Twitter timelines follow a chronological timelines, with the time that a given tweet was made being the only claim to prominence; the older a tweet gets, less noticeable it is. Given the sheer volume of tweets some users receive, it’s quite natural for your followers to miss a good degree of your tweets. On the other hand, Facebook’s EdgeRank algorithm prioritizes each users’s news feeds with respect to the user’s interests; thus, if you’re not creating content that’s consistently interesting to your friends or followers, chances are you won’t show on their news feeds or their ‘walls’.

Social Media Marketing: The Importance of Content

The above mentioned facts make a strong case, more than ever, for compelling and relevant social media content.

Those facts make a good case for the need to write compelling social media content. They also underscore the value of converting your social media followers into SMS- and email-marketing subscribers. As people who have a genuine, expressed interest in your products and services, your fans and followers are the perfect targets for those efforts.

By recruiting your social fans and followers to your email and SMS lists, you can forge deeper relationships with them by offering more personalized and targeted content than you ever could via social media alone.

You can also increase the likelihood that your communications will be read—particularly in the case of SMS, since 83% of all text messages are read within an hour of being received.

How Social Media Marketing can Help Your e-mail and SMS Marketing Efforts

Here are five steps to accelerating your email and SMS list subscriptions using social media.

1. Reel in ‘friends’ and ‘followers’

Publicize your presence on Facebook and Twitter in your stores, on your website, and in your ads. Facebook ads are another cost-effective way to get more fans. Entice people to “fan” or “follow” you by offering them exclusive content and special they won’t find anywhere else, and emphasize giveaways and discounts.

One study found that 37% of Facebook users “Like” fan pages just to receive coupons and deals. “Liking” (Facebook) or following (Twitter) you is a lighter commitment for customers than opting in to your SMS or mobile lists. By acquiring social followers and offering them relevant deals, you can help them see the value in joining your lists.

2. Leverage Social Media to convert fans and followers into subscribers

Dedicate a permanent tab on your Facebook account to a Web form that people can complete to join your email or SMS lists, and tweet a link to your form on Twitter. To grow your lists quickly, offer incentives for filling out the form. For instance, Signal customer Culver’s, a Midwestern fast-food chain, offers its new subscribers a free value meal for joining its eClub and a free scoop of frozen custard for joining its Text Club on Facebook.

3. Encourage Fans to share mobile number by texting them discount coupons or other offer details

Invite your Facebook fans or Twitter followers to text for a special offer. In return, ask that they join your SMS or email list, while emphasizing their ability to unsubscribe at any time. Movie and game rental company Redbox (also a Signal client) has had success doing that by offering customers a free rental in return for joining its email list.

4. Generate buzz through social promotions such as contests, trivia quizzes and sweepstakes

Sweepstakes, voting contests, and trivia campaigns engage followers, and they also allow you to add them to your email or SMS lists as the price of entry. Signal customer Memphis Car Audio recently ran a social sweepstakes tied to email-subscriber collection. By offering a trip for two to the Brazil premiere of the movie “Fast Five,” the company successfully increased brand awareness, drove in-store traffic, and added more than 93,000 subscribers to its email list.

5. Encourage social media fans and followers to bring in fresh fans by offering referral benefits

Rewards for referrals—a common tactic used by your favorite daily deals sites—can be a powerful tool for accelerating list growth beyond your current fans and followers.

Ask all new subscribers—right on the confirmation page they get after signing up using your Web form—to refer their friends to also join. Give each referred friend an offer or coupon for joining, and give the referrer a special offer of even greater value if she refers a specified number of friends.

By attracting your social fans and followers to your subscriber lists, you can develop a universal profile of your best customers across all digital channels. Over time, by analyzing your fans’ and followers’ responses to different communications, you will be able to determine the type of deals each prefers and whether they respond more favorably to an afternoon tweet, an early-morning email, or a midday text.

Ultimately, that information gained through social media marketing will enable you to create the kind of highly personalized offers that inspire customer loyalty and repeat business.

