Top Ten Tips for Facebook Pages

Facebook has 1.19 billion monthly active users

We are regularly asked for tips for optimising a Facebook Company page. Here are just a few to get you started...but mostly it is all about engagement strategies.

Top Ten Tips for setting up a Facebook Company Page

1. Know who you want to connect with, what and why you are looking to connect on Facebook.  Define your goals. Develop a strategy to listen and search. 


2. Choose a suitable cover image. First impressions count. Feature Call to Actions just below the cover image. Image dimensions 851px wide x 315px tall.


3. Highlight posts and publish more than once a day. Remember visual content rules on Facebook. Photo posts get 39% more interaction. Reply to comments.


4. Give focus to building your page and to optimise for Facebook Graph Search, make sure your basics are complete (Category, web address, about section, local place page, address). Tag and geo-locate content.


5. It’s not about the number of likes. The metric that matters is the number of people engaging with your Facebook page. Manage page permissions - can people like, comment, share. The average number of minutes users spend on Facebook mobile is 914 minutes.


6. Share your milestones (key dates) and post effective engaging updates, like question, quotes, competitions. Engagement rates are high on Thursday and Friday and highest on the weekend. Posts at 1pm get the most shares and posts at 3pm gets the most clicks. 


7. Use the tools within Facebook, Apps, Highlighting posts, Schedule Posts in the activity log, Personalisation for Custom audiences, Search, watch other pages, get ratings and recommendations.


8. Don’t forget about the opportunities offered by Facebook Adverts and Promoted Posts.


9. People discover more content from the people they know and pages they like. Consider which posts get shared. Add quality articles over memes. Track, measure and tweak.


10. Cross Promote other social channels from your Facebook Company Page within campaigns.

Facebook has 1.19 billion monthly active users and it is always changing; as you will notice from this Facebook engagement blog we wrote back in 2010

Feel free to share your Facebook for Business tips in the comments section below.


Author: Fiona Anderson

Top Ten Twitter Tips for Business and Pleasure

We are regularly asked for our top tips for engaging on social networks.   Sharing with you this month, our top ten tips for engaging and optimising on Twitter.   Feel free to share your Twitter tips in the comments section below.

Sharing our Top Ten Twitter Tips for Business and Pleasure


1. Know who, what and why you are looking to connect on Twitter.  Define your goals. Listen and search.


2. Be responsive to those who contact you on Twitter and look to connect with new people every day.  


3. Use Twitter lists to organise influencers. Understand Twitter Etiquette. Try not to be too salesy and watch out for spammers. 


4. Talk about what interests you, share articles on topics that interest you.  Share thoughts, tips, resources that will help your target connections.


5. Use hash-tags to help others find topics you are interested in.


6. Build relationships, respond to tweets, add value to the stream.


7. To maximise on re-tweets, keep tweet length to 70-100 so to leave space for RT @username and comment.


8. Treat others here as you would at a networking event. Engage your followers and speak to them.  It’s just as important online as offline to be authentic, fun, creative and where possible, inspire others with your words and action.


9. Stay up to date with changes to Twitter.


10. Cross Promote other social channels from your Twitter account.

You may also be interested in our Top Ten Tips for LinkedIn for Business.


Author: Sarah Griffiths

2012 Social Media Startups

Hot on the coat tails of social media’s current love affair with Pinterest, come a handful of start ups that have all kicked off in 2012. Some less subtle then others! Let’s take a quick look at just a handful of them.

“Social Travel” has been growing in leaps and bounds. As everything seems to follow Pinterest in trending towards more visual approaches to content; we’re seeing a lot of similarly styled sites popping up.

Trippy recently redesigned its site to jump on the Pinterest bandwagon. Users can now create travel boards and can pin images to them, comment, and also choose to tag their images with “Want to go” or “been there”.

Though originally launched some 3 years ago, just earlier this month, the visual-travel-discovery site, Wanderfly, redesigned and re launched their site. Gtrot, another social travel site has also opted for a more visual focused design update, with similar photo uploading and recommendations.

Now moving away from travel and more to commerce, Fancy can be described as a Pinterest catering for ecommerce merchants, facilitating ecommerce in two ways;

• The majority of items pinned on Fancy come straight from ecommerce stores, so a ‘Buy it’ button takes users straight to the merchant's page

• Users can also purchase items directly from the Fancy site, involving merchants more directly in the process. This requires merchants to find items that users have fancied, when they find something that they stock the merchant can place a bid to sell that particular item, through Fancy, by using the ‘I want to sell it’ button.

Pingram.me sells itself as a mash up of Instagram and Pinterest, though you’d be hard pushed to tell the difference between it and the latter of those two at a glance. The major difference between the two is that pinning on Pingram is only enabled on photos taken by other Pingram users. This approach is intended to both respect Pinterest etiquette and protect other Instagram users from having their images shared unknowingly.

Now moving momentarily back to the world of Social Travel, but refreshingly un-Pinterest like, we have this new site, Tripbirds. Rather than relying on friends to create content, Tripbirds instead organises geotagged content from other friends on different platforms, which at the moment includes popular media such as Facebook, Foursquare and Instagram.

Mashable has kindly outlined ‘9 social networks to watch’; such as Path, Highlight, Sonar, Banjo, Glancee, Localmind, Forecast, Gogobot and Fancy which we mentioned above. All these social networks are trying to win an audience over from Facebook, yet trying not to become too similar to Facebook; which already offers some very similar features to these new start-ups and has the added bonus of being used by many of the businesses we work with and certainly all our friends.

Of course, whilst spreading your influence is important, getting on board every social media fad that pops up isn’t a constructive use of time and effort. If you’re interested in investing into social media and discovering where to focus your efforts, why not get in contact with Rocktime and talk to our Flashlight team about discovering a Social media strategy tailored for you.


Author: Alice Cheetham

Facebook Timeline for brands

As the final roll-out of Facebook Timelines for personal profiles rolls ever nearer, this week sees the introduction of Timeline for brands as well. The option to switch to Timeline is already available for Facebook Pages, and it’s looking like the 30th of March will be the date for compulsory uptake of Timeline for pages. Some well-known brands have already got in there with some great displays of what a business can do with Timeline, but what do these changes really mean?


There's a lot of new changes to take in, perhaps the most immediate change off the bat is the removal of the landing page. In our previous thoughts on organising a Facebook Page, we were all for using iframes to create your own custom, free from Facebook formatting, landing page. In place of a landing page we now have the Timeline page, with its large header banner and Timeline arrangement down the side. Extra tabs that were once the mainstay of Facebook brand pages are now for the most part removed, and instead we have a section for photos, apps and company info.

