10 Mistakes Brands make on Facebook in the Middle East

Brands are increasingly present on Facebook today, but a lot of them are getting it all wrong. It's no surprise that there is only one real brand page in the current Facebook top pages across the world. Coca Cola at No 16 is the only Facebook brand page in the Top 20. Unless you count Eminem (No 3), Rihanna (No 5), Cristiano Ronaldo (No 12) and Lady Gaga (No 6) as brands – which they are, but not in a way we know brands.

Disney, Starbucks, Red Bull, FC Barcelona, Oreo and FC Madrid are the only other brands in the Top 50! Today, brands need to understand how to get their Facebook engagement right. At Innovations_Digital we work closely with our client's brands to help them with their Facebook presence. Here's our take on what to avoid as a brand on Facebook...

1. Not responding.
Facebook is a social engagement channel, not a broadcast medium. It's about a conversation not a one way communication. If someone says "hello" or "that's good", the least you can do is respond. Facebook is all about connecting and engaging in a dialog with your fans, your consumers, your followers.

2. Respond, don't fight.
Responding is important, but a tactful response goes a long way in building a brand's social reputation. There's absolutely no point in arguing with an irate customer or a disgruntled fan. Brands should have a pre-set policy on how (and who) to handle negative remarks posted on Facebook.

3. Deleting negative comments
This is actually worse that getting into a FB fight! Deleting a negative comment does not make it go away, it only escalates the matter. Perhaps a direct message to the person posting a negative comment is better. Nestle Kitkat got into a meltdown over deleting negative comments – which became a social PR disaster. Again, having a plan helps. Rather than deleting or arguing and trying to prove a point, have a brand policy. After all, it's about Customer Service.

4. Posting too much.
Brands that are new to Facebook often feel they have to post every day – ten times a day! Wrong. Brands that post too many times a day will get 'unliked' before they know it. People do not want their pages inundated with a brand's posts.
Let's not forget that posting too many times is like sending through too many text messages to your fans on their phones. It's spamming! The average number of posts for a brand should be once a day. Once. If there's a special promotion or limited engagement offer etc, a brand could get away with 2 - 3 posts a day. Anything more, and we have overload.

5. Posting too often, too close
Another big mistake. Social media is media after all, and you can ruin it by posting too many times, and close to each other. Even if you are posting two or three posts, posting them together within minutes of each other is called "clumping" and that's a #fail. Social engagement  is about ongoing – meaning nicely spread across, not all in one go.

6. Repeating and re-using published content.
Been there, done that! Reposting the same content is a no-no. Unless you have a new spin on it, or have a new reason to repeat a post,  don't repeat content. Here in the Middle East, we have seen brands use the same lame lines week in, week out – asking about weekends, activity plans and more of the same boring by-the-book repeats. Brands need to avoid making this mistake over and over again. That's a repeat offense!

7. Responding too slowly.
While a slow response is better than none at all, brands need to remember that their Facebook presence is in may ways all about Customer Service. And when you set up a Customer Care hotline, it's a hotline, not a slowline. Brands need to respond as soon as possible. The recommended average response rate should be 6 hours or less. A lot of brands get paranoid and have a "respond-within-minutes" policy, but one needs to remember, that yes, while the facebook fan or customer expects a response, and does so as soon as possible, about a 6-hour window is ok. Becuase people have lives outside facebook as well.

8. No descriptions, no signposts
Brands often post their tv spots, photos of events, their print ads without even a hint of what the post is about in the status update. That post is meaningless to anyone else, because unlike the brand's social managers or brand managers, no one really knows what that photo, that link, that video is all about. Always post a description.

9. Repeating everything in English and Arabic. A Middle East problem
Here in the Middle East brands are very conscious of the need to be "socially, politically and linguistically correct". They take this further by making sure every outbound post is there both in English and Arabic. They even go so far as to translate responses into both languages and ensure that everything exists on their page in both languages. That's overkill, that's boring, That's a turn off. Fans posting in Arabic may expect a response in Arabic, but it's not that they can't read English. And unless an Arabic query and response thread makes  a huge amount of sense for the brand, there's no real point in translating it and re-posting it. Or vice versa.

10. One way Facebook. No Fan posts allowed.
Here in the Middle East, brands often feel the need for 'moderated content' and their way of 'moderating' is shutting down the fan's ability to post on the Wall. That's removing the half of a dialog, canceling the engagement, the very reason for being on Facebook. Some brands feel that negative PR on their page will damage their reputation, so they shut down the channel. That's totally counter productive to the principles of social marketing.

Ultimately it's about creating an engagement platform that's interesting and friendly. It's about having a regular, conversation with your friends. Brands need to understand the difference between conversations (social media engagement) and communications (advertising and marketing). It's about building a community.

At Innovatoins_Digital, a digital agency in Dubai, we help brands innovate, inspire and energize their experiences and engagements across online, mobile, outdoor, search and social mediums. And, yes, we do get people to "Like" brands on Facebook. By doing it right.

First posted on the Innovations_Digital blog page on the website.

