Social Media Strategy – constraints
Last week I kicked off a social media strategy meeting with a client. My role was to help forge a strategy out of the multitude of social media options available. Should the client use Twitter, Facebook (personal accounts, group, Fan Pages?), Linkedin, Flickr, Foursquare, Blogging and on and on and on…
It’s very easy for clients to get snow blinded by the options!
…which is why a good starting point can be to consider the constraints which are in place. This may help whittle the above list down to something more manageable.
What are the constraints?
All clients are unique but the following list of constraints will generally apply:
Resource
What staffing resources does the client have at their disposal (or is willing to upscale to) to handle the social media account management and/or content creation/editorial work?
Time
How much time have your resources got to work on this project? You can’t simply add “oh! update Twitter will you?” onto regular workloads and not expect something to give.
Also with regards to time (and probably more importantly) is this; when is your campaign going to kick off? When are you expecting it to yield results? Social media does not tend to be a silver bullet or a quick fix so realistic timescales need to be established from day one.
Budget
Closely linked with resource/time is money. Does it exist? If so, how much? How can it be spent?
Other
Ok “other” is a bit of a cop out but it’s a catch all for everything else. For example, many companies have over arching brand policies or IT security policies which will inhibit certain on-line activity. These are typically cast iron and really must be considered from early doors.
So, if you’re snow blind with options as to which social media elements to engage with; why not consider some of the constraints in place and see if that helps clarify the situation.
Foursquare – what is it?
Just as you thought you we’re getting to grips with Twitter and Facebook something new comes along to upturn the apple cart…typical eh?! “Foursquare“: what is this new upstart?!
What is FourSquare?
Foursquare (or 4SQ for short) is part of a new breed of mobile applications loosely called “location based services“…and the location bit is key here.
Foursquare is an application which runs on mobiles phones such as iPhones, Blackberries (as well as less advanced ones) which allows you to “check in” to venues (i.e. shops!) – think airport check ins but much, much simpler!
If you check in often enough then you can become the “mayor” of the venue. But even if you don’t become mayor then Foursquare rewards you with badges for your check ins – e.g. check in to the same place three times in one week and you get the “local” badge - (click here for a list of some common badges).
But what’s the point of collecting badges and being a ‘mayor‘?
Good question!!
If the whole purpose of Foursquare was only about collecting badges or being some sort of virtual mayor then there would be little appeal to me and little long term value; but, if you dig a little deeper, more is revealed!
Rewarding Behaviour
Many venues are now waking up to the fact that their customers (and their potential customers) are using services such as Foursquare. So much so that some venues are even offering incentives (called “specials“) for their mayors and other customers who check in. For example Domino’s Pizza currently offer their mayors a free pizza and free garlic bread to anyone who checks in (mayor or not).
In the UK these special deals are pretty thin on the ground but, in the US, the situation is much different and more and more UK brands (both big and small) are beginning to see the potential.
What’s in it for the venues?
So, hopefully you can see that the benefit from a user perspective; we get free pizza, or free coffee or whatever the venue has decided to award as a special. But you may be wondering what do they get out of this?
Well, venues on Foursquare get access to a Foursquare business dashboard which shows detailed information about who is checking in to their store and when. This starts to lift the lid on information which the venues just have not had access to before. Venues can know more about their customers and can therefore engage more easily. Basically it’s a gold mine of data!
..But what about privacy?
As of today (the 18th of June 2010) Foursquare et al have not yet really entered into mainstream media. I’m guessing that this’ll change within about 6 months and I’m also guessing that the media will completely misrepresent the situation; saying that it is big brother keeping tabs on you and, if you check in to Starbucks in Newport, this means your house in Pontypool will be robbed!
..I shall say this only once! Foursquare etc have a fine grained level of privacy so you broadcast your location ONLY to the people or networks (Twitter, Facebook etc) you wish – you have total control! You can easily use 4SQ so that NO ONE know’s your location except the venues you check in to. And if you don’t want them to know then don’t check in!
Final Thoughts
Even if the idea of checking in, mayors etc leaves you cold think about this: Airmiles (or “Green Shield Stamps” if you like an older example) all demonstrate that reward, loyalty and incentive systems work. Foursquare is just one of the many applications which are bringing these systems into the next generation.
