Five Steps To Appyness http://ow.ly/dP0MQ
Sage 50 Mobile – For All You Android Fans
Sage 50 Mobile – For All You Android Fans Out There http://ow.ly/dP15L #mobile
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Social Media for Business – 5 Simple Steps to Effective Use
There is no doubt that Social Media represents a huge opportunity for businesses. Indeed, its about fishing where the fish are….your customers are on social media platforms, are you? There is a number of clear advantages of using social media as a communications channel for your business including
- The ease of access to the platforms – Your business can be up and running within minutes and through the use of the multiple platforms that exist for checking the available platforms such as www.namechk.com, you can quickly and easily identify those channels you are missing and get them setup quickly.
- The reach of sccial media channels – the fact that we talk about the user bases of some social media channels in terms of tens of millions, should indicate the enormous audience that is out there on social media channels.
- Lastly, (and the bit that brings a smile to the face of most CFO’s and gets the channel approved in no time), for the most part its free or low cost for businesses to work on these platforms.
So, ease of access, massive reach and it’s free – seems easy, right? So why do so many companies fail at social media as a channel for their business? There is not one set answer as to why this happens but by following the 5 simple steps below you may be able to improve your chances of success.
In carpentry they say Measure Twice, Cut Once, in Social Media we say Listen Twice, Speak Once!
1. Understand Your Customers
Your customers are the lifeblood of your business, understanding them should help you to understand how speak to them and how to get them to participate in your brand to a greater extent. You need to know not only, who your customer is, their behaviours, likes, dislikes and what makes them tick; but also where your customer is. You may have the greatest, most attractive message ever for these customers but if you are pushing it out over the wrong channels your customers will never see it! Companies get this for traditional marketing channels yet seem to struggle with the concept in social media – just because the channel is there, it doesn’t mean that you need to use it!
2. Understand the channels
Once you have understood your customer and what social media platform they are on, the next step is understanding how to use the platform. This includes permitted behaviours, the type of messaging style, norms of interactions on the platform etc. For example understanding the limitations on number of characters on Twitter, use of Hashtags for particular subject matters or how best to respond to criticism or negative tweets is critical to get the best return from the efforts.
3. Content
What most businesses fail to understand about social media is that its about dialogue! Those using it have to think less like Don Draper and more like a curator of opinion, steering the direction of the conversation as opposed to broadcasting a one way message. The hard sales pitch is not appreciated by the social media audience. They prefer the opportunity to participate, express their opinion and guide the conversation. Your role as a business in social media is simply to seed the conversation and steer its direction.
Further, its important that its understood that your customers, particularly those on social media, expect more in terms of what they can get from your activities. I recently blogged on the subject on blogging for business and touched on some of the options in this area. The main message is that there is value for your brand / business in sharing something more than a marketing message in terms of potential customer perception of your business.
4. Measure
It may seem like an obvious one but many companies have not got a means of measuring the impact of their social media activity. Social media may be a free route to market for your messaging but lets not underestimate the value of the investment of time in the management of this channel. Measurement will allow you to understand what channels are worth most effort in terms of time and save time on channels that do not provide a positive result for your business. However, it is important that you can clearly define what you are measuring and also what represents a success for each channel. This measurement is not a once off event either. What is critical for a business is to understand their progression over time and hence regular measurement against goals is important to allow you to optimise your activities before they get too far down the wrong route and also to invest further in the channels producing the best results.
5. Refine
So you have listened and understood your customers and your channels, you’ve created suitable content and you’ve measured its impact. So what next? By all means take that pat on the back, business is about building on your successes so make sure that you mark them. However, to stand still is to fall behind the competition, once you have understood how to use the social media channels its important to take these learnings and apply them to your next initiatives. Silence on social media is a means of undoing all of your hard work as your audience see’s that your content is no longer frequent and relevant and thus may be sceptical about your reasons for using the channel and get the sense that your business has got what it needs from the channel and that they are no longer needed until the next campaign. However, as a learning exercise your acitivities in social media should also be measured against their successes vis-a-vis the other needs of your business. Commit to what is right and manageable for your business and stick with it, you need to play the long game tactically to win!
