Social Marketing & Digital Agency

Using social media within the public sector has been an alien concept until relatively recently. Finally, however, many organisations, from councils to education and healthcare, are waking up to the realisation that using social applications to communicate with their community is not only desirable, but becoming essential in these times of rationalisation of resources and the rise of the smartphone, which has seen practically the whole of the UK become perpetually digitally connected.

Excitingly, innovative leaders in the public sector are starting to be recognised for their success, too. For example, Northumberland Council has just won an award for the way it utilised social media as part of its winter alerts service. More than 13,500 residents are now actively using its service to keep up to date with issues such as school closures or problems on the roads via Facebook and Twitter.

Experts say this is the way all public sector bodies from councils to colleges should be going, which is fine in theory, but the biggest challenge can be how to start, so I have pulled together Best Practice Social Media Tips for the public sector:

1. Who are you talking to?

Sounds basic, but by knowing who you are talking to, you can concentrate on communicating effectively with that segment and be able to respond quickly and effectively

2. Communicate – don’t lecture

It’s called social for a reason. Nonetheless, most companies, let alone public bodies, are still very guilty of push marketing, lecturing or preaching, rather than communicating, interacting and responding. If your designated bloggers or Tweeters don’t know the difference, you’re likely to be preaching to thin air as your potential audience will just tune out and not listen

3. Which social channel?

Each social channel has a different personality and different use. LinkedIn, for example, is very much for people who want to network professionally and for profiling their careers, so is particularly good for educational bodies to use to help their graduates, for example. Facebook is ideal as a social hub, where everything can be bought together as it has more daily users of a wider demographic and more equal age/gender range than any other.

• Twitter is a high speed news network ideal for communicating directly or sharing real time news.
• Pinterest and Flickr are great for visually impactful messages and events, as is
• YouTube, which is also is brilliant for training and information videos, and
• AudioBoo is best for the visually impaired or for those who want to be socially connected on the go as they can tune in and listen on their headphones.

You can have a presence on all the channels, but then tailor your output to suit each one and specific audiences you are trying to reach, or you can just pick and choose two or three to concentrate on initially and expand as you start to feel comfortable.

4. Be prepared

Make sure you have a social media policy document in place and that your staff know how you expect them to behave online (usually just as you would expect them to behave offline) and what is fine to share/say and what isn’t. Be clear about how you deal with any negative comments online, and make sure everyone is aware of the set procedures. Also think about what might happen in the worse case scenario and have a ‘social media crisis plan’ on file in place in order to inform and minimalise speculation and panic

5. Professional but personable

Maintain your professional standards with attractive profiles that are on brand for your organisation and provide the same courteous service you would strive to provide face to face. Yet you also need to remember this is social and people like to talk to people, so let your designated social media managers be themselves within the designated guidelines

6. Testing, testing: oops, you’re live on air!

On social media, more than just about anywhere else, it can be all too easy to be lulled in to a false sense that no one is listening, or that you are just talking to a select group of other users. Yet your social profiles are forever public facing broadcasting unless they are locked down, and should be treated with the same care as you would treat any other public facing communication, and with due respect for the fact it changes very quickly. So 1) always be professional, 2) only participate after relevant training, 3) have regularly updated guidelines and 4) NEVER let temporary staff loose on it

7. Ban the tumbleweed

And finally, do make sure that once you start you continue – no ignoring anybody who asks a question or for information via your social media profiles or suddenly going quiet. One of the worst things any organisation can do is to have a social presence that is empty, inactive and as quiet as an abandoned ghost town with tumbleweed blowing up the main street.

Being social is all about responding, communicating and sharing information. As a public sector organisation it is your duty to do all three, so it is a potentially a match made in Heaven, so long as you make sure you do it right – and if you want some help, don’t hesitate to get in touch on hello@themediamarketingco.com.

This was first published on PublicTechnology.net.

Children at the Sari Weaving village. http://www.flickr.com/photos/scadcharity/5937335156/in/set-72157627113902397

Flickr is a great resource and is very useful for visually rich businesses, which charities tend to be, whether that is because of their subject matter or what people are doing to raise money to help.

As such it should be treated as an integral part of your social good organisation’s social media strategy and activity, helping to inform, educate and drive the emotional responses that lead to donations or involvement. As an additional extra, adding it in to the mix will help your search rankings if done correctly.

