Just how important is social media to your business?

In recent years, the power of social media has increased exponentially. The first recognisable social media sites went live in the late 1990s and the potential from there was soon realised. By the early 2000s, we saw the likes of MySpace become the online ‘place to be’, while the mid-2000s brought Facebook and Twitter.

The rise of the industry, coupled with the inclusion of ‘business pages’ on Facebook and the ability to create an online following, provides significant opportunities for businesses. With social media reportedly producing up to twice as many marketing leads as trade shows, telemarketing and direct mail, this post will explore how social media can help your business to thrive online.

Branding & reputation

Nowadays, if a user performs a search for your brand name on a popular social media website, there’s a level of expectation that they’ll find an official account. Having an online presence on as many social sites as you see fit for your business model is a very important step to take. It’ll reassure users that you’re a credible organisation that takes an interest in your audience and their needs.

It’s worth noting that a rarely-updated social media account could harm your image and reputation; a user doesn’t want to see an un-kept page packed with dated news. Furthermore, social media gives you the ability to reinforce your brand name online. If a user performs a Google search for your brand and sees the first page filled with your various social accounts as well as your website, they’re likely to find the information they’re looking for.

Relationships & interaction

Social media works on a personal level as much as a business to consumer level. Just as friends communicate to each other on these networks, your business can follow suit and approach potential customers in a friendly, personal way. Generally speaking, consumers are very expressive to businesses on social media, often asking questions and leaving feedback. This is why responding to these consumers in the appropriate manner is vital. It’s a chance to build a relationship with your audience.

Below is an example of how O2 utilises Twitter to enhance customer relationships:

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

Search engines continuously update their algorithms and, considering their ubiquity, it’s not an unreasonable step to think they’ll take into account social signals such as shares, likes and mentions, if they aren’t already to some degree. It’s widely reported that these signals will become more important in the coming years and, while it’s likely to be some time before they pass links as the largest signal, the graph below highlights the correlation between content that performs well socially and that ranks well in search engines (via Searchmetrics). Correlation doesn’t mean causation, but does highlight the sort of content that Google prefers.

Optimising your social strategy ensures your website has a positive online future as the impact of these signals are likely to become greater with time, and, in the meantime, you can provide even better customer service. The key factors to remember when improving your sites social signals include:

• Include social sharing buttons on most of your pages that allow  users to share information and content you have created (tweet, like, bookmark, etc.)
• Link to your own social media accounts (Like our Facebook page, Follow our Twitter account, Google+, etc.)

Cost effectiveness

The main cost involved in social media is time. This doesn’t mean that you should disregard social media, instead look at how you can work it into your day and create 10 minute intervals or short breaks between tasks. After all, 23% of marketers are investing in blogging and social media in 2013, up 9% on 2012, and, while time is certainly the main expense here, it’s ultimately the cost of being left behind by your competitors which could leave you paying the price.

Conclusion

What’s your main reason for wanting to create a social media account? Is it just because your competitors are? Social media is part of your business strategy and your social accounts are there to do specific jobs; whether your social profiles are designed to create awareness for your brand or to drive sales through referral traffic you need to have goals and targets. Ultimately you want results and this should be the focus of your activity through these platforms. Work out which social media channels will work best for your business, you may see Pinterest as unsuitable or you may feel Twitter won’t bring you any conversions.

As Crafted recently tweeted, a third of SMEs don’t have websites at all. If there’s a market for your business online then creating an online presence is essential and using social media accounts to add value to this is an important step.

By Luke Olding 

Baby Crafties!

Friday saw our PR Director, Emma Plummer, head off on her maternity leave, with Crafted wishing her all the best by holding a lunch time baby-shower.

As part of the celebrations, each member of the team brought in a baby photograph for a game of ‘guess the baby’. We had a lot of fun trying to work out who was who in the line-up, so why don’t you have a go?

The baby Crafties can be found on our Facebook page and we’ll bring you the results at the end of the week. Do you recognise any faces?

We wish Emma all the best over the next year and look forward to seeing the pictures of her bundle of joy in a few week’s time. 

Digitally Crafted – a recap of the week in digital marketing

In this week’s round-up of the biggest talking points within the world of digital marketing, we learn that Bing increases its search market share to more than 17%, YouTube expands its live streaming to all channels with a minimum of 1,000 subscribers and Apple celebrates reaching the 50 billion mark for App Store downloads worldwide.