By Simon Bell
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Digital and Social Marketing In Action
In the last number of months since I have started this blog I have had the good fortune of getting to view a couple of truly inspiring videos around digital and social media marketing. With this in mind and in the interests of trying something a little different on the blog I have added a link to my playlist here that I will keep adding to over the coming weeks and months.
If you have any suggestions please leave me a comment below and I’ll add them but in the mean time enjoy some of these!
Social Media Revolution 2012
Old Spice Guy
The Guardian – 3 Little Pigs
Tippex – A Hunter Shoots A Bear
Nivea – Augmented Reality Featuring Rihanna
Knorr Sidekicks – Salty
By Simon Bell
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The 6 Do’s & 5 Don’ts Of Business Blogging
I was recently asked to begin contributing to my company’s official blog on a regular basis. My first thoughts were that this would be a good thing as the practice would help me to hone my blogging skills. However, given some further consideration it occurred to me that blogging on behalf of a company carries with it a different set of considerations than blogging for my personal purposes. After much research and reading of good, bad and unmentionable blogs from SMEs to big corporate enterprises I came up with a set of guidelines for myself that I believe can serve as a good guide for anyone taking the leap into blogging for a company.
First the 6 Do’s
1. Talk about more than your company or its products and/or services
There is value for your company in what you do, there is value for your audience / readership in sharing something of How You Do It. By understanding the audience for your blog you may begin to understand that their reading is for the purposes of their own eduction, if there is something that you can publish in your blog that allows you to educate your audience then there is a reason for them to come back.
2. Share something of value from your experience
By letting the audience understand and learn from what you have accomplished you are demonstrating a degree of openess with your audience that generates a trust. Its not about telling exactly how your company does things on a tactical level but more about sharing a little of the personal learnings with others to help them to understand how to do things better.
3. Be Informative
Tell your audience something that they didn’t know, use your blog as a platform to share information that is valuable. If it is valuable the audience will be sticky.
4. Be Open and Honest
Do not use your blog as a means of blindsiding your competitors with false information. The audience places a trust and a value in those that they believe are being truthful so open and honest communication is a means of establishing and maintaining the trust of the audience.
5. Keep it interesting
The odd off topic blog or different format of media has the value of keeping your audience interested in your blog. It also shows the diversity of your company and possibly may attract a different audience. And of course diverse content has a value for SEO purposes!
6. Engage!
Lets not get it wrong, your blog is a means of giving your brand / company an audience and as such advertising your company, however you also need to remember the basic elements of marketing in the digital age – Marketing in the digital age is a dialogue not a broadcast monologue! If you are going to blog allow for engagement through the comments section and interact and respond with your customers (and your detractors) It gives them a forum to engage with your company, you’ve facilitated them through it, don’t close them off to it and lose this opportunity to show a human side and expand the message.
And now the 5 Don’ts
1. Don’t write an infomercial
In terms of TV they are those long form advertising formats that allow for long product demos and user stories. Think of it from your own experience – you are generally mildly entertained by them at first and then by the 25th mention of the product they have you desperately reaching for the remote. Too many corporate blogs are long and drawn out editorial pieces about a company’s product, they lure the reader in with a somewhat engaging story and then hammer the reader with the hard-sell – it is a sales opportunity without a doubt but will the reader ever come back? Doubtful. The purpose of the blog is the long term engagement with the brand for the customer and potential customer audience – The Softly Softly approach!
2. Don’t Backlink or Keyword Stuff
This might seem an obvious one from a SEO perspective but if you stuff your corporate blog with your brand name, product names etc it will rank negatively for the purposes of SEO. Also the stuffing of the blog with keywords or links make it also makes it uncomfortable to read by disrupting the natural flow of the piece for your readership.
