Enough of top reasons...

"Top 10 reasons you should be on social media", "Best 6 ways to engage with your Twitter followers", "5 Ways to have your Blog rank high", "12 Tips to make your website show on the first page"...Top 4....20 ways... 99 reasons....etc... I think it is about time we stop with those posts about how to excel with SEO and SMO in X number of simple ways, because apparently, many have tried and few have managed to get there. Example:

Try Google-ing "Retail", the #1 result has h1  tags properly defined, and hey, guess what? The #2355 result has also the h1 tag properly defined. See, it is not magical!

Same thing applies with social media; it is not about following a rigid set of procedures that is applicable everywhere, anywhere and anytime. Yet, it is all about Communication. I always like to compare online social media to off-line activities: Typically in Lebanon, when guests come in to your home, you are most likely to follow this high level procedure:

Greet / Eat / Eat More / Eat Further / Coffee/Tea / Dessert / Coffee/Tea / Goodbye

Along the way, things might change, you adapt, you communicate better, you engage and then proceed. In other words, am sure you would not drop in panic mode if one of your guests does not like coffee, correct?

The point is, in social media, there IS a scientific way of handling things, but it is simply not magical, or something that you would follow and hit success whenever you do it. Rather, you invite your audience, you learn more about them, you talk to them, you adapt, you influence, you advise, you listen, you improve, you build and you create the link....COMMUNICATION SKILLS.

Similarly, when it comes to SEO, am not going to delve into details here, but I would love to hear User Experience, Traffic, Density, Referrals, Bounce Rate, Retention, in SEO posts, rather than h1 tags, title tag and the image alt attribute...etc... You get my point :)

Another post you might also like: Social Media Consultants...Abundant Supply

Thank you for reading

Social Media Consultants...Abundant Supply

Important note: For the sake of this post, and this post only, a social media consultant is referred to a person who self attributed the term "consultant" to himself, knowing that his experience lies in creating a Facebook page, a Twitter account, occasional a YouTube channel, and playing around them mildly, by either posting some random posts, or installing applications left, right and center.

The events mentioned below are from my personal observation of the market in the gulf area, mainly in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Social media...The Demand

It has become a fact, that every business would like to tap into social media, especially B2Cs. Those businesses are aware of the strong benefits of social media such as the ability to target their audience, direct more traffic to the website, engage and gather feedback and so on; They have heard some wild success stories, and excited about it. Yet, since they are not the industry experts, the only KPI they see is the number of followers. So this is the demand

Social media....The Supply

The businesses are asking for followers....Yay! Here comes the social media consultant to the rescue. "You want Facebook followers? I give you Facebook followers" says the social media consultant, and the randomness begins...

A Facebook page is created, an ad is created, random text and images are loaded, miscellaneous apps are integrated and the followers start rolling in. 3 months afterwards, the social media consultant has reached a Facebook page with 20,000 followers (or whatever budget was spent on advertising has allowed him to reach), the website traffic has slightly increased, more forms have been filled online, yet the client is unsure whether he should be happy or not...There seems to be something missing

Social media...The Adventure

After all, it was a nice adventure, now comes the real challenge...No more ads for driving additional followers it is time to grow the page based on the existing followers. This is where randomness can no longer be tolerated, to make a long story short, below is a sample graph:

The area on the left of the red circle, is actually the social media consultant, randomly posting stuff on the page, till a critical point has been reached (the red circle), where the number of Dislikes are actually surpassing the number of Likes...In other words, the page is starting to lose followers. (The area on the right of the circle will be discussed later on within this post).

Sustainability is something that the social media consultant did not consider, and without the support of an ad the page simply became a collection of followers that is practically useless for the client.

A great quote come to mind: "Activate your fans, don’t just collect them like Baseball cards" - Jay Baer

Social media...The Report

To answer the original demand, the social media consultant reported two things: The number of followers on that Facebook page, and the number of visitors on the website. And about the ROI....well....not really.

Strangely, the "report" section should be largest of this post, but the social media consultant is simply measuring two things :)

What was not portrayed?

