Melon Corporate Blog
Facebook: Profiles vs Pages
Dain Saxon (Digital Producer) - Mar 10, 2011
As a digital marketer it is very easy to become convinced that when software gets updated (as it invariably does), the latest iteration automatically supersedes all previous knowledge and installments and must be used immediately. Newer is better, right?
This perception of mine was challenged yesterday when I received a ‘Friend’ request through Facebook for a business profile.
My immediate reaction was to wonder why this business was setting up their Facebook presence as a person, rather than as a ‘Page’. Pages are so much easier to market, you get a wealth of extra opportunities to network and advertise and the openess of a page allows you to be so much easier to find.
Knowing the owner personally, I sent off a quick message outlining my thoughts and offering him to help with managing his Facebook presence “properly”.
His response made me look at things an entirely different way.
“Easy: People are much more likely to accept a friend request than a page request. I personally almost never accept page requests. Also I don’t think pages can intrude on status feed the way an updating of my status can.”
This man was marketing himself by being more difficult to contact - and in doing so creating a more personal experience for his customers. He was creating friends, not fans. And in less than a week he’s up to 141 of them.
Whilst I still feel that he is limiting his potential reach, there’s a lot to be said about using technology to suit your purposes, rather than changing your purpose to suit the technology.
What are your thoughts?
If you want to ‘friend’ the Buckingham Quintet you can do so here: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002149063009
Twitter, Tools And Parties.
Dain Saxon (Digital Producer) - Jan 28, 2010
Twitter. You've heard of it. You know, vaguely, what it's about. You've grown tired of having people recommend you join the Tweeps and Tweet your Twavels.
You may even have created an account, sent out a few bursts of 140 character wit - and then wondered, "What's the point?"
If so, you make up about 44% (source: Burson-Marsteller) of the accounts on the social network microblog cosmos.
The question is, do you really know what Twitter is used for?
Don't feel ignorant if you haven't worked that out yet. The majority of new users expect Twitter to DO something straight out of the box. This expectation comes from experiences with Facebook, Friendster and other social networking sites that have an apparent purpose.
It is fair then to understand many peoples confusion when trying to comprehend why Twitter is useful and why so many journalists, celebrities, marketers, bands, stay-at-home mums, big corporations and small trades-people have joined the flock.
Isn't it just a status update? Well, yes. And no. To understand let's first look at Facebook. When you first sign up to Facebook, it directs you to connect with people you actually know. This is instantly familiar, even to users with no online experience other than internet banking and the occasional group email.
"Oh, Joe and Flo are on Facebook, it's recommending I be friends with them."
You have made a familiar connection that you know will be valuable to you - all as part of the introductory sign-up process. You are guided in how to use the site. It's easy. It has a very direct purpose - connect with friends, share photos.
Twitter has no apparent purpose other than to post 140 character snippets of (useful or useless) information.
That's because (and this is the epiphany) Twitter isn't a site - Twitter is a tool.
A tool is designed to be good at one thing, applied to many different situations...
Email and social media: joining the dots
Kerry the plucky intern () - Jan 25, 2010
You’ve no doubt already dabbled with social media. But have your efforts been well integrated into existing marketing strategies?
One simple way to achieve this is to include “tweet this” or other social media links in your emails and articles. The skeptic will wonder if this has any real advantage over the “send to a friend” option that we’re all familiar with. Here’s some food for thought:
Optus Cops $110 000 Fine for SPAM
Kevin Garber (General Manager) - Feb 05, 2009
In January 2009 Optus - one of Australia’s largest telecommunication companies - was fined $110,000 for sending 20,000 electronic messages to its customers in contravention of the Spam Act 2003. This fine is the second biggest penalty imposed for a single breach of Australia’s anti-spam laws.
OptusZoo Entertainment Services sent SMS messages to its customer’s mobile phones and used the sender identification “966”. Optus assumed recipients would make the connection between “966” on a mobile phone keypad, and the word "ZOO" which can also be spelt out using the three numbers. However the Australian Communications and Media Authority disagreed and the fine was imposed.
Marketing is obviously a key factor to creating a brand and increasing customer awareness of a business or product. However it is important that business don’t break any laws when using the details of their customers or potential customers to market their business or product. Customer details such as name, address and contact details should be handled carefully to avoid prosecution under the Spam Act 2003.
The Battle of The Email Bulge - 4 Inbox Overload Killers
Kevin Garber (General Manager) - Nov 28, 2008
by Kevin Garber, General Manager
Recently a friend boldly declared “I LOVE receiving SPAM emails!”.
Realising that she was serious I was curious as to why she would make this declaration.
She went on to explain that as the manager of a community organisation with about 100 volunteers, hundreds of members, and a large distinguished board of directors she receives literally hundreds of emails every day, each email often requiring a response.
She elaborated that when working through her inbox when she comes across a SPAM email - it means that there is one less email for her to action - a small win in the battle against email fatigue.
I went on to explain to her how at Melon Media we have reduced the amount of email sent and received internally in our organisation by between 60%-80% over the last few months.
