When it comes to social media marketing, one of the unique selling points which makes it popular for many businesses and brands also happens to be one of the reasons many other businesses and brands are wary about signing up – the customer reviews / feedback.

Social media, especially via social networks such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, allows for real-time interaction, each day of the week, every month of the year and around the clock, meaning even when your business is locked up for the day, your customers are still able to leave feedback – which is in the public domain.

Understandably this causes many businesses to be wary of taking the plunge, with many asking whether signing up to Facebook or Twitter will come back to bite them, with someone putting an offensive comment on one of the platforms.

At JE Consulting, we get asked this question a lot, and our response to any clients who ask is to be honest; whilst it is possible for someone if they really wanted to, to post an offensive comment – this doesn’t have to be detrimental to your business.

It’s also worth remembering that even without your business having a social media marketing campaign, social networks can be used for negative feedback about your business – the only difference is that you wouldn’t be aware and therefore wouldn’t be able to respond accordingly.

As unpleasant as negative feedback may be to receive, in the rare case that you do receive it, as a business you should neither:

a) ignore it
b) delete it

Over the last six months or so, there have been press reports and alike of businesses who have fallen foul to negative comments via social media, and have gone down the route of option b, above.

However, attempting to brush negative feedback under the carpet by deleting the offending post – is the equivalent to:

a) sticking your fingers in your ears and singing “la,la,la” when a customer complains in person
b) walking away from a customer complaint in person and acting as though everything is ok

You wouldn’t do either of these, because they aren’t professional nor is it good customer service, so why consider doing it online? Those brands that have have faced a further negative backlash.

Instead, should you receive negative feedback via Facebook, Twitter or any other form of social media, you should face the problem head on – and respond accordingly and in a timely fashion.

When responding to negative feedback, no customer or client wants to feel like they’ve been fobbed off by a response in an attempt to make it better – nor does any client / customer want to feel like they’re getting the same response as customers.

It’s therefore important to respond to any negative feedback online, as you would if you received negative feedback via a different medium – by looking into the complaint and seeing how you can make it better, before responding.

There is nothing wrong with responding to a comment left on Facebook, thanking the person for their feedback and advising them that you’re looking into the issues raised and will be back with a response shortly. Showing a pro-active approach to negative feedback online could turn out to have positive effects for your business, as it shows the business as one which cares about its customers and responds accordingly.

Some top-tips when responding to negative feedback via social media are the following:

1) Address Concerns in a Concise Manner
Social networking is a form of micro-blogging, and there is nothing wrong in responding to customer complaints in a short, concise manner – as long as you address all points raised by the customer, and do your best to turn a negative into a positive

2) Remain Professional
A recent study into social media found that when using social media, people are more likely to be honest and open than they are face to face, because it is easier. This unfortunately can include being harsh and in some cases rude.

If someone has left negative feedback or reviews regarding your business online, address and resolve each issue the best you can. Not only will this show that your business is proactive in dealing with customer feedback, but it’ll also show other customers and potential customers will see that you’re on top of the bad things being said about you – always a good sign that the business in question cares.

3) Negative Comments Don’t Have to Be Negative
Comments which at first glance appear negative aren’t always that. Instead, it can often be constructive criticism, which if misinterpreted and mishandled could result in further negative comments.

The best way to handle constructive criticism is to take it with a pinch of salt and to thank those who left it – again showing all customers that your business is willing to accept constructive criticism and will respond in the right manner.

When it is OK to Press Delete:

With all that said, there are some times when it is ok to press the delete button to a negative comment – but this should only be considered as a last option and used sparingly, when there really isn’t any other option.

The cases when it is ok to press delete is when the comments received are what can be considered “trolling” – where a user is leaving a number of negative comments in the hope of getting a reaction. In these cases, the best thing to do is press delete and block the user.

Unfortunately, in the business environment there will always be negative feedback; but how you respond to it as a business, will go some way to shedding either a positive or negative light on your business; but one thing is for sure, the fear of negative feedback should prevent your business and brand from capitalising on the benefits social media marketing offers.

When it comes to letting your clients, customers and associates know about an exciting new service you have to offer, important news about your business or a special offer you’re running, it’s likely that you’ll consider spreading the message via social media marketing, including email marketing (e-marketing).

But have you ever considered that the day, time and month may influence how successful your message is and how well the marketing campaign received? For various areas of social media marketing – especially Twitter, it is possible to use online tools which suggest the best day and time of day to send a message, based on the response rate you’ve previously had.

When it comes to e-marketing, there are no conclusive tools, but this doesn’t mean the day and time doesn’t influence your success.

As accountants and solicitors, it’s understandable that you’re sending emails to-and-fro each day of the week, during various office hours and in most cases after office hours, ensuring you’re able to reach your audience when required. Yet believe it or not, there are a few studies whose research suggests that the day and time of day you send an email as part of your social media marketing campaign can have a major influence on how well it is received.

Two studies which stand out, one from Email Karma and one from BusinessEmailLists suggest that Wednesday is the best day of the week to launch an e-marketing campaign; whilst narrowing the time down to between 10 and 10:30am and 1 and 1:30pm.

