Why every brand needs a social media policy

Posted on February 6, 2013 by Ben Potter

Over the last 12 months, as to be expected, there has been further acceleration in the uptake of social media amongst retailers. This is a result of increasing usage amongst a wider demographic, new networks popping up (such as Pinterest), as well as the role social plays in wider search, content and customer experience strategies.

Regardless of the goals you have for your social presence (whether customer acquisition, retention, customer care, brand awareness, etc.) a key foundation for success is a comprehensive social media policy. This should include:

Branding, tone and vocabulary guidelines
Customer service guidelines
Negative interaction protocol
Respectful practice guidelines
Legal practice and copyright awareness

Remember one size doesn’t fit all – a social media policy should be tailored to the brand. Depending on the nature of your organisation, there may be unique factors you need to consider, so don’t be tempted to use a template for your social media policy.

Here are a few important roles a good policy can fulfil:

Branded communication
Use your social media policy to guide branding across channels. We all use social media in our free time; clearly stating key buzz words, brand values and vocabulary to avoid prepares your employees to interact as brand representatives, communicating your values and writing in the correct tone of voice.

Protection for yourself and your employees
Clearly stating procedures within a social policy will help to safeguard you and your employees from negative situations and mistakes. Outlining employee roles (for example, who leads customer service dialogue) reduces confusion around responsibility and optimises time and resource. Highlighting legal practice, platform rules and copyright awareness is vital to ensure you aren’t in breach of the CAP digital remit.

Deliver seamless customer service
A good social media policy will guide the customer service process, ensuring the employees responsible are aware of correct protocol for escalation and importantly, who to notify within the company if a volatile situation occurs. Negative comments are inevitable in every social space – it’s how you deal with them that will set you apart from competitors.

Avoid social faux pas:
We all know how much negative media attention the wrong tweet or post can generate. Remember Urban Outfitters’ ill-considered sales tweet amid the devastation of super storm Sandy in October 2012?

It’s tempting to think that if you have a small social team you’re unlikely to commit a social faux pas. The real time nature of social coupled with human nature can be a recipe for unintentional disaster. Neatly outlining the rules encourages employees to think twice before they tweet.

While it’s important to lay out the rules, make sure your policy isn’t too restrictive. Social media is a leisure space for consumers and interaction should be responsive and flexible; in most cases it should also be fun for all involved, both the brand and the consumer. Therefore, whilst social media policies are necessary don’t let them suffocate the spirit of social media.

What we learnt in 2012 and what we look forward to in 2013

Posted on January 10, 2013 by Ben Potter

At the end of each year, I encourage the Leapfrogg team to take some time out to review what they have learnt from the events of the last 12 months. It’s an opportunity to take a step back and think about what we have witnessed in digital marketing, retail and the luxury sector, as well as the strategies and tactics we have employed for an ever-growing portfolio of high-end retailers.

So here are a few of our main observations from another eventful year, with comments from members of the Leapfrogg team, along with what we look forward to (hopefully) seeing in 2013.

Panda’s and penguins changed the game…for the better

Google’s Panda and Penguin updates dominated the search landscape in 2012. Scores of websites found their search engine rankings negatively impacted by the updates. The techniques they had been using to unnaturally garner search rankings (or that agencies were adopting on their behalf, such as buying links) were hit hard by Google’s aggressive, and very public, attempts to clean up their search results.

As Ben Adam, Senior Natural Search Consultant, comments ‘it seems that Google has finally found a means of taking action against web spam; the kind of action that most search marketers have been asking for, for years.’

Website Optimisation Manager, Suzanne Taylor adds, ‘The search engines have got wiser and duly penalised sites that have been chasing rankings with ‘black hat’ tactics. For some businesses, this re-education has cost them time and money, however businesses that have focused, first and foremost, on creating a good experience for their customers have benefitted.’

These updates have had a significant (and in our view, positive) impact on the discipline of natural search (SEO). As Senior Content and Social Media Consultant, Emma-Jane comments, ‘the updates place greater emphasis and reward on traditional content based and PR-style marketing, making quick-win techniques, such as sharing keyword stuffed articles and mass-submitting to thousands of low quality directories, riskier than ever before. A PR-led approach to building a holistic and sustainable link profile has seen a welcome move towards creating editorially-led, consumer facing content. This not only benefits search, but becomes an important part of the customer journey.’

As natural search is now so closely entwined with other marketing activities, such as content planning and PR, Head of Search, Matt, expects to see search getting greater recognition as a strategic business operation in 2013, commenting ‘successful search engine optimisation requires a sophisticated approach to relationship building meaning companies need to work harder to engage with customers, suppliers, partners, press and commentators. This means that SEO should, for the most forward thinking companies, be at the heart of a business not on the fringes, which can only be a good thing.’

