comScore, Inc. has today released a global report how women interact with the web called, “Women on the Web: How Women are Shaping the Internet” – it’s an extensive analysis of how women are are interacting online across social networks, online video, mobile communications, online retail trends and a number of other key areas.

The report comments that social networking sites reach a higher percentage of women than men globally, with 75.8 percent of all women online visiting a social networking site in May 2010 versus 69.7 percent of men.

Here are a few conclusions I drew from the comScore report.

1. Don’t just look to connect and reach women on women’s magazines, celebrity gossip and baby sites – the report comments that “women are more engaged than men on the Internet -you just have to know where to look”. Think beyond the obvious suspects when looking for online communities where you can reach the female consumer.

2. If you want to connect with women you need to understand how they interact in social networks – the report states “social networking is central to women’s Internet experience”. Women of all ages connect on social networks sharing photo’s, playing games, and watching online video. Globally, women spent an average of 16.3 percent of their online time on social networks in April 2010, compared to only 11.7 percent for the men.

3. Women in the US control the cash – more women than men get engaged with online transactions and collectively spend more.What does this mean then when it comes to the tone and content of your online marketing?

4. Act global but understand local influences – we need to deep our understanding of regional and cultural differences impact in Internet behaviour. The report goes into some depth about differences they have found across the globe.

5. Stop making the excuse that Social Networking is only relevant if you are marketing to a youth audience -  the 45+ female segment is driving the greatest proportion of growth for Social Networking sites, in terms of both visitation and time spent. Yes the 15-24 may use these sites more frequently and use them more however the 45+ age group visit and use Social Networking sites just as much as the 25-34 and 35-44 age groups.In fact older women are using Social Networks significantly more than men do. In North America, with 9 out of 10 female Internet users visiting a social network site in April 2010.

6. Men and Women use Twitter differently – the report comments that in an April 2010 comScore survey, men were found to be more likely to post their own Tweets than women; women on the other hand used Twitter more to find deals and promotions, as a place for conversing online and to follow celebrities.How does that change your content strategy for Twitter?

What other research and insights have you found about how female consumers use the web and how is it influencing your online marketing, PR and communications? What other insights did you glean from the comScore report?

Kildare Village (opened in 2006) is home to over 55 designer outlet boutiques (Bally, Anya Hindmarch, Polo, Karen Millen, Reiss, Coast, Molton Brown, Clarks, All Saints, Designers Guild, Cath Kidson, Le Creuset, Kenneth Turner, Starbucks, L’Officina by Dunne & Crescenzi) offering previous seasons collections at prices reduced by up to 60% all year round.

You can listen to the podcast here – it’s the first of a new podcast series I am producing bringing you conversations about inbound marketing and social media communications.

00:00:00.0     An introduction to Kildare Village
00:04:03.8     The types of customers that come to Kildare Village
00:06:23.7     What is the shopping experience like?
00:09:01.5     Trends in retail in the current economy
00:10:34.1     The Kildare Village marketing programme
00:16:39.1     How Kildare Village is using social media
00:19:07.9     Tips for building a community on Facebook
00:22:15.1     Benefiting from customer feedback
00:24:34.2     Integrating marketing online and offline
00:30:29.0     Tracking and measuring the effectiveness of your marketing
00:35:07.2     Recent and current promotions
00:47:50.6     Key learnings and insights from the first four years
00:53:36.5     Show ends

Find Kildare Village on Twitter

Find Kildare Village on Facebook

In my workshops and mentoring about Facebook for business, many organisations are not aware that Facebook do actually have guidelines for promotions and competitions that you want to host on Facebook.

In the last week I have come across more than 5 Facebook Pages in Ireland (both large well known brands and start-ups) who are failing to comply to Facebook guidelines. And the consequence of this could be that Facebook comment that they will:

remove any materials related to a promotion at any time, regardless of whether the promotion was approved, where we determine the continued marketing or administration of such promotion may be unlawful under applicable laws, rules, regulations or guidelines or may cause unreasonable liability for us.

I do in fact know of one Facebook Page (not in Ireland) where the Facebook Page which had amassed a significant community was deleted by Facebook for failing to comply to the Facebook Promotion Guidelines.

Specifically take note of the fact that Facebook will not allow you to:

Condition entry in the promotion upon a user providing content on Facebook, such as making a post on a profile or Page, status comment or photo upload

Administer a promotion that users automatically enter by becoming a fan of your Page

Notify winners through Facebook, such as through Facebook messages, chat, or posts on profiles or Pages.