Like everything, however, it has to be used correctly to get the maximum benefit online, whether for business, charities, or Social Enterprise organisations.

Here are a few top tips to help you leverage the potential of Flickr for your business, social enterprise, charity or not for profits organisation:

1. Content – Use original content that are relevant to your message and goals, achievements and organisation, such as photos of what you are achieving, charitable activities, behind-the-scenes images and historical photos.

2. Tag it – Make sure that every image or video is properly titled, with descriptions and metatags, for maximum SEO potential. Flickr makes it easy to edit this information for a batch of photos as well as allowing you to doing it singly. Just unloading the image and leaving on the camera’s image name eg IMG_0001.jpg is wasting an opportunity to improve your organisation’s online profile and also looks very unprofessional.

3. Do More With Less – Don’t have more than one Flickr account for your organisation unless there is a really compelling reason to do so, as it dilutes the search potential and well increasing confusion, but do file your images and videos in Groups within that one account complete with a description that incorporates your keywords.

4. Groups – Share your images or videos in relevant Flickr Groups, and get involved in Group discussions as well as outreaching to other Group members’ shared images and video. If you want to create your own group that reflects your organisations interests Flickr allows you to create official Sponsored Groups, such as Kellogg’s Moments of Motherhood Group where users share motherhood-related images: http://www.flickr.com/groups/momentsofmotherhood/

5. Relationships – Just as in any other social network, building relationships is important. Outreach to other Flickr members in your sphere by favouriting their content and/or commenting on their pictures or video. This helps build links and a community around your shared purpose or interest.

6. Go Pro – a Pro account increases the amount of content you can upload per month, and gives you access to increased analytics, which is always helpful. Posting smaller sized images will also help you retain control of how and where they are used.

7. Share – Regularly share your Flickr content on other social networks, such as Tumblr, Facebook and Twitter to maximise the social links surrounding your organisation/brand online.

8. Be Savvy – Don’t just use Flickr for your photographs as it is open source; do think about only uploading minimal sized images so that their reuse is restricted; make sure the ones you do upload there are actually hosted elsewhere, such as on your company’s website, as Flickr’s terms and conditions state: “pages on other web sites that display content hosted on flickr.com must provide a link from each photo or video back to its page on Flickr. This provides a way to get more information about the content and the photographer.”

At The Media Marketing Co we work with many Social Enterprises, Charities and Not for Profits Organisations to help them raise their profiles and increase donations. If you would like further information contact claire@themediamarketingco.com.

Good content is THE essential element in all search, marketing, publishing, advertising, PR or comms endeavours for every business regardless of size, niche, product or audience.

It establishes your credibility and expertise online, and so becomes the magnetic field that creates interest and attracts visitors and, if you utilise those visitors, customers. Therefore it is the key area in which a company, however well promoted in other areas, will be judged.

Unfortunately not all content is created equal.

While everyone and anybody can produce content, the every ease (and speed) in which it can be created online can often result poorly written and presented content and in far more mistakes being made than any self-respecting offline publication, catalogue, mailshot or brochure would ever have countenanced.

Poor content is a turn off and will not encourage people to stay, return, put their trust in you or buy from you, and so is literally not ‘fit for purpose’. So how do you make sure your company’s content does the job it’s meant to and doesn’t end up damaging your reputation and bottom line?