Email Karma’s study involved them monitoring their inboxes for a four month period and analysing the data, from which they found the following:

• Saturday – 4.72% of emails received
• Sunday – 4.00% of emails received
• Monday – 14.01% of emails received
• Tuesday – 17.78% of emails received
• Wednesday – 21.53% of emails received
• Thursday – 19.33% of emails received
• Friday – 17.75% of emails received

Whilst the findings aren’t necessarily 100% accurate nor will they be the same for every business, when examined logically they can provide a basis from which businesses should consider when looking to launch an e-marketing campaign as part of their social media marketing campaign.

Over the weekend, it is likely that many of your clients, customers and target audience will be looking to occupy their time with other things, rather than work related emails or business, which helps shed some light as to why the percentage of emails received on a Saturday and Sunday are well below other days.

Mondays normally see businesses catch up on any work which has been carried over from the previous week, along with getting the rest of their week planned out; whilst Friday – especially Friday afternoon – typically sees businesses looking to the weekend and finishing off anything which has been on-going throughout the week.

This leaves the three days in the middle of the week, with Wednesday often being a good indicator for businesses as to how the week is progressing, enabling them to send emails – whether to begin new business or to chase up outstanding business, thus seeing a large increase in the number of emails received.

Time also plays an important part, as for most businesses the first hour of the day is often spent checking emails and planning the day – leaving the timeslot between 10 and 10:30am a time when emails are likely to be fired off; whilst 1 and 1:30pm is often the time when colleagues are back from lunch and responding to emails – and therefore more likely to read and pay attention to any emails they receive.

As we’ve said, these findings aren’t conclusive and will vary from business-to-business; but if you’re considering launching an e-marketing campaign, they are certainly worth bearing in mind, before clicking the send button.

It would be interesting to see how many of you have found similar results within the e-marketing area of your social media marketing campaign, why not share your findings – have you found that a certain day provides better results for email responses? What about a certain time of day?

Over the weekend Google extended their reach of the social media marketing audience, as they unveiled the latest feature to be added to their Google Maps App for android.

The newest recruit in Google’s social media armoury, is the Google Latitude update, which comes complete with leader-boards, already found with the popular gamification tool – Foursquare.

Although Google haven’t said that they are looking to compete with Foursquare, with this latest feature which was quietly launched, and is only available on the latest version of Google Maps for Android; it is certainly a bold move to make – and could potentially signal the power gamification is going to have within social media over the coming months.

Social media sites, such as Facebook and Twitter have enabled a check-in service for awhile; however it was the launch of foursquare in 2009 which really saw gamification within social media take-off – and as of last month foursquare had approximately 15 million users worldwide, with 1.5 billion check-ins.

Before we look at how gamification could help your social media marketing campaign, we need to look at what gamification is. Potentially the simplest definition of gamification is the following:

“Gamification is the use of game attributes to drive game-like player behaviour in a non-game context.”

This is something which foursquare have achieved easily, by incorporating leader-boards within the platform, meaning the more you check into a specific place, the higher up the leaderboard you travel – with the opportunity of becoming a “mayor” of a place.

From the success of foursquare, it is easy to see why Google Latitude has taken a similar route – but how can gamification work for your business?

As already mentioned, it was with the launch and subsequent popularity of foursquare which saw gamification really take off – with over 750,000 businesses using the merchant platform on the network alone – and there is no reason why gamification cannot become incorporated within your social media marketing strategy.

The main benefits of gamification within social media marketing are two-fold for businesses. Not only can it help bring about leads – after all you’ll begin to see who your regular visitors are, as they check in; but it’ll also help spread the word about your business as the visitors share their “check-in” at your business on their other social media profiles – such as Facebook and Twitter.

It has previously been reported that brands that are already using gamification as part of their social media marketing are beginning to see the advantages. Not only are they able to tailor their promotions to be more inclusive of customers, but companies have also claimed to have seen an increase in brand loyalty and engagement with customers; resulting in higher conversion rates.
To help encourage a gamification aspect to your social media marketing campaign amongst your audience, along with having the traditional leader-boards – as seen within foursquare and now Google Latitude; why not offer an incentive which will encourage and attract visitors, such as the offer of discounts, special offers or sneak previews to customers who “check-in” with your business “X” amount of times within a certain period.

Along with enabling businesses to offer their customers and clients incentives to join in within their social media marketing campaign, by checking-in; gamification also offers businesses the opportunity for real-time interaction, as consumers and clients leave reviews.

Each review left within the gamification element of your social media marketing campaign – as with any element of your social media marketing campaign – allows you as a business to rectify any areas which may be seen as a weak point by the customer, whilst also receive positive feedback (in our post later in the week, we’ll look at how to benefit from reviews left via social media).

It isn’t just within the B2C world in which gamification can be promoted and used as part of your social media marketing strategy; you can also include it in-house, adding a competitive yet productive nature to the work carried out within teams. The right incentives in place could not only boost the work within your business, and that friendly competitive nature amongst staff, but it’ll also help promote your business organically via social media.

Before you open another tab and include a gamification aspect to your social media marketing campaign, as with any element of a social media marketing campaign, before you take the plunge, you need to consider your audience / staff are they likely to take part in using the platform? What can you offer them via gamification? And what are you looking to achieve?

