The report, released 5 January 2012, highlighted that in the global proliferation of social media adoption, enterprise companies (1000 employees or more) had an average of 178 social media assets, with varying degrees of management. Such large numbers of assets present considerable coordination issues, but of more concern was the revelation that only 25% of companies offered training to their employees. The result – uninformed representatives engaging with customers on behalf of brands.

Another key failing highlighted was the lack of a business strategy – while 70% of global brand managers stated that their social media efforts met their business objectives, only 43% had a strategy in place detailing how.

“This report validates our concern that there is a considerable lag in the perception of social media as a serious media channel”, said Lucio Ribeiro, Managing Director of social media agency, The Online Circle.

“We consistently see companies, big and small, leaving themselves open to risk. Social media is not a playground. You can also waste a serious amount of money aimlessly ‘playing’ with social media!

The industry has ample intelligence and experience. Combine this with powerful insights into online behaviour, and sophisticated management tools and metrics, and we’re getting very savvy. It’s almost reckless not to be taking this environment seriously.”

Social media crisis costs to business

Symantec estimated (July 2011) that the global average loss from social media gaffes for business is $4.3million (USD). Their survey of enterprise companies found that the top three social media problems that led to crisis were:

• too much information shared by employees in public forums (46%)
• the exposure of confidential information (41%)
• an increase in exposure to litigation (37%).

Over 90 % of survey respondents who experienced a social media crisis also incurred costly consequences including:

• reduced stock price (average cost: $1,038,401 USD)
• litigation costs (average: $650,361)
• direct financial losses (average: $641,993)
• damaged brand reputation/loss of customer trust (average: $638,496)
• lost revenue (average: $619,360 USD)

In an early report, Altimeter indicated that social media crisis has been on the rise since 2001, yet 76% of these could have been averted with ‘proper’ social media investment (August 2011)

“We’re used to being approached to help recover businesses from crisis as a result of them not managing their social media effectively,” added Ribeiro.

“While individual details are protected, I can say that our work alone has addressed many online brand protection issues that have cost businesses many tens of millions of dollars. We’d rather such otherwise well managed brands adopt the cheaper, more effective and less damaging strategy of being on the front foot – to be on top of their online presence through good management early on.”

The social media experiment is well and truly over

Confirming that the ‘experimental’ period with social media is over, apparent laggard Proctor & Gamble finally conceding last month that Facebook and Google can be more “more efficient” than traditional media (January 2012) with the layoff of 1,600 staff. This social media trend is not about to slow down.

“Given our extensive experience in mitigating crisis through responsible social media management, we feel a sense of urgency in better informing brand managers,” said Ribeiro. “We’ve just released the latest training Social Sessions: Responsible Social Media, to advise brand managers of industry best practice: what we deal with on a daily basis. At a minimum, we’d like to see managers focussing on these five key areas…”

Top 5 things brand managers should be managing in social media now:

1. A social media strategy based on business objectives aligned with appropriate metrics and goals
2. An annual social media audit plan including, as a subset, regular Security, Design and Function testing (SDF)
3. Staff social media Policy and Guideline documents, along with moderation guidelines for daily moderation of assets (owned and earned)
4. Staff training and certification for regular asset managers (owned, earned and pirated)
5. A crisis management plan including risk assessment, escalation procedures and contact detail

Related posts:

1. Social Media. Any use for Employees?
2. Social Media Resistance – Breaking the Shell
3. Social Media Execution a lesson from Black Eye Peas

What that means?

2 things
Short term – From all users coming to a website using SSL/Google we will NOT be able to track search queries and keywords
LongTerm – I believe Google will be forcing SSL and it will give more value for websites built and hosted under SSL certification. SSl will become one of the hundreds itens Google assess before ranking a website.

Google state it will be less then 1% of the users (I personally can’t believe on this number), and that what got all online community angry.

This article conflicts with information stated on other Google Blogs.

For instance this one says that Analytics will still have the data, however when you then look at that blog analytics.blogspot.com it clearly states that this will not be the case.

(From the post) How will this change impact Google Analytics users?
When a signed in user visits your site from an organic Google search, all web analytics services, including Google Analytics, will continue to recognize the visit as Google “organic” search, but will no longer report the query terms that the user searched on to reach your site. Keep in mind that the change will affect only a minority of your traffic. You will continue to see aggregate query data with no change, including visits from users who aren’t signed in and visits from Google “cpc”.