1. Get the facts right – incorrect facts in something written about you are one thing and unfortunately far too common, but factual mistakes in your own content are inexcusable. Check and check again, and if a mistake does slip through make sure it is rectified immediately – and always ask for mistakes elsewhere to be corrected as well.
2. Write it well – it’s always easier to write it ‘long’ rather than take the time to edit it and refine it, yet a well-crafted piece is much easier to read than a rambling piece of copy and will keep the reader engaged all the way through. Get it professionally written if your team can’t do it themselves.
3. Be correct – bad grammar and spelling errors are a complete no go, whether you’re writing purely ‘business’ English or servicing an audience where the language has taken on its own form (urban, dialect, etc). The same holds true whatever language you are writing in, and that includes getting it translated – always hire an expert if it isn’t your first language, be (or hire) an eagle-eyed sub editor and check, check, check.
4. Know your audience – if I ask you whom you sell to, you probably have a precise and definable customer profile, but does your online content reflect that? If not, you are missing the point (online IS your business) and need to revisit it, refine, or even get it rewritten completely.
5. Don’t be a parrot – write what you think, what you know, what you believe, not repeat what someone else is saying. The internet is FULL of rip off merchants and it is important to make sure your voice is not only on message but also your very own. And yes, I know that is hard – that’s why so many company websites are so boring, so many company blogs are such failures, and why if you get it right, you and your company will stand out from the crowd.
6. Don’t patronise or be heavy handed – the digital revolution has done what the entire political left has been trying to do for decades: levelled the playing field and made everyone equal. So DO build relationships, DO communicate not dictate, and DON’T speak down to your customers. Or you’ll be boycotted faster than you can click your mouse.
7. DO be an expert – don’t be afraid to share your and your team’s expert knowledge, just do it in an adult manner ie peer to peer, NOT teacher to pupil.
8. Give added value – share and include excerpts and hyperlinks to interesting or supporting pieces of content (your own or otherwise– always credit if the latter). Add a downloadable white paper for additional information, run a webinar, or offer a discount on a related event or product. Make it easy for people who want to know more to do so.
9. Make it readable, sharable and mobile friendly – social media, smart phones and tablets have already changed the digital landscape, and will continue to do so in ever-expending ways. In this context design and typeface also become overwhelmingly important because if your visitor can’t read the first paragraph, trust me, they’ll leave, so ensure your content is readable in every format, as well as easily sharable.
10. Work it – I’m a great believer in value for money and so always look to see if one idea or large piece of content can be made to work harder by splitting and re-crafting and placing in different formats, and I’m never afraid to reference old content that still has value.

So look at your content with fresh eyes – is it talking to the right people in the right way? Is it engaging, sharable, easy to read? Can you make it work harder?

A series of blog posts can become an eBook, for example, which could in its turn become a fully-fledged published book (or viz versa – a book can become a series of articles or blog posts exploring the ideas in more detail). A white paper or research study could be a downloadable giveaway.

All can be chunked down and used as a Google+ post, Tumblr picture and feed, Facebook status updates, and Twitter updates, or chunked up and rewritten as news release or online/offline/iPad tablet magazine article, or maybe even form the basis for a webinar and event, which can then be promoted again in turn, all feeding a virtual circle of social goodness that increases your company’s profile as well as your content’s chances of being seen by those you want to reach and with whom you would like to do business.

Which is the crucial thing in Business Comms of all sorts because in today’s digital landscape there is so much noise and content vying for attention that actually becoming visible to your potential audience in the first instance, let alone getting them to stick around and read what you have to say or buy into what you are trying to sell, is a huge hurdle that can’t be underestimated.

Consequently by getting your content spot on you increase your ability to attract visitors from different areas, point them back to your website and encourage them to drop into your marketing funnel ready for the sales team to convert.

Which is the name of the game after all.

As a follow on to our blog last week about how online shopping is beginning to pose a real threat to the High Street , today we are looking at rash of new data generated by the new shopping trends and habits that have emerged over the first six months of 2011.  As with all areas of digital, the pace of change is rapid and fierce and those that don’t take notice of the stats will undoubtedly get their fingers burned.

One of the interesting new surveys is from econsultancy who last month surveyed 2000 shoppers in both the UK and the US to compare how the approaches to multi-channel shopping varied between the two countries.

Although there are differences (hardly surprising) there are a number of similarities in how the sophisticated consumer is playing the ‘multi-channel’ game to ensure that they optimise their shopping experience in terms of value-for-money, convenience and just being able to buy the best product that meets their needs.

People are using general information online to make informed choices about shopping, whether it’s online or in a store.  And they expect to be able to interchange the two experiences, by for example, returning a product bought online to a physical shop.

As mentioned before retailers, must integrate their online and offline promotions to get optimal effect from the customers.

And all this is before taking into account the effect of ‘social shopping’: Groupon and LivingSocial are the big boys, but coupon and ‘daily deals’ sites are popping up all over the place.  According to BIA/Kelsey research, the estimate is that what was an $873 million market in deal-a-day e-commerce in 2010 will rise to $1.24 billion in 2011 and increase to $3.9 billion in 2015.  However, the market is a very new niche, and although Groupon has attracted some eye-wateringly high valuations pre-IPO, many analysts think that these are way too high.

What is clear though is that the canny consumer is playing the game to maximum advantage, which has shifted the balance and caused many retailers to lose out.

