Social Media and SEO

Something we always discuss with our clients is just how important a great all-singing all-dancing social media campaign is for their Search Engine Optimisation. In this day and age, the Social Web is driving everything forward on line, and a static website is just never going to cut it out there on the wild wild web...

This great article explains just why... http://veepopat.ca/social-media-optimization/

And for a view in an instant graphic,check out this one

Read More

So, Why does my business need to be using Social media?

We get asked this question a lot! Prospective clients often feel confused and even scared of being active on the web, and think that having a website is enough... well, its not.

Not any more. Websites are static and difficult to use for conversations. They are the 'Shop Window' for your business, but nowadays, a good website will be integrated with social media. Here are a few reasons why you can't afford not to be using social media for your business..

• Answer and address complaints quickly. Increasingly, businesses are using Twitter and Facebook to handle complaints. Just check out KLM, Vodacom, and Virgin for good examples.If you want to see badly used social media,look at the KFC South Africa FaceBook page!
• Get feed back on your business activity. If you want to gauge the possible reaction of consumers or customers to something you're planning, Social Media is almost like an instant polling station! Just ask your questions on Twitter or Facebook for almost instant answers.
• Share photo's and video of your business activity and products. Its a vibrant community out there and with the right images, you get wonderful free exposure. 
• Word of mouth marketing is a powerful way to boost your sales. And without the cost of radio or television campaigns either. Its quick and effective, and all about making connections.
• Increase loyalty. Your social media activity will make your connections feel a strong sense of loyalty to you. After all, you're not just broadcasting to them...you're engaging with them
• Market research. You can easily search your business area or market and see what's happening. People will be talking about it, that's virtually guaranteed on social media. 
• Your competitors will be on it. So you don't want to be left out and lose business. If they're not already on social media, they soon will be!
• Statistics tell a story. You get tons of useful information from the data provided by social media activity. Web analytics and traffic reports tell you where your activity is coming from and allow you to position yourself vetu clinically to where you need to be.
• Become the expert in your field. Using content curation (collection and aggregation) positions you as the expert to ask questions from in your field. People will come to your sites for information and advice. before they even get near your competitors.
• Brand protection. You don't want people to criticise you on line, but if they do, you need to be able to talk with them instantly.Just look at HMV in the UK - they ignored social media and were driven into bankruptcy by a barrage of negative social media commentary they failed to answer.

                                                           creating conversation...

Social media is how you can engage with your customers and business contacts in real time and almost instantly. Increasingly, its how we do business, search for purchases and perhaps most importantly, make complaints about poor service or products. 

Social Media is growing and is a powerful force in marketing and brand protection. Nobody wants folks out there saying bad things about them on Twitter, facebook, Pinterest and all the other platforms which give people a genuine voice. That voice is affecting the way we buy products and services. Social Media sites are replacing traditional search engines (YouTube is second to Google for the number of searches recorded).

But you need to be positioned on the right Social Media platforms for your business. Thats where we can help. The advice of a good social media consultant is vital. A good consultant will live and breathe social media. They won't design websites, or do advertising. They'll just know exactly where you need to be on the many platforms that exist out there. 

This is our business. Social media is what we're all about. So we can help you with your website...from a social media integration perspective. But Social media is our speciality here at Nomsindo. 

We Create Conversation for your business...

Read More

Social Media - What we do

We've been asked a lot recently just what is it we do for our Social Media clients. So here it is..

• We carry out a full review of a client's existing social media and web activity.
• We ask lots of questions about their business.Its important we 'get' their vision and mission to be able to understand just where they need to be on social media and what their market is.
• We would seek to understand where and how the client feels they should be using social media.Contrary to popular belief,its not for everyone!
• We'd want to talk about possible budgets. Its important to us to know how much they think it might cost to have a social media presence managed for them.
• Following this, we'd make a series of recommendations based upon our analysis of their needs. Some social media channels are a 'must have' for most clients. Others are more sector-specialist. Others are more related to the demographic of their potential markets/clients. For example, Pinterest has 65% of its hits coming from young women, whereas Google+ is more male oriented.
• We'd then offer a setup package which would include social media integration with their website, setting up of a blog and other social media platforms as necessary.
• A monthly management contract sets out the level of activity we'd undertake, as a minimum. For example,number of daily tweets, facebook posts etc. This is always flexible to suit changing business needs. We'll do the work and then talk with you later!
• We provide a detailed monthly report including web analytics and social media activity so that you can see where your traffic is coming from and how your social media presence is growing and effective. After all, you need to know what the return on your investment is.

