Good timing on Facebook depends on the day of the week too!

Thursday and Friday have 18% more engagement than other days of the week. However, the most popular time is the weekend. Businesses see the most engagement on Sundays,  yet less than 8% of posts go out on this day – a missed opportunity perhaps?

The length of your post can also determine engagement. The bottom line – keep it short and sweet.

Posts with 80 characters or less encourage 27% more engagement than longer posts. And while content should be short, the URL shouldn’t be; posts with a full-length URL have three times the engagement of their shortened counterparts; bit.ly, ow.ly and tinyurl to name a few.

Outright instructions for viewers will also result in 15% more engagement. So if you’re looking to get ‘Likes’ on a post, ask. Or if you want an answer, ask ‘where’, ‘when’ or ‘would’ at the end of a post – not in the middle – and you could see your engagement rise by around 20%.

But remember, the social marketing space is constantly evolving. These statistics will change in a matter of months, so make sure your Facebook marketing program is flexible and can change with them.

Which means every project and marketing activity you undertake, should consider mobile strategy. But regardless of whether you implement specific mobile campaigns, one thing you will HAVE to do is ensure your website functions in the mobile world.

By 2014 mobile internet usage will take over desktop usage! So here are a few crucial things you need to consider…

What are your core objectives for your site?

On a mobile site, more than any other, you need to prioritise objectives and communicate the most important at the top of the design. Mobile browsers strip and slim your website down, and due to the small screen you need to focus on communicating one thing at a time. 

A little time travel goes a long way

Check out past data of your website – hopefully you’ve been tracking traffic with Google analytics or some other metric software. This will allow you to see which devices and browsers users are accessing the site from. While you want your site to support all devices you can target these browsers as high priorities.

Less really is more on mobile…

Usability considerations on the mobile web call for a simplified approach to design, layout, and navigation. With less screen real estate at your disposal, you need to choose your placement of elements wisely.

Tip: A single-column structure tends to work best. Not only does this help with managing limited space on the smaller screen, it also helps you easily scale between different device resolutions and flipping between portrait and landscape mode.

How big is your thumb?

Remember on the mobile web, interaction is done via finger taps rather than mouse clicks. Revisit your sites ‘clickable’ elements, links, buttons, menus, etc, and make them ‘tappable’. The mobile web requires larger, chunkier buttons that can be easily pressed with a thumb.

As the world goes mobile there is huge potential in getting the basics right. Here we’ve outlined just a few of the things you should think about when taking your website mobile, but it’s only the beginning.

However, only 31% find it effective – in a recent Harvard Business Review study this figure plummeted to 12%!

So what’s going on?

Unfortunately it’s simply down to how businesses are using social media. Sadly most forget that it’s simply another form of content marketing. Rather, they use it like a toy; brought out and used when it suddenly occurs to them… ‘oh I should go and tweet that!’.

Just as there is art and science in creating contagious content that your prospects value, the same should be applied to social media.

You need your content, even the snippets for social media sharing, to be interesting and relevant to your audience.

Did you know a tweet has a shelf life of no more than an hour to drive response? But that doesn’t mean simply repeating your previous tweet every hour, as many do. People will click and scan what you’re posting; if it’s the same tweet 20 times it’s not leaving a very good impression!

Don’t execute social media as a fait accompli each time you publish new content.

Social media will drive results if you treat it with respect rather than as just another megaphone.

Remember, no one cares. You need to show them why they should. And that means your social media participation needs to be inclusive and provide compelling content.

Everything you post online is content and is responsible for having an impact on the perception of your company’s reputation, credibility, intentions and humanness.

So why, if current customers are a clear opportunity for increasing sales, isn’t more being done to retain them?

Only about 50% of businesses focus on customer retention and loyalty programs. But even this half are getting it wrong! Whilst voice-of-the-customer programs are implemented, most use traditional channels. Listening is most often done via surveys and call centers.

