This the second in a series of articles I have written based on my recent opportunity to attend the annual Tweetstock.ca Conference, which was being held for the first time in Hamilton. I had never attended one before so was not sure what to expect. I was pleasantly surprised by the caliber of speakers who came from across North America.
The wealth of insights and information shared was so rich that I put together a series of articles, each one summarizing a lesson from six key sessions that I attended.
You can read the first lesson here – The Power of Video – Why Your Brand May Need Vine
Lesson #2 – 5 Social Things You Can Do For Your Brand
Chris Farias is co-founder of local Hamilton marketing agency Kitestring. They do great work and are very creative. Chris is also a character and a half, he is passionate and loves his brand. His humour and sense of fun exudes from everything he does. He knows his brand. That included wearing red high heels delivering his talk at Tweetstock because he was off to walk a mile in them later as a fundraiser for local womens causes.
He shared 5 things he thought that were important when it comes to your website;
Ensure your website is mobile friendly.
Just recently Google changed the way that it prioritizes search results. If your website is not mobile friendly (i.e. formats for the small screen and can be read on a mobile device) then you are penalized and will not show as high as your competitors.
Some interesting facts;
80% of Canadians are online.
Each person spends on average 17.2 hours online.
70% of those users are accessing the internet from their mobile devices.
There are 4.8 billion searches done on Google by Canadians each year.
48% of people will come across your website by first going through a search engine versus typing your website address or clicking a link.
If you want to check if your website is mobile friendly Google has an easy to use tool;
https://www.google.ca/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/
Social Video
I said it last week and Chris emphasized again, video, video, video.
25 million Canadians watch video online for at least an hour a day.
That is a 44% increase over last year.
It is one of the reasons I have finally started to shoot my own short daily personal brand tips video – you can watch those here on the blog.
Social Payback. Paid Advertising.
Facebook, Google and Twitter all make their money from paid advertising, so they are always working on making it more and more necessary that you pay to reach the people in your groups, timelines and streams. The latest figures suggest that just 4% of your friends are actually seeing your posts. So you might even have to pay to get your family to see those photos of little Johnny and Jenny!!
Facebook in particular has been very bullish on mobile advertising, not surprising when you find out that 86% of smartphone users notice ads.
Give Them Something To Talk About
The success of social media in a large part is because we all get an opportunity to talk about the people, brands and companies e like (and dislike). If you create #hashtags that makes it easier for your ‘tribe’ to talk about you.
Tweetstock did this for their conference – you can check out all the Twitter stream for the conference by searching for the hashtag #TweetSS15
Your Community Just Wants to Have Fun
As mentioned in the last article with Vine, people make emotional connections to you, your brand and your company. If you make it fun that connection can be much stronger.
Chris did a great job of having fun with his presentation, it made it memorable and will certainly enhance the brand of Kitestring in the minds of those who heard him.
How ready is your website for the new mobile reality?
P.S. Tweetstock confirmed for me that many small business owners and individuals want to benefit from social media. However they may not have the time to do it all themselves. That is why I have launched Social Media Sensei – you can sign up to receive weekly social media tips by clicking the Social Media Sensei tab at the top of the page.