As we have seen earlier, the major innovation brought by Web 2.0 is that consumers now play a major role in mediating and even shaping the organisation’s communication. A business needs to turn this to its advantage by creating and sustaining a community of fans who can positively relay its brand image.

First listen

It starts first of all by knowing who your fans are, listening attentively to them to understand their concerns, expectations, and desires. A few years ago, companies like Dell and Kodak created a new marketing role: the chief listener.

Though few companies have adopted the job title, many have integrated the notion that having real and direct data about and from their customers is a key to successful online marketing. This includes monitoring customer feedback on all platforms and social networks.

Then, respond

Once you have the feedback, you must do your best to respond. This does not mean that you need to promise things that you will not be able to deliver. Instead, you need to show how hard you are trying. It may include giving a sneak peek at your business from the inside for instance.

In times of crisis, it also includes being able to respond as quickly as possible in as honest a manner as possible in your own words and voice. This means that you establish a direct line of communication with your customers rather than rely on mass media or a PR agency. You reduce the risk of delay as well as misunderstanding and distortion of your message.

Don’t forget to do the following:

• help people by providing useful unsolicited advice
• respond directly to questions
• thank those who express appreciation
• respond calmly and positively to criticism

Identify your best fans

You can motivate fans by congratulating and making regular offers to those who participate actively in your community. Ideally, after some time, fans will become proactive and will act as leaders and ambassadors of the brand by themselves. Successful brands are those who are able to create such a community of fans and sustain it over time.

Good moderation = good ambiance

The role of the community manager is still key as he/she is the one who ensures consistency and sets the tone and ambiance within that community (e.g. cool/relax, humouristic, technical, philosophical, etc.). The social media presence should be constantly monitored and moderation is crucial. A good moderator will not necessarily censor users’ comments (except for obvious breach of the country’s laws). Instead, he/she should be able to take heated comments calmly and provide rational and clear answers.

Work to do

Review your company’s social media presence with particular attention to your Facebook page. How could you improve your online communication and create positive communities of fans?

Copywriting is the art of writing for a purpose. As such, you first need to know who is your target (audience profiles) and what outcome you hope to achieve with them (inform, influence, persuade, sell). During a previous session, you outlined a list of personae which you need to target for your product.

This will allow you to determine what type of content you need to produce for them as well as the format, language and level of technical detail which will be most appropriate for each target. You should also think about the keywords which need to appear in your copy to attract their attention.

Focus on benefits, not features

Focus on the benefits rather than on the features of your product. What will your audience gain from using it? Will it make their life easier or better? Will they save time or money so that they can do other things? Will they become better persons? How can your product fulfill your customers’ needs? Of course, you need to be careful not to overpromise!

Once you have determined the type of content, pay attention to the structure of your copy. The techniques which we usually learn about in school or at university for writing academic papers do not apply. For instance, for academic writing, we are taught that we need to structure our copy in the following way:

• Introduction to general context
• Idea or argument #1
• Idea or argument #2
• Idea or argument #3
• …
• Conclusion

But, this can be very boring and off-putting. And in business, you cannot afford this. You want to write for impact and thus need to grab the attention of your readers right from the start. Especially in this age of abundance of information and scarcity of time. People do not want to waste time going through your copy to find the key points.

Using the inverted pyramid

You need to adopt the method of the inverted pyramid for structuring your copy. This is used extensively in journalism. It consists of putting the most important information at the top and providing multiple visual entry points to facilitate skim reading. You should use headings and sub-headings, a lead paragraph and illustrations.

The length of sentences should vary with a preference for shorter ones. Headings and body copy must be concise and clearly expressed in plain and objective language. In his essay Politics and the English Language, George Orwell advised that we use shorter words, cut out unnecessary ones and use the active voice when writing.

The power of images

Visual elements are powerful tools to grab attention, illustrate your message and even replace words. These can be in the form of pictures (drawings and photos), charts or videos. You can use stock images if you do not have your own photos but you should ensure that the content is relevant to your target audience (for example in terms of people and environments featured) and does not infringe copyright.

It is very important to pay attention to the layout and use of space. Many people tend to want to use as many colours as possible but this can be very tiring for the eyes. There should be harmony in the use of palettes as well as in the use of typography.

