George Clooney

EOnline.com, Sept. 13, 2009

"I'd rather have a rectal examination on live TV by a fellow with cold hands than have a Facebook page."

Having just read a book (Robopocalypse) about computers and machines ganging up on humanity and wreaking havoc, I have to say I can relate to the growing chasm between technology lovers and technology haters.  I'm not sure if the anger/hatred is really about what Facebook, Twitter, iPhones, Google Maps, etc. stand for.  I mean, people still talked, liked what other people said, stuck pins on a map 100 years ago, right?

Basically, I think some people simply prefer old tools to new ones.  Fair enough.  Being an integrated marketing agency, our job is to effectively communicate using many different methods. The communications channels keep changing, as do the people who fall in love with this channel or that channel.  While the essence of the message remains very much the same, each channel (and their fanboys/girls) likes it customized.  Also, each channel has inherent strengths and weaknesses.

Example

Ballistic Beach Balls Inc. wants to promote their balls.

On your website, you'd create a banner on the homepage which links to your product page(s).  You'd also write a blog post that talks about the Beach Ball Sales Event - what it's all about, what makes Ballistic balls so great, and what's up for grabs with your contests, etc.  Think of your website as your digital homebase.  Your other marketing channels should somehow point back home.

In the Newspaper, you'd run a Ballistic Ball Sales Event (including a "signup at www.ballistic.com" or something)

On the Radio, you'd announce your Ballistic Balls Sales Event (including a "learn more at www.ballistic.com" or something)

On Facebook, you'd run a contest for fans to submit there funniest "beach ball" photos.  Winner gets a new Ballistic Beach Ball. (Easy/fun contests get talked about can really take off on Facebook.)

On Twitter, you'd post a link to a crazy YouTube video showing Ernie the sealion playing with 3 beach balls.  Your little button or promo appears at the end. (Funny videos get passed or "Retweeted" pretty often, which is great word of mouth)

In an email, you'd briefly mention all of the above, and provide links so people can follow-up with their preferred communications channels.

In person, you'd tell people about the crazy sealion video and have a laugh, or "Hey, you (or your kids) should enter our Facebook contest!" People don't need a strategy with their friends, they simply share stuff they like.  It's that simple.

On the phone with a reseller, you'd share the awesome stuff you're doing to promote Ballistic Beach Balls which should drive demand - aka, better order a 1000 cuz they'll be popular this summer.

At an event, you'd get your friend George Clooney (or an Okanagan Sun player) to endorse your beach balls, while announcing that your company is donating 100 to Kelowna General Hospital children's ward.

In the local press, you'd submit a story using content from all of the above.  Maybe you'd get free newspaper, radio, or TV coverage... who knows?

On the internet, you'd share your knowledge on other sites, and online communities, promoting your product while being genuine and not a selfish spammer.

Okay, okay... enough!  This is way oversimplified, but you get the idea.  Each channel is treated differently, but they all integrate with each other.

Moral of the Story: Do your customers hate Facebook (or whatever channel) as much as you do?  Lucky! Stick with what works, but it could change pretty fast so keep your eyes peeled. Do your customers love a communications channel that you hate?  Your business is going to suffer, unless you adapt.  Find someone that "gets it" and let them run that part of your business.

Other Famous Technophobes & Haters

President Barack Obama
_{Hampton University commencement speech, May 10, 2010}

"With iPods and iPads and Xboxes and Playstations - none of which I know how to work - information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means of emancipation."

Keira Knightley
_{Daily Telegraph, Apr 13, 2009}

"I hate the Internet. I find it dehumanizing to constantly check e-mails or social sites which have become so fashionable."

Prince
_{Daily Mirror, May 7, 2010}

"All these computers and digital gadgets are no good. They just fill your head with numbers, and that can't be good for you."

Ray Bradbury
_{Los Angeles Times, Aug. 16, 2010}

"We have too many cell phones. We've got to get rid of those machines. We have too many machines now.