So basically all keyword research, targetting and optimisation is gone for 1% of the users

Related posts:

1. Google to change Adwords? What’s coming.
2. Google’s real changes
3. Google Business Maps – A quick guide for beginners

Paid, Owned and Earned Media - Defining Digital Strategies

If you are familiar with the concept of Owned, Earned and Paid Media you understand that Google Pay-Per-Click (PPC) can play a colossal role for your Social Media seeding campaign.

But just how much is too much?

I thought it would be interesting to share with you a study from Wordstream.com which shows the most expensive keywords in Google AdWords.

The 20 most expensive keyword categories with the highest search volume and highest costs per click, thereby netting Google the most money, are:

1.     Insurance (keywords in this category include “buy car insurance online” and “auto insurance price quotes”)
2.     Loans (keywords include “consolidate graduate student loans” and “cheapest homeowner loans”)
3.     Mortgage (keywords include “refinanced second mortgages” and “remortgage with bad credit”)
4.     Attorney (keywords include “personal injury attorney” and “dui defense attorney”)
5.     Credit (keywords include “home equity line of credit” and “bad credit home buyer”)
6.     Lawyer (“personal  injury lawyer,” “criminal defence lawyer)
7.     Donate (“car donation centres,” “donating a used car”)
8.     Degree (“criminal justice degrees online,” “psychology bachelors degree online”)
9.     Hosting (“hosting ms exchange,” “managed web hosting solution”)
10.     Claim (“personal injury claim,” “accident claims no win no fee”)
11.     Conference Call (“best conference call service,” “conference calls toll free”)
12.     Trading (“cheap online trading,” “stock trades online”)
13.     Software (“crm software programs,” “help desk software cheap”)
14.     Recovery (“raid server data recovery,” “hard drive recovery laptop”)
15.     Transfer (“zero apr balance transfer,” “credit card balance transfer zero interest”)
16.     Gas/Electricity (“business electricity price comparison,” “switch gas and electricity suppliers”)
17.     Classes (“criminal justice online classes,” “online classes business administration”)
18.     Rehab (“alcohol rehab centres,” “crack rehab centres”)
19.     Treatment (“mesothelioma treatment options,” “drug treatment centres”)
20.     Cord Blood (“cordblood bank,” “store umbilical cord blood”)

When I am asked about ROI on Social Media I like to consider that if your Earned and Owned media presences have been created and maximised, you reduce your reliance on Paid media. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t sometimes also pay for some extra attention, but it certainly means you depend less on these paid channels. And, because AdWords and other programs like it are based on an auction system, competitiveness and costs for them will continue to be driven upwards.

Generating ROI based on traffic – a simple formula

Let’s assume you are in the Real Estate industry and you want to decide between the immediacy of Pay-per-click and the long term benefits of Social Media and SEO.

You consider investing in Pay-per-click and generate immediate traffic.

If you generate about 1,000 visits a month paying $50 this equates to $50,000/month

If you invest the same amount of money across your Owned media and start to generate the same qualified traffic you have built yourself a long term asset and you can therefore amortise the investment over time.

This is an easy way to start a polemic on ROI in Owned Media versus ROI for PPC.

Which side are you on?

Related posts:

1. Social Media Resistance – Breaking the Shell
2. Marketing Magazine Special Edition
3. The Most underutilised Social Media tool.

This will impact over 5.4 billion fans of multiple pages.

The new look for business pages is currently available for voluntary upgrade. However, it will be rolled out to all business pages on March 10.

In summary the revamp brings Fan Pages functionality and design much closer to normal (non business) Facebook user profiles:

• With the March 10 changes Facebook is giving Pages much of the same functionality available to normal users — you can browse Facebook as if you were the Page.
• Pages can also ‘Like’ other pages.
• The algorithm used for News Feed management has changed. From March 10, if you are friends with someone leaving a comment on a page, that comment will now show on your NewsFeed higher than more generic posts. Previously, they’d just be shown in reverse chronological order
• The main implication of this for businesses is that healthy relationships between you, your fans, and their friends will be the best way to ensure broad dissemination if relevant posts.
• Status updates from pages appears in the page News Feed (Pages now have a News Feed as well)
• Addition of multiple images at the top of the page.
• The application tabs have been moved from the top of the profile down to a sidebar just beneath the profile image.
• A widget that shows what ‘Likes’ you have in common with the Page.

