Creating a Logo

Hi Friends,

A strong brand identity is crucial for building brand awareness and brand recall. It is easy to get caught up with what colour a logo is, what typeface is used and keeping costs low. Investing in memorable branding will pay off in the long term, so resist the urge to create a logo yourself or use a standard cursive script!

What are the non negotiables?

• An easy to spell name.
• An easy to read logotype (that's designer speak for your brand written using text) which doesn't use stock-standard Microsoft Word generated text. WordArt, fun for school projects but unprofessional for branding. Don't go there.

Some examples of strong logotypes:

 

 

 

• A logo. You have three choices, either, a logotype which works like a pictorial logo would, adding a logo to work alongside your logotype or as a combined version. This will help make your brand memorable and gives you options when you roll out your brand across different sorts of collateral.

Pictorial Logos - Chanel and Warner Bros:

 

Combined logo and logotype - Nike and Walt Disney:

 

 

 

Logotypes which work as logos - IBM and Ray Ban:

• A square version of your logo. This could be a square version of your logotype, your logo, or a combined version of both. This will be used as an icon for social media, for power points, for your book mark icon or "favicon" on your website. It will come in very handy!

Square versions- MTV and Microsoft:

 

 

• Think about longevity. Will this logo date? Will the font date? Have a few outsiders have a look and ask them what ideas it conjures up for them. Make sure the logo can't be interpreted in a way which doesn't suit your brand. We've all seen logos that look like something they aren't meant to such as... well, I will leave your imagination to complete the end of that sentence.
• A black and white version
• A coloured version
• A style guide to how your logo should be applied. This should include what dimensions the logo is, where it should be placed on a page, how it should be incorporated when using a coloured image or background, what corporate colours you can use, what fonts you can use. I will be sure to cover off more about this style guide in a blog post to come.
• A COPY OF THE ORIGINAL FILES. Sorry for shouting, but I really have to put that in capitals. If you don't have copies of the original vector image files, you won't be able to change the scale (the size) of the logo in the future. It also makes printing your logo difficult, chances are you will end up with a fuzzy logo. It doesn't matter if you can't open these files (for example, they might end in .ai .indd .psd), store them somewhere safe so that when it comes to using your logo, you have them ready for the designer.

Your brand identity needs to feel right, if it's over designed, confusing, doesn't sit with your brand values or brand personality, then it's not right for you. Costs for branding vary from $500 for a small business with 1 or 2 logo variations to $1Million for an organisation that needs brand research to discover which direction is best for them. Make sure you brief your designer on everything you need, and also what styles best suit you. Consider giving them your vision, your values, a background story about your business, a few links to designs you like, anything you really don't like, what colours you were visualising, and if you can, a moodboard with images, words and colours which match your brand. Effectively briefing the designer is the key to a quick turn around with the design, eliminates frustration and makes sure they present you with concepts which are right on-brand for you. If you are confused about your brand, they will be too!

What are your thoughts on branding identity? Have you experienced any pain-points? Do you have any tips for making the most from your branding identity?

Stay relevant!

Caitlin

Caitlin Davey
Director of Communications at Piggieback

What makes a good brand?

What is a good brand? A good brand is always the customers’ preferred choice. It stays “top-of-mind” whenever the customer is presented with a choice of either your brand’s product/service, or another company’s. For a brand to be successful you need a few key elements to work together.

1. The right customer: you need to focus all your energy and attention on the right target market. Determine what they value and focus your brand offerings around them. The biggest mistake you can make is trying to be all things to all people. Stay focused!

2. A brand position: if you don’t lose sight of your target market when defining your brand, your chances of successfully positioning your brand drastically improve. The position your brand makes must be compelling, unique and attractive to your target market compared to your competitors. There has to be a clear reason your target market will have their needs fulfilled with your promise, as opposed to your competitors. Do you deliver a high volume and low cost solution? Is it a regular service, or do you deliver luxury? What is attractive to your target market?

3. A supportive team: a good brand delivers a consistently good experience for the customer. From the senior executives, all the way through to customer service, after-care and support, the positioning needs to be clear. To get all aspects of your operations to work “on brand” you need to ensure that you have a committed team behind you. Customers need to have a great brand experience when they interact with you, whether that’s your brand products/services, or the people in your company. As your brand is what your customers think of it, there’s only so much you can control to ensure your customers have a great brand experience. An airline might for example have a great brand strategy, however, if a customer has a bad experience with the airline they will have a different idea of the brand. Having a good, supportive team behind you makes it easier to succeed when your brand interacts with your customers.

