by Madi Secareanu | May 15, 2012 | Business Success, Interactive, Social Media
I might have said this once or twice before…but it really does seem like there is a new social media site gaining momentum each week. Some of you might be thinking “oh no, not another social media site! I barely have enough time to log on to Facebook”. It may seem like over-saturation at times but not all new social media sites succeed. Their success depends on several factors that include: knowing their audience, ease of use, community development, or linking up to other larger social networking sites. Here’s a look at a few social media sites that failed to capture a large following and several sites that are making big enough noise to keep an eye on this year.
The Ones that Could Have Been
1. Yahoo! Buzz: No niche… no need.
Similar to Digg, Yahoo! Buzz allowed its users to generate “buzz” around stories they read online. Unfortunately for Yahoo!, low user participation rates and low website adoption numbers led to Buzz’ demise.
2. Friendster: Poor strategy.
As one of the first social networking sites to make an impact, Friendster once had more than 115 million users. Its downfall was combination of programming flaws, an unstable infrastructure and poor business decisions. Friendster has since changed course and rebranded itself as a gaming site.
3.Ping: An Apple failure!
A failure is a rarity, but not unheard of, in Apple’s portfolio. Although it’s still active Ping, an iTunes based social networking site, has failed to generate much action. Its censorship, hard to use navigation and the biggie – its focus on commerce not building social relationship has really put users off.
The Ones to Watch
1. Path: Social networking on the go. (Terminated September 2018)
Path was social networking app, which allowed users to keep a journal on the go – a “path” of their life. Users could post photos, travel updates, share interests, music and keep in touch with friends and family. In September of 2018, Path announced its termination of the service.
2. Quora: Has all the answers.
Quora connects its users to everything they want to know. Users ask questions, responses and share information. Users can create their own personalized homepages surround topics, questions, people and content they are interested in.
3. Chime.in: What do you have to say?
Chime.in is a social network based on interests. Users share opinions and questions around their interests while discovering new information and making new connections and building communities around their favorite topics. Top interests include Street Style, Food, Social Media and more.
4. Stipple: Content with power.
Stipple gives image owners power over their content. It powers commerce and content inside of images on the web and mobile while fostering connections and communities. It also permanently connects images to their owners who can share information, media and commerce through their images.
Whether these “ones to watch” will make a lot of noise this year remains to be seen. One thing’s for sure – when a social media site becomes successful – success happens very quickly. We know the story very well – take a look at how fast Pinterest and BranchOut grew. The real determinant of a social network’s success and longevity lies in its ability to keep users interested while staying innovative – remember there seems to be a new social networking site every week, armed and ready to become the next big thing.
What social networks do you think will have the most impact this year and why?
by Lindsay Sleightholm | May 15, 2012 | Advertising, Business Success, Creative, Design
As creative professionals, we all know that it’s not always easy to communicate the thinking behind design solutions to a client. There are several reasons for this. If it’s a new client, they may have yet to trust your expertise, or you have yet to earn their trust. Another scenario, is that the client may not have enough experience or knowledge of design and branding. Lastly, it could be because the creative you presented pushes the client beyond their comfort level.
No matter what the reason, there are going to be times when you need to make that extra effort to communicate just exactly why your fantastic concept is so… well, fantastic. Chances are, if the client is reluctant in any way, you won’t sell them on the idea. So, in order to avoid going back to the drawing board, try to minimize the margin of error with better client communication.
Here’s 5 tips to maximize your client communication…
1. Start with the basics.
Refer back to the brief. Knowing and having an understanding of the goals the client had in mind is crucial to achieving a solution. Reiterate what was first given as the creative and strategic mandate and tie it directly into the creative solution you’re offering. After that, explain the thinking process that took place for you to reach your creative solution.
2. Don’t use too much design lingo.
Many clients don’t have a background in marketing or design, so it’s best to refrain from throwing out terms that the client may not be familiar with; it’ll only lead to more confusion and frustration on their part. Instead of talking about hierarchy, typography, negative space or Gestalt principles, express these intentions in more universal terms like “focus,” “eye path” and “emphasis.”
