A recent report from public relations company, Wildfire, states that technology companies are missing the point when it comes to social networking sites.
Their research has found that nine out of ten of these companies have a presence on at least two social networking sites, but most of these are disregarding the feedback from customers, and are therefore missing out on the powerful interactive aspect of these sites.

Essentially, these companies are viewing having a social networking presence as a box that must be ticked, but not a resource that can be of value. They miss out on a valuable business resource, but worst than that, they ignore the reality that the modern consumer audience will punish a brand for aloofness.

The study concluded that less than half of these leading technology brands have ever responded to a tweet on their Twitter pages. While only one in four companies responded to comments on their Facebook pages.

According to Danny Whatmough, a consultant at Wildfire “These organisations are using social networks like a press release or old media, but it has to be a two-way dialogue.”

“In some ways, not replying is worse than not having a presence at all. Firms have to monitor networks for mentions of their brands, and certainly respond when people get in touch.”

“These companies should be using these services to let people know about updates or patches and software changes,” said Whatmough. “But more than that, if people have questions then they should be responding with helpful advice and it becomes part of customer service.”

“It’s about being transparent and consumers react well to that, but it requires a big mind shift from companies,” he said.

Surveyed companies didn’t fare any better with their blogs, the report concluded, with less than half even bothering at all with a blog.

Where companies did have a blog, only 25% of blogs received comments on a regular basis, and only 9% of companies replied to comments on their posts.

Read the report: http://www.wildfirepr.co.uk/documents/social_media_report.pdf

While the return on investment still isn’t clear for many, social networking has been used by 2 in 5 businesses in Ireland to gain new business.
A new survey from workspace solution provider Regus has confirmed what many in the business already know – that social media has become a mainstream business tool in Ireland. According to the Regus survey, 40% of businesses in Ireland have successfully used social networks to win new business.

This robust figure could be attributed to the lower number of respondents in Ireland that doubt the effectiveness of social networking for business. In Ireland, 21% of respondents were sceptical that social networking could ever become an effective customer retention or prospecting tool compared to the 34% global average.
On a sector basis, the ICT, Retail, Media & Marketing and Consultancy sectors had above average use of social networking, while Media & Marketing and ICT sectors companies were more likely to win new customers via social networking compared to other sectors.
Globally, the most popular use of social networks is staying in touch with business (58%). In Ireland this use has less of an impact (48%). The main usefulness of social networks was the possibility of managing and connecting to customer groups for about half of respondents (both globally and in Ireland). 53% also use social networks to find important business information.
The Regus survey asked business leaders whether they believed the channel effective enough to be awarded its own portion of marketing budget. Just over a quarter (26%) of Irish businesses have set aside a proportion of marketing budget for social networking activities and in Ireland, 41% of companies plan to devote a proportion of their marketing budget to social networking activities by the end of this year.
Surprisingly, however, only 22% of respondents had found new employment through social networking, and a smaller than average number of employees at small firms had found new employment through social networking. This result can best be interpreted in light of slower staff turnover in small companies than their larger counterparts. Employees in medium companies were the most likely to have found employment via social networking (25%).

A new Facebook eye-tracking study will give companies that wish to make an impact on Facebook food for thought.

Mulley Communications worked with the Centre for Research and Innovation in Learning and Teaching at National College of Ireland (NCI) on an eye-tracking test to see what Irish people pay attention to when using Facebook.

Using usability technology in NCI’s National e-Learning Laboratory researchers watched the eye movements of participants as they looked at their Facebook Newswalls, Profiles and Business Pages.
One of the things that any Facebook page admin for a business will wonder is how to get more fans – or people to ‘Like’ a page.

Word of mouth marketing

According to the research findings the most popular way to find out about a page is through a virtual word of mouth. Mirroring the real world, people look to their friends for recommendations and suggestions. When asked ‘how do you find out about a page’ 76% of the 40 people surveyed said when their friends recommend it. The study explains that this happens when either the user’s friend joins a page and the user can see that they have done this and then the user joins the page themselves. It also happens when a friend forwards a link onto a user.
One in five participants said they find out about pages by searching for a page themselves via the search bar. One participant commented that they heard about a page on radio and then went to Facebook to join that page.
Another quandary for many trying out social media to market and advertise their business is whether to go down the advertising route.

Advertising analysis

During testing, the gaze of 38 of the 40 test participants were analysed in three different areas/types of pages in Facebook: the News Feed page, the Profile page and a page with information about TV shows.
While users spent about 13.8 seconds on their News Wall page and 11.7 seconds on TV pages, they spent only 8.2 seconds looking at a their profile page.