Social media

Facebook completes one-column Timeline rollout, says users now adding 200m items daily to new sections
Earlier this week Facebook announced it has completed rolling out the new sections on its Timeline profiles to everyone. Two months ago, Facebook debuted the new one-column Timeline, with an emphasis on redesigning user profiles that let people have a single place to add items of interest. Content from apps are now more prominent as they have their own section in the left column. The company says users are now collectively adding almost 200 million items a day. Read more

Organic posting is most popular social media tactic, but not the most successful
More than one-in-three large social media advertisers are dissatisfied with their efforts from both paid and organic social media strategies, according to a study by Kenshoo Social called “The Key to Successful Social Advertising”. With 73% participation among respondents, organic posting on branded pages on general social networks like Facebook is the most popular social media tactic. All of the advertisers surveyed use paid social advertising tactics, however they were more likely to implement organic tactics like branded pages and content than to use paid ads. Read more

Google+ now chooses your ‘best’ photographs
New Google+ features mean Google can now automatically enhance and select your ‘best’ photographs, the company has announced. Speaking at the Google I/O conference in San Francisco, it was said that as more users uploaded photographs to Google+, largely due to the fact Android phones do so automatically, it was becoming more important to pinpoint the best images. Read more

YouTube Live streaming expands to all channels with at least 1,000 subscribers
YouTube Live, the live streaming service that the video network first launched in limited beta form more than two years ago, is being expanded to a significantly wider audience. This week, all YouTube channels boasting more than 1,000 subscribers each will be able to broadcast live video content to their viewers, available on all devices. Previously this was only offered to select partner accounts and video game developers. Read more

Organic search marketing

Germany tells Google to tidy up auto-complete
A German federal court has told Google to clean up the auto-complete results its search engine suggests. The court insisted Google must ensure terms generated by auto-complete are not offensive or defamatory. The case was started by an unnamed German businessman who found that Google.de linked him with “scientology” and “fraud”. Read more

Google’s Matt Cutts: Black hat and link spammers less likely to show up in SERPs this summer
A new video from Matt Cutts, Google’s head of search spam, answers a number of questions about what webmasters and SEOs should expect in the near future with regards to SEO. Cutts indicated Google’s next generation Penguin update, is expected to launch in the next few weeks. Meanwhile Cutts confirmed Google would be going “upstream” in their bid to deter link spammers and the value of the links they are acquiring from the sources. Read more

Bing rises above 17% search market share as Google slips
Bing’s U.S. search market share has reached another all-time high, passing 17% for the very first time. It appears Bing gained at Google’s expense, with Google’s dominance slipping six-tenths of a percentage point last month, according to comScore’s April 2013 qSearch report. Read more

Content marketing

Just 14% of businesses say their CMS gives a complete view of engagement across channels
New research from Econsultancy and Adobe shows that, although organisations are very aware that their ability to implement an effective content strategy is tied to the integration of their CMS with other technologies, the promise of the technology far outstrips their current reality. The data shows that 94% of businesses believe it is “quite” or “very important” to tie content management together with the ability to measure its performance on-site (through web and mobile analytics). Read more

Online privacy

Microsoft finds that half of Britons do nothing about online privacy
Research for Microsoft’s first ad campaign to raise awareness about online privacy found that although 84% of people are concerned about it, almost 50% are doing nothing about it. These statistics come just days after Microsoft launched its UK arm of a major international above-the-line campaign targeting internet users to encourage them to be aware of their online footprint and use the privacy features of Internet Explorer. Read more

Digital skills

Digital skills get £15m boost
Prime Minister, David Cameron has unveiled the Big Lottery Fund’s £15 million grant aimed at making the UK “the world’s most digitally skilled nation”. The funding is designed to build the skills that people and organisations across the UK will need in order to take full advantage of support and services available online. The grant should help address the fact there are 16 million people in the UK who currently lack the basic online skills to confidently use digital tools. Read more

Seven million Brits have ‘never used the internet’
More than seven million adults in the UK have never used the internet, according to research from the Office of National Statistics (ONS). Figures show 43.5 million adults were now online – one million more than in the same period last year. However, 7.1 million remain offline, with the elderly and disabled still the least likely to be connected. However, 16 million adults still don’t have the basic online skills to actually take advantage of the digital tools available to them. Read more

PR

News International to charge £2 per week for Sun+ access
News International Group has today announced its long-awaited paywall for The Sun website will launch on August 1st, costing £2 per week. The Sun+ access will include a new bundle of entertainment products, including exclusive content from its daily tabloid newspaper, access to Premier League clips and other perks such as great value offers and promotions. Sun+ will be available across web, phone and tablet devices. Read more

Apps

Apple passes 50 billion App Store downloads
Less than five years after launching its App Store, Apple has hit 50 billion downloads. The news has been announced officially after posting a countdown in early May. As promised, it is also giving a $10,000 App Store gift card to the person who downloaded the 50 billionth app, which will be announced soon. Read more

Crafted launches new identity of leading IT provider Corbel Solutions

We're delighted to have completed the rebrand of one of East-Anglia’s leading IT providers, Corbel Solutions (Corbel), formerly known as Getech Solutions.  

With a diverse client portfolio ranging from three to more than 300 users, Corbel, a subsidiary of the Getech Group, is already well-known locally for its flexible support service contracts and expertise in hosting, disaster recovery, infrastructure and telephony solutions.

Crafted responded creatively to the brief, conceiving a dynamic, modern brand and website, www.corbel.co.uk, which will aid Corbel’s continued expansion.

