It’s the little touches that make the big difference

Posted on 28/02/2012 by Beth

My husband, Graham, took part for the third year running in last year’s ‘Movember‘ – an ingenious and fun campaign to motivate men (and women) into helping raise money for men’s health.

Graham once again put great effort into growing a moustache for the month of November, gained sponsorship from his regular donators and went along to the Gala Parté to celebrate the wonder of the ‘tache.

The whole campaign is fantastically organised and I am sure Graham will, as long as his moustache continues to play ball, be helping to raise money for the cause. However, it is the little touches that make the big difference.

The other day, Graham received a card in the post from Movember thanking him for his effort. This really made us stop and look – the thank you card is a lovely idea in itself, but the card was a hand written, full on thank you.

This made the note so sincere and Graham felt really appreciated for the relatively small amount of effort that he put in to help the campaign. The note has also left a lasting impression that I think will give Graham even more impetus to join the Mocampaigners again this year.

Hats off to Movember.

‘Redknapp new England Manager’. Fabio Capello likes this.

Posted on 27/02/2012 by Rob

Following on from a theme I explored last week, I’ve thought of an innovative use for social media:

England manager – who goes to Euro 2012? You decide!

With Fabio Capello’s resignation England have just four months to find a new manager before the Euro 2012 Championship begins. England could lead the way in using social media to elect our new manager.

FA Chairman David Bernstein was careful not to exclude any potential candidates from the shortlist being drawn up, but stated that he thought that the manager should be a ‘popular’ choice. Surely, what better way to ensure this than by a Facebook poll?

After all, you can’t walk into a pub at the moment without someone discussing their preferences. Not only does every football fan in the country have an opinion on the matter, it’s usually more nuanced and carefully constructed than their opinions on the politicians that actually run our country. In fact, the process could become a model for future political elections. Well, it would increase the accountability of the manager at least.

Sure, you might be thinking this is a far-fetched idea – maybe it’s too risky when the interests and passions of millions are at stake. But the role of social media in election campaigns has precedent. The most powerful man in the world is a big advocate of social media for engagement and canvassing opinion and used it extensively in his election campaign: step forward, Barack Obama.

But what about those who couldn’t give a monkeys about football? I bet a lot of them would enjoy debating the voting system used to elect the manager; should it be first-past-the-post or AV?

If nothing else, and if England fail at a major international tournament again, it would quieten all those ‘fans’ who turn on the team the moment we lose and bemoan the manager for not being good enough. You chose the man, it’s your responsibility.

So, who would you vote for?

Innovative uses of social media

Posted on 22/02/2012 by Rob

A lot of people get social media wrong because, like every new bandwagon they hastily jump onto, they see it as the sole answer to all their problems. It’s important to think of social media as a toolset for engaging with your customers in new and exciting ways, rather than just another channel to shout your tired message through. After all, a bad workman blames his tools.

Whilst it takes a lot of creative thinking to break the mould and use social media in a truly original way it’s often the simplest of ideas that work best. It’s about looking at what tools each social network offers, and thinking about what you can do with them.

Some time ago, Beth wrote about how a Texas coffee shop used Twitter to take orders from customers in advance. It’s so simple isn’t it? The brainstorming session can’t have taken that long:

Last Thursday Beth and I headed down to Brighton for a CIM Sussex seminar on Digital trends and the impact on traditional marketing. In his typically laid back style, Ross Breadmore from NixonMcinnes highlighted some implementations of social media that were really thinking outside the box. Here’s some of our favourites to get your creative juices flowing:

1. Diesel Cam

Trying on a pair of jeans and want your friends’ opinion? Post a picture to your Facebook account using the booth in Diesel store changing room. I imagine the most popular caption is “Does my bum look big in this?

2. Fiat Eco:Drive

Fiat’s Eco:Drive system tracks your driving, relays it back to a central server and then provides you with easy to read graphs and stats to help you monitor your driving performance. It’s all about staying green and reducing your carbon footprint – something that most environmentally conscious people don’t mind talking about. So it’s handy that you can share this info with your friends on Facebook and Twitter.