3. Don’t give the game away!
While it is important for the blog to be informative and have some content of value to the reader in terms of informative insights it is also important not to give too much detail in terms of the specific actions that your company undertakes in order to succeed in its business so as to maintain the competitive edge. Remember the aim is to provide exposure for your business not to deep insights into the day to day operations and strategy.
4. Don’t Forget Who You Are Representing
A blog may be somewhat less formal than other forms of company communications however it is important to remember that much effort and probably expense has gone into the positioning and voice of the brand. It is important not to compromise this by adopting a much different tone. Consistency is key in the tone.
5. Don’t Go Near Potentially Controversial Topics
The last thing that your company needs is to have to invest time and effort and probably expense is social media crisis management or rectifying a PR gaffe. It is ok is some cases and where the company positioning allows for it, to be somewhat more edgy in blogs however it is important to remember (as above) that you are representing and speaking as the company. Engaging and stoking the fire with regards to controversial topics can have a significant negative impact on your brand value so approach with extreme caution!
I hope these guidelines are useful, certainly on a personal perspective they aid greatly in writing the correct type of blog for company purposes!
Check out my company’s blog here too.
By Simon Bell
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Cloud Computing and Software as a Service – What all the fuss is about
In a departure from my usual topics and somewhat driven by much of what I have learned in my first couple of weeks in my new role, and also driven by a number of recent ads I’ve come across online, I’ve decided (in something of an effort to help my own understanding) to put some thoughts down on the area of Cloud Computing and Software as a Service.
To most people the terms Cloud Computing and Software as a Service seem somewhat distant to their day to day lives, you’ve heard about it, it’s the next big thing, but you’re still not quite sure what it is and pretty confident that it has nothing to do with you for the moment; right? Well actually you could be wrong, cloud computing is much more integral to your day to day life than you realise!
So What is Cloud Computing?
Put very simply Cloud Computing refers to the storage of your data on a server that is accessed over the internet. Still seem a bit far removed? Think of it in terms of a simple example that affects most of us – Email. If you work in an office your emails are probably is stored either on your computer or on the network someplace. However, if you have a Gmail / Yahoo / Hotmail account for personal use for example your emails are stored on a server somewhere and you can access them over the internet. Doesn’t seem so far removed now does it?
So where does Software as a Service come in?
Software as a Service (or SaaS) is a means by which you access your data. Instead of the software being installed on your computer it is installed on the aforementioned Cloud and you can use it by accessing it over the internet. Again let’s look at the email example. On your office computer you might have the programme Microsoft Outlook and this performs the functions around daily email usage, whereas for your personal email the programme that accesses the email and performs similar functions to the programme installed on your computer but the programme itself (be it Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail etc) operates on a server on the cloud.
What are the benefits of Cloud Computing and Software as a Service?
For day to day personal use the benefits of Cloud Computing and Software as a Service are huge.
- Your computer doesn’t get clogged up with lots of big files causing it to run slowly
- The software doesn’t have to be installed on your computer so there is less time and effort required in trying to figure out how to install software and actually going through the process of doing it.
- The software doesn’t need upgrades etc to be installed, they are simply applied by the experts and next time you log in it does new and better stuff.
- You can access your programmes and files from a number of locations, no need for disks, flash drives or even to bring a heavy laptop around just for the sake of running a programme or downloading your emails.
- No need to remember where you left the disks (thrown in a drawer usually) for programmes if you need to re-install etc.
Now think of it in terms of the advantages for a business, the benefits are magnified,
- Your computers no longer need to have massive hard-drives to install software on, so there is a cost saving on hardware
- No need for multiple software licences and the associated cost and difficulty of tracking these.
- Less data is stored locally so you need less server hardware with a knock on effect of less hardware to maintain – a cost saving!
- The programmes can be upgraded in one location, saving a trawl around the office upgrading software on lots of computers.
