Marketing, Social Media

Book Review: Accelerate! by Arnie Kuenn

August 24, 2011 //
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(Click on the image above to view the book on Amazon!)

With possibly the longest subtitle ever: “Move your business forward through the convergence of search, social & content marketing,” Accelerate! cannot be accused of false advertising.

Quiet simply, Accelerate is a blueprint for successfully using 21st century tools for small business online marketing. Written by Arnie Kuenn, the president of Vertical Measures in Phoenix, and a co-founder of the Arizona Interactive Marketing Association; Mr. Kuenn certainly knows his stuff. In fact, it is one of the few criticism of the book that I have, is that it gets a little dense at times, particularly early on. The Search Engine Optimization (SEO) section while being very detailed gets to be a little much and will require a couple of readings for all but the most experienced of readers. However, the style does settle down, and it would be a mistake to give up on the book as and what you are left with in the end is, a user friendly handbook for search, social media, and content marketing.

The book covers all the major players as you might expect; Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google; but is also covers a lot of the less mainstream sites. Accelerate! plucks a number online tools out from the magic geek SEO toolbox to help with almost every aspect of the radical overhaul of your marketing strategy that will undoubtedly unfold once you have finished the book. I myself, am already looking carefully at how I put posts together for my site and have joined a number of social bookmarking sites directly because of this book.

A self published book, also available in a Kindle edition, I was initially concerned about the physical binding on Accelerate! I’ve had problems in the past with the spines of self published books cracking and then loosing pages after a single reading. I’m happy to report that this is not the case with Accelerate! I did take care not to be too absusive to the spine, but i needn’t have worried, the book is in great shape and looks the same as when it arrived.

I mention the self publishing issue, not just because of quality, but also because the text of the book directly references it as well. With a subject such as search and social media marketing, it is easy to get very out of date very quickly – Google+, for example, is not mentioned once. As the text explains, being a self published book, in addition to being an E-book, allows for easier updates than traditional publishing. I, for one, hope we do get new editions on a fairly regular basis, because this a great resource and one I know I will be referring to for quite some time. In fact, I found it quite odd to see URLs in the footnotes and be unable to click on them – should have got the Kindle version!

Mr. Kuenn’s book will not tell you how to brand and create a marketing strategy for your business – hopefully that is why you read my blog! What Accelerate! will do, however, is tell you how to navigate the waters of the increasingly complex world of search, social media, and content marketing. This still might not mean that you still don’t need to hire someone of Mr. Kuenn’s caliber, or the man himself, to work with you on these magic things. But if you do you’ll at least know what they are talking about and why.

If you want to get serious about search, social media and content marketing, you need to buy this book – it does what is says on the cover!

(Clicking on the cover above will take you to the book’s Amazon page and contribute to my book buying habit / problem.)

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Categories Arizona, Books, Business, Content Marketing, Marketing, Search, Social Media, Uncategorized

Waist High in Social Media Marketing

August 7, 2011 //
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So Facebook and Twitter, which we looked at last week, are now part of your lexicon, what now?

There are other social media tools out there which can be of significant benefit. For Business to Client (B2C) businesses such as veterinarians, Facebook and Twitter are the ones to be using. However, having a strategy for some of the other sites can set you apart from your competitors and provide some interesting opportunities.

Foursquare

A personal favorite of mine, Foursquare is a location based social media tool with game elements. What does all that mean? Well, Foursquare allows users to “Check-in” to businesses and other venues using their smart phone’s GPS functionality. By “Checking-in,” users of the service let friends, via the service itself or by sharing on Facebook and / or Twitter. know where they are and why they are there. The game element comes from trying to rack up the most check-ins, and there by points and “badges,” than your friends. Users of the service can also compete with strangers for the title of “Mayor” of businesses or locations. The Mayor title does not mean anything other than bragging rights and more points when checking in. Badges can sometimes be difficult to get and so the competition can drive behavior. An example of this is the “Gym Rat” badge, that can only be achieved by checking in at a gym 10 times in 30 days.

Foursquare Badges

A selection of Foursquare badges

 Businesses can offer specials to Foursquare users when they check-in. Chilli’s, for example, offers free chips and salsa to anyone checking in on Foursquare – customers just show their smart phone to their server. Businesses may also reward the mayor of their business, making the title more coveted and therefore create competition around their brand.

 The grand theory of Foursquare is that it creates loyalty. If users have a choice between two businesses, one of whom there trying to become mayor of, they will choose that business or one is running a special for Foursquare users. Users of Foursquare can also leave tips, good and bad, about locations helping other users to choose where they might want to eat – for example. Because it is location based, it only offers places that are nearby, and allows the user to filter the results by type. This solves the information overload that can occur if smart phone users just trying to use Google.