Content marketing is nothing new

What was particularly interesting to witness in 2012, as a result of the Panda update in particular, was the sudden surge in interest for ‘content marketing’ services. I’ve been amazed at the number of agencies suddenly changing tact (and in some cases their straplines) to place content marketing at the core of their offering (as if creating genuinely engaging, useful content has always been their approach to search…when quite frankly, it wasn’t.).

‘Content is king’ they said again…and again…and again…

Content marketing, even in the online world, is not a new discipline. Neither is it one that should be getting any more, or less, attention just because Google has found a way to combat the poor quality content that for so long could be used to manipulate your way to the top of the rankings.

Managing Director, Rosie, comments ‘content is not king. Instead, the customer’ is king. Regardless of the marketing activity, whether on or offline, single or multichannel, you must put the customer at the heart of it. Good customer insight is the rocket fuel for your content and wider retail strategy…and always has been. Nothing has changed other than Google getting better at separating the wheat from the chaff.’

In 2013, we hope to see the (somewhat artificially inflated) industry furore around content marketing calm down. We’ll continue to apply a back to basics attitude where content is concerned, namely that strategies are driven by a genuine understanding of the customer, as Senior Content and Social Media Consultant, Emily, explains, ‘delving deeper into our clients’ consumer demographics with detailed customer surveys and audits of each touch point in their retail journey will further develop our customer-orientated focus in 2013, which continues to be at the heart of our approach to content strategy.’

Consumer expectations are moving faster than most retailers can keep up

Driven mainly by technology (the growth in smartphones and tablets, for example), there have been significant changes in consumer behaviour in recent years and, in turn, the expectations that consumers have of the retailers they choose to shop with.

As I noted in an Econsultancy article back in November, ‘what is a ‘nice to have’ now will be the expected norm in 2013. As consumers become conditioned to in-store consoles, delivery on their own terms and a more personalised shopping experience (to give just three examples), they will more readily question those retailers not offering the same. In short, consumers won’t put up with average when exceptional becomes the norm.’

As such, we will undoubtedly see more retail casualties in 2013. However, it would be too simplistic to blame economic factors alone for these failing businesses. Instead, there will be some retailers who simply cannot evolve their business models in line with customer expectations and, as such, will disappear from our high streets.

In 2013, the successful retailers will be those who place much greater emphasis on customer insight and ‘big data’ to drive marketing decisions. Gone are the days when retailers can afford to throw money at something on a whim. The customer needs to be at the heart of every decision. As such, we expect to see customer experience become more and more of a focus during 2013 to the extent it occupies board level discussions.

Social media is evolving to become a mind-set, not just a tactic

Alongside Google’s well publicised efforts to clean up their search results, 2012 also saw social media’s influence on search results increase. As Client Services Director, Greg, comments ‘Google+ started to show real signs of traction in 2012 – especially with regards to having an impact on natural search visibility within the search results’.

We still think the jury is out when it comes to the role Google+ plays in meeting wider customer engagement objectives (simply put it hasn’t reached critical mass) but, without question, Google is making a massive push for it to a part of our everyday lives. I just hope consumers, brands and agencies invest in the platform in 2013 because it adds genuine value to their retail strategies, not just because it is a necessary vehicle to improving Google search rankings.

Aside from Google+, in 2012 we saw a definite step change in how clients’ perceive social media and the role it plays at every stage of the customer journey. As Emily notes, ‘across our client portfolio, we’ve seen an increased interest in (and understanding of), the importance of social, both for accessing and expanding their consumer bases, as well as becoming an increasingly important factor in search.’

Greg continues ‘brands have been much more willing to at least ‘have a go’ in social media even if specific objectives and KPIs are unclear at the start.’

Measurement and attribution remains a challenge

Mobile and tablet use exploded during 2012 with Matt commenting ‘adoption of mobile devices was notable last year. Customers of premium brands are more likely to own a smartphone and tablet with some of our clients seeing up to 40% of their website traffic coming from mobile devices.’

As consumers move so freely between channels and devices whilst researching, considering and making their purchase, tracking this journey and attributing revenue to the appropriate channel presented a major challenge in 2012…and it will continue to do so in 2013.

Head of Search, Matt, sees part of the solution in social media. He comments, ‘Social media offers a solution to attribution issues created by multiple devices and cookie deletion. With a billion people on Facebook and other networks such as Twitter and Pinterest growing quickly, people logged in to social media platforms and email services, especially on their mobile devices, could be the solution to the attribution conundrum’.

Watch this space!

Things get better with age

In December, we will be celebrating our tenth birthday. Quite frankly, I don’t know where the years have gone!