The social media consultant:

• Acted independently on the Facebook page, and forgot about the other mediums his client is enabled on
• Measured the number of followers only, instead of measuring the number of interactions
• Linked the number of followers to the number of visits to the website, but did not include in his analysis the bounce rate, the number of pages viewed on the site, the average time spent on the site, the entry and exit pages. In brief, he was unable to detect problems with User Experience and User Journeys on the website and rectify them
• Did not assign a dollar value to the follower, in order to benchmark his campaign and improve with time. i.e.: Did the follower cost 1$? 0.1$?
• Did not properly manage the ads CPC, and yielded (for the sake of this example) 20,000 followers, whereby double that amount could have been generated with the same budget, if multiple ads were created, with different targets, with different appearance dates...etc...
• Did not speak his audience' language, whether by using the appropriate tone or character. He simply spoke to them as if it was himself, which might be good sometimes, but not suitable to the business's audience
• Did not plan ahead, and integrate the social media strategy within a wider marketing strategy
• Focused on monologues, and did not create dialogs

and in the near future...

The client is expected to have the following problems:

• Problem with administration, page transfer and delegation
• Page unique names, especially if the business is part of an international entity, has affiliates or subsidiaries
• Burdened with a major collection of idle followers due to the Facebook News Feed policy

What is the social media consultant missing?

Creative team to help design landing pages, banners and attractive visuals based on engagements. Posting a banner stating "thank you" is more efficient and reactive to simply typing in "thank you" (Example).

Usability experts to help read, analyse and react based on statistics generated by all the business digital mediums

Developers and producers to help develop custom made application that are suited for the business, promoting the viral effect

Copywriters to help adapting the content, make it attractive and suitable for the target audience

Social Media, and Search Engine Optimization specialists/strategists to enable a long term campaign of engagement and making sure ROI is crystallized and KPIs clearly defined

Having the above components, would put the client in the right section of the circle highlighted above in the graph. Main reason for that is that social media is not an independent activity held by a business, it is part of a holistic strategy including multiple social media platform, the website itself, offline marketing activities...etc... Thus the need for multiple resources of different skill set to properly maintain and sustain the platforms.

For the sake of honesty, and ethical business, social media consultant should spend time educating their clients and providing them real insights on social media by uncovering the real data, and the real reports. There is no need to hide behind the "number of followers", social media for every business has its learning curve, and it is best for businesses to listen to their followers and react accordingly.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on that post, and please do follow me on Twitter @rafyouni

E-Newsletter 101

Now that people are engaging with your brand on a daily basis, you are more concerned about your newsletter and planning to send it out regularly, monthly, weekly or maybe daily if you generate that much content. Below is a list of items that you already know, but I just compiled them for you:

1. Starting with your "TO" field. People often select "no-reply" or "webmaster" as the "TO" field? Why? what is the purpose, is it like a "We talk to you, you don't talk to us" like approach? If you are asking people to enjoy your brand, then you are better off stating that you are ready to hear back their thoughts. "no-reply" isnt quite inviting. Go with something friendlier, choose a friendly name: Matt, Helen, Joan, Melissa...whatever you want, just make it sound human.

2. "CC" and "BCC", a definite NO for both fields. Keep them nice and clean, don't use them

3. Subject: Keep the subject short and self explanatory, avoid using characters or expressions that help in marking you as a spammer: All Caps subject, exclamation marks, question marks. Special keywords such as "Free, Win, Now!, Enjoy...etc..." are all a no-no for most spam engines.

Also keep in mind that some recipient would like to archive your e-newsletter (or quickly find it in their inbox), so make sure you introduce a certain pattern within your subject (or just a keyword maybe), that would simply allow the user to search for one term in the subject field and get all your newsletters.

4. Your email body: Start by stating why your recipient is receiving this email. Should be something like: You are receiving this email because you are subscribed to www.ourwebsite.com, a website description.

Afterwards start with the body of your newsletter, you usually put in whatever you want in here, just try to reduce the number of images as most mail clients don't allow much images to be sent thru, and outlook becomes really heavy when downloading a lot of images, and might result a deletion of your email by the user.