If you’re considering running a social media marketing campaign for your business, it’s likely that you’ll have done some research into how social media marketing can benefit your business and how to go about creating a good social media campaign.

If this research has been carried out in the last week or two, it’s likely that you’ll have come across a few surveys which reported on opinions of social media from businesses and users. On first glance may not make for pretty, but on closure inspection, as we’re about to explain, the findings can prove to be misleading.

The same batch of findings, if looked at from a different angle, can also prove positive results for businesses looking to launch a social media marketing campaign and for those already using the platforms available.

Below, we take the findings from one such study and explain why we think the results reported flawed; whilst also looking at the questions which arise from the survey and more importantly the positives you, as a business, can take out of them.

Chartered Institute of Marketing:
The Chartered Institute of Marketing recently surveyed 1,500 businesses / brands that are using social media as a marketing tool; the findings showed the following:

• 23% of marketers had the belief that social media helps them attract new customers
• 34.5% said their social media campaign during 2011 was “not effective at all”
• 13.7% reported that it was very effective

Yet on the flip side, the same survey found:
• 37% see social media as a tool for engagement
• 46% see social media as support to other marketing campaigns
• 74.5% of marketers planned to increase their investment in social media marketing during the next twelve months.

Why These Findings are Flawed:
At first glance, the findings from the survey are flawed, with the main reason being that they show contradictory findings.

If you look carefully, you’ll see that if 23% of marketers found social media helps attract new customers then 77% found that it doesn’t. Yet 74.5% of the participants are planning on increasing their investment in the area of marketing between now and the end of the year – why would they do this if they didn’t find it effective or useful in attracting new customers?

In addition to this, more participants (83%) reported that they found social media helps support other areas of marketing /is a good tool for engagement than those who suggested their campaign wasn’t effective (34.5%) during 2011.

Questions Arising From the Findings:

In addition to the flawed results, there are a number of questions which arise from the Chartered Institute of Marketing survey, which need to be taken into consideration before the reported findings can be considered to show the power or lack of power social media has within the marketing industry.

Firstly, the main question surrounds the word “effective”.

What did those participating in the survey class as “effective”? Effective for one business may not be effective for another. For example, there are those businesses who are using social media marketing as a form of receiving a ROI; whilst there are other who are utilising social media marketing to gauge audience opinion and feedback, as well as a tool to support other forms of marketing.

Secondly, the effectiveness of a campaign will rely heavily on the time put into it. As discussed within one of our recent posts, success from social media marketing isn’t going to come overnight; it may not even come within the first six months to a year. But as with all areas of business and marketing, if you put the time and effort into it, on a regular basis you will begin to receive the rewards.

For example, a LinkedIn campaign may cost you “X” amount over a 2 to 3 month period, and your click-through-rate may appear low; but this could still bring about a couple of leads, which is acted upon swiftly and professionally could bring about business which doubles or even trebles the ROI from the cost of the campaign; whilst also resulting in a long term B2C relationship.

Furthermore, what did the participants of the survey qualify as effective and what measurements did they use to garner their findings? The easiest way to base an idea on whether a social media marketing campaign has been successful or not is by the number of followers / connections / friends each platform has gathered for the business; the amount of likes / retweets / mentions / comments and the number of impressions / click-through-rates.

Yet as discussed in our last blog, if you’re not careful your followers, etc could be made up of various “spam” accounts which offer no benefit to your campaign and therefore don’t provide you with accurate results.

If you want to measure the true effectiveness of a social media marketing campaign – from Twitter through to your blog and LinkedIn, you need to make sure that you have honest and measurable goals in place – and we’ll discuss some of these in future blogs.

The Positives:
The main positives which come out of this study can be seen from the second batch of findings, which show that social media marketing, if used correctly, regularly and with the right goals set up can help create a buzz around your business and brand, as well as help businesses interact with their customers, clients and target audience, in a manner which was previously inaccessible.

Social media marketing, as highlighted through these findings can also help enhance a wider marketing campaign, which although the results may not be directly seen via social media, can provide a ROI.

Through our existing series of blog posts, here at JE Consulting we’ve offered advice, tips and guidance on how businesses can enhance their social media campaign, allowing them to see some of the benefits touched upon above.

Don’t let the recent findings put you off from launching a social media marketing campaign; as we tell all our customers here at JE Consulting, social media marketing is a cog in the wheel of marketing both on and offline, and if used correctly and regularly can have hugely beneficial results.

When it comes to social media marketing, it is important to not only pick your platform of choice carefully, but to also make sure that you use the platform wisely and provide updates which will engage the intended audience.

Unfortunately, a recent study which was carried out by a team of researchers from Carnegie Mellon, MIT, Georgia Tech and the University of Southampton suggests that Twitter may not be the right place to begin social media marketing.

The researchers looked at the opinions of 1,443 Twitter users who visited “Who Gives a Tweet” over nineteen days during December and January.

The visitors rated 43,738 tweets posted by around 2,014 users; and the study found that twenty-five percent of the updates posted within Twitter each day aren’t worth reading; whilst only thirty-nine percent were rated as “neutral” and thirty-six were rated as “liked”.