One thing I do know is that Leapfrogg is evolving all of the time. Each day, month and year we improve, never satisfied with our approach, processes and knowledge. For me, that is what makes a great agency; the constant desire to be better than you were yesterday.

Therefore, we look forward most to celebrating 10 years in business by continuing to work with some fantastic retail brands, constantly innovating to help them meet their commercial objectives.

Account Manager, Nick, sums this up best; ‘for me, what I’m most looking forward to in 2013 is pushing our fantastic clients to be bold, experimental and ultimately, successful. With the green shoots of an economic recovery beginning to show, 2013 will be the year when forward-thinking and innovative clients can really get the jump of their competitors. I’m looking forward to leading the way with Leapfrogg’s fully integrated approach and setting the standards.’

With that, we’d like to wish you a happy and prosperous New Year!

The agency vs in-house conundrum…the impact of Google Panda on staff resourcing

Posted on June 14, 2012 by Ben Potter

The downturn of the last few years has inevitably led brands to scrutinise every pound spent on marketing. In some cases, brands have concluded that it is more cost effective and efficient to manage their search marketing activity in-house. Although I have always worked agency side, I have no problem with this and see it as inevitable for certain businesses as they scale up their operations.

However, recent Google updates, Panda for example, represent perhaps Google’s most aggressive attempt to clean up its search results and in turn, this is having a significant impact on the skill sets required to deliver an effective natural search strategy (also known as SEO if you prefer).

Essentially, Panda targets those websites creating and hosting poor quality content. In other words, content that is usually created purely for the purposes of gaming search engines. We’ve all seen this type of content; pretty pointless, keyword stuffed articles, for example, that too often find their way into prominent search engine positions impacting the quality and relevancy of search results.

Google has been hammering well known article sharing sites, as well as blog networks in recent months, which in turn has impacted search results for businesses overly reliant on links from these sites.

Continuing the animal theme, we’ve also seen the Penguin update, focused specifically on targeting web spam, as well as the introduction of ‘over-optimisation’ penalties.

What impact have these updates had on natural search?

The extent to which your natural search strategy needs to adapt as a result of these updates will very much depend on how you have historically approached the discipline.

Here at Leapfrogg, we’ve always lived by the mantra ‘users first, search engines second’. In other words, we don’t subscribe to adopting any technique which is purely about garnering a search engine ranking. Instead, we ask the question; ‘will this benefit the target audience?’ As such, we have never bought links, subscribed to blog networks or ‘spun’ poor quality content because we deem these as techniques which offer no benefit to the target audience of a particular client. Therefore, we have seen very little, if any, of our clients negatively impacted by these updates.

But of course if you have subscribed to these techniques (and any others that go against Google’s published quality guidelines), then, in all likelihood, you are having to make significant changes to how your approach natural search and may even have found your website negatively impacted by these algorithm changes i.e. a drop in rankings and therefore traffic and sales.

Post Panda, today’s natural search strategies need to be underpinned by genuinely engaging and useful content and supported by social media and PR activity to deliver a sustainable and reputable search engine presence. As such, natural search, in the traditional sense, is not the stand-alone discipline it perhaps was once. The winners will ultimately be those that can join the dots between search, social media, content strategy and PR.

How have these updates impacted the skills required to deliver an effective natural search strategy?

In years gone by, it is fair to say you could probably hire one person to look after your natural search activity in-house. In all likelihood they probably came from a technical background and could do a pretty decent job in improving your search engine rankings.

However, in light of how search has evolved in the last couple of years, one person is no longer equipped to manage a highly effective search strategy on their own. Whilst there remains a technical aspect to search, there is now a multitude of other skill sets that have heightened in importance following the recent Google updates described above, for example:

•   Customer insight, analysis, segmentation and persona development
•   Online PR and brand building
•   Content strategy and execution
•   Social media

The freelance world might disagree with me but I simply cannot see how one person can be an expert in all of the above areas, not to mention those disciplines that haven’t been cited above such as conversion optimisation and data analysis. Quite simply, the complexity of today’s search engines, along with ever-increasing competition, requires a skillset which is beyond the ability of one person alone.

What does this mean for a brand considering managing their search strategy in-house?

It means you will need to build a team probably consisting of at least four or five people. Broadly speaking, this might include a website optimisation expert, covering everything from keyword strategy through to testing. It would require a content strategist covering content creation, optimisation and an ability to market that content effectively using online PR skills. A social media expert would be integral to the team, not just because of the ‘social search’ angle but also to develop a community around the brand and products, whilst using social tools to communicate with customers at every stage of their buying journey from promotions to customer service. I’d also argue an analyst would be needed who can interrogate tools such as Google Analytics to understand the buying journey of customers and make informed decisions on how to optimise marketing channels and drive efficiency.

