All posts by Gazz

Sunday driver or racing ace?

February 13, 2012 | Comments (1)

Ben Verinder of the AoC on the importance of measurement and diagnostics in education marketing…

In a recent Association of Colleges Briefing for members we published a list of (hopefully) useful links to organisations specialising in studying the evaluation and measurement of communications. We did so as a response to a steady growth in requests for advice from College PR and marketing teams on meaningful metrics and targets.

This is an encouraging trend – professional communicators make decisions based on real facts (rather than, say, the media consumption habits of the Chair of Governors’ wife). Measurement allows a team to understand what worked and what did not and to demonstrate the contribution of communication channels to corporate goals. The first is central to continuous improvement, the second to what Westminster Council’s communications team calls ‘boardroom credibility’. (Talking of Westminster Council, they may be having a bit of reputational trouble with parking but they’re in fifth gear when it comes to evaluation.)

Less encouraging are the difficulties that too many College communicators face in attempting to measure and demonstrate impact. Some find themselves stuck in the budget bus-lane: funding won’t stretch to digital, social or traditional media monitoring tools or to reputation measurement any more sophisticated than student satisfaction surveys, and so the circuit of underinvestment continues. Without these tools it is very difficult to demonstrate impact and successfully negotiate for increased capacity.

So we see marketing departments without access to the Google analytics data of their websites, PR officers who have no idea of the audience reach of target media, communications directors unable to measure corporate reputation among key publics and thus demonstrate the result of (or, often, the need for) a PR campaign. If they can’t measure the impact of their work, how can the finance director understand what they are driving at?

For other teams, there’s a deep, dark pothole separating corporate and communications planning. Sometimes this a reflection of the qualifications of the senior manager overseeing communications; in our 2007 and 2010 studies of College communications, two-thirds of those looking after the public relations portfolio did not possess a public relations qualification. Sometimes it’s a reflection of what is called the ‘encroachment’ of marketing over other communications functions. In the same study, 70% of respondents said they have a marketing plan, but no PR or communications plan. Yet their College corporate objectives can only be achieved with the support of internal or corporate communications – whether it’s improving employee engagement, building the College reputation among key publics vital to a planning application (through social media, perhaps) or dealing with an emerging crisis. To put it another way, if your organisation doesn’t care about or understand your route-map then you are unlikely to be asked to take the driving seat.

For teams struggling with challenges like these, there is some good news. Firstly, take solace in the fact that you are not alone. More usefully, there’s a growth in sources of advice on low cost effective measurement and evaluation – including some specialist free-to-access blogs and social media groups. In some regions Colleges and other public sector bodies are tentatively sharing monitoring services. AoC regularly negotiates member discounts on media monitoring products too. For some Colleges, the outlook for professional communications has been transformed by the arrival of a senior manager with the right professional qualifications who can drive their agenda at board level. Sometimes training and development within the team – whether it’s a CIPR or PRCA or CIM course – is the best motor for change.

Whatever a team’s situation – and here I must apologise for driving the idioms a lap too far – graduating from Sunday driver to racing ace generally involves focussing less on the usual tactics and PR ‘stunts’ and more on diagnostics and longer-term strategy.

National Apprenticeships Week round-up

February 10, 2012 | Comments (0)

One of the highlights of this week for us has been the excellent social media campaign for National Apprenticeships Week which ran from 6th-10th February.

Centered around social media giant Twitter, the National Apprenticeships Service used different “themes” for each day of the week, such as; the benefits of doing apprenticeships, thank you messages, and how people got their dream job via the scheme.

People were encouraged to tweet @apprenticeships with their experiences/thoughts about the scheme according to the day’s themes and to use the hashtag #NAW2012 (hashtags are a way of giving a tweet a “topic” – you are saying “my tweet is about #NAW2012 and I want people to know that and be able to search for it”.

The Results

Almost 3,000 mentions on Twitter
Trended in top 10 UK topics on Monday
Over 500 related events around the UK celebrating apprenticeships
135,000 hits to website in 5 days
Massive press interest nationally

We were really pleased to see such an important issue really ignite people’s passion on social networking sites – we all love sharing funny stuff, or things about ourselves/our own interests, but it’s always refreshing to see something that benefits the nation, people and economy having such a presence in the social media sphere. Top job NAS! Looking forward to next year…

Social Media terms and resources

January 16, 2012 | Comments (0)

Don’t know your API from your “Lurker”? Never fear, inspired by the ultimate list from hubspot, here are Net Natives’ very own list of all the social media terms. You’ll find a bunch of useful links here as well as some key terms explained – happy reading!