And there it is....in a nutshell.

Nomsindo - We Create Conversations. 

Read More

But what's the ROI ?

It's a question we are asked very, very frequently. In fact, its the one question every client or potential client of ours asks. Just what is the return on investment (ROI) from my business social media activity?

This is actually a very difficult question to answer because to be honest, there is no easy answer. Are you looking to generate more business from your social media activity? If so, its probably quite simple to measure business generated from leads or enquiries coming from social media. Of course, these leads would need to be *extra* business generated over and above your normal lead-generating activity.

Are you looking for increased visibility for your business or organisation? This is easy to measure,in terms of straight hits on your social media channels, but what does hits or the number of followers really tell you, other that you've about three million less followers than Justin Bieber on Twitter? You really should be looking for quality, not quantity. Are your followers and facebook likes from your business market or potential customers, and do you engage in conversation with them or just broadcast your own activity? After all, we are now in the age of web 3.0 and this is the creative collaborative web. Any successful social media activity must involve some degree of dialogue. If you look at some of the large business using social media, the successful ones are the ones who use it to have conversations with their followers. Social media is a community where you have to interact with people, talk to people, deal with complaints, answer questions and engage in discussion.

And if you want to position yourself as an expert in your field, the number of questions you answer on sites like Quora and Google+ will also be important.

Its not the raw data or metrics or stats which are important, its how these are analysed and interpreted. This is where you will find your true ROI, and this where an expert social media consultancy will be worth it's weight in gold. We can show you just what your  bucks are generating, and because we live breathe and work social media, we know just where you'd be best to focus your activity if you want a demonstrable return on your Rands.

ROI - its not just followers and likes, its quality not quantity,and above all,  it is focussed activity designed to suit your individual needs.

Read More

Why using Social Media for CRM is a priceless tool

I must start by emphasising that social media is by no means the only CRM (customer relationship management) tool a company should use and certainly in certain circumstances there are are other CRM tools that are more effective.

It has however become clearly obvious that with the implementation of social media as a grass roots CRM instrument by medium and large enterprises, the cost effectiveness of these tools and overall resulting customer experience of the engagement, interaction and when necessary also the intervention often provides an almost immediate ROI.

A number of examples immediately come to mind. The most recent was only yesterday when we were attending a conference at a venue that is part of one of the largest global hotel and hospitality chains. My other half was rather displeased with the service and sent a single tweet and hash tagged it.

The response was almost immediate and came from pretty high up. This company got it right in both of the most important ways this should be approached. Implementation of their actual CRM strategy using social media and their culture regarding how to approach the problem using the relevant instrument - in this case Twitter.

It is very clear that not only do they have an engaging monitoring policy, but they also go out of their way to ensure that when tweets are not directed at them personally they can pick up hash tagged and unhashtagged conversations, enabling quick intervention when required.

Brand and reputation development and protection should come hand in hand with any online engagement strategy and policy for any business regardless of its size. We all knows that rumours (even when untrue) can cause stocks to crash and can ruin a healthy corporate virtually overnight.

A company strengthens its armour when it's digital presence policies encompass brand protection and it has the strategy to be able to turn negative customer experience around so that the outside world watching this unfold, (and trust me it's a very big glass house out there) can witness a positive outcome - every time.

The online world leaves digital footprints that remain for years and even decades. If there has been a bad customer experience linking it to a positive outcome this, has enormous long term value. Consumer forums often discuss customer experience and the footprint they leave is enormous and lasting. When the forums actually show a positive outcome it can have a domino effect.