Social Media Marketing: Reaching Out to Audiences and Prospects

Social media makes access to several demographics, whether pertaining to age, gender or region, easier than ever before. Before marketers create their advertisement they need to determine who they are trying to reach. They may have to do several different versions of it in order to meet the demographics. Most marketing on social media shows up on profiles of specific ages. The highest percentage of Facebook users are between the ages of 18 and 34. Marketers would not advertise the same message to a 30 year old as they would to a 15 year old. Social media has over 400 million users worldwide making the chances of someone clicking on a marketing ad first choice.

Social Media Marketing Helps You Enhance Your Digital Footprint

Intelligent social media marketing costs nothing but effort and time. There’s nothing that paid campaigns can achieve, that a little clever tweaking of your social media and networking tools can’t. An ad may attract current followers of the product or service, or bring in a new customer base. Either way social media marketing is an easy way to connect to consumers. Social Media Marketing Agencies can help bring a company to the top of Google search as well. When users seek a company advertising a product or service they use, they can share the marketing campaign with others. On Facebook one can share a link of the website with all their friends and on Twitter they can re-tweet. On both of those social media sites, you are given the option to follow a brand. Users might see the ad and choose to look up the company on social media where most news and promotions are most commonly announced. Along with grabbing a social media user’s attention and getting their following, social media marketing also includes promotions and contests on their pages. Companies may run contests such as giving something away when they get a certain number of followers, or receive something free, or a coupon, for participating in something on social media. A company can also put promotions on social media where only people following them would only know the discount code for the store.

Social media marketing is instant and viral in nature. Gone are the days when you had to pay for market research reports that arrived by the time the data on them was outdated. Social media is not going away soon; new sites come out daily for people to stay connected to each other and businesses. Marketing on these sites are the best way to get the word out to millions of people-for free. We’ll bring you more on social media marketing tips and strategies, so keep reading.

Some telecom brands have doubled their online advertising budgets, while automobile companies have increased it by 20-35% over fiscal 2010-11, executives said. Some consumer products, retail and tyre brands have also started online promotions this year.

Online Advertising Gaining Momentum in India

India has more than 100 million people who use the Internet, around half of which also shop online, according to Google India. There are 22 million subscribers of the social networking website Facebook, according to a 2010 report by Vizisense, which covers the digital media space.

The digital media market, including the Internet, social media and e-commerce, is expected to be worth Rs.1,500 crore this year, said Manish Vij, founder of the digital agency Tyroo Media Private Ltd.

The current size of the online advertising market, according to the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI), is Rs.1,100 crore, while the total advertising market is estimated at Rs.25,000 crore.

“Women’s apparel retail brand Biba and tyre brand Bridgestone moved online recently,” said Namrata Balwani, chief operating officer at digital agency Media2win, which handles the accounts of these concerns for their online advertising requirements.

Nitin Chowdhary, business head at digital agency Tyroo Media, said, “Retail brands will be the game changer in online advertising.” He said Tyroo is doing online work for retailer Shoppers Stop.

Banking and financial services and online classifieds were early movers, while sectors such as real estate, education and e-commerce are getting in now, said Nitin Mathur, senior director (marketing) at Yahoo! India.

Max Hegerman, senior vice-president and digital head at JWT India, the advertising agency for Bharti Airtel Ltd, said telecom companies have the biggest digital advertising budgets, with 10% of their total budget spent on online advertising. “With the advent of 3G (third generation mobile communication), it is in their best interest to be online and promote themselves,” he said.

Hegerman said his client list has been growing in the two years he has headed JWT’s digital media space. “The shift is gradual but across the board. Companies spend 5-8% of their marketing budgets online nowadays compared to 3% earlier.”

Online Advertising in Various Sectors

C.V.L. Srinivas, managing director at Starcom Mediavest, said telcos and car makers spend 15-20% of their total budgets online.

Anuradha Agarwal, vice-president (sales and marketing) at Vodafone Essar Ltd, declined to share the company’s digital budget but said it had jumped from 5% to 10%.

“Digital space is a great way to build relationships and engage with customers. Besides, the medium is efficient, effective, non-intrusive and saves time,” she added. The returns are well defined and Vodafone has an online grievance redressal system, where customers can complain or ask questions, Agarwal added.

Auto maker Maruti Suzuki India Ltd, too, has increased digital media expenditure by 20% over the last fiscal, a spokesperson said.

“This is our way of connecting with the net savvy, upwardly mobile youth. Online advertising is also a cost effective approach to marketing,” he said.