The best Christmas tech gimmick of the year: Google's "Let it Snow" Search result

Tech companies great and small always have a gimmick or two up their sleeve, and Google has been known for their screen adaptations and their playful renderings of their logo on the main Search page. But this year’s “Let It Snow” frosting of the search result page takes the icing on the cake.

Just do a search for “let it snow” and watch the flakes fall across your screen until the search result window gets completely ‘snowed’ over and the blue ‘Search’ button at the top becomes ‘Defrost’.  What’s even cooler is that once your screen gets completely fogged up you can also draw on the Google search results page like a finger on a window.

As of today (three days past Christmas) the trick is still on, and it may be a nice idea for Google to keep this on through the cold season. So, yes, even in Dubai, we can sit back at our offices or at home and enjoy the snow.

We hope you had a good 2011 and are celebrating the arrival of the New Year. At Innovations_Digital we wish you all the best for the Season. So, let it snow…

Published on: the Innovations-Digital blog

5 Ways to use the Power of Social Media

You can have a thousand friends on Facebook, and 10,000 Likes, but what do they mean? If you’re running a social media campaign for your brand, how do you convert “Likes” to sales, friends to customers? The whole idea behind setting up a successful brand page on Facebook, and of course getting ‘Likes’ is to truly engage with your best fans – your loyal followers, your brand believers. If you are able to identify – and cultivate – people out there who are genuinely interested in your products or services, they will in some way or another tell others about it. And, eventually, with the trickle down, and with friends trusting friends etc – your following increases – and your chances of selling and moving product gets better.

One way of genuinely engaging your target audience via social media include finding out what your target customers are interested in and then talking to  them about it. That’s “content marketing” and this emerging leader in the tools of the trade game is showing up as one of the strongest performing channels – a very close second to e-mail. Yes, brands that are becoming “content publishers” – providing engaging, interesting content are winning the game. When you find it difficult to hard sell – and social media is not for hard sell anyways – creating and publishing content is a great tool.

Content is a great trust tool. If you provide value addition via content, people get to trust your brand. They find your brand and everything they associate with it relevant to their space. They end up trusting your product, believing in it. You get to the top of the top-of-mind position.

Another way is to ask your customers, your target audience about what they really want from you as a brand, or from your product or your industry. When you ask your ‘audience’ what they want to hear, you’re playing their hits, they’ll listen without hesitation – because it’s theirs, not yours. It’s relevant, and meaningful. That’s engagement, not monologue. If you are able to talk to your audience about what their interests are – and then build (or revise) your profile, your benefits around that dialog, you’ve got a winning strategy.

Lead them to where they want to go, not where you think they should. Follow their interests, listen to them, see what they’re really clicking through to, and provide a destination, a result that they want to see, to experience. If you are offering information on a new feature on a camera, no point taking them to a home page. If you’re selling a low-interest car loan, don’t take them to the Financing section on your bank site – take them to a page on the loan and a form that they can apply on.

Hard sell is the last thing you should be doing on social media. Think about it, you don’t go over to a friend’s place for dinner and start selling him your golf set. Friends don’t like that. If you’ve really gotten into “social” media, please do be social. Engage them, tell them a story, provide some information, share a joke, show them an interesting video. You can sell the product downstream.

And, finally, social is about shared experiences. If they genuinely “Like” what you have for them, they’ll tell friends, and friends will tell their friends, and like that it rolls forward. Make what you say easily shareable. If it genuinely adds value, brings a smile to someone’s face, causes a positive reaction – they’ll share it. But it’s your job to make that process easy. Provide all the buttons, the links, the encouragement. And, of course, the right stuff.

First posted on Innovations Digital blog. At Innovations_Digital, a digital marketing agency in Dubai, we work closely with our clients to harness the power of social media.

Notworking on Social Networking: Why brands fail on social networks

According to the social media analysts socialbakers, only 5% of queries posted by consumers on social networks are answered by brands! Forget being proactive, most brands are not even reactive – they are absolutely ignorant of what’s out there on social. What then is the point of having a facebook page if you’re not going to respond anyway? While the numbers keep growing both globally, and here in the UAE and the region, it kind of seems pointless from a brand perspective if there is no dialog.

Telecoms and airlines seem to have the highest rates of response, while the automotive sector is the least ‘socially correct’. Only 2.5% of social media messages are ever answered by the wheeled heeled. Oh, and the media industry? Just 1% of queries are answered!

In the US, for example, social networks and blogs reach around 80% of active internet users. The US market’s brand-in-social metric is amazing. Around 55% of active adult social network users follow a brand. But are brands responding? In the UAE, there are 2.62 million facebook users. Where are the brands?

Agencies that work with brands are also to blame on this for not showing the way. While the agency scenario is rapidly changing, a lot of the large ‘do-it-all’ ‘through-the-line’ agencies haven’t warmed up to the social trends yet – leaving their brands in the dark and the silent.

At Innovations_Digital, we call this amazing pall of silence and lack of response the ‘whisper mode’. And, this is difficult to understand. Clearly, the numbers are showing where the wind is blowing, but brands don’t have any idea on how to play with the wind. This amazing consumer channel – with its instant feedback, it’s open source field of consumer action and reaction is being ignored. Imagine, the sheer ignorance or arrogance of a brand like British Airways – who started their facebook interface with a wall closed to posts (now you can, though, they’ve learnt quickly).

