Yes, it seems barely possible that Christmas has yet again snuck up on us! So on your to do list: Christmas shopping, tree decorating, Christmas dinner planning, but one important thing’s missing…

Update your Christmas online marketing!

Christmas offers loads of great opportunities for your business, and Clicky Media are here to help. A few things you may want to consider are:

Letting your customers know about any special Christmas offers.
- What we’d recommend: A PPC search campaign, email marketing & web updates.

Let your customers know about your Christmas opening hours or any special/differing schedules etc.
- What we’d recommend: Web updates; email marketing and social media updates.

Running a Christmas gift campaign to help boost your festive sales this year.
- What we’d recommend: A PPC Search & Display campaign for December, social media advertising, social updates and     email marketing.

Wishing your customers Happy Christmas! Don’t forget to thank your loyal patrons this year with some festive cheer.
- What we’d recommend: Email marketing (online Christmas cards!), a Christmas competition on Facebook and/or Twitter.

Let everyone know you’re donating to charity this Christmas & encourage your customers, suppliers & partners to do the same.
- What we’d recommend: Email marketing, social updates & web updates.

Decorating your website – get in the Christmas spirit by tweaking your website with some stunning Christmas design – show your customers (and your competitors) you’re reactive, up-to-date and of course fun!
- What we’d recommend: Web amends – Christmas hats, reindeer, snowflakes, glitter, stars, presents, snowmen, or even Father Christmas himself! How creative can you be with your festive cheer ideas?

Go on, a little festive cheer never hurt anyone; it has helped though!

We can help you with everything, from creative Christmas emails to full marketing campaigns; even down to fabulous temporary festive website designs.

Give us a call today on 0845 257 1225 if you’d like to discuss any of your online marketing. These ideas were hugely popular last year, so get in quick to make sure we can get everything sorted for you as soon as possible!

Click here to contact us. >>

Following Facebook releasing the ability for users to browse Facebook over a secure connection, it is shortly to be required that all custom page content must be hosted securely. This means that all tabs on pages need to convert over to HTTPS by Saturday October 1st 2011.

If we have designed your tabs you should have heard from us either by telephone or email this week about transferring over to a secure server hosting package. If you haven’t replied or received an email, please ensure you get in touch with us ASAP as your page may not display as of Saturday.

Should you wish to host/continue to host your own page yourself, then you will need to purchase an SSL certificate and also make the relevant changes to your application settings. For more information please see the official Facebook developers blog here >>

Yes, I really am writing a blog post about writing blog posts, let’s hope this will be somewhat self-fulfilling!

Here at Clicky Media we design great looking & highly functional blogs (step one). We also offer a Social Bookmarking and Online PR service, distributing your blog articles across the web (step three). But what about step 2 – writing something people are actually going to read?

Writing a good blog post isn’t as easy as you might think. With millions of blogs out there, all with any huge number of posts, how do you make yours stand out? Well, like a piece of art, there’s no set formula to make it a masterpiece. But here are a few helpful hints & trends we’ve noticed that seem to work well:

• Catchy Title – Short & snappy, self explanatory & exciting. Easier said than done, but see the next bit for another pointer on this one.

• Lists – having a “top 5″ or “top 10″ or even “top 20″ list of things never seems to fail to attract readers. It could be “top ten reasons to buy a rubber duck” (if that’s your industry) or “the 10 most popular songs of all time” or even “5 weird sandwiches & why I ate them”. You can apply it to virtually anything, so if you’re stuck for a title, here’s an easy fix.

• Break Up the Text – Lists are also great for the main body of the blog article too. If the text is broken up into bite-size chunks, perhaps even with bullet points for particularly good points (see what I’ve done here!?!?), it makes it easier to read & highlights important information.

• Unique info – as the saying goes; write about what you know. You’re an expert at what you do, so it’s bound to be more interesting and will give readers that little bit of unique information they might not get elsewhere. Imagine you’re one of your intended readers – what would you want to read about from your blog? What would be useful? Perhaps a “How to…” guide for example.

• Images – Everyone loves a good picture. They’re eye-catching, help to break up the text and add interest to your blog post. They say don’t judge a book by it’ cover, but let’s be honest, how many times has the picture had an influence in your reading choice?

• Got writers block? – Okay, so we’ve said write about what you know, but exactly what? Nothing interesting happened recently? – Don’t panic, you’ve probably already got some material you could use: A good pitch or presentation you did once, a report, a bit of research or maybe even some training material you’ve written. Other than that, do you find yourself often having to answer the same question? There’s your topic.

• Don’t waffle on – try to keep it reasonably short & to the point, we reckon usually 500 words or thereabouts. After all, that makes it nice and quick for you to write, and means it fits nicely into your readers’ coffee breaks.

And on that note, I’ll stop writing this blog post.