Once this is decided you can move on to creating a brand identity!

A strong brand strategy can create brand awareness which in turn can lead to customers keeping you top-of-mind! If you need assistance with your branding we offer branding strategy, branding frameworks, brand generation, brand development, brand identity, design and implementation across all digital, offline and point of sale platforms as required. Don’t hesitate to contact us: enquire@piggieback.com.au

Have a great week!

Piggieback

SEO made easy

What is SEO? SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It refers to all the things you need to do to make it easier for search engines, such as Google, Yahoo or Bing, to find, read and understand your website.

There are millions upon millions of websites online and search engine “crawlers” search these pages multiple times a day every day and then feed the information back to the search engines (read our “Website Best Practice” for more information on crawlers). Therefore, the easier you make it for crawlers to find your website, by using clever SEO, the higher you will be ranked in search results and the more visits you will get.

To make this happen you need to establish what keywords you want to be ranking on. A keyword is the word your customers or clients would type in the search box in i.e. Google to find your business. These keywords are extremely important as they tell your search engine what information your clients can find on your website. The crawlers then go and search every single page online to find pages that mention your clients’ search word.

However, if your keyword is very popular you might need to become a bit more SEO savvy to get your business out there. Some techniques involve changes to your website (adding more of your keywords in the content), whereas others might involve going off your site to build backlinks.

Some small things you can do:

• Use anchors to link related blog posts and pages together 
• Use keywords to identify blog or website categories of information 
• Use alt tags to identify your images using your keywords 
• Use anchors to link to other relevant blogs and web pages in your industry, this will enable your site to piggieback off their rankings. 

Use keywords in titles of posts and pages as they show up in a URL which then makes it easier for crawlers to find on your site.

Some examples of backlinks:

• Commenting on others blog posts (and link back to your website or blog) 
• Write articles for other blogs or industry magazines 
• Always link back to your website on any online content 

At Piggieback we make sure that the websites we build have a search engine optimisation module so that our clients can control their SEO themselves! If your business needs assistance with SEO, contact us: enquire@piggieback.com.au.

Have a good week!

Piggieback

How to get email marketing results!

Our last blog post in the Email Marketing mini-series outlines the importance of Execution and Reporting.  The purpose of an email is not to get as many click-throughs as possible, but to trigger an action, such as: item purchase, increase of web traffic or referral of your product or service to a friend. Email Marketing is one of the most trackable and accountable forms of direct marketing. The best reporting metrics are the ones that can justify the use of email marketing and the role it plays for your companies brand awareness, purchase facilitation and identify the value of your marketing dollar! Two ways of generating results include paying particular attention to your execution and reporting.

Execution:

• Smart execution of an email campaign is vital to the success of your message.
• Ensure you have tested how your campaign renders in different browsers and email accounts (Safari and Yahoo mail vs. Internet Explorer and Gmail).
• Seed (include) yourself in the final send-out to see the final result.
• Use a check-list to tick off what needs to be done to ensure seamless execution. This is great quality assurance!
• If your list has a good sample size, then segment it and test different time-of-day and day-of-week strategies on less relevant campaigns to know when your email campaigns are likely to be the most successful.
• Use data insights from your current campaigns to establish what is relevant to test. Do you have enough data to test different strategies all at once? Do you need to test over multiple campaigns to see results?
• Try different ways of testing your email campaigns. For example, test different subject lines, different call-to-actions, different design layouts to see which ones are most successful.

Reporting:

• Remember: when looking at your report don’t just focus on the click-through rate. Your email usually drives people to some of your other channels, like your social media pages. 
• It is impossible to measure the entire impact your email campaign has had, however there are a few things your email campaign can trigger: higher brand awareness, “forward to a friend” email, non –related email purchases, direct contact, membership, increased web traffic, and visit to a retail location. 
• Most activity happens in the first 7 days, although usually a report trails back 30 days. 
• Pay attention to active subscribers (clicking through), passive (never click-through) and inactive (don’t open and don’t click-through). 
• Always remember quality before quantity when looking at the open rate. It is better to have a shorter subscribers list with a high open rate, than a long list of passive or inactive subscribers. 

Tracking your email campaigns can give you great insight into your customers and your prospect database. Once you have identified what metrics and testing methods are best for your brand, your campaigns will shine!

Have a nice week!