Here are some essential tips for staying the right side of the Facebook Promotion Guidelines:

1. Read the Facebook Promotion Guidelines – this may seem obvious, but the guidelines do and can change so you need to be aware of the current guidelines and understand how they could impact the plans for your Facebook promotion or give-away:

6.3 We reserve the right to review promotion rules and promotional copy at anytime but is under no obligation to do so. Our approval of rules or materials related to the promotion does not relieve you of any obligations in these Promotions Guidelines

2. Comply with local and industry specific promotion guidelines – you need to ensure that your promotion is in accordance with any restrictions in your own local geography or within your industry sector, for example:

2.4 The promotion’s objective is to promote any of the following product categories: gambling, tobacco, firearms, prescription drugs, or gasoline;

2.5 The prize or any part of the prize includes alcohol, tobacco, dairy, firearms, or prescription drugs.

ACTIONS YOU CAN TAKE TO MANAGE OR PROMOTE YOUR COMEPTITION ON YOUR FACEBOOK PAGE

1. Create and implement a bespoke Facebook application – You can of course still promote and run competitions on Facebook – you do however need to either work with a digital marketing or social media agency who will develop a specific application for you or work with a Facebook approved paid application. Especially in the case of bespoke applications, you need to account for time in your project plan for Facebook to approve your application:

3.6 You must submit materials for any promotion you plan on administering through the Facebook Platform to your account representative for our review and approval at least 7 days prior to the start date of such promotion. Promotions not approved in writing within such time period will be deemed unapproved.

2. Use a paid Facebook application service – There are a number of Facebook application services available that you can use to manage your competition, quizzes, gifts, promotion or sweepstakes, including Fanappz, Involver and Wildfire – or have your social media agency use one of these services to support your Facebook marketing programme. These offer great affordable solutions for small businesses, however be aware that the application will be braded with the name of the provider which I know may not be relevant for all organisations.

3. Manage your competition or give away on your website or blog – You do not need Facebook’s approval if you are publicising a promotion that is administered completely off of Facebook. However, Facebook reserves the right to remove any materials relating to the promotion or disable your Page or account if they determine that you violate their Promotions Guidelines, the Statement of Rights and Responsibilities or any other of their policies.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

And of course once you have your competition or promotion in place don’t forget that you then need a marketing plan to support you building awareness of your competition. I will be covering using Facebook adverts as a way to promote your business, product, service, page or even your Facebook application in a forthcoming FREE webinar.

You can register online to attend the event here.

It is taking place on Friday 11 June 2010 at 6pm and will last 45 minutes. I will also be featuring some real life examples in the Facebook advertising webinar. This is one of a series of FREE webinars this month that I am hosting as part of my reverse birthday celebrations. You see if was my birthday yesterday and I decided last week to host some live webinars an provide someone on the webinar guidance and mentoring for their business.

What is your experience of managing your promotions, competitions and give away’s on your Facebook Page?

Photo credit Nimbupani on Flickr

If you are based in the Dun Laoghaire Rathdown area you might want to explore the ‘Website Translation Grants’ which are available. In this particular case it is not about you expanding your business internationally – but instead serving your local community.

The Office of the Minister for Integration, in conjunction with the Social Inclusion Unit of Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council, is making available grant funding to enable qualifying organisations in Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County to translate their web site into five languages.

The Website Translation Grants have been made available to assist organistions and businesses in helping local residents, whose first language is not English, to access services from their website.

Each approved Grant covers 75% of the cost of translating a maximum of 1,500 words of English text into the following five languages:- Polish, French, Chinese, Spanish and Russian – read the details and access the application form from the Dun Laoghaire Rathdown CEB website.

Closing date for applications is 5pm on Friday June 11 2010.

It’s a great initiative to help you able to attract more clients and serve your community – though of course you need to make sure that you have the customer service support in place to support you longer term if your clients first language is not English.

Perhaps you are wondering how you can leverage it further?

Perhaps you are thinking of getting started using Facebook to connect to more customers and attract more leads and profits for your business?

You have already set up a Facebook Page but are are you confident that it is delivering you the results you are looking for?

As you are probably aware I consult and teach many organisations about how to integrate Facebook into their marketing and communications and my team also support the development and implementation of Facebook pages. Over the last couple of years I’ve noticed 7 common mistakes that many businesses make when using Facebook for their business.

So I have decided to host a FREE webinar as part of the Irish Internet Association’s ‘Digitise the Nation’ week and will be sharing my observations on these 7 common mistakes so ythat you can avoid them when developing your own Facebook programme to support your marketing and communications plan.

Here are the details of how to join the FREE Facebook training webinar:

DATE: Friday 21 May 2010

TIME: 6PM/1PM ET for 45 minutes

REGISTER TO ATTEND AT: ONLINE

THE EVENT TWITTER HASH TAG: #dtnevent

This webinar is specifically for people who are thinking about using Facebook as part of their marketing and communications programme or who have recently set up their Facebook page.

What happens if you can not attend the live event? I will make sure that youl receive notice of how to access a recording of the event – just make sure you provide your current email address below, so you receive full details of this free event.