The large cover photo is a new addition right at the top of your page, which offers a large space to personalise and open the look and feel of your page. Taking into account it’s prominent positioning, updating this regularly offers a great opportunity to make your visitors aware of new opportunities.

The profile image has also changed, from the sizeable rectangle we were allowed before, now we’re reduced to a much smaller square profile image, on the plus side, it will at least thumbnail neatly when making posts on your own wall!

Bear in mind what an app comprises of is largely up the administrator, whether it’s what was once a custom page in an iframe, or a list of free issue apps for things like events and other social network integrations, it’s likely that all previous custom tabs will be converted into ‘apps’ that the visitor can click into.

Furthermore these now load on a separate page. You can also rearrange the order of this section to highlight particular content to users.


When it comes to the actual wall, as you can see on the side, we can now add in significant events from the past and date them appropriately. As a whole the wall becomes a more dynamic and visual experience. Images and videos are larger and take a more prominent position in the wall content over text, and can either cover half or the entire width of the wall.

Timeline also adds the ability to send private messages, meaning that fans and visitors can converse with you privately, adding another dimension to potential customer services.


The backend has also been thoroughly updated and streamlined, as well as the ability to receive and send private messages. Through the admin panel overview you can check out notifications, new ‘likes’ as well as basic analytics for your page. As an administrator you now have more control over the content posted onto your wall by fans, allowing the option for all content to be reviewed before going public on your Timeline.


What are the benefits to brands?

The new cover image is a whopping 850 odd pixels wide, which presents you with a lot of graphical real estate right smack bang at the top of your Facebook page, excellent for grabbing a potential visitor and drawing them in. Its prominent position makes it great for product promotion and pushing, since it’s the first thing your visitor will see.

By pushing the info section right to the top of the page, rather than leaving it lingering in the sidelines, it now becomes a lot easier for users to get the gist of your brand immediately. Furthermore offering the ability to send private messages to and from pages opens up new channels of communication and prevents walls from becoming cluttered with conversation between admin and client, which whilst handy for engagement, may be entirely irrelevant to every other visitor to the page.

The Timeline format itself lends itself to giving out information and content much more so then the previous wall designs. Of course, the conversation between brand and client is as important as ever, and in a sense Timeline lends itself to encouraging such discussion. The constant stream of information is easily accessible on the first page, and limited only by as much information as you, the brand, put in. Offering up more information for the user to consume leads to further engagement, and prolongs the interactions you have with your visitor. Timeline appears to be less a case by case display of content and more of a streamed story, dependant of course on the information you put in in the first place.

As Mashable puts it in their explanation of why Timeline is great for brands post;

“With the focus shifting from building conversation to sharing content, the purpose of a Facebook brand page will be less about selling and more about telling an authentic story. Brands can express what makes them unique and build an emotional connection with fans through behind-the-scenes photos, blooper videos, real-time mobile pictures, sound clips and exclusive news. In addition to expressing the brand in the present, a brand can utilize the Timeline to speak to its past to reignite nostalgia and sentiment that may be associated with it.”

If you're interested in making the most of your online presence, or wanting to find out how you can include Facebook and social media into your online strategy, then why not get in contact with our Sales Team here at Rocktime.


Author: Alice Cheetham

10 things Fiona likes most about Google+

Since Google+ launched for brands and businesses in November 2011 I have enjoyed thinking about ways we could incorporate Google+ into integrated digital marketing strategies and build a brand presence for our clients. Here are a few things, listed in no particular order, that I like about Google+:

1. Hangouts are great for product demos and launches, group chats, document screen sharing and music promotion.


2. Google is socialising all its services including search which is why Google+ content shows up in the search results, so great for increasing your search engine presence (Search Engine Optimisation).


3. Linking all the Google products like YouTube and Blogger in one Google Account. The new Gmail interface integrates with and even looks similar to Google+.


4. Optimised Google Places and My Places location maps, with a special offer and the new map snippets for sharing directions. Images can be geo tagged and found on Google Earth.


5. Customisable widgets, RSS feed, social share badges making real time updating relevant.


6. Allows animated gifs as well as static images in profile, which integrate with Picasa photo management service.


7. The chance to be an influencer and to find influencers in a certain field using the Ripples interactive diagram.


8. Great search ability of Google+ accounts, Google Direct Connect, lots of lists of profiles, categories and content related searches to find people of interest.


9. Linking Ads with +1 recommendations and being able to +1 images that I like.


10. Google+ bringing in location deals and mobile check-ins, which are great for in store promotions linked to Google Maps.

I don’t play games, as I am usually at a live music event but if I did, Google+ has those too.

If you want to find out more about Google+ and how it can benefit your business, please do go back and visit by November Blog, Creating a Google+ Page for your business. Alternatively give our sales team a call, they will be happy to discuss how we can help you further with digital strategy planning.


Author: Fiona Anderson

Creating a Google+ Page for your business

Earlier this week we talked about what benefits a Google+ page can bring to brands and businesses today we’re talking about the basics of setting up your own Google Plus business page.

Creating your own Google+ page is quite straight forward but would benefit from a bit of strategy about how your business wants to use the network. To start, simply log into your Google account or create a new account if you haven’t already got one for your business. Please remember to ONLY HAVE ONE Google Account for ALL your Google Products. Next, navigate to your +You profile page. On the right hand side there will be a box with the topic “Create Google+ Pages” click the “Create Google+ Page” which will take you straight to the sign up page.

Whilst configuring your business Google+ page, you can set it to be invisible to others, so they can’t see your edits.


When making your Google+ page, it is important that you select an appropriate category and fill in as many details as possible; add links, images, choose an appropriate title and when you’re happy with the appearance and functionality of your page, go ahead and make it public. To access and manage this new page you will toggle between the profile and the page.

Remember the Flashlight Search Marketing team can set this up for you, if you haven’t got the in house resource to complete and optimise your Google+ page.

If you’re hunting for ideas for your business Google+ page, why not take a look at some of these already established brands, such as H&M, Pepsi or X Games.

Once you’ve put together your page, please find a selection of opportunities to develop your Google+ page and some pointers to be aware of as aof25th November 2011. Google+ will be evolving and refining the network with new features and tools over the coming months.
Opportunities to develop your Google+ page

Flashlight can offer lots of useful page optimisation tips on how to use configuration tools for developers and linking your Google+ page and your website in webmaster tools.

