Facebook is a social networking site that is continuing to increase in popularity, with over 350 million users worldwide it is an ideal way to reach a large audience.  More and more businesses are using Facebook in the following ways:

• branding and brand awareness
• engage with customers
• drive traffic to websites
• manage online reputation
• acquire new customers
• generate new leads
• client retention

WSI are holding a free webinar on Wednesday 24th March, from 2pm - 3pm to explain more about how your business can leverage Facebook. Our Social Media Strategist Baltej Gil will be hosting the webinar.

To register click on the link below and fill in your IC as C Taylor.  I would love to have any feedback from you or indeed any other subjects that you want to learn more about.


Facebook Webinar

So The Pope has a Facebook page and No 10 Downing Street are on Twitter, so what's your excuse? 

If you are a one man band or have hundreds of employees then there is a social media strategy that is right for your business.  The key is to find out where your target market hang out and go and interact with them. If you are a small business, then you are an ideal candidate for social media as it can act as a different form of word of mouth (or word of mouse!) and pretty much every small business I meet say that word of mouth is critical to their business success.

So if you are aiming to break into larger businesses that you wouldn't normally get the opportunity to interact with, go find them on LinkedIn, join the same groups and start communicating.  If you are trying to reach the consumer with your new product range, hang out on Facebook and get people excited about what it is that you do.

I have met many small businesses that are yet to be convinced about social media, but I have also met those that have had great success, from a small company that uses LinkedIn as their primary lead generation tool, to a one man band who gets all of his business via Twitter.  I have even had the pleasure to meet an avid blogger who now has a book deal, and how did the publisher find her?  That's right, just by coming across her blog posts.  Try telling these companies that social media doesn't work!

Refurb Your Kitchen

The Refurbished Kitchen Company came to us because they did what a lot of businesses do and they got themselves a website rather than an online marketing solutions.  When developing the site we needed to present a professional image whilst also maintaining the friendly approach of this business.

Images and case studies are very important to this business and so this became a core feature of the webite.  We also added a web presenter to explain the company's services quickly and clearly to visitors to the site.

As well as new site development we are also looking after a range of marketing services for The Kitchen Refurbishment Company including PPC, SEO and Social Media Optimisation.

We work with a wide range of different businesses of all shapes and sizes in pretty much any industry you can think of.  Most are aware of the benefits of adopting social media, many don't really know how to do it themselves and some try it out but don't really get very far.

When starting a social media campaign you need to ask yourself a number of questions:

• What is the purpose
• Who is my target market
• Where do my target market hang out online
• Which social sites are the best fit

It is really important to have answers to these questions before you begin.  It is very easy to register on a few sites, start tweeting or writing a blog but not really with any direction, and probably not with great results. 



Understand the demographics of your market, every business should know this anyhow.  Make sure you know what these people are looking for online, do they like reading blogs, watching video's or do they hang out on Facebook.  Once you know what your market are doing you can adopt your social media campaign to meet their needs.  Remember this is not about sharing with the world how great you are, but about providing information that people are actually searching for in the first place.

Your aim as with all online marketing is to provide relevant content, regardless of medium.  Give people what they want, drive them to your website and let your website do it's job and convert them into customers. 

So most people understand the concept of Search Engine Optimisation and how important it is in terms of marketing your business online.  In our Essex offices we are getting more and more enquiries about Social Media Optmisation and it's relevance to search marketing.

One of the big changes in the way Google decides on what results to display is that it is now listing Social Networking posts as relevant content.  Why you may ask?  Well, because sites like Twitter are full of live posts and so when a news story breaks these social networking sites are often first on the scene with information that is almost constantly updated.  To write a page on your website optimise it and get in on page one of Google takes time.  To post on Twitter takes just seconds.

So we can see that more and more emphasis is being placed on social media within the search engines.  I personally cannot see that they have much choice as if they stop bringing up the most relevant content, then surely people will look elsewhere.  More and more we see social networking sites being used as search engines and so it is really important for Google and Yahoo to make sure that they are also capable of bringing up live data. 

People are also becoming experts in search, using specific long tailed keywords to drill down and find the content that they really want.  Part of this will be because the internet is littered with directories (particularly for more local searches) and most people do not use a search engine to find a directory.  Partly because as users, we are all more internet savvy and understand a bit more about how the search engines work.  I know for example that if I have a small business in Harlow and I want some help with my online marketing that if I search for 'internet marketing' the results are going to be less relevant for my business than if I search 'internet marketing Essex'.

As the online world evolves, so does search and as a business you need to be kept abreast of these changes and how they affect your business, your target market, your competitors etc.. 

Never before has there been a way to get your brand in front of such a large audience in such a short space of time.  The reach of the internet is enormous and by using social media your business can tap into this reach.  Many company's that I meet often see the value in social media but don't really know how to use it to market themselves or think it is too time consuming and too expensive.

So why do it?

