61 Billion Web Searches a month, will they find you?

With two thirds of the UK’s 25 million homes now online, that number is growing rapidly again as we move towards another Christmas of new affordable laptops and computers for the home. But now, you don’t even need to buy a laptop…you get one free when you sign up for monthly mobile broadband…how good is that??

Someone recently asked the question “All these million searches for things….where did we used to go to get these answers?” When did you last pop into the library to do some research rather than Googling it?

However, the web is not just all about business and educational research, the web reaches into all aspects of our personal and business lives and lets others find and know what you are doing through facebook, instant messaging and social networks. We send pictures to family and friends on the other side of the world within minutes using Flickr. We now email or video conference instead of writing letters and telephoning….in truth, some people claim, “The internet has killed the art of conversation.”

Interestingly, some companies across the world are concerned that social interaction and thoughts between staff in the office is diminishing so badly, that they have introduced –No Email Fridays. Staff are fined for charity, if they send email messages or information to other members of staff in the office that day. Instead, they need to get up from their desk and walk over to talk to each other about the work and jobs they are doing, not surprisingly, this is having a great impact on these companies, as they are seeing more ideas and solutions being found by people through simply talking to each other!

Therefore, if you are online both personally and in business, are you doing as much as you possibly can to make it easy for people, new customers and suppliers to find you? Already 59% of top retailers have facebook sites. The reason for this is simple, it’s a popular site used by millions of people, marketeers follow the crowds and the crowds are on facebook, MySpace and other social media sites, however this is only one sliver of the overall social media marketing space that you should be populating.

Great companies will always agree and confirm that it’s word of mouth advertising that has always brought and continues to bring them in lots of business. Social Media Marketing is the 21st century “word of mouth” equivalent. If your business social networking skills and techniques are poor or non-existent, people wont find you, then experts say this is going to have a dramatic effect on your business prosperity in the future.

If you need more examples or help of how Social Media Marketing can benefit your business then checkout our other blogs.

www.juicedigital.co.uk

Obama and the power of Social Media Marketing

If you ever needed persuading of the effectiveness of Social Media Marketing, have a look at how the most influential human on the planet used it to effect life-altering change.

Take a look at his blog http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/hqblog/ then scroll down and look at Obama Everywhere and see how he and his campaign team truly harnessed the power of social networking channels throughout the primaries and election campaign.

This is a powerful example of how SMM is becoming a mainstream communication channel to get a message across. Can you imagine harnessing it for your organisation?


http://www.juicedigital.co.uk/


Juice Digital is a leading exponent of Social Media Marketing

“Get your bloody feet off that seat!”

Well that’s one way to encourage young people to be more considerate when using public transport. But London’s Transport Commission is harnessing the power of Social Media Marketing to get the message across.

They have created a new social networking site - ‘Together for London’ - an open forum for Londoners to share their ideas of how to make London a better place, starting with behaviour on public transport.

The site features:

- live discussion pages where Londoners can join or begin a their own debate; - the facility to create personal campaigns around their own pledges - ‘I’ll keep my feet off the seats’ or ‘not shout in to my mobile on the bus’; - See where discussions are taking place across the capital; - vote and have their say on particular issues; - shop on-line to buy T-shirts with your own campaign pledge.

It’s interesting to see that the approach has the support of groups across the age spectrum.

Esther Thompson, Head of Training London Youth said: ‘London Youth wholeheartedly supports Together for London. The social networking site is a forum which allows young people to make their voices heard on issues relating to considerate behaviour on public transport’.

Samantha Mauger, Chief Executive of Age Concern London, said:

‘…the internet offers many older people the opportunity to get connected. The launch of Transport for London's social networking site “Together for London” will give passengers of all ages one way of voicing their experiences of how inconsiderate behaviour has affected their journeys in London without fear of consequences’.

This is yet another example of organisations’, both private and public sector, use of Social Media Marketing to influence behaviour.


http://www.juicedigital.co.uk/

Juice Digital is a leading exponent of Social Media Marketing

Video content is essential for Business Websites

Most people shy away from any sort of camera let alone a video camera, so why would you want to be the star of a video about your own company and its products or services?

Well the answer is twofold. In the fast moving online world, video content is recognised as being the future business tool essential and secondly and more importantly, websites with video content attract more customers and get better sales.

The British are the world's worst for joining a queue, but after a few minutes people get bored and in their minds think they will call back later when it is a bit quieter… it never is and you don’t make the sale.

It’s a similar story when people first go on a website. Look at your own statistics and see how many people visit for less than 30 seconds. It’s the same scenario, if they cannot see immediately how to find what they are looking for, they move on - with few ever returning!

Video content offers a human aspect to any website and believe it or not, customers do still like a personal touch and it makes a difference to their purchasing decision.

In a recent survey regarding business websites, 75% of internet users in the US watched an online video during a sample month. We know that when people are on the web, they watch videos it is a natural part of what they do, and its not just pornography!

Youtube is the classic example. Go to Youtube and put in some company names and you will be amazed what video information is available. It has always been acknowledged that people buy more when they are sold to using all the different senses, rather than individual senses alone – visual (press), audio (radio) or a combination (TV & Video). Rich content like video or the alternatively known podcasts can provide this for your website, so don’t miss this major opportunity.