Edward Albee
_{Vice, Dec. 2010}

"I walk along the streets of New York and I find people bumping into each other, bumping into things, and they have these things in their ears or in their face. They're not seeing anything of the real world."

Jack White
_{NME.com, Apr. 6, 2010}

"In my head, I'm still living and working as if there is no Internet and treat it as a nuisance."

Drew Barrymore
_{Nylon, Aug. 2010}

"Ironically, with all this 'We're now more connected than ever with technology,' I don't think we've ever been farther apart."

Social Media is a hot marketing topic this year in Kelowna! The number of inquiries we get about using social media for marketing has quadrupled in 2011. We have seen some media coverage in the traditional press too (see Face to Face is a click away). In the past year, we've had a chance to leverage social media as a marketing tactic for a number of businesses in Kelowna have witnessed very positive results in general. This article digs into some stats about social media's effectiveness vs. other forms of online marketing. It's interesting to see how the different tactics stack up, as well as the shifts over the last year.

In a recent survey by eMarketer.com, small to medium businesses (SMB) in the U.S. were asked several questions about their online marketing efforts and their effectiveness.

Small Business Still Prefer "Traditional" Online Marketing Tactics

From the survey, SMBs are still more likely to say they found new customers by using websites (85.8%), over email (74.3%), and search marketing (74%). Web sites are considered a more “traditional” online marketing tactic and are well entrenched in the marketing programs of most companies whether a site operates as an online brochure, order system or supports the full sales cycle.

Is Satisfaction in Online Marketing Decreasing?

Despite the rise in use of online marketing, SMBs surveyed indicate that satisfaction with many of these channels is decreasing.

Specifically, large decreases in satisfaction were seen in audio podcasts (-53%), webcasts/webinars (-44%), Twitter (-38%), Linked In (-36%), Banner/display ads (-34%) and Blog (-32%).

Are Internet Users Changing Their Behaviour?

While new online marketing programs by inexperienced marketers are going to be less effective, this doesn’t account for such a huge decrease in so many of the online marketing tactics.  Instead these decreases suggest a change in behaviour by Internet users in obtaining information. This change in behaviour is both a reflection on the increased maturity of the average Internet user, the amount of time users are willing to spend looking for something, as well as the ever increasing use of mobile Internet devices.

• Users are more aware of paid advertising including banner/display ads and search marketing (PPC);
• Users are less tolerant of lengthy sales pitches such as podcasts and webinars however informative. Instead users are turning to quicker ways to obtain the information they need, often on a “just-in-time” basis.
• Use of mobile Internet devices has increased to the point where users aren’t looking for information until they actually arrive at their destination, often using tools like Gowalla and Foursquare which alert you to sales and deals near your current location.  This focus on location based marketing is also seen in the popularity of coupons like Groupon and Twongo, as well as the increased use of Google Places.

In fact, the survey statistics show that new channels made up for these decreases, including emailing offers, Google Places, Groupon and other coupon sites, mobile marketing, and location services like Foursquare. These are all new entries on the list for 2011 and yet they all have between a 25% and 50% effectiveness rate according to the SMBs surveyed.

A Key Advantage When Marketing Online: (Nearly) Everything Measurable!

Many of these new marketing tactics are more measurable than some of the earlier tactics. It is far easier to measure the number of Groupon coupons sold or Foursquare discount coupons used over the number of sales resulting from Blog and Podcast consumption. Similarly, savvy Kelowna businesses are taking more interesting email open rates, click-through rates to gauge newsletter performance.  Perhaps this is why small businesses are jumping on these new tactics in such large numbers.

Popular email management tools like Constant Contact have great tracking and measure the number of email opens and internal link clicks on each email campaign. Website analytics software like Google Analytics enables business to see the number of visitors, clicks, time spent, and online purchases.

What does this mean for Kelowna businesses?

