How do you create a successful brand page on G+?

Posted by Hayden Allen-Vercoe on December 09 2011
Filed in Online Marketing Tips and Advice, Social Media Training

Using Google+? Add Orbital Media to your circles. You’ll find out about the latest hints to get the most out of G+ as well as up to date information on all the other social networks.

Google+ now has the option to create a page for your company or brand. How do you create a successful brand page on G+?  Read on, this is the first part of our series of guides for businesses using G+.

G+ is an easy enough platform to get to grips with, but it’s the little details that will enable you to create a successful brand page on G+.

1) Sign in to your Google account.
2) Go to http://www.google.com/+/business/  or from your Google+ account go to the ‘create a page’ tab on the right hand side.
3) Fill out the relevant fields, including website detail.
4) Fill out profile details.
5) Done….

…No, you are far from done! Just how do you make your Google+ Brand page stand out?

First get a G+ vanity URL from gplus.to/. This is a really simple procedure which gives your G+ Brand Page URL a personalised feel.

The Orbital Media URL is https://plus.google.com/u/0/b/107889381835138655050/. Not great is it? By adding in the number sequence part of this URL into gplus.to , I now have another URL address option.  gplus.to/orbitalmedia - much better!

Now you have the easier to use / remember url, add this to your email signatures / press releases / company brochures etc. If you have a brand page on facebook, let your fans know about your G+ page.

Upload Your G+ Page Image and Tagline

The next stage in creating a successful G+ Brand page is adding a profile image and tagline. I would suggest company logo as profile image as this will be easily identifiable to G+ users.

You should use this opportunity to optimise both the image and tagline. For instance, our profile image on our G+ page is social-media-agency.jpg. Our tagline is ‘The UK’s Leading Social Media Agency for Social Media Marketing’.

After this step, G+ will ask you to share your page with your networks/circles. Don’t just yet, your profile is not ready or fully optimized.
Edit your G+ ‘About’ page

Now you need to edit your ‘About’ page. Simply go into the page profile tab and click the blue ‘edit info’ button on right hand side.

Remember, this is Google we are dealing with. In other words, optimise where you can – with a nice balance for reader and search engine. In the ‘Introduction’ section of Orbital Media’s ‘About’ section, I have targeted three key phrases; ‘Social media Agency’, ‘Social Media Marketing’ and ‘Social Media agency in the UK’.

Notice that I have linked the key phrase ‘Social Media Agency’ to our company website. In your section, copy this tactic. Use your strongest key phrase as anchor text link to your site.

I have also included the company website in the ‘Website’ section. Use the ‘Recommended link’ section on the right hand side for all your brand’s other social networks (facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc).

Create a Banner for your G+ Brand page

On your brand page, there will be 5 images displayed above your description and business information. Click the section ‘Add some photos here’, upload 5 images (optimized for SEO) that are relevant to your brand. These will remain on the photo strip (banner) of your page until you wish to replace them.

Build Your Network/Circles and Start Sharing & Posting

Your G+ page is now complete and now it is time to start engaging with the G+ community. For your business page, you can create circles (networks). You should start posting information and news through your feed as you might on your brand’s facebook page.

If you already have other social networks for your brand, add your G+ page details to them and tell your fans / followers about your G+ brand page.

Watch out for our next G+ guide, where we offer more help on how to increase G+ followers for your brand page.

Do you need help with your brand’s Social Media? We are here to help steer your brand in the right direction socially, why not phone us today on 0203 411 911.

Social Media for the retail industry

Posted by Hayden Allen-Vercoe on December 07 2011
Filed in Online Marketing Tips and Advice, Social Media Training, Social Networking

Social Media for the retail industry can give you an opportunity to instantly communicate with your customers / possible customers.

Retail Social Media should have a ‘five pronged attack’ in the form of –

• Facebook Page
• Wordpress Blog
• Twitter
• Foursquare
• G+ Brand page

Facebook A Facebook Page is vital to your retail Social Media strategy. It is here that you can grow a healthy following. You can do this in many ways, but firstly, make sure your Facebook page URL is on your business card / comps slips / fliers and email signatures.

One of the most effective ways of gaining fans to your Facebook page is by offering a competition prize. For instance, If you own a hair salon, offer a free cut and blow dry (or year’s supply of…) as the competition prize on your Facebook page.

