Alternative Strategies Blog

Facebook Vs. Twitter: The Great Debate

As the social marketing trend continues to grow, so does the number of social media options available for your business.

When it comes to down to it though, the undisputed leaders on the social media marketing forefront are Facebook and Twitter.

So which of the two big social media sites is more beneficial for business? To some degree it depends on the kind of business you are trying to promote.

Due to its “fan page” feature, Facebook lends itself best to consumer brands. Facebook is an excellent way to encourage brand enthusiasts to support products such as the latest iPod or trendy clothing brand.

Since Facebook is primarily used for socializing, it is common for users to follow what their friends have been up to. In the process of searching wall posts and photos, the users inevitably notice which fan pages their friends have joined or if they have posted links to a particular brand page.

Don’t underestimate the power of  word of mouth generated by your fan’s actions – the term “Facebook stalking” hasn’t come from nowhere. Promoting your business on Facebook fan pages allows for organic growth and cultivates buzz within a community of people with like-minded interests.

For those companies though that are trying to reach the general public, Facebook is extremely dynamic in its promotion options as far as the page display goes. Facebook allows for videos, photos and messages at any length to be posted.

However, for companies that aren’t necessarily targeted to consumers – such as business-to-business companies, Facebook is relatively ineffective.

Twitter on the other hand is superior as far as publicizing news goes. Although the messages are restricted to under 140 characters, Twitter can serve as a constant and immediate source of information from your company to your clients.

Twitter uses quick, concise postings on a relatively simple page set up, resulting in an easy to read design for followers. For technology or business to business based companies Twitter most likely will be a more efficient use of your social media marketing efforts for this reason. Twitter can also be a great tool for communication in particular industries where the site is highly utilized.

While both Facebook and Twitter are great ways to target clients based on the type of company you are working with, each site does have its disadvantages. Facebook restricts accounts from having more than 5000 “friends” and also prevents accounts from acquiring friends too quickly, so if you plan to have an extremely large amount of followers your business may be better suited to Twitter where there is no follower restriction.

However, Twitter’s status as a lasting social media outlet is still in question. Reports have shown that the site loses 60 percent of new users within the first month.

Either way, social media marketing is the way to go and both Facebook and Twitter can help your company increase awareness and generate word of mouth in different ways.

Making Humor Count In PR

By David Moye

When you want good PR, never underestimate the power of a laugh, a smile, a giggle or even a chortle.

In fact, the key to good PR often involves doing or saying something that makes a jaded journalist or particular TV producer smile or laugh.

The good PR people -- and the good clients -- understand this. Humor is a great way to stick out from your competitors and show off your advantages. Even better: If you make someone laugh, they are likely to trust you and your message.

We at Alternative Strategies constantly use humor to benefit our clients and ourselves.

Last summer, we spoofed all the hype about social media by creating a new campaign declaring sandwich boards the newest (and oldest) form of social media. By writing a tongue-in-cheek press release that compared sandwich boards to Web 2.0 and those sign spinners on the corner to slow-loading flash sites, we got a lot of postive press for the company.

We also managed to get a TV segment for a beloved bar by having one of the bartenders demonstrate bizarre hangover cures used by other cultures.

Another client, a fitness trainer, landed a TV segment on a major Chicago TV station when we asked her to create a workout designed to be done during the halftime of football games (so you could work off enough calories to have another beer).

But humor isn't just for press releases. It is great with dealing with the media. A lot of media types are jaded, cynical people who hear the same story every day. They have very dark senses of humor and if you can make them laugh, you're halfway there.

Is there time when humor doesn't work?

Yes.

If you are doing damage control, it is best not to joke around because it can come back to bite you.

Also, humor that insults others is a no no. If you are using humor, it is better to make fun of yourself than others.

How To Handle Online Criticism -- On Yelp And Elsewhere

In the last few years, social media sites like Yelp have been the best PR for some local businesses who discovered the positive effects of word-of-mouth reviews on the internet.