Foursquare definitely has the potential to create a community of loyal users, and it has personal benefits (I use it to help keep track of my expenses!) However, the user base is small compared to other social media sites – particularly outside of major metropolitan areas. There are a number of other competitors in the location based world, the largest of whom is Facebook Places. The advantage of Facebook places is that it is part of Facebook, but it lacks a lot of the game elements that makes Foursquare fun and does not have the same controls on sharing.

Foursquare and other location based services have come under fire for the potential safety implications of letting your social media “friends” know where you are. This has been way overblown and as long as users are sensible, not creating a venue called “home” and checking into it for example, location based services will be around for a long time to come.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn, is often called the professional Facebook and with good reason. Like Facebook, LinkedIn revolves around a profile. The difference is that your LinkedIn profile is essentially your resume. You can find mine here. Users of LinkedIn can then make connections with current, and former, colleagues to create a network. It is then possible to reach out to colleagues of colleagues more easily because you know which of your network knows them. LinkedIn has an introduction feature specifically for this. It is also possible to recommend, and get recommend, which also then appears on your profile.

Mike's LinkedIn Profile

Part of my LinkedIn Profile

Groups on LinkedIn are pretty much just like other web forums, but by being directly in LinkedIn it is possible to be a member of large numbers of different groups, on different subjects, without having to login to multiple sites. The additional functionality of being able to make connections that can help you professionally in the real world is obvious.

 A questions section does pretty much what you’d expect – allows for users to post questions and then other users to answer them. The advantage that LinkedIn has over other sites with a similar model, such as Quora, is that you are able to research the person giving the answer to see whether they know what they are talking about. You also then have a mechanism for connecting with them.

 A recent, and extremely innovative feature from LinkedIn has been news. This allows users to browse and share news items with their connections based on popularity within professional categories. It also allows users to share these news stories via Twitter – expanding the reach of your network yet again.

 LinkedIn does allow companies to have their own profiles, a bit like pages on Facebook, and this is interesting from a recruitment perspective. Groups are also being used successfully for recruitment and many feature a jobs section. LinkedIn also recently launched an “apply via LinkedIn” button that can be used for online job postings outside of the main LinkedIn site.

LinkedIn is a business to business tool (B2B), rather than the B2C tool that Facebook, Foursquare, and Twitter can be; however, don’t be surprised if LinkedIn does not become more and more a factor in recruitment of even minor posts in organizations. LinkedIn does have many issues (their mobile app is hopeless for anything other than news for example), but is a great professional tool for anyone interested in their career, or profession.

YouTube

YouTube is the video sharing site on the web and although being social it not at its core, it is still social media. Users uploaded material which they, and other users, can then share and comment on. Users can even create their own channels of material making it easier for other users to find similar videos. YouTube also has a number of great tools allowing you to embed a video directly into a website or blog. Video dramatically increases your website’s visibility to search engines, like Google and clients love it – a win all round!

Where YouTube really comes into its own, however, is that it is very easy for a video to go viral – spread around the internet like a virus. Of course, the video has to have some kind of merit; be funny, very dramatic, or even just be very bad, but if your brand is attached to this video it can be great publicity or almost zero cost. For example, it is not unusual for clips of TV shows on YouTube to have dramatically higher ratings that on the channels they were produced for!

Above is a great example of a viral pet video – 10 1/2 million views as of this writing and massive mainstream media attention for Denver’s owners. All from a video shot upon getting home and finding someone got into the cat treats!

 A great test of YouTube’s power is to pick any subject you like and search for a video on it at YouTube. Your are almost guaranteed that someone has shot and posted a video on that very subject. Thank you Corey for showing me this!

 Video production is really outside the realm of this already overly long post, but it is simple, very low cost and an extremely effective way to market your business.

Some of these social media tools may appeal to you, and other may not. There is definitely a take it or leave it feel to the services that we have talked about today but it is important to understand that to not be involved in social media, particularly Facebook, Twitter and to an extent Foursquare does not mean that your brand and business are not affected by these mediums. Your clients are using these tools and so might your competitors you should at least have an awareness of what is being said and why. The genie is out of the bottle and without getting involved, it is possible for you to loose influence over your brand – the control probably went some time ago as it is now the customer who ultimately defines what your brand means.

Next week, a change of pace: Up to your neck in traditional media!

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Categories Content Marketing, Marketing, Social Media

Up to your Ankles in Social Media

July 31, 2011 //
8

As I’ve discussed previously here, being online is an incredibly important part of any business marketing strategy and social media is key part of that. It should not be mistaken, however, as a marketing strategy itself. It is a powerful and extremely useful tool, but like any tool, if welded by the wrong hands it can be dangerous! Social media is about engagement – having a conversation not about shouting or making speeches.

Social media is really pretty easy when it boils down to it. The problems arise when people do not understand the tool or try to apply 20th century marketing to what is very much a 21st century tool. Also please stay away from people calling themselves social medial gurus. There are very few people who actually qualify for the title, and the social media landscape keeps changing, that only the most general principles apply. For this reason I strongly advise everyone who asks about how to get started with social media to not use their business’s online reputation as an experimental playground. Get a feel for all the spaces we are going to talk about before launching on your grand social media adventure!