We recommend:

• Connecting your accounts from other services
• Creating video for your news feed because videos are weighted more heavily that other types of content
• Learning how to build campaigns on Google+ differently to the Facebook and twitter channels
• Making use of the feature introduced on 2 November 2011 that allows you to +1 a photo
• Adding a reciprocal social share badge link back from your Google+ page to the main page of your website.
• Selecting tabs to display to your visitors
• Reviewing how your profile appears to different people
• Checking out how linked sites are eligible for Google Direct Connect
• Utilising the feature of +1’s being shown with your brand page and search ads
• Considering a future best practice strategy for linking the Google+ page to an Adwords campaign

Limitations and things to remember

1. Ability to link page to Adwords Campaign not yet implemented.
2. Google+ will not allow brands to run promotions or competitions directly on the social network - although you are allowed to display a link leading to a separate site where a promotion is being hosted.
3. Need a maximum 10 participants to hold a hangout.
4. There's a 90 minute check-in to make sure you're still there.
5. Can’t rename photo albums once created.
6. Does not have the ability to create multiple administrators to a page.
7. Unlike some other Google webservices, Google Analytics is not currently integrated completely with G+, however referrals will appear from plus.google.com.
   
8. Does not have the ability to customise the URL / no vanity URL yet.
9. You aren't able to see a complete list of the people included in your extended circles; it's a collection of people that's frequently changing.
10. If a given page isn't in the circles selected to be displayed on your profile, that page won't be able to display your profile as among those who are following it.
11. A page admin cannot add people to the page’s Circles unless that person has already added the brand to their Circle
12. Use a clean URL when you add your content to Google+. Google+ hasn't been translating URL shorteners well, so our tip is use a link from the source.
13. Instant Upload is only available for Android devices (2.1+) with the Google+ app installed.
14. Google is not including the +1 button on mobile search results at this time. However, users may be able to see any +1 buttons they have added to web pages.

We have already set up a number of optimised Google+ brand pages for our clients, if you would like the Flashlight Search Marketing Team to developme a strategy or set up a Google Plus page for you, or if you’re interested in learning more about how your business can establish/improve their online presence, please call the Rocktime Sales team on 01202 678777, or use our contact us form to set up a meeting to discuss how we can assist.


Author: Fiona Anderson & Alice Cheetham

Google+ for Businesses and Brands

As we're pretty big fans of Google, it's no suprise we’ve talked about Google+ and how it squares up before, and now we're back there again!

This month finally sees the release of Google+ for businesses, so now we’ll be taking a look at what Google+ has to offer you as a business, or brand owner.

The Google+ strap line is ‘Real-life sharing, rethought for the web’ and refers to G+ as a social networking and identity service. Summarised it is a tool to help businesses communicate; ‘you share, they recommend, you both connect’ in short and it will make a difference to businesses that already use Google Products and that have embraced communicating and listening to audiences .

Google+ has a number of tools and features on offer.

• Google Circles allows you to organize friends and acquaintances according to real life social connections, great for customisable list building and communications.

• Extended Circles allows you to share content with those who are one degree removed from yourself.

• The Stream allows you to see posts in real time of particular Circles, and any comments made will be visible to all Circle members.

• Group and Video Hangouts allow you to hold video meetings, seminars or conferences with followers and fans without the need for additional software or websites.

• Google+ also integrates smoothly with mobile and has its own app for Android phones; there is also a messenger function, games and profile verification.

• Links can be added under the category of either recommended links, other profiles (web pages about yourself) or contributor to (sites you have written for), there is also, of course, the +1 Badge, which we’ve also talked about previously.

It is worth noting that +1’s will be shown with your brand page and search ads. A +1’d page shows prominently in the search results, with a trusted face attached called ‘authorship on search results’; an endorsement by people recommending your product or service.


Perhaps one of the most interesting features (exclusive to) Google+ is Ripples. Google+ Ripple is an interactive diagram that shows how a Google+ post spreads as it’s shared by users and you can look at this information for any public post on Google+.

So why is this useful for a business? Well, you can see an overview of who the top sharers of your content are, how the posts spread, what languages the sharers use, as well as the timelines and a detailed view of sharing within different circles.


Not only does this make it incredibly easy to measure the impact of any campaign or content, but because all Ripples are totally transparent, you can look at an end goal and, to some degree, engineer your own Ripples.
For example if you see an influencer you want to get content too, by looking at who’s content they’ve shared themselves (and so on) you can work back through the Ripples to see what users you need to target content at, so that it might ultimately be shared by your influencer.

Let’s have a basic rundown of the benefits;

1. Brand building
   
   
2. Full integration with other Google owned products, such as YouTube, and Google cloud services, such as Picasa or Blogger.
   
   
3. An attractive prospect to marketers; integration of Google+ searches within Google.
   
   
4. Well designed user interface
   
   
5. Real time updating
   
   
6. No character limit (i.e. 140 characters on Twitter)
   
   
7. Multi-media rich
   
   
8. You can use Hootsuite to manage Google+
   
   
9. Approximately 40m early adopter members, which represents just a fraction of the overall Google users, so a huge potential user base.
   
   
10. Your Google+ page will rank higher then Facebook in Google searches for your brand name.
    
    
11. Profiles can be optimised with meta and anchor text
    
    
12. Ultimately, tracking traffic and conversion rates from your Google+ page will be easier, although Google Analytics and G+ are not currently connected; it’s definitely in the pipeline.
    
    
13. For Local Businesses, a corporate brand page can be set up, then different Google+ pages for each local business.
    
    
14. Google+ is content driven and can be used to share highly focused content that will track well in niche searches, Google+ brand pages could be used as landing pages in their own right.
    
    
15. If you type ‘+’ into the Google bar followed by the brand name, its page will come up in the search drop down
    
    
16. Social share badges to link your Google+ page and your website

Flashlight has already outlined strategic use of Google+ for clients. It is worth noting that ‘Google+ is not Facebook’. It is certainly more about doing business with likeminded people in your network; and as such, a business would benefit from outlining how a Google+ page will benefit them specifically, what type of content would naturally be of interest to their network and what tone of voice to use.

Google Fresh, the latest ‘Google Update’ is all about trust and authority and it encourages businesses to follow the good practice ‘business conversation and content guidelines’ outlined by Google and in return, Google returns these businesses high in the search results.

Google+, used appropriately, in conjunction with a good website, will improve a business’s chance of being found in a Google search. Google dominates the UK search engine market with a 90.59% share of the market.