It will also need one of those people, or somebody senior to them, to have the expertise and vision to develop the strategy and ensure it is working in unison with offline marketing and PR activity. Nothing can work in a silo.

Of course, the specific skills required will differ from business to business and will be dependent on the sector but the point I seek to make here is that both in terms of skill and man hours, it is simply impossible for one person to deliver an effective search strategy on their own.

Inevitably, this means that the cost of taking search in-house is much higher than might be initially anticipated. Hiring a team of four or five is a very different proposition to hiring one person, not just in terms of salary but also the many other costs associated with recruitment and the wellbeing of staff. More often than not, it simply does not make commercial sense to build an in-house team. At least the same level of expertise and experience can be bought in at a significantly lower rate by partnering with an agency.

Another issue to consider when it comes to resourcing is the availability of skilled staff. In Econsultancy’s recent SEO Buyers Guide one of the key industry issues cited by agencies was the shortage of skilled and experienced workers. In short, there are just not enough digital marketers to satisfy a growing agency market. Therefore, brands will often find themselves competing with agencies for staff. Yet agencies can offer something that many brands cannot; the opportunity to work across a wide variety of clients and campaigns which adds greatly to the experience an employee can gain. So whilst it is by no means impossible to attract the best talent to work client side, it is by no means easy and will require a competitive package to do so.

Conclusion

As the recession continues to bite, brands will rightly question the value they receive from agencies and whether costs can be cut and efficiency improved by managing their search strategy in-house.
But to do so, requires a greater investment than many brands may plan for. Natural search has evolved greatly in recent years to require a broad range of skills that, in turn, impact the resource required to deliver an effective strategy. This needs to be carefully considered before brands make the decision to manage search marketing in-house.

Survey results: Inside the mind of your premium retail customer

Posted on May 1, 2012 by Lucy Freeborn

Last week, I presented Leapfrogg’s first piece of customer insight research of 2012 at SheerB2B, the conference specifically for retailers in the premium and luxury sector.

We will be producing a piece of insight into the premium retail industry each quarter this year and our first research piece focused on exploring the habits and behaviours of consumers purchasing premium products and services.

As the UK economy slides back into recession, the news agenda is packed full of doom and gloom about consumer spending on the high street and we were interested in finding out what the reality is for premium brands who sell online.

Significantly, 61% of premium UK shoppers say they will not reduce their online spending habits in 2012. Great news for premium and luxury brands reading the Government’s gloomy economic report from Q1. Indeed, 30% of our survey respondents claimed they are actually planning on spending more in 2012 than they did in 2011, due to increasing levels of good service and confidence purchasing online.

We also uncovered some surprising details about who the ‘premium retail customer’ actually is. The average household salary of our premium shopper respondents was just £23K per annum – really exploding the myth of who the premium retailer customer is and inspiring us to dig deeper into this in our next quarter’s research.

We also looked at how the premium retail shopper uses the internet during their buying journey. More than a third of consumers use the web to compare and check prices. For 20% of respondents, online search is used for product inspiration and research. Surprisingly, only 14% use online to search for offers or vouchers, reinforcing what we’ve believed for a while, that retailers need to focus on the longer term investment in providing genuinely quality products, competitive pricing, useful information and great service over quick-win approaches such as voucher codes. There’s no doubt that voucher code sites and smart tactical pricing to help shift stock and introduce new customers to your products plays a part in a rounded multichannel approach. However, maintaining a ‘bigger picture’ focus and protecting your brand equity is key.

Naturally, 39% of respondents said that lower prices would encourage them to spend more with a premium brand in 2012, but excitingly for our clients currently looking at developing better relationships with their customers, 21% of our respondents claimed that the proven quality of a product and great service is enough to encourage increased spend this year.

We’ve put together this infographic to bring to life the stats that we believe to be the most noteworthy from the research, but the full report, complete with advice on what to do next and actionable insights for brands, is available to download at absolutely no cost!

Click here to read and download the Leapfrogg Premium Shopper survey

What a multichannel retailer should include in a search marketing brief

Posted on May 1, 2012 by Ben Potter

Back in November 2010, I wrote about the importance of, and what to include in a brief when looking to appoint a search agency. Whilst much of the advice remains the same, an awful lot has changed in the last couple of years, which in turn impacts how a retailer needs to brief prospective agencies.

Firstly, search has continued to evolve. It is far from the stand-alone discipline it perhaps once was. Social media, content strategy and online PR are now all critical components of a successful natural search strategy (also known as organic search or SEO).

Furthermore, retailers are operating in a complex multichannel environment where increasingly savvy customers expect a consistent and seamless experience as they move between different channels, such as desktop PC, mobile, store and catalogue.

The winners will ultimately be those who can effectively integrate their search, social media, content and online PR strategies, whilst also ensuring that their online and offline operations work in unison.