More research finds that “the relatively low percentages of deal users spending beyond the deal value (35.9 percent) and returning for a full-price purchase (19.9 percent)”, which  means that the long-term market isn’t quite as peachy for the deals market as some would like to think.

So while the consumer is playing clever, so must the retailer. As closures on the High Street become a regular fixture in the headlines, retailers must become more and more sensitive to the needs of their customers. And we haven’t even got onto the effect of mobile shopping on all this yet….another blog coming soon for that one!

Unless you have been living under a rock this week you will be aware that Google has just soft launched Google+ (Google Plus) AKA Google Circles and that this is A Big Deal.

I was invited to the beta party and, having spent a fair bit of time playing with it, I feel somewhat, well, underwhelmed.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s a well-made platform with a nice interface and good features, thanks presumably to famed Mac designer Andy Hertzfeld, so all good.

It’s obviously a mere sliver of what’s to come as they have already changed Google Search to come into alignment and a massive rebranding exercise is evidently in hand, with Steven Levy confirming that Google’s Emerald Sea Project has a scheduled 100+ social feature launches planned, so that’s potentially huge and exciting. And they are obviously way more serious and committed to this than they were to Buzz, but… but… but… lots of things are simply annoying.

For starters, why call it Google+ (Plus) when they already have Google+1?

It’s hardly catchy, and it’s very confusing, so much so that people are calling it Google Circles as often as they say GooglePlus, and that’s never good when you have just launched a product regardless of where you eventually want to take it or what you want to do with it.

I know not many people are using it yet and few of us have proper friends to add to the Friends Circle, but still, sharing publically seems to be the norm for everyone and goodness knows how that will end up in the future as I really can’t imagine most people will post stuff ONLY to Friends or Acquaintances or Following.

Facebook have had no end of trouble getting most users to do it with groups, so despite Google integrating filtering more seamlessly and forcing you to place each new contact in a Circle, I still think people will resort to default and just post stuff – especially if they are doing so via mobile, which they will, because it’s just too darn fiddly.

It’s all a bit kind of Asperger’s really, with its demand that you immediately file people in boxes or circles or whatever Google would like them filed under. People by their very nature are random and individual and relationships change and evolve, sometimes in the same sentence.

Some of my Facebook friends can be in three, or even four, of my groups, which defeats the purpose really, and I can’t imagine Google Plus/Circles/Thingy will force me to categorise those same people differently. And I can’t see most people wanting to categorise their contacts at all.

It’s not neat, but it’s how life is.

It also annoyed me that you can easily add Picasa pictures but not Flickr pictures, and that posts specifically addressed to me aren’t highlighted in some way so they stand out from the General Babble.

The General Babble is another irritation in the same way as it was with Buzz, because you can’t choose what comments you see, zip up the comments or choose ‘Most Recent’ or ‘Top News’ a la Facebook, though you can mute posts and hide people in your stream.

Although that obviously carries other problems if you are actually interested in what the person has to say, just don’t want a whole stream of comments cluttering up your feed and email.

Oof.

Hopefully they’ll sort it out soon, but in the meantime I found myself wondering with increasing frequency if the Google geeks who designed it actually use social media regularly, because it really is incredibly well, geeky. Which I quite like (Robert Scoble LOVES it), but it has a huge way to go before it fulfils Googles’ vision as an all encompassing platform for everyone.

I do like the slight irreverence that they’ve introduced – a box called ‘Bragging Rights’ made me smile on the profile. Although is it just me or is the box really narrow and fiddly and almost impossible to fill out and edit? Or maybe I just have way too much to brag about?

Unfortunately this irreverence tends to fall right over the edge elsewhere, and I have already developed a rash-inducing aversion to many of the Names of Things.

This includes my favourite function, the Skype-like ‘Hangout’ or, to use their non-verb, ‘Start a Hangout’ (I keep reading ‘Start a Hangover’), to which it seems you can’t just add your contacts by name or via drag and drop, strangely, but have to do so via their emails.

However, on the Plus (that’s Google Plus to you…) side the Hangout is genuinely very cool and in fact you probably could Start a Hangover when using the simultaneous YouTube function with your mates – see a video preview on our home page.

I also quite like the Sparks function (though not the name – blah), where you can add links on topics you choose, filter for news or research or presumably just go browsing, just like in the good old ‘Google It’ days.