Piggieback 

Email Marketing: Functionality and Design

This week’s blog post is all about the significance of good functionality and design in your email campaigns and newsletters.

Functionality:

• Always have an unsubscribe function. 
• What is the purpose of the email? Use HTML for commercial newsletters as it can be customized to look like a catalogue. You can also use text-based email, however it doesn't allow images. 
• Use clear navigation. 
• Mimic the functionality of your website, i.e. if the navigation is at the top of the page on your website keep it at the top of the page in your email. 
• Allow for click-throughs to your website. 
• Allow view in browser functionality. 
• Allow text-based view if HTML doesn't render in their browser. 
• Make it mobile device friendly. 
• Allow links to social media. 
• Allow “Share this” functionality. 
• Allow “Forward to a Friend” functionality. 
• Don’t make the email too long. If you include long articles, use a “read more” functionality which links back to the article hosted on your website. This way you can also track how many people read your articles. 
• Have a clear call to action. 
• Include contact information. 
• Don’t use JavaScript as many Email Service Providers (ESP’s) recognizes Java as SPAM. 

Design

• Make sure your email design is “on-brand”, meaning the voice, look and feel of your brand matches your emails. 
• Carry the website theme throughout your email, but make sure it renders well on email which uses a smaller width. Try seasonal theming – different designs for different events or holidays. 
• Have a good balance between text and image. 
• Many of us use preview options in our personal and professional email accounts. Make sure your top 300 pixels have enough information for your subscribers to want to download the rest of your email. 
• The email shouldn't be more than 600 pixels wide. 
• Don’t clutter your email with non-essential text. 
• Use an email friendly font that is universally supported such as Arial, Helvetica and Times New Roman. 
• Remember: HTML coding is different from website coding in that you have to use inline styles, not cascading style sheets (CSS). You will therefore have to cross-test your email in as many browsers and email providers as possible to be sure it looks the same. 

Next week’s blog post will be our last in this mini-series on Email Marketing. We will cover the topics of Execution and Reporting – two very important elements in your email marketing!

Until then, have a great week!

Piggieback

Data, data, data...

When using email marketing it is very important to have a clear and accurate database. This will enable you to segment your data more easily, as well as keep a correct measurement of open rates and click-throughs on your links.

1. Use double opt-in when signing up subscribers. A double opt-in is when a subscriber initially signs-up on your website, but then needs to give a second opt-in action such as clicking on a link in a subscription confirmation email. Double opt-in enables you to verify that the subscriber’s email is valid and it is easier to prove the subscriber has specifically opted-in in case of spam complaints, and it prevents fake opt-ins (such as a from a friend or a computer virus). It is also email marketing best practice according to Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), CAN-SPAM and ISP guidelines.

2. Never download or buy a list of emails. Sending email campaigns to a purchased list is a fast way to get black listed by a domain and affects your email deliverability in the future. Always approach email marketing with a “quality before quantity” mindset. It is better to have a shorter list with subscribers that are genuinely interested in your business, than a purchased list of subscribers who haven’t opted in to your communication. The open rate and click-through rate of your campaign will be much higher if you concentrate on a quality list. The likelihood of your email being reported as spam is also significantly slimmer, especially if you ask your subscribers to double opt-in.

3. Read, and follow, the Australian SPAM laws. Any commercial email requires the prior consent of the recipient.

4. Use segmentation. Only capture the information you require, i.e. don’t ask for a subscriber’s date of birth if you don’t plan on using the information to send them a birthday card. A clear and concise database also enables you to use information provided by subscribers to send out your campaigns at different times, to help you estimate when your campaign’s most successful times and days are.

5. Have a personalised database. Make sure your database at least captures the recipient’s name. You can then personalise your email and address your subscribers with their first name. Personalised email marketing is proven to get a higher open rate and more link click-throughs.

If you capture your data correctly your email marketing campaigns will shine!

And remember, quality before quantity!

Piggieback

Email Marketing – Do's and Don’ts

At Piggieback we know how challenging it can be to set up email marketing from scratch. So, we have therefore decided that this month’s blog posts will be dedicated to all the Do's and Don’ts of email marketing. We start off with a summary of what to look out for when using email marketing. In the next couple of weeks we will be focusing on each point, starting with DATA next week!

1. DATA

a. Make sure you have accurate data.
b. Make sure you understand the spam laws under SPAM Act 2003.
c. Don’t send the subscribers information they have not requested.
d. Personalise your database list.

