Blog | Marc Hindley

January 30, 2017 by Marc Hindley

Play your cards right with ‘online strategy’

Every now and then someone comes up with an idea that you wish you’d have thought of yourself.

And the latest contender for me is ‘Online Strategy Cards’ – a deck of 54 cards packed with content ideas categorised into… well, categories. It’s the brainchild of local entrepreneur Sarah Frame O’Hare.

I’ve met Sarah before and I know she is full of ideas, I’ve discussed them with her.

But by bringing her current idea to market, she is helping businesses with one of the biggest conundrums of modern marketing, – how to generate good quality, relevant content for your website, blog, email and social networks.

At a basic level, it’s a huge list of content ideas (I counted 420) all printed on laminated cards, and you could easily dip in and pick one each working day and have a fresh idea for nearly two years.

I’ve got loads of lists which I use to reference ideas, but there’s something essentially satisfying and easy about thumbing through a list of cards, compared to looking things up in a spreadsheet, or reading through a cheat sheet.

There are also ‘games’ which Sarah has devised that help you work through the bamboozling quantity – it is a deck of cards after all.

Deal or no deal?

I suspect, being in the profession of coming up with content ideas, I will adapt the deck to work the way I want it to, but it’s not just for the marketing industry I will be recommending these cards to our customers, or we may work together using the cards as a catalyst. Every business can benefit from these. I’m not saying they are the panacea for marketing stalemate, because while the ideas are one thing, people also struggle with execution.

‘Where to publish’ is covered to some degree by the Online Strategy Cards, but not in any depth. And that’s not a criticism by any means, the concept is to generate ideas, and it does that well. Going beyond that would only muddy the water. That’s what people like me are here for. A list of ideas will generate unique content through the notion of applying your own stamp on them, but the complexity with which content produces ROI is not so simple.

And to be honest, I think that that passage of ideas to execution works well. People do pay me to have ideas and execute them, but I can execute a marketing idea wherever it comes from.

I call the Online Strategy Cards a ‘brainstorm in a box’ and with the excess of rubbish content out there, these little things you can hold in your hand could make digital dullness a thing of the past.

Top marks to Sarah for her latest in a string of great ideas. Whatever will she think of next?

PS: I’m about to go into discussion with Sarah so we can stock them in my shop, but if you want to buy your own deck, go to OnlineStrategyCards.com

August 11, 2016 by Marc Hindley

Instagram – that’s another story!

So you’ve probably heard by now that Instagram has a new feature. It’s called Stories. And it’s a bit like Snapchat Stories, a self-destructing sequence of stills and video with text overlays. You can publish them to your timeline, or they’ll automatically delete after 24 hours.

Wait a minute! That’s a LOT like Snapchat. In fact it’s a blatant copy of Snapchat, and at this point we should remember that Instagram owner Facebook made a $3 billion buyout offer to Snapchat a few years ago. Snapchat said ‘no’ so they went away and built their own version.

The big question now is: ‘Will copying Snapchat kill it off?’

Theoretically, the answer should be yes, Periscope killed off Meerkat, Foursquare killed off Gowalla, VHS killed off Betamax, but I think Snapchat will remain strong in its demo, and will attract high-ticket advertisers and sponsors relative to their target market.

Committed and engaged

Snapchat has a very committed and engaged customer base. Youngsters pretty much have the platform to themselves. It’s largely void of in-your-face advertising, so it hasn’t sold itself out. Young users know their parents are unlikely to jump aboard and it will age gracefully as its generation does the same.

'Snapchat has a very committed and engaged customer base #stories' Click To Tweet

Snapchat does what it does well. Why would a happy user switch to Instagram? I’ll wager the Snapchat community will stick together. The two networks already coexist doing different things. Except they’re fierce competitors, and although the users may be happy, the suits behind the apps don’t want happy coexistence. They want users… and the more the merrier. So this battle intensify.

Instagram also does what it does well. It’s a little more sensible. It doesn’t have the awful selfie stickers and geofilters that Snapchat has. It also doesn’t have a stigma of being a seedy social network. It knows the story feature is popular. So why has it lowered itself to imitating instead on innovating?