…these location based services will be big. Very big! (hint Facebook are working on their own version)
Here’s a short video for Twitter users about getting involved in hashtag chats (e.g. #WorldCup kicking off today!) and, more importantly, how NOT to swamp your followers!
Please shout out if you have any comments 
Twitter – make an exhibition of yourself
In our role as Internet Strategists we constantly strive to introduce clients to technology, tools & services which are a good fit and appropriate to their needs. A common tool which is worthy of consideration is “Twitter” but the equally common client question is “but what would we say?!“.
This question is difficult to immediately answer because, in reality, it is much too open ended; it’s like trying to teach someone how to use Google and they ask “but what do I search for!?“. Or showing someone a mobile phone for the first time and they ask “but who should I call?!” – just because the answer isn’t immediately obvious doesn’t mean that the tool itself is rubbish. A strategy is needed.
A good example to give clients is to talk to them about exhibitions
Many clients will have attended or even displayed at business exhibitions. They will have set up their stands, laid out the brochures, worn the company t-shirt, put out a bowl to collect business cards etc…and they certainly will engaged with the audience.
Engaging with the audience
Exhibitors will have spoken to people looking over their stand, discussing that person’s needs in light of their products/services in (hopefully!) an inquisitive, helpful & non hard sell manner. This is a relationship building exercise after all.
During a lull in people visiting the stand they may well have spoken out loud to the passing mass of people – hoping to entice some in to the stand with a mouth watering array of relevant messages.
Bringing our your personality
Furthermore they may have engaged with people when they weren’t even on the stand; when they were having a coffee, outside having a cigarette, coming back from the toilet etc. And some of these conversations may have been a bit less “on topic” than when on the stand, but you’re still engaging with the audience. And you’re also giving a personal dimension to your business. It’s not just about “sell sell”.
Different types of audience?
A business exhibitor may also find that they typically have more than one audience at an exhibition. There maybe different prospects who’s needs are different (“ah! ok, then perhaps you should take a look at this brochure instead…“). Furthermore they may use the exhibition to keep an eye on the competition, to learn what their industry is doing and look for collaborative opportunities.
The Twitter Factor
So, many businesses would be able to understand Twitter better if they thought of it in context with how they themselves behave at business exhibitions. Twitter is a communication tool and, without any context, it is hard to explain why it should be used.
So, the next time a client says about Twitter “but what would I say?!”, you have an answer.
Facebook Privacy – Lists part 1
This is part 1 of three videos which show you how to use lists and, in part 2, the privacy settings of Facebook to control what different lists see.
Part three shows a new (as of Dec 2009) which allows you to send different updates to different lists.
Facebook Privacy Settings Video
A short video tour of the new Facebook Privacy settings
…more videos soon
web statistics & why HITS mean nothing
It’s great to hear business owners talking about their websites and web statistics etc. However, there is something which always makes me cringe when I hear it…and that’s “HITS“.
What are HITS?
Hits are an old fashioned way of measuring website traffic – it is a fatally flawed method (as you’ll soon see) and, as such, can give business owners a false sense of security that their website is actually performing well (when it may not be). Allow me to explain…
An example
A website is simply a collection of web pages. Each page may well be different with different text, images etc.
So, let’s pretend you have a simple 1 page website which has 5 images on each page (it’s a really contrived example but you get the picture!).
If someone visits your website then this will register as 6 hits (1 for the web page itself and 5 more for the images).
If your web page had 10 images on it, then a single visit would register as 11 hits.
If your web page had 100 images on it then a single visit would register as 101 hits.
If your website had 5 pages each with 50 images then a single visit would register as 255 hits.
As you can hopefully see, to the layman, there is no obvious correlation between hits and actual people visiting your website.
So, if someone says to you “wow!, we have 5,000 hits coming to our site each month” – this sounds a lot – but if each visit actually equates to 500 hits then this is only 10 people!
So what should we talk about then?
Now we have established that “hits” is a poor method of describing the activity of your website, let’s look at a better method – visitors.
Visitors are people (mostly) who have visited your website; human beings who have picked up a mouse, typed on their keyboard or used the web browser on their iPhone etc and have found your website. Visitors therefore is a much better metric for gauging how active and popular a website is.
A small step up from visitors is unique visitors. If you are looking at the activity of your website for (say) a month then you may have 500 visitors – some of these though may be people returning to your website on more than one occasion; therefore your actual number of unique visitors will be less.
