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Andy Gray, ex-football pundit, forgot.

He thought he knew better than the rest of us but he did not!

He got found out and was sacked but it’s probable his punishment had more to do with Sky’s concern for its sport’s brand authority and reputation than his sexist criticism of lineswoman Sian Massey. But have you too, forgotten something?

We can so easily forget who we are talking to. We can get wrapped up in the daily business of business, promoting brand traffic, piling goodies onto our websites and waiting for the money to roll in. But whose fault is it when it doesn’t?

Well it’s an own goal. The minute you forget who is important - your customers - you become less important to them and it’s you who gets the boot. With the explosion of social media, it will only get worse.

Just think about how you write your pay per click adverts. You are not competing with other companies, you‘re competing with other adverts on the page. If your promotions concentrate more on what you want to sell and less on the value customers are seeking, then they’ll quickly click someone else’s advert.

Tip: Your advert has to have that value-added appeal that is credible and offers something different from all the other adverts. Facts first. Fluffy stuff second. Vague stuff never!

Your website is the destination of your PPC advert. If someone clicks through and doesn’t see the same “promises” on the web page that appeared in your ad, then you’ve scored an own goal.

And once you’ve got them onto your website, it’s the way you maintain momentum via constant reinforcement of your valued proposition that carries visitors to the sign up form or call to action.

Never tell them what to do without offering value in return. “Do this and you’ll get that”. So avoid using “click here” or “submit” instruction buttons  - they promise nothing but infer action (I’m thinking of Andy again. Not good!). If you’re offering something like a download or article, make the button say this.

Don’t stop reminding customers of your value to them when you get to the sign up form or your main call to action. Think about what’s going on in their heads at every stage. Optimise content for their thought sequences. Use your head! Remind them again why you are the premier choice.

Marketing your website is not a matter of life or death. It’s more important than that.

Lineswoman, Sian Massey forgot too. She should have had a quiet word with Andy about the sending off rule!

Hotel owner, Duncan Bannatyne (of Dragons Den fame), has spoken out strongly about guests leaving negative reviews about his hotels on TripAdvisor (the world’s largest consumer review travel site) and how such unchallenged comments can seriously damage a hotel’s hard earned reputation.

TripAdvisor is a pioneer of user-generated content. Set up 10 years ago in USA, it allows travellers to pass on their holiday experiences for the greater good. Its 18M registered users find it immensely useful but hoteliers don’t see it that way at all.

Travel expert Sara Benson mentions that TripAdvisor used to be full of great comments from savvy, experienced travellers, but now it’s just a tidal wave of raw data. With an estimated 25,000+ legally defamatory comments currently on site both here and in the USA, hoteliers like Mr Bannatyne, are asking for changes in the law so that people making posts on TripAdvisor are visible and accountable.

Emma O’Boyle (from TripAdvisor) advises that hoteliers use TripAdvisor’s private messaging system to air their concerns, while adhering to their private messaging guidelines. Mr Bannatyne has no problem with guests giving their honest opinions but he takes issue when these same guests start “trying it on” to get a bill reduction and rages at TripAdvisor’s inability to allow him to counter spurious inaccuracies. It is not uncommon for consumers to threaten a bad review in return for a refund.

Yet travelling customers love TripAdvisor and businesses continue to preach that their “customers are king” - until negative comments arise!

And there’s the rub. If someone says something unpleasant about your business on a review site, how do you ameliorate the situation? Are these sites more interested in allowing freedom of expression in an expanding online community or are they just scared of losing out to other comparable sites, so damage to business reputations from unsubstantiated comments is simply collateral damage?

But there’s another side...

In his article: Long Live the Web, Tim Berners-Lee, the founder of the world wide web, emphasises the threat of closed systems (operated by the likes of Facebook, iTunes, Friendster) as having too much influence on your freedom to comment.

