Social networking is here and the importance to your business is that it can develop your online presence and authority through multi level communication channels.

Use it correctly and you can create marketing awareness that you may never have thought possible. It shouldn’t be feared or ignored but embraced as an extension to your marketing force.

Social networking tools if used correctly can have numerous benefits on how your business is perceived online.

It’s in its early days but the results for businesses across the globe prove that this is where its customers are: online. This new advertising platform allows business to converse messages to a ready and waiting audience; the trick is to be where your potential consumers are going to be communicating via sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin. One of the most important areas is to learn and understand how social networking sites operate in order to develop your business.

Social networking sites work with your website presence. The key thing is to not forget or disregard your website but enforce it through the means of social networking.

One of the most visible and encouraging things is that it they can drive traffic to your site, create the interest and desire to look further at what you do and who you are and most importantly create enquiries and sales.

Engage with your customer base, release promotions and encourage your product/service or brand recognition through careful manipulation.

A brilliant example of a business using Facebook with great results is Pizza Hut, a global brand it has successfully integrated through to its consumer market base and with the advantage of the order app brings more appeal to its online customer base.

Social networking sites are proving popular to various age demographics and all market sectors providing you with an excellent opportunity to nudge consumers and make them aware that you exist!

 It is now not only the young market sector that is enjoying social networking but the older generations too, you can build your reputation and online credibility through flexible medium.

An advantage of social networking is that you can interact and engage with your consumers on a level not previously accessible. In the past surveys and questionnaires provided businesses with something of an indication as to how they were perceived by customers and the wider world. The data collected was not always fully accurate and usually an incentive would be offered to encourage feedback.

Now businesses can get down to the ‘nitty gritty’ of consumer perception through online conversation; this allows you to understand the needs of the customer or potential and delve into their purchasing behaviour.

Measure and control your reputation with the added value of building your online presence and nursing your brand values attributing to customer perception.

Customer retention can also be gained through this medium; you can find out the truth of what your customers really think about you.

The end result is to create more enquiries and increased sales for your business; social networking can be likened to cultivating your own online garden, plucking out any weeds of negativity or potential damage to your business and growing your business ideals.

Take Absolut Vodka for example; they have combined their Facebook page; Top Bartender with online videos. This facility has allowed Absolut to target their respective age demographics.

The launch of the new app for the iPhone ‘Drinkspiration’ allows the user to recommend and customize drink ideas. The app has proven very popular and opens Absolut into the social mechanism for interaction.

Social networking is going to move and develop, if this is the beginning there is plenty of room for new platforms and invaluable ideas. New technology is always emerging; your business must be flexible to react and engage in the new marketing tools available.

Personalise yourself with your consumer but remain vigilant to what you want to achieve.

For your business it is best to approach social networking with direction in mind, your networking strategic needs to be carefully grown in order to keep control of your business communication. The key to success in this new marketing area is recognising and appreciating that social networking is a powerful engine for business advancement and must be carefully maintained to achieve your business marketing plan.

Social networking has only just begun; all businesses must see it as the opportunity to market themselves in an ultimately online world with the advantage of maintaining and strengthening website performance.

Viral Marketing is a marketing tool in which businesses can advertise their product through video, game and social networking to intercept their marketing message in an online capacity. 

Viral Marketing is generating awareness for business like never before, and can be said to be one of the biggest shifts in marketing to consumers.

Communication with your customer is changing and it’s a good idea to think about how viral may affect your business.

New types of social media are allowing businesses to move forward with marketing generating an exciting buzz in the marketing world.

Viral provides business with an opportunity to market products through an interactive medium allowing the marketer to convey a message that is reactive to the audience.

It can also provide excellent ROI through a campaign that has the ability to cross through cultural barriers for instance, expressing the meaning of the product through a new marketing portal.

There can be a lot of cost benefits to a viral campaign and the message can be transmitted by word of mouth as consumers experience your marketing; generating high awareness.

This means that customer acquisition costs can dramatically reduce from one single media project.

Viral offers the opportunity for businesses to demonstrate their creative flair; focusing on the brand and taking it somewhere that can build credential and awareness through communicating product benefits in a fresh and innovative medium.

This allows the consumer to identify the brand in a relative format that is accessible for most and can correspond to either multiple sectors or be targeted at niche markets.

