How to Promote Social Media Profiles in Your Shop Window With a Little Personality
I was in the beautiful county of Cornwall not so long ago, revisiting some of my youthful haunts, as well as ‘big-boy’ camping for the first time – yes, we did indeed have a tent with carpet and a fridge?!
Anyway, on one of our days out, we took a leisurely stroll around the picturesque harbour in St Ives, where I spotted something in a shop window that grabbed my attention – a couple of hand made signs promoting the Twitter and Facebook profiles of a little fashion boutique called Ebb and Flow.
I have to admit that these aren’t normally the type of establishments I venture into without ‘the better half’ in tow, but I felt the need to tell the lady in the shop how much I liked her handmade window wares – so I popped in and did just that!
The reasons they worked for me:
- The hand written signs absolutely fitted the brand vibe of the shop that sells ethical and green products.
- They were written by someone with fairly legible handwriting, not by someone (like my good self) who writes like they’re doing an impression of a trainee doctor.
- They’re uncluttered – only the key information necessary is included 1. A clear call to action and 2. Clear Twitter and Facebook profile names.
- They’re stuck to the shop window using big dollops of blue-tack on what looks like decent gsm weight paper – as opposed to flopping around or peeling away in one corner.
Funny what you find on holiday don’t you think!
Posted in: Facebook, Social Media, Twitter
How To Grow a Facebook and Twitter Fanbase Using Green Pie Vans
One of the most common conversations we have with clients is about how to grow an online community around their brand – particularly how to increase the number of people that ‘Like’ their Facebook page and ‘Follow’ them on Twitter.
There are lots of elements to successfully achieving growth, particularly around creating engaging content and frequency/quality of interaction, that could (and will no doubt) make up a dozen future blog posts…but, there are also the simple, common sense things that every business should be doing to build awareness amongst existing and potential customers of the opportunity to connect with their brand online.
We refer to it as making the most of your customer ‘touch points’ – wherever you interact with your customer either in person or online, let them know where and how they can connect with you.
So, promote your Facebook page and Twitter profile online and offline, internally and externally – embed Facebook and Twitter boxes on your website, add ‘Like us on Facebook’ call to actions on email signatures, business cards, stationery, packaging, external marketing collateral e.g. posters, press ads, TV commercials (seeing so many more of those coming through), on in-store point of sale and even vehicles.
Talking of which, one of our clients, Holland’s Pies have this week added Facebook and Twitter logos (along with their profile names Holland’s Pies Official and @HollandsPies) to their iconic fleet of green pie vans.
It’s a simple and relatively inexpensive thing to do, but makes really smart marketing sense since Holland’s 30+ pie vans are cris-crossing the North West (their core customer territory) on a daily basis and receive thousands of customer ‘eyeballs’ (OTS to you marketing types) that can potentially be converted into online fans of the brand.
When advising them to do this, one thing we stressed was the importance of adhering to both Facebook and Twitter’s brand usage rules. Luckily, both sites have very good, easy to follow guidelines and areas where you can download official logo’s that can be used both online and offline. You’ll find Facebook’s guidelines here and Twitter’s here.
What other ‘touch points’ are you using to promote and grow online communities?
Posted in: Facebook, Social Media, Twitter
Twitter and Facebook Access for US Troops
US troops are to be allowed to use social networking websites such as Twitter and Facebook following a review of internet use and security.
Defence department officials say the benefits of using social media now outweigh the risks to security. The ruling means that a number of sites blocked by the Pentagon in 2007 – including YouTube – will be unblocked. However, commanders will be able to temporarily block access to safeguard missions or save bandwidth.
Correspondents say social media and the internet are becoming increasingly important for the US military. The web is used for recruitment, public relations and for communications between troops and their families, among other things.
US Defence Secretary Robert Gates has said that social networking can help the Pentagon interact with US military employees, many of whom are in their early 20s and regular users of online services.
Source: BBC News
Posted in: General
LinkedIn Partners With Twitter For Live Status Updates
LinkedIn, the professional social network, has partnered with Twitter to allow members to share status updates between their LinkedIn and Twitter accounts.
The integration of the two networks through the Tweets app lets members of LinkedIn automatically share their updates on the professional network with their Twitter followers.
They can also select Twitter status updates to share with their LinkedIn network by adding the #in hashtag to tweets on the micro-blogging site. LinkedIn members will be able to track and manage their Twitter feed from within their LinkedIn profile.