If this theory was to be carried throughout all the updates shared via Twitter, from individuals to businesses using the platform, you would be forgiven for being concerned about how much influence your tweets are having on your target audience.

However, here at JE Consulting, we’d like to play devils advocate – and for a number of reasons.

1) We believe Twitter is a powerful tool to have within your social media marketing toolbox

2) We believe businesses can gain an edge by regularly using Twitter

3) There are a number of steps which any business can take to increase the chance of their updates via Twitter being well received by their target audience.

It is the last point which we’re going to concentrate on within this post, offering some tips and advice on how to increase the likelihood of your followers giving a tweet about your updates by following a few simple steps.

Step 1: Carefully Select Your Followers:

Many select those they follow on Twitter based on the industry the user is in or the updates they provide. However, at JE Consulting, we also believe it is important to carefully select those that follow you.

Whilst many will undoubtedly block those accounts which are deemed spam, there are other groups which you should look out for within your “Followers” list and consider removing:

1) Those Who Don’t Update Regularly – The idea of Twitter is to share relevant information and news, in a micro-blogging fashion. Yet there are those accounts who although start promisingly soon drift off and don’t update for months.

These accounts should be unfollowed as they offer nothing to your campaign – not only are they not reading your updates, but they aren’t sharing them either

2) Users Who Are Interested in Location – Have you noticed that when you’ve including a hash-tag and location (i.e. #Birmingham) you’ve all of a sudden received an increase in followers?

The likely reason is that other users who are interested in the area in question have followed you without reading the rest of the update you’ve shared – and they’re unlikely to read following updates either.

If you want to make sure that your followers give a tweet about what you’re saying, regularly check who is following you – report and spam and block the accounts, block anyone who hasn’t updated for months and those who aren’t beneficial for your account.

For every two accounts that you block, it is always worth attempting to follow one new user who is relevant to your industry, as they are likely to be interested in what you’re saying and will therefore follow you back. Who knows, not only will they become interested in what you say but it may also result in a business lead.

Step 2: Consider Your Followers:

As tempting as it may be to only post updates which relate specifically to your business, consider your followers. Are they really going to want to only read about the services your business offers or what your staff have achieved?

Make your tweets more interesting and varied by sharing industry tips, advice and guidance. If you work within the accountancy sector why not share a link to breaking news involving changes to tax?

A good way to gauge whether your audience will be interested in what you’re sharing via Twitter is to think like a client / customer – would you be interested in or find useful what you’re sharing? If the answer is no, re-word it to make it interesting or don’t share it.

Step 3: Vary Your Tweets:

One hundred and forty characters may not seem like a lot, especially if you’re looking to break exciting news, share advice or market your business. But, through careful consideration and by taking advantage of the options available, it is possible to share more than the 140 character limit and vary your tweets to make them interesting.

Twitter enables users to share links – which are conveniently shortened to save space – so if you have a blog you want to promote, a piece of industry news from an external site or business news from your site, you can do by including links.

Do you have a video on your business’ Youtube channel which best shows a product you provide? Why not share a link to it with an engaging piece of text – avoid the popular “Check this video out” tweet!

Along with links to various pages and videos, Twitter also enables pictures to be embedded into tweets, without users having to open another tab or webpage, giving tweets an extra dimension.

Step 4: Tweet After Business Hours:

Our final step for helping to ensure your followers give a tweet about what you’re sharing within your social media marketing campaign, is to tweet outside normal business hours.

It’s possible to tweet any time and any day, whether you’re near a computer / laptop or not; so why not take advantage of it?

By tweeting via SMS or via a Smartphone you’re still able to benefit from the tools and tricks that Twitter offers, whilst also standing a chance of reaching those audience members who aren’t accessible during the day.

If you want to find the best time to tweet for your business, ensuring you reach as wide an audience as possible, why not take advantage of some of the tools mentioned within our “Twitter Tools To Help You Build Your Presence” post?

So whilst research may suggest that a quarter of tweets shared within Twitter aren’t worth reading; it is possible to take steps within your social media marketing campaign to make sure that yours don’t fall into this percentage!

When you think about the key element to a successful social media marketing campaign, what do you think about? Is it your brand / products / services? How about various social networking platforms? Or what about increasing your number of followers and feedback you receive via social media marketing?

At JE Consulting, although we believe that each of these elements are equally important to the success of a social media marketing campaign, we also believe that the key to success within social media marketing is that one element we all find we don’t have enough of during the day………TIME!

When we talk about time, we’re not just talking about taking the time to create profiles and accounts on various platforms, but we mean taking the time to engage, interact and inspire your audience, taking time to carefully plan your social media strategy – including researching each area of social media marketing which is relevant to your industry.

But most importantly we’re talking about taking the time to build up your social media marketing campaign. After all, as anyone in business will tell you, success doesn’t come over night. It doesn’t matter how much money you throw at something, how much you invest in the latest tools and techniques, it is still going to take you time to build up success – and social media marketing is no different.

If you want to measure your marketing campaign on the number of people who follow you on Twitter or be-friend you on Facebook, then the time it takes to build up a “successful” campaign may not be that long.