If you’re interested to learn more about Google services and networks of interaction, and how the above can benefit your business, why not get in contact with the Flashlight team and see how they can give your business or brand a helping hand.

If you are reading this out of office hours, please use the contact Flashlight form and we will get back to you to discuss how Google+ can form part of your overall channel optimisation and campaign marketing strategy.

Check out the Rocktime Social blog later this month for a quick overview on the ins and outs of Google+ for businesses, and what to be aware of.


Author: Fiona Anderson & Alice Cheetham

Pros and Cons of Google+

Last week Google’s social network, Google+, opened its gates to all after two and half months of closed testing.

Fiona presents her breakdown of Pros and Cons of Google+ from the perspective of a Google Enthusiast for Rocktime clients and Music promotion.

Pros:

I really liked the simplicity of registering to join Google+ BETA. My attention was kept by the use of innovative circles of networks and the ability to assign users to multiple circles. I am still only testing and not using Google+ until Google+ for businesses is available.

I found the integration of my Google+ profile with many of the other Google products I use like Picasa, Google Places reviews, iGoogle, YouTube, Gmail contacts, Google+1 button etc was and will be very useful.

After years of keeping a relatively low online personal profile, I suddenly found that my contact details and my ‘real life sharing’ were about to be made public. That proposition seemed less inhibiting as there are plenty of privacy control features in Google+ and it has an attractive interface. Once users recognise how to engage in an online social network and decide on what ‘their tone of voice’ is, adding another network is just another channel for communication. Facebook has been a good learning curve to develop a profile on.

With Google owning Android and Android doubling their UK market share in Q2 2011, which now makes up 47% and according to Mobile magazine share and the fact that 41% of the UK population own a Smartphone there is a lot of scope to develop.

Paying for goods with the Google Wallet app on an NFC enabled phone is due to be launched in UK next year and I am sure Google will find a way to link Google+ to our buying power.

The public Google+ profiles are indexed and can be found for a name search. Google ‘owns’, in today’s gaming and urban dictionary, search. Google+ is starting to do some rather fun things with music like their recent Daria Musk Google+ Hangout Concert. A "Hangout" is a live 10-person video chat on Google+. In addition, Google launched Google Magnifier earlier this year, which is a service or ‘discovery site’ that lets you upload your personal music collection to the cloud and listen to it on the web or your Android phone, or tablet.

Cons:

I promote an acoustic musician, so what I was really waiting for, was the ability to add a music band to Google+. Google states quite clearly in the joining process that a full name is required, not a company, brand or band. YET! It’s coming! There are already so many music specific profile sites I’ve joined like FanBridge, Reverbnation, Facebook BandPage, SoundCloud, Bandcamp and the rest but Google+ offers the widest potential reach. Google is looking at ways to adapt the social networking site specifically for business use.

An impressive 27m people have signed up for Google+ since it launched in June 2011 but then the recent stats indicate it is now declining in daily visits.
There have been some known issues with Google+ but they seem to get plenty of publicity and therefore Google tries to resolves errors quickly.

One of the other issues that’s been flagged up in several places is Google+’s real name policy. Unsurprisingly there are many internet figures who are better known by an online alias, or just users who want to separate their online and offline interactions.

I tease about ‘Google world domination’; I hope it is only a joke!

If you’re interested in learning more about Google products and what they can bring to your business, why not contact Rocktime’s Flashlight Team for more information.


Author: Fiona Anderson

Excited about Social Commerce

This month on the blog we will be discussing what we love about Social Commerce. We aim to talk about word of mouth marketing, social commerce websites we like, integrating your shop with Facebook and social commerce functionality we recommend.

Retail / E-Tail has entered a new phrase where product discovery and purchase decisions are informed by the collective and distributed via social intelligence of peoples’ own networks of interactions/social graphs. There are a number of websites that encourage social discovery of products found online; two of our favourites for social discovery of products are Polyvore and Kaboodle.

Social commerce is not new; Amazon's customer reviews and Ebay's groups could be classed as early examples of social commerce. The term has come back in the lime light, with announcement of Facebook Credits and news that some of our favourite brands have set up a Facebook shop. Of late there have also been some clear winners in social commerce, with Groupon (a social deal site) reported as being the fastest growing company ever. Furthermore, within our industry there are many stories about brands making their website more social, for example integrating Facebook plugins to their websites.

There was a recent survey of Facebook users (by 8th Bridge) which found that one third of Facebook users prefer never to leave Facebook for functionality, including shopping, suggesting that Facebook is morphing into a social commerce platform giving further insight that is people not brands that are driving social commerce. However, in contradiction to that point, it must be noted that, social commerce on Facebook is yet to make its mark in the UK. The IAB recently reported (5th July 2011) that a survey found that 89% of UK social networkers have yet to buy anything from Facebook and with 44% not interested in doing so.

From the same study, the IAB found that “tapping into the power of online recommendations and the influence of friends is essential to make UK shopping more social. Some 53% of consumers were more likely to look up information about a brand if a friend had recommended it, and almost one fifth (17%) stated they were likely http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifto buy from a brand if it was recommended by someone they knew” Read more about the IAB study on UK social shopping behaviours here on the IABUK website.

It is important for any brand to consider how they are creating a social experience for their customers, both online and offline. We think Simple engage well with their skincare customers

Common questions include: How will their customers recommend them to others? Are our customers likely to rave about our latest products? Would they be interested in sending a coupon to friends? Which social media channel i.e.: Facebook, Twitter, should we use? How will this relate to our overall business objectives? Which social share icons will be useful for our customers and for overall website growth?

Rocktime are regularly making changes to their client websites to enable them to create a more social shopping experience. Where appropriate they are advising their clients to add appropriate social share icons, where possible think niche, to mine and nurture their brand ambassadors and to monitor customer behaviour to maximise return on investment from social activities, i.e.: identifying that competitions are best run at lunch time.

Word of mouth has always influenced purchase decisions; we are encouraging clients to bring reviews onto their site for social and SEO benefits and to enable site visitors the option to spread news of their reviews / interaction further. This is based on the fact that 90% of purchasing decisions are subject to social influence (Wired magazine, 2011).

According to research from Booz and Company (May 2011) it is expected that the social commerce market will soar to $30 billion by 2015.

