Should I use Facebook as an advertising medium?

Should I use Facebook as an advertising medium?

Sep 21, 2016 | Communication, Marketing, Social Media

Once again yesterday I found myself in a conversation both extolling and deriding the utility of Facebook as a small business marketing tool.

Seems to happen a lot that small businesses hear (urban myth?) of someone making a fortune just using Facebook and think ‘Why not me”

Fair question, with a bunch of ‘maybe’s’ as answers. What should be remembered is that Facebook is one of a large number of social platforms, all are different, but all are vying for your attention and the money that flows from that attention, so choose wisely

Facebook benefits.

  • Facebook (as are all social platforms)  is a wholesaler of eyeballs, they leverage your use of the platform to attract other eyeballs to which they can sell access. The sheer numbers using the platform, and the targeting ability generated makes Facebook a potent marketing tool, when used well.
  • Facebook is terrific at connecting people, one on one. It has become sometimes easier to connect on Facebook than by email or phone, although there is a strong demographic factor in this. Want to connect with me, Facebook is not the place, but you will find my kids there.
  • The small focussed groups, connecting one to a few where there is a strong common interest is also a potentially powerful marketing tool for small business, depending on their markets. However, it takes an investment of time, effort, and often money, to leverage it.
  • As a tool in the list building box, Facebook has a place, particularly as you seek to identify specific behaviours and interests. This targeting potential of Facebook is from a marketing perspective, its most potent tool

 

Facebook costs.

  • Access to your friends and followers is limited by the algorithms Facebook uses. The organic reach is now around 6%, if you want more, you pay. They may be your posts, friends and followers, but you are in Facebooks house, and they make the rules to suit them, not you.
  • Facebook has an addictive quality about it, and can become a ferocious consumer of your time, the only non renewable resource you have, so use it wisely.
  • Conversion to a sale on Facebook is a challenging prospect, often overlooked. You can spend heaps and get no sales, no financial return. You might have lots of friends, shares, followers, group members, and all the rest, but few sales. Largely this is because Facebook is at the ‘social’ end of the social media spectrum. People are on Facebook not to buy and sell, but to be ‘social’ There are however, exceptions. There is a buy/sell group in Armidale NSW with thousands of members, and it constitutes a social marketplace, but the transactions often occur offline.

 

Take-out.

Facebook is great, in some circumstances, use it when those circumstances favour you, and ‘managing‘ your involvement can deliver rewards. However, if you are not focussed on what you want, Facebook will take you to the cleaners. The only right answer to the question ‘Should I use Facebook” is the same as that question directed to any other cost in your business: do it If, and only if, it makes commercial sense to you.

7 sources of great ideas

7 sources of great ideas

Sep 19, 2016 | Collaboration, Innovation

Where do these great ideas come from, why are some organisations just more innovative than others?.

I have pondered those questions for years as a corporate executive and as a consultant, and it seems to me that there are several points that are common in the situations I have seen that are really innovative, and contrasted in the rest because they simply lack some of these characteristics.

It is also the fact that each of the following ‘conditions’ is a result of that most elusive of management skills: leadership.

Genetics. Some people are just smarter than others, and smart people tend to have more and better ideas. They are also better at driving their ideas through an organisation. If you want an innovative organisation, it seems  that hiring smart people and giving them some freedom is a pretty good place to start.

Outliers. Malcom Gladwell coined this term, meaning those who do not conform, seek to be on the outside, be different, experience things out of the ordinary. Those people are more likely to see and be interested on something different than someone who is comfortable with the status quo.

Intersections. Ideas come from all sorts of places, most often from the intersection of several factors that create some sort of smash, an accident if you like. Rarely are great ideas just accidental. They come out of consideration, often subconscious, of the factors creating friction in a system, and by removing the friction, a new freedom is exposed. You are more likely to see an accident at the corner of Parramatta road and Frederick Street in Ashfield than you are in a country road outside Dubbo. In Ashfield there are a multiple sets of options open to the traffic, some of it entirely unpredictable. If you want to see an accident, that is clearly the better place to be.

Culture. I am a great fan of the scientific method being applied to management and particularly marketing thinking. Create a hypothesis, and test it  see what worked, and what did not, improve the hypothesis and retest. Rinse and repeat. It really works, and when you empower people to have a go, and give them the resources to do so, wonderful things can happen. I have previously described it as a loose/tight management culture. Be very tight about the objectives and behaviour parameters, but loose with the detail of how it is achieved. A note of caution however. The recent recognition that it is all right, indeed good, to fail, seems to be leading us to a point where failure is regarded as a badge of honour for its own sake, and due diligence is becoming less important. Very dangerous this, the right to fail, must be accompanied by the determination to learn from the failure, and great diligence in the construction of the hypotheses and the manner of their testing.

