Well today’s the day!

If you can’t make it along to our Online Marketing for Profit knowledge session fear not – you can still view the presentation right here

This morning I heard that the Electoral Commission and Democracy UK have teamed up so that every Facebook user in the UK will, from tomorrow, be asked if they are registered to vote, and offer the option to print a registration form. Then, on the way to the office, it was a ‘take a look at the website’ that stood out from the other political rants of  campaigning candidates that prompted me to take a flyer from an independent candidate.

The aforementioned website had all the usual links to twitter, the candidates’ blog and YouTube videos, but was, in all honesty, nothing special.

It got me thinking, how well is social media being leveraged by the political parties in the run up to the election? At first glance you might think fairly well, we’re not talking Barack Obama well but, still, fairly well. Labour have their twitter czar and there are repeated reports in the media of how the conservatives have more fans than everyone else on facebook.

But taking a closer look they all seem to be missing the point. Labour’s ‘twitter czar’, Kerry McCarthy’s tweet at 5.28pm yesterday, “This may be the first tweet sent from the House of Lords! It’s prorogation… rather bizarre ceremony.”, isn’t exactly engaging. I’m guessing ‘prorogation’ means little to the voting public and, more importantly, even less to the non-voting public.

Is twitter being leveraged to maximum effect?

Many of the tweets from the Labour and Conservative read like childish, albeit eloquent, playground taunts; ‘The Tory economic strategy – tell someone it’s not true’ and ‘Labour have failed to stop children starting a life of crime. Most of those released from custody reoffend within a year’. That’s not to say twitter hasn’t created a great forum for political discussion but with a little thought and creativity that forum could have much greater reach.

Obama admitted last year that he had never used twitter but, aside from his ‘rockstar’ status drawing followers, with a constant stream of interesting narrative style tweets he clearly knows some people that do.

Before engaging in any social media activity we would always ask clients to think ‘why should people care?’ – if you are planning to leverage such social networking platforms you’ll need to appeal to the audience there, speak in their language, etc.

A brief look at the top three election contenders’ facebook pages is a bland experience. I’d suggest that only the most staunch party followers are likely to publicly become ‘fans’ of such lacklustre facebook pages. I often quote the likes of Dominos in reference to how to facebook can be used to effectively. Their pages are filled with interactive content that you want to share – I guarantee you will spend more time there than on the facebook pages of any of the political parties! If you disagree, pizza’s on me.

Marmite are perhaps a better example of how to leverage both social media and the current election in a way that engages an audience;  follow the links from the Marmite News Network to take look.

At the end of the day it all comes back to content and the presentation thereof. More importantly, there has to be consideration for whom that content is intended and then ensuring it is both relevant and engaging for that audience. Political parties, you would imagine, should have a clear understanding of the audiences they are targeting and the media channels that engage those audiences.

But maybe they don’t or they would realise that the majority of young new voters are not going to be inclined to become twitter followers or facebook fans of their current offerings, much less diggers of ‘Sowing The Seeds of The Big Society’ or sharers of various campaign pledges.

Earlier this month there was a fair amount of ‘buzz’ around some research which appeared to suggest that people who are Facebook ‘fans’/Twitter ‘followers’ of a brand are more likely to buy and recommend that brand, than they were before they were fans/followers.

Piqued your interest? Me too. Essentially CMB Consumer Pulse (the company who undertook the research project) asked the following questions:

To the Facebook ‘fans’:

Are you more likely to buy since becoming a fan?

Are you more likely to recommend to a friend since becoming a fan?

To the Twitter ‘followers’:

Are you more likely to buy since becoming a follower?

Are you more likely to recommend to a friend since becoming a follower?

The results were as follows:

Facebook ‘fans’:

51% of respondents said they would be more likely to buy from at least one brand since becoming a fan.

60% of respondents said they would be more likely to recommend at least one brand since becoming a fan.

Twitter ‘followers’:

67% of respondents said they would be more likely to buy from at least one brand since becoming a follower.

79% of respondents said they would be more likely to recommend at least one brand since becoming a follower.

On the face of it at least – Twitter followers look pretty engaged, no?

But the Facebook fans? Surely if 51% said they would be more like to buy; then 49% said either they didn’t know; or would be less likely to buy. Not exactly compelling. Oh, and it gets worse – 49% said that one of the reasons they became a Facebook fan in the first place was because they were already a customer. So we’ve an uplift… but only just…

This is getting messy now, right?

I’ve also got concerns with the research methodology used -  I think that the questions asked are a bit confusing/complex:

‘Are you more likely to buy since becoming a fan/follower?’