It makes sense: All the best paid PR in the world still doesn’t beat unbiased positive remarks from customers.

But for some business owners, there is a downside of review sites like Yelp. If you get a ton of reviews, not every one is going to be glowing.

Some can be downright mean or, worse, inaccurate.

However, there are some things a business owner can do to emphasize the positive and downplay and even eliminate the negative.

1. Register
Even if you detest review sites, it’s still worth opening a business owner account on Yelp. Citysearch, and any other website on which your customers are talking about you. Registering generally allows you to correct inaccuratcies, receive alerts when you are reviewed, and respond to your critics.

2. Participate
Participating on a review site by commenting on your favorite restaurants is a good way to build goodwill among the more active members of the sites. Don’t just praise your own place, recommend other good businesses. Also, let the other members know you are committed to running a good business and that you welcome any feedback. When people associate a business with a name or a face, they are more willing to give it some slack.

3. Don’t Fake It
Some businesses try to improve their Yelp standings by having their friends and family sign up and write reviews praising the place. Problem is, regulars can see right through it. For one thing, the fakers don’t bother to review anything else or upload a photo so it sticks out like a sore thumb.

4. Breathe
Just because you can respond doesn’t mean you should. Anything you say-in a private message, a personal e-mail, or even a voicemail-could end up on the Web. If there’s no way to respond to a review without being angry, profane, or aggressive, don’t do it at all.

5. Be Gracious
Apologize for what the customer didn’t like, and offer to make it right. When Lauren Hart, owner of the Root hair salon in Phoenix received a two-star review from a woman who didn’t like her hair cut, she wrote, “I am so sorry that you are unhappy with my work,” and then offered to pay for a cut at a competing salon. The woman wrote an equally gracious response and upgraded the Root to four stars.

6. Complain
If you can’t be nice to the reviewer, try complaining to Yelp directly. The site removes reviews in cases where there is a conflict of interest (for instance if the review has been written by a competitor). Other grounds for removal include hearsay, hate speech, and attacks that are unrelated to the customer experience.

7. Avoid The Courts
The Communications Decency Act protects websites from being held responsible for the actions of their users. And although defamation lawsuits against Yelpers have, in rare cases, succeeded in getting reviews taken down, suing tends to attract the ire of other Yelp users. If you decide to sue, be ready for more attacks.

How To Stand Out At Your Event

By Nate Bergeron

It's one thing to go out to be seen, but the key is being remembered. If you want potential clients or even potential partners (business and personal) to want to stay connected, here are some great tips.

Create an Overall Strategy

The reasons you host an event are to connect with current and prospective customers. You will also have an opportunity to learn about new products and services and connect with other businesses and organizations. You need to set measurable goals for the show before you even sign up. Why am I here? Am I promoting a particular product or new service? Am I trying to develop into a new target market? Come prepared!

Send Advance Pre-show Announcements

Don't wait until the show to contact your customers or prospective customers. Develop marketing communications that include your participation and event information. Such messages, whether via e-mail newsletters or direct mail, can easily be created with little expense.

Press Releases and the Media

Events are an excellent opportunity to meet face-to-face with media personnel to present story ideas, introduce your company, executives or spokespeople, and to establish relationships. Optimizing your marketing communications in advance will benefit you for a successful event.

Wear a Red Dress to a Black Tie Event

Create a way to stand out amongst the crowd. Design your event to stand out, have a consistent theme with your products and have bright, noticeable colors. Have creative giveaways, specific to your target audience.  The brands that stand out most are the ones that are wandering the halls, and taking a more proactive approach to marketing. Bring lots of hand-outs and business cards. Go meet people! You never know who will show up.

Build Relationships

Instead of pushing your product or service, ask questions.  You learn a great deal about the customer by learning about them personally. This can lead to a long relationship, rather than a one-time deal.

Follow Up

Start following up with your new leads within 3-4 days. This will determine your return on investment for a successful event.

Plan, prepare and then follow up. This is the equation for success.