Finally, You must have added your social media links to the newsletter, and are asking people to follow you / join you, you'd better state why they should follow you. For example follow us on Twitter for regular news updates, Follow us on Facebook and be part of our competitions...etc...

In your email body, think about:

• Users who are opening up the newsletter on mobile devices
• Users who are previewing your newsletter (Either using the reading pane of outlook or any other email client, or the desktop notification of popular email clients)

5. Your newsletter footer: This is an area not to be disregarded, your footer should definitely include an un-subscribe link, I know you don't like this, but hey - give people the choice :) - Also, make sure that your unsubsribe page on your website pushes people to change their mind...don't just put in a message "Thank you for unsubscribing....blablabla..." It would also be a good idea to ask the un-subscriber: WHY? (Never too late to ask for advice  and compile more insights)

Finally, the footer should also include the physical address of your company, with the POBox number. This helps you in gaining more credibility (and decreases the chances of you getting marked as spam)

Some notes you should consider:

• If you opt for a full graphical newsletter, keep in mind that most email clients would block the image downloads. Make sure you have enough TEXT showing what the newsletter is about to incite the user to download the pictures...and why not inform the user that he needs to allow picture download to fully view the newsletter (This could be put in the image "ALT" attribute).
• Keep in mind that most email client do not support more than 50 images as attachment (In case you are embedding the images within the email), in case you are referencing the images from your server, make sure you keep old images, so that users archiving your newsletter can still have access to it
• Never forget to track: How many users are coming to your website via your newsletter, to your facebook page, and how many followed you on Twitter, what is the most "clickable" area of your newsletter...etc... Data Data Data help you learn, improve and target.
• Don't forget to add reference numbers for your e-newsletters. Help users organize themselves and quickly identify what they are looking for, whether in their inbox or on your website.

Don't forget to follow me on Twitter here

The 10 commandments of Social Media for Retailers

“Our head of #social media is the customer.” – McDonald’s. If you believe in such a statement, then below are your 10 commandments that help enforce the credibility of your brand as well as build a healthy and engaging atmosphere. A definitive must, since statistics have revealed that 51% of people who follow a brand, will purchase from that same brand.

1. You shall balance out your hearing and listening skills
2. You shall create a dialog, and never a monologue
3. Do not take the name of your brand in vain, and do not take it personal
4. You shall honor your followers, whether praising or criticizing you
5. You shall not compare two or more items/topics suggested by your followers and present your opinion
6. You shall not take side in any discussion that arises involving politics, religion, controversial topics (ethnic differences, animal care, sex, violence...etc...)
7. You shall not attempt to be funny by stating jokes, using sarcasm or other common methods as hilarity is relative
8. You shall not delete any post from your followers, without clearly stating the reasons
9. You shall not flirt with your follower, nor comment on their profile picture
10. You shall not treat SEO and SMO independently

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You should follow me on Twitter here

Top 7 Social Media Sites in Saudi Arabia 2010

Below is a graph showing the popularity of social media platform in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Total dominance of Facebook, YouTube and Twitter are the next in place.

Source: StatCounter Global Stats - Social Media Market Share


This should definitely be an indication to corporates and B2C businesses...Make sure you are present there!

And who will tweet my tweets?

You have setup your Twitter corporate page, invited your friends, colleagues, clients and partners to join; You even sent out a newsletter asking people to join, you added the link on your email signature, your website, your blog and your Facebook page. It is all going well, yet you are unable to grow your twitter page even further. It appears that you are fun, you are posting interesting stuff and hash tagging carefully. It is all going well, but you want a further growth in your twitter followers.


An excellent approach is to get influential public figures to talk about you, or maybe re-tweet your tweets...yeah, like this was easy!


So the question lies: How to get them tweet about me, or re-tweet my tweets?
Here are some possible options:
1. Press release / News articles (joint, combined or referencing them)
2. Active Public Forums participations (Maybe their BLOGS)
3. Ask them! (or more likely post about them)
4. Pay them! (Humm....really?)
5. Beg them! (or get marked as Spam)


Influential figures do have a solid impact on their social environment, getting them to talk/tweet about you will surely boost your credibility and number of followers....As a simple example, imagine your current Boss at work tweeting that he "likes" a new website, intuitively, you will go and check it out....Question is: "How to get your Boss and a lot of others do that"...