Only 15% of those who work on customer retention use social media to help, yet this channel allows and enables real-time interaction.  It creates an environment to inform customers while building trust and creditability.

Whether it is a LinkedIn group around a specific product or a dedicated customer support forum on Ning, ad hoc interaction with your existing customers allows you to take part in and listen to their own conversations; and get honest feedback beyond the actual sale.

Not only that, you can use social platforms to alert customers to problems, product releases and events; it’s more than a single telephone call after the sale!

And if you acknowledge, respond and champion customer involvement in these social channels, it can turn customers into influencers or ‘sneezers’; spreading your message to their own social networks too.

To help you, here are our 4 suggestions for creating successful PR online:

1. Rapid response Twitter campaign – use live news topics and create tweets that allow people to get involved.

Rayovac did just this in February. As the prediction of massive snow storms to hit the U.S. spread across news channels and online they started a virtual snowball fight across Twitter; encouraging customers to hurl snowballs at friends, family and them. The brand also hosted a two-hour virtual snow day tweet-up, where followers could tweet about the weather in their area, their favourite snow day activities and answer fun storm-prep and weather-related trivia for a chance to win great prizes.

2. Rewarding blogger outreach – encourage individuals to spread your content through ‘retweets’ or ‘like’ by providing progressive incentives to get involved and promote what you’re doing.

Healthy Choice used a progressive coupon on their Facebook page to encourage people to spread the word The coupon began at a low value and increased as people “liked” the page and signed up for the coupon, ultimately reaching a “buy-one-get-one-free” deal.

3. Use social storytelling – if you have a story within your business that is interesting and can be followed, whether it’s an employee’s attempt to climb everest or a new idea you’re working on for an exhibition, use it to attract and engage your audience. Create a dedicated Twitter handle to tell the story and share news and exclusive updates.

The Breeders’ Cup team built their story around Zenyatta, the undefeated female horse who had become a star for her dancing, Guinness-sipping ways and thrilling come-from-behind finishes. The team’s Zenyatta-focused social media efforts included Twitter, YouTube and a viral, Zenyatta v. Secretariat video release after she won her 19th race.

4. Share an experience – trying to convey your message through an ad or article can be difficult. Use social media to encourage your customers to share their own stories/experiences with your company and products/services.

The Balsams Grand Resort Hotel in New Hampshire shared their unique story by recruiting a ‘resorter’ – a person to live at the hotel for July and August 2010 and use social channels to share all of their experiences at the 8,000 acre resort. They embarked on a similar campaign for winter using two Canadian social media travel superstars to update followers on their adventures at the resort.

These are just a few of the ways you can make social media work harder for you and work as an integrated campaign strategy. Whatever you choose to do remember the core principle – content is king – and the rest will follow!

Internet users today are spending less time on the sites that publish their favourite news or information and more time enjoying that content in the places they choose, such as Facebook, Digg, or Twitter. 

Widgets allow you to integrate your brand into the content and activity of a user’s social network; giving you the opportunity to effectively initiate, shape and participate in these online social interactions – not only with the initial user who installed it, but with their entire social network too!

Getting it right isn’t easy and some businesses may simply choose not to participate, but the trends in user communication that are driving the growth of social media are showing no signs of slowing!

If you fail to get involved, you may leave industry influencers untapped, or allow them to be tapped by your competition.

Sure, it’s easier than ever to keep an eye on them, but where exactly do you begin?

1)      Set up Tweetbeep. Simply set up your competitors names and you’ll get email alerts whenever someone tweets about them. It’s the perfect Twitter spy tool!

2)      Get LinkedIn. You can find out who joined, who left, who got promoted and who’s connected to whom. This social platform is great for recruiting competitive talent, identifying companies intimately connected to your competitors and checking on the reliability of the rumours you’ve heard!

3)      Look at Manta. Manta profiles more than 63 million companies and specialises in hard to find information about small businesses and private firms. You can track competitive data, such as annual revenue, key contacts, affiliates and number of employees.

