How to amplify your content & updates from Twitter, Google and Facebook

Here’s our round-up of need-to-know social media & content news from the last few months and what it means for your digital marketing.

Savvy content marketers adopt a multi-channel approach to amplification

Content marketing has and always will be about creating useful, relevant content and targeting it at a carefully researched demographic. So far this year, I’ve noticed brands jumping on board with social media with gusto… unfortunately, there’s a heck of a lot of them jumping on board with zero strategy in place. With so much noise from brands and individuals, savvy content marketers need to be more strategic than ever if they’re going to get their content noticed.

Having a dual approach is crucial, blending highly useful, shareable onsite content to attract inbound links and mentions, while driving more relevant website traffic, with an outbound approach to get the attention of major publications and influencers. One often overlooked tactic to do this and a highly cost effective one, is the use of social PPC advertising to alert industry influencers and journalists about your content.

Whatever your brand, next time you have a piece of content you want to shout about, stop scraping the barrel for journalist contacts and put the news right in front of them. A great way to do this is to create Twitter lists of highly influential people and then target a Twitter ads campaign to appear directly in their newsfeeds. You’ll then have a measurable metric for the success of your content (clicks, retweets etc.) and furthermore, increase your chances of it being picked up and published.

Tied in content marketing, using a blend of promotional devices – and in this case focusing on the power of social PPC – instead of relying solely on more traditional journalist approaches (email, phone) to get your content featured, is my top tip for your next big campaign.

Google and Twitter partner up again

Google and Twitter reached an agreement for Google to start indexing tweets again after granting access to its Firehose. Firehose pings out over 9,000 tweets a second, meaning Google will always have access to the most up to date Twitter conversations to make Google searches even more relevant and the information thrown back to searchers, hyper-relevant and real-time.

If you were in any doubt as to the efficacy of Twitter as a marketing tool, this partnership – and with it the ability to get your tweets in front of both Twitter users and non-users – should convince you to step up your efforts on the platform and find your audience both in search and social.

Storytelling and tapping into emotion – the sure fire way to generate campaign engagement

Whether it’s marketers shaping the story, or the customer directly, storytelling in campaigns continue to be a strong tool for capturing your target audience’s attention.

Last month, we ran a campaign for our client, RocketSki, who – as the name suggests – provide fabulous ski holidays for corporates, groups and families.

The campaign – #TalesFromTheSlopes – asked RocketSki’s Facebook followers and lovers of skiing across Facebook (through Facebook advertising) to share their most breath-taking, funny or scary moments from the slopes and a picture of them in their best ski pose.

In collaboration with influential ski and snowboarding bloggers, the storytelling element of creative brought the campaign to life, as people flocked to the contest page to tell their #TalesFromTheSlopes. The winner, Claire Lomas, had an incredible story to tell. In 2007, Claire had a freak accident while competing at Osberton Horse Trials. This didn’t stop her though, as she turned her attention to mono skiing – essentially flying down the slopes in a specially crafted seat on skis. Her #TalesFromTheSlopes story attracted nearly 400 votes, making her the clear winner and a testament to the power of such an emotional journey – a story that captured the attention of all involved in the contest.

The campaign achieved great results for the client, including reengaging previous website visitors and converting new users into paying customers. Storytelling can be the catalyst not only for brand awareness and social media engagement, but as a genuine tool for driving sales and tangible return on investment.

Facebook continues to repress brand published organic content – less eyes on brand content

At time of writing – the last update from Facebook being on April 21st 2015 – titled ‘Balancing Content from Friends and Pages’ appears to lend itself to the following: “Dear brands, ‘If you were in any doubt, it’s time to use Facebook PPC to promote your brand message”.

Facebook is of course laser-focused on optimising content so that users’ eyeballs land on content that is relevant and interesting to them, so while organic posts are likely to see a further dip, it is still important for brands and the media to publish a rich variety of content. Whether it be videos, quizzes, thought provoking or humourous imagery, through to creative contests that reward followers for their support, brand pages will still play an important role in getting a return from social media efforts. Just don’t ignore the not so inconspicuous ‘paid social elephant in the room’… it’s time to up your social paid advertising budget if you really want to get your content seen.

New clients bringing Christmas cheer to Leapfrogg

By our own admission, we don’t shout nearly enough about the great work we do for our clients (a new year’s resolution for 2012 perhaps!?). In the last few weeks, we’ve been successful in winning a number of fantastic new clients so thought we’d take the opportunity to tell you all about them.

First and foremost, we are delighted to have been appointed by Filofax. A brand steeped in history, Filofax dates back as far as the First World War when an Englishman working in the USA, came across an American organising system consisting largely of technical leaves for engineers and scientists. More than 90 years later, the Filofax personal organiser continues to be a valuable and practical asset to people in all walks of life. Initially tasked with looking after natural search, we will also be working with the client to develop a wider online retail strategy in 2012.