Food for thoughts!

Will you soon pay for your social media accounts?

Social media is witnessing an impressive growth in terms of usage, visits and interactivity. Facebook now has half a billion registered users only 6 years after its launch (Source: Mashable), Twitter unique visitors in June 2010 surpassed visitors of the same month in 2009 by an impressive 109% (Source: Marketing Charts), Linkedin celebrated its forty million users in its 6 anniversary as well on May 2009 (Source: Linkedin) and so on, practically every type of social networking platform is living a growth, whether targeting the global populace or niche markets.

Commonly, corporates are also tapping into the social networking world, and creating profiles, pages, group...etc... and engaging their customers on a daily basis, getting feedback, promoting and awarding. Leading social networking sites offer customization of URLs, for example: www.facebook.com/myPage; Twitter account most often represent brands rather than personal names, with this impressive growth and a "want" turning into a "need" would those usernames remain for free?

Facebook guarantees that it would not allow selling of page URLs (transfer prohibited), but can it also protect usernames creation? and if Yes, how long would the process take in order to prove, validate and give back a username and a page URL?
Something to think about, since ICANN also protects brands when it comes to domain names, but it is quite a long process (and sometimes costly), maybe time is something a corporate cannot afford, so it might choose to pay a couple of thousands of dollars to the "username" holder and skip the long validation process.

One has to think about the next steps, since social media has become an essential part of any corporate presence and a main traffic generator for any website, will you be able to secure your accounts on all social media platforms? or would you have to buy them from an "auctions" site?

Makes you wonder...

9 things to consider on your Facebook page

Facebook business pages are showing great success when it comes to brand awareness and engaging users. It has been proven that social media is the next best thing to have when you are tapping into the digital world, and since Facebook is one of the most growing social networking site (recently passed half a billion users), it is very important to consider the below point when managing your Facebook page:


1. Consistent: Decide on whether you want to engage users using "I", "WE" or "Brand-Name" and stick to it throughout the lifetime of your page. People need to feel that they are talking to a "person", so this "person" needs to have a tone, character, attitude and specific communication skills.

2. Consice: People will visit and ask you questions, answer concisely with detailed step by step procedures in order to help your users (YES! time consuming, but very beneficial on the long run)...in other words, avoid the common tagline: "Visit our website for more information"

3. Clutter: Be easy on adding new tabs, remember that it is a Facebook "PAGE", keep on updating your page and remove whatever has become obsolete, remember that the page is to create an engaging platform, while your website should hold the archives

4. Spam: Do not spam users with boring news and links, make sure that you are constantly engaging them, asking questions, gathering insights...etc... Frequent posts about "standard" news items might increase your "dislike" rate. Remember Facebook is not a business platform, everything there is suppose to be fun!

5. Compete: Your Facebook page should not compete with your website, on the contrary it should act as a supporting tool to drive more traffic to the website, put snapshots on the pages and make sure you redirect people to your website

6. Organize: Manage the topics you are discussing properly (whether on your wall or on your discussion tabs), make sure you give ample time to users to participate and share their thoughts before starting up another topic. Remove obsolete items or old items, the Facebook page is an engaging platform, not an archive.

7. Enjoy: Depending on the type of your business, you need to select your proper tone: Are you friendly?, strictly business? Preferably to aim for the friendly tone and engage in a 1-1 communication. Do not hesitate to include smillie faces whenever appropriate. In brief: create an enjoyable atmosphere

8. Escalate: You will receive complaints on your wall, maybe due to a mishap with one of your users, a complaints about the service or product you offer; in all cases, carefully review when to handle things openly on the Facebook wall, and know when to escalate and move to a private conversation. You might move the conversation to private messaging, emails or ask the user to re-submit his complaint on the website (You might as well do that for him and share with him the tracking number)

9. Time: Make sure you plan and time your activities on Facebook properly, do not create large gaps of time between events or conversation triggers, and vice versa, do not flood your fans with constant new posts. Plan properly and adjust your timings as per your audience and stick to it. Going silent for a long while will result in some "dislikes"

Who to expect on your Facebook Page!