Anyone that enters would have to ‘Like’ your page first. Using an app like ‘Wildfire Sweepstakes’, you can create the competition easily and also have the option of the entrée sharing the competition entry on their own page. (Note, You MUST use a third party app for your competition - see facebook rules regarding competitions here)

You can promote this competition via other Facebook pages, competition web sites, forums, Twitter and your Wordpress Blog. You can also run other competitions as and when you feel it is the right time.
Your competition should be a success and this minimum outlay should have garnered a good number of fans of your page.

Now you have this audience, you can advise of future promotions and sales. You can highlight key staff members and their skills (making your store / brand more personable) and tips on how to use your products effectively.  It’s not all one way either, you can obtain really useful feedback from your customers.

Another reason why this is a great Social media platform for your retail business is you can provide links to reviews of products you stock and also to your Wordpress Blog.

It’s all about finding the right consistency. Endless promotion is a turn off and you will lose the majority of your social audience if you get this wrong.

Social Media for the retail industry does not stop with Facebook.

Wordpress A Wordpress Blog gives you the chance to develop your store / brand awareness further. Again, if you are a Hair salon, you could write about the top styles of the season and support this with images of recent customers. You could also promote that cut and blow dry Facebook competition here.

This is your chance to really open up about your brand / store and its products. Here lies great opportunities to list new products and special offers as well as writing about themes relevant to your industry.

Using Wordpress over any other blog platform is essential. Google loves Wordpress. Using SEO key phrases within the blog’s article titles and copy should see you advance up the search rankings for that particular key phrase. You can also link back to your web site using these key phrases – just not too many.

Your aim with a Wordpress blog is to create free useful content that will eventually (hopefully) influence a customer to make a purchase. Treat it like your own in house magazine and keep it friendly and very, very personable – inject some personality into your words.

Twitter With Twitter, you can attract more followers to your brand. By tweeting your blog posts with suitable #Hashtags, your audience should grow further.

Be sociable. Find relevant people to follow and join the conversation. Share industry / product tips, share photo’s (using Twitpic), ask and answer questions. Tweet your special offers / new products.

Actively seek out potential followers in your local area – Tweetadder is a great piece of software for doing this, or alternatively Twellow.com.

For some great tips on how to get more followers on Twitter, check out our blog post, just click on the link.

Foursquare This could be your most useful ally in you retail social media campaign. Using this location based social network should provide instant results.

Foursquare works by ‘checking in’ to a location. Your store should be one such ‘check in’. A lot of companies are offering discounts / offers based on the number of times a person checks in.

Starbucks are a brand really seeing the benefits from Foursquare check in’s.  With nearly 150,000 check in’s tracked in 7 days at the start of the year (source – Mobile Marketing Watch), Foursquare is not a retail Social Network to be ignored. These check in’s were obtained by offering a free cup of coffee or other incentives after a number of individual check in’s.

Both Twitter and Foursquare can link to the blog and to the Facebook page. In fact, for Social Media for the retail industry to really deliver, all networks should work together, linking and promoting each offer your brand / store may have.

Google Plus (G+) Brand Page The latest social network and likely to rival facebook in the future, do not ever underestimate anything Google is doing. If you are unsure, at least create a G+ brand page to ensure you have secured the G+ account relating to your brand.

Keep an eye out for our tips on how to create a successful G+ brand page, coming in our next blog post.

All five retail social network’s listed above are free. The only cost to your store / brand will be time. Social Media for the retail industry is one of Orbital Media’s strengths.

If you want to know more about Social Media for the retail industry, give us a call - 0203 411 9111. We consider ourselves to be the UK’s leading Social Media agency and we can help develop your brand further.

12 Basic Twitter tips to get more followers

Posted by Hayden Allen-Vercoe on December 06 2011
Filed in Social Media Training, Social Networking

If you are new to Twitter, or just not getting enough followers on Twitter, we have put together 12 basic twitter tips to get more followers. These simple to use twitter tips should see your following grow.

Your Twitter followers are waiting, go get them!

The first thing you have to do is start following. It is likely that a lot of the people you follow will follow you back. Just don’t get carried away, you really want an even ratio of followers to following.
Follow some and if they do not follow back or offer no value to you, just un-follow them and find new people to follow.

