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

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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.

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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/

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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.

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Blackberry OS6: Low Battery Life and how to fix it

Let’s admit it, the Blackberry OS6 is a battery drainer! There are numerous blogs and forums that talk about this issue, and a lot of them are helpful. We’ve put together a few easy tips on how to improve your battery life using OS6. It is a neat system, with a lot of useful features, but if your battery drains half way through the day, it isn’t going to help.

 1. Keep your battery charged, topped up whenever possible. This does no harm to the battery, and this is the first step. Plugging it into the wall socket, rather than use the USB on your desktop. Charge it to the max.

 2. Check your network connections and switch off Wi-fi and Bluetooth if you’re not using it. (under Manage Connections). This is a huge savings.

 3. Your screen display consumes a lot of juice. Two things: Under Screen Display, turn down the brightness to as low as you are comfortable with. Second, turn the Backlight Timeout setting to as low as possible – like 20 secs or less.

 4. Turn off GPS whenever you don’t need it. Under Location Services, turn Location Off. This is a huge and constant power consumer, and this helps a lot.

 5. Under Typing and Input, turn off the first option – Key Tone. This adds up through the day, and helps conserve power.

 6. Turn off as many Applications you may have running in the Background. On Android, this is a key power saver, and it’s the same with Blackberry. Use the Close feature on the Apps when you are done with them.

 7. On the powerful new Browser, you can create shortcuts to your often used websites. Create icons on your home screen to save multiple steps.

 8. Limit Media usage. Exit your music player using the Esc key, to shut it off.

 9. Switch power off when you know you won’t use your handset.

 10. In some cases, this still does not work. And the only way out is to revert back to OS5. This is a bit silly, but hundreds of BB users have had to do this, and are quite reluctant to upgrade to OS6 knowing their battery life will be a problem. See this useful link on how to downgrade: http://supportforums.blackberry.com/t5/BlackBerry-Bold/Downgrade-from-V6-back-to-V5/m-p/1148353#M78311

Published and written for the Innovations_Digital website: http://www.innovationsdigital.com/2011/10/blackberry-os6-low-battery-life-and-how-to-fix-it/

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10 Hits from the 70s we love – thank you YouTube!

YouTube. Gags, stupid pet tricks, car stunts galore. But what we don't realize is that it's a digital treasure trove of all things archived. Including a massive collection of music you otherwise would have had to mixtape or totally file in that draw called oblivion. Thanks to the world's second most popular search engine (yes, YouTube is only 2nd behind Google), today we can find music we grew up on, music we played in our car on our first date, music our folks listened to and today's up and coming music as well. Imagine life without YouTube...

Imagine | John Lennon (Imagine, 1971)

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5 Essentials for Building a Successful Website

Five key elements that you need to keep top of mind when looking to build a successful website are Idea, Ease of Use, Value Addition, the Details and the Team. Everything else is dressing. If you’ve focused on the key elements when building – or re-building, refreshing or looking for a solution – most everything else falls into place.


1. A core idea

A website is a creative project – and it needs a central, pivotal idea – a purpose. No matter how well it is designed, how well the information flows, if there’s no central idea, you haven’t got much to build on. Like Shakespeare’s plays, there has to be a central theme, a good creative proposition. Then it’s easy to flow the rest, to build the parts, the dialogue, the engagement, the stickiness. Decide early on what you are setting out to do – what is the purpose… And, ideally, the purpose is well defined and then implemented via a good idea. The Louis Vuitton site is built around – appropriately – journeys. And it unfolds so beautifully. Old Spice use the tongue-in-cheek Old Spice Man as a storytelling theme and have been doing it well. When commissioning a web project, ask “what’s my core central idea and how are we telling that story?” – and you can ask this question regardless if you are building a site for kids, for transaction, for a bank or for adidas.

2. Ease of Use

Usability is a buzzword that’s been around, but frankly and simply put, this is all about ease of use. How well is your site sign-posted? Is content easy to find? Is information available without digging through seven layers? Are all the relevant bits in the right places? Have you asked the developers to check for intuitiveness – meaning, for the most part – is the journey not down the road less traveled. If it is, they will leave. A good website makes it easy – but exciting, and yes, there is a happy medium. Both outgoing information (what your website says) and incoming messages (what your target audience says or does in response) should be easy – and (not boring, but) predictable. When you arrive at an airport, you don’t want to have to guess where the taxis are.

3. Value Addition
People don’t come to your website becuase they have time to kill. And if they are, you better have some really cool games on! Seriously, ensure that you are adding genuine value to the user experience, no matter what. Are you providing useful, relevant information that they’re looking for, or is it a lot of chest beating in an ‘About Us’ section that’s only relevant to you and your CEO? Does the end-user buying your product really want details on when and how your mission statement was written? Come on! Give them value on every page. Provide details when you feel they’re looking for it, and keep it simple when simple will do. Content, specially copy. is best written by web writing specialists who can look at the project from a user perspective – not from the company’s. And whether it’s images, videos, games, coupons, whatever – it should all add some intrinsic value to the visitor’s experience – and that way they’ll remember your site and come back. And, so remember to refresh the value.

4. Details

Detail is key. Have you provided everything that’s needed to complete and enrich the user experience? Have you provided all the information? And that information is up to date? And the links all work, the copy is fluid (and spelled correctly), the visuals are optimized, the forms easy to fill and return, the price points are correct, the social links all lead to the right destinations – God’s in the details. Get the development team to pre-flight check everything, and have a new set of eyes look through it all before you launch a site or add new content. The best way is to prepare a check list of everything that goes on your site – down to the last level of links, the tiny Like Us icons, the Home buttons – everything – and make sure they all work and they all are aligned, in the right place, the right colors etc etc etc. Restaurants have soft launches, websites have beta. This is so that the wrinkles can be ironed out.

5. The team

Once you set out to build a website, identify a core team. We’re not talking about the agency or the company or the department that’s building the site. But the core team. They are the ones who will drive the project, manage the milestones, reign in the costs, ensure that everything that was promised gets delivered – and on time. Usually it’s no more than two to three people. Seriously, after that you’re crowdsourcing, and websites usually are difficult to manege when you’ve got a stadium working on it. Insist on a lead team that manages the product. All you need is a comfort level, a sense of trust with this core team. After that, it’s their headache to get the best designers to design, and the best code-warriors to do the back-end. Your project may be huge and may need a team of forty programmers – but you still need just two, max three people driving it. Fall guys. Which is why, often, smaller agencies who manage out sourcing well often deliver to tight schedules and high quality demands better. The fall guys are for real, and they have a lot riding on it. Find a good core team, and you’ve got success – you’ve offloaded your headache.

First published in the Innovations_Digital blog

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