3. Show it.
Most clients – and people for that matter – are much more inclined towards visuals than words. Present clear, polished creative options to your client. But don’t just leave it at one solution. It may require a lot more legwork, but an effective and professional client presentation means providing multiple options. As we as creative professionals know, there’s always more than one way to achieve a solution. Give your client the opportunity to see those other options.
4. Throw in a little 101.
Although you don’t want to overwhelm them with industry jargon, you do want your client to get a peak at the method behind the madness. Sometimes that means educating them about the principles of design and the strategy behind the marketing. If your client doesn’t understand these strategies or principles, try explaining it to them. But again, break it down into ideas and terms they can relate to.
5. Listen and address concerns.
Sometimes the brief may have been followed to a ‘T’, but ends up not ringing true for what the client actually wanted. In that case, ask questions and listen to the answers. What’s not working for them? How are your concepts different from what they expected? Dig around a little and find out where you and your client’s thinking differs. It may mean taking a step back to reevaluate the goals and possibly reworking the creative. But it’s important to realize and respond to these concerns so you have more effective communication in the future.
Bottom line: The communication you have with your client can make the difference between a good relationship with them or a bad one. You want them to trust in your expertise. The easier you make it for them to do that, the better it will be for you both. However different your backgrounds may be, finding that common ground will allow for the possibility of greater success on both sides.
What other tips can you share about successful client communication?
by Madi Secareanu | May 8, 2012 | Advertising, Branding, Business Success, Creative, Interactive
It’s happened to all of us. We’ve been on Facebook posting something on a friend’s wall about a specific interest, like tennis, and the next thing you know Facebook is showing you an ad about tennis rackets. That’s the power of Facebook ads – it lets brands engage and target people based on interests – what they’re talking about and what they like.
Facebook ads can be a very powerful tool to help to generate interest, brand recognition and brand loyalty. It can be an advertiser’s dream – targeting using the information people willingly share with others or enter in their profiles. But it’s important to know the ins and outs of advertising on Facebook before you get started.If you’re planning on launching a Facebook advertising campaign, here are some things to keep in mind before you get going.
- Identify your goals
What do you want to achieve? Is a Fecbook advertising campaign the right strategy? Do you want more likes on your brand page? Do you want to get people to enter a contest? Do you want to drive brand awareness? Do you want to acquire new sales leads? Your objective defines your strategy, so make sure you know what your goals are before launching your campaign. Make sure to establish your objectives prior to launch but be prepared – with Facebook the strategy may vary throughout the duration of the campaign.
- Know your audience
Who do you want to reach – who is your audience? Think about what categories your customers fall into. Not only define them by demographics… dig deeper than that. Knowing your audience well lets’ you target your ads more effectively by tailoring your imagery and your copy to get your target audience’s attention.
- Set your budget
Set a clear budget as you would for all advertising efforts. Identify how much you want to spend daily or during the ad’s entire lifespan and identify your cost per click or cost per thousand impressions bid. How much are you willing to spend? What’s your strategy? Should you initiate a cost per thousand (CPM)or a click through(CTR) campaign.
- Know the rules
Get to know Facebook’s advertising policies and approval process. You’ll find useful information on what you can and cannot advertise, say or show. Knowing the guidelines before hand will lower your ad’s chance of getting disapproved or shut down.
Now, you might be ready to launch your Facebook advertising campaign, but don’t know if it’s going to be a success. It’s always hard to forecast if an ad is going to be successful or not, but if you know your audience well enough and you have a clear objective and a well-defined strategy, you can help improve your ad’s success rate. Here are a few useful tips on creating more effective Facebook ads:
- Copy is key
Develop to-the-point copy that grabs your viewers’ attention. Use a call to action like “Click here!” to help incite your audience to act. Also, use any keywords that you may have if you’ve done your psychographic targeting.
- Draw the eye
Facebook ads that have simple images generally perform better. Use people’s faces where possible as it can help create a more personal connection – but keep it relevant. Avoid using images with hard to read text. Again, try to keep it simple.