The move away from less measurable and out-of-vogue methods of communication towards new and often more measurable methods of communication will help businesses track the effectiveness of their online marketing efforts.  It's easier to justify spending $ on marketing when you can measure the results!

It's Free, right?

Since many of the new digital marketing channels like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and so on are seemingly cheap, small and medium sized businesses in Kelowna should certainly consider them.  Beware that "cheap" and "free" are not really good descriptions of these tools.  Your time is worth money!

Here's a few pointers to get started...

• Create clearly defined goals for your online marketing plan
• Identify your audience (Hint: Use the marketing channels, tools, and websites that your customers are ALREADY using)
• Understand that social media is a 2-way communications channel... it's a party line, not a megaphone
• Do a batch process (eg. write a whole week's worth of content for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn on Monday morning and schedule the release using a tool like Hootsuite)
• Measure the results (Who is clicking on your links in the updates? Do people ask more questions? Do they call for an appointment?  Do they walk in the door?)
• Integrate social media efforts with things like blogs posts, email blasts, in-store contests, special events, radio, print, and video
• Consider hiring a company if your time is better spent elsewhere!

Here are some of the latest social networking and social media stats for 2011, this time for Twitter. Click here if you missed our Facebook stats post.

• Twitter's web platform only accounts for a quarter of its users - 75% use third-party apps.
• Twitter gets more than 300,000 new users every day.
• There are currently 100 million users of Twitter's services.
• Twitter receives 180 million unique visits each month.
• There are more than 600 million searches on Twitter every day.
• Twitter started as a simple SMS-text service.
• Over 60% of Twitter use is outside the U.S.
• There are more than 50,000 third-party apps for Twitter.
• Twitter has donated access to all of its tweets to the Library of Congress for research and preservation.
• More than a third of users access Twitter via their mobile phone.

Statistics from Twitter and the Chirp Conference.

Social Media Marketing for Kelowna Businesses

The Okanagan newspaper recently published an article on a presentation James gave at  a Kelowna Chamber of Commerce breakfast meeting on using Social Media in Business. The article is a great summary of the key points given at the meeting:

• Use your social media accounts - 15 minutes a day is a good place to start (a tool like Hootsuite will greatly help)
• Offer tips, tidbits and advice to build your trust levels - offer real value in the form of free information
• Once you have followers who appreciate what you are putting out there, the odd business pitch is fine - but it's a fine line
• Build brand awareness by digital word of mouth - earn the right to be talked about and your customers will carry your flag
• Use social media to direct people to your website or store - it's a great promotional channel that businesses should use

If you're feeling lost or would rather outsource social media marketing, give us a shout at 250-762-4001.  We'd be happy to help.

To read the article click on it below if you've got a magnifying glass handy.

Here are some of the latest social networking and social media stats for 2011.

• The average Facebook user has 130 friends.
• More than 25 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums, etc) is shared each month.
• Over 300,000 users helped translate the site through the translations application.
• More than 150 million people engage with Facebook on external websites every month.
• Two-thirds of comScore's U.S. Top 100 websites and half of comScore's Global Top 100 websites have integrated with Facebook.
• There are more than 100 million active users currently accessing Facebook through their mobile devices.
• People that access Facebook via mobile are twice as active than non-mobile users (think about that when designing your Facebook page).
• The average Facebook user is connected to 60 pages, groups and events.
• People spend over 500 billion minutes per month on Facebook.
• there are more than 1 million entrepreneurs and developers from 180 countries on Facebook.

Statistics from Facebook press office.

by Brad Trites, Account Manager, Twin Creek Media

I am going to make a very bold statement: “There is no marketing tool available to small businesses more powerful than Facebook”. I guess after making a pretty big statement like that, I better support it.

As a small business owner, the last time you took out a really expensive full-page ad in your city’s most popular phone directory or ran a TV or radio ad, did it provide you with constant referrals? Did your clients receive timely updates about new products that you are carrying or your daily specials? What about actively building your brand awareness, did it do that for you? A properly managed business page on Facebook has the ability to do all of these things and a lot more without having to be that word that all small businesses dread, “expensive”.