Collaboration. The cliché ‘two brains are better than one’ is a cliché for a reason, it is true. Collaboration will become one of the defining characteristics of success in the 21st century.

Great questions. What if, what now, how about, so what, have you tried… The ability for those in a business to ask questions and not be seen as an inquisitor, and those being questioned seeing the questions as opportunities to learn is a huge factor in the successfully innovating enterprises I have seen. Facilitating a clients innovation  workshop some time ago, the MD started by stating his view, then asking what everyone else thought. Needless to say all participants agreed with him, except for me, and they are no longer a client.

Customers. Current, past, potential, all are sources of ideas, as they are the ones who have the problems you are seeking to add value by solving. Makes sense to ask them.

As a final note, having a great idea is only the first step. The really hard bit is creating the pathways to do something of lasting value with it that adds to the longevity and prosperity of the enterprise.

My thanks once again too Hugh McLeod for the illustration.

Classic marketing strategy: Before & After

Classic marketing strategy: Before & After

Sep 16, 2016 | Management, Strategy

The classic ad for weight loss products is to show a before and after. It also works for make-up, home decoration and renovation, and a myriad of other products,

What about yourself, your personal branding?

Works there too, and it is a pretty important product.

Digital media suddenly requires that we become ‘public’ in a way that was unthinkable just a generation ago. We have become our own products, and yet so many of us are reluctant to spend a few bucks to get the best out of what we have.

I have been no different.

For the past decade or so I have been active on various digital platforms and have used the same photo, taken with a good camera, but nevertheless an amateur photo. While it conveyed (at least I thought it did) the sort of ‘gravitas’ that my long career and deep domain knowledge has developed, it was less than optimum.

So, I took my own advice to my clients, and lashed out and had Sam Affridi  take some shots. Sam spent a considerable time with me in conversation, so that when he broke out his gear, he had a clear idea in his mind what would deliver the best result. Of the many shots he took, he selected a small number, all different, that all convey a subtly different message underpinned with the foundation conveying the wisdom that comes from long experience.

You judge for yourself if it was worth a couple of hours and a few dollars.

hero_shot_sydney_strategy_audit-5

intellectual-capital-resized

4 easy questions to help get stuff done

4 easy questions to help get stuff done

Sep 15, 2016 | Governance, Leadership

Taking action is the hard part of getting stuff done, the talk is easy, but when the rubber has to hit the road, then you see who is really adding any value.

The 4 simple questions I ask are:

Who is responsible?

Who is accountable?

Who is to be consulted?

Who is to be informed?

Lack of an answer on any of them is a sure indicator of a hole that will swallow some of your efforts.

Last night I was at a forum hosted by the local council for sporting organisations in the region.

The forum had no real objective beyond some institutional need to ‘consult’ , a useful process, but the organisers seemed to have no idea about the framework on which they were seeking input.

As the answer to each of these 4 questions was “nobody’ or ‘not sure’ I do not expect to smell the rubber any time soon.

How to make your first impression work for you.

How to make your first impression work for you.

Sep 12, 2016 | Social Media

‘A picture tells a thousand words’ and ‘You do not get a second chance to make a first impression’ are two clichés that we all accept for good reason: they are true.

Why is it than that so many of us fail to present ourselves in a good light on line?

A few facts to consider:

