Why is the Yes Campaign Winning on Social Media?

This week on the Webwindows blog, we ask why the Yes campaign is winning the fight for Scottish independence on social media, and what you can learn from it.

Social Media is King

If Webwindows has learned anything crafting extensive web marketing campaigns over the past ten years, it’s that social media is king.  By using social media to your advantage, you are not only gaining access to hundreds of millions of potential customers, but you can take advantage of these sites’ ability to amass specific information, to target said customers with pin point precision.

This is a lesson that both sides of the debate over Scottish independence – the Yes and the Better Together campaigns – have taken to heart, in their bids to sway the people of Scotland to vote for them. But who’s been more effective?

Who’s got the Most Followers on Twitter and Facebook?

Let’s start by looking at raw numbers. According to ITV, the Yes campaign got on Twitter first. By doing so, @YesScotland has managed to amass nearly 80,000 followers since April 2012. Meanwhile, @UK_Together got on Twitter a month later, and as of the time of writing, it has only managed to accrue just over 36,000 followers.

Furthermore, the Yes campaign was first on Facebook as well, and has gathered more than 266,000 likes, whilst its equivalent on the other side has only managed to rack up 188,000 likes at the time of writing. So in the raw numbers stakes, Yes has won, but what does it mean for that bastion of social media success, share-ability.

What Can Shareability Tell Us About the Success of the Yes and Better Together Campaigns?

As it turns out, it may have had a huge impact on shareability. ITV have gone on to show that using the neutral hashtag, #indyref, evidence shows that the two most re-tweeted images had a significant pro-independence bias.

Meanwhile, the third most retweeted image was a graph. Specifically, it was a graph from YouGov showing the first time Yes beat Better Together in the polls, again something that is more likely to have been retweeted by supporters of independence. This brings up a valid point. Yes has gone up, whilst no has gone down, further illustrating the comparative effectiveness of the Yes campaign on social media.

Get on Social Media as Soon As Possible

So what does this tell you? Well, in Webwindows’ opinion, it shows the effectiveness of a well thought out, consistent social media campaign. The earlier you start, the more followers you amass, the more interest you generate in your ad campaign. That is why Yes is edging out Better Together at the time of writing in the polls. 

Facebook Users More Likely to Self-Censor Post Snowden

With new evidence suggesting that Facebook users are more likely to self-censor post Snowden, Webwindows has seen more clearly than ever the need to tread carefully online.

Facebook’s Strength is it Achilles Heal

Through crafting effective web marketing strategies for companies across the UK for over ten years, Webwindows has seen the damage sites like Facebook can inflict on online marketing campaigns.

Their main strength is their Achilles heel. Sites like Facebook – which has over half a billion users – provide you with access to huge swathes of your target audience. Yet one ill thought out post can damage your reputation with that audience, and sink your entire ad campaign.

America is Self-Censoring itself on Facebook

It seems that individual Facebook users are coming to recognise the double-edged nature of the social media site as well. Specifically, the Guardian reported last week that in light of the Snowden affair, users in America are self-censoring discussions about state surveillance on Facebook.

Specifically, a new poll from Pew Research Centre, found that 86% of adults in the US were either ‘very’ or ‘somewhat’ willing to discuss the issue offline, yet only 43% were willing to do so on Facebook. Meanwhile only 41% of respondents were willing to do the same on Twitter, which many see as a more public forum than Facebook.

How likely is the Typical Facebook or Twitter User to Discuss Snowden?

The report shed further light on the issue, saying that: “The typical Facebook user – someone who logs onto the site a few times per day – is half as likely to be willing to have a discussion about the Snowden-NSA issues at a physical public meeting as a non-Facebook user.

Similarly, the typical Twitter user – someone who uses the site a few times per day – is 0.24 times less likely to be willing to share their opinions in the workplace as an internet user who does not use Twitter.”