When the company launched the Swift model in August, the event was streamed live on Facebook. “We had over 100,000 fans online waiting for the launch,” the spokesperson said.

Vij of Tyroo Media said companies are spending more on digital ads as they realise that prospective buyers are spending more time online and can be better targeted via online advertising.

E-commerce brands are also spending more money on digital media. Tyroo’s parent Smile Group operates two shopping portals, Dealsandyou.com and Fashionandyou.com, which spend 40-50% of their advertising budgets online.

“The pressure to spend on advertising comes from private equity investors who push e-commerce companies to acquire subscribers and increase sales,” Vij said.

The medium, however, continues to face challenges.

Satyajit Sen, chief executive, Zenith Optimedia, the media agency for Honda Siel Cars India Ltd, said television remains the biggest advertising medium. He, however, expects companies to expand the share of online advertising in their marketing budgets to about 35%.

Srinivas of Starcom Mediavest and Chowdhary of Tyroo said getting consumer goods companies interested in online advertising is the biggest challenge.

Once they move in, the flood gates for digital will open, and make for some online advertising and social media marketing campaigns.

Yes, websites designed in the past 5 years certainly look a lot better and have more wow features like impressive effects, stunning graphics and clever videos. But that doesn’t mean as websites they perform any better in satisfying the needs of the visitor or the website owner. In fact very often all these effects, graphics and flash videos while enhancing the visual appeal of the website actually make the website worse in terms of performance. By performance we mean how well the website satisfies the objectives it should have been designed to meet.

When you are looking to have a website designed or redesigned the first thing you need to establish is what are the objectives of the website? The objective is obviously to deliver a pre-promised value to your website visitor; this may range from free information to shopping solutions or paid services of a wide variety. You may in turn derive value from this process either directly in form of a B2C transaction, or in the case ‘free’ websites and blogs, through ads.

What is the purpose of the website design?

Is the purpose to :

1.            Stun visitors with a jaw dropping graphics and effects?

2.            Get good reviews for your website design from other web designers?

3.            Inform and educate visitors?

4.            Attract the right visitors interested in what the website has to offer?

5.            Sell products or services?

6.            Capture leads or subscribers?

If you want evidence of the extent to which website design practioners focus on the visual appeal of the website design rather than functionality, you only have to look at the dozens of websites that showcase what they consider to be good website designs.

These showcase sites for good website design feature 1,000′s of websites submitted by web designers that get reviewed and voted for largely by their peers, or so it would seem. Some, but not all of these showcase websites state what they regard as good website design in their submission guidelines.

Ingredients for Ideal Website Design

An ideal equation for quality website designing is:

Quality Design = Visual + Technical + Creativity

Note here the emphasis is on the visual appearance, technical wiz bangs and the creative merit.

Observation, however, would tell you that web designers focus too much on creating good looking websites that appeal to their peers.

Deciding on what is a good website design also depends on whether you want a website that looks good or one that’s designed for a purpose and to satisfy some clearly defined objectives. If you want a website that does more than just look good then you need to look a bit more closely at the design of your website, because just looking good is never good enough, at least not for me.

We’ll continue to bring you more tips related to website designing and social media marketing, so keep reading!

Now, we’d love to go on about these charlatans, but a bunch of Facebook marketing misconceptions don’t clear themselves. So here goes:

More Facebook Myths#1: My ‘Fans’ are going to love my social media marketing contest for writing the best song for my brand

While it is true, that we all love prizes, brand marketers often become too full of themselves in the assumption that consumers would be able to (or even want to) build a creative piece around their brand. In a perfect world, your fans would be so passionate they’d spend their free time taking photos, recording videos, and generating other content around your brand, thus making for the perfect social media marketing campaign. Unfortunately, out in the real world, few brands ever achieve this level of reverence. The rest of us have to get creative with our social media marketing campaigns. Your fans may not have a picture of your product at the Eiffel Tower, but they do have content to share. All you need to do is make it easy for them. Ask for ideas or opinions and make the submission process simple. That’s how you tap into the content engine that is your fan base.