What should I do next?
In my experience when a business talks about hits it usually means the following – they (or their web designer) has not installed Google Analytics.
Google Analytics is pretty much the industry standard tool for measuring activity on websites – it’s fantastic – it’s your dashboard of key data – without it your pretty much stumbling in the dark. And, it’s free.
Google Analytics takes a little bit of know how to install and configure properly (and we can certainly help there but, once it’s done, you will have access to a steady and constant stream of meaningful data on which to base decisions – the old adage of “if you don’t measure it then you can’t manage it” has never been so true.
And no, Google Analytics don’t report on HITS…
Link Building – The Good,Bad & Ugly
This post talk about some misconceptions with regards to the practice known as “link building” and how it (supposedly) affects where your website appears in search result listings.
First off, a quick re-cap about Google
In order for Google (or any decent search engine for that matter) to respond to our search queries (e.g. “south wales business networking“, “overseas property insurance” etc) they need some method of “ranking” websites in relation to such search requests…otherwise search results would be completely random!
The intricacies Google uses to rank websites is obviously top-secret (otherwise spammers would try to gain unfair advantage) but Google are pretty open with what they consider to be important factors (more on that later). With Google though, relevancy is the watch word.
Spiders – not creepy but definitely crawly!
Google use special computer programs called ‘spiders’ to frequently analyse your website. These spiders examine, amongst many other factors, the text on your website pages to determine which search phrases they are relevant to; this is why using the right “keywords” is important.
Links – the two main different types
These spiders are also very interested in the links which they find in your web pages. These links are the bits which allow us to click from one page to another or one website to another.
“Back Links”
Back links are links which are on a different website but pointing back to your website. Google counts these “one way” links as pretty important but only if they come from a relevant source. E.g. if you run an Insurance website then relevant back links could come from insurance blogs, other financial websites etc. Simply trying to gain more of these back links for Google’s sake is really not very useful.
“Reciprocal Links”
The other type of link is called a reciprocal link – this is where “website A” has a link to “website B” and “website B” has a link back to “website A“. Google generally deem such links to be less important than the one way back links discussed earlier. However, the key here again is relevancy – if it is relevant for “website A” to link to “website B“ and vice versa then do it! But do not do it for Google’s sake,.
If you get an email from saying “if you link to me and I link to you then it will be good for Google” then please be very wary. If it’s relevant and good for your users and you don’t mind people potentially clicking off your site then great.
Google hire clever people
Google have some very, very, very smart people working for them and they are more than aware of people trying to ‘game the system‘ and gain unfair advantage in their search engine results. They update their algorithms up to 600 times a year to constantly stay abreast of people trying to take such unfair advantage.
They take the impartiality and relevancy of their search results VERY seriously. Google’s entire business model relies on this relevancy.
So what should business do?
There’s nothing wrong with trying to get your website listed in more relevant directories etc. But simply trying to gain extra “links” is a wasted effort – e..g some link building companies will blindly post onto random blogs so that they can secure that elusive back link. What they forget is that this:
1) Google ignores many links from blogs
2) If the comment added to the blog looks like spam it will be rejected anyway. Further more, do you really want third parties representing your company in this way? If anyone should be contributing to industry blogs then surely it should be the specialist, you!
A good link building strategy would involve either finding useful directories to be listed in, useful websites to set up links with (perhaps with a referral/commission scheme in place ), perhaps using social media to also promote your website.
Closing Thoughts
Link building strategies need to be carefully thought out if they are to be successful. They can be useful but relevancy is the key. Simply focussing on gaining extra links without looking at the bigger picture is foolish.
To close I’ll leave you with some words from Google:
(http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35769#3)
“Make pages primarily for users, not for search engines. Don’t deceive your users or present different content to search engines than you display to users…”
“Avoid tricks intended to improve search engine rankings. A good rule of thumb is whether you’d feel comfortable explaining what you’ve done to a website that competes with you. Another useful test is to ask, ”Does this help my users? Would I do this if search engines didn’t exist?”
…..and this cracker!
“Don’t participate in link schemes designed to increase your site’s ranking or Page Rank. In particular, avoid links to web spammers or ”bad neighborhoods” on the web, as your own ranking may be affected adversely by those links.”