2. FUNCTIONALITY

a. What is the purpose of the email?
b. Try and mimic the functionality of your website for consistency.
c. Have a clear call to action.

3. DESIGN

a. Be “on-brand” – match your brand voice, look and feel with your email design.
b. In the top 300 pixels, make sure you have enough information so that the subscriber downloads images    and scrolls through the rest of your email.
c. Have a good text-to-image ratio balance.

4. EXECUTION

a. Make sure you think about what time of day you send out your emails – this affects results.
b. Seed (include) yourself on the final email so that you know exactly what it looks like.

5. REPORTING

a. Make sure you always track opens and clicks of your email campaign.
b. Pay attention to active subscribers versus passive and inactive.
c. Make sure your open rate is high; quality is important, not quantity!

Piggieback offers monthly management out-sourcing packages for social media and email marketing. If your business needs assistance to manage your social media or e-newsletters then please get in contact to see what we offer!

Stay tuned for our next blog post which will be all about DATA and SEGMENTATION in relation to email marketing!

Have a great week!

Piggieback.

Piggieback's new website

We're very proud to share with you our new website!! Check it out here: www.piggieback.com.au

Have a good weekend!

Piggieback

Scheduling social media posts

In this week’s Blog Post we introduce you to Hootsuite – a social media dashboard to manage your social networks.

It can be very challenging to find the time to manage and update all of your business’ social networks, let alone be inspiring, exciting and witty at the same time. Hootsuite’s creators identified a need for user friendly social media management in 2008, at a time when businesses were starting to discover the powers of social media.

Hootsuite has over 4 million users, including big brands like McDonald’s, Sony Music and Virgin.

It is very easy to use Hootsuite. You simply add your social networks to the dashboard (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc.) and create and schedule social media posts from the same spot. You can also activate a functionality allowing Hootsuite to send you an email confirmation when your posts are sent, and also to allow you to email Hootsuite to send out an update on your behalf when you are on the go.

We recommend our clients make use of scheduling tools either directly in the applications or through a third party application such as Hootsuite to prevent a fall in posting consistency due to busy work load or a community manager being on holiday. Hootsuite is a great option to see all of your social media tools in one place and schedule and manage their engagement levels all at the same time.

Until next time, have a great week!

Piggieback

How do I choose a web agency?

Hi Friends,

Every week I meet a new company or organisation looking to build a web presence. They often come to Piggieback with the following questions: "can you build us a website?" and "how much does it cost?".

These questions are valid, but are often met with the following from our team:

• Why do you want a website and what do you want it to do?
• Have you thought about how you are going to maintain this website in the long term?

A point of reflection:

How many times have you visited a website that hasn't been updated for a long time? How many times have you seen events advertised that have well and truly passed? How many times have you seen typos and grammatical errors?

Too many times, websites are created for an instant of time to push a particular promotion or to keep a C-level executive happy. The long term responsibility of a website is often forgotten. 9 times out of 10 junior staff are involved in the set-up and implementation and they often take the website knowledge, login details and passwords with them when they leave.

I encourage you to consider who is involved in the implementation of your website.

• Who is responsible for writing and signing off the website copy?
• Who is responsible for any website changes?
• Who will project manage the implementation and produce a handover manual for multiple staff to use in the event that contact should exit the business?

I also encourage you to think about the way in which your brand is positioned across your website for your prospective audience to see:

• What will they think of your brand based on your website? 
• Will they want to work with you? 
• Is it clear you pay attention to detail? 
• Are you using stock photography, clip art or do you use branded visual assets to market your brand to the online masses? 
• Does your website offer your audience a call to action and does it fit in with your brand? 
• Are you better off maintaining a blog?
• Are you better off building an audience through social media platforms? 
• Have you considered how you will integrate a blog or social media channels with your website?

Ensure that you choose a web agency who gives your business the power to maintain your website. 

There is no point for small businesses and not-for-profit organisations who need to be dynamic and scalable, to be forced to outsource any minor changes to the website. By having this power, you will also eliminate a lot of the maintenance costs associated with outsourcing changes.

Also ensure you work with your agency to choose a content management platform which has secure content hosting, an easy to use user interface, and is covered with a support network. This will mean any changes to the platform technology will be seamlessly rolled out with little input from you.

Don't make the mistake of spending tens of thousands of dollars on a website which isn't easy to update by you or your marketing team and forces you to update via your web agency.

If it sounds too cheap to be good? It probably is. Watch out for the fine print of some of the cheaper set-up website providers. What happens if you want to change your website template? How is that charged?