A Trusted Source
For most businesses the best source of new clients is usually referrals. When a friend tells you that they really like a certain restaurant, you are more likely to try it out. On Facebook, you follow a business’s page by clicking that page’s “Like” button. When you do this, your action is posted in the News Feed of your friends. You essentially just told all of those people, “I LIKE this and you should check it out!”. Since you are an interesting person with great taste, some of your friends will do just that, and guess what? If they hit “Like”, they will automatically tell all of their friends. Some of those people will take things one step further and even visit your website and possibly become a real customer.

Daily Special
Most businesses are constantly changing. They begin to carry new products. They run new promotions. They win an award. They have product tips or advice to share. They land new clients. These are all pieces of information that a small business wants their customers to know about as quickly as possible. Not only that, this is information that your customers want to know about! Facebook gives small businesses the ability to communicate in real time to their customers. This is key in helping you strengthen relationships with your customers and build customer loyalty.

Tag you’re it!
Once your small business has it’s own Facebook page and you have managed to get a couple of hundred people to “Like” it, the next step is to engage your fans and turn them into your own marketing army. If you post compelling content on your page, there’s a good chance that some of your followers will repost your items, “Like” it, Tag it, or Comment on it. Every time someone does one of these things, your brand gets placed in front of another large audience. Even if the majority of those people take no action themselves with the content, the more they see your name the greater their awareness of your brand becomes. If you’re business was given the opportunity to place free ads in front of an audience every day, wouldn’t you go for it? That is exactly the opportunity Facebook provides small businesses.

Lasers are cool…
One of the great things about Facebook for small businesses is that ‘friends of a feather tend to flock together’. If your company’s target market is 16 year old males that skateboard, chances are that those kids that “Like” your page have a Friends List dominated by other 16 year old boys that like to skateboard. Facebook provides an extremely effective way to put your brand in front of an extremely focused intended audience. Traditional marketing tools such as TV, radio, and magazine ads command huge premiums to access such focused target markets.

NOTE: Hey marketers! Did you know that the average age of a Facebook user is closer to 40 than 14!

WARNING!
Simply setting up a Facebook business page is not enough to generate results. Like any marketing strategy, your Facebook initiative requires both commitment and planning. Compelling content needs to be regularly created and posted on your page and a two-way dialog needs to be maintained between your business and your followers. There is both an art and a science to using Facebook as a marketing tool. As such, if you are not prepared to learn what needs to be learned or able to commit the time required to manage your page, then you should strongly consider hiring a social media-marketing specialist.

Bottom Line
Social media marketing creates engaging customer experiences, drives website traffic, foot traffic, and email/phone inquiries. Although social media is primarily about sharing & relationships, it ultimately results in more sales.  Don’t forget: online marketing tactics should be integrated with your offline efforts too!

Next Steps...
At Twin Creek Media, we have setup Facebook pages for many businesses... both B2B and retailers selling direct to consumers. Facebook is just one social network among other notable ones: Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, StumbleUpon, etc. It’s best to have an online marketing strategy that defines measurable goals and uses the best tools for the job. For a primer on the big picture, see our Social Media 101 article or download our Social Media Reference Card.

Need more convincing?
A properly executed Facebook strategy has the ability to generate new customers that are well informed on your business’s developments and willing to actively market your brand on your behalf. Let’s see your telephone directory pull that one off! If you want to chat more about this topic, come visit us at the Twin Creek Media Facebook page and we’ll keep the conversation going!

Social Media Marketing is a lot easier with the right tools - organize, team share, update, schedule, and generally rock n' roll your Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn pages with Hootsuite.

Twin Creek Media has recently partnered with Hootsuite to make life easier for Okanagan businesses who market themselves on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. It is our tool of choice for social media management.  If you own or market a business in Kelowna, Vernon or Penticton, we can help you connect with other local businesses and customers through social media.  Take the conversation online, and join in the fun!

