social media

The Evolving News Feed

evolving-newsfeed-imac

The way in which consumers access news has primarily been through print or broadcasting outputs for many years. However the advent of social media and the web, alongside viral trends has meant that information or news is constantly updating in real time and has become accessible to everybody at any hour, on many different platforms.

Have we moved away from our traditional means of news consumption and embraced the ever growing landscape of social media technology as our primary news provider? Social platforms now allow individuals to greater refine what outlets they receive their global news and information from, creating a an individualised bulletin board.

Facebook gives us the ability to ‘Like’ our favourite media institution’s pages which allows us to closely follow their posts about recent news, popular culture and subjects of personal interest. This has meant that our engagement with initial points of news consumption has started to reach us via separate channels on an ever changing, personalised ‘News Feed’.

evolving-newsfeed-new-stories

One advantage of sharing news across social media outputs is that it has allowed our social interactions and news consumption to fuse seamlessly as one. Openly discussing your thoughts on topical issues has become easier, suggesting that freedom of speech has been enhanced via these websites (let’s not begin to discuss all of the information that they may, or may not have taken from you whilst doing so, that’s another issue).

These social media channels allow us to connect with others online, but what you share depends on how you want to engage with such outlets. Many people use them as a way to keep in touch with others and rarely share personal information. Others however can appear hypnotised by the constant information which these sites may bring.

Many of us use these sites more than we’d like to admit, but there are many layers to social media and it’s important to address how it’s changing the way in which we access news around the world. Which type of user are you?

Fake Fans & Facebook

Here at ADOmedia, we take pride in providing our clients with the best digital marketing tools available. We build websites that not only look great, but perform well too. Our marketing team develop digital campaigns that seek to represent and promote our clients, encourage new business and keep their existing customers intrigued and up-to-date. Of course, our clients want to see results and we aim to deliver them.

One thing we will not do is use sneaky tactics to adjust the ROI marketing figures. Believe it or not, it is possible to buy social media followers, in vast numbers if you wish. But what benefit does this really have for your company and your brand? We believe in genuine, old fashioned quality marketing. We won’t change that for anyone.

There are however, many companies who do not share this ethos and are more than willing to sacrifice their integrity for falsified figures and results. The article below details how you can spot these companies. It certainly makes for an interesting read…

Buying Your Facebook Fans

How to Determine if a Facebook Business Page has Fake Fans

“Many of us have recently thought social media and business leaders were finally starting to “get” the importance of real relationships with human beings. However, unfortunately there seems to be a new wave of cheaters, influence score addicted self proclaimed “gurus” that are willing to risk their reputation, integrity, ethics, trust, clients and relationships for a few hundred or tens of thousands fake Facebook fans.

The worst part is these are the same people who are tweeting and preaching the importance of authenticity, relationships, and how to build and be a human social brand.

A few of them are even trusted by some of the world’s most respected brands. It is the definition of failure and a sign of true insecurity in my humble opinion. More of my thoughts on this topic will come in a separate post as this one is specifically written to help you identify if a Facebook page is loaded with real fans or is being gamed by an influence, short fix craving cheater.

It’s pretty easy to check if a Twitter account has fake follwers. You can go to Status People Fake Follower checker and get instant statistics on any Twitter account, including yours. Below is a quick screen capture of the results from Status People for a Twitter account. The account is that of a CEO for popular Twitter measurement tool. On the company website they tout the success of their CEO in building community and that he/she has over 100k Twitter followers. Well, according to Status People, they are fake as fake can get. This lost instant credibility for me and is likely not a tool I will recommend nor take into the accounts and business of our clients. Quite unfortunate.”

Read the rest of this article on www.pammarketingnut.com

Social Media Marketing – But… why?

Social Media Marketing - ADOmedia

So, you’ve got your business off the ground and running smoothly, your website is full of interesting content and is looking rather impressive. You’ve established a reasonable client base and things are beginning to look peachy. What now? How do you keep that client base from running off with another company? How do you continue to build and entice new business? How do you increase your website traffic?

 Word of mouth is the best marketing tool, as they say. There are a whole lot of mouths out there and more of them could be talking about your business.

Is social media marketing really that important?
There’s been a great deal of talk about the considerable importance of social media marketing. But is it really that important? Will it actually make a difference? Do I reeeally have to do it? The answer to these important questions is, well yes. Whatever business or service you are promoting, social media marketing will make a difference. The benefits of utilising these marketing tools are vast, and investing in your social media presence will undoubtedly have a positive effect your companies image, search engine position and eventually, sales.

Why does it work?
The way that marketing works has changed rapidly over the past couple of years and this is no bad thing, but adapting is important. People have a great deal more control over the information they receive and choose to respond to, making it far less likely that they will consider, or even look at spammy emails or blanketed leaflet promotions. What they are more likely to do is follow the social media profile of a company because they have dealt with them previously, have an interest in their services, or simply like the cut of their jib. So, that effectively covers all of your bases: existing, new and potential clients.

Social media bridges the gap between company and customer utilising a more friendly and informal approach. By providing your followers with interesting, relevant, and free information, you are forging an image and reputation of a business that is proactive, current and up-to-date. An effective campaign will help you to develop loyal fans and will subtly direct people back towards your company website, thus advertising your services and improving the perceived significance of your website to those all-important search engines.

Select the image below to view a fantastic infographic by the guys at MDG Advertising:

Is social media marketing effective?

How long will it take to be effective?
Now I’m not saying set up a Twitter account and you will wake up the next day to an influx of new business. Unfortunately, it’s just never that simple is it? Like any marketing campaign, these things require considerable time and effort. Think of it like scattering seeds across the Internet garden. Have a look at them every day, water them and have a little chat with them every now and again. Keep nourishing these planted seeds and eventually little shoots will start to grow, and these small blooms could become a large shrubbery, perhaps even a tree one day. Oh how very poetic.

Anyway, the point is that this whole social media business is not going to disappear. Don’t be afraid of it. Don’t poke at it with a stick then run away. Embrace it! If you are passionate about your business, then promoting it is something that must be done, and done well.

Help?
Time can be an issue. Ensuring your clients are well looked after and the day-to-day tasks are completed can be time consuming enough. Acquiring the extra hours and required knowledge to establish and manage a successful web marketing campaign can be daunting.

 As per usual, we can help with this. We have a whole wing of ADOtowers solely dedicated to this sort of malarkey. If required, we can set up your blog and social media accounts. We will research your market, competitors, current trends and potential clients in order to populate your web site and social media accounts with relevant, quality content. We can do all of this on a continuous, regular basis to ensure that your web campaign stays fresh, well tended, and up-to-date. A bit like hiring a gardener.

Why not give us a call? We will be happy to discuss your requirements and help you to plant a few seeds of your own. Develop a social media marketing campaign and see what you can grow.