AddThis – This is a simple and free way to share content from your website on popular social networks. It has built in analytics so you can see what is most popular, and what is being said about it.

Application Programming Interface (API) – Means that a website/app allows others to interact with it. Twitter has an API – that’s how you get loads of programs that can run it for you!

Analytics – Measuring, collecting and analysing web data to create a picture of web usage, such as visits to a website, which pages are popular, where are visits coming from .

Algorithm – Set of formulas a computer uses to carry out a function. You don’t need to know the details but you will hear the term e.g. “Google has changed it’s search algorithm”

Avatar – An image that represents you online. Not used as much as before as the term “profile picture” is big with Facebook, but it’s still a relevant term on many sites.

“Beyond the Wall” strategy – Not everyone will “like” you! A good “Beyond the wall” strategy involves creating destinations within Facebook that don’t rely on “like” as the sole marketing call to action. Apps/custom tabs and more.

Bitly – Free service to shorten those lengthy web addresses so you can squeeze them into shorter posts!

Blog – From the words “web log”, a blog is a series of posts about a certain topic. Think of it like a mini online magazine. This can be someones life, food, a business, education, anything! Anyone can do one and many huge corporations have them, even Facebook!

Blogger – Googles own blog making site. Also a term for someone who writes a blog!

Blog Talk Radio – Online service where users can host and stream their own online radio show.

BoardReader – This allows you to search the web for keywords but only searching posts within discussion forums. Helps you to find mentions you may not otherwise see!

Bookmarking – Saving web pages you find interesting in one central location so you can easily access them. Many sites facilitate social sharing too – try www.delicious.com

Chat – Communication in real-time over the internet – the term usually refers to text-based services. Can be group or one on one, and more modern versions include video/audio. AKA “instant messaging”

Circles – Custom groups of Google+ users that you can make, and share selectively with. You can make circles for colleagues, friends, family, courses, anything.

Collective Intelligence – An emerging trend in social media; a shared intelligence that emerges from collaboration and interaction.

Comment – A reply by a user on a social platform, usually in reaction to a post, video or image. One of the key factors in Engagement in social media.

Connections on LinkedIn – Their equivalent of friends on Facebook. The key difference being they are business contacts, not personal.

Delicious – Online bookmarking service to keep your favourite web pages and share with others

Digg – Social news site, members can submit and vote for articles, the most popular go on the front page and get the most exposure, helping to drive viral spread

Ebook – A book published digitally, most often in as a PDF. Used frequently in marketing, often giving out good free content in exchange for marketing information such as email address.

Eventbrite – Advertise your events with this website and sell tickets if you want. Free for free events.

Facebook – The largest social media website in the world with over 800 million users. Connect with friends and share everything from photos to music tastes. Massively important in advertising.

Flickr – Online photo sharing community. Budding photographers, professionals and the general public can share photos via groups, posts and more.

Followers – People who are following your tweets on Twitter

Forums – Internet message boards, one of the oldest types of social web experience. Usually built into a website with some kind of common theme. Less popular nowadays due to users commenting on Facebook etc.

#FollowFriday (#FF) – On Fridays on Twitter, a lot of users post usernames of their recommendations of who to follow, along with the hashtag #FollowFriday or #FF.

FourSquare – A location based networking site. Users can connect with people based on proximity, show where they have been and so on. Not unsimilar to Facebook places.

Friends – The people you are friends with on Facebook! For some people, these are real friends only. Others may include acquaintances, and even strangers, it’s up to you!

Google+ – One of the newer social media networks. Google+ is deeply integrated into search on the main Google site, and enables some clever selective sharing.

Google Docs – An online document editing suite, free, and enables collaboration and sharing between multiple users

Google Reader – Pull through the content from a variety of blogs and RSS feeds and put it into one place for your convenience. No more flicking between news sites!

Gowalla - Another location based networking site. Users can connect with people based on proximity, show where they have been and so on. Not

Gumtree – A free classified site. Not social as such, but very popular and there are paid advertising opportunities via the platform.