3. Miista – Cheaper With A Tweet

Hackney based shoe retailer Miista launched a Twitter campaign to beat the January blues. A single Tweet to @miistashoes and the price of your chosen item drops for everyone. As a further twist, the level of discount applied was proportionate to your klout score – a measure of your Twitter influence. Higher Twitter klout had higher klout on prices.

4. IBM

The interesting thing about one of the world’s largest companies is that they don’t have a single corporate Facebook or Twitter account. Instead, they have 17000 internal blogs from employees where they are free to write their own thoughts – as well as strong employee presence on Twitter and LinkedIn. All this helps humanise a huge company.

When given the time, none of these ideas are that hard to come up with. In fact, similar campaigns have been conducted with more traditional methods. Miista have taken the ‘do something for us to get a discount’ idea and applied it in the social media realm. Think about what advantages and tools each social network offers and don’t be afraid to experiment!

Why bother to blog?

Posted on 16/02/2012 by Sara

Blogging has become an essential part of any successful marketing and social media strategy. If you are already blogging, then congratulations on recognising the importance of this great marketing tool – the following article will help you to hone and refine your blogging skills. If you haven’t yet caught the blogging bug, then the same article will hopefully persuade you to get started.

Blogging is on the increase and, as high profile bloggers are becoming more influential to their readers, companies large and small are waking up to the power of the blog. So the message is clear, ignore blogging at your peril.

1. What exactly is a blog?

As there seems to be so much confusion around what constitutes a blog, I thought it would be helpful to clarify exactly what a blog is. Essentially it is a collection of fairly short articles in date order which are loosely connected to one or more specific themes. The main difference between a blog and a traditional article is that blogs tend to be more informal and express opinion over fact. The informal nature of blogging makes them interesting and engaging to the reader, a bit like a conversation should be. Blogging can be written pieces of content or video blogs.

2. What will blogging do for me/my business?

Blogging is about engaging with your audience. Done properly, it improves your credibility by demonstrating your knowledge and expertise in a chosen area. This means that people begin to trust and value your opinion on things. Ultimately people prefer to do business with people they know, like and trust and so, if your blog has successfully represented you, then you now have a captive audience.

3. What are the benefits of blogging?

Apart from the obvious benefits mentioned above, blogging is good for keeping people updated about your activities and your products and services. Remember that if you have managed to gain a captive audience you can now keep them informed. Be careful here though as blogging is not a way to sell things. The main difference being that blogging requires a much more subtle approach. If you ‘sell’ on your blog, don’t be surprised if no-one reads it.

4. How does blogging improve my SEO?

You have probably heard that Google and other search engines love blogs. Well, you heard right. The main reason why blogging improves your SEO is that it keeps your website fresh, current and interesting, which is really important from a SEO perspective. Keep in mind too that not all SEO is done by robots/computers and that there are actual human beings employed to evaluate sites for their interest, relevance and currency. The other reason why it helps with SEO is all that lovely search engine food, otherwise known as keywords, which are included in your blog posts.

5. Isn’t blogging really time consuming?

The great news about writing a blog is that it is less time consuming than say, writing an article, report or whitepaper. Obviously it’s got to read well, have accurate spelling and be grammatically correct but, due to the informal nature of blogging, it is easier and quicker to write.

Planning early on will save time later. The first thing to do is to establish why you’re writing your blog then pick a topic, theme or subject and write down your thoughts, opinions and observations. Let it flow and don’t edit too much at the early stage. A blog should be a set of loosely connected ideas informally written. It does not have to contain lots of relevant facts or answer important questions.

Like with so many other things, practice is key. Once you’ve had a go and found your ‘voice’, set the tone for your pieces and discovered the themes that you like writing about, you are well on your way. Happy blogging!

Smart Monkey Marketing

Monthly Archives: February 2012

It’s the little touches that make the big difference