This is one of those weeks when a new Facebook development gets imposed from above.
This time, it is the Timeline for business pages.
Whether you like it or not, your Page format will change and that lovingly created landing page will be cast aside.
It is also one of those weeks where I have written a piece that sums it up back on the Baker Marketing blog, Marketing Minds.
Click here to find out what is changing and what you need to do to prepare for your Facebook Page Timeline.
I sometimes hear workshop participants exclaim that social media marketing is a pain and that they’d prefer business to be a simpler enterprise, like the good ol’ days.
As it turns out, they might be right.
Darwin based physiotherapist, Nick Jones, who also has done my social media marketing workshop, has written a blog post around the new condition called ‘iPhone elbow’.
This condition was first cited in journals in 2009 and the increasing use of smart phones since then means Nick is starting to see signs of the condition in the Top End.
So does this mean you have a legitimate reason to forego social media as part of your marketing?
Sorry. It doesn’t.
Whereas once we rose in the morning with the cock, now we get up with an alarm clock (or the alarm setting on our smart phone).
Whereas once we relied on the serendipity of passers-by for our trade, then relied on brainwashing consumers en masse through advertising, now we have tools allowing us to listen and respond to prospective customers from anywhere in the world (including bed, the breakfast table, the bathroom, or while waiting for a meeting to start or waiter to bring our food).
So, while you may enjoy Nick’s article for its tips on how to deal with iPhone elbow, you cannot use it as a ‘get out of social media free’ card.
Occasionally on this site, I share a link to a blog post I have written in the Marketing Minds blog run by Baker Marketing.
This week’s message was triggered by sniggers and eye-rolling among some social media ‘experts’ when I mentioned that a sizeable chunk of my time is taken up by gently introducing business people to the social marketplace, through Facebook Twitter, Linked In, Google+, blogging, etc.
These poor souls were so advanced in the world of ‘shiny new toys’ that they looked down their noses at the business people I work with.
If you know me, you know how defensive I get of my ‘people’.
It spawned this piece, illustrated by my hacking of Salvador Dali’s, The Persistence of Memory, for I fear these advanced souls are so lost in their world of tech that would be unable to see past the Facebook logo for this amazing dreamscape crafted by the master.
Here is the link: Yes we still need Social Media marketing seminars for newbies
I hope you find it helpful.
There has been a growing incidence of Twitter accounts getting hacked.
While Jess Abrahams from Top End Sea Life has fought off these hackers firsthand over the last few days, last week’s compromise of the Rundle Mall account in Adelaide (one of the most iconic shopping precincts in South Australia) prompted me to pull some background together and outline what to look for.
In essence, hackers send you a direct message through a friend’s or contact’s account.
The message typically grabs your attention by saying ‘your friend’ has found someone saying something nasty about you on the internet, with a link for you to go and see for yourself.
The link is a fake site and if you log in you lose your Twitter account to the hackers.
It is an insidious, frustrating and meaningless activity that preys on your trust of a contact’s name and causes disruption and, in the case of businesses, potentially expensive losses. Indeed, from a business and marketing perspective, these hackers are as infuriating as cane toads!
Here is the link to the full article: Rundle Mall and the Twitter hacking scam.
Please pass it on to others you know who are relatively new to the internet or social media, as the principles apply equally to Facebook, email and other forms of online communication.
I seem to be going through a negative or cautionary phase this week.
It all came about because somebody I connected with on this business networking site sent me a spam-like message within 24 hours of being ‘let in’ to my domain.
This is NOT how you behave in any kind of networking environment unless you are going to a specifically-created, speed-networking event.
Here is the email and here are some alternative approaches.
Steve Davis in the early days of blog writing
Friends, thank you for following my daily updates via The RITE Series blog since August 1.
I had set myself the goal of blogging an article every day for 60 days and today is the last one under that regime.
I will share some of my experiences with you in my Keynote presentation on October 19 and in the resource I must now turn my attention to creating but here are two highlights:
1. My network among Top End business people and thinkers on the topic of social media as a marketing tool has grown dramatically through this time. In having people respond to my posts via the comments section and/or Twitter, has brought me onto the radar for people I might never have met. Likewise, whenever I mentioned people in blogs or interacted with them via Twitter, I got to know and respect some very interesting and passionate people. I won’t name names for that age old reason that I do not want to offend anyone I might overlook (I have always thought that was such a lame excuse but now that I am faced by the prospect of hurting someone through omission, I fully understand the source of that cliché).
2. My stream of blog ideas has grown from what had been a gentle and reliable creek into a gushing, pounding river with Wet Season showers billowing from above as well. I will be making a very strong case now to anyone who wants to blog, to set themselves a target of daily blogging for at least 3-4 weeks. It not only forces new habits but your internal awareness that you have something to write afresh again tomorrow harnesses your brain’s natural gift of looking for patterns in things. I can now hardly breathe without being assaulted by possible blog topics. Even though I have written professionally since 1985, first as a journalist then from 2004 in my role as marketer helping clients find and define their ‘voices’, it has not been until this gruelling 60-day challenge that I have experienced the ‘abundance of angles’ that my brain presents to me for future blog posts. Please try it for yourself and let me know how you fare.
I have so many blog ideas (even a three part series in my head) that I will continue sharing posts on this site throughout October. It might not be a daily occurrence but I am now more truly addicted to this process than ever before so I wouldn’t be surprised if I keep these thoughts trickling here for those of you who want something else to read after finishing your copy of the NT News each day!
Thanks again for your feedback, discussion and ideas and I look forward to meeting you physically or virtually in October and beyond.
Steve Davis
This will be the shortest and most direct blog post in The RITE Series because the point I want to make is simple and direct.
It is crucial that we picture, clearly, the person we are writing for before we create content for
I am starting to see some blogs created that use keywords that are well targeted but the content itself is shallow and useless.
Nobody wins here.
Users will back out of our sites or bin our brochures in two seconds flat, Facebook users will most like ‘UNlike’ our Pages, and we will experience the cold shoulder of the modern consumer.
And in this process, consumers might well be robbing themselves of a great product or excellent customer service.
The simplest test I get my clients to perform is to take a step back from some words or work they have created and ask themselves:
If someone had to pay a dollar to read this piece of content, would they feel like that was a good trade?
If your content won’t pass that simple test, perhaps it would be wise to dig a little deep and share a little more of yourself and your expertise.
As David Meerman Scott says in his book: The new rules of marketing and PR – customers will reward us.
My daughter reflecting on her Top End experience in April
We are nearing the end of my 60 days of blogging daily in the lead up to my October Business Month keynote on using Social Media the RITE way, on October 19, 2011.
Each Tuesday I highlighted a Social Media or Social Networking application, through the filter of a Top End business.
In case you only caught up with us recently, I thought it might be useful to create the Top End Tuesday digest for you.
Here are the six Top End Tuesday instalments, as they appeared since the first week of August.
They include a range of businesses from car dealers to chiropractors.