To find out more about blogs click here. Alternatively we’d love to hear from you & chat about your blog needs – give us a call on 0845 257 1225

But why are Facebook Pages so successful? How does it work? Below are 10 reasons why Facebook Pages work so well; 10 advantages you can’t afford to miss out on:

1. Search Engine Optimisation

Facebook Pages have great SEO benefits because they show up very high in search results for your business. This is because Facebook lists Pages on individual users’ public search listings, thus every user who ‘likes’ your Page is instantly adding another link back to your Facebook Page, improving your Page’s search engine ranking dramatically. On top of this a Facebook Page also provides numerous additional links back to various areas of your website, improving the search ranking of your site.

2. Consumer interaction

This is the most exciting prospect of a Facebook Page. Facebook Pages can facilitate all kinds of 2-way communication between you and your market. In the simplest form this can be done by updating the Page’s status to let your customers know about a particular product or service; and then the members of your group can comment on this and so starts a direct conversation with your customers. Likewise, this can be used to update your members about any changes to your business, any promotions or even to facilitate a competition. However there are also far more creative ways of engaging your customers. Facebook Pages allow for customised applications on your Page and these can range from “join our mailing list” data capture boxes (which increases the reach of your email marketing) to special features, games and competitions. Below are a few inspiring examples of how Facebook Pages have been very successfully used to engage a market, the results of which have been staggeringly successful for their business:

-                Game example:

Volvo (in association with Twilight: Eclipse film) created a game on their Facebook Page, where users could try to find their way around Forks, the setting for the Twilight films. They also combined this with a competition; the first few people to navigate their way to a particular house in Forks in the shortest time would win themselves a Volvo. This along with the fun of the game itself for Twilight fans spread the word of their Facebook Page far and wide as users rushed to tell their friends about it, all hoping they might win a Volvo.

-                Application Examples:

Pizza Hut’s Facebook Page has a great deal of mouth-watering information and image content of their pizza’s and other food offerings. They have then capitalized on their Facebook Page by creating an ‘order now’ application, taking immediate advantage of their user’s newly acquired craving for pizza by allowing the user to order their pizza for delivery right there and then on the Facebook site.

Ben and Jerry’s application was seemingly just a fun thing for members of their site; an application that turns the user’s Facebook status upside down. However, this was a rather clever idea of Ben and Jerry’s, as when users’ friends saw their status upside down, a typical comment would have been something like “Wow, that’s cool. How did you do that?” The response of course would send them to Ben and Jerry’s Facebook Page so they could do it for themselves. This of course gained the Facebook Page more and more members.

-                Promotion Examples:

Sprinkles, a bakery in the USA made great use of their Facebook Page by running a simple promotion; the members of their Facebook Page got access to a secret “phrase of the day”. Quite simply the first 50 people to say the phrase of the day in a Sprinkles store won a free cupcake. This greatly increased footfall in their stores, and after those first fifty people, all those who came in having seen the Facebook Page bought a cupcake anyway, despite not having won it for free.

iTunes also ran a very attractive and successful promotion to their market in the US; “get 20 free songs just for ‘liking’ the iTunes Facebook Page”. As you can imagine this was highly successful, and iTunes’ Facebook Page now has over 5 million members.

All of these examples of consumer interaction bring variety to Facebook Pages and as such has the potential to introduce entirely new customers to the brand, as they may be attracted to the page by the competition or application itself; thus discovering your company along the way.

Consumer interaction is extremely beneficial to businesses; it strongly develops the relationship between you and your customers and generates customer loyalty. The more involved a person is with your Facebook Page the more likely they are to talk to their friends about it and spread the word about your company, and considering approximately 70% of Facebook users engage with Facebook page applications and content each month, this is really quite something.

Interactivity possibilities are constantly increasing in amount, variety and use, especially as Facebook mobile brings a whole new dimension to Facebook Pages. For example, the Sprinkles campaign (mentioned above) was even more successful with Facebook mobile, as their Facebook Page members would see the promotion while they were out and about, and so easily diverted their journey/shopping trip/walk home from work to include a de-tour to the Sprinkles store.

3. Creates a Brand community

There’s more than just your communication with consumers, there’s the communication between the members of your Page themselves. A Facebook Page is a great platform for people who like your company to talk to each other about their experiences of your business, and why they like your brand. They may even recommend your products and services to each other. This is a brand community and it can be very beneficial as it facilitates and cultivates enthusiasm for your brand.

In this way brand communities can strengthen members’ identification with your brand, helping to boost brand image as members pass their message on to others.

And the great thing is that because it’s on a Facebook Page it’s easy to track and influence, so it’s really easy to build brand loyalty among your members.

A good example of this is the Red Bull Facebook Page, which has generated a Red Bull ‘sports culture’ within its Page and this is reflected in the behavior of their members and thus they spread the word of Red Bull in a manner that is representative of the brand.

