Blog | Marc Hindley

January 6, 2016 by Marc Hindley

Social media ‘strategy’ overhyped

The never-ending lust for buzzwords means that this year social media has been dominated by the craze for having a strategy.

In business, it’s important to have a strategy, and social media should be part of it, but you can’t just buy a strategy off the shelf. By its very nature, it needs to be as individual as your USP, and part of a bigger ‘ecosystem’.

I mean, a gearbox is important for your car, but would you allow yourself to be pressured into buying a gearbox without a vehicle if it was hyped enough. Of course you wouldn’t. Especially if you then had to find a motor to put it in.

In fact, it’s the car manufacturer that should be making sure you have the right gearbox to suit your needs, and offering alternatives to suit.

And so it is with social media. Its the business strategy that should be driving what you do with social media. Strategy by nature requires all parts of your ecosystem to be firing on all cylinders before it can do its work.

I see little value in even trying to use it for your business if you don’t have a strategy for content, digital or marketing in place, and in any case social should be seen as an amplifier.

Social media should revolve around your business, not the other way round.

'Social media should revolve around your business, not the other way round.' Click To Tweet

Don’t be fooled by the hype.

A cookie-cutter strategy that simply answers the who, where, what, how and why, doesn’t go deep enough to make social media effective. Social media needs content and if you buy into the ‘strategy’ without understanding what content you need to produce to create customers, leads and enquiries, then you will be no better off documenting the basics and calling it a strategy.

If we’re pulling out the word strategy, we surely need to be strategic, and that means drilling down on USPs, KPIs and ROI, not simply deciding which platforms you’re going to use and who’s going to do it. You could write that on the back of a napkin in your lunch break.

The truth about strategy

Jay Baer, one of the world’s leading social media bloggers points this out in his article The Truth About Social Media Strategy, that social media effectiveness increases once people become customers, and [social media] isn’t effective at creating customers. Jay comments that this flies in the face of the ‘many, many, many social media consultants and self-styled gurus who will tell you how to gain more followers and then make lots of cash with social media strategy.’

Yet another case of buzzwords being used to literally frighten people into spending money when it could be better invested elsewhere, where marketing spend is producing better returns.

And Baer also points out that to actually sell stuff with social media, you’ll need to use paid advertising. However those who are selling strategies aren’t being clear on that.

For reasons unknown to me, there is a dogged determination to keep business owners believing that social media is a free marketing platform. And if I’m not mistaken, the current vogue for strategy suggests that poor performance is related to not having one.

It’s not. Poor performance is related to organic social media not being particularly good as a sales channel.

And to quote Jay Baer again, ‘The biggest problem with organic social media for business is that the majority of companies are trying to employ a social media strategy that hinges on making social media do something it’s not well-suited to do: create new customers from thin air.’

Prove me wrong

And I’ve yet to meet anyone that can prove me wrong, except in exceptional circumstances, and relying on those circumstances to crop up isn’t a strategy.

Nine times out of ten, social media strategy ISN’T what a business needs in order to grow.

'Nine times out of ten, social media strategy ISN’T what a business needs in order to grow.' Click To Tweet

At some point, there must be a strategy or plan, but the biggest problem with social media is creating good, relevant content that customers want to consume. A cookie cutter strategy won’t solve that problem, in fact it is more likely to make it worse.

So what are you supposed to do?

Focus your resources on:

building effective marketing funnels with your website, email and search
providing new and existing customers with value-packed content
then use paid social media to increase the reach of your message to targeted audiences
and use organic social media to create conversations around your products and services, focusing on customer experience

And if you haven’t done so already, have a marketing plan drawn up. We all know what a plan is, it’s basically… a strategy, but without the freeloaders.

January 5, 2016 by Marc Hindley

Why I am back in advertising after 20 years

When I left the world of advertising in the nineties to embark on a career in journalism, I never thought I would return to it. But here I am, more than 20 years has passed and I am back in the world of Mad Men.