The urge is also to cram in as much information as possible. As a result, visitors do not know where to look and become confused. White space helps as it provides visual breathing room for the eye by providing breaks from text or graphics. It also helps make important information really stand out. An example of a page which uses white space can be seen on the Mauritius Vibrations website, a mobile app to stop you feeling bored in Mauritius.

Finally, if you want to create leads for your sales, you need to include a call to action (CTA) to provoke an immediate reaction. Use active verbs such as sign up, subscribe, call, buy, donate, etc. Sometimes you have to offer a little extra (discount, entry in a competition, a free gift) in order to create a sense of urgency.

Work to do

Write a post which targets one persona profiled for your product. Ensure it provides valuable content from the point of view of this audience. Illustrate the post with an appropriate image.

There are two different types of social networks: networks of friends and networks of interest.

Facebook is typically a network of friends where people generally create a profile and invite people they know personally to become their friend. Consequently, Facebook is a very good means to keep in touch with people you already know but it is quite lousy for doing business with new customers. Realising this, Facebook introduced pages which are quite similar to profiles in look but which work differently. A page is a means to build a network of interest within Facebook. A network of interest is, of course, a group of people having a certain interest in common but who are not really friends i.e. typically people interested in a product or a service.

Twitter, unlike Facebook, has been designed from the ground up to be a network of interest. Following someone on Twitter does not need to be reciprocal and, as such, one can follow anyone. For example, it is quite simple to follow very well-known CEOs on Twitter but it would be quite impossible to become their friend on Facebook.

The special case of Facebook

Despite its shortcomings, mostly privacy-related, Facebook is the #1 social network on the planet. This is true also in Mauritius where about 400,000 of us have a profile and routinely use Facebook to communicate but also to discover new products and services.

Facebook Audience Insights is a powerful tool which gives detailed information about the various demographics on Facebook. From Insights, we understand that Facebook has:

• 400K – 450K monthly active people in Mauritius
• that half of them use both desktop computers and mobile devices
• that they only moderately interact (through comments, likes and clicks on ads)
• etc.

Beyond Facebook

There are some signs that certain demographics, especially young people, are adopting other social networks (now that their parents are on Facebook!). The rise of interest-based social networks such as YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Instagram and Snapchat is visible, even in Mauritius.

Consequently, the exact social network to use in order to reach out for a certain demographics will vary. Facebook is still a very important social network, especially in Mauritius, but if an organisation wants to reach women then, maybe, Pinterest might be a good alternative. An audience of marketing executives might be easier to reach through LinkedIn.

Work to do

Choose a specific product you would like to promote, decide upon 3-4 specific demographics you would like to reach, profile these audiences as thoroughly as possible and, consequently, determine which social network is the most appropriate.

When profiling, answer the following questions for each persona:

• Brief description
• Information he/she needs
• His/her interests
• His/her skills
• His/her assumptions

The Internet was invented in 1968 and, in the very beginning, was used mainly for email. In 1991, Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web as a means to disseminate information to a large number of people. As a matter of fact, he invented HTML, the Web Browser as well as the Web Server.

For many years, the Web was mostly one-way traffic until the introduction of Web 2.0 in 2005. Since then, we have seen the emergence of blogging, forums, wikis and, most importantly, social networks. Major social networks include Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube and Google+. Recently, new social networks have gained in importance, among them Instagram, Pinterest and Snapchat.

The move towards Digital Marketing

More and more people are spending a substantial amount of their time online, mainly on social networks. As such, in order to reach out to them for promoting products and services, it is essential for organisations to have a well-defined strategy to use these new digital tools.

In the beginning, organisations resorted mainly to what they knew well: mass advertising, mass emailing and one-way communication. This is what is known as Outbound Marketing and, even though, it can work, it is now generally accepted that there are better ways to reach out to potential customers.

Inbound Marketing is about maximising engagement and establishing authoritativeness. This is done by listening and creating compelling content which addresses the needs of people and sharing these content where people really spend their time. Statistics show that Inbound Marketing is much more effective than Outbound Marketing techniques.

Inbound Marketing is an interactive two-way conversation. Examples are regular posts on a website, podcasts, videos, white papers, case studies, etc. all shared through social media. The best way to convince a customer is to help him/her first.

Work to do

Check the following online resources and comment on them:

• Internet World Stats for Mauritius
• ICT Statistics Year 2013
• How Much Is A User Worth?