On the downside it’s very clonky and needs a fair bit of fine tuning, but it’s obviously got potential as a useful news channel and given the weight of Google behind it there’s obviously a huge amount of mileage to be had and extras to be added.

Which when you think of the Google Empire makes perfect sense and it is clear that Google+ has been designed with both eyes (and hands) firmly on the prospective advertising and marketing revenue that such filtering will create, as the vast expanse of white space all ready and waiting for the advertisers to move in to testifies.

It’s just a shame they haven’t designed it with the average user in mind, because the biggest irritation at the moment is that it just isn’t very social. And by that I mean that you can’t automatically hook up with your existing contacts in anything other than Hotmail or Yahoo, which I don’t use anymore (Hotmail) or would ever want to use except when forced at knifepoint for login purposes (Yahoo). Or easily find anyone, even if they are on Gmail and you know that.

It’s annoying.

And what that most reminds me of is Twitter in the very early days, when there was something like 50 of us in the UK, the interface was blank and confusing, and you just wandered around bumping into people you didn’t really know.

Which is not to say it’s all bad – *waves* to @AModernMother and @BlondbyDesign, fellow fugitives from The Twitter Dark Ages – and look how Twitter grew up and developed from being a Geek Platform to the world’s newsfeed of choice.

It’s just that was Way Back Then and This Is Now, and so Bloody Ridiculous Deeply Irritating Quite Confusing when everything else has moved on and it’s so easy to share, find and import contacts and be social regardless of which platform you’re using. Yet Google insists on silos for goodness sake, “share only what we think you use, not what you actually use”. Do it our way. No sharing with any other common network.

Sigh.

What’s the first social media network rule of thumb, peeps? Oh yes. That it’s social…

Google+ isn’t really a social media network as such, more a network for Geeks by Geeks and it’s going to take a huge amount of effort to turn it into a much-loved social media network to rival Facebook and Twitter.

Luckily – or unluckily depending on your standpoint – Google has those resources in bucketloads. However, as they have already found, having the will is not enough unless you can also find a way of making it attractive, nay downright irresistible, for ordinary peeps because it really is best to give people what they want if you want a product be a commercial success.

Since I don’t think Google+ is anywhere near that yet, it will require every trick Google can throw at it to make it stick. And suddenly the huge brand refresh and tie in with Google Search et al seems less the work of opportunity and more the action of a company that knows it needs to do something radical.

Whether they will succeed in making it into a much-loved part of everyday life or whether it will remain GeekNet and the playground of choice for the few and only ever used grudgingly by the the rest of the world because Google makes them, now That is The Question.

And I think the jury is still out.

Blogging for your company is very different from blogging for yourself as an individual. It is more challenging because you have to tread a fine line between having a personal voice and toeing the company line.

We set up, populate and manage many corporate blogs, some of which have been nominated for awards, and these are some of the essentials elements for corporate blogging:

1. Design – If it isn’t actually part of the company website it needs to be branded the same and be joined to the website seamlessly. It should be on your own platform rather than a popular blogging platform, and be hung off a proper domain with a proper corporate url (preferably www.companyname.com/blog). It needs to be easy to post to and curate, able to video, images, audio, and it must give you as much flexibility as possible. It should be excellent for search purposes and easy to tag, and a breeze to share on social media. And finally, it needs to be easy to measure so you can get the stats. And you thought it was just a blog…

2. Purpose – Begin with the end in mind, in other words, what are you trying to achieve here? What do you want to get out of it? What are the KPIs and what ROI are you hoping for? HINT: it may not be, in fact probably won’t be, measurable in pure financial terms.

3. Content, Content, Content – A blog is easy enough to set up but it is worse than useless if it is left empty. And no one will read it if it is boring. Populate your blog with interesting and well-written, non-jargonistic and relevant posts. Write catchy headers. Include great pictures, photos and graphics. Promote it.

4. Blog Regularly – And this means at least twice a week and daily is best. It doesn’t have to be long posts, it doesn’t have to be all from the same person (guest blogging is good on a corporate blog) and it doesn’t even have to be written solely by the company as an industry news story is good for keeping a blog up to date and this kind of post can always be personalised with a C-level statement or comment.