- Prepare for landing
Keep your landing page in mind. Where are you sending your audience? Your landing page should reflect what’s being advertised. It may seem a bit obvious but if you’re asking your audience to enter a contest, the landing page should allow them to enter a contest…and so on. Keep it consistent.
- Analyze the performance
The real beauty of Facebook advertising is that you can stop ads and launch new ones…in a blink of an eye! In order to do that though, you need to create many alternative ads in order to test them and analyze which ones work, which don’t and why.
As marketers, we already know the power of Facebook and what it can do for customer engagement and brand loyalty. We know how we can better integrate our brands into our customers’ daily life through Facebook – keep them talking about a brand by asking questions and through constant engagement, stay in front of their eyes and at the top of their mind. Recently, Facebook announced that it would include ads in the news feed – making ads even more integrated in customers’ every day Facebook activities.
What are your thoughts? Do you think Facebook ads are effective– any success stories that you’d like to share?
Click here to follow 3H Communications on Facebook!
by Miriam Hara | May 4, 2012 | Branding, Business Success
I like to think of Internal branding as mushy on the inside, solid on the outside… just like those chocolate coated marshmellow cookies! Businesses must realize that their internal brand must be a focus and it takes more than a positioning statement on t-shirts or jackets to make that happen. It is no longer viable for companies to rely on their external customer base to propagate the brand experience to their internal customers: their personnel. Gone are the days that the external message of brand is all that counts. In today’s environment, in order for an external brand to succeed, the internal organization, its employees, its processes all have to align themselves to the external brand…. if not, you’ll be short in offering your market base in brand experience, brand premise, brand promise and brand delivery.
Remember when offering friends and family discounts to your staff was the whole internal brand initiative companies employed? By doing this, companies provided employees with a way to “advertise” their product. In today’s social market, employees’ friends and families cast a wider net! Internal branding allows the potential of each employee becoming a proponent of your brand. They can and will be your best PR campaign. Word of mouth has taken on a whole new meaning.
Whether your business is in CPG (consumer packaged goods), b2b, medical, financial or non-profit… the ability to engage your personnel with your product, brand and service goes a long way in creating a complete brand experience. Organizations need to walk the talk. Today’s savvy consumers/customers expect and want more from their purchasing experience. In order to buy into a brand, to endorse it and select it, the complete 360 degree brand messaging must be consistent… and that includes your internal people. But how to do that?
To start, develop a clear company vision: Just like a brand positioning statement, this doesn’t have to be elaborate, however, it needs to be succinct. This isn’t anything new. Companies have always had a visions statement…. however, what you do with this company vision must be considerably more than framing it and placing it on the wall.
Identify key personnel to be the “internal brand ambassadors”, to motivate colleagues to embrace the vision: This is imperative. Identifying leaders within each department of your business will go a long way in creating a holistic experience for your brand. Empowering these ambassadors will ensure that within their department that the brand vision and premise stay strong and in line.
The company vision needs to be communicated to the internal team and “adopted” by senior management: The old adage “Do as I say…. not as I do” doesn’t work anymore. The culture of an organization needs to deliver on its brand promise. Actions speak louder than words. Management must get in line and be expected to tow the mantra.
Develop clear goals and measurement metrics, to assess along the way. (ie: sales mix % per sales person, customer service process and goals). This goes a long way in engaging employees and making them part of the process as “part of their job”. This assists in establishing the expectations and tying them up to the brand experience.
And lastly, but definitely very significant in the adoption of internal branding, is the ability to establish goals and reward personnel who demonstrate that they have embraced the culture.