4. Gain product and service feedback

Having such personal communication available through your Facebook Page is undoubtedly going to have numerous benefits, one of which is that you can see directly what your customers are saying about your brand, products and service. This of course can enable you to resolve any customer issues or queries, and gain much more product and service feedback than you might otherwise receive. This kind of information can also prove vital in market research scenarios as communication from or between your Facebook Page members provides you with important consumer insights, which might lead to helping you to improve your product or service offerings.

5. Drive traffic to your website

A Facebook page is a great additional presence for your business online and greatly compliments you existing website. Your Facebook page can essentially be an extension of your website, and serves to drive increased traffic to your site. With numerous links back to your site, your Facebook Page becomes yet another route through which potential customers can find and reach your website.

6. Share with your community

Because Facebook Page members choose to become so, they open up the way for you to keep in constant contact with your market through uploading content whenever you want. This content will then show up on your members’ news feeds, giving them information about your business in a non-intrusive manner. Members might even look forward to new content being added. You can upload news, pictures, videos… virtually any form of content, so the opportunity for creativity to entice your market is ever present. For example, the Australian Working Holiday Facebook Page (below) has uploaded videos advertising various experiences and adventures in Australia.

You may wonder just how much exposure this actually is; well, considering the average Facebook user is signed in for over 6 hours a month, that’s a lot of potential time in direct contact with your market.  This is also measurable and can be seen with Facebook insights, discussed next.

7. Advanced insights into customers

Having a Facebook Page means you have access to key information about your members. These advanced insights include graphs and stats on the type of users on your Page including male/female split, ages, locations, and other demographic data, the number of active users on your Page, details of their activity and interactivity with your content, and more. This information is not only useful for improving the Facebook Page itself but also gives useful insights into your market as a whole. You can also invite your members to vote in a poll of your creation (yet another consumer interaction possibility), generating more useful data about your market.

8. High potential reach

Ever heard of the 6 degrees of separation theory? Well Facebook is where you really see it work. An average Facebook user has 130 friends in their network, and if one of them “likes” your Facebook Page, potentially all of their 130 friends could see on their news feed that they have “liked” you. Which, in turn, might cause them to investigate, and see your Facebook Page for themselves. Perhaps they’ll also “like” your Facebook Page. Now imagine this process several times over. The potential reach of your Facebook Page is huge. There are approximately 27 million active users of Facebook in the UK – that’s approximately 45% of the population. Find out more >>

9. Increase brand awareness & promote your business

A recent study by Chadwick Martin Bailey and iModerate Research Technologies, found that 60% of Facebook Page members are more likely to recommend those brands since becoming a member. And an impressive 51% of Facebook members are more likely to buy the brands who’s Facebook Page they are a member of.

Member recommendation is a powerful ‘word of mouth’ marketing tool, which is typically far more trusted than traditional marketing messages. As mentioned Facebook has a phenomenal potential reach, hence Facebook Pages are a great way of spreading the word to new customers and getting your brand known.

Also quite apart from the huge reach, a Facebook Page can be completely customized and branded, thus it can become almost as powerful a marketing tool as your website itself.

10. It’s free!

The Page itself on Facebook is completely free – so you’re contacting and engaging with your market, and achieving all these benefits completely free.

What Clicky Media can do for you and your Facebook Page:

Here at Clicky Media we offer a complete Facebook Page design and development service, providing you with the ability to build a Facebook Page and fully customize it according to your needs. This not only includes making the Page stand out and represent your brand, but also using the latest technology to develop specific bespoke features and applications to engage your audience, allowing you access to all the benefits of a Facebook Page as mentioned in this article.

At Clicky Media your service is fully account managed at every stage; we take the time to listen so that we come up with the ideal company profile for you on Facebook and sure your campaign goals are reached. Clicky Media is one of the best and most experienced agencies in the industry, and we pride ourselves on creating Facebook Pages that our clients adore. Why not find out what we could do for you? Give us a call, email or request a quote today.

To find out more about our Facebook Page service click here >>

Some Additional Facebook Page Statistics:

• Globally over 20million Facebook users “like” Facebook Pages every day.
• Approximately 1.5million local businesses have benefited from Facebook Pages.
• Social media adoption by small businesses has doubled from 12% to 24% since last year, according to a recent study by the University of Maryland.

For more Facebook statistics click here >>

Sources: Alexa, Chadwick Martin Bailey, Expeditus Media, Facebook Insights, Facebook Statistics, Google Images, Google Public Data, iModerate, Jeff Thomas Cobb, Mashable, Penn-Olson.

We have been providing our web marketing services for nearly 5 years now and love communicating our knowledge via our website.

The web is a wonderful place where information is freely passed around and we all enjoy that. Often this freedom is mistaken as a place where you can rip other companies off and steal their hard work and simply copy and paste large sections of their website and pasting it on as your own.

