Mendip Media > Modern Communications

Who are we?
• Digital Marketing Agency
• Based in Bristol and Somerset
• Founded in 2005
• Expertise in online marketing solutions and
video
• Focus on getting the most out of the web for:
- Corporates
- Public sector

Problem
• There are fewer newspapers
• We’re getting more direct mail
and advertising appears
anywhere and everywhere
• Consumers are getting tired of it
• Mostly, it isn’t relevant to them
• More and more people ignore
it... especially one particular
growth sector...

Generation Y
• Generation Y is the biggest since the
Baby Boomers, and 3 times bigger
than Generation X.
• They take the Internet for granted.
• They have iPods, iPhones, PDAs, Tom
Toms and digital cameras
• They don’t watch TV much:
“Why let someone else choose what
you watch and when? BBCi Player is
installed on my desktop thanks.”

Generation Y
• They have YouTube, Twitter, Facebook,
iTunes and Google accounts
• They don’t bother with adverts in
newspapers – although clever, passive
advertising appeals – but would rather
listen to their peers: “My friends know me
better than anyone.”
• They expect social media to fit around them
• They’re just as good at working from home,
on the bus, or train, or in the café on the
corner.

So what?
• Generation Y is
coming – soon it’ll be
running the most
important parts of the
country:
- Government
- Public services
- Big companies
• Don’t ignore them –
embrace them.
• But how?

Social Media
• What is Social Media?
• More than just a pair of buzzwords - a whole
new way to communicate.
• Now everyone has a voice.
• Publishing is no longer the exclusive domain of
publisher.
• Anyone can say anything that could be read by
millions of people.

Social Media
• Social media (user generated content) can include:
- A slogan or jingle that excites people enough to repeat it.
- Grass-roots dissemination, such as public speaking, demonstrations and
artistic performances or installations
- Print media that is passed on or observed by many, either voluntarily or
subversively - sticker bomb, mail shot or flyering
- Distribution through electronic channels that allow sharing functionality and
interaction.
...and by this, we mean...

Social Media

A spider’s web
• Think of social media as a spider’s web
• Your website is the middle
• Outward spokes
- each one is a different platform
- these benefit the scope
• Links between spokes
- each one is a hyperlink
- these add the strength

What can Social Media do for people?
• It allows a tailored stream of information
• We can ignore advertising, not watch the
news, read a paper or listen to the radio -
and still know everything we need to...
• We can share knowledge, information and
interests with others in our peer groups
• Amongst all the noise, we can make our
voices, as individuals, heard
• We can become the publishers

What can Social Media do for business?
• Unlocks new markets and convert more
leads
• Makes looking into the shop window easy
• Allows us to speak directly to customers,
for next to nothing
• Customers will tell each other about us -
and recommend us
• Benefits SEO (search engine optimisation)

Facebook
• 200m unique users, spending a collective
7,600 years every 24 hours
• People buy from people, and a ‘fan base’ is
quick to develop
• Celebrities and politicians
• Charities and global brands
• Entry for SMEs: very specific PPC targeting
• Measurable

Examples from Facebook
• Marmite’s 240,000 fans
• Cities I’ve Visited: 2.3m (Trip Advisor)
• 2,000 Swiss mothers in a week
• Into Somerset: 10.2m pages
• Stroke Association: 2,884 ‘fans’
How? 250m users, very powerful PPC

Linkedin
• Facebook for businesspeople
• Easy to use, credible and
professional - ‘People buy from
people’
• Promote events, start
discussions and generate
interest
• Special interest groups
• Give & receive business advice

Examples from Linkedin
• Business services: professional
membership aids decision-making
• Promoted through Linkedin
Group continues to grow & discuss project
• InControl Technical: tiny business,
tiny website, powerful social media
• Evan Gotlib: new job as TravelZoo’s
Advertising Sales Director
• White House: Opinions from 12m US SMEs

Twitter
• 1,400% growth year-on-year
• ‘Followers’ grow in numbers,
communicate with each other, ask
questions
• Direct mail, but only to those who
want it - others can switch off: ‘fluid
audience’
• Twitter.com is rubbish - try TweetDeck
• Measurable

Examples from Twitter
• 25% off PCs, only through Twitter
(Follow to participate)
• Market research through Twitter
(new products tested at one outlet)
• Moonfruit 10th anniversary promotion
• Media outlets find millions of new readers
❝ One high-foam, low-fat, strawberry
frappi- mocca-cino please ❞

YouTube
• Third biggest website
• 60-billion views in 2008
• Anyone can post videos, that
can be viewed by millions
• Professional channels:
branding, cross-association
and revenue stream
• Measurable

