We all know that mobile usage have advanced significantly over the past couple of years.  Many of us have smart phones and use them for anything from making calls to navigation and social media.

Yet, very few people realise the massive impact mobile internet already has and how it will continue to grow in South Africa. According to Google, searches on mobile devices already represent 25 % of all searches during the working week. Over weekends, however, mobile represents a staggering 65% of all searches in South Africa.

What impact does this have on the average business?

If your website is not mobile friendly, it is very possible that at least 25% of your visitors will not be able to view your site correctly. The solution to this is to either modify your existing site to view properly on mobile devices or create a mobi website that will only be served to mobile users.

Mobile website design is very different to designing a desktop website. Mobile web design faces many challenges, not least the fact that there is no uniform browser for mobile devices.

Mobile website design also has to take account of different screen sizes. Here are my top 10 tips for a great mobile web design.

1) Consider the mobile device – Mobile devices have limitations when compared to PC’s, such as small screens and no mouse.

2) Think about the mobile user – Mobile users are impatient as a breed, they browse differently to desktop users, as a general rule, mobile users want fast access to bite size content.

3) Keeping it simple – Try and avoid large volumes of text, as a guide 75 words per page is a good maximum. Keep the navigation of your site as simple as possible, the fewer clicks it takes a user to find the information they want the better. Don’t expect people to fill out time-consuming forms.

4) Speed is king – Large images, flash animation and video will slow your site down – avoid them if you can, functionality is more important than style for mobile websites.

5) Make it useful – Think about what is most important to your audience, especially what they need when they’re on the move.

6) Make it compatible – Mobile devices are incredibly diverse. If your site is not coded correctly it may look good on one phone, awful on another and may not even work on another! Make sure your site works on all phones.

7) Choosing your domain name – Using a .mobi domain will improve your search engine rankings and make your site easier to find.

8) Market your site – Make sure potential customers can find your site. There’s no point having a site if no-one knows it’s there, invest time on SEO, paid search listings, operator portal and directory submissions.

9) Analysis – Analysis tools such as Google Analytics are invaluable, test your mobile website and keep working to improve it.

10) Don’t overspend! – Its not that expensive. Start simple and work from there

The One Key Benefit From a Mobile Website:-

If your business has a website already, why bother upgrading it for mobile? What’s the benefit of making sure your website can be read and used on the iPhone, Blackberry, and Android phones?

It’s simple: To reach the outrageously growing crowd of consumers going online with mobile devices.

Your company’s website is a business asset that serves a business purpose – usually lead generation, sales and order taking, or customer service. If 25% of your website’s visitors are coming via mobile that means your website is only 75% effective.

Andre Strauss

Tisco Media

Info@tiscomedia.co.za

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Search Engines such as Google and Yahoo are constantly working on ways to stay relevant. Their entire business model is constructed around relevance. If you search for bananas and they present results about Hybrid Cars, you will surely not use them again. It is increasingly difficult for them to stay relevance due to the enormous amount of websites indexed. It is estimated that more than 3 trillion webpages are indexed on Google alone. They must anticipate the context of your search and your state of mind to present you with relevant results.

One method they employ to achieve this is to incorporate location into their results. They reckon that if you are in George and searching for barber shops, it will probably not help you if they show results of barber shops in Moscow. Using very advanced targeting and location formulas, they are increasingly building location into their search results. One source of information for these results is Google Places. Google have integrated Google Places into their search results and give preference to listings on Google Places in local searches. During 2011, more than a third of searches on Google were local. Many other systems such as foursquare also use information from Google Places.

Claiming your listing on Google places is free and really simple.

Make the most of your listing on Google.

Customize your listing today with Google Places, to attract customers and help your business stand out from competitors. At no cost to you, your Place Page can include:

You can also get valuable information about your business.

Google Places isn’t just a great way to help customers find out about your business. It’s also a great way for you to learn about your customers. Through your Google Places dashboard, you’ll be able to access important data and make smart decisions. Find out:

• How many people are searching for you on Google

• What they searched for to find you

• Which zip codes they’re coming from

• How many people recently viewed your Google Place Page

…and more.

For more on bringing the power of Google to your business, visit www.google.com/places

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Many Social Networks are lacking the following absolutely critical attributes

• Relevance
• Immediate
• Location
• No realistic, real world benefit

Problem 1 – Relevance

We have managed to create irrelevant social networks with so-called friends we have no real interest or contact with. 100 friends on Facebook you don’t like; have nothing in common and haven’t seen in 15 years. It is completely removed from reality.