You Need to Self-Censor on Sites like Facebook and Twitter

This may not directly apply to online marketing – who’s ever going to think that discussing Edward Snowden would help their ad campaign - but it does remind Webwindows of the need to self-censor online. You never know who is going to see a Facebook post, which is why you need to self-censor, so that one ill thought out post doesn’t offend the wrong person, go viral and sink your entire ad campaign.

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Don’t Let People Ask you Anything on Twitter!

If you want to craft an effective social media advertising strategy, WebWindows suggests you learn from Robin Thicke’s mistake and don’t give people license to ask you anything!

Welcome to WebWindows

Over the past ten years, WebWindows has evolved to become one of the leading web marketing firms in the industry, offering our unique range of key services to businesses of every size, to ensure that they walk away from us with the effective web marketing strategy they need to take their business to the next level.

Of course, we’ve stood on the front lines and witnessed the rise of social media. In the modern wold, where hundreds of millions, even billions, are on Facebook and Twitter, and where the nature of these sites allow you to target your audience with pin point precession, marketing has never been easier. But only if you do it right.

He Really Blurred the Lines

You may wonder why we’re turning our attention to Robin Thicke. The man’s an American pop star, and until recently he wasn’t exactly a very famous one. What could we all possibly learn from him?

Well quite a lot. Thicke reached worldwide fame last year when he released his song ‘Blurred Lines.’ Dealing with controversial issues (i.e. date rape), it was condemned by practically everybody, with Thicke becoming, according to various news sources, the ‘poster boy of misogyny.’ But what does it have to do with your online marketing campaign?

‘#AskThicke’…. Why He’s a Monumental Misogynist!

Last week Thicke went ahead with his latest online promotional campaign. The problem, was that the campaign was billed as a chance to ask Thicke anything on Twitter with the hashtag ‘#AskThicke.’

Obviously, people who see him as the ‘poster boy of misogyny’ ripped him apart. According to The Independent, particularly negative tweets included “if one of your songs played in a forest and no one was around to hear it would it still be sexist and gross?,” and "when you're not busy objectifying women, making light of rape and justifying sexual violence, how do you like to relax?” They’re only the tip of the iceberg.

Ask Anything Q&A’s Are Horrible Ideas!

This isn’t the first time WebWindows has seen an ‘ask anything’ twitter Q&A session go horrifically wrong. We don’t know why people are still doing it, but if you are, don’t! You will leave yourself open to trolls, just accept that and move on!

Take a Cue from the Blair Witch Project and Get Creative!

WebWindows suggests that when you’re putting together your web marketing campaign you take your cue from the Blair Witch Project and get creative!

WebWindows: Home of Effective Creative Web Marketing

WebWindows is the home of effective, creative web marketing. Over the past decade we have helped craft first rate web marketing strategies for businesses of all sizes with our unique range of key services.

If we’ve learned anything in those ten years it’s that if you want your web marketing strategy to be effective, it needs to capture people’s attention. Boring ads often go unnoticed, as such, proving ineffective, which is why you need to get creative!

 We All Remember the Blair Witch Project

If you want an example of how to do creative marketing right, look at the Blair Witch Project; often regarded by industry experts as the first ever ‘viral’ online marketing campaign.

Of course, they had far less to work with than you do. A film shot in the days before YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, and with a scant budget of $22,000, it ended up reaping a colossal $250 million in revenue, thanks in no small part to a killer online marketing campaign.

They Created the Legend of the Blair Witch

Essentially, the Blair Witch Project’s advertising team got unbelievably creative. Through an incredible combination of “found footage,” cleverly planted rumours on online message boards (it was the late 90’s), and the initiation of a low budget ad campaign, they created a legend. That legend made people curious and brought them to the box office.

It was absolute genius. They managed to craft one of the most memorable online marketing campaigns in history, and they did it by thinking of their product, thinking about its unique selling point and using that through the power of the internet to build unprecedented hype.

WebWindows Suggests You Think outside the Box

That’s why you should take your cue from the Blair Witch Project when crafting your web marketing campaign. They taught the world that it doesn’t matter what you have to work with, as long as you think outside the box!