A few of our other social commerce facts, which we have collated whilst monitoring trends over the past 3 years, include:

• 150 million people engage with Facebook in external websites each month (Facebook, 2011)

• Social Media in the UK: A visitor coming from a social media site is ten times more likely to make a purchase online than an average visitor- 7% vs. 71%. (Simply Zesty, 2010)

• 53% of people on Twitter recommend companies/products in their Tweets and 48% state their intention to buy the product (ROI Research for Performance, June 2010)

• Two or more channels are used by 78% of consumers to browse, research and make purchases. (ATG, March 2010)

• In the near future we will no longer search for products and services, they will find us via social media. (Opinion from Socialnomics, August 2009)

• 90% of online consumers trust recommendations from people they know and 70% trust opinions of unknown users (Econsultancy, July 09)

• 60% of retailers use customer reviews, 55% say reviews are a priority in the company year (Shop.org, July 09)

• 25% of search results for the world's 20 largest brands are links to user-generated content. (Socialnomics, August 2009)

It was also interesting to find out recently that the most active social sharers are women aged 27 to 33; this demographic also drives the highest conversions on social media sites (Research from Spinback, reported in Mashable 12/05/2011).

Rocktime has set up an internal Steering Group on Social Commerce to make strategic decisions on the growth of social commerce within the Rocktime E-commerce shop. Best practice will always be promoted.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

Social Commerce functionality will include, but by no means limited to, RSS Feeds, User Generated Content, Social Share Functionality, Social Network Integration, Social Layering, Communities and Niche Groups/Messages.

If you have questions on how you can effectively implement a Social Commerce strategy and are unsure about the best route to take, please call in and talk to a member of our Sales team. With our active ‘Social Commerce’ internal steering group, you can be positive that we will be on the ball with the most up to date trends and social functionality.

If you have any further social commerce statistics that you would like to share with us, feel free to leave a comment below.


Author: Sarah Griffiths

Image credit goes to Sarah, who snapped the Facebook Credit Cards in her local Tescos and for the second image credit goes to the Janrain Blog who write about the four emerging social commerce tools for retailers.

Building a Facebook Page

Alice Cheetham shares her tips on creating a Facebook page. If you have any additional feedback you would like to share, please do send in a comment.

I’ll admit, we do talk a lot about Facebook, but boasting over 500 million active users and said users spending over an estimated 700 BILLION minutes per month alone on Facebook, you can’t blame us.

This month, as you might have noticed, we’re talking channels here at Rocktime and what better than one with such popularity as Facebook!

We’ve talked before about Facebook Pages, namely in our article ‘Facebook Pages – Building the REAL community’, well worth a look at in preparation for putting together or optimising your businesses’ page. Returning to the topic of tips for Facebook, now we’re looking into top tips for building your page.

Firstly, don’t let your landing page default to your wall! Instead, make use of the custom tabs to put together something engaging and eye catching and most importantly, completely under your control.

Why don't you want new users come to your wall first? Well bear in mind, depending on your page’s privacy settings, it could be that anyone can post on your wall, not necessarily new-visitor friendly. Coding for custom tabs used to be exclusively written in FBML – Facebook Mark Up Language – somewhat like a special version of HTML exclusive to Facebook, but now they’re phasing it out. As such you can put together a custom page, with iFrames for example, using HTML , CSS, Javascript etc, allowing much greater variety in the complexity of what you can create, the limit is your imagination and the space requirements!

So now you’ve got your custom tab, set to be your default landing page, you’ve successfully navigated any newcomers to something (hopefully) interesting looking at least, now how to keep them there?

• Applications: Thanks to the Facebook Developer group, there are 1000’s of applications on the Facebook platform, many of which can be directly integrated with your page with little tech know how.
  

• Conversation: The days of a one way conversation between business and client are gone, engagement is important! Let people see that you are attentive, willing to answer and ask questions in return; it all helps with promotion of your brand image.

• Content: Just like any other channel, whether it’s a blog or twitter, it’s important to provide interesting content to your audience to keep them coming back. Sharing content from blogs or Twitter posts, posting and tagging photos and generally interesting topics will encourage repeat visitors.

One other thing to note, the maximum size you can have your page profile image is 540 pixels high by 180 pixels wide, a lot of Facebook real estate! Take the time to put together a graphic for your Facebook Page’s profile image that sits within this ratio. Whilst this is great for having an eye catching presence at the top of every page, for example a flyer or advert style image, one downside is that sadly it won’t fit too easily within the small square thumbnails that Facebook uses for any comments you post, so that might be something worth taking into account when picking an arrangement for your avatar.

If you need help making the decision as to whether Facebook will benefit your brand, or you would like assistance in populating your Facebook page with compelling content, then go ahead and get in contact with Rocktime's Search Marketing team.


Author: Alice Cheetham

Demo 2010 and the power of Social Media

As a fresh post-graduate from University into the big wide world, with several friends still in academia, I've been watching the tuition fee debate with more then a passing interest. Whilst the student protests in London may have been a huge part of raising awareness of the debate, a protest of 20,000 people isn't a simple case of asking your mates to put together some witty placards and gather up in central London.

Looking behind the scenes of these student protests highlights how much of a big player Social Media can be in raising awareness. The BBC recently wrote up an article on 'How Social Media changed protest', demonstrating how Social Media has changed the nature of modern protest.

I made an attempt at reading the #demo2010 tag on twitter, the prefered hashtag for protest updates. I'm not kidding when I say it was impossible. I have no idea of any official statistics (yet), but I can tell you it updated faster then I could hope to keep up with it.

If you were keeping up with the news, you might have heard of the UCL Occupation, as you might be able to guess from their name, they were students occupying the Unversity College of London in protest of the raise in tuition fees. They did do a fantastic job of raising awareness and even lending a helping hand with the protest groups, all through the power of networking.

What was the key to their success?

The BBC article mentioned above, called the UCL Occupation "a different kind of radicalism, armed with a laptop", as they were able to get their voice out there through as many means as possible. Not just an active Blog and Twitter account, but a Flickr stream, Google Calender detailing all their meetings and debates and a whole ream of videos to do with all aspects of the debate - constantly being uploaded to their Youtube account, and then plugged in their blog where relevant.

What started as a Blog and Twitter account attracted the attention of the media, with a live stream to news channels as well as local radio interviews, giving further publicity.


During the last day of protesting, @UCLoccupied turned their twitter-networking into protest-coordinating. Using Google maps and information from tweets by protesters across London, they were able to construct a near enough real-time updating map of London, detailing Police blocks, road closures and even cases of public disorder and trouble spots.

You can't help but admire how one small group of individuals armed with laptops, wifi and internet know how manged to contribute so much.

I'm not saying you should be trying to rally 10,000 students to your cause with the power of a hashtag, but this whole scenario does help highlight how powerful a tool Social Media can be.

