Social Media in the South African Local Government Elections
By the looks of things; some South African political parties are finally waking up to the digital revolution and are beginning to embrace online marketing and its integration with offline media. From having a functional website, through to using social media like Twitter and Facebook – the times they are changing!
Of course as with everything; there needs to be a balance and there needs to be integration between everything that is being done offline and everything that is being done online. Added to this in politics is the fact that different parties are trying to attract different sections of the market so we cannot look at their marketing strategies and assume that they are both targeting the voting public. So let’s look at arguably 1 of biggest horses in the Local Government Elections, 2011: The Democratic Alliance and their entrenchment with new media.
Website.
The DA website has a decidedly Barack Obama feel to it; especially compared to when he was running his last electoral campaign.
The site is light and dynamic; it invites you to interact and most importantly it highlights the critical campaign messages of the DA :
- Donate to help the campaign
- stamp out corruption
- build the country together without discrimination.
Social Media.
Helen Zille has thrown herself into social media and opened herself and The DA up to the public. Allowing the public to interact, to ask questions and to most importantly voice their opinions. This social approach has definitely done the DA good as they have ensured that their campaign messages have been heard by a very important voting demographic : The Young South African!
These social media users are literally the future of the country and it is a very strategic and brilliant move; in my opinion; that The DA have realised that this is where the elections will be won or lost.
There are a number of DA Twitter profiles and personalities who are taking advantage of the media. There are Twitter profiles such as : DA News; DA_SA; votetowin and DA_parliament. Each of these profiles is pushing out information relevant to either the local elections; what impact the DA is having in government as well as general party news.
Engagement is the name of the game in politics and social media is the perfect medium to completely engage with an audience in a way which has very quickly become second nature to young South Africans.
From Facebook to Twitter and from Flickr to YouTube; the Democratic Alliance has ensured that they have not left any popular social media platform unattended.
Integration.
Online marketing and by extension social media are merely one channel of communication though and it is the integration between each of these channels which truly makes for a powerful campaign. once again the Democratic Alliance has echoed the last Obama campaign and has ensured that the offline voter has been catered for as well by using TV, radio, print and outdoor media to adequately enforce and repeat the major campaign messages.
Good luck to all the political parties on voting day! But most importantly; good luck to South Africa! Remember, you can’t moan, comment or pass judgement unless you do your part and vote!
Value is just teaching them to use you!
Here’s a quick snap-shot overview of the evolution of Sales, from the dawn of time until now:
Floating amoebas – prostitution – goods and services – selling the benefits of goods and services – selling solutions; and then finally: selling value.
Congratulations. You are now qualified to talk knowledgeably about the complete history of Sales. You slugger, you!
Now let’s discuss the latest one, with particular emphasis on that sneaky little word: Value.
From buzzword to useful tool
When we hear terms like ‘value,’ we intrinsically feel that we should agree with their spirit and ethos. They just seem right. But then comes the tricky part. How do you actually do value? How do you go about providing it, practically speaking? Better still, how do you use it to sell more effectively than your competitors?
The simplest answer is: by providing useful education. Otherwise stated: don’t just preach to your customers, teach them. Teach them what? Well, teach them how to use you, and your organisation, to their benefit.
Let’s take a simple example. Say you’re selling for an events company. You can stand out from your competitors by teaching your customers how to host a successful event; all the in’s and out’s. After all, you know much more about events than they do. You know what can go wrong, what more they might consider, what opportunities are available to them, the little tips ‘n tricks that can help to set their event apart.
The simple act of pointing these things out – of guiding them through the whole process – of educating them, is the true essence of
Value.
In most cases, someone else also makes what your company makes. Someone else provides the same service. The best opportunity for distinction lies in how useful you are at guiding them toward their goals. That value is worth more to your clients than your actual product.
With that in mind, are you using Value as part of your USP? Is it built into your pitches? Do you have leave-behind materials with insightful tips for your customers on how to go about what they are trying to achieve (with the underlying message that you can help to get them there?).
PR practitioners do this all the time, and it works. Dispense knowledge for free. Teach your customers how to achieve their goals. Show them how best to use you. Be proactive and guide them through the whole process, like a caring host. That is value. And giving true value positions you as an expert within your industry.