- Staff on the road, at home etc can access both the programmes and associated data without having additional programmes and software installed on their other devices (phones, laptops, home computers, tablets etc)
- Data is secure to level that would be difficult to maintain for a local team but has dedicated resources in a location that’s sole aim is to provide secure and reliable access to data.
So the real questions are
- When is cloud computing and SaaS going to be understood by the mass market as what it is?
- When are businesses going to start making more use of these and will the tipping point come when cloud and SaaS replaces the obligatory server rack in every office?
By Simon Bell
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Klout for Klout’s Sake?
So you have a Facebook account for sharing your personal moments with your friends, a LinkedIn Profile to promote your professional credentials, your (and others’ ) ideas are shared via Twitter, your photos are shared on Flickr and you’ve been tinkering with Google+ to see what gap it fills or what other network it might replace. You may also have a more formalised output of ideas via your Blog. But how effective is all of this undoubted effort?
If your aim from all of the effort is to drive interest in you and your business or brand then surely the aim is to be influential in the right places and with the right influencers so as to drive awareness and ultimately make it pay you. There is a difficulty here however, each of these major social outlets fills a different space and thus the measures of how influential you are different from one network to the next and also for different purposes so how do you get a general measure of influence that encompasses most if not all of these in a single metric?
This is where Klout (among others) comes in. The aim of Klout is to measure how influential you are across your social media outlets (and also what subject matter you are influential on) By integrating the data and interrogating the content, Klout ranks your influence on a scale of 1-100. As such this provides a metric that is easily measurable and also understandable against others’. Whilst this is no doubt valuable it does prompt the question as to how the scoring is compiled and how accurate this is.
A key question I have been pondering (and the something of a reason for this blog entry) is does the Klout score become self fulfilling to an extent and does this lead to use of the social network platforms in a manner designed to improve or maintain a Klout score as opposed to using the platforms for the original intended means? Or more succinctly, does it cause usage patterns designed to maintain and increase the Klout score, Klout for Klout’s Sake and thus miss out on the point of social media – to interact socially? In recent weeks, changes to the algorithm that calculates the Klout score have resulted in a downward shift in the score for many of those with higher scores, in other words the algorithm changes caused certain social media users to become less influential overnight. This change (and the associated loss of influence) has resulted in a spate of highly vocal Klout opt-outs over the last number of weeks and also some humourous swipes at Klout such as Flout!
The fact remains however, that as a means of tracking progress in social media for social media newbies, and as a means of identifying those more influential people in certain subject matters (in a less than perfect manner) Klout is no doubt a useful tool and will probably continue to have a place as “The Standard For Influence” for most social media power users.
However, for the average user, with whom, you or your brand are ultimately trying to engage with in order to drive your revenues, do they really care about Klout scores? Or are they simply using social media platforms for the fun of it and as a result are those engaged in social media missing out a key element of the whole marketing process, that is understanding the consumer??
By Simon Bell
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The Value of The Carrier In Direct Carrier Billing
The recent acquisition of mobile payments provider Zong by Paypal would indicate the growing importance of the mobile networks as a payment platform. Indeed, Yankee Group are predicting that the value of this market will be somewhere in the region of $670bn globally by 2015.
In parallel recent statistics show that the feature phone market remains 7 to 8 times larger than the Smartphone market globally at present, however the predicted growth pattern of global smartphone shipments, coupled with the handset development policies of the major players in the space that is focused on making the Smartphone the ubiquitous device at all pricing levels, would indicate that the smartphone market is ready to explode across all markets.
So, if the smartphone is becoming ubiquitous, and it will be the most commonly used device to access the internet, why then would one of the internet’s largest payment platforms be interested in a payment mechanic that takes them out of the loop?
Well it would appear that the answer is more straight forward than one might otherwise assume;
Firstly, Mobile is the payment mechanic in everyone’s pocket!
Mobile device penetration in western countries and a growing number of asian markets is already more 100% (Over 118% in Ireland and over 140% in Finland for example!) Credit card providers can only dream of penetration rates like these. With some of the worlds largest markets also approaching 100% handset penetration there is also lots of growth potential.