As such, when multichannel retailers are looking to source a search agency they need to provide access to information, which on the surface, may appear irrelevant. However, in the context of an evolving search landscape and multichannel environment, such information is integral to the delivery of an effective search strategy.

Why is a brief important?

Ultimately, developing a brief is to the benefit of both parties. The agency can build a strong understanding of the business, which leads to the most appropriate solution being presented. The retailer benefits for the very same reason; a solution is developed which is most appropriate to their objectives, internal resource and budget, whilst being aligned to other marketing channels.

What should be included in a search marketing brief?

With the above in mind, multichannel retailers should include the following information in a search marketing brief. Please note; it is not unusual for an NDA to be signed at pitch stage bearing in mind the sensitive nature of some of the information required

Company background

It is useful for the agency to understand the context of why you are looking to engage them. This starts with an understanding of where you’ve come from before we explore where you want to go. Therefore, this section should include a brief history of the business, recent market trends, how the company has performed and the challenges you are facing (both internal and external).

Products

There should be a particular emphasis on your most profitable and popular product lines. For the purposes of forecasting be open to sharing average order values and margins, as well as an overview of your product strategy i.e. innovations, new launches and so on.

Competition

The agency will be looking to assess potential keyword targets (based on the product lines you have cited above). This will involve identifying your competition in search results, as well as researching other marketing activity they are undertaking. It is worth noting that often your competition in search results is very different to your competition across other channels. A small retailer selling black dresses, for example, may find themselves competing in search results with major players, such as Marks & Spencer and John Lewis, which in turn may make related keyword targets unrealistic.

Target audience

Describe your target audience (sex, age, geography, for example), whilst also outlining what your insight is based on. For example, have you got an active database of customers where you have conducted surveys or focus groups? Ultimately, if an agency is going to help you acquire more customers they need to have an acute understanding of who you are trying to reach.

Also consider why this audience should listen to you. Why are you better than the competition? For example, do you position yourself on price, quality or service? Drawing out your USPs and key benefits will be critical to shaping a content-driven, search strategy to increase customer acquisition.

Your commercial objectives

I cannot stress enough the importance of sharing your overriding commercial objectives, ideally for the next 2 – 3 years. If an agency is to deliver an effective search strategy they need to understand the context of how it is expected to contribute to overall business goals.

At Leapfrogg, we work on the premise that objectives should be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-bound) and based on reliable market data.

At this stage, you should also explain your wider business and marketing plans. Reiterating the point that search does not operate in a silo, it is important that the agency understands what other marketing channels you will be investing in to meet your objectives and in turn, how search might support them, for example new store openings and your mobile strategy.

Current activity and performance

To develop a top line strategy and tactical plan at pitch stage, the agency need to understand the investment you have already made in the channels under discussion, as well as having access to data via tools such as Google Analytics.

Therefore, an overview of the tactics that you are currently employing or have employed in recent months, such as natural search, paid search, social media, content and so on, will be useful. This is a chance to outline other partners or agencies that you employ and that your search agency will be expected to work alongside, for example web developers and offline PR.

Understanding your in-house resource is also essential in the spirit of developing a collaborative partnership with an agency. You should not be looking to ‘outsource’ your search marketing in the traditional sense of the word. Instead, you should seek to partner with your agency, sharing roles and responsibilities where applicable. As such, the agency needs to understand the skill, experience and desire of in-house staff to work on certain aspects of the strategy and tactical execution.

Timescales and budget

All too often, time and resource is wasted during the pitch process (on both sides) because important matters such as timescales for moving ahead and budget are not discussed openly and honestly upfront. An agency will invest many hours, perhaps days, in putting together a proposal. Therefore, to avoid time being wasted, which also includes your time in sourcing and supplying information, it is helpful to know when you intend to start the project, whether you are in contract with an existing agency and any notice clauses.

When it comes to budgets, avoid a situation where you give no indication of what you have to play with. Have in mind a budget and be prepared to share it so that the agency can shape a solution that is appropriate. Essentially, ensure there is a correlation between your commercial objectives and the amount of budget you are prepared to invest in meeting them.

Finally, outline the stages you will be working through in making a decision; how many agencies are you inviting to pitch, who will be involved and who will make the ultimate decision, as well as any particular conditions an agency has to meet. This might include specific sector experience or preferred payment models, for example.

Conclusion

Without establishing a brief you run the risk of making a potentially costly decision when it comes to your search strategy. The briefing process should involve intense questioning by the agency and a willingness on the part of the retailer to share required information.

Anything less than this and you are likely to fall into the trap of buying an off-the-shelf, packaged solution…the polar opposite of a search strategy that is aligned to your business objectives and in tune with your wider retail strategy. The latter can only be achieved with a properly defined brief.