Can Piggieback build a website? Absolutely.

How much does it cost? Between $1,000 and $5,000 in set-up costs dependent on functionality, with the understanding that the content management system installed is easily manageable by you and your team. Ongoing outsourcing costs to Piggieback are $0 unless you CHOOSE to outsource changes to us. But that is entirely up to you!

Be smart about developing your website, and it will pay for itself tenfold.

Just like meeting a person, within the first 30 seconds of viewing your website, your prospect has made up their mind about what they think of you as a brand. Make sure you portray the qualities you want your brand to portray.

What has been your experience with building your website?

Have a great week,

Caitlin

Caitlin Davey
Director of Communications at Piggieback

Short guide to Google Analytics

Dear Friends,

Piggieback recommends that anyone with a web presence uses a web tracking service to analyse and improve website performance. Google Analytics is a free service offered by Google which allows you to report on the effectiveness of your website. Google Analytics shows you statistics on how visitors found your site, how they explored it, and how you can enhance their visitor experience.

1. Google Analytics can help you answer:

• Which marketing referral platform is more efficient?
• What trends/patterns in website visitation are there?
• Where does your traffic come from?
• What are your prospects and customers doing on your website?
• How can you generate more visits to your site?
• Why do people leave the site?
• Where do people leave the site?
• Is your current web design working for your website?
• What web content is interesting for visitors to read?

2. Things you can do on Google Analytics

• Customise and save your most significant analytics data on the landing page
• Learn which online campaigns bring the most traffic and conversations for your brand
• Determine where your best visitors are coming from 
• Learn what keywords people are using to find your site
• Visualize what people click on the most
• Discover your top content 
• Pinpoint your worst performing pages
• Learn where people abandon the website 
• Check if your brand is in need of a mobile friendly website or a mobile application
• Track revenue generated via your website
• Track campaigns with a unique URL to see how popular your campaign was. 

Website tracking can be tricky sometimes but it is definitely worth using. If brands can master some of Google Analytics features they are well on their way to successful website marketing.

At Piggieback we offer our clients services to help them make the most of their website tracking. We offer to help plan, set up, and implement website marketing strategies. Contact us today to set-up Google Analytics and make your website perform for you: enquire@piggieback.com.au

Start tracking!

Piggieback

Website Best Practice

Dear Friends,

At Piggieback we know that sometimes it can be very hard to know where to start when setting up a website. That’s why this week’s blog post offers a simple step-by-step guide to best practices for setting up your website.

1.       Set up

• The domain name you choose needs to be easy to remember and spell. For companies in Australia the domain should finish with .com.au and for New Zealand companies it should finish with co.nz.
• Try not to use any symbols in the domain name, make it as simple as possible. 
• Don’t use any abbreviation that your target marketing won’t understand e.g. if you never refer to your company using that acronym or abbreviation, don’t use it as your domain name.

2.       Web hosting service

• Once you have purchased your domain, you need to select a web hosting provider to host your website and make it accessible in the World Wide Web. In-fact many website hosting services also assist you in purchasing your domain, so do your research before your start.
• Web hosts provide storage space on multiple servers where you can upload your website pages and content to. 
• Always look for how much storage capacity the host provides and any value add services which come with your hosting package. For example, database management and SEO tools. 
• Piggieback uses HostPapa which is an Australian green web hosting provider.

3.       Images

• Save images in your website as .png or .gif files so that your overall site size is as low as possible. This will prevent web pages taking a long time to load and minimise losing potential customers who visit your website.
• You can use animated .gif files to provide movement on your webpages.

4.       Website structure

• When creating your own website you need to host a sitemap on your web server. A sitemap is a tool that allows search engines and visitors to look up pages within your website. It’s basically a navigation tool that lists all of the pages available on your website. The lists are arranged in a clear way so that search engine “crawlers” can find them easily, and feed the indexed information back to their search engine (e.g. Google, Yahoo). 
• Always have easy to use navigation at the top of your web page so that moving between pages is easy to do.
• Consider your website layout carefully and organise it so that you’re leading the customer through your site.
• Subscription, contact, and social media information should be visible on every page.
• Include Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy where they are easy to find.
• Always prioritise a highly functional website over a creatively designed website. This will make it easier for search engine crawlers to find your website which in turn, will make it easier for visitors to find your website and transact!