In order to propel a cultural shift within an organization where employees are more client focused and more business focused, a developed and organized plan is essential in order to lead to the desired outcome. Just like everything else in business, a strategic plan identifying key goals is the first step. This will enable all key employees, and key stakeholders to be more engaged and relevant in the business process. I don’t remember where I read this but it did resonate with me: “There is a difference between communicating a message, and getting it understood, and changing behaviour.” So next time your are in a marketing meeting ready to establish your brand deliverables, don’t forget to bring those chocolate covered mashmallow cookies!
by Christine Marr | May 2, 2012 | Branding, Interactive
In today’s market environment we want information instantly and that goes hand in hand with web site performance. We increasingly have a shorter attention span and more and more the concept of brand loyalty is taking on a broader definition than, say, a decade ago. The most relevant reason for all of these to have occurred rests on the “internet”… and more specifically, web sites. It is a property that has taken its place in the brand conversation in junction with social media. No longer can you separate the two. Both combine to provide a stronger brand presence and brand premise. So how can you maximize your ROI on your web site performance and social media. How can you develop, build and maintain that elusive relationship with your consumers, audience and market.
The short answer is that it is no longer important only to get visitors to go to your site… your site is now the basis of the total social media umbrella. Enhancing your web site performance is key. Your web site should be the gateway and the destination through your other social media properties such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Branch Out, Pinterest…. How to do that?
Here’s a quick list:
1. Navigation should be intuitive and make sense. Make your visitor comfortable, it should be easy for them to find what they want from the home page. It goes without saying that you need to look at your competition and see what they are doing. However, you must determine what will provide optimal user experience for your target. The faster and easier the navigation, the more customers will return to your site and stay longer.
2. Content is king… it is important to address your customers’ pain. Do this visually for greatest impact…. and do this copy wise for clarity of position as well as keyword optimization. Find out what keywords are “key” to your industry and speak to them. I am not suggesting that you place every key word on every page… that’s not going to do well. Exercise judgement and common sense. Seasoned marketing professionals and writers will know how to do this well. Make sure you provide your target with a clear understanding of what their pain is, what their needs are and how you can help eliminate their pain. Connect with them on an emotional basis.
3. Again….content is king… it’s important to get in your target’s radar by providing them relevant and timely information. Gone is the the brochure-type of web site. Sites that don’t allow for fresh updates, new posts or tips are losing a huge opportunity in engaging with their customer base and developing a dialogue and relationship with customers. Write tips or mini articles…. share them on Facebook, tweet….regularly and consistently. This will to a long way in gaining the trust of your customers and convince them that you can answer their pain. Blogging is great for keeping your content fresh, so you are found more often.
4. One more time….content is king…. it is no longer important to only get visitors to go to your site… your site needs to motivate them to spend time browsing through your pages withe information that is relevant to them, so much so that they feel compelled to provide their information on your website so then you can engage them on a one to one, or digitally or as part of your community. This is what is called inbound marketing. Create relevant information that lives independently of your site… but still adds value to your potential customers… and adds value to your brand. Web sites need to be built integrating forums or blogs, and providing fresh and diverse information on the home page to continually improve SEO (Search engine optimization) and get found. More importantly this provides a very effective way to generate leads and integrate sales initiatives.
5. Create buzz and excitement driving people through facebook, LinkedIn and traditional and digital media. We are currently running a campaign for Kressmann Wines through Facebook, Twitter, digital and print ads. In less then 24 hours we received over 1400 likes on Facebook and have now started engaging with our community. We are constantly commenting and interfacing with our customers and of course, driving them to the web site as well! This can easily be done in the b2b arenas, niche markets and for community businesses. The digital arena allows for such precise slices of target segments so every dollar you spend is accounted for and relevant!
6. Information, not data, is key as success is in the measurement….! Track your site’s and social media progress and traffic, and respond accordingly. It’s not about just creating a promotion and just leaving it alone. You need to work it! It’s important to set your google analytics properly so you can respond and react to the information you are receiving. Metrics are important to evaluate where your visitors are coming from, why, and what actions they have taken once they land on the site.
7. Keep it fresh… is not only a good adage for food, but for web sites too. Monitor your site on a regular basis. Monitor every page of your site, catch broken links or improve on the elements, make sure pages load quickly. Revisit the site with fresh eyes and fine tune accordingly. Don’t let it go stale. Too often, sites get all the attention when they are being developed and then left alone. That’s a sure way of not being in harmony with the market!
Simple, compelling, engaging, fresh, exciting and trackable. Make your site work for you! Achieve inner peace with your site… Ohmmm.