Social media has both a long tail and a short response time lag. Things happen in the instant. Brands should not sit back and wait to respond – because word about the brand (specially negative) spreads rapidly in the here and now. And brands who shut down communications or delete negative posts when they happen are committing social suicide.

The whole point of being in the social media space is to be social. And being social means to engage in dialog – brands need to realize that it’s not another billboard or newspaper ad. Brands need to remember to be ‘socially correct’ – too many posts, too frequent tweets are also not done – that’s shouting. But to not respond, to wish it away, to hope for the best is just playing ostrich and sand. And that’s dumb. That’s why brands fail in social networking.

Published on the blog for innovations_digital: the digital agency in Dubai

Using Social Networks to check on Job Applicants

90% of recruiters look at your social network profiles and activities when you apply for a job! And, around 70% end up rejecting an application based on ‘negative’ content found on social networks about the candidate. That’s the way the power of social media has taken hold. Social media monitoring service Reppler surveyed hundreds of recruiters and turned in an anteresting infographic on how social networks and what a job applicant says on them is affecting the hiring process.

So, be a little careful about what you’re posting on Facebook – those wild Friday nights and parties may end up on the recruiter’s desktop. Recruiters definitely check LinkedIn, but most profiles on the ‘business-minded’ profile and networking site are fairly clean. It’s the Facebook wall post, the crazy tweets and the ‘anti-social’ comments across all social networks that have a nasty long tail.

As a digital agency in Dubai, Innovations_Digital works closely with clients’ brands to help develop their social media marketing solutions, and helping their recruiters to use social media is just one aspect of the spectrum.

Click on the link below to see how the full infographic...

First posted on the Innovations_Digital blog

http://www.innovationsdigital.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/How-Recruiters-Screen-Candiates-Using-Social-Media.jpg

5 SEM Essentials for Brand Managers

While Search Engine Marketing is growing by leaps and bounds (specially here in the Middle East), brand managers need to have a simple check list when working with their SEM strategy agencies to make sure Search yields the results they need.

A typical scenario we come across often is when a consumer in Dubai jumps on to google and searches for a LCD TV. Typically, within 0.17 seconds he gets around 6 million + results, but we know he will probably look through only the first few pages. The Search Engine will quickly look through its list of advertisers and place the most popular ones immediately as ads. And, of course, depending on how well the brand or retailer has done on their organic search strategy (SEO), their listing will appear on the page.  And fight for attention with review sites, auctions sites, an Amazon or two, and a blog by a geek. This is where good SEM strategy can kick in to ensure that the consumer is empowered and enabled to make a positive decision for a particular brand, and a particular model being marketed.

1. Each specific search term (keyword, model name, key descriptor, brand, feature etc) should lead to a specific landing page. When I am searching for 'lcd tv' I should not have to trawl through a Home Page and try and locate Products > TVs > LCD > Brandname etc. How often have you searched for a 'car loan' and been proudly introduced to a "Our Leadership" feature on a Bank's silly home page?

2. The specific landing page should be a sales tool for that specific offering. If I am looking for a 18 megapixel camera in my search query, oh, please don't lecture me on the benefits of high megapixel. Sell me the D900. It's not about persuasion in general (time is precious online), it's about specific empowerment information. Don't waste the consumer's time, and don't waste your budget.

3. On the specific landing page you take them to, reiterate the offer you made in your ad copy in the search result. If you have brought them in to your site with a lure of "lowest interest rates on car loans", talk about it clearly, re-sell and shout about that specific feature. They did not click on "free credit card with loan" – so why put that in your landing page headline? Scream "Lowest Interest Rates on Car Loans".

4. Be clear on context (see above) and be clear on content. Make all the information easy to understand, the offer transparent and clear, and the benefit of a purchase decision easy to see and understand. Gather the information you need – ask nicely, and give the consumer what they are looking for  – which for the most part is a sense of direction, assurance and the enablement of a positive decision in your favor.

5. You'll be tempted to say a lot since you have already started a conversation per se, but here brevity is key. Try not to provide dozens of links to your main company home page, other product pages, corporate mumbo jumbo etc. When you're saying too much you end up not saying what's really key. And what you say should be relevant – locally contextual, available, and immediate.

Do, of course ake sure that your organic search works hand in hand with SEM, and that your website content – particularly the landing page you created (yes! specific to the keywords you bought) has all the right words in there.

When working with your Search agency, or even developing a basic strategy, set goals and tick the 5 SEM Tips above. You'll be five steps closer to the consumer making the decision that you want him or her to make – in your favor – right there. And armed with that, hopefully, he'll click through to buy, or head off to the nearest retailer. Or bank, as the case may be.

Also published on: http://www.innovationsdigital.com/2011/10/5-sem-essentials-for-brand-managers/

Because the people who think they are crazy enough to change the world are the ones who do.
To Steve Jobs, thank you for changing my world.