How we quote for websites
When we receive a query about our services it doesn’t take long for the question to come up – ”how much will it cost?”. This blog post aims to explain how we go about answering that question.
The Brief
When a client approaches us they sometimes (but certainly not always!) have some form of explanation of what they believe they need; let’s call this “the brief“.
Briefs range from non-existent, a few lines in an email, to a full blown document. Quite a range!
We’ve found the following problems in such briefs:
- Vagueness
- Short sightedness
- Same-ness
Vagueness in what is being asked for. You can’t expect a builder to do a good job if you simply say “… just build a house over there somewhere“. The devil is in the detail. Are we talking a tent, a house or a block of flats?
Short sightedness – because clients aren’t experts with what the Internet can offer they can easily ask for the wrong mix of solutions. Typically we find that the optimum solution is a website PLUS some other services; whether that is on-line advertising, email marketing, social networking – it really depends on their unique needs.
Same-ness - when putting together a website brief some clients simply harvest features from what their competition do; whether or not their competition are actually doing a good job.
None of this should be a shock though; clients are not web experts so it is hardly surprising they are not 100% sure what to ask for. It is the web agencies job to guide them through this process.
Our formal response to the brief is called a “proposal“, let’s talk about that next.
The Proposal
The proposal is our initial response to the client’s brief. As this stage is unbilled we have to be careful not let our natural enthusiasm run away with us; we have to spend enough time on the proposal for the client to entrust their project to us but not too much time so that it may detriment our paying customers.
We may have a short meeting with the client to fill in the gaps in the brief - this also gives the client the chance to meet us & find out about how we work. The meeting allows us to drill a little deeper into the clients requirements as well as giving us an opportunity to explain our process (which is really what this blog post is about!).
After we have enough initial information we can draft our proposal; this layouts a solution to address the client’s needs as we currently understand them. Our proposal makes clear that:
“We are only costing for what we know about at this stage. If/when we start the project proper we shall begin a much more detailed Discovery Phase which may uncover further possibilities.”
Wise client’s understand that all initial proposals are flawed because the agency has not yet spent enough quality time interacting with them to really fully flesh out the requirements and understand the nuances of their business. However, this is a necessary evil; the proposal is an opportunity for agencies to throw their hat into the ring for the client to decide who they want to work with.
When the client chooses to work with us (hurray!), the next step (and the first proper step in the project) is the “discovery phase“.
What is the “Discovery Phase”?
The discovery phase allows us to cut to the very heart of the matter. We discuss in depth with client (and other key stakeholders) the perceived problems as well as suggesting and exploring all possible solutions. This is where the foundations of success are laid. Get it right here and success it much more likely.
The client is paying for our expertise and it’s crucial that we use this stage to leverage our skills to deliver a solution which fits the needs of their business.
This phase may well uncover opportunities which were simply not known previously. This being the case the client has the following choices:
- include the newly discovered opportunity as part of the project
- include the opportunity at a later project phase
- disregard the opportunity entirely.
Either way, we create a specification which is a perfect for our client’s needs. It’s a crystal clear blue print of what will be built – consider them similar to an architect’s plans & models for your dream house!
Why isn’t this done as part of the proposal?
Time and money is the answer. The full specification of a website (even seemingly small ones) is a time consuming exercise. It is the phase where we really get to bring our expertise to bear for the client’s benefit. If we gave that expertise away freely then, sadly, we wouldn’t be in business very long and that wouldn’t be good for any of our existing clients.
What does the ‘Discovery Phase’ produce?
With the client’s collaboration we will produce a sitemap and a specification document (if not more).
The sitemap is a graphical view of all the pages which will exist on the proposed website. The sitemap may also indicate aspects such as: which pages require SEO optimisation, which have forms, which needs database integration etc.
The specification document – this details exactly what each proposed website page will contain and what functionality it may exhibit. On more complex sites we may also include “wireframes” which are rough mockups of what a page may look like – they are not for design purposes though – they are simply an aid to help communicate the specification.
The specification will also highlight anything else which is to be delivered, e.g. email marketing, online advertising, Twitter, Facebook etc.
What happens next?
Now that we’re armed with a comprehensive brief, we can provide a fully realistic quote – and a quote which reflects the options we ‘discovered‘ as part of discussions with the client.
The best bit
Best of all we are happy to undertake the “discovery phase” as a fixed cost, stand alone item.
