• Getting started in social media
• Register your interest in our upcoming social media workshop
• Follow us on social media
• Riverbank IT Management
• Oxford Karting Facebook Page
• Earth Trust website

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What exactly is social media?

Social media is a term given to websites that enable and promote communication between large groups of people. This includes social networks like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ and YouTube, amongst others.

Social media is a modern marketing approach – an inexpensive way to reach a large audience over the internet. You can target your ideal audience, and then build relationships through social networks and your website by interacting directly with them.

Social networks can be used as a lead generation tool. This is typically done by linking to relevant content on your website, e.g. a news article, discussion forum or blog post. From there you can use a call to action to encourage them to sign up for a newsletter, so you can contact them regularly, or directly purchase a product or service you provide.

As well as providing content, social networks are a great place to listen. By monitoring keywords within your industry, you can identify key influencers and people who are having problems. If you respond to their problem with a solution, they could end up becoming a customer of yours. You should also monitor your company’s name to see what others are saying about you or your products.

Is social media for everyone?

The short answer is no, social media is not right for all businesses. You will need to consider your marketing strategies and identify where your target audience is – if they don’t use social networks you won’t reach anyone by having a presence on those networks.

Why do some companies put off adopting social media?

Social media is often seen as a place where people post “I’m having a cup of tea” updates, so some businesses can’t see how social media can work for them. That may have been true when Facebook and Twitter first started, but they have moved on since then. More and more companies are using social media because you can create massive engagement by posting updates that talk to their audience, not just about themselves. As your audience interacts with you, they become more trusting of you, your brand appears more human, and they become more likely to purchase a product or service from you.

Another common issue is the fear of people posting a negative comment about your company. This is always a possibility however, and by being on the social network you can respond quickly to those comments. For example, you can reply to their negative post saying “We’re sorry you’re having problems, email us at support@example.com and we will do our best to help”, or you can answer the complaint publicly so other people can see the solution too. This boosts the confidence of the person complaining about your product or service because you have listened to them. It also shows everyone else that you support your customers.

How much will it cost?

At a minimum, social media marketing will cost you some of your time. If you employ a marketing team, that time is already factored into your expenses, however if you are a smaller team or individual and don’t have a marketing team you will need to identify how much your time is worth.

Typically, you would spend about 30 minutes to an hour each day on social media; however this can be split up throughout the day, and can easily fit within gaps in meetings, or gaps in your everyday work load. The content creation part is a little longer – this can take between 1 – 3 hours per article, depending on how quick you are at generating the content and how much research is required. You would normally look at creating one article each week.

As always, there is additional time required when you are first setting up your social media, due to the learning curve. However, with some guidance and a suitable plan in place this time can be reduced.

How do you measure the return of investment (ROI)?

There are tools available that can be used to monitor your social media. For example, HootSuite is a system that allows you to monitor all of your social networks. It can also be integrated with Google Analytics, which allows you to identify how many leads are coming from each social network to your website. Sprout Social is another example – it has a higher price, but it provides more data than HootSuite.

In terms of the traditional sales funnel, you can track people at every step of the process. You can identify how many people entered the top of the funnel via your social media accounts, down to how many of those users completed a goal (e.g. completed a signup form on your website or purchased a product).

How can Alberon help?

Alberon can help you with every step of social media, whether you are already set up and would like to know some new strategies, or are completely new to it.

Here are some of the ways we can help:

• Initial set up and optimisation of the various social networks
• Website changes including building a section for your new content and social features
• Any design work that is required – e.g. Facebook pages, Twitter backgrounds
• Training on everything from how to use the social networks, to how to create content on your website

Finally we can assist in creating your social media plan to compliment your existing marketing strategy. This typically involves helping you to identify:

• Your goals and objectives for using social media
• The target audience that you want to reach
• Who in your company will work on your social media (it doesn’t have to be just one person!)
• What times of the day you should post
• The types of content to post and when you should post it

If you would like help with your social media marketing, phone us on 01865 794009 or email us. You can also find us on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn.

Oxford Karting Facebook Page

Oxford Karting provides a premier outdoor karting experience, and they have recently joined Facebook to help them get closer to their customers.

They asked us to create a professionally designed landing page for their Facebook page, in keeping with their current branding, website design and marketing materials.

Please take a look: www.facebook.com

• The new cookies law and what you need to do about it
• Low Carbon Hub case study
• The Vincent Wildlife Trust case study

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What are cookies?

Cookies are used by websites to remember information about you. The most common uses of them are:

• To remember what you’ve added to your shopping basket
• To remember who is logged into the website
• To monitor how you use a website

What does the new law say?

You must now get explicit consent from the user before you may use cookies – simply having a privacy policy is no longer good enough.

In addition, you must ensure that the user understands exactly what they are agreeing to by giving them clear information about what cookies are and how you use them.

Why was this law passed?

The aim of the law is to make people more aware of the privacy implications of cookies, to give users an informed choice, and to prevent websites tracking users without their knowledge.

Who does the law affect?

This law affects all websites that use cookies for any reason. Since almost all websites use cookies in some way, this probably includes you!

Even if you have a simple, static website but you use Google Analytics it affects you, since Google Analytics uses cookies. The law makes it your responsibility (not just Google’s) to comply.

How long do we have to comply with it?

The ICO has given us until May 2012 before they will start enforcing the law.

However, they have made it clear that they expect to see progress being made well before then because it could take some months to achieve compliance – so you should act now.

What do you need to do?

The ICO has laid out clear steps it expects you to go through:

1. Conduct an audit to check what cookies your website uses and what they’re used for.
2. Assess how intrusive your use of each cookie is to the user’s privacy, so you can prioritise fixing the intrusive ones.
3. Implement any necessary technical changes to ensure you have consent to use cookies.

What will happen if you don’t?

The maximum penalty for not complying with the law is £500,000 for a serious breach, but that would only be given in extreme cases.

The ICO has made it clear that their response to any complaint will be proportional to (1) how intrusive the cookies are, and (2) how much effort you have made towards complying with the law.

In other words, they will probably go after the biggest and worst offenders first, but if they receive a complaint about your website you must be able to show that you haven’t ignored the new law completely!

How can Alberon help?

We can carry out a full audit of how your website uses cookies and help you to improve your privacy policy and give more information to users.

We can also implement any technical changes required to reduce or eliminate privacy concerns, and get consent from users before using cookies.

Related links

• ICO half term report on cookies compliance
• ICO updated guidance on the rules on use of cookies (PDF)

If you want help complying with the cookie law, call us on 01865 794009 or email us.

Oxfordshire Business Directory

We have just launched the new Oxfordshire Business Directory!

Please take a look, and if you work for a company in Oxfordshire, you can add a listing.

See: www.oxfordshire-business-directory.co.uk

Soha Extra Care

We are pleased to announce the launch of the new Extra Care website for the South Oxfordshire Housing Association!

Please see: extracare.soha.co.uk

Low Carbon Hub website

We are delighted to announce the launch of the Low Carbon Hub!

Alberon were lucky enough to also join them for their official launch event at Oxford Town Hall. We had a lovely time and are extremely happy to have been invoved in such a great project.

Please see: www.lowcarbonhub.org

The Vincent Wildlife Trust website

We’re pleased to announce the launch of the brand new website for The Vincent Wildlife Trust.

Please see: www.vwt.org.uk

• Choosing social media
• University of Oxford Department of Physics case study
• The importance of good website copy
• Writers’ Workshop Crime Blog case study
• Cookie law change – what you need to know
• New contact details for Alberon

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