So You Want To Rebrand, Eh?

By Nate Bergeron

So you want to re-brand your company’s identity? Here are some things to think about when making this decision.  Business will change with new technology, trends, people and events, all of which may have minimal or drastic effect on your strategy.

Remember that re-brands don’t have to mean an overhaul of the whole company image. The size of any change in the business should match the size of any change in your brand image. It could simply be a change of slogan to signify a slight change in direction but a change nether the less to show a sign of progress.



 The most common reasons for a re-brand:

• A merger or take over of a company
• A change in strategy
• A change in direction
• Keeping with the times

• Solving a problem

 

Specific changes that may have occurred that lead to a re-brand:


• Offering new services

• New core service

• Grown as a business

• Lost profit

• Created a partnership

• Now web based business

• Now an office based business

• New clients

• New targets

• Outdated
brand image not working.

Check out these rebrands and let us know which ones you like and dislike.

Advertising: Is It Right For My Business?

By William Lopez

The purpose of advertising is to promote a product or service in order to increase sales and create a branding of the product so that a customer loyalty base will be established. Without effective and targeted advertising, a business cannot succeed. There are many types of advertising a business can utilize in effort to increase their sales.

The following lists a number of types of advertising available to businesses:

Television and Radio

Since television was first introduced, businesses have had tremendous success using it as an advertising medium. This is due to the increase in consumers watching television. The cost of television depends on the time of day or night one advertises, the popularity of the television show (how many viewers,) and the length of the advertisement. Television advertising can reach millions of people. Radio advertising is a traditional advertising format that uses voice and jingles.

Print

This includes newspapers, magazines, fliers, brochures..etc. Placing advertisements in magazines and newspapers is an age old method of advertising. Newspapers and the magazines sell the advertising space. Prices depend on location, size, graphics, and color. Advertising success often depends on the number of subscribers. Print advertising allows a business to target a specific demographic. Fliers and brochures are a great way to advertise sales and launch special product promotion programs.

Internet Advertising

Online advertising consists of small ads, banner ads, text ads, video ads, pay-per-click advertising, and reciprocal linking to other websites. The effectiveness of online advertising depends on exposure and how many people actually view the advertisement. Internet advertising allows the advertiser to track the number of impressions an ad gets (how many people see it), and how many visits their business website receives from particular ads, making it simple to find out what kind of conversion rates the advertisers are obtaining. Online advertising does not have any time restraints and can be viewed day and night throughout the world. Businesses also have their own websites as an advertising tool. A well-designed and well-promoted website can provide a world of customers.

Out-of-Home Advertising

This can include digital signage, billboards, kiosks, tradeshows, and out-of-home advertising. This is advertising that takes place outside of a customer's home. This form of advertising has become very popular because it provides a new way to reach targeted customers. Billboards, kiosks, and tradeshows have been extremely successful advertising tools because you can take your product or service directly to the consumer. Digital signage is a newer method of advertising that is growing in popularity. Digital signage is where monitors/plasma TVs are placed in strategic locations and display advertisements directed at their targeted customer. Digital signage can deliver messages in the form of text and digital video. Advertisers have the ability to up date content from a remote location. You can find digital signage in such places as sports arenas, retail stores, department stores, malls, schools...etc.

Regardless of the state of the economy, businesses have to keep advertising to stay successful. Because of the broad range of advertising methods now available, businesses now have the ability to reach their targeted customers at very affordable costs.

Should I Add Social Media to my Public Relations Program?

By William Lopez

More than ever, companies are sorting the features and weighing the pros and cons of adding one or more social media channels to their array of public relations tools. 

In addition to their networking and communications benefits, social media channels provide an efficient and highly effective means for you to establish and maintain your company's positive reputation. They enable you to

• Communicate directly with targeted groups and individuals
• Bypass newspapers, magazines, radio and television to get the word out
• Build and reinforce professional relationships
• Deliver important information at the speed of the Internet
• Enable individuals to ask questions an exchange information with you 

Also, the prevalence, variety and versatility of such media channels enable you to spread information farther, faster and wider than ever.
 
