You may remember that we recently brought you 3 Twitter fails from companies who could have done with a little more social media training before they launched their campaigns! Well, we’re back with more blunders, this time from one of the most iconic social platforms: Facebook.

Walmart

Walmart’s 2007 campaign is still remembered for one key reason – it removed the ‘social’ from social media. The supermarket realised that their page might attract negative comments as well as positive ones, so they limited their conversations to wall posts and neglected to offer a discussion board.

Lesson – The possibility of negative comments is always present, but limiting your customers’ access to free speech is not the way to address this issue. If your page receives a negative post, don’t ignore it – address their concerns and do your best to put the problem right.

Nestlé

Nestlé’s customers were allowed to make comments – but the responses the brand gave to their posts only created new troubles! Their representative made antagonistic comments to a community member (“thanks for the lesson in manners…but it’s our page, we set the rules”) giving a bad impression of the brand.

Lesson – Always treat your customers with the same courtesy you would give them in person! Hiding behind the screen is no excuse to patronise or disrespect them.

Grey Poupon

Mustard brand Grey Poupon tried to make their Facebook page appear desirable by turning it into a ‘private members club’, with admission as a fan by application only.

Lesson – No excuses, no exclusions. You should never cut out a portion of your audience.

If you want to get your brand on the path to social media success, rather than falling into any of these traps, check out NS Design’s social media masterclasses.

In an announcement made at the beginning of this month, social media behemoth Facebook revealed Facebook Home, a “mobile experience designed to put your friends at the centre of your phone”. The feature, which is currently only available on Android systems, introduced:

• A new cover feed that allows users to access app content from their News Feed as soon as they turn on their phone, essentially replacing their usual home screen
• Bigger, bolder notifications, again delivered right to the phone home screen
• Updated messaging functioning, known as ‘chat heads’ which allows people to receive messages whilst using other apps, without having to leave their current activity

Since its launch on April 4th, Facebook Home has been downloaded an impressive 500,000 times, and whilst some reviewers have complained of issues with battery life and certain widgets, it’s still an impressive start for a social app which essentially overhauls the functionality of your smartphone. Facebook themselves have stated that “this release is a first step and we’ll continue to improve Home”, so the potential for even more integration and interaction is certainly present.

So what does this mean for your business? The immediate impact may be limited, but this could be the first stage in creating a truly engaging mobile experience for social media users that which could provide opportunities for your brand in the future. Facebook Home, if it proves successful, will change the way that users interact with content on a grand scale, and encourage them to access Facebook a lot more often – therefore increasing the likelihood that they’ll see and appreciate your company’s content.

A new infographic from Browser Media has shown that many consumers have given up watching movies, reading books, going out and even sleeping to keep up with their social media updates.

Browser Media’s research revealed that 51% of all people now sacrifice ‘real life’ activities for social media, and that figure rises to a staggering 68% for users in the 18-24 age bracket.

Women are more likely to make these sacrifices – 73% of them use social networking sites and spend around 60 minutes a day on them, compared with 62% of men, who spend approximately 48 minutes a day browsing through social updates. The biggest users of social media in the UK are said to be young, female users from Sheffield, who dedicate around 72 minutes a day to these sites, but users across the country are catching up quickly.

Whilst it may seem like something of a shame that consumers are spending less time completing more social daily tasks, such as cooking, exercising, and spending time with their partners, it could actually be good news from a business perspective. The fact that users are investing more in social media and taking more time to interact gives you a much wider possibility of connecting with them and getting their attention. Make the most of your consumers increased online presence by posting frequent daily updates tailored to their interests – you might be surprised at the response you get!

If you’re plugged into social networking, you’re going to start noticing a number of changes to your Facebook and Google+ pages over the next few weeks. Facebook users will discover an entirely overhauled newsfeed, whilst Google+ aficionados will be treated to larger cover photos, an easy to use ‘About’ tab and a new user reviews section.

Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, described the redesign as a “personalised newspaper” that offered “a richer, simpler, more beautiful news feed … that is focused on the things that [users] care about.” The re-launched news feed will be divided into a range of new sections: All Friends, Most Recent, Close Friends, Music, Photos, Following and Games.