5.       Landing page/First page

• The first page visitors hit when they link through to your website should always clearly state what your business does and the point of difference it has in the market, this is your sales pitch!
• Always include a call to action where possible.

6.       E-commerce

• If you have an e-store or payment portal, make sure that it is well integrated with your current website.
• Make it easy for customers to add products to a shopping cart and make sure you make the most of the functionality your e-commerce platform offers you.
• Where possible include track to purchase website tracking on your site so that you can directly link a marketing campaign to purchase information.
• Add “wish list” or “abandoned cart” marketing to remind customers about your website.

7.       Social Media

• It has become easier than ever to integrate social media on websites so make it simple for customers and visitors to share your products on social media through your website. This will result in greater awareness about your brand and your website. 
• Have “refer a friend” functionality on your website to maximise word of mouth.

8.       Coding

• Steer away from coding your website in Flash – many mobile devices can’t read it.
• If you decide to use Flash, make sure mobile devices are pushed to a non-flash site.
• Eliminate JAVA script and other codes where possible and use HTML to prevent your website from being blocked by firewalls and so that the search engine crawlers can easily read your content
• An animated .gif is a good alternative for flash to add some movement on your site.

9.       Website tracking

• Use a website tracking tool such as Google Analytics or Core Metrics to see how you can improve your website further and make it an enjoyable experience for your visitors as well as tracking the effectiveness of your campaigning.

Piggieback offers services to develop, create and track websites. We offer competitive retainer fees for brands that want to either build a website from scratch, or re-fresh their already existing site. If your business needs assistance with reviewing your current website or creating a new one, contact Piggieback today: enquire@piggieback.com.au

Make sure your website is optimised and you will generate many more qualified leads,

Piggieback

Facebook Timeline

Dear Friends,

In March 2012 Facebook launched its new Timeline for users. Timeline provides a new look for all brands and private users, and although optional for some users, over time it will be implemented whether we like it or not. In saying this, at Piggieback we think the new Timeline for brands is fantastic! It has enabled brands to be more visual with their page and as such some very creative designs have been implemented.

So what are the main differences between the “original” layout and Timeline?

1. More room for photos - with Timeline, Facebook users now have two photo spaces to fill and plenty more options for displaying visual content. There’s the profile picture (which is the photo next to your name) and the Timeline cover photo (the large image at the top of your timeline).

• Cover Photo - The cover photo gives brands an opportunity to display emotive imagery, campaign imagery in a large rectangle space but it does come with some restrictions which will be outlined further on. 
• Profile Picture - The profile picture should be used to display a square version of the brand logo and is used as a thumbnail beside any posts or engagement across Facebook.

• Status updates – Status updates from brands can include images and these images can be “highlighted” to display the entire width of the page. This is fantastic news for pushing new campaigns from brands or for brands where product or scenery shots are important. There is also a great feature which enables brands to “pin to top” any update which is a key update and for the next 7 days it will appear at the top of your page.

We’ve included some examples of visual brand pages below:

2.  Easier to navigate - It doesn’t matter if you’re a Timeline enthusiast or not, it is hard not to admit Timeline is a lot easier to use than the original layout. All the information you need about a company/private user is right in front of you. In the top section (where your cover image and profile photo is located) is a small section underneath the profile photo where you can fill out all the details about yourself. Next to that information you can find photos, likes and mutual friends. All of this information used to be found at the very top on an original layout, however it was less colourful and harder to spot. Brands can customise how this looks and choose their top 4 “app” items to be displayed below the cover photo and beside the “about” section.

3. Storytelling – Timeline is all about storytelling. You can highlight your top stories to enable Facebook fans to find the interesting wall posts more easily. The wall is divided by a thin timeline with dots. If you click on one of these dots a post (which might not be visible on the timeline) pops up. You can track a company’s or private user’s Facebook “history” back to when they first joined, kind of like a story of their Facebook life. This presents an opportunity for brands to create history for their brand or their identity.

• Milestones – Facebook Timeline offers another great feature for brands called “milestones”. Milestones are key moments in your brand’s history which you’ve decided to highlight on your page. They automatically expanded to the full width of the page and are visible to anyone who visits or likes your page. This gives brands an opportunity to share old photos and logos with their fans, and it makes it very easy for fans to click on a specific date to find out what their favourite brand looked like back in e.g. 1854. 