I am pleased to say that the Flashlight Team here at Rocktime have bags of experience in rallying up the troops and conducting Social Media in a safe and social manner.
If you would like to talk to them some more more about social media management please don't hesitate to give them a call.

Author: Alice Cheetham

Social Media Review: Shopping Centres

Shopping centre marketers are starting to use social networking as a cost effective method of keeping their retail destinations in front of their key audiences.

Social media for shops (on and offline) has proven to be a great tool to drive awareness, footfall and most importantly sales. We are seeing a number of shopping centres now promoting the ‘Community’ feel on their sites, but many are missing a trick in integrating their community focus with social media.

Rocktime works with a number of fashion and beauty bloggers, who we know regularly tweet and blog about new store openings at their local shopping centres and are eager to promote the latest shopping trends to their followers. As a consequence, there is a significant opportunity for shopping centre marketing managers to leverage and connect with the local fashion bloggers, letting them know in advance of new launches, shops, or possibly even blogger-specific events. Many shopping centres use Facebook to connect with their regular shoppers and this morning we found almost 100 UK shopping centres of differing sizes that currently use Twitter.

The majority use Twitter to interact and engage with fans and shopping centre staff as well as promoting:

• Shop offers
• New launches
• New shop openings
• Meal deals
• Competitions-West12shopping centre in Shepherds Bush is particularly active
• Following the stores in their centres & Re Tweeting their promotions & news


Ashford Outlet Centre in Kent regularly posts lifestyle tips, new shops, charity events and personal shopping services on their blog. Their BIO states:

“Insider news on the latest stock, best buys and events from the people who work at, shop at and love Ashford Designer Outlet”

Bridgend Outlet centre has a similar message:
“Insider news on the latest stock, best buys and events from the people who work at, shop at and love Bridgend Designer Outlet”

On closer review this particular chain of Outlet centres in the UK shares the same web template, with each also offering a blog in the same standard design. Each page within the website is unique as they are focused on the individual shopping centre locations and facilities; content is however repeated across the blogs, which isn’t a good strategy for SEO, as the shopping outlet with the most links to it will be the one that will receive a placement in the search results for that blog post. Nonetheless this is an effective way of getting the word out on what is new to a location-targeted audience.

View the links below to understand more about the standard template designs:

Ashford Designer Outlet

Bridgend Designer Outlet

We recommend that shopping centres use social media as part of their overall marketing plan, but for true ROI it should not be viewed as an ‘add on’ but must be integrated with traditional media marketing such as print and radio, as well as focused on the website search optimisation strategy.

If you give shoppers a reason to integrate with your communities, then shopping centres can then drive these campaigns via other marketing channels - i.e. posters within the centre, local newspapers, or social responsible community PR programmes to increase community involvement further.

Examples of encouraging shopper to interact might include the following:

“Find out about all the latest shopping centre gossip over at Twitter and Facebook”

“Let us know what you think of the new XY store over at our blog”.

“Who would you like to turn on the Xmas lights? Vote over at our Facebook page”

“Keep up with the latest style trends with us”
(view: http://www.westfieldstylenotes.com/springsummer-preview-river-island/)

Social Networking can also assist with the creation of other cost effective ideas, which can be derived by listening, learning and engaging with your fans within social networks or on your corporate blog.

Shopping Centre Marketing Managers, or a designated marketing agency, can use social media to trail out new ways of getting people increase footfall to a destination, such as:

“Take part in an exclusive competition; pick up a leaflet from the info office this weekend”

“Print off this voucher available on Facebook and get it stamped over at the Info desk and receive discounts at xy store”

The information captured can then be fed back into the shopping centre’s marketing database, and used to further help promote community involvement and most importantly drive further footfall.

Sharing with you my (current) top ten shopping centres using Social Media
Bicester Village (Club, YouTube, Twitter, ENews, Facebook, Flickr, RSS)
West 12 Shopping (Twitter,VIP ENews)
West Quay (Twitter,Facebook)
GunWharf Quays (Club, Facebook, Twitter)
Liverpool One (Twitter, ENews)
West Orchards (Twitter, Facebook, ENews)
Spinningfields (Community, Club, Twitter)
Westfield (Twitter, Style Blog)
Bullring (Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, RSS, Community, ENews)
Trafford Centre (Twitter, Facebook, Blog, YouTube)

As a team we really are getting quite passionate about the value of social media for retail clients, if you are in retail and would like to discuss this further please get in touch with Fiona Anderson in the Flashlight Team.

Fiona worked on early in-store theatre innovations for fashion brands, through to current expanding a brand’s online footprint. Fiona’s direct experience with the challenges of operating a shopping centre has been the Dolphin Shopping Centre, in Poole and small scale events at The Cascades Shopping Centre, in Portsmouth, back in 2004. Surprisingly she has been quoted as saying “she hates shopping for herself but loves the shopping research for clients”. Give her a call and convince her that your shop, shopping centre or retail experience will change her mind.

Our Logic Content Management System boasts several modules to suit retail clients including: Voucher Codes, Competition module, Community features, Store Locator, find out more about Rocktimes Bespoke Web CMS here.

In the meantime happy shopping....


Author: Sarah Griffiths @sarahgriffiths

Rocktime’s Book of the month: Gary Vaynerchuk’s CRUSH IT!

If you want to find out what you are really passionate about, then you must read this book, or if you already have a passion and want to release all you know to the world then this book must go to the top of your Amazon wish list.

This is not just a business book (Social Media Strategy) it also seeks to explain how you can use your own DNA to change your life, personally and professionally.

Following on from the strap line “Why now is the time to cash in on your passion” Gary Vaynerchuk (@garyvee), explains to his readers how you can communicate your passion / your personal brand using the correct content and whatever media format of channel that are the best fit for your audience.

Based on his experience he provides a step by step manual on how you can execute your own social media strategy and how he used social media and social networking to build a huge business, see Wine Library TV.

Something we especially liked was the line “Anything is better than zero”, where he explains to his readers not to get hung up on the Analytics and to go with their gut. Great advice on building your business and your personal brand is packed throughout and refreshingly Gary often admits to his contradictions and invites the reader to explore certain areas further, or to contact him. This is a great reflection of the personal brand he has built.

What is really really engaging about this book are his insights and tips based on real business examples and personal experience, he shares with his readers insights into how he built his business and because he writes with such passion and flair you really don’t mind him promoting himself every now and again.