Secondly, Mobile is fast becoming the most critical device in your life.
Like it or not, its already got your email, your contacts, your music, your photos and your must have apps – so why not your payment tools also. Merchants are also keen to reduce the burden of cash handling on their businesses, so cashless payment mechanics are going to be increasingly accepted as a means of facilitating the removal of some of the cash element. Brendan Kenney of Geodelic mentioned at the “Get Mobile 11” conference hosted by Dublin City University this week that the day he lost his phone he had a replacement within 60 minutes; the day he lost his wallet he cancelled his cards immediately and got around to getting a new wallet. It is probably a story that rings through for most of us!
Thirdly, A contractual billing arrangements already exists between the customer and the carrier network
Mobile carrier networks are utilities providers. As such they have highly sophisticated fraud monitoring mechanics and strict processes in place for the recoupment of monies outstanding to them. In order for the transaction to be processed in the first place, the network has had to confirm that this customer may have the charge added to their account, commiting themselves to retrieve this, so the merchant can be safe in the knowledge the payments are backed and confirmed as viable by the billing agent – the carrier.
Finally, The Value Added by the Carrier Network – DATA, DATA, DATA
For the same reason that Facebook is valuable so are the mobile carriers – its all about the DATA. In processing the payment, they know, its value, the retailer, the product / service being purchased, the time, and the location. Add this to the details already at hand such as, home address, contact information, personal demographic data, the spending habits and patterns and credit worthiness. Admittedly not all of this data may be shared but in its entirety this volume of specific data one each and every customer provides a hugely valuable resource for those willing to pay for highly qualified leads.
Are there threats to this?
Like any great, seemingly flawless, product there are undoubtedly some threats to its rollout and usage on a widespread basis. Primarily and most importantly is the simply the fact that the lines between the major players in the industry are becoming very blurred as the scramble for share of mobile payments gets underway. From a regulatory perspective, by offering small scale credit facilities the mobile carriers are effectively becoming banks and (perhaps correctly) will be treated as such by the market regulators in the financial services arena, of note recently was the move by Rogers Telecom of Canada to register as a bank with the Canadian Financial Regulatory Authorities. Also, while Near Field Communications (NFC) hardware embedded in mobile devices will allow contactless payments, and the carriers may offer their billing infrastructure behind this as the account to debit against, there is also nothing to stop these NFC Chipsets from triggering communications with other wallet or Account providers such as banks or, as seen in the trial on the New Jersey Transit system, Google Wallet! It is also difficult to see the incentive for the carrier networks in deployment of NFC reader hardware in merchant locations on this basis; it is more likely that exisiting merchant services providers (such as the retail banks) will provide NFC reader devices to their existing merchants as part of the renewal of hardware on the basis that the same NFC chipsets may also be deployed in traditional credit and debit cards.
So what is the future?
It is my opinion that while the NFC space may be somewhat crowded it will be a successful product that end users will adopt given the massive push that this has been given by major players in the telecoms, banking and now search industries. However, the undoubted benefits of the data that is available through direct carrier billing provides merchants as advertisers with invaluable quality of leads for the sale of their products whilst also providing a controllable payment tool for the end user in a variety of situations where the merchant is not / or does not need to be physically present. Paypal clearly believe that this is going to be the case and for me, that would serve as a pretty good indicator of the potential of this.
By Simon Bell
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Apps or Mobile Sites?
In a professional as well as a personal capacity I’ve been wondering for some time now where the greatest opportunity lies for the mobile marketer.
The argument for apps
In my professional and personal life I use both fairly regularly and to be completely honest I find that most of the apps that I do use to be really convenient and useful with well designed UI’s to make the accessing of information that bit easier.