I am sure you have a million and one reasons to get your business into social media, Facebook offers a very fertile platform for this. So once you have established your page on Facebook, who would you expect? How would you react to them? and what would you do?

No need to mention that leaving your page idle would quickly kill it and reflect very negatively on your brand.

Below are a couple of user types you might expect popping up as fans on your page:

"Spammers": Spammers are those who invade your page with relatively useless content to you. Typically they would show up on your Facebook page when you have a considerable number of fans, and post links to their website on discussions you have started. Very annoying behavior and usually might result in a few "dislikes".

Recommendations:

• Be on the alert: always be ready to delete inappropriate posts
• Be strict: do not hesitate to ban the spammer from your page, you might loose one fan, but that might save you from loosing a whole bunch of others
• Monitor all your tabs: Spammers crawl all of your Facebook tabs, photo gallery, and they might just post everywhere. Make sure that your most recent posts are "spam"-free
• If you are unable to quickly react to random posts, make sure that you prevent users from starting their own comments (That can be done by adjusting the page settings), this way you will reduce the impact of your page acting as a "spam-promoter" on everybody's wall

"Smart Heads": Smart heads are usually on your page trying to prove they are funny, looking out for friends or a date companion. Most of their comments are rather irrelevant and sometimes they annoy your other fans. They should be treated in a very similar fashion to "spammers" but with slightly less strictness.

Recommendations:

• Be on the alert and intervene whenever a "smart head" is abusing your fans
• Know when to ban, when to answer and when to delete
• Monitor all conversations between your fans, and make sure that your Fan page does not become a ground for settling differences

"Idles": Idle fans are usually people who just "liked" your page, but were never interested in what you are posting. The new insights developed by Facebook should give you an overview about how many impressions, feedback and comments you are getting on your actions. These numbers are indicative, and should give you directions on the interests of your fans.

Recommendations

• Ask yourself: Am I interesting enough or am I just dumping in news about my company on Facebook? Am I really adding value to my fans or just pasting in links to my promotions? Am I a friendly brand or I just refer people to my website whenever they have any question?

"Critics": critics are fans who did not fully endorse your brand, and might have some questions, doubts or trust issues with the services or products you provide. They usually react to your new posts, pictures with questions or inquiries that put your offerings to the test.

Recommendations:

• Be sure to answer queries posted by the critics and use them as a platform to promote the "hidden" services you provide. Never delete their posts as it would immediately back fire on you.
• Keep in mind that the "critics are not always" right, make sure that whatever claims are put forth against your brand are supported by evidence, in other words, whenever you hear a complaint, ask for evidence and more information, and react accordingly.

"Loyals": Loyal fans are those who believe in your brand and are dedicated customers. They usually support your activities and are the first to "Like" them. You can rely on them to back your statements whenever critics or smart heads are out there speaking, but do not take them for granted and make sure you reward them every once in a while.

Recommendations

• Reward loyals, The reward can be a simple "Thank you" message or email, a gift voucher, a loyalty card, a status upgrade on your website...etc...
• Do not clearly overpower them over other users
• Remember that loyals do not work with you, they are out there giving out their opinions and thoughts, endorse them but do not give them the free-will to represent your brand

Rarely you would come up with identity thieves that would endorse your identity and speak on your behalf,

"Exploiters": exploiters simply try to ruin your presence on Facebook, they would register themselves as users with usernames very close to your company, for example, if your company name is: MyBrand, they would use a username like: MyBrand1 or MeBrand...etc... and assign a profile pictures similar to the one you have on your page and promote wrong, negative and erroneous messages on your fan page.

Recommendation:

• Only one recommendation in this case: Ban, Block and Report!

To recap, tapping into social media, similar to real life, involves multiple types of personalities and characters; know how to react to each and make sure that your brand is properly represented. Contrary to traditional media, the audience is in control of the conversation, be part of it and establish the character of your company on the social media platforms.