The project leveraged our full-service agency credentials, from initial brand development, through to website design and build and PR support, to provide Corbel with an unrivalled offering.

Corbel required a new identity that expressed the dynamic, modern, multi-faceted nature of its company, whilst still promoting its core values of quality, bespoke and personal service. The new brand encapsulates these diverse values and we're delighted with the launch of the new website and associated PR campaign. 

Digitally Crafted - the week that was in digital marketing

In this week’s round-up of the most important talking points in the world of digital marketing we learn that Facebook loses two million of its UK-based users in the last six months, Google offers clearer search labels following a recent EU probe and the majority of businesses currently spend less than five per cent of marketing budgets on conversion rate optimisation (CRO).

Social media

Facebook loses 2m UK users in six months
New research from Socialbakers has found that Facebook has lost around two-million monthly users in the UK over the last six months. Meanwhile, in the US the service has also lost 8.6 million users over the same period. Despite the fall in the overall number of monthly users, the report found that almost two-thirds (60 per cent) of questions put to brands on Facebook are now being answered. This suggests businesses are increasingly recognising the network’s potential as a customer service channel. Read more

Organic search marketing

The amazing “Google Now” – when Google searches before you think to
The arrival of “Google Now” to iOS means Google’s predictive search service is being opened up to a whole new audience of iPhone and iPad users. The predictive search tool has evolved over many months, with “Google Now” first hitting mobile devices on Android operating systems last June. Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Land explores where the service may head next. Read more

Google offers clearer search labels after EU probe
Google has agreed to alter its search results in the light of a European investigation into whether it unfairly promoted its own services. European Union (EU) regulators have encouraged Google to more clearly label results from YouTube, Google Maps and its other sites. Google has also agreed to display links to rivals close to where it displayed its own services on its results page. Read more

Online advertising

Yahoo introduces two new ad formats
Yahoo unveiled two new advertising formats this week as the company continues to battle quarterly declines in ad revenue. One, called “Stream Ads” are ad units that appear in-line with – and in the same format as – stories within Yahoo’s news feed. The second ad unit, called “Yahoo.com Billboard”, is a large display unit that runs across the top of Yahoo’s desktop homepage, allowing advertisers to add an extra layer of interactivity. Read more

mCommerce

55% of mobile search conversions happen within an hour
New research from Google and Nielsen suggests that when consumers search for things on their mobiles, more than half of users usually intend to buy it. 55 per cent of actions triggered by mobile search also happen within the hour. Three-out-of-four mobile searches invariably triggers a follow-up action, with this interesting infographic providing a new depth of understanding of how mobile drives conversions. Read more

Chat app messaging overtakes SMS texts, says Informa
Instant messaging on chat apps, such as WhatsApp, has overtaken the traditional SMS text message for the very first time, according to a new study from research firm Informa. Informa revealed almost 19 billion messages were sent on a daily basis using chat apps in 2012, compared with 17.6 billion SMS texts. Many operators are already experiencing a decline in their messaging revenues. Read more

Just 13% of businesses implement personalisation on mobile
Personalisation is increasing being viewed as an important component in the success of online businesses, yet new research shows that companies are some way off delivering cross-channel personalised experiences. While the Econsultancy/Monetate Realities of Personalisation Report shows 43 per cent of companies currently deliver a personalised experience on desktop, this figure falls well short with just 13 per cent on mobile devices. Read more

PC Free: 46% used only mobile devices in purchase process according to new study
Almost half (46 per cent) of respondents to the 2013 US Mobile Path-to-Purchase study revealed they rely exclusively on their smartphones or tablets in conducting online research across a whole host of purchase categories. Nearly half of all adults involved within the research revealed they did not consult a desktop PC as part of their pre-purchase research, search and discovery process. Read more

Conversion Rate Optimisation

Most companies spend less than 5% of marketing budgets on conversion optimisation
More than half (53 per cent) of companies spend less than five per cent of their overall marketing budgets on optimisation activities, despite the fact even the smallest uplift in conversion rates can translate into millions of pounds of extra revenue. That’s according to a new survey by Adobe which also found that companies spending more on optimisation are already reaping the benefits. Read more

Online access

Web access could be a human right
Access to the internet is now so important to every aspect of life in Britain it could soon become a human right, according to Cabinet Office Minister, Francis Maude. Countries including France, Spain, Finland and Estonia have already enshrined online access in law and Sir Tim Beners-Lee – inventor of the world wide web – has called for global measures because the web preserves freedom. Read more

Online copyright

In Britain, you may no longer own your Instagram photos
If you live in Britain, your Facebook and Instagram photos may now be free for the taking. The UK’s Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act passed parliament and last week received Royal Assent to become a law. The changes to UK copyright law which permit the commercial exploitation of images where information identifying the owner is missing – so-called ‘orphan works’ – by placing the work into what’s known as ‘extended collective licensing’ schemes. Read more