In the same survey, it was found that people were now watching 3.25 hours of online videos a month, that’s a 30% growth year on year, from a product that has only really been easily accessible online in the last 3 years. With these changes happening so quickly and the wider video programming choice online, how soon will your computer screen replace your TV?

However, it is important to remember that the way in which people view video online is very different from TV. People at their computers lean forwards, intensely focused on their screen. They are surfing the web, clicking on bite size chunks of content, if they are interested by what they see and hear they stay with it, if not they click out and move on. Business websites should acknowledge this and break down their content into easily digested chunks.

As for the sales impact of video content on a website, recent case studies showing up to 300% increases in enquiries and sales through using online videos to support the sales process are commonplace.

The reason is for this success is reasonably logical, video is more compelling, immediate, and less demanding than reading traditional web pages. A video presents your product, services and benefits in seconds, saving the viewer precious time. It therefore follows that this sales performance gets better results…. It's quick. It's precise. It's simple. As the Internet Advertising Bureau says, "Web videos are... the catalyst for keeping customers online for longer."

For information on developing video on your website as part of a digital marketing campaign, contact:

www.juicedigital.co.uk

E-commerce - still a parochial pastime?

Although e-commerce has taken off at national level, cross-border e-commerce is failing to keep pace. The share of EU consumers that have shopped across border has hardly increased since 2006. Consumers are increasingly confident about shopping cross-border but the number of retailers offering them this opportunity is failing to keep pace. Perhaps surprisingly, 75% of on-line retailers sell only to consumers domestically.The demographic of cross-border shoppers is generally younger, well-educated people in higher professional positions. Cross-border shopping still does not sufficiently engage the larger "middle" group of consumers.

The situation is similar in the B2B sector. Although larger companies are warming to the idea, there is still a larger middle group that have not fully taken on board the business potential that cross-border sales offer.

Companies considering moving into international sales would be ‘pushing on an open door’. A recent report by Eurobarometer shows that consumer confidence when buying products or services cross-border in another EU-country has improved - the proportion of consumers that are more or equally confident about shopping online from another EU-country is 8% higher than in 2006 – now 40%. The average cross-border shopper in the EU already spends €797 per year on these purchases.

So, in these challenging economic times when sales are under pressure, E - commerce retailers should be looking to target the widest possible audience for their products and services.

www.juicedigital.co.uk

E-marketing and the environment – a perfect partnership

Many organisations and local authorities in particular are under increasing pressure to improve their environmental performance. However, at the same time there is a seemingly conflicting pressure for cost savings in all their activities – marketing and communications included.

E – marketing, whether by email, SMS or IVM (Interactive Voice Messaging) is a solution which can help organisations achieve both these objectives. E marketing is inherently ‘clean’ and uses a fraction of the planet’s resources compared with other channels – direct mail and advertising for example. It is also considerably less expensive and delivers a higher return on investment.

A great example was an e-government recycling service set up in London during the tenure of Ken Livingstone to encourage more people to recycle.

The service enabled residents in London to request details of when their recycling is collected or where their nearest recycling facilities are, by texting RECYCLE and their full postcode to a number.

Users then received an SMS message containing a direct link to the user's local recycling helpline so they could order a recycling box or bag immediately if they had not got one.

Ken Livingstone said e-marketing was instrumental to the success of the recycling campaign. "With so many of us relying on our mobiles, the new text service is a quick and easy way to make sure you're putting the right things out for recycling on the right day, or taking them to the right place."


This relatively straightforward programme was paperless, dispensed with the need for call centre resources, was a fraction of the environmental and budget costs of a traditional leaflet or mailing campaign and delivered instant, measurable results.


This is just another example of how local government has embraced the latest technology to reach out into their communities.

www.juicedigital.co.uk

Gordon Brown joins Social Media Marketing Party!!

Whenever you look on the web or read marketing magazines the buzzwords "Social Media Marketing" are being talked about and making an impact all over the world.

For Juice Digital, specialists in this sector it was pleasing to see that Number 10 Downing Street have recognised the importance of this fast moving media and totally embraced it.

Excerpt taken from the No 10 website…Meet the PM. Gordon Brown

The digital world has undergone a revolution in recent years and continues to develop at a tremendous pace, and we have tried to include lots of exciting and innovative functions on the new website that make good use of those developments while still being easy to use.

The news feature will continue to be central to the site, allowing you to keep up to date with my work as Prime Minister. The new Number 10 TV channel will provide a wealth of video material, photos will be updated quickly to the Number 10 Flickr channel, and we’ll also be posting frequent messages through Twitter to keep you in touch with my day to day activities.

Most importantly, I want to hear what you have to say about the issues facing our country today. Our YouTube video channel now has a feature called ‘Ask the PM’, giving you the chance to post video questions to me on a regular basis. The e-petitions service remains a vital tool for communicating your thoughts on things that matter to you and your communities, and I hope you will also sign up to our regular newsletters so that we can keep you informed about everything that is going on. Conversation, after all, should be a two-way process.

So if Gordon the leader of the UK government has joined the Social Media revolution, it should be taken seriously by everyone else that wants to communicate with their clients and potential customers.

www.juicedigital.co.uk