Notice how we’ve added inverted commas around “successful”? That’s because it is easy on each of the main social networks to build up a quick following of what are often referred to as “spam-bots”.

These won’t offer any benefit to your marketing campaign, instead they will only add to making your account look like it has a large following. Unfortunately, when real customers take a closer look at your friends and followers, and see they are spam accounts, the real business opportunities will look elsewhere.

To be truly successful within the social networking side of your social media marketing campaign, you need to:

a) Give the campaign time to grow, to attract the audience and for interest to build

b) Take the time to carefully monitor who you follow and who follows you. If your followers aren’t updating regularly (i.e. if it has been months since their last update) then they aren’t worth following because they aren’t adding anything to your campaign, they aren’t seeing your updates and they certainly aren’t sharing them.

c) Take care to carefully select and word the updates that you share. This includes checking the spelling and links. Although social networking does use slang and abbreviations, it is still important to remain as business orientated in your language as possible.

By taking your time when building up your social networking followers, when updating your status’ and giving your campaign time to naturally grow, as a business you’re more likely to receive positive feedback, which if you take the time to nurture can turn into positive leads and more importantly ROI.

It isn’t just the social networking area of your social media marketing campaign that you need “time” is a key element; it’s the same throughout every element, including blogging.

As with social networking, a successful blog isn’t going to happen over night, instead it is going to take time to build up a following and authority. Thankfully there are a few ways in which you can help speed the process up, with the main one being to carefully select links and place links to your company blog into your social networking updates.

Along with taking time to carefully select links to your blog to add within your social networking updates, helping to promote this platform, you should also take the time to carefully research the areas that you’re going to blog about. After all, it isn’t beneficial to yourself or your audience if you only write blogs about your business or its products / services.

Instead you need to take the time to research other areas which influence your business and your audience / are relevant and write a blog about these, even if it is taking a talking point in the news at the moment and adding your opinion. For example, if you’re an accountant instead of always blogging about the accountancy services you offer, why not write an opinion piece on quantitative easing or tax avoidance issues? Or if you work within the care sector, why not right an opinion piece about NHS reforms, etc?

If you don’t fancy writing an opinion piece, why not offer tips, advice or guidance, or produce and share light-hearted content which will make your audience not only smile, but want to share the information with those they know.

By taking the time to write a blog which focuses on the industry you work within, but doesn’t directly relate to your business, you’re likely to find that your blog becomes more accessible to a wider audience, gains more authority (shown within its page rank) and therefore becomes more successful and beneficial for your business.

Time spent on your social media marketing campaign, doesn’t have to be hours upon hours each day; instead ten to twenty minutes first thing in the morning and another ten to twenty minutes during the afternoon is often enough to steadily build your social media marketing campaign.

So if you want to succeed with your social media marketing campaign, instead of panicking that you haven’t taken advantage of the latest tool, spend the time in carefully selecting your followers, who your following and what your sharing and you’ll see the rewards (within time) roll in.

At the turn of the year you couldn’t turn to a social media marketing website or blog without there being a post along the lines of “Social Media Marketing Predictions for 2012”.

It may appear on first glance that we’re a month too later on jumping on he bandwagon, but we can assure you, we’re not. For what we’ve done is let that particular wagon ride straight on past and now, we’re looking at the news which has already broke over the last seven and a bit weeks, to see how this will influence social media marketing up until the clock strikes midnight on December 31st 2012.

The areas which come under the microscope today may not be new to social media marketing, but over the last few weeks they’ve certainly grown in what they can offer marketers looking to improve their social media stature, which is why they’ve been included.

F-Commerce:

Before we look into how F-Commerce will alter social media marketing throughout the year, we need to look at what it actually is.

Surprisingly, F-Commerce isn’t new to 2012, believe it or not it has been around since 2009, when the very first transaction of a bouquet of flowers was completed on the social networking site, Facebook. (Yes, F-Commerce stands for Facebook Commerce).

Since the purchase of those flowers two and a half years ago, F-Commerce has significantly improved, with a number of global brands creating Facebook shops last year, which enabled them to sell directly to their customers via the networking site.

This year alone, it has gained further momentum with a leading Pizza delivery chain trialling F-Commerce for a new product launch; whilst a leading cleaning product has launched using the platform. BANG – there is no doubt that F-Commerce will continue to grow and if you’re looking to sell a product, you shouldn’t discount this avenue.

Social Networking:

Leading on from F-Commerce, it’s only right that we look at other changes in social networking, which will alter social media marketing this year. After all, this area has given us so much to talk about from Facebook’s impending IPO through to Twitter’s censorship – and we’re going to look how each of these factors will alter the way social networking is carried out during 2012.

Facebook: There isn’t much doubt that you haven’t already heard about Facebook’s IPO which is set to take place in the next couple of months.

You may think that the IPO doesn’t influence the way that the networking site is used within social media marketing; but you couldn’t be more wrong.

The impending IPO will bring with it a cash-injection, which will help develop the site further, which in turn will see users and brands improving the way they engage, communicate and connect with others; not forgetting the possibility of new platforms within the network for promotion being created and enhanced via the API function.