LinkedIn has 51m members, including 11m in Europe and almost 3m in the UK.
The new feature will be available to all LinkedIn members globally over the next few days.
Posted in: General
Tweets and Pokes Cost UK Businesses £1.4 Billion Each Year
The results of a new survey by TNS research found that employees use of social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook, cost UK businesses £1.4 billion each year.
They surveyed 1,460 office workers and found that 57% admitted to spending an average of 40 minutes of working time per week on these sites, for personal use. According to TNS, this equates to just under a full working week being spent each year on social networking sites during working hours.
I have worked in offices for many years and it’s my experience that office workers have always taken time out of their working day for ‘personal use’, whether it’s reading the paper, talking on the phone to friends, chatting to colleagues around the coffee machine or taking a cigarette break – why is using social networks any different?
Interestingly, 76% of those surveyed said that their employers hadn’t issued them with specific guidelines with regards to using Twitter. This is leaving employers open to loss of productivity, damage to brand reputation and security risks.
Rather than banning the use of these sites completely, the most sensible solution is to issue usage guidelines in the same way many organisations do for email. There are examples of social media guidelines freely available on the web and here are a few of the better ones.
- Havard Law School Blogs Terms of Use
- GM Motors Blogging Policies
- IOC Olympic Athletes Blogging
- BBC Staff Editorial Guidelines Personal use of Social Networking and other third party websites
- IBM’s Social Computing Guidelines
- Dell’s Online Communication Policy
Posted in: General
Google Adds Twitter Real-Time Search Results
According to this BBC article Twitter has signed deals to put messages sent via the microblogging service into the Microsoft and Google search indexes.
The deals will see messages, or tweets, show up in Bing and Google search results almost as soon as they show up on Twitter.
Microsoft has moved quickly to set up a stand-alone Twitter search page accessible via its Bing site.
Google said its Twitter search service would debut within the next few months.
While some parts of Twitter already show up in some search results they tend to be for individual accounts or messages that have been archived. Both deals will take a feed of all public Twitter streams to make them searchable almost as soon as they are sent.
Read the complete article here.
Posted in: General
Twitter to Launch Own TV Series
According to this article from the BBC, a TV series based on Twitter is being developed.
The show will use the social networking site as the basis for interactive competitions, involving celebrities and Twitter users.
The unscripted series is currently being developed by two production companies in the US.
“It captures what’s best about Twitter,” Reveille Productions’ Noah Oppenheim said, “and it’s a compelling TV show in its own right.”
The ‘micro-blogging’ service, which allows users to post ‘tweets’ of up to 140 characters, was launched in 2006.
It’s now one of the fastest-growing social networking sites, and numbers celebrities Ashton Kutcher, Jonathan Ross and Stephen Fry as regular users.
Posted in: General
Is Flutter the new Twitter?
There’s much debate across the web about whether Flutter, the new nano-blogging website, will be the new Twitter or merely a poor imitation?
With posts or ‘flaps’ (rather than tweets) limited to 26 characters, will it really catch on?
Posted in: General
UK primary school pupils to study Twitter, podcasts and blogs in curriculum shake-up
In a recent article, The Guardian reports that under new proposals, UK primary schools may soon ditch studying topics such as the Victorians or the Second Word War in favour of Twitter, blogs, Wikipedia and podcasts.
The proposed curriculum, which would mark the biggest change to primary schooling in a decade, strips away hundreds of specifications about the scientific, geographical and historical knowledge pupils must accumulate before they are 11 to allow schools greater flexibility in what they teach.
The proposals would require children to leave primary school familiar with blogging, podcasts, Wikipedia and Twitter as sources of information and forms of communication. They must gain “fluency” in handwriting and keyboard skills, and learn how to use a spellchecker alongside how to spell.
Posted in: General
BBC Radio Four Today Programme gets Viral
Great ‘viral video’ released this morning by The Today Programme on BBC Radio 4.
It’s very funny in a ‘wry’ way, with a witty focus on various presenters’ fashion quirks!
By early am it was already causing quite a buzz on Twitter, you can Twitter search the tag #todayviral for the latest updates.
It’ll be very interesting to see how successful this experiment by The Today Programme turns out – YouTube views were in the hundred’s pretty early doors.
Posted in: General
