Transform Your Online Presence – From Woeful To Wonderful

This post originally appeared on TweakYourBiz.Com

Many companies are afraid of social media…. some are afraid of being involved, some are afraid of not being involved. Which is worse?

Anyone who has seen the socialnomics video has probably been persuaded that social media is important for business, both B2B and B2C. Unfortunately some companies get caught up in a panic and jump in without having any strategy or plan of action in mind. This leads to problems.

There is little worse than a Facebook page that is unmonitored – fans clamouring for attention and none being given. The key is in the name – social media. You need to be involved with your audience – you wouldn’t go to a seminar, put on a slideshow and then ignore the audience would you? So why ignore them online?

If you’re lucky enough to have an interested audience who is willing to engage with you, then you need to appreciate them and respond to their queries and concerns. Ignoring questions on social platforms is far worse for your image than having no presence at all; no presence is not great, it shows you’re not in touch with the new way people are doing business, but having a presence and ignoring people shows you don’t care about them at all – a far worse message to send.

A Tale Of Transformation

There is a skincare brand that I am particularly fond of; it’s an English brand started by two women on the Isle of Wight back in 1995. The brand has always projected an image of integrity, quality and, despite their growth, friendliness and caring. In my experience their telephone customer service is second to none (half the time you feel like having a cup of tea and a chat with the customer service rep – they are that friendly). But for some reason when they branched into social media none of this translated.

They had a Facebook page and a Twitter account; the Twitter account had very little interaction and on Facebook they were largely ignoring their fans. It was all broadcasting and no engagement. On one particular day there was a backlash against a post the company had placed on Facebook. The backlash went on for hours and hours without any comment from the company. It was quite clear that they were not paying any attention.

The error of their ways was brought to their attention however, and one year later the brand’s online presence is unrecognisable from what it was. They are now engaging properly with their community and responding to queries and answering questions. They are actively checking Twitter to see who is talking about them and responding to people.

The company has now matched its virtual reputation with its real life reputation. No mean feat, but if one company can do it, everyone can.

Marketing Takeaway

Even if you jumped into social media without a plan and have let it flounder, it’s not too late. Grab the bull by the horns, draw up a proper plan of action and go all guns blazing for the rest of 2012. It’s not too late to be great online….

Read Full Post »

Google+ Business Pages – Thriving or Dying?

I recently wrote a post about Google+ launching their business pages – after 4 months of businesses kicking their heels and waiting, Google+ business pages were finally announced on 7^th November. As with Facebook, you needed to have a personal profile first, but with that set up you could then quickly set up a business page.

On the 16 November, BrightEdge released a report with some interesting Google+ pages stats…

• 61% of top brands had created a Google+ page in the first week – 93% of them have Facebook pages.
• Only 12% of the 61% had linked to their Google+ page from their website homepage – compared with 53% who link to their Facebook page.
• Over two dozen of the top 100 brands have over 1 million fans on Facebook – no brand other than Google has over 50,000 fans, and over two dozen have no fans at all.

This tells us two things –

1. There was a stampede to get a Google+ business page; and
2. Not much else seems to be happening – engagement is very low.

Google+ has been called the Facebook killer, and while it may grab a slice of the pie, it is a long way from threatening Facebook’s near total monopoly. Many marketers have said that the primary reason they set up a Google+ business page is to take advantage of the positive affects having a page is bound to have on their SERP ranking, rather than as a way to engage with fans. The fact is that although there are over 50 million users on Google+ most of them are not using the platform regularly, nor engaging with brands at the same level as they do on Facebook. Whether usage and engagement will grow, or Google+ will die a death like Wave and Buzz remains to be seen.

I still feel it is worth having a Google+ business page as it will help improve SERPs, but whether it will ever become the main way you communicate with your fans online looks doubtful right now.

Takeaway Message…

Set up a Google+ business page, but don’t consider abandoning your Facebook page for it.

 

Read Full Post »