When you register online you will get access to the details of how to join the webinar – you can then add the date to your calendar.

And if you have friends who are just starting their businesses do please share this event with them.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

JOIN KRISHNA ON FACEBOOK FOR SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING TIPS

JOIN KRISHNA ON FACEBOOK FOR FACEBOOK MARKETING TIPS

I hope to ‘see you’ on Friday! and if you are at the IIA Congress tomorrow do come over and say Hi – I will be walking around with a digital recorder and microphone recording sound bites from speakers and attendees for the Conference Podcast and in the afternoon will be in the Social Media Working Group workshops where you can come and ask me your Facebook marketing questions in person.

When I noticed Meteor have developed a new Facebook Page and have been running some effective Facebook engagement adverts I invited Caitriona to answer some questions about the Facebook marketing plan that Meteor are implementing – so here is the interview.

Krishna: What inspired Meteor to implement their new Facebook Page?

Caitriona: Before the launch of our new Facebook page Meteor had previous successes on Facebook. We had 5 separate pages which supported promotional activities like our sponsorship of The Apprentice and the Meteor Ireland Music Awards. However, these pages had largely become inactive as the promotional activity came to an end.

With our new page we wanted to create a central ‘hub’ for Meteor on Facebook – a page that is inherently Meteor and a place where customers can engage with us and get to know us better.

Our new Meteor page will be ‘the’ page for Meteor on Facebook from now on and will house all things Meteor.

Krishna: How are you managing your social media marketing across Facebook and Twitter (and any other channels in social media?) and what kind of time commitment is this taking?

Caitriona: Since October there has been a new Head of Online role introduced and so there has been much more focus on the online channel generally and social media in particular.  As this focus on word of mouth and social media has grown my role has changed to working full time on social media. We also have another resource working on this part time. Between us we manage Facebook and Twitter internally.

Managing Facebook and Twitter does take time. We check the page several times throughout the day to ensure a real time interaction with customers where possible.  We also spend time gathering the content, posting the updates and planning future activity for these sites.

Krishna: How do you determine the content for your Facebook page?

We think it is important to strike a balance between fun, relevant content and promotional messages. Facebook fans would tire easily of being bombarded with sales messages so we try to post interesting and engaging content too. We want to give customers an insight into the people behind the brand and get away from the ‘corporate’ side of things.

Krishna: You have only launched your Facebook page in April so can you give us some ideas about how you have attracted almost 4,000 members of your community?

Caitriona: We’re really happy with the number of fans so far.

Our ‘Kiss, tag, tell and win’ quiz has a great viral element. Each time someone takes the quiz an update appears on their profile. Also, as the quiz involves ‘dishing the dirt’ on your friends, an update appears on the wall of certain friends too.

We have also used Facebook ads to promote the page, including one with a poll embedded, to encourage interaction.

We posted an update on Twitter telling followers about our new page as well as letting members of our online forum know that we had a new Facebook page.

To make sure our existing Facebook fans didn’t lose out we also posted on the wall of our older pages encouraging them to move over to our new page.

Krishna: How are you as a business now looking at Facebook as part of your integrated marketing and social customer relationship management?

Caitriona: We have had successes with Facebook so far and it is a good fit with our target audience so we are planning to continue to use it as part of our mix.

Krishna: How will you know if having a Facebook page has been a success for your business – what kind of metrics are you tracking?

Caitriona: We are monitoring the page insights provided by Facebook; we are tracking the growing fan base and interactions and we hope to integrate further with our own website and track through analytics.

Krishna: What top three tips have you for other marketing managers if you are looking to integrate Facebook into your marketing and communications programme?

Caitriona: Make sure there is a fit between Facebook and your potential customers. If they are not on Facebook, do you need to be? Secondly don’t use your Facebook page as a platform to bombard with sales messages. And finally have some fun with it!

I am sure you will agree it’s great to have the opportunity to learn from other businesses about their marketing on Facebook. So thanks Caitriona for sharing your insights and experience.

Remember to post your questions over at the Biz Growth Media Facebook page – I’ll be looking to answer as many of your questions as possible in the forthcoming Facebook for Business Webinar taking place the week of 17 May as part of the IIA Digitise the Nation week of events.

Recent research conducted on behalf of O2 in Ireland identified that 23% of SME executives are now members of a business or professional social media site.

• 18% had a profile on LinkedIn
• 15% have registered with Facebook
• 10% have a twitter account.
• 9% have a blog (up from 5% in 2009) and 13% os SME senior executives respond to blogs.

The study surveyed over 300 owners or director level executives in organisations employing between 1-250 people nationwide.

But are you confident that you profile and what you post on social media sites reflects what you want to be known for?

Recent research by Eurocom Worldwide and managed by Simpson FTPR has found that 37% of technology companies check out potential employees’ profiles on social media sites such Facebook or LinkedIn.