• Louis Vuitton

• Target

4. A private message between Brands and Users – One of the most important features for brands is the new private messages settings. Up until now, if your fans wanted to contact you directly they would have to either post on your wall, contact your personal Facebook, or go through your website. Now Timeline offers the opportunity for brands to interact with their fans on a more personal level through private messages. From a brand perspective, this new feature makes a world of difference. It gives them the opportunity to reply to customer enquiries/complaints without having to refer the customer to a website or other Facebook account. However, there are some restrictions. A brand can’t initiate a conversation, they can only reply once a fan has contacted them. This is to prevent brands from spamming fans’ inboxes with campaigns and advertising.

5. Cover photo guidelines – Facebook are very strict with their cover photo rules, and anyone who doesn’t follow them risks having their account deleted. One of the most important things to remember is: never use your cover photo as an ad, no matter how tempting it may be. Furthermore, you can’t include your contact details anywhere on the photo. This includes website, telephone number, and email. Facebook are strict with that there’s only one place you store that kind of information, and it is in the “about” section. Brands are not allowed to include any form of “calls for action” e.g. “get yours now on our website”. It’s also strictly forbidden to mention or use any graphic to point to your Like button.



6. Promotion – Facebook doesn’t allow brands to use their page as a promotion platform if it involves any form of Facebook features or functionalities. Post like “Mention abc as your status to be in the draw for a $500 voucher” will therefore have your page deleted. Brands also have to clearly state that this is their promotion and has nothing to do with Facebook. Notifying winner through Facebook is also forbidden.


7. No difference – From a fan interaction point of view, these changes don’t have any negative effects. A common privacy worry is the fact that everything is suddenly visible on your page as opposed to the original layout where people had to click on different pages to find your information. This is great for brands because fans can see information very clearly, however it does mean that as a brand community manager we need to consider what posts are visible and “highlighted” on our brand pages.


Facebook Timeline is an adjustment for brands; however it is definitely worth migrating your brand over to Timeline, if you haven’t already, and embracing what these changes now enable for brands. If brands can utilise all of Timeline’s fantastic features they are well on their way to successful social media marketing.


Piggieback offers services to plan, set up, design and implement social media marketing strategies. You can also contact us if you’re interested in outsourcing your social media management to Piggieback. We offer competitive retainer fees for brands that don’t have the time to manage but understand the power of social media investment.


Make Facebook work for you!


Piggieback

Social Media, Brands & the London Olympics 2012

Dear Friends,

It is fair to say that this year’s biggest event is the Olympics in London. It’s an extraordinary occasion where the strongest, fittest, and best athletes from all over the world come together to represent their proud countries, and fight for the gold medals. It’s also a big occasion for international brands to market to the masses.

The Olympics this year has been especially interesting for all of us digital nerds out there, as it was the first “real-time” Games we have ever had. This means that we no longer had to wait for TV coverage, or media to give us the news. We could access the results real-time, as it happened, on mobile apps or on social media (tweeted by an excited sports fan in London). Conversations around the Olympics on social media were greater than ever before. Twitter was especially popular as it opened up the possibility to have direct conversations with the athletes through tweets and re-tweets.

However, having access to this plethora of social media has its complexities and responsibilities, as so many athletes have realised. Infact, Australian athletes had been given a list of rules to guide their online behaviour. These rules were introduced to prevent athletes from making common social media mistakes. Two young Australian swimmers were banned early on from using social media for the entire duration of the Olympics, since they posted photos which the Australian Olympic Committee deemed inappropriate. Twitter even had an athlete booted from their Olympic team for posting a racist tweet.

There is a lot we can learn from these situations, as brand community managers using Social Media. Firstly, we need to remember that when we post on Social Media we represent a brand, not ourselves. Once we are in the public domain (as an athlete, or in our case, as a brand) we are open to scrutiny from every angle. 

At Piggieback, we recommend asking your-selves four important questions prior to posting on Social Media:

• What does this post say about the value system of my brand at a raw level?
• Is this a view which my brand completely personifies and will it be supported internally?
• What is the worst reaction that could come from this post, and do I have an action plan ready for it? 
• Would I be proud to show my grandma this post?