I loved advertising, but I yearned to work over the fence in the newsroom. Back then, advertising and editorial departments despised each other, not in a social, unfriendly way, but in the battle over space. Each were seen to be ‘stealing’ the limited space available from a finite resource.

One department wanted to fill pages with ads, and the other wanted to fill them with news and features.

And thereby hangs the irony of the advertising-editorial divide that exists in every paper. Advertising paid the bills, but it was the news and features which made people spend their money, either on their weekly dose of what was going on their community, or with the advertisers.

Computerisation – the desktop publishing revolution

It was my experience with computers that opened the doors into the newsroom. I was an early adopter of the desktop publishing systems that were infiltrating large newspapers. I immediately saw the opportunities this combination of hardware and software could bring not only to the provincial newspapers, but to businesses as a whole.

Suddenly, everyone had the tools to layout and print documents and publications. That doesn’t seem so special now, but back then, there were no laser printers, it was a noisy ugly, dot matrix printer or nothing.

The new hardware was expensive. More control demanded more power, and a single computer set up cost me around £12k in the late eighties, but it was my passion to be working in the media that made it a worthwhile expense. From here, I would carve out a new career first in advertising, then in training and finally in journalism, and I never looked back.

Going digital

When I later swapped print media for digital, every newspaper in the land was using this new technology, but there were new changes happening.

The internet was here, mobile was in its infancy and advertising was for big brands only.

However, they developed rapidly, and social media started to take a grip.

As all these new tools became increasingly important for businesses to get noticed, I had to develop my own skillset further to stay ahead of the game.

Designing for mobile meant using new ‘responsive’ design techniques. The rise of social media meant learning how businesses could benefit from this viral phenomenon, and a maturing advertising model meant acquiring new skills to manage the complex nature of pay-per-click.

Google’s advertising platform was already well-established when Facebook picked up the advertising baton and ran with it. And it ran fast and far.

Both giants of the internet now provide superb advertising opportunities, that cannot be ignored by marketers.

The ‘free’ option of organic search results and Facebook Business Pages are still available, but while they have their place, both require time and effort to get the desired effect.

When people pay me to market their business, I cannot afford to be a purist and say ‘we’ll get there, just sit back and wait’. If there’s an opportunity for clients to get what they want sooner rather than later, and are willing to pay, then they should be given that opportunity.

So here I am, back over the fence and knee-deep into advertising, with a new toolbox and I love it. The funny thing is that it’s not a jump backwards or sideways. Online advertising is now a must and businesses should have good, editorially-relevant content and effective advertising working together. Of course, that always was the case, but for small businesses it was a theory rather than a practice. Now it’s accessible to every business with ridiculously low starting costs.

The difference this time is that I didn’t leave one to pursue the other. Advertising and editorial are much more aligned. There is no fence anymore, we are working together. Ads complementing press articles, driving blog traffic, giving us data to analyse.

The new tools of advertising

It’s safe to say that most of the advertising we do today is through Facebook

Businesses advertised in newspapers because they reached the people. Today, it’s sites like Google and Facebook that are reaching those people, and with the added bonus that ads can be targeted and performance can be measured.

I rarely see a business which cannot benefit from Facebook advertising. But back in the nineties you couldn’t stick any old ad in the paper and expect good results and you can’t do that today with Facebook. Some of the fundamentals I learned back then have never changed.

Each campaign needs careful consideration, proper planning, creative content (both for the graphic and copy) knowledge of demographics and Facebook’s placement opportunities.

Having Facebook certification means a thorough understanding of advertising products on offer and we will create each campaign to suit clients’ goals. Some of our clients have several campaigns running at once, targeted at different audiences through different media, eg, video, links, pictures.

Is it boosting posts?

People often ask if Facebook ads is the same as ‘boosting’ posts, but that’s just the surface. Boosting a post is an easy way for Facebook to make money, and gives the least flexibility for advertisers. This often leads to the impression that Facebook advertising doesn’t work.

The full gamut of options for advertisers are available through Facebook’s Ad Manager and Power Editor, both of which offer powerful tools for advertisers, both in execution and analysis.