More Facebook Myths#2: Facebook needs to approve your social media marketing campaign

Not long ago, you had to ask Facebook to approve your promotion’s official rules in advance of launch. To ask approval, you had to have an account executive, costing you $10,000 on Facebook ads. After about six months of uneven enforcement, the policy was reversed for the better. To run a social media marketing campaign on Facebook today, all you have to do is obey Facebook’s promotion guidelines. If you feel to meet that precondition, your campaign will be shut down faster than you can say ‘social media marketing’.

More Facebook Myths#3: The rules don’t apply if I run a contest on my wall

Facebook’s promotion guidelines state that you cannot run a contest or sweepstakes using its native functionality. That means you can’t randomly award concert tickets to someone who likes your wall post. And you can’t run a photo contest in your page’s albums. Facebook wants these promotions run on third-party apps. How real is the risk of being tossed? Refer to Myth #2.

We’ll keep updating you on social media marketing trends in the future, so keep watching this space.

Nascent as the field of social media marketing is, it doesn’t lend itself particularly well to measurement; the disembodied communication, for all its interactive goodness, ensures that. Ultimately, the success of a social media marketing effort depends on how well you can measure your impact and make amends for the future.  So naturally, the call of the hour is in-depth, and accurate web analytic data with which marketers can measure campaign performance and understand the complex social network behaviors of prospects and customers.

Principle #1 – Move to a “viewable impressions” standard and count real exposures online.

Today we count “served impressions” as recorded by ad servers. Often, ad units are not in a viewable space to the end-user or fail to fully load on the screen – potentially resulting in substantial over-counting of impressions. Viewable exposures are increasingly the norm across other media and better address brand marketers’ needs.

Principle #2 – Social Media Marketing must measure success by audience impressions, not gross ad impressions.

Brand marketers target specific audiences. Social media marketing professionals need to understand the quality and number of exposures against their targets – and the respective reach and frequency of such exposures. The existing digital currency makes this extremely difficult. Moreover, the practice of selling ad impressions makes cross-media comparisons extremely difficult, if not impossible.

Principle #3 – Because all ad units are not created equal, we must create a transparent classification system.

Unlike traditional media, which have a limited number of inventory types (e.g., 30-sec spot, full-page back cover), social media marketing has a myriad of units. Making Measurement Make Sense advocates a transparent classification system, adhered to by all publishers. Such a system will enable marketers to identify and spotlight the best offerings for brand building, and for other marketing objectives.

Principle #4 – Determine interactivity “metrics that matter” for brand marketers, to evaluate the contribution of social media marketing to brand building.

Currently, the industry is awash in digital interaction metrics. However, these metrics are not necessarily relevant for brand marketers. Aside from ‘likes’, there are few standards for enabling reliable comparison. The industry must identify and define the specific metrics most valuable to brand marketers and define and implement reliable standards for existing social media marketing metrics.

Principle #5 – Social Media Marketing measurement must become increasingly comparable and integrated with other media.

Measurement solutions must facilitate cross media platform planning, buying and evaluating of marketing and media. This is a substantial issue that hampers analysis and decision making throughout the social media marketing ecosystem.

In this post, we’ll put examine common misconceptions about social media marketing on Facebook. Read on.

Myth #1: A newly started Social Media Marketing campaign will go ‘viral’ on its own through user and fan communities

If the objective of your social media marketing effort is to “go viral”, Facebook’s objective is to stop that. Before you ask why, just consider what’s so special about going viral. The answer is: as opposed to purchased ad-space campaigns, a viral campaign relies on a variation of the most popular (and free) force in advertising: word of mouth. Essentially, a Facebook page or contest being ‘liked’ and shared on user walls is nothing else but spreading word of mouth. That’s just as may be, the fine folks at Facebook are as mindful of revenue enhancement as you are, and that’s why they WANT you to pay them to drive impressions and engagement through Facebook’s advertising platform. Apart from that, Facebook’s core promise of delivering an uncluttered user experience means that the virality you seek is unlikely to start organically (as it should, ideally). In the initial stages, the ‘viral’ campaigns would have to be artificially driven in order to gather a critical mass of Facebook buzz. Then you can let nature and social media marketing take their course.