The ‘Following’ section is the most relevant for your business because it’s designed specifically for users who follow Facebook ‘Pages’. The new design encourages users to interact with the content posted on business pages (see these images from Search Engine Journal.) For example, if you post a link to your blog on your Facebook page, the thumbnail image will be larger than it is now, and the title will be presented in a more engaging magazine style. As a nice final touch, your logo will appear at the bottom right hand corner of the summary! All of this points to a likely increase in the number of click-throughs to your website from the content you post on your business’s Facebook page.

For Google+, the most beneficial aspect for businesses is the reviews tab, which makes it easier for users to create (hopefully) positive reviews that recommend your company to other users. Google+ may not enjoy Facebook’s level of popularity just yet (Google+ has 400 million registered users, while Facebook has more than 1 billion), but the new features are designed to attract a new batch of more engaged, interactive users.

By now, most businesses have grasped the basics of Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin, but more and more experts are now stressing the importance not only of social media, but of visual social media content. If you want to use visual content for your business, but aren’t sure how to get going, this helpful guide to the most popular sites is a good place to start.

Pinterest

Pinterest is essentially a virtual pinboard – it allows users to ‘pin’ images to a designated board, usually themed around a particular lifestyle topic such as food and drink, fashion or health and fitness. Uploading images of your e-commerce catalogue is a useful move for beginner accounts – once they start to get ‘repinned’, you’ll increase your brand awareness and drive additional traffic to your site. You can link to your pinned items from your Facebook page, as this provides much-needed pictorial content.

Instagram

Instagram is a photo sharing app for mobile users. You can either upload your images as they are, or add one of 17 different filters to add a fun vintage effect to your picture. Instagram is owned by Facebook, but your updates can be shared through your other sites too, making image sharing quicker and easier than ever.

Vine

A relative newcomer to the social media scene, Vine is another app based offering from the creators of Twitter which allows you to create 6 second video clips. This is a great option if you want to share an image or message that isn’t static – great examples from companies like Malibu are already online if you need inspiration!

All of these apps and sites are free to use, so it won’t cost you anything to create an account and have a go. Got a question? Leave us a comment or tweets us at @nsdesign and we’ll get back to you.

Facebook Offers is an innovative feature that was launched by the network early last year, as an official way for company pages to create promotions and discounts on their services and offer them to their fans. When Facebook Offers was first created, a page needed a minimum of 400 likes to participate, but as of the end of last month, that requirement was dropped to just 100 likes – meaning that businesses of all sizes can take advantage of this opportunity.

This rule also applies to Facebook’s new promoted post function, which allows business users to pay in order to push their stories and updates to the top of the news feed. In light of Facebook’s Edgerank algorithm, which has cost many businesses their previously high levels of engagement, this may seem like good news, but businesses should be aware that both Facebook Offers and promoted posts come at a price, so it’s important to monitor the return on investment.

If you want to learn more about Facebook Offers, promoted posts and other features of the most popular social media platforms, why not come along to the next NS Design social media training session? Our classes are designed with the small to medium business community in mind, and provide an interactive education for anyone wanting to use social media to benefit their business. Our next session is on March 15th – check out http://www.nsdesign.co.uk/social_media/training for more details.

To most people, Google is the definitive search engine. It’s even become ingrained in our day to day vocabulary – most of us barely go a day without using it as a verb (“I’ll just google it!”) and it’s even listed as such in the Oxford English Dictionary.

However, new figures from Experian Hitwise indicate that Google could be losing its iron clad grip on the search engine market, as its market share dropped below 90% for the second month in a row. Google’s share of the search market is now 88%, and whilst this means that it is still dominating a significant percentage of searches, this is its lowest point for five years.

The news comes just days after social media platform Facebook announced the launch of its very own search engine, a “graph” system based on natural searches of information shared between users. Although Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg was quick to explain that their new offering isn’t intended to challenge Google – “We’re not indexing the web…We’re indexing our map of the graph” – it will almost certainly make a difference to the way consumers search for information.