I was interviewed today by Al Dunne on 4FM about how to manage your connections for career success on social networks as a result of hearing about the Eurocom Worldwide survey– you can hear the interview here (note a correction in his statement – I am a contributor to the book mentioned not the overall author). Thanks to Simpson FT PR for suggesting my name to the show researcher for the interview.

The Eurocom Worldwide survey was conducted during January and February 2010 and surveyed 286 senior level executives in technology companies mostly across the European region (13% of respondents were from Irish technology firms).

The companies themselves also participated in social media and social networking sites:

• 72.9% are using LinkedIn
• 34.7% are using Facebook
• 23.3% are using YouTube
• 19.2% are using Plaxo
• 4% are using MySpace.

The Eurocom Worldwide survey also identified that just over a third (37%) of technology companies surveyed have a corporate blog, (33% had blogs in 2009)

The key reasons that the respondents gave for blogging were:

• 56% to improve interaction with customers
• 34% blog to raise their profile and thought leadership
• 5.7% to boost search engine optimisation
• 4.3% to participates in industry debates and issues.

The key reasons given by those technology companies surveyed who did not have a blog were:

• 38.9% – it is too time consuming
• 31.5% – do not see the value in it
• 15.7% – had never thought about it
• 13.9% – fear of a negative reaction or response.

Almost half (45%) of those surveyed expect to increase their budget on social media over the next 12 months and the means of increasing their social media spend was be:

• 27.7% – reallocation of part of the advertising budget
• 25.3% – reallocation of part of an existing PR budget
• 25.3% – unsure
• 21.7% – allocating an additional budget.

(Source for research: Simpson FT PR).

What actions are you planning in the year ahead in relation to implementing social media as part of your marketing and communications programme?

One metric I came across recently was research by Irish web analytics company Stat Counter who reported that Twitter generated almost one in ten Social Media global hits to websites in March 2010.

They went on to comment that Facebook is the primary source of traffic to global websites with almost half (48%) of Social Media traffic to the sites they took account of in the research followed by:

• StumbleUpon (25%)
• YouTube (6%)
• reddit (4%)
• Digg (2%)
• and MySpace (2%).

LinkedIn ranked at number 12 of the social media referral sites accounting for 0.34% of traffic.

The research date was based on 13 billion page views across the global StatCounter network of member sites.

It’s a good reminder to ensure that you provide tools on your website to encourage sharing of your content such as ShareThis.com and determine your own social media marketing content plan.

Of course the other challenge we need to explore is what happens when that traffic does come back to your site and do we convert that social media traffic to opting in to our ezines or purchasing our products and services.

Have you checked the source of your web traffic from social media sites recently? Is this influencing the direction of your online marketing?

In a recent article Google comments that in their internal studies that when a site responds slowly, visitors spend less time there so they have decided to take site speed into account in their search rankings.

They also list a number of tools that we can use to evaluate the speed of our website:

• Page Speed, an open source Firefox/Firebug add-on that evaluates the performance of web pages and gives suggestions for improvement
• YSlow, a free tool from Yahoo! that suggests ways to improve website speed
• WebPagetest which gives a waterfall view of your pages’ load performance plus an optimization checklist
• Google Webmaster Tools (Labs > Site Performance) which shows the speed of your website as experienced by users around the world as in the chart below
• Google Code webspeed tools.

So when you are next talking to your webmaster you might want to talk to them about how to speed up your website to help your search engine ranking – I know I will be talking to mine!

However while the speed of our website is important for users and search engine rankings, Google advises that the relevance of the content on the page is more important. Here is a video from Matt Cutts of Google explaining about the importance of website speed and relevance of content.

If you have managed to speed up your website what actions have you taken?

Is the addition of social media widgets perhaps making our sites more engaging but slower to load and is it time to re-evaluate our sites? Come on all your SEO experts what do you think?

It is really simple to you – you can choose up to 7 short sentances and against each of these search queries you can choose if you want a web search, a blog search, a Google image search, a news search, a Google map,  products or books to be the associated image with the video.

Then you have a choice of music tracks that you can link to your 30 second video. The Google Search Stories Video Centre then creates your video (you can of course edit it if you want to change the titles, search results or music) then you are ready to create the video. Your video will be made available on your YouTube channel.

I think the fun thing is how can you create a compelling story around your short message and how can the Gooogle search results help you bring that story to life.

You can see my story about 5 tips for greater professional success here.

What do you think – could you imagine the story you could share about your business through the Google Search Stories Video Creator for fun or to market your product or services?

If you create a video using the Google Search Stories Video Creator do let us know the YouTube URL so we can mouse on over to take a look!

Don’t forget it’s still not too late to win a ticket to the IIA event taking place on 22 April in Dublin all about online video and podcasting to market your business – find our how to enter the competition for a free ticket – entries open to midnight on Monday 19 April 2010.