Webwindows Explains Why Contextual Advertising Offers Great Targeting.

This week Webwindows turns its attention to contextual advertising, and explains to you why it offers prime targeting for your ad campaign.

Webwindows: Leaders in Web Marketing

Webwindows is an industry expert when it comes to web marketing. For the past ten years, we have been offering top notch web marketing expertise to businesses of all sizes, and the diversity of the Webwindows team, means that no other agency offers the range of services you get with us.

That success has been built on the experience of said team. Through trial and error, we have figured out the best ways to ensure that your ad campaign has the desired effect. That is why we know that contextual ads work.

Contextual Advertising Gives People Easy Access to What They Need

Basically contextual ads (i.e. banner ads) work on the principle of showcasing advertisements to readers, which work in tandem with the content they are already reading. For example. If a reader is perusing a travel guide to France on a website that utilises contextual advertising, the content could be accompanied by ads about flight deals to France.

Logically, this would lead the viewer to click on the banner for more information and this is why they work – because contextual advertising analyses the content a reader is looking at, and presents them with ads that are highly relevant to said content. Give people easy access to what they need, and they’ll click out of sheer convenience.

How Can You Contextualise a Web Advert?

So the benefits are obvious, but how should you go about contextual advertising? In our experience, we’ve found that there are three options generally available:

1. Keyword Contextual Advertising: This method allows the advertiser to craft their own contextual category, by allowing them to select key words which define the pages they want their contextual ads to appear.
   
2. Category Contextual Advertising: With this method advertisers can target ads on webpages that divide into one or more of the 300+ categories, as defined by the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB).
   
3. Keyword/category contextual combination: Essentially, a hybrid of the first two. Note, it only works on pages which contain the selected keywords, and have been classified as one of the selected categories.

It’s Obvious Why Contextual Advertising Offers Great Targeting

Therefore it’s clear to see why contextual advertising offers great targeting. You are showing the consumer what they want to see, and giving them easy access to it, with a combination of specific keywords and categories. Giving the consumer what they want is the most effective advertising method there is, because it’s very hard to say no when what you want is presented to you on a silver platter!

Webwindows Begs You Not to Do What British Gas Did on Twitter

If you want to use Twitter to promote your ad campaign, great, but you need to use common sense. That’s why this week Webwindows begs you not to do what British Gas did on Twitter.

Twitter: A Double Edged Sword

We specialise in advising you about the wonderful world or web marketing here at Webwindows. In our ten years in the game, we couldn’t fail to notice just how powerful Twitter has grown as an advertising platform. With half a billion users, one carefully crafted Tweet can bring your ad campaign to hundreds of millions.

Twitter’s strength is also its weakness. If you happen to miscalculate your Twitter promotion it has the ability to anger those same millions, turn them against you, prompt them to create a campaign to hijack your ad campaign and render it practically impotent.

What not to do on Twitter: The British Gas Edition

If you don’t believe us, remember what happened to British Gas when they made this fatal mistake. By the time the trolls had finished with them, their ad campaign had been disgraced; it had made the headlines in practically every online British publication and ruined their page one on Google. It drove away customers in droves.

So what did they do? Well, as most energy companies have been lately, they decided to raise their prices. Naturally, annoyed customers who were looking for any chance to vent their frustrations.

Then they initiated a Q&A session on Twitter with the hashtag #AskBG. It was like lighting a match next to a powdered keg, as the company’s many frustrated customers gleefully took the opportunity to high-jack the hashtag to ask just why their energy company raised prices so high. Then British Gas made it worse by promoting the campaign on Facebook; the only social networking site with more users than Twitter.

Webwindows Asks: What Should You Take Away from This “Terrible PR Stunt?”

Here’s where Webwindows makes its case. Don’t be like British Gas. They’re a big company, they can handle bad press. Most companies can’t. A campaign like this that angers so many customers has the potential to ruin a smaller firm. If you take anything away from this terrible PR stunt, let it be that you need to know your audience inside out. 

Webwindows are also on twitter - Webwindows twitter.