When I started in advertising, I was given a book called ‘The Effective Use of Advertising Media’. I still have it, and there is no mention of the internet in it anywhere, it just wasn’t on the advertising radar in 1994. However, the book provides useful reminders of advertising tenets. The medium and tools may have changed but the emotional and psychology behind advertising is still very much rooted in the past.

I wonder if I can get it on the Kindle!

January 3, 2016 by Marc Hindley

Is paying for influence really acceptable?

Prepare yourself for the onslaught of a new buzzword – influencer marketing. About half way through the year, you’ll probably start to feel you’re missing out if you’re not doing it.

This is normal in the lifecycle of a buzz.

Web, social, mobile, content – all have been overhyped to the point of disappointment and influencer marketing will be no exception.

What is it?

Influencer marketing is the concept that, instead of advertising to people interested in your products, you advertise to people who will promote your products… naturally.

This is nothing new of course. When Kate Middleton wore a plain red dress to Wimbledon last year, it consequently sold out within fours hours. Kate is clearly an influential figure in the fashion industry. Even Prince George influences the fashion-conscious with his outfits.

But while very few other influencers will stimulate the same sheep-like mentality to buy something purely because somebody else has done it, this type of marketing clearly has legs.

But as I say, it’s not new. As a journalist, I was constantly bombarded with perks, freebies and jollies from businesses eager to get a write-up or recommendation in the press. I once drew the long straw on an all-expenses trip to Switzerland organised by the country’s tourist board, (although I think the editor set up the straws – he drew the short one).

Journalists are seen as influential because they have access to mass media. But in today’s social media environment, there are many ordinary people that have the same exposure to the public because through the web or social media, they have become publishers too.

Old dog. New tricks

It’s a bit like content. It’s just a new word for something that’s been going on for years, in the hope that suddenly it will become sexy.

And it will. Influencer marketing done well will work. People who are influential in a specific industry will promote your products and services, and how you actually get in front of them is a topic for another blog.

Influencer marketing is targeted at those who supposedly have an ‘influence’ over their followers. Like the Duchess of Cambridge.

And they have influence because they are respected in their field. For example, if a famous chef was seen to be using a particular product, foodies everywhere would start using it. The chef may not even have recommended it.

But what if the tables are turned.

And the influencer notably recommends a product or service because he is being paid to do so.

That’s not influencer marketing even though there is influence. It’s sponsorship, product placement or advertising. But the buyer may never know.

On the TV, we know the ads come between the programs so there’s a clear separation. On the internet, whether in tweet streams, videos, facebook updates, the waters are a little muddier.

Journalists are typically honest with reviews of products sent to them, and advertisers (and agencies) risk the wrath of the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) if they don’t clearly label recommendations when paid for.

Recently, the ASA warned vloggers (video bloggers) that they needed to be clearer about products they were recommending in their YouTube videos. Vloggers are seen by brands as influential and are targeted by brands for paid promotions, but often keen to hide that fact.

BBC: Vloggers paid for promotions ‘need clearer labelling’

The social media revolution has spawned literally thousands of new media marketers from all walks of life, and many are genuinely unaware of the rules, whether moral or statute.

And what constitutes an influencer.

A large following? Too easy to fake and many large followings consist of a large number of inactive followers.

High engagement? Depends on the demographic. Are you really going to sell your stuff to dedicated band of Justin Bieber fans.

Industry commentator or professional? This is probably your best shot, but you’ll need to look for someone who has clout in your industry, not just a middle man, and paying for promotion here just wreaks of insincerity.

There are now many online services which identify influencers according to their social media activity, but it can be convoluted and and time-intensive to find the right people.

As I previously said, influencer marketing is nothing new, it’s just a new name for getting noticed by the movers and shakers, mixing with the right people.

All of a sudden influencer marketing is getting commercial. There are influencer supply chains. Twitter and LinkedIn bios will change as people style themselves as influencers.

Not all ‘influencers’ have the right kind of influence in your marketing. So before you buy into influencer marketing, make sure you’re not the one being influenced.