And, as the Internet continues to blur the line between public relations and marketing, your use of media channels to preserve your company's positive reputation will more than likely overlap with maintaining its bottom line.
 
But you must remember this key point: Social media channels can be highly effective public relations tools, but they can't replace traditional media entirely. Successful public relations programs meld social media and traditional media with other communications tools and techniques.
 
Among the many social media channels currently available to you, the most popular and effective include:

• Blogs  
• Twitter
• Facebook
• LinkedIn 

You may find others that meet your company's particular needs.
 
Regardless of which channels you choose, before plunging into social media, keep these six important tips in mind:

• Don't start a social networking program unless you're willing to devote the time, personnel and other resources to "feed the beast" regularly. Small companies and solo entrepreneurs should be particularly aware of the huge amount of time you can spend each day maintaining your social media networks. This activity may reap great rewards. It can also become an extremely time-consuming responsibility and possibly a giant distraction from other work.
• Social media communication should remain continual and consistent. Don't crank up the system just to make a major announcement then go silent until the next announcement. Develop a communications plan and stick with it to maintain a consistent day-to-day social media presence and relevance.
• Be ready and willing to engage your audience; not only after you contact them, but every time they contact you. Dedicated followers can quickly turn into unhappy detractors when you ignore their comments or inquires.   
• Supporting your company's social media channels is everyone's responsibility. Your communications/public relations department may develop comments and answers, but all employees -- from the CEO down -- must remain available to provide timely input for such responses. 
• Your audiences might not respond as you'd expected -- or at all -- to the information you send them. Don't be surprised if people want you to pay attention to them or respond to their comments before they'll respond to you.
• "Content is king." Always ask yourself and answer these three key questions before sending out information:

   1. Is it news? 
   2. Is it interesting? 
   3. Who cares?

Bonus tip: If you decide your company isn't going to participate actively in any social media channels, you'd be wise to set up a company blog and open a Twitter account anyway. These would be in addition to your company's website, which you must have to establish an Internet presence and credibility.
 
Even if the blog and Twitter account remain inactive, you'll have both of these rapid response systems available and ready to go as part of your company's crisis communications response system.
 
Just like a fire hose that sits coiled in a glass case, your blog and Twitter account will be available when you need them. You can engage either communications system in an emergency, then put them away until the next crisis.

Your PR Resolutions For 2010

It's not to late to set your PR goals for 2010. Now, the trick to making New Year’s resolutions is to make ones that can be easily kept. There are no rules that say to make challenging resolutions, but if you can’t carry on with the resolutions there’s a good possibility you might end up feeling like a failure.

Instead, make practical resolutions, that way you’ll feel better about yourself and can give yourself a pat on the back for actually going through with it. Here are some promising PR New Year’s Resolutions that anyone can make.

1. Stay on top of the “Big 3”

 Social media sites are for everyone. It’s fine if you only have one account out of the “big 3” social media sites -- Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn -- but it would great to open an account with the other two as well. They differ in functions, but they all serve one purpose and that is to help people connect. Plus, it’s a great marketing tool. Promote yourself, your business, your product for free. Make an effort to tweet every now and then to let others know what you’ve been up to. Another key to remember is to keep your sites updated. No one wants to see an outdated site. After all, you want good PR.

2. Keep In Touch

This may be the most important resolution of all. It’s important to keep in touch with the people around you or even the newer ones you meet. It’s very unsettling when you’ve lost touch with people. If you’re not a phone person, take advantage of the email. It’s a great way to stay in the loop with people. You never know when you might need their help, or they might even need your help for something.

3. PR Strategies

Although there are Countless PR strategies, only a handful of them actually work. Make it a resolution to find a strategy that really works for you. Maybe get to really know a journalist. Have that person be on your side and that could be an instant ticket to your way in to media success.