Hootsuite will save hours of pain and frustration trying to manage a bunch of different accounts and keep up with the blur of activity.  Think of Hootsuite as your Giant Hammer in a world full of Fisher Price squeaky hammers.

If you're just getting started with social media and wondering if there's any point for your business, read our Social Media 101 Guide first and download our handy Social Media Reference Card.

What's it about?

HootSuite - Social Media Dashboard. With HootSuite, you can monitor keywords, manage multiple Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Foursquare, Ping.fm and WordPress profiles, schedule messages, and measure your success.

Scheduled Updates: Optimize delivery by choosing the best time and date to reach your audience.

Monitor Mentions: See who is talking to you, and about you!  Don't miss out on what people are saying about your brand, company, and customer service (or lack of!)

Spread Messages: Update multiple networks at once... easily send your update to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn without logging into each individual account.  You can pick and choose which network is updated - you don't have to post everything everywhere.

Social on the Go: Compose and and converse on your iPhone or Android device.

Track Results: Measure success in real-time by click through to stats and exportable reports.

Team Collaboration: Manage multiple contributors without sharing passwords.

Custom Interface: Create your own lists, tabs, and colours.  Organize your information the way you want to see it.

Assign Tasks: Fine-tune your work and tasks by delegating to your team.

It's been a very busy Q2 and Q3 at Twin Creek Media.

As a Kelowna marketing agency with a special focus on internet marketing and web design, we never seem to be able to breathe long enough to update our portfolio with new launches and interesting case studies.  In this project update, we'll give a taste of what the team at Twin Creek Media has been doing over the last 6 months.  (We can't tell you all the goodies though... our clients don't want us to spill the beans about their new competitive advantages and we have trade secrets to keep!)  You'll just have to hire us to reap the rewards of an integrated marketing campaign.

We have been creating new brand identities, database-driven websites, corporate brochures, direct mail pieces, running radio campaigns, shooting videos, building blogs, and driving web traffic through email marketing, search engine optimization and pay per click tactics like Google Adwords and Facebook Ads.  Just one item in that list is powerful, but done together, business goals are targeted with a type of marketing synergy that is amazing to watch.

A Sample of Completed Projects

Okanagan Regional Library

Completely redesigned website, photography, animation, print materials, and Facebook and Twitter efforts lead to many people to rediscover the library's relevance in the 21st century | Name the Marmot Contest big hit with 3000+ kids (and their parents!)

Canadian Association of Home and Property Inspectors

Promotional videos and unique email marketing campaigns draw people to national conference at the Delta Grand Okanagan

Case Furniture Gallery

Online contests builds brand awareness & drives retail store walk ins | Local media get VIP treatment at private event

Quantech Software

Online industry survey reveals what customers really want | Targeted email marketing campaign generates many new leads

SJF Sports

Internet marketing strategy leads to blog and intense social media campaign using Facebook and Twitter | Web traffic increased by 109.4% in 2 months

Our Okanagan

New Okanagan business networking website attracts 800+ new business/association sign ups | Employment, investment, and collaboration opportunities excite valley residents Watch the recent by Global/CHBC here.

The Greenery Garden Centre

Massive online photo contest creates a fun customer experience | web traffic soars with 600+ submissions & 3000+ votes

A Sample of Current Projects

Best Western Inn Kelowna

Search Engine Marketing Analysis reveals what Google thinks |Internet marketing campaign begins to take a leading brand higher than ever

Quantech Software

SEO and Website Usability Score Cards uncover the missing ingredients that will turn "tire kickers" into buyers | Web development focuses on amazing user friendly site which supports Sales & Marketing Dept's goals

Impact Radio Accessories

Continued magazine ad design, catalogue, and eCommerce website improvements assist in great sales performance for 2010 | Work done over the last 4 years spur on international expansion

Clement Turf Farms

Strategic research and industry surveys get to the heart of exactly how where the new revenue opportunities lie | Integrated marketing campaign underway involving both digital and traditional marketing tactics

Okanagan College - Green Business Awards

Easy to use Wordpress blog-style website will help students organize and promote the local Green Business Awards competition

Last week Global Okanagan (or what some people remember as CHBC) featured a recent project that we've been heavily involved in over the past year. Called Our Okanagan, the project is a web-based local search engine and business hub that is focused on connecting local businesses and creating new opportunities for collaboration, employment, and investment.