Marketing and Advertising for brands have had interesting results at the Olympics this year as well. The strict advertising rules surrounding the Olympics (including not being able to mention the word “Olympic” unless you’re a sponsor) and ambush marketing* prevention rules makes it extremely hard for advertisers to push non-sponsored brand advertising out to the public. All non-official sponsors of the Olympic Games have restrictions from advertising around the event venues. The official sponsors have paid millions of pounds for exclusivity in advertising and product placement at the stadium. This provides not only brand awareness opportunities, new product launch platforms, but a unique ability to deploy campaigns in concentrated uncontested advertising space. The rare opportunity this provides for these sponsors outweighs the millions of pounds invested. Nonetheless, competitor brands have been able to penetrate the market on a few occasions. Nike produced a very intelligent and well thought out advert, bending the rules and testing the limits of advertising rules, to cash in on the Olympic fever whilst getting one over on their arch-rival Adidas, official sponsor of the Olympics. The global TV campaign is featuring everyday athletes competing in places all around the world called London. 

Nike's advert:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=gHFhGDWP9Fs

The interesting thing about Nike’s campaign, and other non-official sponsors’ campaigns, is it is actually working. Statistics show that, although official brands have seen an increase in their sales revenue (you’d hope so as they paid millions of pounds for the privilege to be sponsors) non-sponsors such as Nike and Pepsi have seen an increase as well. It appears that the strict advertising rules backfired and non-sponsors seem to have been given a free public relations boost because of all the media coverage surrounding ambush marketing*. 

Piggieback would love to hear what you think! Is social media a place where one should be able to post whatever springs to mind? Do we need to think more wisely about what we post when we represent a brand other than ourselves? Should social media have the power to get someone booted or banned from the Games? Do you agree with the strict advertising rules surrounding the Olympics and do you think Nike has pushed them too far?

Have a great week everyone!

Piggieback

*Ambush Marketing definition from London2012.com:

“Also known as parasitic or guerrilla marketing, ambush marketing

describes a business’ attempts to attach itself to a major sports event

without paying sponsorship fees. As a result, the business gains the

benefits of being associated with the goodwill and public excitement

around the event for free. This damages the investment of genuine

sponsors, and risks the organiser’s ability to fund the event.”

Piggieback on Social Media

Dear Friends,

Thanks for following us! We’re excited to bring to you the latest trends in marketing, tips on how to reach your target audience more effectively, and share with you the latest happenings at Piggieback. You can reach us on the social media below.

    

Subscribe to Blogger to receive weekly news updates every Monday. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter for links to interesting articles and Piggieback news. Connect with us on LinkedIn if you’re a client of ours. Follow our boards on Pinterest for our latest inspiration and client work.

We look forward to your feedback at any time. Please share with us any interesting articles, video clips, logo designs or inspiration that you find! We’re always eager to see who the next viral sensation is! We see social media as a vital customer engagement platform and we will endeavour to respond to any of your comments or feedback as quickly as possible!

Have a great week don’t stay up too late watching the Olympics!

Until next time…. ha en bra vecka! (That’s Swedish for have a good week!)

Piggieback

Introducing Piggieback

Piggieback are a marketing communications company based in Melbourne Australia.

Piggieback was launched in 2012 after it became apparent that many businesses were struggling to make sense of what they needed to do to get noticed in the market.

The team at Piggieback came together to offer these businesses strategic advice and assist them in developing go to market strategies and implementing strong branding identities and marketing plans which have changed their businesses and opened up new audiences. Piggieback has continued to grow as more companies have developed a need for smart marketing and want to drive their marketing budget further.

Piggieback are proud to assist all of our clients and are passionate about providing solutions for our clients which give them a competitive edge. If you have a marketing project which needs specialised experience, our consultants are available for short, medium and long term contracts to suit you.

We offer strategy, design, implementation and management services in the following areas:

• Integrated marketing communications
• Branding
• Re-branding
• Advertising
• Direct Marketing
• Brand Community
• Digital
• Social Media
• Email Marketing
• Web Design
• Copywriting
• Publishing
• Graphic Design

Our consultants are academically skilled and bring experience from many different areas to make our clients marketing communications perform.

If your business requires a new brand image, a strategic marketing plan, a digital marketing plan, or marketing direction then contact us today at enquire@piggieback.com.au

Logo Launch!

Hi Friends of Piggieback.

We are excited to share with you our new logo in preparation for our upcoming launch. We hope you like it as much as we do!

We look forward to sharing more with you in the upcoming weeks

Speak soon!

Piggieback

Piggieback is Coming Soon!

Eep! You're early! I'm naked!


Piggieback are coming soon to www.piggieback.com.au as well as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. We are so excited to show you but.. how embarrassing...our design ninjas are still working on it! 


Piggieback is a Marketing Communications company which offers strategic consulting and creative production. You can sign-up for Pigtales, our email newsletter, which will keep you in the loop for our launch.

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