Examples from YouTube
• Tell Poker - ‘Bond wins it all’
- doctored Casino Royale scene
• Kobe Bryant jumps and Aston Martin
(wearing Nike trainers)
• Beauty without brains
• Flying Penguins introduced BBCi Player
• MSI computers: 1.55m views in 10 days
‘Guy catches laptop with his butt’

Social media platforms
• There are hundreds more:
- Flickr
- Tumblr
- MySpace
- Bebo
- Wikipedia
- Ning
- Second Life

Blogging
• Long-hand opinions and news
• Specific to industries, companies and
special-interest groups
• 250-million blogs worldwide
• Write around your subject
• Who is the most credible person in
your company? Probably not the MD.
• A blog is not a mouthpiece for PR

Blogging
• “I don’t have time to write a blog.”
• Blogs are a great way to get your
message across.
• Almost instant appearance in search
engines
• Particularly useful for newsworthy
articles
• Provides links back to your website

Blogging
• Things to bear in mind:
• Be relevant to your target audience
• Think about who you want to read it
• Point readers towards other articles
that might interest them
• Nurture conversation and participate
• Don’t oversell

Social Bookmarking
• Useful hyperlinks, stored and shared
• By individuals, for individuals
• Share your ‘knowledge’
• Popular platforms:
- Digg 28m users 18-34
- Reddit 1.3m users 35-49
- StumbleUpon 1m users 50+
- Delicious 1m users 35-49
• Quality content will prevail

The tools you need
• A website
• ...that is Web 2.0-friendly and SEO’d
• ...that allows measurement of traffic
• A presence on social media platforms
• Regular content
• Someone to update the content

The Internet can be automated
• What is RSS?
• Short for ‘Really Simple Syndication’
• A stream of content from a website or blog
• Becomes a mini-newsletter and direct email
mechanism, or automatically into
microblogging
• Leads people to your website
• Measurable

The Internet is measurable
• Every website should have analytics
• Google Analytics is a state-of-the-art tool
that can be installed on any website
• It tells you: how many visitors, where they
are, where they came from, when they visit
and how long they stay
• Why? So that you can see which bits of your
marketing strategy are working
• Best of all, it’s free

Why content is King
• More content is created every year than in all
previous years combined
• How? On the Internet - blogs, forums, social
media, micro-blogging and Mobile - SMS, MMS
• Fresh content keeps your audience’s attention
• Constant power struggle to generate more
• BUT... it’s quality, not quantity

Why content is King
• Poor content switches people off
instantly
• Good content keeps them coming
back...
...again and again
• RSS and micro-blogging can
perpetuate this automatically.
• People will join in with your
conversation

Golden rules
• Don’t go mundane - nobody cares
• Be relevant to the target audience
• (...And see who’s interested - it might be a
surprise)
• Interact with individuals (e.g. BT)
• Be regular
• Don’t oversell - too much becomes spam
and will lose an audience quickly

Pay Per Click
• Highly targeted
- Geographic regions
- Age, gender, marital status
- Professions
• Extremely cost-effective - you only pay
when someone clicks through to your
website
• Can help SEO
• Measurable

Pay Per Click
• How does it work? Like ebay.
• You bid for an advert of your design to be
placed on:-
- Google
- Yahoo!
- Content-specific pages
- Social media sites
• The winner gets the top-placed ad
• You can set a daily budget

Where can I start?
The website.
• Match-fit for Web 2.0 (SEO, usability)
• Connection to social media
• Measurability - analytics
• Active content
• Delegation of tasks

Don’t be duped
• First of all, social media is not expensive
• For most people it requires:
- A website that’s match-fit for Web 2.0
- A blog
- ‘Interactability’
- Social media connections
- RSS
- Tiny expenditure
• Consider seeking professional advice re:
strategy

Where is all of this going?
• What will the Internet look like in the future? (lots of theories)
• All document access and communication through social media
- why store documents locally when they’re safer on server farms?
• Social media and mobile telephony combined
• The end of media as we know it:
- TV
- Radio
- Newspapers
- Telephones

Augmented Reality
• Today’s technology reconfigured -
where the real world meets the
virtual world
• The Internet overlaid on our world
• Information available anywhere
• Broadband provision and access
• Not so far away

Online makes video marketing affordable
• Cameras and editing software rival
the price of photographic equipment
• Why buy media airtime when video
hosting is free?
• Digital video makes reversioning
footage easy
• Storage costs are coming down
• All you pay for is experience and
professionalism

Video as a social media marketing tool
• Case study: Lakeland kitchenware
• More than 40,000 items in sales catalogue
• Plans to convert 10% of e-commerce
range to video demonstrations
• Why? Detailed analytics show that
products with video demos sell better - ROI
• Video helps to build brand awareness
• YouTube channel pushes traffic to website