In this new marketing format it allows your company to become more personable and expressive, creating interest and conversation. It can change your business persona and can help you evolve your brand and company identity through relating to your customers social networks.

The way in which we advertise has changed due to consumer demand and technological movement, many have researched that consumers are no longer as receptive to ‘traditional’ marketing methods such as the Television or Radio, with a 41% increase in consumer awareness of a product via online marketing; this de sensitisation has moved advertising to a new platform; Viral Marketing.

www.marketingcharts.com

A good example of the strength and power of a viral campaign can be the release of the Nike campaign ‘Take it to the next level’ featuring Ronaldo; 500 million views later it has been one of the most successful and well noted viral campaigns of the last few years.

It was relevant to the audience it was presenting to, highly inspirational and allowed the viewer to feel as if they were on the football pitch with the famous names.

This reflects not only the mass intensity of social media but the popularity and user engagement through viral means.

Viral marketing must be conducted through a clear marketing strategy. What type of message do you want your campaign to create and portray. There must be an emotive conclusion for the consumer such as thought provoking, shocking or humorous.

Most importantly it needs to reflect your product and service USPs.

Groundbreaking for the beauty industry was the Dove Evolution campaign, showing the process of a model being transformed for a photo shoot the message, embedding the message of natural beauty. A series of viral videos showed models being photo-shopped and air brushed to perfection sparking media frenzy and topical debate which gave Dove the perfect opportunity to market its ‘real beauty values’.

The results of the high visibility campaign have morphed Dove into a trusted brand by the female market; the clever marketing by the company translated the message to women everywhere that natural beauty is a positive thing. Women agreed and Dove now has millions of females who are brand loyal and most importantly increased sales.

The advantage of viral marketing allows you to connect in an interactive medium, this gives you the opportunity to relay your brand values and spark conversations relating to your product or services. This gives you the opportunity to cross communicate your marketing message to an expansive market.

Feedback can be one of the most invaluable things for a business and actively listening and reacting to it can mould your company to where you want to be.

Communication of your message is the most essential; through reaching a wider audience you convey your message across an intricate market platform.

People like to see imagery, colour and movement and that’s where a video for example can benefit you, it allows the online viewer to have an insight into your brand behaviour and furthermore give you the capacity to grow your ideas, become part of the online community and allow you to network your business potential

The tools of communication are forever changing due to technological advancement and this process will continue to progress through heightened use and popularity. Viral has quickly integrated itself into the marketing model for businesses large and small. It can also allow a gateway between usually unreachable brands and consumers creating the right vibe and feel for your online business.

If you want to learn more about viral marketing and what we could do for your business please contact us here at Greenmedia on 01912759777.

We’re proud to announce that Green Media is ten years old this month.

We launched way back at the start of 2000, offering the core services of web design, email marketing and SEO that we still provide today. Of course the online landscape has changed remarkably in these last ten years, and we’ve adapted our portfolio to suit - some of the services that we’re offering now didn’t even exist back when we started out, and those that did have changed beyond recognition several times over. In this incredibly dynamic industry - with a seemingly endless number of competitors appearing (and disappearing) all the time - we’ve kept at the front of the pack and still continue to move forward.

One thing that hasn’t changed in this time is our continuous innovation, technical ability, high standards and constant drive to provide the very best digital services to our clients. Most of these attributes are the reasons behind our longevity as a company.

Our clients have included the likes of Sony, Audi and Business in the Community from the outset, and we’ve been directly involved in some of the first ever digital marketing ventures for these companies and other world-renowned market leaders across a broad range of sectors since our launch. Green Media’s links with blue-chip companies continue into 2010, with our always-growing client portfolio as impressive as ever.

As well as working for household names, we’re just as proud to have been instrumental in helping launch and grow some of the most exciting new small businesses in the North East and nationwide over the last decade. Our SME and micro-business portfolio is an eclectic mix of names providing a diverse set of services, and all of them have been supported and guided towards success by our expertise.

Thanks to all of the companies and individuals that we’ve worked with since 2000, you’ve helped make Green Media what it is today.

Bing - Microsoft’s much talked-about new search engine - achieved a 10%+ share of the overall US search market in August, according to newly released figures from Nielsen. As well as the respectable market share percentage, Bing also registered the biggest month-on-month growth of any search engine by some distance, upping its usership by more than 22%.