The answer is the three As.

Audience, Advertising and Analytics.

By drawing people in to share more of what they do on a day-to-day basis, means Instagram can build a better picture of its audience and its context. Which means they can sell more advertising against it.

'Why has Instagram lowered itself to imitating instead of innovating?' #instagram #stories Click To Tweet

Let’s not forget this is a Facebook product and the big blue network has a stonking knowledge base of customer data. Getting more people to do more things with Instagram, means they’ll get more info about their younger audience.

Also, Instagram has been used, particularly by businesses, to add images with text overlaid as a call to action. Instagram can’t read this text because it’s applied before the image is uploaded. By allowing people to add text in the app, means they can analyse what people are talking about. Each slide in the ‘story’ can have a comment stream, and given that Stories is a more passive medium than Instagram proper, where you might spend more time editing and filtering a picture, the conversation is likely to be more, well, conversational.

But remember, whatever you say may be gone in 24 hours, but you can bet your bottom dollar Facebook will store every word… for evermore.

Hopes and fears

My fear for this feature is that it’s actually a pretty good medium for businesses to make on-the-fly linear-edited video ads. When I tested it though, there was an annoying absence of sound at the beginning and end of each clip. If that’s a feature, it makes 1-2-second clips almost unusable.

Why is that a fear? Well, if Facebook is anything to go by, Businesses will flood it with marketing messages until it’s a mish-mash of unwanted commercial spam. It’s taken Facebook till now to get on top of this, so it’s possible that it could hit the ground running and keep the trivia at bay from day one. Let’s hope so.

Businesses haven’t grasped the Snapchat vibe, and Instagram is a more comfortable place for the businessman or woman, so expect to see more commercial activity in Instagram Stories than Snapchat.

Advertising explosion

Instagram is also on the brink of advertising explosion. Self-serve ads from inside Facebook’s ad manager means anyone can place an ad in the stream for pennies, and that will almost certainly lead to ad overwhelm. The layout on Instagram isn’t as flexible as Facebook, where advertising generally works well.

The other aspect of this feature is that Facebook and Instagram are experimenting with more and more video services. Facebook Live has proved to be popular and there is talk of a split screen version where you will be able to host a live broadcast with another Facebook user.

If Instagram Stories evolves further, we could see editing features built in, so that clips could be trimmed, moved and filtered. It may breakout as a separate app alongside it’s children, Boomerang and Layouts.

Keep your eyes peeled and watch this space… the story has just begun.

February 13, 2016 by Marc Hindley

The Independent – Wapping all over again?

Last week The Independent and Independent on Sunday announced it will no longer be printed as a newspaper from the end of next month (March 2016).

No longer will their faithful readers leave their homes, get in their cars, jog or cycle to the newsagents with a handful of coins to buy The Independent.

Instead, they will read their news online, in their bed, in their slippers, in their office chair, in their favourite restaurant, in the park… wherever they are, on a computer, tablet or phone. The Independent is the first national newspaper to drop its paper edition and focus entirely online. In this case at the independent.co.uk

The numbers

We could argue that it was a long time coming. Given that the printed edition dropped from a peak of 400,000 to around a tenth of that, and that the website enjoys 58 million monthly readers, the numbers speak for themselves. Advertising revenue has been a difficult beast for online news outlets, but the online Independent is actually turning a profit.

But then the move has cost 100 jobs, and potentially started an avalanche.

The reality is, the Independent, sad though it is to see a newsPAPER disappear from the shelves, has changed with the times. It can tell the news when it happens, as it happens, in a much more interactive way. It is no longer restricted to a deadline schedule and a single static medium. It can use video, audio, live-streaming. It can immerse itself in the news.

Remember Wapping?

Roll back nearly 30 years to the last ‘digital revolution’ when newspapers moved out of Fleet Street into Wapping as new technology replaced old. They were changing with the times too, but there were massive strikes, huge redundancies and bitter fights between workers and owners.

In 1985, Eddy Shah created the Today newspaper in an office suite in the Docklands with a bunch of Apple Macs, and every other national newspaper based in London followed suit.