4. Sharing Is Caring

What you do to others will be done unto you. There’s nothing more gratifying then helping each other out. Make it an effort to share at least one tip or knowledge with your peers. They’ll be sure to return the favor.

7 Essential Questions To Ask Your Web Designer

by William Lopez

Eliminating the guesswork

Whether you work in the marketing department of a Fortune 500 brand or you're the one-man band responsible for getting the word out about your business, you're going to face a similar dilemma when it comes to building your next website.

With a seemingly endless stream of jargon, prices that aren't always easy to compare across vendors, and the sinking feeling that today's plans will be out of date by the time they reach execution, it's easy to throw up your hands and run screaming out of the room.

But even if you have only a superficial knowledge of building a website, it is possible to get quality work on budget and on time. You just have to know how to speak with your vendor, whether that firm is a small design shop, a larger ad agency, or an in-house team responsible for building websites.

You can get most of your answers just by asking seven basic questions.

How would you solve our problems?

Whether you're talking about a redesign to an existing website or you're launching an entirely new product, you're always going to be working to solve existing business problems. Unfortunately, a lot of clients don't share these problems with their designers, which means that work suffers, solutions remain out of their grasp, and costs can easily go over budget.

Clients should come to the table with a list of problems their business faces on a high level and look to the expertise of the agency to help suggest solutions that solve those problems.  A website agency will operate much more effectively when they are asked to solve problems around an online strategy than they will if they are told what solutions they should be including in their response to an RFP.

Who's doing the technical work?

Here's a simple reality check: Just because you hired XYZ Design Firm doesn't mean that XYZ will be doing all the development on your website. In fact, a lot of designers often outsource their development work to a regular pool of freelancers.

It's key for a client or agency to ask their web design firm who will be managing the technical aspects of the project. Ask: "Is it somebody on staff? Is that person very technical him/herself or is he/she relying heavily on the sub-contractor? If there is a sub-contractor, are they in the same or similar time zone? Or, will all of the work be done during overnight hours with nobody around to fix anything during regular business hours?"

 The client or agency should be looking for answers that provide comfort that the web design firm has somebody on staff who is highly technical and will be managing the project, and will also be in direct contact with the client or agency.

What about content?

Content should come before design, but it doesn't always happen that way.

Many brand clients want their design firms to just go ahead and design the web pages figuring they can fill in the content later to fit whatever is designed. This is a mistake and puts the cart before the horse.

Websites are not primarily about how beautiful they are or how well they express branding elements -- they are about effectively communicating content. Design is about figuring out the optimal way to do just that, while also promoting the brand. So, without having a significant sampling of the content that will live on the site, the designer is incredibly handicapped. It is very important to focus on content development as a first step toward a new website design.

What about the users?

At the end of the day, two distinct groups are going to use the website: you and your customers. While you have a good chance of teasing out what you need from your website, getting a handle on how the user will react to the site is often a little more complicated.

One of the best questions I've ever read in an RFP was, 'How have you used UCD (user-centered design) to create delightful experiences?" You've got to love when an RFP uses the word "delightful," particularly in the context of demanding a user-centered solution. This question demonstrates a sophisticated client who understands the surprise and delight associated with a big idea that grows out of customer insight.

But you don't have to be that sophisticated to make sure that your web design firm is thinking about your customers every step of the way. It's a good idea to simply ask a lot of questions about user experience. Essentially you want to get a sense for their process and commitment to user-centered design principles. 

Who's in charge?

As with any project, building a website is going to require a project manager who has final say. But websites offer a particular challenge because they are often built by two teams: a front-end design team and a back-end team of developers. While there's no hard-and-fast rule for determining a pecking order, it is important that there be a clear driver.

Decide on who is driving the project and who gets final say when something comes up for debate. Is the back-end team meant to support the efforts of the design team? Or will technical considerations trump design decisions? With good planning and a collaborative process, it won't be a battle between visual design and technology, but it's good for everyone to be clear on how these things will be decided when a question comes up.