Berners-Lee sees companies like Facebook chipping away at the web’s fundamental principles. Facebook is a closed silo. Once you’ve added your details, you cease to operate in an open market. You lose real control which threatens your very liberty and your freedom to say whatever you want.

Will we all end up like those in China, Burma or Iran - without realising it?

Berners-Lee believes the social networks constitute a danger to continued open standards and neutrality. Perhaps, Duncan Bannatyne’s battles with TripAdvisor are another step in curbing our freedom of expression!

However, Patricio Robles, a reporter for E-consultancy, talks about the web being a market place with multiple vendors. If you don’t like iTunes you go somewhere else. Can’t find a store you like? Well, you’re free to start your own! Robles says the belief that there are people out there who know what’s best for you, is frankly fanciful. 

Social comment is now mainstream and user based content accounts for 25% of all traffic to the websites of the top 20 global brands. These big brands wouldn’t change this for the world.

Like stone, paper, scissors, the freedom to click will continue to beat any attempts at censorship within social media sites.

Principle Sources: Kira Cochrane:. Rooms with reviews. Guardian News and Media. 25th January 2011
Tim Berners-Lee:  Long live the web.  www.scientificamerican.com 22nd November 2010
Patricio Robles: Berners-Lee: the most popular services are bad for the web. E-consultancy. 24th November 2010.
 

Some facts that might change your ideas on Social Media:

• To reach 50 Million users took Radio 38 years; TV 13 years; the internet 4 years and Facebook? 200M+ users in 1 year
• If Facebook were a country it would be the 3rd largest, behind China and India
• Facebook accounts for 50% of mobile internet traffic in the UK
• 25% of search traffic for the world’s Top 20 brands are links to user generated content
• There are 200,000,000 blogs and 34% of bloggers post opinions about brands and products
• People care more about how their social graph ranks products and services than Google ranking
• 78% of consumers trust peer recommendation. Only 14% of them trust advertisement
• Only 18% TV advertisements generate a positive ROI
• Kindle ebooks outsold paper books over Christmas
• 60 million status update on Facebook daily
• 80% companies use social media for recruitment - (e.g. LinkedIn)    

Social media is fundamentally changing the way we communicate and its rapid expansion into our everyday lives cannot be ignored. With 50% of the world’s population under the age of 30, their expectations are very different from previous generations.

Now is the time to start addressing how you will interact with your customers. How well you do this determines what they say to their friends via Facebook and Twitter and this has a significant impact on your brands and services. Word of Mouth rules!

Consumers are driving internet content and technology uptake. These consequential outcomes will invariably impact on business strategy, for both B2Cs and B2Bs.

It is not now about if you do social media, but how well you do it!

Recommended Source: Erik Qualman - Socialnomics.  20th January 2011. Reelseo.com

With your average person spending nigh on a day per month searching, blogging or using social network sites, the ability of your brand to engage them depends on how well you provide them with the choices they want, in the way they want to see them. 

In the same way, customer online activities now impinge on brands in ways previously unheard of. A good example is the magazine NME, which stopped just being a music newspaper and transformed itself into a cross-media hub for everything to do with music (using print, online, radio, mobile, TV), delivering a compelling experience wherever its audience is at. It does this so well that people see it as a vital part of their lifestyle requirements. 

NME is doing what all good brands should do - combining awareness and reach with engagement through providing a valued user experience. So forget about Ben Hur scale TV commercials (for most of us anyway) and focus more on giving customers a real reason to engage with your brand via their daily interactions with social media. 

How your brand works in the constant expansion and segmentation of digital media is opening up whole new ways for customers to find, learn and engage. Technology is the enabler (whether it be the i-player; seesaw; YouTube; mobile; i-Phone; PSP; the latest i-Phone app; your i-Google page or sharing on Twitter or Facebook) empowering customers to do whatever they like, whenever they like, so it makes sense to ensure your brand embraces the change, in all its forms. 

Source: Article by Peter James, Always On.  iMedia Connection. 18th Jan 2011.