Well we have had enough, and we have decided to name and shame those who are currently doing it and ensure we pursue legally any individuals or businesses who do it in future.

Sorry to sound so moody but enough is enough!

Below is a short list we discovered on this weeks search:

• http://www.mrinternetvideo.com/news.html
  
• http://www.5tendesign.co.uk/eMarketing.html – These have kindly removed their content.
  
• http://www.numberonelistings.com/smarketing.htm

BTW – We have taken screen shots of all of them if anyone decides to update their websites!

Clicky Media are fast becoming one the UK’s leading digital agencies with the planning and skill-set to ensure your business reaches its potential.

Speak with one of our experts today on 0845 257 1225.

Online Communities such as Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn and Bebo are the ideal place to get your business noticed. We have the ability to strategically build your prescence on Social Networks enabling you to target your exact demographic and engage with your online audience.

At Clicky Media instead of managing just one aspect of online promotion, we are here to offer everything you require to effectively promote your business online.

Please take a look at our Social Network Marketing services on our website: www.clickymedia.co.uk/SocialNetworks and see how we have helped our clients find their customers.

If you would like a complimentary analysis of your Social Media activity and website or to arrange a meeting with one of our experts (not a salesperson!) please call: 0845 257 1225 or email info@clickymedia.co.uk

This has got to be one of the most commonly asked questions we face every day, and it is usually the start of our relationship with a company.

Despite being the key question which encouraged our clients to get in touch with us, it is very rarely the right place to start.

Online marketing is no different to other forms of advertising, however businesses are generally more understanding of the processes involved in traditional advertising and would rarely start their conversation with a traditional marketing agency with a similar question.

Think about your audience

Are the people you have always targeted in the past the right people to continue to target or do you not know yet? Lets have a real think about this and work out who we would like to target with our website and look into their wants and needs from your website.

Ultimately the content of your website will decide what you can rank for in Google and unless we get this just right we will simply be a flashy new website barking up the wrong tree.

Lets look at your website

Would any visitors be put off after visiting your existing website and decide you are not the company for them? If so then lets get this cleared up now.

If your thinking you don’t care about this, and it is numbers we need and nothing else then just make sure your right first! Test it with real people who are not inclined just to agree with you.

Decide exactly what you would like your visitors to do when they arrive

This simple question may invoke a whole load of ideas but usually if you strip them down there is never usually more than 1-3 things you really would like your visitors to do.

Whether it is “Request a meeting”, “Buy something” or “Request a Quote” you need start thinking exactly how your visitors are going to complete this task and is it nice and simple to do? Try it yourself, ask other less internet savvy colleagues to do the same by setting them a challenge and watch what they do.

If people are struggling to complete your goals lets get these fixed now because this percentage of confused visitors who would happily get in touch may be lost and as we start to increase numbers of visitors this group may turn into thousands of lost clients.

Now let talk about traffic

Now once we have the plan for a perfect website with simple user goals we need to think about getting people to our door. This is where SEO, PPC, Geo-Social Marketing and Email marketing start to contribute.

SEO (Natural search) is probably where your initial question came from (you saw someone top of Google for a phrase that closely matches your business and you thought I want some of that!) So what decides who goes top? Well this is again a question without a single answer.

SEO is a long process of building your websites profile in the online world and has many aspects which relate to the real world.

• Who do you rub shoulders with? (Links coming in)
• How accessible are you? (Is your website built with the latest in accessible code (XHTML/CSS))
• How is your reputation? (Has your website been around a while and built up some respect online? Google aren’t going to put you top today or tomorrow, but consistently improve overtime and beat your rivals and success will be yours)
• Are you on the ball? (Has your website not changed for 2 years – some might find this boring!)

Ultimately a successful SEO campaign needs experts so dont be afraid to talk with experts like ourselves, but make sure they understand all that we have talked about so far, or ideally make sure they have been involved.

In addition to SEO there is PPC – this is a slightly different form of search marketing and can be instant, but don’t be fooled that all that we have talked about so far is irrelevant – Google have a quality score system which gives preferential ranking to websites with accessible and relevant content and visitors who cant complete your goals, still wont via traffic from this route. Dont forget every click has a direct cost with PPC and make sure your click costs pay for themselves.

Again don’t be afraid to speak with experts like ourselves but make sure they get the whole process!

Lead handling

Right now we have visitors who are completing goals and bringing in business! Surely thats the end of our advice! No!

Lets think about how you deal with leads. Are you dealing with them effectively? If not then all this investment has been a bit of a waste of time! Get organized with an effective CRM tools which make selling to these prospects simple and seemless.

Salesforce is great place to start and we can get you setup meaning leads can be dealt with immediately as they arrive maximising your return on investment further.

Now then, how do we get top of Google?! Maybe you should just give us a call – 0845 257 1225