The other thing to bear in mind (which is even more significant) is that Apps have that “cool factor”. Brands want a presence in the App stores with their own apps, but is this primarily for the positive brand association with Apple or Google than for pure direct commercial returns? For smaller or lesser known brands, unless your app does something pretty cool, its pretty easy for it to get lost in the ether, there are over 100k apps for iPad alone, which makes it very difficult to be seen or heard (let alone someone actually going to the bother of actually opening your app and doing something commercially beneficial to you as a result!) and then there is also the cost of development to consider….
Undoubtedly, there is still lots of growth potential in the apps space, Apple have not quite reached world domination as yet, but they would like to grow from the 5% penetration rate that they believe they have as announced by new CEO Tim Cook only last week and App downloads are projected to hit 98 million annually by 2015 according to Berg Insight. However, in terms of the mobile handset how big actually is this?
So What About the Mobile Site?
The mobile advertising space is where the truly astonishing numbers are. A very recent report by Singapore based mobile advertising network Buzzcity would indicate that the real wins are not to be had in the crowded apps space in a limited number of western economies, but actually in the emerging markets where the feature phone is still king. Buzzcity report that 52% of their mobile advertising traffic is on Nokia devices in the emerging markets. Given that handset penetration in these markets is still less than 100%, that growth towards 100% is likely to come from greater uptake of cheaper low end devices initially and that one of Nokia’s stated aims (in the famous burning platform speech) is to target production of low end devices in emerging markets there is likely to be enormous opportunities here. In the words of Wayne Gretzky’s father in teaching a legend of the sport
“skate where the puck’s going, not where it’s been”
Lets take Vietnam for example, according to Buzzcity
…..Vietnam to enter the ‘Billion club’, as the markets that receive more than one billion ads per quarter.
this is a truly astonishing figure in terms of potential market scale (and this is only the third biggest market in South East Asia) and every one of these impressions must have been served on a device on the mobile internet and thus in a position to access mobile sites. Mobile sites are also increasingly easy to produce with a myriad of tools available free online to allow even non coders to develop reasonably high quality mobile web rendered sites of high quality.
Also, to drive traffic to these sites, the advertiser may buy advertising on a performance basis and still may do so very cheaply compared to other, less measurable advertising media and with a variety of analytics and tracking tools available as simple plugins for these sites the whole customer experience may be not only tracked but also optimised to drive higher conversions and higher value subsequently.
So where is the marketing budget for mobile headed?
For my money, I’d still be convinced that the brands will opt for the apps route, primarily because of the aforementioned positive brand association and cool factor, however if it was my money I think I’d be taking the mobile sites route!
By Simon Bell
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Print To Mobile – An Opportunity?
In recent weeks a particular (and one time iconic) print title in Ireland has invested very heavily in a TV advertising campaign running numerous spots each evening across the primary state owned television channels. Perhaps it is the Digital Marketer in me but I am struck that this particular medium of advertising for a product in a sector that it is in significant decline, with the undoubted cost of this advertising is perhaps a little wasteful?
The publication in question has an undoubted brand recognition and a significant market share in a particular demographic, hence to some degree the spend on this particular above the line marketing channel is appropriate in reaching the target demographic. However, in a period of rapid decline for print it would strike me as self evident that advertising the product to a target market already inclined to purchase this is not a good use of the marketing budget.
In order to expand the reach of the publication, surely a digital strategy given the popularity of the publication should allow it to penetrate new market demographics. Given the same budget and the quality of the content output, I believe that content may be syndicated to digital channels effectively and on an ongoing basis which would allow the brand greater ongoing brand exposure. Syndication to digital editions, consumable on mobile devices, with a cost effective and more importantly measurable advertising spend, could in theory drive significant volumes of new users to the content and more importantly allow brands advertising within the print edition to reach new, younger audiences, which in itself feeds back to drive additional revenues by the publication without the need for additional content output and also without the risk of canabalising the existing readership.
Perhaps, this may be a step too far for the organisation in question in the short term, however, by the time that they are ready to move it may be too late…
By Simon Bell
simondbell 