Social media in 2012 – my predictions…

2011 was certainly an eventful year for social media. Facebook continued to grow and add new features, Twitter announced it had over 100 million users, while Google jumped on the bandwagon with the launch of Google+. As such more and more businesses ‘got social’ and used it to increase their brand awareness and their customer service offerings.

We saw the good (and bad) sides of social media too. While the Arab Spring protestors turned to Youtube, Facebook and Twitter to tell the world their stories, closer to home it was used to co-ordinate riots and the looting of stores in London, Manchester and Birmingham.

With that in mind I thought I’d look into my special crystal ball and make a few predictions for the future of social media in 2012…

Prediction # 1 – Social saturation

First off, I think that more and more businesses are going to get involved in social media for fear of being left behind by their competitors. By the end of 2012 don’t be surprised if you see your local pub, plumber or hairdresser online, tweeting deals and uploading photos. If they’re not online now, rest assured they soon will be.

Prediction # 2 – Sharing is caring

Given this year’s changes to search (in which Google started to place a higher emphasis on shared links and content) expect to see more sharing buttons embedded on business websites. Google+ it, Facebook it, Tweet it, LinkedIn it – we’ll be encouraged to tell our friends about what we’re reading, more than ever before.

Prediction # 3 – Behold the blog!

Although blogging has been around for years, I think businesses will place much more emphasis on creating compelling, creative and engaging content. Expect to see more businesses tweeting links and directing their Facebook friends to their website to read their words of wisdom and view their latest products. As I’ve already mentioned, there will be an increased use of sharing buttons and comments fields to encourage debate.

Prediction # 4 – Funnels for the win

The upcoming changes to Google Analytics will make users’ buying journeys easier to understand for e-commerce businesses because they will be able to see which ‘channels’ were most effective in initiating and assisting sales. Given that ‘social media’ is a category (along with display ads, pay-per click and organic search) expect to hear more about the importance of multi-channel funnels. What part does social media play in deciding to buy will be a big question e-commerce businesses will try to answer.

Prediction # 5 – Return On Investment

Given that 2012 is predicted to be a pretty gloomy year for businesses, expect to see more importance being placed on social media’s return on investment. Although it’s free to use, social media is cost-heavy in terms of the time taken to create content and engage with customers. I predict that many financial bods and marketing departments will come to blows as the latter tries to justify the importance of having a social online presence.

Prediction # 6 – Broadcasters get on the bandwagon

If you’ve ever watched a TV programme and tweeted at the same time, you know how enjoyable it can be. Broadcasters will want to tap into this sentiment and as such I predict that more and more of them will encourage us to connect with like-minded people watching or listening to their shows. From answering questions through Twitter hashtags to creating dedicated programme Facebook profiles, expect to see more social media captions and subtitles on your favourite TV shows soon.

Prediction # 7 – More offline social media marketing

As more businesses wake up to the power of social media, I predict that more offline marketing literature will contain their social media details. Your local pizza place will have it on their menus, your local pub will have it on their wine lists and your local department store will have it on their receipts. Goodbye Yellow Pages!

To sum up…

There’s no doubt about it, social media is moving at an incredible pace and it will be interesting to see which of these predictions come to pass. Yet regardless of what happens in 2012 you can be sure we’ll cover it in this blog – it’s an industry that keeps us on our toes and that’s why we love it!

What do you think of the predictions and where do you see social media heading? Let us know below…

 

PR and social media

As part of my job I often use social media to contact journalists on behalf of my clients. Twitter is such a fantastic tool when it comes to breaking news, that it’s often the first place you’ll hear about big news stories. As a result, the majority of journalists have a Twitter account – and you can use this to your advantage for your business.

In this post I’ll talk about how you can use Twitter to find and approach journalists to get your business known. It will lay out some do’s and don’ts, what you need to think about and how you should say it.

