The final post in this mini-series for small businesses, first looks at how Social Media Networks (SMN) can be used to protect and reinforce your business name online , and then seeks to stimulate your own independent thought on the ways that Social Media could be of use to your business.
What can Social Media Networks (SMN) do for your business?
Fundamentally Social Media (also known as web 2.00) gives businesses the possibility to tap into live-real time conversations that are taking place on the web and across a range of mobile devices (mobile phones, PDA’s). Whereas in the past, if a company wanted to put its advertising message to an audience, it might select a niche magazine for an editorial piece, or take out an advert, measurement would be difficult – perhaps a unique PO BOX, telephone number or office department would be used to id the advert to the sales team when an enquiry was received.
By contrast because content is transcribed on the Internet, whether via a text messages sent from a mobile phone to a blog, or an email sent via gmail, or interaction in forum discussions these messages can be interrogated and advertising messages shown and targeted in follow up messages. Unlike earlier forms of advertising, it is possible for all actions based to be tracked all the way through to the checkout. That means that it is possible for businesses to systematically cost advertising spend against the return on investment (ROI), something that the earlier forms of advertising were unable to provide.
Put simply, if a person was looking for car hire and wrote this via a message on their Twitter or Facebook account, it would be possible for a business to send a message to that person about car hire.
However, if you do tap into that message you might find a new customer, but if you wait to long, that moment might pass by (the user finds a hire car) and the message may actually irritate the person as it is no longer relevant.
NB: Immediacy is a fundamental component of Social Media Networks
Tapping into Social Media Networks (SMN)
There are lots of tools that will allow businesses to tap-in to the conversations (or text/video messages) being sent across the various SMNs (see TwitterHawk, for Twitter based advertising, and Google Adwords “Content Network” which includes advertising options for Myspace and Facebook). Just as with email, many of these tools are being exploited by businesses that apply a spam methodology of one size fits all, to the annoyance of those on the receiving end. Usage statistics on SMNs are also closely guarded by the networks that attempt to talk-up the widest possible demographic for commercial purposes. (see “Just a few on Twitter do all the Tweeting” ).
Success stories where SMNs have been leveraged to generate large sums of money in relatively short periods of time (see “how an indie musician can make $19,000 in 10 hours using twitter“ as well as promises that huge profits will be made by SMNs (see “Facebook revenue to be “billions” in 5 years: board member“) keeps the spotlight on an industry seen to be taking over from the search engines space as the area of cutting edge technology.
For some basic usage figures Quantcast provide a service of analysis and the following links point to the major profiles created on the SMNs featured in this post.
Facebook.com
Twitter.com
Flickr.com
YouTube.com
Protecting your name on Social Media Networks
In Part 2 of this series we looked at how registering and verifying your business in Google Local Business could mitigate the chances of individuals being able squat your website using their own business domain. Clearly if a spammer can appear under “IPOD shop in New York” in the Google listings in the short term it could be profitable for them.
It’s therefore important to extend the protection of your name across the other major SMNs and ensure that your business is suitably covered from this kind of activity. Where you have the option to add information to your SMN profile about your business, do so, and include your website address as this will reinforce that your Social Media account and website are managed by the same person. Research shows that people are becoming more and more skeptical when dealing with businesses online, and it is therefore vitally important that profiles are linked together so that these fears can be challenged.
You should start from the position of, “why should I believe that this company is who they say they are” and not “we have a website, we just need to wait for the customers”. If you reinforce who you are in the eyes of your customer, you will succeed. Do not take your users trust for granted.
For the creation of all these SMN accounts, we suggest that you use the Gmail account created during part 2 of this “index my business” mini-series.
How to benefit and take advantage of SMNs
Twitter
Twitter is a tool that allows for the sending of a message of up to 140 characters to be sent by mobile phone, or via the Twitter website itself (there are also other tools to facilitate sending via a range of other devices). When creating a profile on Twitter try and use your business name as as username, and enter your website address into the relevant field when completing your Twitter profile. The website address of your Twitter homepage will take the form http://www.twitter.com/username, so it’s important that this contains your company name.
applications of Twitter
- Every time your website is updated or news published, a message can be sent out on Twitter.
- A special Internet only offer can be created and sent using Twitter to stimulate sign-ups and interest in your new distribution channel.
- Can be used as an alternative or complimentary form of newsletter sign-up. For people that have Twitter accounts, “following” a person on Twitter does not require the sharing of any personal information (such as an email address) and therefore may be perceived as less of an information compromise for the user.
Facebook
The biggest and most successful SMN. Facebook will provide you with the opportunity to create a personal Facebook URL. For example http://www.facebook.com/mikesshoes. If available you should claim your business name as a Facebook URL to ensure that another individual does not do the same.
applications of Facebook.
- By creating a group in Facebook this can be used as a place to post messages about your company, and request feedback from users. Facebook allows advertising but it’s content is only accessible to Facebook account holders, it is a closed network. That means that a Facebook or advertising can be the only way to reach specific Facebook users.
YouTube.com
Again the aim of registering your business name on YouTube is to protect it against future company name infringement.
applications of Youtube.com
- If you are a company that uses video, Youtube provides an easy to use and accessible way to deliver video media content a) on your Youtube page, and b) on your own website by incorporating the film as an iframe. Because YouTube is international, all users are served You Tube films in their native language, making the interface easy for people to use, and not requiring the need of any translation on your own website.
Flickr.com
Register your business name as your username and then edit your Flickr profile to create a Flickr website address that again repeats your business name.
applications of Flickr
- Flickr is a superb photo distribution system which is supported by Yahoo. This means that if you have any photographic materials, such as press or publicity material, this can be easily uploaded to your Flickr account, and easily tagged with the relevant information. If you are a company with an international presence Flickr is available in many different languages. This means that by uploading photos to your Flickr account a journalist in a foreign country can easily access the photos without the need for any involvement or translation of the Flickr interface (it will be shown in the native language of the user).
- A photographic competition can be setup, for example a film festival could invite photos around a theme with the prize being a free ticket to the competition. The aim being to bring together a group of people around a theme or interest to help generate a buzz about an event.
Conclusion
This mini series has attempted to bring together an easy to follow step by step process to registering your business on the World-Wide-Web and then providing guidelines for how to further secure your business against brand name infringement, and company name squatting.
If you have any questions about this series please contact us.
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Apple now has Rhapsody as an app, which is a great start, but it is currently hampered by the inability to store locally on your iPod, and has a dismal 64kbps bit rate. If this changes, then it will somewhat negate this advantage for the Zune, but the 10 songs per month will still be a big plus in Zune Pass’ favor.