1) Search.twitter.com is THE starting point. This works well for finding your friends, celebrities, or organizations, or for searching for specific topics you’re interested in. The ‘who to follow’ section is also really valuable in finding relevant people to follow.

2) Add your Twitter account to Twitter directories. Twellow.com and JustTweetIt.com are easy to use and should provide you with followers. They both have different sub directories so just find the most relevant and submit your details. It might also be a good place to find other people to follow that are relevant to you.

3) NearbyTweets.com allows you to search for users according to location and you can then narrow down your results even further by searching according to relevance.

4) Check out the competition! You can follow people who are on the list of followers of your competition. You should focus on people who are in your niche / interests.

Now you have the basics of finding people to follow and who may follow back, it’s time to participate. The following basic twitter tips to get more followers focus on user engagement. This is one of the best social networks, so get social.

5) Share your opinion. You can post links to recent news stories, especially those related to your niche, and offer your opinion and views, the stronger the better but don’t offend!

6) Interact and communicate with others – Start conversation with the “@” command, don’t just wait for people to talk to you.

7) Make sure to respond to people that ‘@’ or direct message you to show your respect. You could use a free interface like Tweetdeck to manage this.

8) Retweet the good stuff from others. Just put “RT @name” in front of their tweet and post it yourself. Those retweet’s are likely to be appreciated and remembered.

9) Think about your niche / interests and what kind of followers you want to attract –  select the keywords in your tweets wisely. Use #hashtags to make your tweets accessible to non-followers. Hashtags.org is our favourite for determining the strength of a hashtag.

10) Write up your Bio. Make it interesting and personal. People are more likely to follow if they can identify with you. Upload an image too!

11) Make sure you add your Twitter detail to your email signature and display prominently within your web site / blog / other social networks you use.

12) #followfriday helps everyone find interesting Twitter users. Your followers will appreciate the exposure and are very likely to include you in a #followfriday tweet of their own.

If you need any further help with Twitter or you would like the UK’s leading Social Media Agency to manage your Twitter account, give us a call today – 0203 411 9111.

Osama bin Laden’s death and the true power of social media

Posted by Paul Handley on May 04 2011
Filed in Social Media Training

The emergence and importance of social media should never be in doubt.

Many times I have heard the question “what is the point of Twitter?”. To some, Facebook and Twitter seem to be nothing more than a time wasting fad.

We know that this is simply not true. The search engines have placed more significance on social media in recent months.

But, how about this for any doubters? The death of Osama bin Laden was not first reported by the US president, or even by a news network.

No, Twitter got there first….hours ahead of the rest.

Just before 1am, Sohaib Athar started tweeting about strange events in his home town, Abbottabad.

“Helicopter hovering above Abbottabad at 1AM is a rare occurrence”, followed by “A huge window shaking bang here in Abbottabad Cantt. I hope it’s not the start of something nasty.”

In a tweet much later on Monday morning, Athar wrote, “Uh oh, now I’m the guy who live blogged the Osama raid without knowing it.”

To put this breaking news into perspective, the first tweets occurred 7 hours before President Obama officially announced bin Laden’s death.

Osama bin Laden’s death produced the highest sustained rate of tweets so far for Twitter.  A mind boggling average of 5,000 messages per second during President Obama’s announcement of Bin Laden’s death….that’s 300,000 a minute.

The power of the internet and more specifically, social media, should never be under estimated again.

Now has to be the time to take your business into the social media arena. For social media training, why not make contact with Orbital Media today?

Jones Lang LaSalle Preferred Social Media Supplier status achieved

Posted by Hayden Allen-Vercoe on October 20 2010
Filed in Blog Consultancy, Blog Network News, Online Marketing Tips and Advice, Online PR, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), Social Media Marketing, Social Media Marketing Events, Social Media Training, Social Networking

Every now and then we like to blow our own trumpet and this is one of those rare occasions. We recently entered a pitch to win a place on the prestigious Jones Lang LaSalle Shopping Centre and Retail park social media supplier list.

Not only did we achieve this status after a four way pitch, but we’ve also been given the chance host the Social Media Marketing workshop attended by the shopping centre big wigs.

Possibly a little daunting to many, we’re absolutely relishing the opportunity to share some of the many secrets we’ve learnt over the past 5 years working with some of the biggest brands in the world.
After the event we’ll be sharing our presentation right here so keep a close eye!