Hangout – A free video conferencing feature on Google+

Hashtag (#) – A way of saying outright what the “topic” of a tweet is. If you want your tweet to be “about” the TV show LOST, you could put #Lost. This differentiates it from a more casual mention.

Hootsuite – Manage multiple social media platforms with this great web-based software. Schedule updates, monitor keywords and more! Free basic version.

Inside Facebook – Website all about new Facebook developments, tips and tricks etc.

Instagram – iPhone photo sharing app, that shares content to Flickr, Facebook, Twitter and other networks. Has funky photo effects built in for retro camera fun!

Instant Messaging (IM) – Communication in real-time over the internet – the term usually refers to text-based services. Can be group or one on one, and more modern versions include video/audio. AKA “chat”

Klout – A website service that measures “social influence” – how important you are in social media!

Last.fm – A social music website. Users “scrobble” their music tastes (let their computer send info to the web) and it produces charts of most popular artists, songs etc, and users can interact with each other and artists.

Lifecasting – Broadcasting a continual stream of a persons life via social media!

Like – Users on Facebook can click “like” on a post, publicly declaring their approval of something. Other people see that someone has done this and hence helps promote spreading. The more likes something has, the more prominent Facebook will place it in peoples news feeds.

Link Building – Strategy to get more links pointing to your website, to increase Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). A popular way of this is to use blogging sites (your own, or others) to do so.

LinkedIn – A social network based on business contacts, aimed at enhancing your career rather than popularity. Used for online CVs, job applications, advertising and more nowadays, very important.

LinkedIn Today – A social news service provided within linked in, and by email. Based on sharing popularity of stories within the site.

Lurker – Someone who views social content (forums, facebook etc) but does not usually interact with it. Just because no-one comments – doesn’t mean no-one is reading!

Mashable – Heavyweights in the blogging world. One of the leaders in technology and news, they have a special social media section too.

Meme – A repeating thought or idea that features on the internet. Various hashtags could be memes, as could “I can haz cheezburger?” from Lolcats.

@mention - Users direct messages publicly at each other on Twitter by writing the @ symbol followed by the username(s) of people you are addressing

Monitoring – Actively searching for mentions of a certain thing online. Usually, you, your competitors, or your specialist area. Achieved via searches on various sites, and can be automated with software such as Hootsuite.

MySpace – Once the king of social media, until its crown was stolen by Facebook. Originally very innovative and still a relevant platform for music and film. Part owned by Justin Timberlake!

News Feed – A list of what is going on within a given site, where you can see updates by your connections/friends/people you follow. Often the default “home” page of the site once you have logged in.

Net Natives – That’s us! We are digital marketing experts specialising in the education sector, amongst other things; clients include CERN, The Guardian and G4S Olympics 2012, as well as over 70 college/universities.

“On The Wall” strategy – Our term to refer to your social content strategy for your Facebook wall, i.e. what you are posting, why, who for, etc. Important to have an “on the wall” and a “beyond the wall” strategy in place.

Permalink – A permanent web address, often ascribed to a blog article, and made SEO friendly where possible

Podcast – A non-live media stream, most commonly audio. May be a radio show, comedy, anything really.

Posterous – Post to multiple social media platforms, just by sending an email!

Places – Function on Facebook where people can interact with Pages via their physical location – allows people to “check-in” and share where they are, and tag photos based on where they were taken, let businesses show up on maps, and much more.

Real-time search – Search that displays brand new results without a delay, so will pick up emerging up-to-date articles.

Reddit – Like Digg, another social news site based on submission, comments, sharing.

Retweet – Where a Twitter user decides to share your original tweet with their own followers. This helps to “get your name out there”. Only happens if your content is decent!

RSS Feed (Really Simple Syndication) – A standard format to output frequently updated content such as blogs and newsletters. This is then interpretted by an RSS reader for you to see it. Means you can pull content from many places without you having to visit them!

RSS Reader – A piece of software that displays RSS Feeds for you to read. Such as Google Reader.

Scribd – Online service to convert documents into a web viewable format for easier sharing

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) – The process of improving your website so that it ranks higher in search results and hence gets more traffic

Seesmic – Social media client for web and mobile so you can post to multiple sites and keep up to date

Sentiment – Social “attitude” towards something e.g. a company. Can be positive or negative.

