Blog | Lead Generation, Online Marketing

Facebook does not need teenagers to survive

Over the past few weeks, the news has been full of reports about how teenagers are abandoning Facebook. Apparently it’s not cool any more – and as a result, Facebook is ‘dead and buried’ (exact quote from the researcher who led the EU study that sparked all this).

The widespread assumption is that teenagers abandoning Facebook must be a bad thing; means Facebook is passe; and spells its end.

But since when does the success or failure of any given social media platform hinge on whether teenagers like it?

The Top blog posts of 2013

Danny BermantFacebook, LinkedIn, Social media, Twitter

Here are the blog posts that you, our readers, liked best this year. Thank you again for your dedicated readership, your insightful comments, your ‘likes’ and retweets! We hope that your social media has gone from strength to strength this year, and look forward to sharing many more useful tips, strategies and reflections in 2014.

3 Horrors You Should Avoid on LinkedIn

Danny BermantLinkedIn

How to handle your social media over Christmas

Miriam ShavivSocial media

woman in santa hat You’ve worked hard all year (well, most of the year). Surely you’re allowed to switch off completely over the holidays – including taking a break from your social media campaign?

Unfortunately, the answer’s ‘probably not’. We recommend that you never allow your social media to fall completely silent, even over the Christmas break.

Nowadays, when many of us are social media addicts, you can safely assume that many of your customers will be online often, even if they’re not in the office. If you’re selling directly to consumers, this might actually be a busy period for you. And a two-week gap just does not look good.

So, how can you keep your social media going while still enjoying your holiday to the max? Here are our top tips:

Schedule some updates ahead using Hootsuite. That way, you’ll still have a presence even if you are not manually updating your accounts.
Not everything you post has to be completely fresh. Put together some round-ups of your best material from the last year.
Stick to lighter material. Even if your client is checking their Twitter feed on their iPhone during Christmas lunch, they’re probably still not interested in a heavy analysis of trends in your industry….

Why you mustn’t overly rely on Facebook to promote your business

Miriam ShavivFacebook, Social media planning

thumbs down Business Insider is running a story about how some companies have recently experienced a massive fall in their Facebook traffic, after the site tweaked the way it calculated which posts people get to see.

It speculates that Facebook was trying to deliberately sabotage the company pages – which are free – because it wants firms to pay for ads instead.

Whether or not this is true, the lesson is clear: It is dangerous to rely too much on any one social media platform to promote your business, because they can change their rules at any minute – and leave your entire marketing strategy devastated. This is as true for Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ and all the rest as it is for Facebook.

So how do you develop an online campaign with better immunity to the whims of others?

What social media trend will be most significant in 2014?

Danny BermantFacebook, Google, LinkedIn, SEO, Social media, Twitter, Youtube

We are delighted to welcome some of the UK’s top online experts to the Brainstorm Digital blog, to share their insight into the rapidly changing landscape of social media. Today they tell us what trends you must prepare for in 2014 to keep up with the competition!

Click here to read what trends they believe dominated in 2013.

Danny Bermant: Social media will become a lead generation tool

Danny Bermant

Businesses will stop looking down on social media as a marketing tool and start treating it as a lead-generation tool. Directors, particularly those in a sales role, have tended to treat social media as a time-wasting exercise where you engage in endless chatter with customers but don’t actually generate any business. That is all changing for two reasons:

LinkedIn now has a proven track record as a lead-generation tool. In one survey, it was shown to convert nearly 3% of visitors into leads. Sales staff who previously made cold calls can either connect directly to prospects or be referred through contacts in their social networks
Social media analytics have vastly improved. It’s now far easier to track the conversion of social interactions into sales and thus prove the success of your social media campaign. The days of using analytics simply to see how many visitors came to your site and the top pages they visited are also long gone. It’s now possible to track how individual prospects are using your website, allowing you to tailor the ads and content they see specially for them, and move them more quickly towards a sale

5 Major Ways That Law Firms Are Missing Out On New Client Opportunities through Social Media

Danny BermantLinkedIn, Social media

These are testing times for law firms in England and Wales:

Referral fee ban
Changes to “no win, no fee” regime
Cuts in legal aid funding
Potential reduction in the number of legal services providers able to be licensed for criminal legal aid
Client demand for more fixed-fee – or at least more flexible pricing models

What was the most significant development in social media in 2013?

Danny BermantFacebook, LinkedIn, SEO, Social media, Twitter

We are delighted to welcome some of the UK’s top online experts to the Brainstorm Digital blog, to share their insight into the rapidly changing landscape of social media. Today they tell us what trends they believe defined 2013 for businesses trying to grow online.

Check back here on Monday, to find out what trends they believe you must prepare for in 2014!

Danny Bermant: The Rise of Google+

Danny Bermant Google has tried for a number of years to become a serious contender among the main social networks with Google+, but had little success. In 2013, that all started to change because of something called "Google authorship". You can now link content that you publish on your website to your Google+ profile. When your website appears in Google search results, it appears with your profile photo and name (both of which link to your Google+ profile).

Having authorship not only adds a personal layer to your search engine profile, but has more credibility in Google’s eyes and so affects your website’s SEO ranking. Google has muscled its way into the social media market by stealth. If you want a top search engine ranking, you now have no choice but to use Google+

Is YouTube only for companies with large budgets?

Danny BermantSocial media, Youtube

Time and time again, businesses tell me that they don’t want to produce videos for YouTube because it costs too much money. This is a major strategic error, because YouTube is enormously influential – the second most visited search engine after Google, and the third most visited social media site after Facebook and Twitter.

No matter what business you’re running, in (virtually) every sector, YouTube can be a useful part of your marketing effort. The key is not your budget or special effects, but creating the kind of video that will resonate with the types of potential clients you are trying to reach, and promoting it properly so that they can find it.

With a good-quality HD camera, you can easily create:

An interview with your CEO, or perhaps with one of your grateful clients
A recording of your latest speech or performance
Footage of your team volunteering with the charity your business supports
A series of useful tips about your area of expertise
Demonstrations of how to use your product
A tour of a particularly interesting corner of your manufacturing plant, or behind-the-scenes in your shop
A ‘day in the life’ of one of your workers

5 ways businesses on social media can learn from journalists

Miriam ShavivSocial media

Journalist How do you produce great content for your social media programme?

It’s easy. Think like a journalist.

Now, I know what you are thinking. Easier said than done… I know nothing about journalism… Heck, I don’t even read a daily newspaper anymore.

So let me — the former journalist — help you out (yes, even if you’ve never set foot in a newsroom).

In recent years, it has become clear that one of the best ways to build your business online is to publish top-notch material that your potential clients really care about and find genuinely useful (usually on your blog). By giving them information they truly want and need, you build a close connection with them and eventually convert them into clients.

The industry name for this is “content marketing”.

The companies that are doing this best are effectively turning into online publishers – even if they are in a completely unrelated sector, for example selling soft drinks (watch Coca Cola’s inspirational content manifesto here ).

But even if you’re running a smaller operation, you need to produce regular, good-quality copy, and that’s where journalistic skills come in.

Facebook does not need teenagers to survive

3 Horrors You Should Avoid on LinkedIn

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