The first steps

Once you’ve set up your Twitter account you should start by identifying and following those news outlets relevant to you. This will include:

• A couple of national newspapers and their business sections’ accounts (eg if I worked in building supplies I’d follow Guardian Money…)
• Your local newspaper’s official Twitter account (In this case EDP24)
• Your industry body’s official Twitter account (National Housing Federation / Royal Institution of Charted Surveyors)
• Trade magazines relevant to your industry (Inside Housing, Community Care)
• Charities relevant to your industry (Shelter)

This will give you a great insight into what is going on in your business sector. Make sure you create a list (and set it to private – you don’t want your competitors pinching your finds or seeing what you see! More about this further on).

Then start to listen

On a daily basis, follow the list you have created. Make notes on what is being said. Who tweets the most often? What do they tweet? What are they interested in? Take the time to get to know these accounts because your news will soon be tweeted by them to their followers.

Visit their websites

Don’t just rely on their Twitter streams to keep abreast of what’s going on – make sure you visit their websites too. Take a good snoop around – do they have a blog section? If they do, who blogs? What do they say? Do they allow guest posting?

For trade magazines make sure you check the “Contact Us” section. In here you will often find a list of journalists who write for it, and if you’re very lucky it will contain their Twitter contact handles (take a look at Marketing Week for a good example)

Also remember to hunt for forward features lists. This is often published by trade magazines on a yearly or six-monthly basis. It will give you a good insight into what they are looking for and you can use this to your advantage to try and get involved.

Take your time

Now you’ve got your lists set up and visiting the websites, don’t rush in to contacting the press. Take your time. Get to know what’s happening and make notes of:

• Important dates relevant to you – e.g if you’re an online retailer, Christmas is a big time for press
• Government dates – e.g is a white paper going through Parliament?
• Industry campaigns you can get involved in – e.g NHF’s campaign on fuel poverty
• Industry conferences – when is your business’ industry conference?
• Sports events – can you profit from them in some way?
• Breaking news stories – can you provide a comment in some way? (You have to contact immediately when this happens…..)

Writing that killer press release

Right, so you’ve sorted your contact outlets and you’ve got a story that you want to be told. Take the time to work out what you want to say and how you want to say it. Be aware that journalists are extremely busy people and will unlikely run your story if it is not:

• Interesting
• Engaging
• Informative

Start with a headline you think will get attention in an inbox. For example “PRESS RELEASE: Brits risk losing their home..”

Make your press release 4-5 paragraphs long. No more. It should be structured like this:

• Headline
• Explain your story in full – “2.5 million Brits could lose their home, according to new research..”
• Details of your story – “A survey by XXX has revealed that 49% of Brits are… and 36% of Brits are…”
• Quote from you – “Phil, Manager of XXX says “XXXXX”
• Summary – “The survey of 2,000 people was carried out between…”
• Notes to editors – Details about your business and your contact details

Making the contact

Once you have your press release written and you’re confident it covers everything you want to say, it’s time to pitch it to your media channels.

Start by tweeting the twitter accounts you found with the message: “Hello there, I have a story you may be interested in. What email is best to contact you on? Thank you”

Once you get your contact details, do not reply immediately with your press release. Reply with a “Thank you for that, I will send you the press release first thing in the morning, I hope it can be of use.”

Timing is everything in news, and your release is more likely to be used at the start of the day than the end. Newsrooms across the land are (trust me) much more productive between the hours of 7am and 10am, so this is the ideal time to get your release in their inboxes.

In your email, make the subject line your press release headline. Say hello, and mention your Twitter handle in the correspondence. For example…

“Hello,

Thank you for your email address I requested over Twitter yesterday (I am @XXXX). I enclose the following press release and hope it is of use. Please do feel free to contact me if you require any more information.

Kind regards,”

(and then copy and paste your press release in.

Follow up

The final stage in this process is to contact your Twitter target again. “Hi there, I have just sent you a press release – I hope you can use it? Could you let me know? Many thanks” This message requires a response.

If it’s used – congratulations – you’ve just used Twitter to get positive press.