Twitter: Whilst Twitter haven’t announced any plans for an IPO this year, they have already hit the headlines and none more so than there decision to censor tweets in countries where Twitter is currently prohibited.

Whilst there has been some uproar that this is bad for Twitter and its users because it’s limiting the freedom of speech the site offers, Twitter have argued that it actually has the opposite affect and will be good for users, as instead of blocking tweets on a global basis – as had been done before when requested; it now has the option to censor them on a country-by-country basis.

It isn’t just the censorship of tweets which has seen Twitter feature in the news over the last few weeks; at the time of writing, it has been announced that they’ve entered into a new partnership which will give their subscribers access to Twitter SMS, the original text-based Twitter service.

As Twitter announced in a statement, this means: “Now, even if phone lines and the Internet are inaccessible — for example, in a war zone or after a natural disaster — people will be able to share news and stay informed via Twitter.” – Put simply, wherever users are, there is a way for them to communicate via Twitter.

Whilst these two changes don’t have a direct link to the way social media marketing will alter throughout the year, they do have an indirect link. Firstly, the censoring of tweets will influence how people tweet and what they tweet.

The Twitter Satellite Partnership will see Twitter continue to grow, making it more accessible to a wider audience and therefore increasing the audience you can target via the platform.

Mobile Marketing:

As smartphones become more common, it’s important to make sure that your marketing campaign is able to provide information which can be shared via the devices.

It’s therefore important to make sure that your website loads on the devices without the formatting being out – and that it’s also quick to load.

Another aspect of mobile marketing which will help your social media marketing campaign to grow is the ability of your audience to gain access to your online marketing campaign any time of day or night, wherever they are. It also allows you to interact with your clients in real-time, helping to boost your engagement.

Content Marketing:

Finally content marketing, also known as the company blog, press release and news articles within a business’ website.

For some this played a part in the original launch of social media marketing, whilst for others it has been ignored, with social networks taking the front seat. Here at JE Consulting, we like to see social media marketing as a tandem bike, where each element helps the other progress.

It’s for this reason that we think over the next few months, content marketing will begin to grow and help improve social media marketing.

The opportunities for content marketing are so varied that there is really no reason why it should be ignored. In previous posts in our own company blog, we’ve discussed the power of blogging and the importance of including keywords within your blog where relevant to improve your SEO campaign.

But content marketing offers so much more than that, it lets you share with your audience, your passion for your company, its services and products, whilst also sharing your opinions, tips and advice on various industry aspects – and if you want to make sure your social media marketing campaign grows between now and December 31st 2012, you really should start a company blog today.

Incorporating content marketing and mobile marketing into your social media campaign; whilst also staying abreast of the latest social network changes and improvements, will help you stay on-top of your social media marketing, which in-turn will help it build up an audience and therefore boosting your business’ ROI.

Social media marketing falls into two categories 1) a summers stroll through the park for those who’ve grown up with it and understand the various platforms; and 2) a dark, mysterious, spooky area for those who are accustomed to more traditional forms of marketing.

For those that fall into the second category, one of the common questions asked when discussing social media marketing, is: “can social media marketing help my business?” The short, simple answer is……YES.

At JE Consulting, we passionately believe that there is an area of social media marketing which will benefit your company.

It doesn’t matter whether you’re a local accountancy firm based on the south coast of England, a legal firm based in the North East or a care provider based within the Midlands; whatever business sector you’re in, social media marketing can help your business.

Whilst each business sector and then each business within that sector will be able to benefit and work with social media marketing in a different way to their neighbours, there are some generic rules and aspects which can be carried throughout every business the length and breadth of the UK.

To prove it to those who need to be dragged (kicking and screaming) through social media marketing, we’ve compiled this brief guide, into some of the main areas of social media marketing.

Social Networking:

Social networking is potentially the most common area of social media marketing, as under the umbrella falls the likes of Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, each of which offers their own benefit to social media marketing and each of which can play an important part in the process of social media marketing being successful for your business.

Facebook:The biggest social network around at the moment may have started as a tool for friends throughout American universities to stay in touch and communicate; but in the eight years that it has been around, Facebook has proven to be an important tool for social media marketing.

Through pages and groups, businesses are able to build an online profile to promote their target audience, using a variety of media – from images and videos to text.

As a B2C tool, Facebook has over time proven to be extremely powerful with many global commodities using the platform to promote their brand, launch new products and run competitions to attract their audience.

LinkedIn: If you’re looking for a network which allows B2B interaction, then LinkedIn is the one to use.

As a professional network, it allows users to promote themselves, their skills and professional experiences; whilst also allowing businesses to reach their audience and like-minded companies and professionals via Company Pages and Groups.

Twitter: As with Facebook, Twitter is often misconceived as a platform for friends to share “drivel” such as funny Youtube videos of cats playing a piano, or information about what they’re up to.

However, when used correctly and regularly, Twitter can be even more of a powerful tool to have in your social media marketing toolbox than Facebook.

Although it may not allow businesses to create pages or groups, Twitter does offer real-time communication on both a B2C and a B2B level, ensuring that as a business you’re able to reach your target audience and even further a field, with as little as 140 characteristics.