5. Stay on Brand – All blogs work best when they are consistent, but it is particularly important when it is a corporate blog. Re-establish the brand messaging, create guidelines, set up a Social Media staff policy (if you don’t already have one). Ensure these are adhered to. Make one person responsible overall and give them the KPIs and reporting structure. Then loosen the reins and let it breathe.

6. Establish Sources – Blogs can quickly run out of stream/inspiration/time, especially if it is left to one (usually busy) person to populate and manage. Spread the load by tasking everyone who can write and has something to say with doing at least one post a month, and establish sources, such as social bookmarking, that everyone can contribute to and so share good links and stories.

7. Be Individual – It’s a company blog, but to be engaging it needs to be, er, engaging and that means it needs to have some individuality. Yes, it’s a tightrope to tread between adhering to brand and allowing personality and opinions to shine through, but then no one claimed creating a good corporate blog was easy. That’s why few companies actually manage it.

8. Mix It Up – Change the length and type of post. Blogs work best when they are a bit quirky and interesting, so think video, audio, with picture/without picture, top industry tips, impassioned arguments, industry comment, a word from the CEO, company news etc etc.

9. Link Out – Social media is here to stay and is in fact overtaking everything online at a rate of knots in time spent and traffic, include search and individual websites. A blog is your access point to making it work for your business. Link out your blog to your key business social media profile and make it easy for visitors to share your content. And then promote it, because it doesn’t how well you do it, if you don’t flag it up to people who are interested they won’t come and read it.

And if you need some more help setting up your corporate blog, populating it or managing it, or helping you with your company’s social media strategy, online marketing or PR, and integrating all of this in to your traditional marketing, we can help – mail us at hello@themediamarketingco.com.

Today we heard that Thorntons are thinking of closing a high proportion of their High Street stores. This has come hard on the heels of Habitat’s sell off and the closure of fashion chain, Jane Norman, which has gone into receivership with debts of £120m. Jane Normans’ clothes were aimed at 16-25 years, a demographic that has suffered most during the recession, so perhaps it is, after all, not surprising, but Thorntons…?

Online versus High Street
There has been a growing trend through the past few years High Street shops closing down while their online counterparts thrive, and when we checked rival online fashion store ASOS (As Seen On Screen), we found they had just posted a 41%  rise in profits, making a pre-tax profit of £28.6m in the year to 31 March 2011…

Alison Wetton, CEO of LBD (Little Black Dress), which offers posh-frocks for up to a size 32 and is featured on ASOS , says their customers “can’t get enough of online shopping” and that for Plus Sizes, it’s all about convenience and not having to try clothes on in a High Street changing room. Which is a fair point, given how small and awful most High Street changing rooms are, how badly lit, how unflattering the mirrors, and how often they are manned by vacant stick insects chewing gum.

Shopping experience also seems to be key in other High Street closures. For Habitat, who appointed administrators for 30 of its 33 outlets this week, it was down to location. Habitat said that, “trading conditions have remained challenging for retailers of big ticket items such as furniture” and that a return to profitability for the business in the UK appeared unlikely as many of the stores were expensive and poorly located.

And where High Street fails, online can succeed – Woolworths caused a storm when it shut down in 2008, yet has since reopened successfully online. Presumably its virtual staff are nowhere near as rude and unhelpful as its flesh and blood staff were when it was on the High Street.

Coupons and Vouchers
However, other factors may also be at play. Coupon and loyalty cards usage have both increased in recent years (see our post on social shopping), and while newspaper inserts are still the primary method of coupon distribution (89%) and redemption (53%), internet redemption has skyrocketed, rising 263% in 2009. In people terms, this means that 13.1 million Americans redeemed internet coupons in 2009, approximately 88 million will do so in 2011 and it is predicted that this will increase to 96 million by 2015. Which is a lot of people using the internet to reduce their outgoings.

Stats on the usage of discount coupons and vouchers

Recently I researched a new vacuum cleaner online. I found the one I wanted to buy at the cheapest price at Curry’s, and then up popped the Nectar Card information bar saying I could collect Nectar points on the purchase. Excellent, I thought, that’s a bonus. However, when I went to place the order the shop couldn’t deliver for 10 days, so they said, ‘come and pick it up in store as we have one at your local branch’. Which I duly did and the staff were helpful and pleasant, carried it to my car, took the old one away for recycling, everybody happy… except apparently I had unwittingly forfeited my Nectar points.