Gary’s enthusiasm to social media strategy is totally infectious, he is an extremely motivated guy, you will never read a book so quick, and if you are as passionate as us about what you do, you will want to read it again.

Well done Gary we are looking forward to the next insightful book from you, and as they say in America “You Rock”. If you do make it over the UK for a book tour, let us know and we will gladly give you a pat on the back, the only feedback we will give is placing image of your book on your site for us then to seed out, or have a "I read this book it was awesome" badge. Oh and Gary if you are reading this (and sure you will be) you have inspired me to get a FlipCam, what have you done !!!

Find out more about what you can learn from the book here

People in the UK order your copy of Crush IT from Amazon


Author: Sarah Griffiths

How to date your audience?

As it's Valentine's Day this month thought to share with you, a post to prove that "Social media is just like dating!" It is honestly !

With a little help from Power Power and iStock photos, I have created a list on how you can/could/should date your audience. Together with advice on how Rocktime can help you devise a social campaign around your objectives, be it dating (Tweet us @rocktimesocial for advice) or increased website traffic and sales for your business.

If you follow the above steps, social media can help you to:

• Get a date !! Get a new customer !! Get a new best friend forever !!
  and....
  


• Raise the profile of your product and brand values and be more transparent as a brand


• Announce new, news stories and seed out testimonials


• Promote specific products and services plus review interest (tracking on links)


• Generate leads and enquires for your site


• Build a community of loyal followers and brand ambassadors


• Target additional markets, previously hard to reach


• Promote what makes you extra special


• Increase your social landscape and keep ahead of the competition

Blogging, Podcasting, Video, Microblogging (Twitter, Tumblr), Forums, Review sites, Answer Engines all help facilitate the above objectives. Simply being out there & engaged (not in a "to be married sense") can help you get ahead and keep up with your online and active competitors.

If you align your social activity around specific objectives then you will see a more fruitful return on investment being generated, but as with dating don't be too picky and get to know the social networker first as they could be the one to launch you into Stardom !!

Social networking insights obtained during your social journey can not only help you build on your networks of interaction but can also help you identify new possibilities for future growth, it is all very exciting indeed.

To share your thoughts on social media objectives or to find out more about how you can begin to date your audience give Sarah or a member of our our Sales team at Rocktime a call.

Best wishes and have a lovely Valentines Day x

Author: Sarah Griffiths

Bebo attempts to reinvigorate itself

I read this morning on the Guardian website that AOL –owned social networking site for Teens Bebo are downsizing their activities and have made the decision to stop commissioning new content. Which was once considered as being their future.

Statement from Media Guardian today: “Bebo is cutting jobs at its UK operation and freezing commissions from its web TV production arm, which has been responsible for groundbreaking shows including KateModern”

The online shows on Bebo included KateModern, Sofia’s Diary, The Secret World of Sam King and The Gap Year were a great idea in attracting teenagers to regular visit the site and also provided the Bebo profit pot with large sponsorship funds from a number of blue chip advertisers.

The spokewoman at Bebo said:

"We are in the process of re-aligning the Bebo business and need to make sure that our resources are aligned with our new business mode in order to execute effectively against our future vision and stay competitive. We are therefore required to make some difficult decisions about the future of our organization and its people in order to stay competitive."

The news isn’t surprising with sites like Facebook and Twitter powering ahead and attracting the Bebo audience to move over to them with word on the street of “I’ll Facebook you” or he “Twittered me” they have struggled to remain fashionable.

Although understandable in these economic times phasing out the online TV production unit is a shame in my opinion for the engagement levels on Bebo. Plus negative news for the fans of the shows. However saying that I am in total agreement with their decision to re-focus and re-align their core social media activities at this current time.

Let’s just hope they don’t take as long as MySpace, who saw a 55% decline in market share in the last 12 months !!

All the best of luck sent to Bebo to discover their alignment and establish their future strategy.

We will be watching the responses from Sophia Diary fans as it is phased out till the end of the year. The repercussion of closing the show may even spawn a new network a TV network open to all (YouTube?) we already have a number on online networks showing repeats of shows, maybe there is room in these domains for online only shows, certainly some interesting times ahead in broadcast media.

Author: Sarah Griffiths

More British, More Homely, More cautious

The Generation Recession report from the Social Issues Research centre (commissioned by Friends Provident July 2009) has revealed that the recession has turned us all rather British and homely as we buy local (to help our economic climate) and highlights that 1 out of 3 Brits promote staying at home as the new going out.

As more people are choosing to stay at home, the appeal of social networking from your living room has increased, using sites such as Myspace, Twitter and Facebook. The study also revealed new “saving money” tactics and found that amongst those that are going out, that 21% of them make use of voucher codes to save on funds.

The report reviews (via focus groups and past recession feelings) how consumer’s habits have changed / are changing, how the British public feel about the recession, how we have all economised through nesting behaviour, how we have made cut backs in our spending habits and how our quest for the best bargain or deal has accelerated.

Another interesting point is that the study implies that the younger generation (under 25 reported to be the hardest hit by the crisis) will be moulded by the credit crunch and that formative experiences from their adolescence (9/11 attacks, London 7/7 bombings, 2004 Tsunami) will help shape Britain’s future, as perhaps they may have a greater sense of caution with finances and life in general.

There are some great comments from Poll respondents which will be of interest to a number of companies – take a look at the Generation Recession Report here.

In the meantime we have considered what the findings of this report will mean to website development and web marketing, and would like to share with you our Risdom (Rocktime Wisdom) recommending that you give consideration to the below points when outlining your web strategies:

• Review current online and offline loyalty programmes and rewards
• Social network with consumers in their homes (ie: Facebook)
• Consider using voucher codes, voucher sites for product and service promotions
• Make the younger generation feel valued online
• Make offers clear & transparent and timely online
• For larger purchases online, make it prominently clear that shopping service online is secure

Author: Sarah Griffiths

The day/ week everyone spoke about book stores, book publishers & E-readers

Every journalist has gone nuts for E-readers this week, with recent technology research (from research firm iSuppli) finding that the global E-book display market is expected to grow to $291 million in 2012 from $3.5 million in 2007. Plus launches of new e-book readers worldwide and news of positive performance year on year for UK book store’s such as Waterstones & Borders.

Waterstones are also due for a new website launch and recently Comscore reported news that Borders UK unique users increasing by 176% between May 2008 and May 2009, (from 61,000 to 169,000). Good news with the recent notification of close down of five Borders Flagship stores this week.