Google, of course, still dominates proceedings with a 64.6% share of the market, followed by Microsoft’s new search partners Yahoo! in second place with a 16% share. Notably, Yahoo’s month-on-month usership dropped by more than 4%, perhaps giving an indication of where some of Bing’s new users are coming from. Google’s userbase crept up to 2.6% in the same month.

So it’s good news for Microsoft then?

Yes and no. Yes because it’s moving in the right direction and registered a fairly huge jump in users in a relatively short space of time. No because the shift in users looks like it was Yahoo!-to-Bing as opposed to Google-to-Bing as Microsoft would’ve no doubt been aiming for. If Bing’s userbase is going to grow in this fashion long-term then there’s a clear ceiling to how far it can go. Unless it starts winning Google’s audience over on a significant scale then it won’t make much more of a dent in the market share ratings.

Also, we’ve got the inescapable fact that Google isn’t going anywhere.

Google is still big news

Google set the blogosphere alight yesterday by simply posting a cryptic crop circle symbol in its usual logo space, without explanation. The move, whatever it was about, even achieved references on international newspaper websites as well as the usual tech blog soapboxes. This is the sort of position that Google is in now - getting major publicity without even trying. It’s a position that Microsoft - at the moment - can only dream about achieving with Bing.

However, at the end of the day it’s just a month’s worth of stats. The real proof of any progress will come in 2010 when Bing has been around for a full year. Perhaps only then will the true size of the task become clear.

Details of a search engine collaboration between two of the three major names in the industry were revealed today, with Microsoft and Yahoo announcing a partnership.

Under the terms of initial ten-year deal, Yahoo’s popular search engine is likely to be enveloped into Microsoft’s Bing platform, with search technologies and profit shares from ads distributed accordingly.

The move is the latest ominous sign that Microsoft really does mean business with Bing, because however mutually-beneficial the deal is dressed up to appear by the respective marketing departments, it has essentially swallowed up it’s nearest competitor in the field. Also, the ten year timescale of the agreement is an interesting note to the episode, suggesting that Microsoft isn’t expecting an overnight result and is in it for the long haul.

However the size of the task in attempting to overthrow Google hasn’t got any smaller. Even combined, Bing and Yahoo’s current share of the search market (28%) doesn’t come close to Google’s domination (65%*).

All in all, Microsoft’s recent moves on search show a certain tenacity for the fight, but it doesn’t look like it has produced a genuine gamechanger… yet.

* Comscore. July 2009.

Microsoft has announced its new line of retail stores are on schedule to open before the end of 2009, as part of their ongoing marketing strategy. Interestingly, or perhaps oddly, Microsoft claimed this week that their shops will be springing up right next door to Apple Stores, highlighting the clear head-to-head idea behind the venture.

In direct contrast to the thinking behind their newly launched search engine Bing (an unofficial acronym for “Bing Is Not Google”), Microsoft is spelling out their aims for the retail store in unambiguous terms, making it clear that it sees it as a like-for-like competitor to Apple’s store.

Whether it’ll be a good move for Microsoft remains to be seen, but there are a number of reasons why the company’s established behemoth status might just not be enough to guarantee success on the street;

1) A Zune is not an iPod

Microsoft’s proprietary products aren’t exactly exciting. If they’re going to fill the shops up with copies of Windows7, Zunes and peripherals then the doors aren’t likely to be broken down with a customer stampede.

2) If it isn’t broke…

The high streets and retail parks are awash with PCs, with the vast majority tied in with Microsoft operating systems and software packages. Adding yet another option for the consumer with a purely Microsoft store risks cannibalising the retail model that helped make the company such a success in the first place. While it might just be intentionally targeting Apple Stores, Microsoft will also need to compete against the major established PC outlets whether it wants to or not.

3) It’s not very 2009

As primarily a software company, Microsoft is in the best possible position to make a stand for the reliability and robustness of downloadable products and services. The company’s own Xbox360 games console is a positive trailblazer in downloadable content and potential - so why not take the expensive and hard-won lessons from the Xbox Live community and create a purely online centre for retailing all things Microsoft? It’s obviously the future of the market, so why not bring it forward? Launching a brand new bricks and mortar venture in 2009 seems bizarrely, almost surreally late in the day.