- From the book ‘50 Ways to Position Yourself as an Expert.’ Meet the author and view his speeches at: www.douglaskruger.co.za
All strategy is about asking Questions, not about being an expert
I have a problem with many strategies that you see doing the rounds today. I feel that there are to many “experts” in their respective fields that seem to know all the answers and have all the solutions to everything.
There are experts in each and every field and many of them are worth their salt. When you look through a text book on strategy and you see names like Philip Kotler and Michael Porter you can very quickly come to understand what made these great names of strategy.
They asked questions!
Only once you have a true understanding of all of the aspects that are going to have an effect on your strategy can you really begin to actually put a strategy together. Putting a marketing strategy together or indeed a full business strategy demands no less of a questioning mind than learning how to do a job in the first place.
Some Aspects of Strategy formation
- Before you begin to put your strategy down on paper and suss out the how’s and when’s you first need to articulate what you are trying to achieve. What is the purpose of what you are doing.
- Once you have a vision, you then need to look at the macro environment and ask yourself who else is offering something similar. Who is a potential threat – are the barriers to enter particularly high. Who is a potential customer. Analyse the macro environment and ask all the questions that relate to how effective your strategy will be in the market. A SWOT analysis is always a very under-appreciated but hugely effective strategy planning tool.
- Look internally; based on all the data you have already received. Is your organisation ready to make a change. What kind of a change does your company need. What additional steps are you going to have to plan and map for when your strategy reaches the market and they take action.
- Nothing happens in isolation. Business decision making is like a Rubiks cube. This means that whatever you do today, will have multiple and continuous effects on every aspect of your business – both good and bad.
Question Everything
The basic lesson of this post is to say. When you think you have got all the answers; stop; and start again. Experts are experts because they ask the most questions and learn from them. Experts are not experts because they speak the most - those are politicians.
Strategy is about getting to the most simple answer and not the most complex. This does not mean you have to dilute your strategy, it simply means that when you have asked enough of the right kinds of questions, there is no need for anything complicated and there is no confusion.
Landing Page Optimisation : physical shops understand the concept
Landing Page Optimisation and indeed Website Optimisation make up what I believe is the most misunderstood and ignored part of online marketing to date.
What is Landing Page Optimisation?
It’s the process of ensuring that your specific landing pages convert as many visitors into customers as is possible. Landing Page Optimisation involves taking layouts, colours, calls-to-action and various other elements and testing how best these elements work together.
Officially it is defined as :
Landing page optimization (LPO) is one part of a broader Internet marketing process called conversion optimization, with the goal of improving the percentage of visitors to the website that become sales leads and customers. A landing page is a webpage that is displayed when a potential customer clicks an advertisement or a search engine result link. This webpage typically displays content that is a relevant extension of the advertisement or link. LPO aims to provide page content and appearance that makes the webpage more appealing to target audiences.
What’s not to understand?
Both web designers and clients (bless their cotton socks) are guilty of this. They believe that they know the audience and therefore the layout better than anybody else does. However when it comes to Landing Page Optimisation, there is no 100% correct answer. There are so many subtle variances that can be (and should be) tested, that theoretically you can never get to the perfect page.
Putting it in context.
Simply put; think of your landing page like a physical shop. Shops test their layouts all the time. They are always moving things around to ensure that they are getting the products they want to push in your face as quickly as possible. You walk through the entrance and immediately in front of you as clear as day, is a big display with the weekly specials on.
The important take out there is that the specials are large, in your face and very compelling. Just like they should be on your landing pages.
Another lesson to learn from physical shops is that everything is categorised. Things are easy to find. You don’t walk into the tinned food goods isle and find yoghurts. It’s just not done. The same things should be said about your landing page. Don’t over complicate it by adding in additional items that are on offer. Keep it simple and keep it focussed.
Lessons Learnt.
The basic take outs from this are that :
- Testing is good. Continually test layouts to ensure that you are converting as many visitors as possible.
- Test everythign within reason on your landing pages.
- Don’t complicate the issue. Keep it simple and focussed.
- Don’t make your visitors think about what you want them to do on the page.