Myth #2: A Consumer ‘liking’ my company’s Facebook page is engaging with my brand

Engagement via social media marketing will not happen unless you give your consumers an incentive for showing interest. A single click of the mouse to ‘like’ your page doesn’t get you there, nor does a filled out contact form. Think from a consumer perspective: what’s so exciting about you filling out a form that you’ll tell even your family about it with any degree of enthusiasm? So no, them liking your page can only be the beginning of their exposure to exclusive ‘fan only’ content that can include contests, sweepstakes, or even just fun-facts; things that are ultimately going to earn you some social media marketing brownie points, and actually get the users engaged.

Myth #3: Trolls will overwhelm my social media marketing campaign page

Remember, your users are not truly engaging with your brand if you’re not giving them a voice; the whole beauty of social media marketing is that user feedback cuts through all the layers and filters that exist in conventional marketing feedback methods. Understandably, this also gives some room to the crackpots (or genuinely disgruntled consumers), a reason why many organizations are genuinely scared of allowing consumers an online voice. Understand that people will behave as they do: they’ll share negative opinions, perhaps even call you names, and create a general ruckus. Prepare in advance by having a comprehensive moderation policy framed. Also, if you have a fair degree of standing among consumers (without which trolls are unlikely to waste time over you), for every troll that trashes you, you’ll have loyal consumers springing to you defense. It can be a good idea for your own consumers talk you up in a public forum (such as your Facebook page) that neutral readers may also read: you couldn’t plan a better ad!

We’re not yet done with common Facebook misconceptions. We’ll be back with more on Facebook and its optimal use for social media marketing.

The Psychology behind Social-Proofing

We’ll explain by way of an example. Let us say you have two hypothetical nightclubs, in close proximity (for the convenience of this particular hypothesis). For further simplification, let us also imagine that they both are similarly sized structures, with similar flashing neon signs. But, where they differ (again imagine) is that one of them has just a bored looking doorman standing out front, allowing entry to all visitors; the other nightclub, contrastingly, has a long line of enthusiastic party-goers queued up outside. Which of them would you go to, if you’re out looking for a great time? Everything suggests that the place with the long queue is already crowded, while the other place may not be as lively. And therein lies the rub; nightclubs often slow down their entrance rates to keep the lines longer.

That is “social proof” at work. It’s a powerful psychological phenomenon that extends well beyond nightclub lines. It shapes how standing ovations form at live events. It makes restaurants seat you at the window table first. It’s the motivation behind laugh tracks in sitcoms; while it may not fool many, shows with canned laughter have been shown to have a higher “perceived funnyness” as compared to the same show without the canned laughter. This psychological factor is also how that ‘like’ button is going to help your social media marketing campaign.

The psychological theory behind this whole way of doing things is simple: an action is considered more appropriate when we see others doing it.

In short, our thoughts and behavior patterns are shaped by the opinions and actions of others—and that force is even stronger when those opinions and actions are of people we know and respect.

The important lesson for social media marketing professionals is that the same behavioral laws can be applied to your organization’s social-media marketing campaign. The motivation of following the majority becomes even stronger when you apply it to social media marketing: the way social media networks puts a high premium on grabbing attention through certain act, and thus, you have people looking to confirm to one group or clan indulging in similar behavior.

When social proof works with your social media marketing campaign, it helps keep visitors on your Web page and improves conversion rates on your landing page (encouraging clicks, likes, and subscriptions).

After all, no matter what you sell or promote, social media marketing is all about persuasion. And social proof is one of the most persuasive tools around. We’ll talk about social proofing your social media marketing campaign in greater detail in future posts, so keep an eye out!

Web Design Balance

Web design balance stands for the optimal allocation of the heavy and light elements on a given page. This balance, or lack it it is evident in your page layout. You must achieve visual balance in your web design, and that should be consistently visible throughout the website, not just on the landing page. A viable trick to help you create a balance is to align your page on an invisible grid. There are three types of balance that can be achieved when designing a page.

1. Symmetrical: This design method follows the simple philosophy of symmetry: a heavy or light element on the right is matched by another on the left. Symmetrical balances can make your web design look  bland, so be careful.

2. Asymmetrical: Play around with textures, colors, image positions and dimensions to arrive at a pleasant looking page that has a healthy level of contrast.

3. Discordant. Web sites that use an off-kilter web design scheme are suggestive of action or entropy, but tend to make viewers restless or uneasy if overdone, so they are suitable for sites that are meant to be thought provoking.