Yes, the process takes time but in the long-run will ultimately deliver far greater returns.

Get the most out of Facebook’s new look

Posted on April 26, 2012 by Ben Adam

As you may well have already seen, Facebook Pages have a new look and functionality which was rolled out on 30th March, the change will be seen as a fairly radical one for many brands who will now need to be thinking of telling their brand’s story rather than trying to interact with customers in the style of a message board.

This has implications for both brands that already have a Facebook presence as well as those who haven’t yet made the Facebook leap. Below are the key areas to look at when updating or setting up the new Facebook timeline for your brand.

Cover photo

The most obvious change to the new Facebook timeline is addition of the Cover photo, the full width image that sits permanently at the top of your page should be unique to your business, brand or organisation.

With the tab format no longer, the default page will always be the timeline; this puts greater importance on the cover image. The cover image will be the new focal point for existing and new fans alike.

There a number of requirements associated with your cover image. Cover images must be at least 399 pixels wide and may not contain any of the following:

Price or purchase information, such as “40% off” or “Download it at our website”
Contact information, such as web address, email, mailing address or other ‘about us’ information
References to any user interface elements, such as Like or Share, or any other Facebook site features
Calls to action, such as “Get it now” or “Tell your friends”

But don’t forget your profile picture. This will publicly displayed across Facebook as before, therefore you should upload a 180 x 180 image (which will automatically be resized to 32 x 32.)

Visually compelling

The new Facebook layout puts a huge emphasis on the visuals, make your page compelling by keeping your posts as image centric as possible. Good use of images will make your page easy to scan and help make it more engaging as a result.

Prioritise content

The new Timeline allows for much greater customisation through starred, pinned, hidden and milestone posts. A new feature of Timeline is the ability to star posts; this will highlight the post and result in the post expanding across the screen in widescreen. Additionally you can now hide posts that are timely or you no longer want to appear on your timeline, such as competitions, product recalls and apologies.

Cited by Facebook as a tip to help engage people with your timeline, a pinned post will ensure people notice your most important content by appearing in the top left of a Page’s timeline with flag in its top-right corner for 7 days.

In addition to pinned and starred posts, Milestones can be added to your Timeline these are key moments you would like to highlight on your page, they are automatically expanded and have a flag icon; they are a perfect way to tell the history of your brand. For best results use an image 843 pixels wide and 403 pixels tall for Milestones.

Applications

In the new Facebook design, applications are given less prominence, up to 3 applications can be included on your homepage alongside the Photos application but to view anymore, users will have to expand the apps section.

Old applications will still display but will look narrow in the new layout which now incorporates wider 810px apps.

User comment control and messages

Unlike before, Facebook now puts brands in complete control of comments; it’s now possible to ensure that all conversations that appear on the page will have received prior approval.

Previously the only way consumers could communicate with brands through Facebook was by publically posting on the wall. The new Facebook means users can send messages privately by selecting the new “Message” button (located next to the “Like” button.) Should the brand wish this to be visible, the brand can then respond privately.

Increasing engagement

Facebook recently supplied a number of recommendations in order to help increase engagement with your page. These are as follows:

Keep posts succinct – between 100 and 250 characters
Use photos – posts with photos result in twice the engagement of those without
Post regularly – there’s no right answer here but generally Facebook recommend once a day
Use Facebook Insights – look closely at Facebook insights and find out what posts are being well received and do more of the same

Conclusion

The new Facebook design means brands need to re-assess how they are using the social network and think a lot more about how their profile can tell an engaging story with a lot more emphasis on the visual.

A guide to ‘hotspotting’ video content

Posted on March 7, 2012 by Lucy Freeborn

Hotspotting allows viewers to engage directly with your video content by introducing clickable areas (hotspots) that link through to further product information or even directly to a shopping basket to purchase the item. Hotspotting delivers a two-tier benefit. Firstly, it creates a richer experience for viewers – if they see something they like in a video, one click of the mouse delivers more detailed product information, which they might otherwise have spent hours trying to track down. Secondly, the video itself, if well produced, optimised and marketed supports natural search objectives. The content has the potential to feature in ‘blended’ search results and garner all-important links.

We recently hotspotted the launch video for a new luxury fragrance from Penhaligon’s called Juniper Sling. We linked two hotspotted product sections to the Juniper Sling e-commerce page on the Penhaligon’s website to ensure any coverage of the video would provide a purchase opportunity. Other uses for which hotspotting works well are catwalk show videos, lifestyle footage with product placement or bespoke hotspotted campaign videos like Cartier’s Winter Tale for Christmas last year.