Within the News Feed page itself, users spent 12.6 seconds looking at news wall (containing updates) and 1.2 seconds looking at right hand side of the page (containing Facebook updates and advert).

The research team also data to see if users looked at adverts in Facebook and which adverts on different pages received more attention. On average, across all pages, 42% of users looked at adverts. 31% of users looked at adverts shown on News Feed Wall pages, 39% of users looked at adverts on TV pages and almost double the amount of users (71%) glanced at adverts on their Profile page.

In the post test interview, one in five users said they noticed advertisements while carrying out tasks.
More than half of participants said under normal circumstances they would notice adverts. Out of 40 participants, three have purchased a product they’d seen advertised on Facebook: two of whom were female, one male.

Of those who said that they did not usually notice advertisements, most said that they are aware of the presence of adverts but did not usually pay any attention to them. Just 5% of participants said that they actively zone/blank them out.

View the full survey results at: http://mulley.ie/facebook

Weedle, an Ireland-based internet company, had had thousands of users in more than 50 countries sign up to its social media platform since launch less than four months ago.
Iain MacDonald, Weedle CEO, told Prosperity’s digital media ezine that he hadn’t expected it to catch on so fast and that the range of professionals and trades signed up to Weedle is very broad.
Weedle enables anyone, anywhere to connect with people who need their skills and also, to find people who have the skills they need.

“Weedle provides a better way of connecting people with skills to people who need them so we were very interested and keen to see what sort of people would be in interested in availing of this utility. We’ve seen every type of skill you can think of a page has been created to promote it.
“Normal things like accountants, doctors, lawyers, business consultants… but we’ve also had thousands of users creating skills that aren’t only professional/white collar. We’ve had bike mechanics, shoe designers, fashion designers, art directors, stone masons and stained glass makers.”
One of the main values people have reported they are getting is that they are beginning to rank number one in Google with their Weedle page.
“We’ve optimised for the skill title as opposed to your name so say if you type in tax specialist into Google, the number one search result is a Weedle page.” Other examples he cites are business mentor Swindon or radio presenter Dublin.
He says that having a Weedle page helps people who have a skill who are looking to connect with people who need them, be found by people searching for their skill.
Comparing it to LinkedIn, MacDonald explains “if you type in somebody’s name into Google their name will be returned but if you type in a skill LinkedIn doesn’t feature anywhere… Weedle is much more useful if you are looking to connect with people who need your skill because they won’t obviously know your name but they will know what skill they are looking for.”
Feedback from users includes somebody who got a job through Weedle and other users who have gotten new customers. Constant feedback means that the website is undergoing new releases and updates twice a week. “That’s helping us refine and improve the overall platform.” A significant upgrade with new features including enhanced usability will be introduced towards late June/early July.
“If you are somebody who has a skill and you are looking to get found on the web by somebody searching for that skill, Weedle is the best way to do it.”

Social media agency Simply Zesty hopes to triple the number of people it employs by the end of 2010.
Simply Zesty, which was established a year ago, recently announced that it had accepted an investment of €500,000 for a minority stake in the company, from The Oxford Research Agency (TORA), based in the UK. TORA specialises in FMCG new product development and customer experience research.

Simply Zesty director Niall Harbison told the Prosperity digital media ezine that the company was growing fairly fast without the investment to the point that it had 7 full-time staff.
“But we expect to be up to about 16-18 here in Ireland by the end of the year in Ireland as well as hopefully creating up to 6 jobs in the UK if everything goes to plan. We were a profitable company before investment but this helps accelerate our growth and enter new markets,” he said. Harbison established the business in May 2009 with co-founder Lauren Fisher.
According to Harbison, Simply Zesty, is hoping to add a new level of measurement to its social media offerings while also helping TORA to add a new level of social media to their research capabilities. “We want to add an extra layer of research and measurement to what we do so as we can really demonstrate how effective the work we do is. Measurement is the one area that is really lacking for social media and we want to try and exploit that as much as possible and bring the whole industry forward.”
TORA, he explains, has over 40 FMCG brands in the UK who will all hopefully be open to using social media in their marketing campaigns and as part of their overall strategy around customer service and other elements of their business where it might be relevant. According to Fisher, the company has some exciting projects lined up that will enable it to use social media in a completely new way.
“We are very excited about the level of growth that this will bring to the business and especially that it is going to be creating some much needed jobs here in Ireland in what are tough times,” concluded Harbison.