Are we seeing the start of another Wapping? Will the changes at The Independent trigger another digital revolution? I think it will. We won’t see the same massive industrial action, although there will be job losses. But as The Independent‘s new business model starts to prove itself, others WILL follow.

'Is this the new Wapping? Will changes at The Independent trigger another digital revolution?' Click To Tweet

What we must remember is that the Independent hasn’t closed. It has just changed. It has recognised that it cannot claw back readers it has lost, advertisers who can’t afford to advertise in print, and it certainly won’t be able to get investment, not for printing a daily newspaper.

But it will be able to focus efforts on delivering round-the-clock news in a way that consumers will consume. Publishing on the web will no longer be a secondary measure. It will be a primary force.

Evgeny Lebedev, owner of The Independent, said: “The newspaper industry is changing, and that change is being driven by readers. They’re showing us that the future is digital.”

Newspapers are just vehicles

Newspapers are dying people say. No they’re not. A newspaper is a vehicle, and vehicle gets rusty and old. When a vehicle is no longer serviceable, the passengers get out and find a new one.

News will always be in demand. Paper will not. The Independent has made a bold move. The job losses are tough to swallow, and if other publishers follow suit, there will be even more redundancies and a dearth of jobs.

It will be Wapping all over again. Some will even still be able to remember it the first time around.

The revolution has begun. Watch this space.

'The revolution has begun. Watch this space.' #media #newspapers #journalism Click To Tweet

February 8, 2016 by Marc Hindley

One strategy to rule them all… and it’s not social

Last month, I wrote about the blindness of implementing a social media strategy without considering the wider impact of an overall business, or at least a marketing, strategy. (Link: Social media ‘strategy’ is being over-hyped)

I quoted highly-respected blogger Jay Baer in the article because he directly addressed the ‘self-styled gurus’ who are using the s-word to reel in customers with the pretext that strategy will get tills ringing. It won’t… except for the gurus selling strategies of course.

Now Jon Gatrell has stepped up to the mark to say pretty much the same thing. He writes Why You Need a Business Strategy, not a Social Strategy.

Social… out of sequence in the big picture

He cites the crux of the problem is the sequence. By focussing on social media, it becomes your start and end point without proper reference to influences outside it. Strategic objectives become social where strategy should really be focussed on perhaps product quality, customer service or to be honest, the good old four Ps.

Jon talks about ‘awareness, lead generation, faster customer service, or engagement with industry partners.’ All these things happen outside as well as inside the social sphere and will be in the make-up of a business strategy. You might engage with existing and potential customers through the media, in print, by email, and through your website. You might also do it, heaven forbid, in real life. Brands CAN and DO engage with people in the real world, fortunately.

'Brands CAN and DO engage with people in the real world, fortunately.' #business #strategy Click To Tweet

But a social media strategy isolates itself from cohesion, and when we talk about engagement as the darling of the social networks, suddenly likes, comments and shares become more important than all those other engagement factors and that’s just wrong.

It’s putting the cart before the horse.

In my post, I likened a social media strategy to buying a gearbox, then finding a car to put it in, but I also like Jon’s strategy analogy that ‘Social media is not a means to an end, but rather an arrow in your quiver.’

I’ve been reading a lot of Jay Baer and his contributors because they make a lot of sense. Together, they are slowly un-hyping the hype.

'Slowly, @JayBaer et al, are un-hyping the hype' #strategy #business Click To Tweet

Neither I, Jay Baer or his contributors are denouncing social media. It is not to say that it should not be used or that it cannot be a major factor in a marketing campaign or strategy. But I don’t recall there ever being the same excitement over ‘strategies’ for email marketing or SEO, both of which can, and most often do, outperform social media.

Strategy soup!

It’s too granular, we’ve got social media strategies, content marketing strategies, influencer strategies. A business cannot sustain several disparate strategies. For sure, it needs to be strategic, but let’s go back to basics.

Too many strategies would surely spoil the business broth, so have one strategy and fit social media around it, not the other way round.

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.