Skype – instant messaging and voice calling program. Popular due to enabling international voice chat over the net for free assuming you have a broadband connection.

Slideshare – Upload presentations online and share on social networks

Social Media – Media which is intended for distribution via social channels – turning communication from a one-way to a two way street

Social Media Examiner – great news blog website about social media, does a newsletter too

Stumbleupon – A website to find interesting content on the web. Ideal for sharing to promote engagement.

Timeline (Facebook) – The new (2011-12) version of a profile – best described as a “scrapbook of your life”. Can be navigated by year, location and gives a rich experience compared to previous profile designs.

Timeline (Twitter) – The news feed showing who is tweeting what, organised chronologically

Trend – When a topic or word becomes popular, it is “trending”. Twitter displays trending topics in its own Trend section; Facebook increases exposure to stories the more popular they are.

Tumblr – A blogging site for users to share thoughts, ideas and media about any subject

Tweepz – A search engine to find relevant Twitter users to interact with

Tweetdeck – Another great web/mobile app to post across different social media networks

Twitter – Micro-blogging site where users share 140-character long messages to their “followers”.

Twitter Chat – Using #hashtags to denote the topic, may be one off or regular and often to coincide with events such as a conference. Allows unconnected users to all converge on a central theme.

Twitter Search – On Twitter you can search real time to see what people are saying that very moment about a topic

UStream – Service to stream live videos. Great to promote events, competitions etc.

URL (Uniform Resource Locator) – The tech term for a “web address”

Video Blog – Like a mini TV show but published via the internet, usually around a central theme. Rising in popularity due to easy mobile access, connection speed etc.

Vimeo – Video sharing site. Like YouTube but does not allow commercial content.

Viral – The term for when something gets spread from person to person at an impressive rate (typically funny videos etc) – spreading like a virus is the analogy.

Webinar – An way of doing an online meeting, often to demonstrate software or techniques by sharing a computer screen over the net. Multiple users can participate.

Wiki – A type of website that is editable by multiple people to allow collaboration and collective knowledge

Wikipedia – The most famous Wiki, an encyclopaedia for the whole world updating daily by thousands of people in all areas of expertise.

WordPress – A blog software that can be used standalone to write a blog or within a website as a CMS.

Yelp – Once the Yellow Pages, Yelp allows for users to recommend/review businesses

YouTube – The biggest video sharing site. Great for serious searches and also time wasting!

Guardian, CERN and G4S/London 2012 nominated for Innovation awards!

January 16, 2012 | Comments (0)

“So what?” you may ask. Well, the one thing that they all have in common, is that they are Net Natives clients! Find out how our innovative social media technology and marketing is helping these clients win these nominations below…

G4S London 2012

Net Natives utilised innovative recruitment practices to attract security staff for G4S Olympics 2012, delivering a marketing campaign across online and social channels including a content strategy for engagement within Facebook.

Social channels and conversation tracking were researched to identify best return for candidates, and a branded Facebook page (able to render apps, FAQ’s, with content management system) focused on “applications” rather than “likes”; keeping applications within Facebook, increasing viral visibility and engagement.

Targeted online adverts on relevant forums built 3,800 connections to the new page. We provided content strategy achieving a “talking about this” of 652, and a social reach of 1.5 million. Our advertising accounted for the majority of candidate traffic to the campaign, and the Facebook page has become the focus for enquiries and feedback.

READ THE CASE STUDY

Guardian Jobs

Net Natives have built a Facebook application that enables users to search jobs published on the Guardian Jobs site. Guardian Jobs are able to leverage their high facebook fan base (around 300k fans across all pages), and jobs app functionality.

The launch of this app follows the success of the Guardian’s Facebook app which has been installed by more than 4 million users. Guardian Jobs is responding to increased client demand for Social Media recruitment advertising opportunities. The app has been developed complete with a Content Management System meaning that advertisers have the opportunity to appear in jobs search pages specific to industry sectors as featured advertisers.

READ THE CASE STUDY

CERN

People at CERN are part of immense scientific discoveries, answering some of life’smost complex questions. History is being made so recruiting the top minds in the world is a priority. CERN’s new Facebook Recruitment Website and Engagement Application enables candidates to explore what it is like to work at CERN and has resulted in increased quality and conversion of job applications.