Blogging:

When it comes to social media marketing, blogging can often be overlooked – however, as with every element of the marketing setup, blogging plays an extremely important role in helping you reach your target audience and in promoting your business.

There are two ways that you can use blogging to your advantage, the first is having a company blog and the second is guest blogging; whether used separately or you combine the two for your business, you will notice the impact it has.

Company Blog: The company blog is a platform which you have control over. You say what is included within the blog, the tone the content takes and how often it is updated (ideally, you should be looking at a minimum of a couple of times per week).

By creating a company blog which is linked to your main company website, you’re offering another platform for your business to promote its products, services and brands, with very few limitations in the way.

Whilst you may be limited to space within social networks and within your company website; with a blog you can be as passionate, informal and detailed about your products, services, business and brand as you want to be; including pictures and videos where applicable, all of which combines to give your audience a 360 degree perspective of your business and what it offers.

If possible don’t make your blogs all about your business, try and offer industry advice, guidance and tips. It’s also wise to make sure that your blogs aren’t too long in length, otherwise people will turn off – in the event that your blog is going on, either make it a two-parter and post the second part later in the week, or break it up using images.

Guest Blogging: Guest blogging works in a similar way to your company blog, except that you don’t have as much control over the tone of the blog, when it is posted or how promotional you can be.

However, for what guest blogging holds back in terms of overall control, it makes up for in audience reach. Via careful research, you should be able to find industry specific blogs which accept guest posts and have a high audience reach.

Top Tip: When looking for a guest blogging site, look to see how many “Likes”, “Tweets” and “Shares” the posts receive – the higher the better!

E-Marketing:

E-Marketing isn’t a new form of social media marketing, but it is an area which is often forgotten about, especially with the rise of social networks. However, this isn’t to say that E-marketing cannot still play an important role in your social media marketing campaign.

Through the use of E-Marketing, businesses are able to share information that has been posted within blogs or on social networking sites, with the clients and contacts they find within their email contacts; ensuring those that aren’t yet involved in social media marketing can access the content still whilst also seeing how beneficial social media marketing can be for business.

A good way to help your E-Marketing campaign progress further is to include the “Like”, “Share” and “Tweet” tabs common within social networking, to help the messages you’re spreading via e-marketing reach an even wider audience.

The three elements of social media marketing listed above are only a small percentage of the social media tools which are available to help boost your business’ audience reach and marketing campaign – and with little cost required.

If you’d like to learn more about social media marketing visit our blog on a regular basis to pick up more tips, advice and guidance.

Today, February 7th 2012, marks Safer Internet Day 2012 around the world. It’s a day to promote safer and more responsible use of online technology, media and mobile phones, especially for the younger generations. Although Safer Internet Day is primarily aimed at offering advice and guidance to parents and the younger generations to ensure they stay safe online, it also offers valuable messages for businesses undertaking social media marketing.

Whilst the Prime Minister, David Cameron, has voiced his support to Safer Internet Day, pointing out that making sure parents are empowered enough to ensure their children’s safety online is a “personal priority” of his; here at JE Consulting, we believe that the main messages of Safer Internet Day should be taken into consideration by businesses when carrying out their social media marketing campaign.

Before we look at how businesses can learn from Safer Internet Day, which this year has the banner “Discovering the Digital World Together, Safely” we first need to look at what the campaign aims to achieve.

The main principal of Safer Internet Day is to teach children how to stay safe online, especially when using social networking, and how to teach parents to ensure their children are safe online.

This is an important issue for two reasons: 1) social networks are becoming increasingly popular for all ages 2) it was recently revealed that only 40% of young people are aware that personal information shared online will stay there forever.

So How Does This Influence Social Media Marketing?

Whilst on the face of it, the Safer Internet Day may not seem to influence businesses or social media marketing, when you consider the main tips of the campaign, there is no doubt that businesses shouldn’t take something out of it too; after all the internet offers multiple risks for all who use it.

To help your business stay secure, whilst still taking advantage of social media marketing, at JE Consulting, we believe the following tips taken from Safer Internet Day should be applied to have business using the internet.

1) Install Online Security Software & Keep It Updated:

As already mentioned, the internet offers a multitude of risks for everyone that uses it, and one of the main risks are viruses and malware; with criminals coming up with new ways to try and get around existing security software.

Whether you’re using the internet for emails, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn alone; or for extensive research and other elements of your business, it’s important to make sure you have security software in place and that it is updated every few months as this will help protect your computer from becoming a victim of hackers, viruses and malware.

2) Use Strong Online Passwords

Nearly every element of social media marketing requires a password, which each platform asking for something different, from “x” amount of characters, to letters and numbers being used.

As tempting as it can be to use something which is easy for you to remember, it’s likely that it’ll also be easy for someone to guess if they want to. For this reason, for all the online platforms you use, you should use a different password and not link it to something which is easy to guess.

You should also make sure that you’re passwords are regularly changed to limit the risk of the accounts being hacked.

3) Don’t Share Personal Information

As tempting as it may be to put your mobile number or personal email address in the information “required” on your social networking platforms, don’t! If you do need to put a telephone number or email address, make sure it is connected to your work.