This question asks you to think about the likelihood of a future purchase – which is pretty woolly anyways, right? Then adds additional complexity by chucking in the ’since becoming a fan/follower’. Are you asking if becoming a fan/follower influences purchasing decisions? Is that a question that someone can really answer?

I’d be far more interested to see what people have *actually* done. Not what they think they might do, one day, perhaps, maybe, possibly – you get the point.

Now a question like this might be more interesting -

‘Have you purchased from <brand x> since you became a fan/follower?’

Likewise:

Have you recommended <brand x> to a friend since you became a fan/follower?’

One of the first things I was taught about market research was that what people have done is far more predictive of their future behaviour than what they ‘think’ they might do. I’d love to see the results of those questions (if they were asked). Sure, they might not make for such a compelling headline; but they would at least be genuinely useful.

However, the cynic in me suspects that this piece of research was really about linkbaiting – and we’ve (the search industry) all bitten, right? On that front, they’ve done really very well indeed…

This sounds like a great way to get content about your business immediately onto Google. So should you invest time and effort into promoting your business with a  Facebook Fan Page?

Of course, why wouldn’t you want to use a free service that can reach hundreds or thousands or even millions of potential clients? Many small to medium businesses benefit from having people following them on Facebook. Some usually start off by having the people they know become fans at the start. The friends of these friends can see that they are a fan of that business and the company builds small scale viral recognition.

Provided that a business can give people a reason to become a fan – e.g. a high street boutique may offer exclusive discounts, while a nightclub might announce events, offers, who is DJing at it’s venue each night.  If you can offer information that people might want to have then you could gain potential business.

However there is a lot that  could  go wrong with using Facebook as means of publicising your business.

If you read an article on Outspoken Media you can find out about American reality TV show Tabatha’s Salon Takeover. It followed small salon owner Nikki Mallon of Brownes & Co. portrayed on national TV as a cold hearted boss from hell. Most likely edited to make her look worse than she probably was. It was a PR nightmare. The Brownes and Co. Facebook Fan Page was ransacked with negative comments from outraged viewers of the show. Unfortunately it took  them 12 hours to moderate the damage done and they have garnered some much unneeded notoriety.

Now whilst this is an extreme case, and probably very unlikely to happen to your business, it is worth noting that as fans can comment on your page, you will need to allocate some time and resource to answer any queries your fans might have; take part in discussions and of course in some cases act as a moderator. If you can give people a good reason to “Become a Fan”; by all means use it as a tool to promote your business. Just remember to manage it, as your brand’s reputation could be at stake.

Well, hello there and happy Friday!

Welcome to our new feature. Each week we’ll be bringing you a round up of some of the best blog posts/articles we’ve read relating to Search Marketing – so here goes!

SEO

Stephan Spencer (via Search Engine Land) rants about a site which despite being ‘unfriendly’ to search engines, still ranks well.

Small Business SEO

Sugarrae (Rae Hoffman) wrote an excellent post on how small businesses might increase their online presence. She’s used lawn care to illustrate her example, but the ideas can easily be applied to any business.

Search Engines

Google Searchology 2009, saw the launch of some new developments – Google Search Options, Wonder Wheel, Google Squared and Rich Snippets - see Matt Cutts’ thoughts and Danny Sullivan’s Live Blogging coverage.

Blogging

Preparing to launch your blog? Or maybe just considering your options? Don’t miss Lucy Langdon’s fantastic blog launch checklist on SEOmoz.

Social Media

There’s been a whole lot of noise about Twitter, but I couldn’t agree more with Dr Pete’s post about the real power of Twitter on SEOmoz.

Jennifer Horowitz talks us through the seven deadly sins of social media - check yourselves boys and girls :)

Web Design & Usability

OK, so this post wasn’t written this week, but I think it’s fantastic. Dr Pete’s created a really rather marvellous cheat sheet to designing a usable website. The man’s a genius.

PPC

Joe of PPC Hero wrote a great post about broadening exposure on the Google Content Network - now many advertisers elect not to run on the content network, but for some clients we’ve seen some really good results – if you’re thinking about trying it yourself, it’s a must read.

Aaaannnnd Finally, Friday’s Funny

Well there;’s not much point in doing this if we can’t make you smile. 1000 Awesome Things is a blog – where in, as the name suggests they count down 1000 awesome things. Kinda like a daily reason to be cheerful – enjoy and have a lovely weekend.

Is there something I’ve missed? Hit up the comments