  • Selling anything, (including yourself) you must look like someone from whom your potential customer would be happy to buy! The first place most people look these days to assess any proposition is the web profile of the person making the offer. Even if it is just a connection request, it would be rare, on LinkedIn at least, to accept a request of any sort without a look at the profile. I can only speak for myself, but I never accept a request from someone I do not know without  assessing several parameters on their profile, significant amongst them is a photo. No photo, no acceptance, lousy photo, usually no acceptance.
  • The days of secure long term employment are well and truly over. Much has been written about the transformation of the working environment over the last 10 years, books, academic research, articles, public policy white papers, piles of it. Forget the research, and consider what you know from your own experience: is the certainty of long term employment greater or less than 20 years ago? Assuming the answer is “less’ what have you done about your own prospects of generating an income? ‘Personal Branding’ is another of the clichés I dislike, but that does not mean it is nonsense, just over-used.   In an uncertain world, it makes sense to present a profile to those who might come into contact with you in some way that offers them the foundation on which to build confidence, likeability, and perhaps trust, just in case it is ever needed.
  • Most jobs are never advertised. Ask Mr Google and you get conflicting answers, anywhere between 50 and 80% of jobs are never advertised. Whatever the right answer, most people get jobs via their personal networks that are never advertised. In my experience, jobs that are advertised are probably not more than 30%, and many of them are not seriously looking for candidates, as the job has been effectively filled internally, but processes require that an ad be placed for so called equity.
  • The web has made applying for a job so easy that any ad for a reasonable job attracts sometimes thousands of applications many of them auto-applications. Recruiters act accordingly and have automated the culling and response processes so to avoid the chop and get through the initial cull, then actually get an interview is a significant achievement. Without a fully completed profile, and particularly a photo, preferably one that has been shared by others, your ranking by head-hunters bots will be compromised.
  • Our digital networks are now so wide that the old adage of ‘It is not what you know that counts, but who you know’ has been altered. It is now more like ‘not who you know, but who they know that counts’. In 1973 A study by Mark Granovetter, a sociology professor at Stanford called ‘The strength of weak ties‘ found that in a study of job seekers, that the majority got their jobs from what we now call their second and third degree connections, not from close friends or random connections, which I guess would include job ads. In 2016, this would have to be a far stronger relationship given the digital development that has taken place since the seventies, digital dark ages.
  • The two biggest networks, Facebook and LinkedIn are almost ubiquitous. We all have an account, and most of us use them in some way. Facebook has 15 million plus active Australian users, many with several pages, active in many groups. LinkedIn, as the premier commercial networking site, differentiated from the socially focussed Facebook has 4.4 million active accounts in Australia. Do you think you should be ‘constructively active’ on these platforms??
  • Humans are visual animals, we absorb, relate to and remember visuals way better than copy. Why then would you have a photo in your profile that did not show you in the best light possible? An acquaintance of mine had a lousy photo taken with a phone on her LinkedIn profile, and wondered why her connection request acceptances were so low. After some badgering she spent a few dollars and had a professional photo done, and her acceptances shot up 35% almost overnight, no other change. As her income depends on generating sales leads, she has just made life a lot easier and more profitable.
  • Your strong connections are likely to be much like you, similar interests, background and acquaintances. However, it is far more likely that your weaker connections, those with whom you share little will be a richer source of networks that may be of value to you than the closer connections. Obviously however, the weaker the connection, the less likely they are to be willing to refer you. Clearly just leaving it to chance is a tougher master, so tweaking everything you can, and specifically your photo, seems pretty sensible.

 

In the light of these facts, let’s think about your profile, and how to maximise the impact it has the first moment someone sees it.

  • Do not make it about you, make it about them. Sounds counter-productive, but obvious when you think about it. Everyone has a favourite word, and know it or not, most peoples favourite word is the same one:  ‘Me’. It is all about Me me me!! Problem is, nobody else really cares about you, except perhaps your Mum, and close family. Therefore when someone scans your profile, the more comfortable they feel, the more likely they are to dig a bit deeper, and the way to make them comfortable is to relate in some way. Putting your resume up as your profile is the biggest and most common mistake I see.
  • Get noticed.  How do you get noticed? How do you make your profile stand out?
    • You have to give people a reason to notice.
    • then a second reason, having noticed, why they should care.

People have no time, and are bombarded with messages, so if you do not get noticed, and give a reason to care in the headline, they are gone.When you think about it, the ‘headline’ on line is almost always your photo. It is what is seen first by most visitors, makes that first impression for a first time visitor, and delivers reassurance for the returning visitor.

  • Be focused. This means you have to be very selective about what you say, being all things to all people never worked. Finding some way of communicating this focus is really challenging, until you remember that humans are visual animals, we absorb and process visuals remarkably quickly. The challenge then becomes one of visual communication, what subtle messages are contained in the visual. Two things your visual should communicate:
    • In what way you are different, relevant, remarkable.
    • What is in that difference for those visiting the image, in what way can those differences be of value to the visitor.

Pretty subtle stuff.

Most people just use a photo that someone took of them that they like, sometimes it is the one they took of themselves on their mobile.

My advice is always to have a professional take some shots. A professional in any field are just better at what they do. I write a lot, and think I am OK at it, but I am not a professional, I am a strategist, not a writer. My sister is a writer, and sometimes she takes one of my posts, usually one I think is pretty good, and covers it in red ink, like my 3rd grade English teacher. Annoying, but always accurate. What results is inevitably a better post, subtlety different, but still my post, my voice,  my idea, just articulated better!.

It is the same with photography.

When you want one that really works, get a professional to do it.

All my clients use Sam Affridi,  he delivers those subtle things that make a difference. Call him for a chat, and tell him I suggested you call, see what a difference he can make to your profile.