Along with making sure you don’t put personal contact details within your social networking profile, you should also be conscious about what information you share online.

This doesn’t mean don’t have an online personality for your social media marketing campaign, as this defeats the object of the campaign. Instead, consider everything that you share and think about how it’ll appear to your followers, clients, potential clients and businesses. If in doubt, make sure that all information you share is professional.

4) Be Aware of Pop-Ups and “Suspicious” Links

“Spam” and Junk Mail isn’t limited to coming through your letter box. Unfortunately, whilst undertaking a social media marketing campaign, there is a good chance that you’ll come across it both via social networks and within emails; but don’t let this put you off continuing with your online marketing.

Thankfully, many of the social networks offer a “report and block” option, meaning any unsolicited tweets and comments can be removed from your profile and the sender blocked, as well as reported. All email accounts offer a similar procedure, allowing you to place mail from unknown accounts into a “junk” folder.

If you do receive a link or email from someone you don’t know and you’re not sure about it, don’t take the risk – delete it.

So whilst you may think that Safer Internet Day only applies to children and parents; the messages it shares should also be taken into consideration when running a social media marketing campaign, to ensure that you and your business’ online profile stays safe.

Eight years ago yesterday the world of social media marketing as it was known was changed forever. Although back in February 2004, no-one could have foreseen how the launch of one internal website would alter the way businesses around the world carry out their marketing campaigns.

That’s right, it was eight years ago yesterday that “thefacebook” first hit Harvard University, after a psychology student at the university – Mark Zuckerberg – launched the site.

Within twenty-four hours just over a thousand of Harvard’s students had signed up to the network, and within a month over half of the undergraduates at Harvard had a profile.

Like wildfire, the network spread amongst universities throughout America, increasing in popularity; before August 2005 when Zuckerberg dropped the “the” from the name and purchased its current domain for $200,000. In September of the same year high schools throughout America could sign up and by the end of 2005, Facebook had crossed the Atlantic and was making waves here in the UK.

Fast forward a year and the site was extended beyond educational institutions and made public to anyone with a valid email address, which has seen its popularity continue to rise month-on-month, year-on-year.

The power of Facebook is clear for all to see, with surveys and reports from various industry experts suggesting that there are millions upon millions of active users online around the world, helped by the site being available in over seventy languages.

However, whilst the power of Facebook for social interaction is clear to see, it’s also worth noting that following the launch and early success of Facebook, the world of marketing changed forever – as social media marketing began to be something businesses started to pay attention too.

Whilst there is no doubting that social media marketing was in use before the launch of Facebook, there is an argument to be had that Facebook not only pushed social media marketing into the mainstream, but also helped significantly shape it into what we’ve come to recognise and rely upon today.

Before Facebook, the primary source of marketing for many businesses was the traditional forms such as printed, moving and radio adverts – which still play an important part in marketing today – and other PR activity.

With the traditional forms of marketing, how successful you could be and how wide an audience you could reach as a business depended primarily on the disposable income you had to spend on marketing and advertising; which often meant that smaller businesses couldn’t always compete with their multi-national rivals.

Online marketing at the time was primarily linked to online forums and social media platforms which have since fallen by the wayside or were setup more for individual rather than business use (i.e. Myspace).

Since the birth and subsequent rise of Facebook there has been a significant shift in how marketing is done and also the gap between the smaller, local firms and the larger worldwide corporations.

As Facebook, began to rise in popularity firstly for individuals to use to network with friends and family; then for businesses to use as a platform for advertising, marketing and promotion, other platforms launched. Some platforms have since fallen by the wayside, whilst others have stayed around and continued to push themselves (and subsequently Facebook) to provide a better platform for all users.

Over the years, as those platforms which have launched on the back of Facebook, and Facebook themselves, continue to push the limits of the internet for the better, the power of social media marketing has became evident for all businesses to see – from the local plumber through to the multi-national, multi-million companies.

One way which it has helped the smaller, local firms is that they’re now able to market their business on an almost even keel with the larger corporations; giving customers more choice.

Business profits and revenue no longer have to limit what a business can and cannot do in terms of marketing as Facebook and various platforms and networks which launched on the back of their success are free to sign up – with the only cost being the time invested in making the marketing campaign work.

This means that businesses are now able to promote and market their brand, products and services via text, images and video content – something which previously wasn’t possible before the boom of social media marketing, led by Facebook.

Additionally, it’s helped all businesses interact with and target their audience in real-time, around the clock. There is no longer any need for consumers to wait for opening hours to ask a question regarding a service or product on offer, as they’re able to tweet a message or post on the wall of the companies social media profile and know they’ll get a response.

Furthermore, via use of various social media platforms from Facebook and other social networks which have launched on the back of their success; through to traditional forms of online marketing including blogs and forums, its possible for businesses to reach out to a wider group of their target audience and to market certain products to various demographics.

Whilst some users will be unhappy with the changes being made by Facebook and also other online marketing platforms, one thing is for sure. As each platform builds on the success and openings gained from the launch of Facebook in February 2004, one thing is for sure, the world of social media marketing is set to continue to increase and play an important role in how businesses and consumers interact and engage.