Having spent considerable time and effort trying to use Google+ and Tumblr, I'm wondering who else uses them.
I'll deal with Tumblr first as it's the least complex. Tumblr is a popular blog tool, supposedly, but in my opinion it is rarely used for business. I have struggled to find interesting posts, despite trying a variety of search terms. It seems mainly full of images and these are mostly from photographers and the leisure crowd. I dip back in now and then but find no significant improvement. If anyone can guide me on this from a business perspective, please do!
Now, Google+ seems to be an untidy sock drawer, with it's links to Circles, Reviews and Business Pages. I blunder through it as best I can because it's part of Google and may have an effect on clients' website rankings - but I just don't get it. Secretly, I don't think Google does either.
For example, this is The BPc's Google+ page. It has 5 followers. FIVE, compared with our three figure following on Twitter. We have a number of people/businesses in our Circles (i.e. we follow them) but, with three exceptions, they rarely post, the exceptions being: Hitchin Town FC, Novelties Direct and Blogging Tips. None of these have me in their circles (i.e. follow me back), I just have 4 overseas followers and an unknown - not especially useful for business promotion in the UK!
Do I conclude that nobody uses Google+? Pretty much.
Tuesday 30 August 2016
Tuesday 26 April 2016
Changes in Social Media
Social Media Strategies
Following the success of Google and Facebook money-making advertisement strategies, social media companies invest heavily in offering and honing their free services to hook people. They then use their popularity to bombard users with ads which turn the huge investments into huge profits. That's OK, it's a sound business plan that has been proven over the past twenty years.
Twitter and Pinterest are two services that have more recently changed the way they present themselves to users and have begun to add in 'promoted' posts for people who pay. Again, that's OK, their money has to come from somewhere and, as long as it's not from users, there shouldn't be a problem.
I use Twitter a lot. I have a personal account with around 500 followers and I follow almost 600 accounts that interest me - a mix of interesting personalities, people with similar hobbies and local tweeters. This is what worries me... following Twitter's recent changes, the number of interactions has plummeted. With the exception of 1 tweet last week and 1 on April 8th, none of my personal tweets/retweets during the past month were acknowledged (ie, liked, reweeted or replied). Maybe they were boring? Or maybe it's the way that Twitter is reshuffling tweets now (which is what Facebook does).
One of the things I liked about Twitter was its simplicity - a list of tweets from people I follow, in the order they were tweeted. Not so now. Using my business persona (different set of priorities, I follow clients, industry-related accounts, local business & community) I shall now open Twitter in another tab...
- 1 tweet from someone I follow
- 1 promoted tweet
- 8 tweets from hours ago "while I was away"
- 1 promoted tweet
- 1 tweet from 2 hours ago
- 1 list of "who to follow"
- 6 tweets from hours ago
- 1 promoted tweet (dated December 2015)
- followed by several tweets from hours ago
Not being a total idiot, I realise that you can change settings, so I have. Details here: Twitter Settings. While I await the outcome of this, I'll pose another question...
What's the obsession with the number of followers on Social Media?
This has always puzzled me. I can understand that, from a business persective, you want to reach a large and expanding audience but if you are a person using social media to be, well, sociable, does it matter how many people click to follow you? Is it an ego thing?
What matters is whether those followers are actually seeing your tweets. If your followers are following 1,000 people and receiving 2,000 to 10,000 tweets per day, the chances are very slim that they are waiting to hear from you. Some astute tweeters may be using lists to separate their favourites - are you in any lists? (You won't know about the private lists.)
Which brings us back to the point that people are not interacting like they used to. Not publicly, anyway. And as things change, so we must adapt. Off to tweet this now - feel free to comment!
Thursday 25 February 2016
Business Relationships
The journey was particularly tiresome, waiting in traffic on the M25 for almost an hour, almost doubling the anticipated journey time. The round-trip took over six hours, which works out to about one hour a year, which is a really good ratio compared with most client meetings. We all felt that it was worth the effort as we often wandered off-topic, filling in gaps that would not be covered via email.
The meeting was a great opportunity to fill in knowledge gaps on both sides for a greater understading of how we can work together, better. Typically, our clients are proud of the quality of their work but don't expect others to find it interesting. Signcraft creates signage, which can sound flat but the projects are so varied - this is why there is a section on their website for case studies. These include giant wall coverings, giant hoardings and wraps around buildings, printing backgrounds for box-office films and more 'ordinary stuff' such as estate agents' board service and shop fascias... and more... plus their company news.
Many of our clients are south of our mid-Herts base; we have been recommended to them and contact has been mainly via email or 'phone. Word of our cost-effective services has spread amongst the small businesses of Watford and North-West London, which is the main reason that we do not meet often, if at all (although there are good links via the A1, M1 and Great Northern Rail).
We write blog posts for a client on the North London / South Herts borders who we have never met yet he has introduced several new clients to us over recent years.
We have some loyal local clients, too. For example, Keelings (Accountants) have been a client since the turn of the century! At the time, they were based in Hitchin, Herts., but have been based in Old Hatfield for more than ten years. The BPc designed Keelings' first website and redesigned it a few years later. We still update it with quarterly newsletters but would love to bring it up to date, technologically, as soon as possible. We have met with this client to discuss their website just once in all that time.
We have designed a number of interim websites and supplied various graphic design services for a client in Welwyn, since their business start-up in 2006. Millers Cleaning Services expanded to Millers Property Services and is now trading as MPS Facility Services. In those ten years, we have met with Millers just three or four times.
The BPC has designed a commemorative '10 years trading' graphic in the MPS Ltd company style for display on their website, social media, emails and stationery.
Further afield, we have a client in the Provence, South of France, who we met once around the year 2000 and who subsequently used The BPc for a new website for their new venture, almost 15 years later. Visit www.sunhatfrance.com for a family holiday and you could meet them too!
So, how important is it to meet up? It doesn't seem to be important to many businesses - as long as you keep in touch by other means. We have a good business relationship with our clients because we get on with things, keep them informed and don't put demands on their busy schedules.
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