4) It shows competitive concern

Coming so soon after the negative retort of the the “I’m A PC” advertising campaign, it’s yet another sign that Microsoft strategises in direct response to Apple’s activities. As the vastly smaller of the two companies, being recognised and referenced in such a clear way helps to validate Apple. Maybe Microsoft would be better served by emphasising its market dominance for the right reasons. It’s not through luck that Microsoft finds itself at the top of the pile - perhaps it should be pushing the positives and getting on with its own thing, without looking over its shoulder at whatever Apple are up to.

5) It’s unknown territory

While it’s undoubtedly the biggest fish in terms of market share, Microsoft is taking a leap in the dark on the retail store front, and it couldn’t have picked on a more polished opponent. Apple has already got it right with most aspects of their retail stores. They’ve got the clinical feel of a futuristic spa waiting room, and are stacked with products like iMacs, iPhones and cinema display monitors - all of which perform a tractor-beam pull on passers-by of a certain disposition. Even the exteriors of the stores are desirable - typically chromed steel and glass framed, like artworks planted into the street by a spaceship. Microsoft has its work cut out in providing a style that will match this, let alone surpass it in direct competition.

With the first of the new stores opening in the US in the Autumn, we won’t have long to wait to see if it’s a gamble too far for Microsoft.

The new third generation iPhone went on sale at the weekend, and while it proved to be an instant success with customers and critics alike, it seems that Apple might not have thought through the long-term SEO potential of the product - and has gone for a subtle yet drastically-sudden name change today.

Originally titled the “3G S”, the new iPhone is now known as the “3GS”. Apple hasn’t made any official comment on the change, but it’s plain to see on their website that it has happened.

What’s in a space character?

If the move is down to pure search engine motives, then perhaps Apple have made an unnecessarily knee-jerk decision as searches today for the old-style “3G S” are returning iPhone-dominated results on Google, Bing and Ask. (Only on Yahoo was the iPhone denied top-spot, perhaps understandably by the Three/3 mobile phone network official website.) Considering the millions of digital column inches that will be written about the 3GS in the coming months, the product will surely tighten its grip on the search term - space character or no space character.

Conversely, doing a search today for the new “3GS” name brings back a similarly iPhone-heavy set of results across the board, with some high-ranking references dating from several weeks ago, pre-empting Apple’s decision. Perhaps, when all is said and done, it wasn’t very clear that there was a space in the first place…

Either way, it’s interesting to see that maybe SEO can now impact on product launches of even the world’s most marketing-savvy companies.

Microsoft’s latest attempt to gain a greater share of the search engine market went unexpectedly into beta last week. Pitched as a “decision engine”, bing.com comes as the replacement for LiveSearch.

With a fresh look, stunning photographic background imagery and a reported immediate impact with users in the opening test week, is Bing the next big thing in search?

Nice touches, nothing groundbreaking

The homepage is undoubtedly good-looking, but how does Bing fare when it is actually put to work with a search? The results page looks more or less as you’d expect, with a couple of nice touches.

Related searches are bumped up to the top left, instead of appearing in the footer as you’d expect. This could be a slight time-saver if you’re not overly familiar with what you’re searching for, but it’s nothing you couldn’t get before elsewhere.

Each individual result, when hovered over, has a small pop-up containing a synopsis and various links from the same website. Presumably this is to offer as much information as possible before a user commits to a click. This doesn’t seem a million miles away from Ask.com’s thumbnail preview, which offers a sneak peek of a website on the results page. Neither are particularly useful, but at least Ask.com’s effort offers some neat visuals.

Both cases essentially miss the point of the results page and their own faith in the suggested websites - the fact that a site is appearing on the 1st page should be reason enough to click on it. Any in-depth pre-investigation required before accepting the search engine’s suggestion indicates it might not be what you’re looking for.

Advanced search offers a pleasingly flexible and straight-forward set of variables - including country and language - but these aren’t exactly daily requirements for your average web user.

Spammy returns rank strongly

The synopsis tool actually comes in quite handy as a few random searches show that while Bing is returning relevant websites, it often suggests very deep links or spammy findings. These absolutely need to be weeded out before any full launch, or there’ll be all manner of “optimised for Bing” results appearing - a sure-fire way to kill the user experience.

Loose PPC connections

Bing’s suggested pay-per-click websites seem decidedly fuzzy, which is odd given PPC’s highly manageable nature and in particular the sharp targeting available through Microsoft’s own Adcenter system.