But more on that later…
Email remains the locus of the online experience - it is usually the first thing we check when we get online and the last thing we action when we go offline.
Email is highly effective for newsletters, one-to-one, one-to-many and the occasional many-to-many communications.
Emails can easily be filed, filtered, indexed and it is relatively easy to scan read a large volume of emails.
Due to these advantages we can process far more emails during a work day then we can physical letters, phone calls, or face to face discussions.
So whilst email remains a powerful business tool (having founded and manage a specialist email marketing agency - I remain a fan of emails!) the efficacy of email begins to break down under certain situations.
These situations include when:
- the number of emails requiring a response gets too large - email overload leads to inaction.
- many-to-many email communication is used excessively and without thought; together with general abuse of the reply-all feature. The result is complicating the workflow/task that all the communication is attempting to address.
Email is not the appropriate tool to manage team workflow.
As the Melon Media team has grown and the amount of projects we manage has increased we investigated more efficient ways to manage internal tasks and projects.
The result has been the implementation of a range of internal tools that totally redefines the way that we communicate internally.
A main aim of this project was to significantly
reduce internal work related email.
The following is a list of our new workflow toolset, description of how we use it and how it relates to email use:
1) Skype
Main use: realtime text chat and asynchronous messages
Allows the Melon team to have real time 1-1 or many-to-many text conversations. Allows the Melon team to leave short messages or links for each other regardless of whether the recipient is online or not.
Email inbox killer: previously the team would regularly send emails to each other with one link, or a quick comment, or a phone message. The instant chat service allows for text communication that is also perfect for the short textual message.
Result: Reduced frequency of emails with links, phone messages, and questions as well as reduced “conversational” emails with “conversations” happening real time or asynchronous as text on Skype.
Click below to read the next four!
Interview with Paul Ryan - Editor of Australian Anthill Magazine - Email Newsletter Experiences
Fiona King (Graphic Designer) - Nov 27, 2008
Kevin Garber - General Manager of Melon Media and Founder of spellr.us speaks with Paul Ryan, the editor of Australian Anthill Magazine - a leading Australian magazine for entrepreneurs.
Summary of discussion points with time markers - you can drag the audio pointer to the desired time. Total time 28 minutes.
1.35 - Intro to Australian Anthill and evolution of their online presence - their website something more than just a “dump” of their print content. 2.45 - Discussion about Australian Anthill email content targeting. 3:30 - Email the most successful way of communicating with their readership. 4:25 - Balancing targeting database segments with having the right content. Profile of online readers is different to profile of offline readers. 5:55 - Defining the “personality of the brand”. 6:00 - Being too focused on the metrics. 6:50 - The “tyranny of the click” and the seductive nature of controversial content. 8:15 (* highly relevant segment for email marketers) - Practical advice and experience for times and days to implement your email newsletter campaigns. When is the best time to send out your email newsletters? 14:20 - The importance of compelling content for online marketing. 15:30 (* highly relevant segment for email marketers) - The future of email and email newsletters. 17:49 - The evolution of the email inbox and email filters. 20:00 - The importance of learning to manage a large amount of online content. 20:30 - Inbox zero and email bankruptcy. 23:00 - Crowdsourcing online and filtering through large amounts of content. 25:00 - Brief chat about Twitter.
Links discussed in the interview.
>> Twitter
>> Australian Anthill Online
>> Kevin Garber informal presentation at BarCamp4 Sydney
A case for audio and video in online content
Fiona King (Graphic Designer) - Nov 26, 2008
I recently went to a talk where different learning styles were discussed and the studies done by Hermann Ebbinghaus really struck a cord with me.
Apparently we only retain in our memory;
- 10% of what we read
- 20% of what we hear
- 30% of what we see
- 50% of what we see & hear
Say HELLO properly and have less GOODBYES
Kevin Garber (General Manager) - Oct 30, 2008
On our blog and in our newsletter articles we often explore issues relating to email newsletter content, subject lines, email’s role in the broader marketing mix and so on.
In this article I want to discuss several often ignored but powerful elements of the email newsletter process.
1. The welcome sign-up email
2. The sign-up thank you page
Melon Media & spellr.us meet a Google Product Manager
Dain Saxon (Digital Producer) - Oct 01, 2008
Kevin Garber from Melon Media was invited to Google and had the opportunity to interview a Google Product Manager Sharath Bulusu - discussion includes his role, platforms/technologies used at Google.
(don’t) reply to this email
Dain Saxon (Digital Producer) - Aug 28, 2008
One of the strengths of email is that it is a medium that lends itself to both one way and two way communication.
Why is it then that so many companies display something similar to the following message in their email newsletters?
"Please do not respond to this email. If you would like to Contact Us, please click here for details."
The above is an example from a Centrebet (insert link) email that I receive regularly. Curiously if I click on the "click here for details" link, I get taken to a page with a list of email addresses - why not just let me hit reply?
Business is about relationships - with your customers, suppliers, and other stakeholders.
Anything that can help deepen this relationship is a GOOD thing…..
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