I predict that people will become more aware of this and will gradually need more relevant interactions and engagements.

Problem 2 – Immediate

Most social networks are completely misaligned with how you feel at a specific time. You might be on your way home and when you open a social network, it is still in work mode, when you are actually fed up with work. The problem is that the bigger social networks were never designed to be time relevant and can therefore not cater for our immediate needs.

Problem 3 – Location

Most of the technology, mobile apps, social networks still fails to even touch the potential of location services.

On a personal level, the social networks bring you loads and loads of content, but it is becoming dangerously similar to spam. Sure, 4 years ago it was interesting to know that your school friend that you haven’t seen in 17 years has just bought a hamburger from Spur 2000kms from you.

Today, however, as an example it would be far more relevant and interesting to know the blonde across the room from you at your local pub reads the same books as you, watches the same videos as you, and listen to the same music online. But even more interesting is that you are actually perfect for each other.

On a business level, all brands believed that they had to be represented on all social in order to engage with customers on a personal level. This is not really working.

A recent study by spiderworking.com shows that most customers will go to your Facebook Page once, if at all. Apart from competitions, there are very few reasons why a customer would visit your Facebook Page.

The problem is that brands and businesses cannot effectively engage with customers on personal networks because it is hard to determine the customer state of mind and tone. Furthermore it is very hard to offer real benefits and incentives to engage.

Problem 4 – Real Life Benefit

Apart from competitions by businesses, traditional social networks find it very hard to offer real tangible benefits and advantages to users. All trends indicate that we have moved to a world of instant gratification and instant consumption. People want real benefits now, relevant to their immediate state of mind.

I believe that this represents an opportunity for those who are able to adapt and learn. Lets how these networks grow over the next couple of years

Andre Strauss, Tisco Media

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12 million mobile internet users.

This extremely high penetration is reached with more than 6 million smartphones in use and the balance through feature phones.

We have just fewer than 7 million desktop internet users. The exciting opportunity is that more and more of these internet users are using broadband and the figure is rising dramatically as more accessible and more affordable broadband options are available to consumers.

Mobile broadband is also becoming more affordable with many service providers offering basic internet services for under R70 per month. Research indicates that products such as Huawei will launch very powerful smartphones into the South African market for less than R1000 and it is estimated that the majority of smartphone used in the South African market by 2015 will cost less than R300

The internet presents massive opportunities for us to

communicate

research and

market our businesses.

The biggest advantage in my opinion is that most of what we do online is completely measurable giving us great ways to analyse our efforts and adapt them in time to make a difference.

I believe that the most important aspects of our online strategy is

1. Good relevant and original content. Nothing supports all our online efforts better than original content. Write you our articles, blogs and views.

2. Building a relevant, interested and engaged audience. Using opt-in mailing lists, Facebook fan pages, twitter follower and so on.

Remember that every business is different and I would recommend that you rather work out a practical plan, than an elaborate campaign you are not able to implement.

Small businesses should compile plan including the following elements of online marketing

1. SEO – Search Engine Optimisation

2. Social Networking – Discussion boards, Micro blogging and mainstream social networks

3. Search Engine Marketing – Google, YouTube and mobile marketing

4. Blogging – should form a solid part of all your online activities

At the centre of the above strategy, is your own website communicating a very specific and tailored message, to ultimately grow your business and profits.

Andre Strauss, Digital Strategies – Tisco Media

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You may have heard of Social Media and Social Media Marketing but do you know what it means and the positive impact it could have in growing your business?

Social Media Marketing is basically marketing that targets an individual person within specific groups via websites – Social Networking websites.

On Social Networking websites, you can create a profile, state your interests, then find other members to add as contacts that have similar business interests, live in your area, etc.

The following are free Social Networking websites you should join

Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Google+ and Twitter.

Once your profiles are set up, you must constantly grow your network of friend and contacts.

The key is to participate in these online web communities, let your contacts know what you’re up to, what you’re working on, check in with people, socialize, interact and network.

Social Marketing and Networking benefits:

• Make new business contacts
• Meet friends and family past or present that can help market you
• Provide visibility and promotion for your business online
• Become better informed about what is happening in your business community
• Give your name and business mindshare

While Social Media and Networking requires time to participate, especially if you belong to several social networking websites, it can also be fun and can lead to new business opportunities and clients.

Social media marketing can build relationships and nurture brands like no other technique.

For the first time, companies can connect with their customers in a way that‘s completely personal, responsive and intuitive.

Now is the time for you to decide what role social media will play in your business.