“Sorry’” said Nectar customer services, when I contacted them, “we can’t help, we only give Nectar points via online purchases, not in store…”

Retailers At Fault – Or Is It Their Marketers?
So it does rather seem that the retailers themselves may be at least partly to blame for this shift towards online buying and away from the High Street. Interestingly most people prefer to touch, smell and see the things they want to buy, especially clothes and furniture, even if they go online to actually buy it because they get extra bonuses or deals, or because they are busy and online is perceived as being faster (even when it isn’t).

Many of the High Street shops also appear to have stopped trying with their windows and displays and in-store experience, and many are allowing their business to be driven online by clever coupons deals and rewards. Or perhaps that’s really just a case of letting their marketing department jump on the ‘newest’ band wagon (ie Digital) at the expense of traditional marketing? In which case, why does it have to be one thing and not the other?

So if High Street brands are really serious about not going to the wall and we as a nation are serious about not losing our High Streets, there’s our advice for retailers – and their marketing departments:

• Online stores should be BEAUTIFUL and a fabulous experience, and reflect the customer experience of the real shop, which should also be BEAUTIFUL and a fabulous experience. Hire a decent shop fitter and be creative. Hire a decent digital team and let them be creative. Make sure they are joined at the hip and communicate. Ensure the brand experience is seamless.

• Invest in your staff – good staff are crucial and whether in the real shop or online, they should add value and offer excellent customer service and should be as unfailingly polite and helpful as the staff in my local Curry’s and nothing like the old Woolworth’s staff. Nor like the dismissive Nectar employee.

• Cater for the senses – people like to touch and hold, taste and smell and try on. They like moving images, they like nice sounds, they are tactile. The High Street is also a social experience, so shops shouldn’t be hidden away or located out of town – they should be at the heart of a community. Online stores should be –and are fast becoming – part of the social media landscape. So integrate them properly and invest in finding out about your customers as the fully rounded people that they are, not just numbers in one channel or the other.

• Bully councils to lower costs – The FSB and local markets have been campaigning for years against short-sighted councils. Get together and add your weight to the argument.

• Rewards should be given, and given across the board – don’t try to divide online and offline and pitch them against each other. Don’t drive people online at the expensive of offline. And if you are focusing on analytics and tracking, marketers, then get clever and use the vouchers, codes, coupons to track when people browse online but purchase in store – and vice versa – because here’s the final point:

• People don’t follow the rules – they don’t just shop online. They don’t just go to the High Street. They might be looking for a sofa, for example, and look online and in store, in magazines and on television. When you are looking, you look everywhere, which is why the brand, the design and the overall level of customer satisfaction across ALL channels is so very important.

In addition retailers and their marketing departments should stop treating online as somehow separate, but rather treat it as it is – a research centre, a sounding board, a launch pad, a social activity and an outreach of the physical store.

In summary, make shopping INTEGRATED.

Content is one of our favourite subjects and it’s been hitting the headlines with a vengeance in recent months.  We’ve always said that having a good presence online is largely down to good quality, fresh content.  And it would seem that Google thinks so too – their latest change to their search algorithm, codenamed Panda, is rewarding original content, and punishing so-called content farms.

There has been a lot of hand-wringing from organisations complaining that their web rankings  have been affected,  with even such lofty organisations such as Yahoo and The Huffington Post being accused of being ‘content farms’.  This article for example was cited as ‘the greatest example of SEO whoring of all-time’ .

And on the subject of The Huffington Post which was recently acquired by AOL for a whopping $315Million, they are being taken to court by a group of bloggers who say that they contributed significant amounts of content to the site which meant that the site attracted the valuation that it did. Arianna Huffington is strongly refuting the claim that she treated bloggers like slaves and said that they were glad to be given a platform to air their views. We are watching with interest to see how this turns out.

But it brings into the spotlight once again the subject of content, what it’s worth and who is going to be paid for it.  Bloggers have become highly influential in all kinds of areas, and in many cases, their views are respected more than their paid ‘media’ counterparts. However, with so many bloggers producing good content (largely for free), traditional media often struggling to remain commercially viable and the public seemingly reluctant to pay, what does the future hold?

We feel that The Huffington Post lawsuit will be a landmark case and it will be a close call as to who wins, but in the meantime, the case is clear: if you want good Google rankings and a positive digital footprint, good content is the way to go.

Why don’t you talk to us about it?