Our Facebook Brand Strategy enabled CERN to consolidate 65,000 Facebook fansonto its new, official identity, giving CERN control over its online brand presence andengagement. Our Social Media Content Strategy resulted in CERN doubling the sizeand relevance of its job audience.

READ THE CASE STUDY

Facebook is the new phone-in…

January 13, 2012 | Comments (0)

Forget all the controversy over paying for votes (that don’t count!) in television competitions. That’s old news. We’re talking about the “classic” phone-in – the public’s opportunity to have their few minutes of fame and give their opinions to the masses.

What do you most hate about roadworks?
Have you ever had a cowboy builder?
Should celebrities diet?

It’s always interesting to hear other peoples views – and even more so when we disagree with them! It’s always been the charm of these shows (This Morning, The Wright Stuff) and here at Net Natives we think we can draw some inspiration here for how to use our Facebook wall or Twitter.

Get that “phone” to RING!

We know how important engagement is… it’s pretty much THE benchmark to look at to see how well you are doing on social media. The more engaged your users are, the more connected they are to your brand. Plus, like breeds like – high engagement means more people will get to see your content, as it will gain higher newsfeed priority, more shares/retweets and so on.

Here’s the big secret…. (drum roll)

The way to get your engagement up is to post content that will entice people to comment!

Yes that sounds simple, and to be honest, it is.

Questions, wacky statements, images/video, competitions, polls, you name it.

Imagine your Facebook wall is a phone, and you want it to RING. And you want it to ring ALL DAY, with interested, engaged users commenting/liking/tweeting away on the other end! Imagine that phone EVERY time you post on Facebook or Twitter, and do your absolute best to get it going.

PEOPLE LIKE TO BE HEARD – SO GIVE THEM A VOICE!

Of course, there are limits

Just be sensible. We’re not suggesting you turn your wall into a one-man jokeathon or spend all day asking for opinions on things that are nothing to do with your business, or even worse, completely put your foot in it and mention a topic that you really don’t want to associate with yourselves.

But there is a lot of scope for you to have a bit of fun. Films/Tv/Music/games/food. Find ways you can link to these topics that are at least tenuously relevant. Here’s an example, the type of thing I’d put, to crowbar a famous celebrity into a status:

“So, you’re on a desert island. On your own. You’re allowed to have access to either Facebook or Twitter… which would you take? Which can’t you do without and why?”

You get the idea. It’s all just about having fun and starting a chat. And then, keep it going!

Just keep that “phone” ringing, and you’ll never look back…

“This Morning” would be proud

NET NATIVES are experts in “on the wall” social media content strategy and can help YOU get the best results with your Facebook engagement. EMAIL US or give us a ring on 01273 783 847 to find out more about what we can do for you!

“Listen to music with your friends on Facebook”… implications for advertising

January 13, 2012 | Comments (0)

Facebook just announced another really cool little feature.

It’s now possible to almost “eavesdrop” on people music listening, thanks to the new “Listen with…” function they have attached to music apps such as Spotify.

Don’t panic – you won’t get caught out for your secret Spice Girls habit (probably), as far as we know you have to enable this in your music player. But it’s undoubtedly going to lead to the discovery of lots of new music for people. The success of sites like Last.fm do go to show that people enjoy being educated in terms of songs!

All you have to do is watch the chat sidebar, and you will see “Listen With” links come up, denoted by a musical note next to their name. Then just click the link in the pop-up window. Hey presto, you are now following their music choice – you’ve got your own personal DJ. You can chat with them too, so you could make requests as well!

Adverts on Spotify

This could be good news for advertisers on Spotify, if they are targeting their ads against music genre or location. Any technology that means additional like-minded people are exposed to your advertising can only be a good thing!

What if this approach goes on to video?

We can see some big potential here. You know those massive viral videos like the fairly recent Old Spice advert? They spread fast, but imagine how fast they could spread if people started watching them together LIVE.

Presently, vids go viral by more deliberate shares, but the potential for staggeringly fast spread would be HUGE if somehow YouTube was integrated in the same way and you could see what your friends were watching, and join them live.

Advertisers – watch out for this one!

All posts by Gazz

Sunday driver or racing ace?