TIP: If your business hasn't signed up yet, click the link above and create your profile!  The site is very powerful and goes beyond what you're used to seeing in a typical "business directory".  Make sure to check out the many advanced features and fill out the different sections of your profile for best results.

The project was a great experience for us and we enjoyed working with the project leaders Okanagan Partnership, and the folks at Community Futures North Okanagan.  The story aired by Global was great, but I believe the way it was edited gives us too much credit.  We were chosen as the development partner, (and Touchpoint was chosen as the branding partner) but we certainly were not the initiators or the driving force behind the project.  We feel obligated to explain these points in case anyone gets the wrong impression.

I'd like to especially thank a couple of our own staff, Thomas Berger and Cara Reed who worked tirelessly on this project and helped make it something we're very proud of.

A fun look at how the web is taking over our world

By Jennifer Thorimbert

We've been looking at this comic from XKCD today, and pondering how the web is changing relationships, and how large our social network "countries" are.  Here's a fun look at the numbers.

Facebook 3rd Largest Country by Population

That's right - with 500 million active users, if Facebook were a country, it would be the 3rd largest in the world, behind China (1.3 billion) and India (1.2 billion), but ahead of the USA (310 million). This means that you could travel anywhere in the world, and you're more likely to meet a Facebook user than an American.

Until April 2008, MySpace held the title of largest social network, and with today's MySpace user base of 66 million, it would rank as the 20th largest country by population, in between Thailand (67 million) and France (65 million).

In 140 characters or less: Twitter has 100 million users & 750 tweets/second or 65 million tweets/day.  Twitter would be 12th largest country, behind Mexico.

Farmville vs. Farming

Maybe more surprising than the Facebook and MySpace stats are those of Farmville: the most-popular app on Facebook has 60.5 million users. Almost as many people are watering pretend corn crops than are on MySpace at all. Farmville would be the 22nd largest country, coming in just behind Italy.

The International Federation of Agricultural Producers (IFAP) represents more than 600 million farmers in 79 countries. (Are you keeping track? There are more farmers worldwide than Facebook users - good news for our food production.) However, the laugh sets in when you check out IFAP on Facebook. The group isn't web-savvy enough to have a FB page, or even a group; IFAP is signed up as a person, and you have to request friendship to support them online. With 600 million IFAP members, it's sad to see they only have 879 friends (0.0000001% of their members). Meanwhile, almost 50% of Farmville users (24.5 million) have "Liked" their Fan page.

Mind Your P's and QQs

Wondering what the large QQ is on the bottom-right of the map? QQ is an instant-messaging program popular in China with more than 100 million users. Companies looking to reach a global, and particularly Chinese, market need to be aware of the popular websites and services unique to each region.

Get Your Business on the Map

How are you contacting your customers, and where do you look for new ones? If you're not on Facebook, and you're not Tweeting, you're missing out on potentially millions of opportunities. TV commercials, radio spots and magazine ads still have their place, but if you're business isn't on Facebook, many people won't come for a visit.

Remember that when your business is on Facebook, and your customers become fans, they're sharing your information with their network, and their network's network. Start playing the Six Degrees of Separation, and soon you've reached 500 million users.

Where do I start?

Not sure how to start tweeting or the best way to connect on Facebook? Contact us today to put together a social media plan - including strategy, training, and your first month's posts - for your business.