To achieve your objectives, you need a strategy to get there. But to determine the right strategy, you need to work out “where” you are now, “where” you want to be and then plot a course to get you from one to the other. Understanding the competition and what they’re up to will help you to assess your current position so that you can decide on your route.

And if you don’t like the thought of spying, just remember they can track you too!

One of the best tactics to getting good search rankings is to develop quality content relevant to your business. Once you have quality content, distribute links to that content to influential sites, online publishers and bloggers that cover the topic; in a hope that they’ll realise the value in your content and share it with their own audiences.

This tactic works today and will most likely work for years to come. Why? Because it’s what’s best for the customer. And linking consumers to high-caliber content on the subjects they’re searching for is imperative if Google wants to maintain its search industry dominance.

Is creating that content hard work? Yes. If it were easy, everyone would do it.

While some SEO practitioners would like you to think that, with a few tricks, they can blast you to the top of Google’s search results. Understand that if those tactics do anything other than help the consumer find highly relevant content on your site that’s better than anything else out there, you’re attempting to outsmart the system… and we don’t favour your chances!

Salary £18K+ (negotiable depending on experience)

About the job

This job entails, supporting the project manager through ongoing assistance for all client marketing strategies, carrying out several tasks to facilitate client campaign drives. 

Duties and responsibilities include:

• Completing sales-related and marketing administrative projects, such as marketing reports, market research and support with campaign implementation. (In house training provided)
• Providing assistance in terms of logistics to events, like seminars and trade shows.
• Providing assistance in creating and enhancing the campaign target lists.
• Providing administrative aid for various projects, such as project meeting schedules, meeting minutes, memos, etc.
• Developing media packs through research and planning, sourcing content and graphics for all projects as well as maintaining and building relationships with agency associates.
• Giving support to PM by assisting in liaison between associates and suppliers.
• Updating online content for both clients and agency campaigns. (In house training provided)
• Providing personal and administrative support to directors such as travel arrangements, appointment confirmations and distribution of agendas.
• Creation of client marketing reports, including tracking, activity schedules and timesheets. (In house training provided)

About you…

You will:

• understand the basic skills of project management.
• have a basic knowledge of marketing principles.
• have good written and communication skills.
• be able to acquire market information and to answer questions from managers, team members, clients and public.
• be capable of compiling basic reports for campaign tracking.
• have the ability to work individually for self-driven projects.
• have the ability to solve problems and operate systems.
• be very well organised with skills for prioritisation and time management.
• be able to work under stress to meet project deadlines with minute attention to detail.
• be a self-motivated individual.

About the agency

In the traditional sense, you’d call us a full service marketing agency. This basically means we do everything… and we do.

However, we don’t really like convention, so we do things slightly differently. Where the traditional uses of media are becoming outdated, we devise strategies for our clients which engage with targets/customers in ways traditional media can’t; either physically or cost effectively. So we have to be meticulous about research; never taking anything for granted. We have to stay ahead of the curve; following and predicting future trends. And we have to work with good people.

We work with a vast range of clients from blue chip companies, to small independent retailers. Large or small, our ethos and approach to our clients’ campaigns is the same; keep it fresh, keep it relevant and keep trying.

How to apply

Please download the application form here REM – Job application form and email to jobs@rem-uk.com along with a copy of your CV.

As smartphone choices become more attractive and the cost of access falls, mobile web usage will continue to rise. The iPhone alone has now reached 57 million units worldwide, the fastest uptake in the history of technology!

So in order to stay connected in the future you are going to have to start thinking mobile. Mobile browsers will make your website look and feel more like an application and speaking of applications… what can you offer?

Don’t panic, there’s still time.

Web-based mobile still only reaches a relatively small group of people. However, as with other media as its popularity continues to grow, so does its importance in your marketing mix.

But remember hard sell-messaging, even mobile, won’t work.

If you want to be successful, start building relationships now, engage and interact with customers on a far more personal level, so when you’re ready to go mobile, they’re happy to let you in.