In the fashion sector, we have recently been working with one of the UK’s leading nightwear and loungewear specialists, Hush. We were tasked with helping the Hush team put in place greater structure and process around the creation, optimisation and marketing of content. This has included running a number of workshops with the client’s in-house writers to come up with creative themes and ideas that support product sales, whilst also helping to build a lifestyle brand. We have helped the client put in place a highly detailed week-by-week, structured plan outlining the content to be created and the channels by which that content is to be marketed. Alongside this, we have delivered training and put in places processes to ensure the value of that content better supports natural search and social media activity.

Sticking with fashion, we are delighted to have been appointed by Bastyan to manage their paid and natural search campaigns. Started by Tonia Bastyan (and part of Aurora Fashions), Bastyan is a collection aimed at the 35+ market giving design solutions to women searching for both quality and design from the upper middle market. Tasked to drive sales during the pre and post-Christmas sale period, we set up a Google Adwords campaign, which exceeded the clients sales targets for the entire trading period within the first two weeks!

Longer term, we are developing a natural search strategy aimed at increasing customer acquisition, whilst supporting on- and offline PR initiatives.

In the world of high-end travel, we start work with Simpson Travel in January. We’ll be developing and executing a natural search strategy aimed at increasing bookings to Simpson’s luxury villas, apartments, boutique & family hotels in Corsica, Greece, Majorca and Turkey. Our work will combine on-page optimisation, user-experience, content strategy and online PR.

And last but by no means least, Insight Guides, publishers of the world’s largest series of visual travel guidebooks and maps, has appointed Leapfrogg to provide support in the upcoming launch of their new website. We’ll be delivering a bespoke program of SEO training to the Insight Guides team of editors, empowering staff to optimise site content as it is being created. Following that, we hope to be working with the client to put in place an ongoing search strategy aimed at increasing traffic and e-book sales.

So there you go…some fantastic new clients that we look forward to working with in 2012. We’re showing off a little bit but having seen growth of more than 20% this year, in a difficult market, we’re feeling just a little bit pleased with ourselves! Expect to hear much more about our clients next year as we support them in meeting and exceeding their commercial objectives.

Have a fantastic Christmas and New Year!

Facebook ‘Likes’ and travel sites

A recent study from Usabilla looking at user experience of 800 users across 18 leading travel websites turned up some very interesting results. There was a great deal to learn from the study but perhaps the biggest surprise was the negative reaction shown towards the inclusion of the Facebook Like buttons.

Amongst the negative feedback towards the Facebook Like buttons where comments such as “trying too hard”, “unprofessional”, “infantile” and generally a lot of comments of “hate”. The comment “I am here to book a trip, not to market this company on Facebook” summarised the feedback nicely. Strong words indeed.

So don’t include Facebook Like’s on travel websites?

Not so fast. These negative responses are not likely to be purely down to the inclusion of Facebook Like buttons, more the way they have been incorporated into the site and the approach taken by the brand when trying to communicate the reason for their inclusion to customers.

So how should you include Facebook Likes into a travel site?

Don’t just plonk your Facebook button on the home page or every page of the site without any thought. There are a number of considerations that should be made when incorporating a like button:

Placement

Consider carefully where you place the button. Add to content that people will actually want to share and endorse to get the most traction. This might include:

  • Photos and photo galleries
  • Guides and useful information such as ‘things to do’
  • Blog posts or news articles

Communication

If you still want people to like your brand, try to position the button as to “follow” rather than to “Like” on Facebook and try to communicate what’s in it for them, for example:

  • To stay updated though the Facebook news feed
  • Access to special offers or deals only for followers

Additionally, consider if including an indicator of the number of ‘Likes’ will instill trust and help increase conversions.

Alternatives

Don’t forget about Facebook Send. There’s a nice example on the Facebook page where someone is sharing an Orbitz Hotel page with their roommates. Facebook Send is private and like a ‘Like’ can be sent to different Facebook friends or groups. Facebook explain it best:

“We designed the Send button to be used alongside the Like button. By including both on your website, people will have ability to broadcast the things they like and also send it to specific people.”

Testing and measuring

Don’t just add a button and forget about it, there are exact ways to measure the levels of interaction and identify the combinations that are performing best:

  •  Use a/b testing to change the position, size, etc to see which variation encourages the greatest level of engagement
  • Setup the Social Tracking in Google Analytics to see if people are interacting and sharing your content

Simply putting the Facebook ‘Like’ button on your homepage because “everyone else is doing it” is a big ‘no no’. Sometimes it’s better not to do things at all than do them badly so seriously consider the above carefully to make the Facebook Like work well for both your business and your customers.