The Business of Buzz Words
Going forward let’s be sure to space bank the Web 2.0 technologies that we are currently utilising and ensure mind share and top of mind awareness. This will allow our social media to gain traction and stickiness with our top line strategy.
How many times have you come across most of the buzz words in that sentence!? (With my personal favourite being “going forward”…. Well we sure as hell aren’t going to time travel and sort it out now are we?!?)
The point that I am trying to make with this post is actually 2 fold and a personal bug bear of mine as well as that of some notable copywriters. The 2 guilty groups of people are.
Sales People maskerading as marketers.
This one has caught all of us out from time to time. Buzz words get thrown around as a way to trick and confuse us. Think about a car salesman who has sold you a car with SDI; VVT or HDI. They all sound incredibly awesome and we nod our heads and agree that we must have these things! But the truth of the matter is that we are too embarrassed to say that we actually have no clue about what we are being sold.
The trick here is to ignore the buzz words “wow” value and ask what it means and how it really adds value to what they are selling you and what it actually means. Very often the sales person has learnt that they can get by with only learning the acronym and as such don’t learn what each letter stands for.
Copywriters trying to fill out their content.
My other favourite is when copywriters use impressively fragrant and superlatively impressive words (see what I did there?) to fill out the space that they have to fill. These are buzz words as well. They might not confuse you – but an unnecessary adjective is there to fulfill the same objective as a normal buzz word : confuse and trick.
Turn The Buzz Off.
When looking at copy (as a copywriter or a consumer) cut out all the flowery language and get down to the real message behind what is being said! As a copywriter your copy will be far more compelling and easier to read. As a consumer you will quickly realise how often you are being lied to!
So the next time you are being bombarded with buzz words by a over zealous sales person; get them to stop and repeat everything that they are saying in plain old English; you will be better off because of it.
Your brand : how strict should you be?
A rather topical issue of late has been branding and ensuring that you are staying on brand and communicating your brand properly. Rather predictably I have a view on this…
What is a brand?
A brand is a name, sign, symbol, slogan or anything that is used to identify and distinguish a specific product, service, or business. A legally protected brand name is called a proprietary name.
Loosely put that means the product, service or company name and the things that are associated with it in order to identify it. It’s the Nike swoosh; the Audi rings and the bite out of the Apple.
All of these things are very much part of those individual brands; when they stand alone they are immediately known to be part of the “mother brand”.
The question I’m hypothesizing this soliloquy around though is : “how far does the brand go?”.
The place of the brand guide.
Every brand has a brand guide (or at least should have) and this brand guide governs every aspect of the logo. How it gets used, where it gets used, when it gets used, etc. The brand guide also links in the particular colours that form part of the brands “colour palette” . (Now this is where it gets interesting).
Before I go any further, I just want to state that I do understand the importance of a solid brand and branding guidelines; that I recognise the place of a colour palette and primary and secondary fonts. Before the brand custodians of the world tear this article to shreds – I appreciate your points of view and abide greatly to the rules that have been set in place.
But what about when your brand guide is not working for you. Let’s move this online and look at calls to action on a website as an example. The website has been beautifully designed with the corporate identity and brand guide being used as a Bible and followed to the letter. The unfortunate thing is that the entire website uses the colour palette of 4 colour variations.
This use of colour and text size looks perfect and makes the site incredibly pleasing to the eye; unfortunately it does not convert for sweets. There is nothing to draw them in to a specific location. There is nothing compelling to entice the user.
If there is nothing there to entice the user your website is not functioning properly as a business tool and you are doing your business material harm. This is a clear cut case where the brand is holding the business back! Now the obvious solution from a branding point of view is to say “let’s design a brand aligned call to action”. While this makes a lot of sense from a branding perspective; this will take a lot of time to implement and all the while the website is not converting optimally.
Ideally I think that these calls to action should be particularly off brand. They need to fly in to the users face as being different; not just for being different’s sake; but rather because it draws attention and attention is the first step to getting interest which means conversions and ROI at the end of the day!
Is a template website right for your business?
This is a topic that I have been toying with writing for a while. The main reason for it is because it touches on a lot of disciplines and needs to – as a website does. The question here is what is a template website and who is it best suited for?