The hotspotting process

In hotspotting video content, we use a piece of software called LinkTo provided by Markettiers4DC. You have two upload options: using a mov video file which is hosted by the LinkTo domain (costs apply) or you can use an existing Youtube link to the video from a brand’s YouTube channel (this is a cheaper option). However, unless a brand has a paid for ‘brand channel’ on YouTube, unfortunately the final hotspotted content will not appear on the YouTube channel itself.

Your video can be any duration, so long as the file size does not exceed 500MB. Once you have uploaded your video, you can also upload a preview image which will appear at the start of the video before your viewer presses play.

To create the hotspots, play your video and pause it when you want to add a hotspot. The hotspot will appear on your video with white corner markers and an associated hotspot timeline will appear below the video timeline. You now resize your hotspot to cover the area you want to link and drag your hotspot timeline to where the feature (a product, for example) moves off screen. To test your hotspot is appearing and tracking correctly at any time, just play the video on this page.

You can now create as many hotspots with different associated interactive landing pages as you like. You can associate the hotspot with an interactive landing page with further product information or link directly to an e-commerce page.

Finally, you can choose from a range of skins for your video player and preview the final hotspotted video. Once payment is authorised, you will be supplied with embed codes for your final video.

How to work with hotspotted videos

Hotspotted videos are best used for online media press kits and across a brand’s own website and marketing channels. For Penhaligon’s, we sold in the video, fragrance samples and backstory of the perfume creation to key lifestyle, cocktail and fashion blogs. The Penhaligon’s website and Facebook pages used the LinkTo generated video code for the hotspotted video.

Results

Our objective for this activity was online PR coverage and over a two week period we secured twelve mentions on our targeted blogs with an audience reach of 750,989. We achieved additional mentions in social networks reaching an additional 50,489 followers – including a Tweet by Sunday Times Style.

Hotspotting works well for securing creative coverage and links but it’s still a relatively new content tactic and needs to be further tested for concrete e-commerce effectiveness.

See our hotspotted Penhaligon’s Juniper Sling launch video below:

How to create an optimised Google+ business page

Posted on February 28, 2012 by Ben Adam

Lucy’s recent post offered caution to jumping on the Google+ bandwagon and highlighted what should be carefully considered before creating a Google+ business page.

Considering whether to create a Google+ page or profile for your brand is pretty much the same as any other social network with the added factor that creating a Google+ page and getting active on the new social network could offer a welcome boost to your natural search visibility.

Below are a couple of examples of how Google+ content is already starting appearing in the SERPs.

Google+ posts

For some queries, Google is pulling in the latest Google+ post, leading to even more brand exposure and for this ASOS example, great promotion of their latest offer.

Suggested pages

Currently only appearing on google.com searches, suggested people and pages to follow for generic searches:

How to create a well optimised Google+ brand page

If you decide to create a Google+ business page, you should keep the following guidelines in mind so that you set the foundations for your Google+ activity to start making waves in the SERPs:

Getting started
Once you have a Google profile registered you can create a page using the Google the Create A Page tool to create your business page.

First off, choose from one of 5 categories:

Local Business or Place
Product or Brand
Company, Institution or Organization
Arts, Entertainment or Sports
Other

If you are creating a Local Business or Place you have the option entering a phone number in a similar way to registering a new Google Place. (Please note that currently, Place pages and Google+ pages must be managed separately).

Setting up a page will give admin rights to that Google account, other accounts can be added from the Settings Managers; the only difference between managers and owners being the ability to delete a page and transfer ownership of that page.

Strangely, unlike Facebook, Google hasn’t bothered with search engine ‘friendly’ URLs for profile pages. Instead your URL uses a unique ID. However, as with Facebook you’ll need to access the page through a personal account and you’ll have the ability to choose whether you are acting as yourself or the business page.

The difference between pages and profiles can get a bit confusing, according to the Google help page it is as follows:

Pages can’t add people to circles until the page is added first or mentioned. Learn more
Pages can be made for a variety of different entities whereas profiles can only be made for people
Pages can have multiple administrators
The default privacy setting for elements on your page profile is public
Pages have the +1 button
Pages can’t +1 other pages, nor can they +1 stuff on the Web
Pages can’t play games
Pages don’t have the option to share to ‘Extended circles’
Pages can’t hangout on a mobile device
Local pages have special fields that help people find the business’ physical location. Learn more about local pages

Once you’ve setup your page, below are the key areas to be focusing on to get the page as well optimised as possible.

Name / Brand

This forms the page title so is worth including a keyword if possible, think of it as a way to help differentiate your business name if needed, don’t force it though.

Tag line and then bio

Both the page name, tagline and the about introduction are used for the page meta description. This will also be a factor used in returning your page in any internal Google+ searches.

