Authenticity is everything; If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.

The above quote is a paraphrasing of a line sometimes attributed to Groucho Marx, and sometimes to others. It’s an important lesson for businesses to keep in mind when they are interacting with their customers online.

Many would say that it’s authenticity itself that matters, but anyone who has used the Internet for longer than five minutes knows that one does not have to be truly authentic to have a positive effect. Although, if a business can manage to be authentic, sincere, and genuine in its communications with its customers, so much the better. Continue reading →

Many small businesses find getting to grips with social media to be a troublesome aspect of online promotion. They often oversell and alienate potential followers, go overboard with sharing to the point of spamming, or set up a Facebook page or Twitter account, send a tweet or two, and then completely forget about it.

Social media for businesses is a marketing tool, and as with all marketing tools its use has to be consonant with overarching business goals. But, it’s not as simple as filling a page with products and declaiming how awesome you and your team are.

In creative writing classes, students are often told that the number one rule is “show, don’t tell”. The same rule can be applied to social media. Brands need to demonstrate their value to potential followers and sharers, rather than declaring it in overwrought PR speak or heavy product promotion. Authenticity is key. Continue reading →

When it comes to website design, speed and simplicity are key. It doesn’t take much for users to become confused or frustrated and abandon their intended action.

This is especially true for user registration. If you ask users to enter a lot of data, they might leave. Even asking for a little data in a confusing way can make users abandon the process. For websites, this abandonment means lost conversions.

Social logins offer a method of drastically simplifying this process.

Social logins use your existing social media login information. This allows for a single sign-on. The user picks a social network. They choose which network to link to their new account. Then, they approve the login using that network. That’s the basic process. (This doesn’t include times when specific data needs to be collected.) As a result, social logins can make registration much easier.

Social media is an important part of modern marketing. Facebook has over a billion users; Twitter has become many people’s platform of choice for communication with companies; Pinterest has just become one of the thirty most visited sites on the web.

Businesses who have no social media presence are ignoring a powerful and cost-effective marketing and customer relationship resource, especially if they are selling or providing services online.

Unfortunately, establishing that presence and kick-starting engagement has a cost. It is difficult for a business new to social media to attract followers without a substantial investment of both time and money. For many businesses, they won’t make that investment, and so they feel tempted to manufacture a follower count.

Indeed, people frequently perceive follower count as a measure of success. Furthermore, they also see the ratio of followers to followed this way. Naturally, everyone desires popularity. Consequently, if they can’t gain it organically, they may want to appear popular. This desire often comes without the willingness to invest the necessary time and effort.There are definitely benefits to manufacturing a follower count, but there are also numerous drawbacks.

In the weeks following Facebook’s IPO, the Zuckerberg-led social network faced intense scrutiny. Many people expressed doubts about the financial viability of Facebook’s revenue model. This was especially true regarding its advertising service. For example, GM pulled their Facebook marketing campaign.

Additionally, the music industry e-commerce startup Limited Run made an impact. They claimed that 80% of the clicks for their ads were (details omitted). Whether that complaint is accurate is still a matter of debate. Furthermore, a study from the Advertising Research Council made a claim. It stated that “blank” ads with no content were performing only 0.1% less well than regular ads.

While this news is not good for Facebook’s future revenue, and businesses should think hard before spending their advertising budgets on Facebook’s paid ad platform, the real value of Facebook and social media generally was never through paid ads anyway.

It’s becoming increasingly clear that traditional advertising is not creating the levels of engagement that marketers might hope for. Consumers are conditioned to barely see banner advertising — assuming they haven’t installed an ad-blocker — and they are very sensitive and averse to content which they perceive to be biased towards selling.

Content marketing is an alternative or complementary marketing method that aims to generate conversions in the long term by fostering brand loyalty and awareness, and demonstrating competence within a particular niche.

Which simply providing content, be it text, audio, video, or even apps, that is of value to  clients and customers. Content marketing makes businesses into publishers. This blog post is an example of content marketing.