Facebook

For business to client businesses (b2c) such as veterinary practices or retail / service establishments Facebook is the social media site that you have to be part of if you are going to explore social media. A word about terminology: people on Facebook have profiles, businesses and famous people have pages. You cannot create a page without a profile. Profiles are friends of other profiles and are fans of pages. Confused yet?

The difference between profiles and pages is important because profiles exchange information between each other. With pages the flow of information is one way- from page to profile. There are businesses out there that have profiles. This is problem because it violates Facebook’s terms of service and because your clients might not want to open up their family photos to a buiness they frequent a couple of times a year!

If you have never been on Facebook, then sign yourself up and spend a significant amount of time getting used to the site. I’m not talking about a hour of two here, I’m talking about 10-30 minutes everyday for a couple of weeks. This is how people who use Facebook, use Facebook. Search for old and current friends, become fans of other businesses – even the odd movie star or TV program and see how others are using the site. But stay away from employees or bosses – too much to go wrong on all sides.

The biggest thing to understand about Facebook is that it is not a website in the traditional sense. Clients will rarely look at your business’s page or friends at your own profile for that matter. Facebook users look at their wall. The “wall” is like a notice board that constantly updates with information that is relevant to you – the pages you have “liked” and the profiles of your friends. As these profiles and pages are updated, those updates automatically appear on your wall. I take time explaining this because, as you will see, there plently of businesses who forget this and post 20 updates one after the other and then pat themselves on the back for all the information that is now on their Facebook page.

page

When you post to your page - you are looking at your page. But this is almost certainly not what your fans are going to see.

The problem is that this may as well be spam: who wants to read 20 posts all on the same buiness and on similar subjects all at the same time!? Also, Facebook users tend to respond to what is at the top of their wall, something that is a day or even a couple of hours old may get skipped over. Spreading those twenty posts over ten days will work far better for only slightly more effort.

Wall or News feed

Your fans are going to be looking at something like this. Note the small post at the bottom of the page - it is easy to get overlooked but becoming a spammer is worse!

We will talk more about content in future posts, but it is important to have something to say when starting a Facebook page. Remember, this is the voice of your business talking to your clients. Be friendly, but be professional. See what other businesses a doing and then do your own thing. Facebook is constantly evolving both as a website but also in how people use it.

Twitter

Twitter is a micro-blogging service. With only 140 characters with which to broadcast a message to your followers! Twitter is an excellent business to business (B2B) tool and can be used quite successfully as a B2C communication tool. Twitter, however, is not nearly as popular as Facebook and is demographically quite different. Twitter users tend to be younger and Twitter seems to be much more popular in major metropolitan areas than in smaller towns.

Unlike Facebook, Twitter does not have the same restriction on accounts having to be linked to a real person. Like Facebook, I strongly recommend getting a feel for Twitter by signing yourself up and seeing how other people and businesses are using it. Something to really keep in mind with Twitter is that everything, unless it is a direct message which you have to specifically select, is public.

Twitter page

Everything is public with Twitter - engagement is the name of the game.

There are few new conventions you’ll need to learn for Twitter: @ before someone’s name is how you specify that a message is for someone – it is still public, but allows you to flag the message for someone’s attention. A # before a term is a way of identifying that term as the subject of your message. It can also be used to provide context and helps with searching for messages on a subject. The message “I’ve been waiting for 2 hours” #thisvetsucks” would be a good example of context and providing a message that is easy to find by others – even if you might not want it to be! Retweeting the term used to describe the way twitter allows you to rebroadcast someone else’s message to your followers (similar to sharing on Facebook). Sometimes retweets are prefaced with RT for clarity.

Twitter is a lot of fun and although can take a bit more getting used to that Facebook, and it’s B2C benefits are less easy to see that Facebook, it is ultimately the tool which many find themselves turning for everything from advice to the latest news (Twitter regularly beats the major networks on breaking stories).

Google+

Very much the new kid on the block, Google+ is an interesting mix of Facebook and Twitter. The problem is that it is so new that no one has any idea how it is going to be used and It does not even cater to business at the moment. People who have Google+ accounts (it is still in closed tryouts at the moment) do seem to like it, but like everyone else, are not quite sure how it fits into the mix. I for one don’t even know if I want another social media network and find Google+ pretty limited due to how few of my friends and colleagues are on it.

I’ll cover a few other social media sites, briefly, next week but the bottom line is that social media is a significant part of today’s marketing landscape. If you a marketing, you need to be using Facebook and you need to be thinking about Twitter. Social Media really is a lot of fun. Discover the fun part first and then then work will not seem like quite such a chore.

Still confused? Social media not for you? Post a comment and I’ll see if I can help.

Next week: Waist High in Social Media Marketing

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Categories Content Marketing, Marketing, Social Media
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