If it’s not used – consider the reasons why. Was it too self-promotional? Was it even news in the first place? Re-visit the mistakes you could have made and don’t repeat them next time. Even if it’s not used you can take comfort in the fact that you’re known by them as a body willing to be contacted, and they may follow you back or use you to comment on issues in the future.

To sum up…

Getting press through Twitter is a long game. You need to take the time to listen, to react when you need to (rather than reacting for reaction sake) and build up a database of followers. It may seem like a lot of effort, but trust me it pays off – especially when you get the journalist’s personal twitter accounts and start becoming chatty and friendly with them.

Remember – be interesting, engaging, and don’t give up!

 

 

Writing a good social media policy

If you’re a business with a number of employees, you need to think long and hard about who you let manage your social media account. Do you let that eager 20-year-old loose and risk your company’s reputation should they decide (in a drunken haze) to upload pictures of them getting drunk on a night out? Or do you lock down your social media account so each tweet, message and status update is logged, checked and approved before it’s sent?

I would argue that you don’t do either – and that’s where a social media policy comes in. Not only will this policy (if written correctly) protect you and the reputation of your business, it will set the ground rules for how you engage online – and more importantly who engages.

In this post I’ll run through the basics of a good social media policy, what you need to think about and how you should structure it. Ideally your policy will be one page of A4 – at most two pages – because you want people to read it, understand it and implement it.

Start with clear objectives

All good social media policies have clear objectives from the start. Make a list of everything you want your business to achieve on social media. More sales? More traffic to your site? More brand awareness? Make it clear and easily measurable.

Then define your arena

What is social media to your business? Is it a Twitter account, a Facebook profile, a blog or a combination of all? Outline your arena and what each one is for. For example “Twitter is for – better customer service” “Our blog is to become an authority on XXXX”  ”Facebook is to share the company’s culture and to generate traffic”

Set the groundrules

Rather than a long list of don’t do this, don’t do that (which turns people off), make your groundrules positive. Focus on what they can do, rather than what they can’t. For example:

• Be respectful – remember you are representing the company, so respect people’s views and be positive whenever you engage with someone. Remember, they could be a future customer!
• Be authentic – honesty, passion, commitment – they are the guiding principles of our business.
• Be accurate – always post honest communications, this adds value
• Be careful – only ever post factual communications, don’t ever post commercially sensitive information!
• Be responsible – you are the face of the business, remember that when engaging with the press and stakeholders

Define who posts

You then need to clearly set out who posts, when they post and what they post. Will you have an overall social media manager responsible for the accounts, or will you encourage your company to get involved? Making them feel part of your company’s success on social media is key – encourage them to come to you with ideas for blog posts, ideas for press releases, ideas for competitions etc.

All successful businesses on social media are fun, friendly, honest and open. They are not afraid to make mistakes, to open their business up for the world to see and give it a human face. Set out a guideline of posting content, and do have a sign-off process. Don’t make this cumbersome, use your common sense – a tweet which you know will ruffle feathers needs approval, a tweet re-tweeting a story from the BBC doesn’t.

Personal accounts
Your employees are bound to have personal social media accounts, so you need to accept that they have the right to do what they want with them (yes, even if that means they go out on a Friday and get drunk and post a picture of them being sick!). What you need to do is let them know that they are, by association, employees of the company. So, make them aware that they cannot:

• Bad mouth your business
• Bad mouth their colleagues
• Reveal company secrets or intellectual property
• Use your company logo or trademarks
• Claim they are speaking for your business

And also make the point that they can be asked to remove a post at any time if it is deemed inappropriate.

And have fun!

The final paragraph should be a positive summing up of your business on social media. Let the signatory know they are there to have fun and achieve your objectives. It’s an exciting world and one you should embrace after all.

Do it right, and you’ll have a social media policy which will protect you for years to come. Do it wrong and you’re asking for trouble.

 

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Posted by Business East on December 20, 2011 in Facebook, social media, social media policy, social media strategy, Twitter