• Social media is an affordable way to market your business, you do not need a large budget .
• It can have a viral effect, with people sharing your message with friends and colleagues
• It helps to enhance brand awareness and reputation at the same time, it gives you the opportunity to portray your business the way you want it portrayed.
• It can help engage your customers and help increase customer spend.
• Social media will increase traffic to your website and will help your organic rankings.

You can maintain your social media campaign in a relatively short amount of time each week providing you have set it up correctly in the first place.  I would definitely recommend you get the experts in to help with the initial set-up, this is the time consuming bit and they will also ensure that your campaign has been set up in the best way to compliment your business strategy.

YouTube is the most popular online vidoe website.  Most people will have heard of YouTube, but for those that haven't, it allows you to share video clips with pretty much anyone.  You can find videos on almost any subject, 'how to' videos are particularly popular.

Like many social networking sites, YouTube is free to use, all you need to do is set up your profile, even if you aren't planning on using YouTube for a while, it is always wise to at least get your business name as your channel name before someone else beats you to it.

The videos you show on YouTube can be made public or private, available only to those you select. You can also embed these videos onto web pages or your blog.  It is always a good idea to keep your videos short and concise, the aim is to share imformation or give people tips on your area of expertise.

You want to gain a following and ultimately lead you YouTube viewers to you website.  The more people that view your video, the more likely you will build online relationships with people, increase traffic to your website, gain new customers, retain the ones you have and increase sales.

In order to do this you need to get your video highly ranked so the chances of people watching your video increase.  Here are our top tips:

1. Add a title that clearly describes what your video is about
2. Try to distinguish your video from other peoples but make sure that what you say is accurate
3. Use tags so that your video is found for the correct terms, but beware of overdoing the keywords.
4. Embed your videos on your website too, this is another way to get viewers.
5. Make your video interesting and informative
6. Ensure your video is professional and conveys your business in the right way

Happy New Year !

So the festivities are over and everyone is slumped over their desks having no doubt eaten and drunk too much (me included!). 

Now is the perfect time to start looking ahead, new year, new opportunities.  Make the most of the growth in online and get your business out there, in no other way can you promote your business to such a large audience.  Also look to  using social media, many have dabbled and given up, not really taking it too seriously.  I cannot stress how important it is to your online marketing toolbox, make sure you get on board before the competition swallow up the market.  But you need to do it properly, spending 5 hours a day on Farmville is not going to cut it.

We would like to welcome Louise to the WSI Marketing Experts team and wish her all the best in her new role.  She joins us on the 12th January as our new Internet Marketing Assistant.  Louise will initially be focusing on content building for our clients, so no doubt some of you will get to know her.

We would also like to remind you that we still have a number of £100 Google Adwords vouchers.  For those who don't know, in combination with Google UK, WSI are offering these vouchers to all new Adwords users, so why not take advantage of this offer before you kick off your PPC campaigns.


That just leaves me to say all the best for 2010, make it a good one!

Anyone who has met me will undoubtedly have heard me say 'it's not about having a website'.  There are loads of web designers and developers out there, you can pretty much get yourself a website for free these days as long as you are prepared to put in a bit of effort.  By the same token I could probably set up a shop in my home, it wouldn't really cost me anything, but i'd have a shop right!  Great, now that I have my shop (you can see where i'm going here) I will just sit here and wait for all my new customers to come knocking on my door.  Never gonna happen.

That's pretty much what 'having a website' will do for you, what's the point unless you can get people to find you.  You can have the most magnificent looking site in the world and have zero traffic.  Internet Marketing is about getting your business in front of as many people as you possibly can, its about building up an online brand, great reputation and  it's about getting your visitors to convert into customers.  Let's face it, the reason any business wants to go online is to make more money, so why think that a free or cheap website is going to achieve that?

Turn it on its head a bit and ask yourself how much you would be prepared to pay to gain a new customer, think about how much you would be prepared to pay to get that customer to be loyal to your business, think about how much you would be prepared to pay to make sure your customers increased their average spend with your business. 

So you really need to look at your online solution as an investment rather than an expense, look at the potential return on your investment.  How many new customers you might gain, what new markets you may be able to target.  You get a much greater ROI with internet marketing than traditional forms of marketing so I personally cannot understand why any business would not want to invest their budget in the opportunities that are out there waiting for them?

Complete Rejuvenation

Complete Rejuvenation was a custom designed site, the site was aimed predominantly at women who are looking for alternatives to cosmetic surgery.  The client offers a range of different treatments ranging from Laser Lipo through to Botox through to weight loss support. 

• The site had to be easy to navigate
• The site needed to have strong call to actions
• it had to have a 'magazine' look and feel to it.
• The focus was on looking and feeling younger without the need for surgery

The client has a number of clinics so out internet marketing solution was targeted throughout Essex and Hertfordshire. We added a subscription box as the client will be producing a regular newsletter and we also added an enquiry form.