Mastering social media isn‘t easy. You need time, lots of patience, and commitment.

My advice is that you start with Facebook then move to Twitter and the rest after that. You might be surprised, its actually a lot of fun.

Till next time,

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Well, this is a tricky one. I believe that if used correctly, Facebook can definitely help your marketing efforts.

It is however really important to understand how people use Facebook and how you must use facebook as a business.

The Basics:

Facebook is a social network. So fundamentally people use it to network with friends and family. Very few people want to be sold to in this space and will find any form of selling or marketing invasive.

They will, however engage with you if you respect their privacy.

How to go about it then:

Firstly, businesses should and can only use “PAGES” for their Facebook efforts. Many businesses use GROUPS or PERSONAL PROFILES to market on Facebook. This is against Facebook terms and conditions and also very limiting and invasive.  Groups, as an example send an email every time someone posts anything in that group. We all find it extremely annoying when we get 50 emails from facebook. People will leave the group as quickly as they join it.

Pages allow you more flexibility and branding space. You must rather create a Page for your business

Secondly, you must understand that you cannot use your page to sell to people. Your purpose on Facebook should be to build relationships. This can be done by doing the following:

• Engage – get a dialog with customers and potential customers. Feedback, comments etc
• Entertain – Post things that you would find relevant, but also entertaining
• Inform – Use it as a Public relations tool rather than a sales tool

When customers or friends “Like“ your page, they will receive updates on their wall every time something gets updated on your page. If your posts and updates are not in line with the above, they will eventually get tired of you and “unlike “your business.

5 Tips for social Media:  Alex Mandossian

What I’m about to share may be against what you’ve thought social media is all about. I invite you to put your judgements to the side until after you’ve experienced all 5 ideas below for yourself.

1. Start writing the way you talk. When you have a great idea, how do you express it to others verbally? Write the same way.
2. Stop writing about your company and your products/services. Over promoting your business is the number one mistake people make with social media posting. Instead, start thinking about what buyer problems you can solve and share insightful topics that will appeal to them.
3. Start writing on purpose. What’s the purpose for your blog? Your Facebook page? For Tweeting? What are you trying to accomplish. Figure this out first and creating content becomes easier.
4. Stop spending more time on the content than you do the titles. Creating great titles is the most important part of creating great content. Start spending 80% of your content creation time thinking and writing your headline. Then spend the other 20% actually writing the rest.
5. Start being original. Instead of quoting other people, start quoting yourself. Instead of referencing great research, start doing and writing about your own research.

It’s only 5 things to think about. Yet it can take you 5 days, 5 months or even 5 years to master them.

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With nearly 14 billion online searches every month and social media sites that rival populations of large countries, there’s unlimited opportunity. But to take advantage of that opportunity, it is vital to rank high in the search engines, to leverage social media and pay per click advertising, and to make sure your website turns visitors into leads and sales.

If you don’t understand how to successfully apply these strategies, then your customers will go to your competitors instead.

Most businesses have great websites, but do not get visitors and sales from their website. One vital strategy is to invest more time, energy and money on SEO. Over the past couple of years, we have researched and developed the skills to make your website successful
Here’s how we do it: We form a strategic Internet marketing plan around search engine optimization (SEO), pay per click advertising, social media marketing, conversion optimization and search-optimized Web design. Then, we tenaciously go to work so you can quickly dominate your online competition.

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• It allows specific targeting of markets
• It is data driven
• It drives direct sales
• It builds relationships, loyalty and trust
• It supports sales through other channels

Email marketing supports database integration, segmentation and various other techniques for improving the targeting of outgoing messages. Advanced methods generate on-the-fly emails customized to a specific target group.

Every email campaign you send out creates loads of data you can use to refine your approach and messages. Well-presented email promotions and offers creates immediate actions like, for example, sales, downloads, inquiries and registrations.

Informative, catchy newsletters and other emails can send people to offline stores and events via links and suggestions, prepare the way for catalogues, build awareness, contribute to branding and encourage trust and loyalty.

All in all this is one of the best ways of going about your marketing business.

But…let’s not get carried away. Just like anything else in life, email marketing will only work to your advantage if it is managed correctly.

We know it can work, but we have to get the basics right. The basics include the building of a list of people who want to hear from you, in other words, a strong list of contacts, crafting a message that will speak directly to them, and ensuring that your message gets through to them.

Once we have the basics right, there’s a whole spectrum of more sophisticated tactics we can use to ensure further, and even greater success. The fact is that there’s plenty of room for improvement and plenty of rewards waiting for those who do improve.

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