Let’s first start with what I mean by a template website. What I definitely do not mean is a CMS site like WordPress or Drupal. These site platforms are not template websites in the way I mean it. I am talking more about purchasing themes to install on these sites or literally using a system such as Yola or Web Inn.
So let’s look at 2 of the many disciples that is touches on then we can examine who a template site might benefit the most.
Brand
When you use a company that just installs template sites or when you use a template website as your company website you are not doing your company brand any favors. Template sites by definition are very generic. Your brand is not. Your website needs to convey who and what you are in as short a space of time as possible. Very often cookie cutter templates cannot do that and you are left with a site that cannot support the visual language of your brand.
Products and services
Template website are exactly that, a template to which you can customize 20% of the design and layout. This does not always service your need as your business is unique in its offering and product layout. This means that you are left with a sit ethat does not satisfy your business needs and to which you need to conform.
So why do template sites exist and do well?
Now I have been trashing template sites up until now, but this is not 100% fair. There is a very large and needy market out there for template websites out there. Bloggers (like me) don’t have to go through the expense of getting a site designed; because it is not 100% integral to what they are trying to convey.
The questions that you need to ask yourself when looking at a website & deciding if it can be a template are :
1. What if my competitor has the same site design as me? How am I going to differentiate myself?
2. Can I afford to struggle with making a template website fit my business or is my business generic enough that it will fit?
3. Can I afford anything more than a template website at the moment and can it grow with my business?
These 3 simple questions are but a few of many that you need to ask yourself and your web company when they propose a template website design or a themed website design to you. If they are charging you a premium price for a template site or a theme which they have downloaded then they are not working for you, but rather against you as they are damaging your business long term.
The Marketing of my site worked! Now what?
Online Marketing can be broken down into a few different areas which all have their place in the online world.
First there is SEO (search engine optimisation) which is perfect for getting visitors to your site. But this is all that SEO is concerned with.
Then there is SEM (search engine marketing) which utilises PPC (Pay Per Click) methods such as Google AdWords to essentially buy traffic on to your site by bidding on certain keywords which your site is relevant for.
After that comes website optimisation which is geared towards really making your site convert. It is solely concerned with making visitors click the right buttons and fill in forms on your site so that you can contact them with regards to their enquiry.
Don’t make them think!
The basic premise with website marketing or indeed any marketing is that you cannot allow yourself to make it too complicated. You have got to always be focusing on the lowest common denominator and ensuring that your marketing mesages can be understood by whomever that might be in your target market.
This same message hold true once your marketing campaigns have done their job. You have driven users to your site and they have “taken the bait” and asked a question or filled in a form, or whatever action you needed them to take.
Get the balance right.
The place where a lot of businesses fall over and disappoint their customers is in their systems and procedures and indeed their internal processes. (There is marketing relevance here)
Online marketing needs to be concerned with every part of the value chain – from the initial enquiry online through to the final delivery of the product which has been ordered. Each one of the following touch points are critical to ensuring that the customer is happy and comes back to your company again.
Business Process :
The processes that potential customers and paying clients are funneled through as they interact & deal with your company. If these are not properly streamlined; you might not just have a frustrated customer on your hands, but also revenue might be lost through to customers cancelling orders.
This gets worse from an operations point of view as you might be losing revenue due to incorrect ordering and even poor utilisation of man hours.
Business processes are vitally important to ensure that your company is running smoothly and efficiently. BizAgi is an excellent FREE process modeler.
Business Systems :
The business systems are the touch points that your staff and customers need to interact with when ordering. These need to be periodically assessed to make sure that you are using the correct systems for your needs. As a business, especially from a marketing point of view – a client and potential clients is hugely impatient! If your systems are clunky and take your staff too long to process orders or to source goods to supply, you are going to have to find new clients to service as the current ones are going to leave.
Marketing dove-tails with all of the above as a main function of marketing is not only to attract customers; but also to retain them. Sloppy & cumbersome systems and processes make this very difficult to do.
Is website optimization really worth the trouble?
The short answer here is : yes..!
Website optimization allows you the opportunity to take a good looking website and convert into a great performing website!