When writing your tagline and about intro use the following guidelines:

Describe your business offering
Include your companies USPs
Clarify what the Google+ page is for (H&M do this well)
Use bullet points
Add links if required (at the time of writing, these links are dofollow so should have some SEO weight to them)

Photos

Probably the most striking part of a Google+ page are the 5 horizontal; thumbnails under the tagline. This is an opportunity to get creative, see Econsultancies 20 of the best photo strips for some inspiration and checkout Burberry’s use of gifs to create a moving picture header.

Recommended links

Again, these links are ‘dofollow’ so they should have SEO value. If you’ve linked to useful sections of your site from your About Information put in links here to your other social network profiles, blog and website.

Verifying your page

To verify your Google+ page you need to link it up to your site, this way you’ll get a verified logo by your page name and you’ll be eligible for Google Direct and adWords Social extensions (more below).

To confirm ownership of a site, Google looks for two things:

A rel=”publisher” link from the main page of your website to your Google+ page. This tells Google that the Google+ page represents the publisher of the site, and makes your site eligible for Google Direct Connect. In addition, the count of +1′s on your Google page reflects the number of +1′s on the home page of your site (but not +1′s on individual pieces of content). If you use the AdWords social extension, this total +1 count is also applied to your ads.
A reciprocal link back from your Google+ page to the main page of your website.

Google Direct

Google direct lets you quickly navigate to a Google+ page by preceding your search by a ‘+’, it’s unlikely have much traction at the moment but well worth getting setup now as good foundation for the future.

adWords Social Extensions

This allows you to share your +1 information between your adWords campaign and your Google+ page allowing for annotations to be displayed on your PPC ads. Potentially improving your click through rates.

Ultimately, greater visibility within Google Web and Google+ search is going to come down to how engaging you are as a brand in Google+. Lay the foundations with a well optimised page, encourage +1s and get people to add you to circles to maximise the potential of your Google+ business page.

Should you open a Google+ page to aid search engine rankings?

Posted on February 23, 2012 by Lucy Freeborn

Travelmole reported recently that Google is urging travel firms to set up Google+ pages to aid their search engine rankings. According to Marketing Land this is all part of Google’s “Search Plus Your World” update (live in US, not UK yet).

Numerous articles have been written on the introduction of Google+ and “Search Plus Your World” so we’ll keep things brief in terms of what it means from a user-perspective. In short, there’s a new “Personal Results” view that appears in Google searches, personalising the listings you see based on both your own behaviour and social connections. Search results combine personal signals (your search and web history) along with social signals (who you are, who you know and what you and your friends like and share). If you have a Google+ account, it will look through anything that’s been privately shared with you, to see if it matches what you’re looking for. Those results then get mixed in with web-wide matches.

To see these personalised results you have to be logged into your Google account (i.e. Analytics, Gmail or Google+) otherwise it will not affect the results you see as you are searching “anonymously” (however you will still get listings down the right hand side about “People and Pages on Google+” related to your search query). It is worth noting that all search results are personalised to a degree based on your behaviour and have been for a number of years. The launch of first Google+ and now “Search Plus Your World” are extensions of this with Google seeking to make search results even more relevant based on your social connections. You can see a full, up-to-date guide to every aspect and angle of Google+ and how it impacts search on AJ Kohn’s blog.

In terms of other social networks, “Search Plus Your World” doesn’t include content from Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, or any social network or place where content might be shared. As such, “Search Plus Your World” would be better described as “Search Plus Google+”, according to Search Engine Land. So ultimately, this is Google favouring its own Google+ social networking service. However, having a Google+ page does not, at the moment, directly affect your main website ranking. However, in time, if the network really takes off, a lack of a branded Google+ page and activity across the network will undoubtedly have a negative impact on how Google perceives your business.

Things to consider before you create a Google+ account

So should you be jumping on the latest social media bandwagon and setting up a Google+ profile? An important thing to consider is the demographic of the platform compared to the audience you may be aspiring to attract. According to a report by Website-Monitoring.com, two thirds of Google+ users are men, 42% are single and the most popular occupation listed is ‘student’. This goes against the popular notion that women are far more prolific users of social networks. So if your primary audience is women, you might be better building a strategy around a different social network…for now anyway.

As with any social media activity we would also recommend building a strategy around content before diving in. There is no point opening a Google+ page, or any other social media channel for that matter, unless it is supported by genuinely useful and engaging content.

For the moment, as an agency we’re not jumping on the Google+ bandwagon until we have carried out internal testing and have more visibility of the platform. We are advising our clients to carefully consider their objectives before they invest significant time and resource. All too often agencies push their clients to set up social media accounts ‘just because they should’ without considering the audience, content strategy to support social media activity and the time and resource to manage it.

It’s early days so it will certainly be interesting to see how this plays out. Bear in mind, this wouldn’t be the first time Google have attempted to enter the social media space…with pretty disastrous results. Remember Google Buzz anyone?