The bad news is there are no longer the facilities of FBML and every tab is potentially an application.

The good news is that greatly increases the ability to build better applications using iFrames (more flexible and better performance).

Below is a map of the new features created by Involver (a Facebook app maker)

1. Photo strip above the Wall (with most recent photos you posted or tagged)
2. Tabs move to the left panel, in the form of a list (maximum of 6 above the fold). Instead of the horizontal tabs on the top of the page that used to accommodate the “Wall” and “Info” tabs and all outside applications, users will now navigate between views using a vertical panel of links to the left of the wall.
3. Profile picture reduced from 200 x 600 pixels to 180 x 540
4. Blurb box that was below the Page picture moved to info tab
5. Pages can Like other Pages
6. Featured Pages and Admins (Admin block is visible to admins only).
7. Page category
8. Choice for Wall posts between “Everyone” and Page posts only
9. Mutual Friends and Interests section

Facebook Changes from March 2011

Note, very important: You can preview the new layout but once you upgrade, there is no way to revert back to the old design.

Pages can also display Featured Page Owners on the left hand column, just below the Liked Pages.

The most important change that Facebook made to pages was to give them similar posting privileges as profiles. This is a game changer.

Every Facebook marketing strategy in existence SHOULD be re-written to include this major change.

Why? Because the walls that were holding you back have now been torn down. You can be your page.

To understand where we are, we have to understand where we were.

Your brand message was restricted to the follies of the Facebook algorithm before. Your message appeared on News Feeds of those who liked you, their friends if they were engaging with you, and your own wall itself. That’s it.

Now, you can spread the wings of your brand just about anywhere you want. While you still can’t post to profile walls, you can post as your page to any walls of pages that you like (as long as they don’t block you). We’ve tried this week for a promotion for one of The Online Circle’s client and worked well, if you want to know more call Lucio +61 3 9813 2141.

Properly used, the applications and implications are tremendous.

But with great power comes great responsibility. There is a drawback. Spam.

You know it will happen. With pages given this new power, you will need to constantly monitor your own walls to make sure that spam isn’t proliferated across them.

Facebook will (if they haven’t already) put in countermeasures to this and start banning pages that are reported or blocked often, just as they do with profiles.

However, the ease of creating pages will open doors to spammers like never before on Facebook.

This is enough if you want to know about overall changes, but for those willing to get more details, there you go:

• Photo Strip Instead of Tabs Above the Wall

The replacement of tabs with the photo strip at the top adds a dynamic, colourful element that will significantly improve the look of the average Facebook Page. The photos are drawn from the most recent ones you posted to your Wall and those you tagged, but does not include photos posted by fans. Users can hide undesirable photos. The new left nav placement of tabs also allows for longer tab names.

• Expanded Functionality For Fan Page Admins

Interact as a Page: A completely new feature, Facebook has added the ability to interact with items around the social network as the brand page. In this way, you can “Like” other brand pages, interact on their Walls, and have those interactions be from your brand page, instead of your personal profile. We think this will be a great way to increase your brand awareness, by tactfully interacting with other pages and people who are influencers.

Enhanced 2-way communications: To enhance responsiveness or just to keep admins more in the loop, you will be able to set up notifications of page activity that go to your email, such as any new Wall posts made by fans. There are also enhanced moderation/spam settings so that you can specify lists of words or terms you want blocked from showing up from your Facebook Page wall if written in a comment by a misbehaved fan. In addition, the admin’s News Feed will contain streaming content of activity going on from the brand page.

The Online Circle Clients

Overall, the changes announced represent a huge advance in the ability for brands to create rich, individualized experiences for their audiences.

We are reviewing the new policies. While many applications like Flash will now function better on your Page, Facebook’s restrictions require you to limit their functionality until a user interacts with it. As always, should you have any concerns about these changes, please do not hesitate to contact your Account Manager at The Online Circle.