Plus we saw stories such as:

“Blackwell are launching eBook download store”

“Amazon are preparing a UK launch of the Amazon Kindle”

“US publisher Barnes & Nobile are launching the world’s biggest electronic book store to compete with a similar service offered by web retailer Amazon”

“Google’s pending federal court case which would/could allow them to release millions of books in e-book format”

“The launch of the Sony Reader and the Cool-er E-reader from Interead and stories that they could galvanize the market for digital text in the way the Apple’s Ipod did for digital music”

And the cherry on top

An article today from Retail week in which they summed up the development of the electronic book sector in article titled “Digital media sales raise new customer service questions for retailers” check it out.

What is an E-reader / E-book?

If you haven’t worked it out already: An E-reader or E-book is an alternative to the paper book, and has been popular with travellers and those who don’t want to carry around heavy books, so they opt for a lighter weight electronic book or e-book.

As well as being a handy gadget to have, the E-reader (of E-books) also presents a valuable opportunity for publishers and authors to generate income from their content. It is anticipated that take up will grow during the Xmas months, so expect to see E-readers in magazines and on TV adverts near a sofa near you soon.

Recent news and New news on E-readers and E-books

Currently the journalists are all talking about digital rights of E-books and the technologies behind each reader and of course the battles to Xmas market.

So we thought we would take a different take on this weeks “Hot Topic” and talk about how companies such as Waterstones, Borders, Sony, and Interead (launched the Cool-er Reader – they make reading cool) can use social media to help them build their community of followers.

It will be a challenge for the above companies to market their differences and in the same breath it will a challenge for consumers to know which E-reader to choose.

Thus we propose that to stay ahead of the game, one of the companies should quickly align themselves as being the one which provides the most help, advice and information to enable the customers and the authors (don’t forget the authors) to get the most enjoyment out of their reader and hopefully the biggest range of books.

What marketing tool can help with this. Well social media of course. Social media & social networking will allow for viral messaging of these new gadgets / technologies; information sharing; flattening those hierarchy’s and most importantly help build a community of loyal fans and followers.

As with all our projects firstly we will review the digital landscape. Lets look at how authors, publishers and avid book fans are using social media right now, we will then recommend an initial social strategy, which we hope will be of interest to those thinking about setting up a social strategy themselves.

Social networking : the authors role & the publishers role

Historically writers do not perform in the public in the same way as musicians for example, the publisher has always been the intermediary. However it is part of the authors DNA to be creative and many authors are now using social media tactically as a way to promote their books, a great advantage of doing this is that they start to build up and audience for the long term.

Authors are also using social media as a way to keep the buzz of the book alive. Rocktime Social envisages that a number of authors will have Google Alerts and Twitter Alerts set up, so that they know when people are talking about their books online (Ego-tastic!). It is important for authors to participate with comments on the web as it is here that they can then create positive word of mouth and turn those who may not have liked the book around (possibly).

There is also evidence of large publishers using social media effectively for example Penguin Books and their launch of Penguin 2.0 services back in Dec 2008, they are using digital and social media tools to connect with their customers, which includes aspects of customisation, personalisation, delivery to mobile phones as well as e-books and e-only content.

Social networking helps boost an authors esteem

Social networking is helping boost an Authors raison d’etre and recently we have seen signs that it can also help keep the story alive. Crime Thriller Author (and former Marketing Executive) Jeff Abbott, placed the Hero of his new book on Twitter, in which he is sharing updates of character Luke Dantry’s life on the run www.twitter.com/lukedantry . Several authors use Blogs and Myspace for book promotion and updates on new releases, recently they have also now started to promote more their other social spaces (inc: Facebook & Twitter).

Social steps for E-Book providers

Based on the above information it is proposed that those who distribute E-books and E-book readers should promote their products within these social networks.

To understand more about the benefits of social media and how social netowrking can be measured visit this blog post for an introduction to social media strategy from Rocktime Social or call Rocktime’s Marketing team to talk it over.

Recommendation: Capturing publishers & authors & keep customers coming back

To capture the eye of the publishers & authors it is suggested that sites providing E-readers and E-books create an area which is useful for both authors and readers alike.

Based on the above insights initially we would propose that the providers place a new category on their site for them to provide author profiles which will includes lists and links to the authors social spaces (helping them spread awareness) and update (automatically – RSS feeds) fans of new author profiles along with promoting new catalogues & books as they arrive.

Doing something that is both different and useful on your site, will keep the community coming back.

Hey: How about digital book signing, or a collection of books you recommend for a loved one (now that is an idea!).

Promote the E-book company & authors in natural search

Providing profile pages for authors will not only help build relevancy (Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) strategy) on your site, promoting you in natural search, but will also promote authors. Rocktime have developed a proven model of a site owner promoting others, with Local Food Advisor website in which the focus of promotion on the site is on local food producers, the owners of LFA are being social by promoting food lovers blogs and getting the food lovers to promote the LFA site in return.

Please note: Rocktime are not advising(unless of course you have a huge social media budget) that the E-book providers branch out into forums of public debate about new books, delayed releases, but to simply promote authors social spaces and to leave any backlash about killed off heros in the Authors own social space.

How social media and social networking can help E-book providers now

Before the E-book providers build a community of fans, social media & social networking can help the providers of E-book readers right now, with Reputation Management of comments in news stories/ forums/networks. It is important that they are ready to respond. Rocktime can assist here with ongoing management of your social strategy.

How they can be ready to respond is simply: Create a whole host / heap of questions and answers on your site, even if you are advertising the answers in magazines and other PR material.

Q: Does the E-book reader care about what computer you plug it in to?
A: No

They can then provide links to these answers saving time, promoting the most frequent Q&A on the home page. Address all issues. Even list them at the side of your twitter account, saving time answering repetitive questions is a great cost avoidance strategy (in the long term).

Summary of E-book providers using social media and social networks

Along with using social media to target the various book title categories, social networks can also help them target the gadget fans and fashion & design fans as well as travellers and avid readers.
Social media will help E-book providers and E-book distributors to promote their company values and enable them to be whoever they want to be ie: honest, approachable, helpful, sensitive, useful and authentic online.

Once a community is formed there are also great forces for fun and creativity in future months, years, further creativity will be gleamed from communicating with fans and followers.
We will be watching the E-reader market with interest, which one will get the followers, the fans, only time will tell (well by end of year).

Author: Sarah Griffiths, Search Marketing Manager at Rocktime & self confessed social media junkie and fan of Jeff Abbott. (Find her on twitter @sarahgriffiths – and if you liked this post let her know)