It seems that the shape of search is changing; whilst Google is still top dog at the moment, Experian Hitwise’s statistics suggest other sites like Microsoft and Yahoo! are beginning to claw their way back. It will be interesting to see what impact this has on SEO – particularly if social sites continue to enter the search market too.

Rumours have been flying around for quite some time, but yesterday Mark Zuckerberg and his team made it official: social media behemoth Facebook has created its own search engine, a feature known as “graph search”. The development will allow users to make “natural” searches of information shared by their friends, such as photos, status updates, location data and likes.

The search function is primarily intended for users to find information about their friends and fan pages, but Facebook is integrating Microsoft’s Bing search engine to their site, in case users require further detail. Contrary to popular opinion, Zuckerberg stated that the search engine was not created to rival Google, saying he “does not expect” people to start using the site for all of their web search needs.

“That isn’t the intent,” he explained during the unveiling at Facebook’s headquarters in California. “But in the event you can’t find what you’re looking for, it’s really nice to have this. We’re not indexing the web…We’re indexing our map of the graph. The graph is really big and constantly changing.”

Some users have expressed concerns about privacy, but Facebook developer Lars Rasmussen was quick to stress that “on graph search, you can only see content that people have shared with you.”

Mark Little, principal analyst at research firm Ovum, said that he was initially underwhelmed by the announcement, but concluded that the development could prove useful on both a personal and corporate basis.

“I think probably people were looking for something a little more strategic,” he explained. “On the plus side I think it’s going to help drive connection within the network between individuals and between companies and pages. If you are increasing connections between friends and pages you are effectively increasing the reach of advertisers.”

Digital marketing strategy these days is often centred on social media and SEO, in a frantic competition to get as many likes, shares, and retweets possible and climb to the top of the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). Whilst these modern methods are essential to an overall online marketing approach, it’s important that companies do not forget about an old faithful technique in the madness. Email marketing may have lost its sheen thanks to the real time buzz of Twitter and Facebook, but statistics from the last twelve months tell us not to discount it from your strategies for 2013.

Econsultancy’s Content Marketing Survey Report from October 2012 showed that 50% of marketers still champion email as one of their most effective types of content – an no other kind of content came out with a higher percentage. Plus, according to a 2012 survey from Silverpop, click through rates for email are still higher than online advertising.

A StrongMail survey carried out in December showed that 56% of marketers plan to increase their email marketing budget for 2013, and revealed that they plan to incorporate it into their social strategy rather than seeing social media as a replacement. 65% of those surveyed planned to integrate email marketing with social media, showing that although it’s an older marketing method, email can still work in harmony with the new.

These figures tell us that email marketing still a major player in the digital marketing sphere. After all, it’s is an easy, economical and effective method of reaching a wide audience simultaneously, so make sure you don’t ignore it!

It’s that time of year again! New Year’s resolutions aren’t just for the home – they can be a great motivational tool in the office as well. The beginning of January is the perfect time to make a fresh start with your digital marketing campaign, so here are a few ideas to get you started.

Give your website a makeover

Your website is the online shop front for your business, so it’s important to keep it looking fresh, innovative and up to date. 2012 was the year that mobile search took off, so your first port of call should be to make sure your site is equally appealing on all platforms (check out our blog piece about responsive web design to find out more!) Even if you had your website redesigned recently, there are still ways that you can improve it – for instance, you could consider adding a blog or Twitter feed to keep the page active and interesting.

Revamp your social media

If your Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn profile has looked the same for months on end, why not make a change? Something as simple as a new cover photo or sparky new ‘About’ section could give you the edge over competitors who leave their pages static. Whilst you’re at it, why not try a new social media site? Relative newcomers such as Pinterest and Instagram could have a big impact on the visual aspect of your marketing strategy – just make sure you set aside enough time to update them frequently.

Make a schedule

Speaking of organising your time, there’s no better way to keep on top of your updates than with a clear cut content schedule. Plan when you’re going to post social media statuses, tweets, blog articles etc and find a way to make it happen alongside your daily workload. Social signals are becoming increasingly important for SEO as well as brand awareness, so investing a small amount of time in your planning could lead to big rewards as the year goes on.