A search for “email marketing newcastle” returns an accurate selection on organic - but a poorly irrelevant mix of hotel, job vacancy and football websites on sponsored search.

The same search on Google.co.uk returns a watertight set of paid-for Newcastle-based email marketing results.

Despite the apparently hapless targeting, Bing does repeat the top ranking PPC ads at the bottom of the page - meaning that those advertisers who are paying top dollar get a second bite of the cherry if their main ad is ignored. Good for advertisers, good for Microsoft’s pocket.

Endless images

When using the images tab, Bing doesn’t seem to limit the result thumbnails, returning as many as 1000 at a time. While this helpfully removes the need to click through multiple pages to find what you’re looking for, it also produces reams of loading thumbnails as you’re scrolling the page. Maybe that’s why every other search engine, ever, uses multiple pages.

“Verbing Up”

Google is so synonymous with the very act of searching online that it comfortably reached the brand nirvana of becoming an associated verb some years ago. While Google’s top brass have made noises in the past that this is something they’re not too happy about - it “dilutes” their other offerings apparently - it is surely the pinnacle of brand domination. This obviously isn’t lost on Microsoft, with Chief Exec Steve Ballmer openly stating that Bing was chosen as a name that can be easily “verbed up”.

First impressions…

So will we all be “binging” for our information in years to come? On the evidence of the beta, the answer has to be a pretty clear ‘no’. Bing needs to offer something that Google doesn’t, and at the moment it isn’t doing that. However, with a reported marketing budget of $100m to ease the full introduction, Bing is likely to be around for a while. We’ll see how it goes, but with such a glitchy opener and the absence of anything really new, or even useful, it doesn’t look very promising.

Of course the beta phase of any project is intended to iron out the creases, so perhaps the niggles mentioned above can be forgiven for the time being. Perhaps the full launch will be a little slicker…

All in all, it’s good to see that someone is taking a determined run at Google’s domination - it’ll certainly be interesting to see how the market leader responds in due course.

The credit crunch has forced a widespread rethink in the way that companies advertise their products and services, and the change in approach is now being experienced across the board. As we’ve said for a while here on Green Notes - the customers are still out there, the marketing just needs to reflect the times to be effective.

The NFL Superbowl final, the American Football showpiece characterised by its incredible viewing figures and therefore marketing potential, is an accurate indicator of the advertising industry as a whole - and Sunday’s US broadcast underlined the marked shift in emphasis. A Hyundai offer of clean slate credit in the event of losing your job during a repayment period perhaps highlighted the new advertising landscape better than most.

Back here in the UK, the examples are numerous, if slightly less stark - a longstanding Virgin Media offer of three months cheap rate services has been hastily repackaged as “brightening the credit crunch”. Sainsburys supermarket has gone from overpromoting its premium “Taste the Difference” and “SO Organic” lines in favour of the budget “Basics” range. These examples, picked from many, again underline the way in which the biggest of corporate names are redirecting their focus.

From a marketing perspective, it’s a new challenge to appeal to customers and prospects with genuinely reduced buying power, but the key point remains the same - the customers are still around, they haven’t disappeared. It’s absolutely essential for advertising to keep pace with the changing demands of these customers to get results now.

We’ve facilitated such a shift with our own clients over the last few months, and found that a strategised change in copy tone and offer presentation really can reap rewards. Some of our email marketing during this period has achieved record responses, and the return on investment has continued to tell its own story.

So if you’re wondering how best to market your products and services during the downturn, get in touch, we’d be happy to show you what we can do for your business.

We were delighted to hear about the response to a recent email marketing campaign for one of our Jaguar clients, which again proved the overwhelming business benefits of advertising through the downturn and the incredible potential of email marketing. The e-flyer, for Lancaster Jaguar Sidcup, was mailed out on Friday 5th December and led directly to the sale of ten brand new Jaguars and forty-five enquiries of interest for possible future purchases.

The mailer was sent to a datalist containing 1946 registered customers and achieved a 42% open rate - far higher than the industry average. The decision to broadcast on a Friday helped to create momentum throughout the weekend, as highlighted by the results.

The stunning sales results emphatically demonstrate that email marketing is still the most effective pound-for-pound promotional medium available, continuing to make an impact even in the hardest-hit sectors.