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,

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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