More details and information available here and here

Facebook ads

Inspired by Smart Company website

1) Sponsored Stories

You can target two groups of people by using this feature:

Friends of those who are connected to your page by clicking the Like story box. This means your potential reach is far smaller but it also means it will be more powerful. When people see their friend already Likes the page they are more likely to.

People who are connected to the page through clicking the page post story box. This can be used to promote the posts you put on the page wall to people who like your page but may not have seen the posts. This could be good because a recent article said that only 5% of page posts appear in likers newsfeeds – scary!  Particularly relevant if you are posting a hot topic you want people to see.

2) Destination Tab

If you are advertising your Facebook page through the ads you can now specify where you want people to land on the page when they click on the ad. This is great if you have a special offer or want to create a landing tab that is a sales page. This means your ad can be very specific and the landing position can match that.

3) Ad layout

If you have switched your page over to the new look, ads will be appearing horizontally rather than vertically as previously.

It is now more important than ever that your image fills up the space on the left. You need to use the space to make your ad really eye-catching in order to grab your readers’ attention.

Facebook ads are also now seen in more places apart from the right hand side of the page.

If your page photo’s tab has been upgraded to the new light box version (if you click on a photo in an album you can tell if the photo pops up on a black background) there is now an ad that appears at bottom right.

Post written by Lucio Ribeiro, Liam Marco (Social Media CManager The Online Circle ) and Fernando Tinoco (Lead Developer The Online Circle)

Related posts:

1. Are Facebook Fans worth the money?
2. How to Share Facebook Advertising account
3. Transform your Facebook in a book

Webmaster tools is far the most underutilised tool on your web marketing arsenal.

Webmaster tools is not just essential for your SEO strategy but it can also be very very handy for your Web analysis and pre-strategy plan.  A smart strategist can use this data to improve how search engines crawl and index your site’s content but it also can understand and explore opportunities looking through SEO eyes.

Maile Ohye, Developer Programs Tech Lead at Google released an excellent video about usage of Webmaster tools, enjoy.

Related posts:

1. Google Business Maps – A quick guide for beginners
2. Who Else Wants a Higher ROI?
3. Dmoz, Yahoo Directory and BOTW – Are Directories important for SEO?

Google Analytics, Google Webmaster tools, CPC, Blogs, WordPress, etc…

Agencies sharing accounts is a hassle

One of the big hassles is when Media buying agencies and Execution agencies need to work together on Advertising channels (Facebook ads, Google ads, Yahoo ads).

Media buyers have the tools, knowledge and power of negotiation but the Social Media agency has the interpretation and the street smarts from the community and how to maximise the potential communication within the channel.

With the Search Engines there’s no problem, you just share what you need to share with “who” you need to share, but it wasn’t possible with Facebook.

Well, now you can.

The Permissions tool now lets a user give others the ability to create a new ad on your behalf. It makes it easy to designate additional users who can perform key tasks, such as improving the quality and performance of an ad as well as monitoring results of the ad campaign.

To give another user access, simply:

• Go to your Settings page of your Ads Manager
• Click the “Add User” button
• Enter the name or email address of the person you want to add
• Choose the access level. “General User” will allow full control, whereas “Reports Only” will allow for monitoring results but not editing campaigns.

There are 3 access levels:

Administrator: Administrators can invite other users to access their ads account, create, edit and delete ads, add and remove credit cards, and export ad reports. There is only one administrator to an account and they must be the original owner. Only administrators can provide other people with access to an advertising account.

General user: General users can create, edit and delete ads and campaigns, see but not change billing, and access all reports.

Reports only user: Reports only users can access all reports.

Done, now I just need to convince the client.

Related posts:

1. A movie for anyone who is on Facebook
2. Facebook sends more traffic to broadcast sites than to newspaper sites
3. Social Media Resistance – Breaking the Shell

He did, in February, this excellent short on Chatroulette that became the official explanation of what is the site.

Casey has now published his new video in the same style as the previous video sums up the controversy about Facebook’s privacy.

The very title says: a movie for anyone who is the “blue social network” – Facebook.

A Movie for Anyone On FaceBook from Casey Neistat on Vimeo.

Related posts:

1. Is ChatRoulette worth the time?
2. The Most underutilised Social Media tool.
3. Facebook sends more traffic to broadcast sites than to newspaper sites