The client can then obtain bids from whichever supplier they wish, safe in the knowledge that they have a bullet proof specification. Obviously we’d aim to get the work but there is no obligation to do so. In truth no client has ever gone elsewhere after this stage – partly because, on beginning to work with us, they know they’re in very safe hands!.
Hopefully this sheds a little light on how we go about discovering requirements and costing projects.
5 things NOT to say to a web designer (part 1)
Whilst running Jojet I’ve listened to countless questions from potential clients; which is great – I love to guide them through the maze of on-line options. However, some questions just make you think “oh dear!” and “here we go again!”:
1) “How much is a 5 page website?”
We wouldn’t expect a builder to accurately quote if all we told him was that we wanted a “5 bedroom house” – that’s simply not enough information. So let’s not expect a reputable web design company to be any different.
All websites are not equal – a ‘page’ is not the standard economic unit used when calculating website cost!
Imagine a web page on your site which simply displays an email address and then compare this to a page which has an embedded HD video, a 3D demonstration of your latest product and a freshly designed, illustrated logo. These two pages are completely different; the effort and cost involved will also be different.
The only web agencies which may quote by the page are ones looking to sell you a standard CMS with little involvement from themselves. Such tools can be great for blogs but are not so suited for a highly polished, client facing, search engine optimised, lean, mean, lead generating machines.
2) “I just want a simple site…”
Ah! ‘Simple’! Now isn’t that the rub? Think of the iPod. A design classic. It’s simple. Really simple.
This simplicity was not arrived at by random accident. It was the product of a deep understanding of design, of user behaviour and many other factors.
In truth, all websites SHOULD be simple. Simple to operate by your intended target audience. That simplicity is arrived at via a detailed analysis of the information which each page needs to convey and adjusting the visual ‘weighting’ of each chosen page element till the ‘balance’ best fits the needs of your users.
Simple aint easy.
3) “…but someone else quoted a lot less?”
Just be careful that you’re not comparing apples with oranges.
Some web design companies will quote based on a off-the-shelf template, no included SEO, no consideration of usability and you supply all the copy etc – cheep and cheerful. However, another web design company may be quoting on a bespoke, hand-built, SEO optimised, copy proofed & user experience optimised website. Both websites but, on closer inspection, completely different beasts.
Be careful of making this false comparison and be doubly careful about making a “false economy” – cheap is not always cheerful! If all you need is a throw away 3 page site then fine, but if you’re looking for your site to be adding bottom line value to your business then that’s a different matter.
4) “we had to pay the previous web designer so we haven’t got much budget left”
Ok. Imagine this scenario. You hire a cheep and cheerful plumber to install a new boiler in your lovely home. He makes a right mess, the boiler is not connected, radiators in the wrong place, pipes & water everywhere…basically a disaster.
So you fire him and, instead, hire a more reputable plumber to sort it all out (that ‘false economy’ again!).
Now, if you tell the reputable plumber that you can’t afford to pay him the full amount because you had to give some money to the previous plumber, what do you think will happen? You’ll hear the soft click of the front door as he walks away.
It’s a shame that the wrong person was brought in for the job in the first place, a great shame BUT this is not the responsibility of future tradesman; whether that be plumbing or websites.
5) “but surely that’s included in the price?!”
If you hire a builder (see a pattern here?) to build your 5 bedroom dream house and then decide you want a garage – you would most definitely expect to be charged for it. It’s the same with websites.
A reputable web design company will want to ensure that all of your requirements are succinctly captured & documented. They’ll do this for both of your benefits. This way, at the outset of the project, both parties knowexactly what is being built and what is included in the price.
With Jojet we always write the following into our requirements documents:
If you feel something is missing from this document then do not assume that it is included, please raise it as an issue. The quotation provided only covers what is explicitly detailed in this document.
COMING UP IN PART 2
Many of these questions raised here are completely understandable though. As consumers we are much more used to dealing with plumbers, builders, lawyers etc. Now we don’t necessarily understand how these tradesman do their work but we do understand how to deal with them. The web is still relatively new to business and so this understanding doesn’t fully exist yet.
We’ve had a little fun here but, in part 2 we’ll take a good look at the questions business should REALLY be asking.
p.s.
Jill Olkoski also wrote a great article on a similar topic. Read it here.