Customers will discover how others have reached satisfactory resolution, enhancing brand image and also driving new customers not only to the company's web presence be it interactive social media, e-commerce or the company website, but also their b&m (bricks and mortar) premises.

Happy and satisfied customers breed an air of confidence about certain brands which has the effect that the brand becomes the prevalent choice.

I remain astonished at how many large corporate enterprises still use social media for promotion only and do not have it integrated into customer service, logistics, sales and sales support, in fact any department that engages with customers at all. Those that use it for monitoring remain even fewer and yet the obvious advantage that offers over the competition isn't rocket science.

This is where analysis of ROI becomes tricky. If analysis is only going to include the financial return particularly when looking at CPA, a true picture can never be determined. True social media effectiveness is not only visible by growth in online sales, but also by the willingness of the customer to return to the B&M (bricks and mortar) presence on the street as a result of the social media strategy that enhances their spending experience.

In closing, I would recommend that any company recruiting or contracting a social media Strategist look beyond their technical knowledge of markup languages and GAIQ, but also investigate the candidates ability and outlook at directing and if necessary redirecting their digital strategy to the ever changing needs and demands of the customer. After all the needs of the client/company are irrevocably entwined with the needs of their customer base, and it would be a huge mistake not to recognise that as the customer base grows, so will the need to diversify the social media strategy.

Read More

How to bag your first Tiger....

You know how it goes...you've set up on your own, survived the first year and struggled through half of the second. Small accounts, but nothing big. And then all of a sudden, that first big deal lands in your lap, the saviour of your fledgling business. How did it happen? Tempting though it is to think so, this big deal was not, repeat not down to luck. It was all down to your absolute focus on business strategy. Because you planned how you'd go about landing those big ones, didn't you? Like this, maybe..?

1. You made a list of all potential clients. Prospecting for gold. You researched these prospects, finding out as much as possible about them. How much their advertising spend is, how much they spend on the products or services you offer.

2. Think creatively, out of the box. Everyone and their auntie is going after the obvious, so try to identify the others who might be interested in doing business with you. Learn their corporate-speak, their jargon. Try to think like they do.

3. Look professional. Big businesses want to have confidence that you can deliver and this means looking the part. Your website needs to be all-singing-all-dancing, not something you bought off the peg on a CD-Rom. Make sure your business cards are high quality and your company stationary is top-notch.

4. Network. Try to use your contacts to meet folks who work for your prospects. Learn about the key people in the business and which buttons to press to engage with them. Introductions can go a long way towards cementing the deal, sometimes swinging the deal by overcoming slight uncertainty of unknowns.

5. Listen well. Believe it or not, the big companies want to do business with smaller ones. This is because they value the speed and flexibility which allow small firms to get things done more efficiently and timeously. So listen out for the opportunities and jump right in. Learn how to provide what they are looking for. They won't give you a second chance so listen well and give them what they want.

Of course, it doesn't end with the handshake. You have to feed and nurture your Tiger. And hunt down other Tigers because management changes may mean you're pitching from scratch all over again. Don't put all your eggs in one basket as they say and diversify your client list as broadly as possible.

Is this how you anded your big Tiger ? no, well, maybe its worth thinking about if you want to lead and grow your business through its formative years....

Read More

Job hunting and social media

So 89%of companies will be using social media as a part of their recruitment processes by the end of this year...

Did you know that? No, me neither. But it's all here in a great article and info graphic I came across this morning.

Have a look for yourself.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Read More

This is essential for your business

I came across a great infographic on the TechCrunch blog recently. It came with an article detailing why business leaders feel social media is now an essential part of their business strategy. The blog post is here but I've produced the infographic below..

Read More

If you don't "get" Twitter

Read on. Or, rather, have a read of This blog post from Steve Wheeler. The rest of the blog is great too, with some great tips and discussion on social media and networking.

And if you still don't 'get' Twitter after reading Steve's post, why not just take a deep breath and jump in. I promise you that it will all come together very quickly !

Read More