Contrast for Web Design: It Cuts both Way

Contrast in web design goes beyond just balancing colors or shades of black or white, but basically an all encompassing theme of contrasting shapes, sizes and even textures. You can harness the power of contrast by changing font size, weight and family to provide textual contrast and varying sizes of images and elements. Contrast is a two-edged sword, though; overdo it and you end up with a web design that’s too loud and uncomfortable.

Web Design Emphasis

One of the basic needs for design is to avoid homogeneity, stressing the points or features you want to; the higher the skill in design emphasis, the easier it is to do this without it being blatantly obvious. One of the mistakes that web design professionals often make is to emphasize everything. Keep in mind that if everything in the design has equal emphasis, the entire page will tend to appear too busy for comfort and may end up unappealing. What you should focus on instead is to create a visual hierarchy in the web design – to put emphasis only on the right elements. You can use semantic markup to provide emphasis even without the use of styles; change the font size of image size in order to emphasis or lessen emphasis on them; or you can use contrast in colors for added emphasis.

Web design rhythm, also known as repetition, brings the much needed internal consistency into your web site designs. Almost all elements in your design can be repeated in order to create pleasing rhythm into your design. For instance, you can repeat your headline a few times for more emphasis, repeat the same image across the page, create a background that is tiled and patterned with repetitive elements, or repeat a particular style to provide site design consistency. It is also a good idea to repeat the navigation elements in your site design across the pages of your web site.

Web design unity, also regarded as a site’s proximity, is the what keeps all the similar elements in the site alike and those diverse further apart, and pulls everything together into one integrated whole. Unity when it comes to web site design is mainly achieved through the proper placement in your layout. You can implement this in many ways. You can, for example, adjust the layout of your elements to put them close or far away from each other. In the body of your page, you can change the spacing around the text in your page contents. You can further achieve unity by playing around the box properties and change the margins and paddings.

A good web design company keeps in mind all the basic design elements with each and every page they design and collaborate with. This way, you and your web design company will come up with web sites that are pleasant looking, effective and attractive. As the website designer, it is important that you keep these elements in mind and apply them appropriately to your web design plans.

Proper Web Design: Navigating from Your Home Page

Navigation is the most important factor that determines how good or bad the web design of your homepage is. It doesn’t matter what great content is on your site, if the visitors can’t get there. Your homepage acts as a veritable index of sorts which guides visitors to the various sections and pages on the site. Your navigation bar at the top of the page cannot be page-specific; the links must be the same on all pages. the links on this navigation bar ought to be also be brief but self-explanatory. Use text for navigation instead of buttons; they look dandy, but in the time they take to fully load, many an impatient user with a slow connection would have moved on to another site.

The fact of the matter is that you have a very short time-window to give your new visitors the impression of being a neatly made and efficiently organized site that can help him get the required information in a jiffy. The internet with its immense range of choices has led to ever-shortening attention spans; the user will move to another site if yours doesn’t seem to make sense. To even begin to make sense, you need a cohorent an neatly laid out web design scheme.

Use Your Home Page for Brand Communication through smarter Web Design

Think of a bill-board all your own, bang in the middle of the information super-highway: that’s what your website’s home page can do for your brand. It is an important brand communication tool that allows you, with the help of graphics and succinct, to-the-point messages to your audience. Your business logo, it goes without saying, should have a place of prominence on your website’s homepage even though its also splashed all over the other pages on the site. Incorporate that into your website design in order to have a better recall value.

Why Content is Important to Web Design

As is the case with web design in general, content is very essential to homepage. Try to keep the tone conversational, although you may want to assume an authoritative tone in certain cases to establish yourself as an authority on the topic being discussed: that has to be fine tuned in accordance with the specific nature of your website’s subject; another part of it is . Your homepage content must be fresh and hold their interest to make them want to read more of your site. Tell your visitors, without beating about the bush, what is it exactly that you are offering and how being a buyer or a business partner would be to their benefit. Don’t make them search for that information; that won’t happen.  Anchoring relevant links into the text that point to internal pages is always a good idea.

There are no hard and fast rules to homepage web design, but all the above should act as a guideline. Keeping it short and succinct is about the only web design rule that you should follow like a guiding star.

For web design tips and guidance, keep watching this space.