If you're hiring an agency to build the site, you'll want to make sure that it has a mechanism for establishing that pecking order between teams. But if you're managing the project in-house, it'll be up to you.

What if we fire you?

It's a tough question to broach, especially at the outset of a project, but it's always a good idea for a client to ask what will happen if they fire their web design firm.

That's obviously something you don't want to consider at the beginning of a project, but it is important.  Many developers will try to retain the ownership of the work they create, only giving the client a license to use it. Others may use proprietary code or write things in non-traditional ways to try and help their job security. Look for a developer that works within industry standards, properly comments their code, and will provide documentation after the fact.

Should we use free code?

Code used to be a proprietary thing, and to a large degree it still is. But increasingly, a lot of websites are running on open-source platforms like Drupal, Plone, and Joomla, to name just a few. The platforms are free (although they often require some customization), and there can be a tremendous long-term cost-savings. But there are pros and cons, and, unfortunately, there is no right answer here.

On the plus side, open source gives your developers (if you have them in-house) the ability to alter the source code and make changes as the need arises. Open source also gives you a wider -- though not always more capable -- base of support because hundreds (sometimes thousands) of developers work on contributing tiny applications to the larger system. Those updates are free and often very good. Finally, open source tends to limit your reliance on a particular vendor or computer language, if you choose a widely used open-source platform that is compatible with other platforms.

But there are negatives. For starters, you won't have the same kind of support with an open-source platform. And if something goes wrong, the real culprit might just be an anonymous developer, so you won't have nearly the same accountability as you do with a proprietary product that usually comes with 24/7 tech support. Along similar lines, the quality of open-source developers can vary significantly. However, most communities have a review and rating section that should help you sort out lesser work.

The biggest hang-up most people cannot seem to get around the "free" part. We are often taught that nothing is free. That saying is still true for open source. While open-source software is usually free, you still need to hire a web firm to build, host, and manage it the same as any other platform. [Open source] is generally free in purchase cost, costs the same or more in maintenance, and is often much more customizable, as you have full access to the code, than proprietary closed source software. Open-source software is great, but it is not the answer to everything; nothing is. A brand client should look beyond the hype and treat it the same as all of your other choices.

PR Resolutions For 2010

Since 2009 is almost a memory and 2010 is almost upon us, now is the time to get your resolutions ready.

And while you may be vowing to lose weight or stop smoking, you may also want to consider some resolutions that will help you with PR.

1. Resolve to stand out from the crowd.

The key to good PR is stickiness and the goal of any campaign, be it through PR, marketing or advertising is making sure there is something that resonates with people.

Many people who hire an agency for PR will second guess what the agency is suggesting because it sounds weird or bizarre. Well, sometimes you have to do things in order to stick out from the competition.

That might mean a fun publicity stunt, taking advantage of a current news story to promote your product or even doing a soft-sell promotion that lets people know you have interests other than your business.

Whatever it is, don't be afraid to be different.

2. Resolve to use social media wisely.

Social media is here to stay and it's making people more savvy of their customer base.

However, as social media grows, people are figuring out how to use it. Frankly, successful social media is counter intuitive to the usual PR model.

Have a Facebook page set up to promote your business? Well, you are more likely to develop fans and keep customers happy if you focus more on providing information than plugs. Also, use social media as a way to connect with customers (even the unhappy ones).

Take Yelp for instance. If someone posts a bad review there, take time to connect with them and ask how you can make the next experience better. Many business owners take bad reviews as a personal attack when they are actually an opportunity to improve.

3. Resolve to take advantage of the opportunities that happen.

You may have this idea of getting on Oprah and hold out hopes of starting at the top.

The truth is, you're better off thinking of PR as incremental. Sometimes, starting off at a smaller blog or news site can help you create a body of press clippings that impress a larger outlet. Plus it helps you build up experience with the media.

When considering a media opportunity, it's important to decide quickly whether it's right for you, but make sure you decide, because there's no guarantee the opportunity will come up again.