Let’s face it, we all want a website that not only has a lot of traffic driven to it, but also a site that then takes that traffic and makes sure that it converts by filling in a form or actually buying something there and then! This is the point of a website; to make people convert. To make your website change from being a presence online to a money making machine!
How can this be?
Website optimization makes this possible.
Website design is an art. The designer needs to take note of many different pieces of information to design a site which answers to the websites objectives. They need to look at everything from brand to customer demographic as well as the site’s objectives. By testing the layout, colours, calls to action, copy, headlines and more you can really start to ensure that your page is converting as many people as possible.
Google’s Website Optimizer tools are excellent as they cover both a/b testing as well as multivariate testing.
a/b testing is an optimization technique where you literally change one variable at a time to gauge how it changes the conversions on a specific page. By testing one variable at a time, we get a very clear indication of exactly what works and what does not.
Multivariate testing is when different versions of the page are tested. This offers completely different versions of the page which gives great results, but the pin point accuracy of exactly which change made the difference is lost.
Elements to test
Of all the elements that make up a landing page. There are a few that are slightly more important than other in my opinion.
The first is your heading.
The heading is the link between what the user searched for, and your page. They have trusted you enough to click on your PPC ad or your organic listing, now you need to let them know they did the right thing. By reflecting what they clicked on in your heading you are earning a little more trust and will make the user a little more at ease.
Second is the call to action.
The Call To Action (CTA) is what you want the user to do on your page. Fill in a form, click a button, buy something. Don’t confuse your user by having 3 things for them to do. Make it clear to see, obvious to understand and impossible to miss. This is why your website exists, it is to get people to take this action; so why hide it?
One of the best solutions is to have the form that you want them to fill in (assuming its a form) on the page and above the fold. Don’t make them look for it and don’t make them click away to a “contact us” page. Make it easy for them to contact you.
Benefits or features?
Benefits. Benefits. Benefits. It’s as simple as that. Make sure that the benefits you are mentioning on your page are addressing something that the user typed in to find your page in the first place. This is going to build confidence with the user and take one more step in convincing them to fill in your perfectly positioned contact form. Convincing copy that is relevant to their search term and shows them value is always a win.
These are by no means all the things you need to look at when practicing website optimizastion, but I feel that they are some of the important ones that you should look at first.
Where Does Social Media Fit In?
When looking at online marketing; people very often forget the benefits of social media as related to actual business objectives. More often than not, this is because a lot of marketers and agencies get lost in the creative execution of a social media campaign and forget that they are as measurable and useful as a regular marketing campaign.
What is the place of social media?
Social media is not going to act as a “sales channel” for your company. Social media fits into the decision making process during the 
“assessment of alternatives” stage. During this stage, users are typically looking on the internet for products or services that can answer to their needs in the best way possible.
Potential customers are searching and comparing different pieces of information and then interacting with online communities to ensure that they understand what they are reading correctly. They then further their understanding by asking any questions that they might still have.
These sources of info are blog posts, Twitter comments, Facebook groups, pages and then lastly websites.
Why are websites last?
The way that the internet has evolved has allowed users, both advanced and novice, to add their thoughts and opinions on to the internet. This means that company websites are no longer controlling the info that is online. Blogs and social media networks are created by users for other users. The content on here is written from a “client” point of view and has no marketing speak to confuse and otherwise convince users of the opinions that they should be having. This means that internet users looking for “real life” opinions on something are looking to social media.
Companies using social media
This is where social media fits into the online marketing strategy of companies today. It is the understanding that a company can no longer control a conversation, or at least be involved in each one. But your company can join in the conversation and correct any untrue comments.
Listening to complaints ad user comments allows your company to inject trust into the social group by showing that you take their comments seriously. Facilitating the conversation through your own company blog and other social media platforms makes your company approachable and able to capitalize on the online chatter.
Making it all work
Combining a social media campaign with more traditional SEO and PPC Marketing is a sure fire way to ensure that your company is using online conversation to its fullest. The social arena creates conversations around your products, service and brand. Your website then acts as the position of authority where users can navigate for additional information on your company once their information gathering has tielded the results they were looking for.
Understanding how to make social media work for you and achieve marketing objectives is critical to success with both your social media and your website.
