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.

Be sure to 'like' Webwindows on Facebook

Five Tips for Writing Content for Your Blog

This week Webwindows wants to delve further into the world of content marketing, by letting you know about five tips for writing content for your blog.

You Need to Invest in Content Marketing

Through our role as a web marketing firm that has been putting together innovative web marketing strategies for companies of all sizes, Webwindows has come to understand the power of content. Because Google wants to ensure that readers receive relevant information on page one when they search for something, it’s more important than ever that you invest in content marketing to develop an effective online marketing strategy.

One of the most effective ways to generate relevant content, which will aid your wider advertising strategy in taking advantage of Google, is to create a blog. With a blog, you can produce optimised, relevant content, which you can then use to promote your advertising campaign to a loyal readership.

Webwindows Top Five Tips for Blog Content Creation

Yet writing blog content without professional training is nowhere as easy as American cable television would have you believe, especially if you want to get your content ranking on Google. That is why you should always use the following five tips from Webwindows when creating content for your blog…

1)      Write About What You Know: It’s simple really, the best way to generate relevant content that will help your online marketing strategy is to write about things that are actually relevant to your company. For example, if you own and want to promote a gardening company, write about gardening!

2)      Use Your Search Term as Your Guide: Let’s use the gardening analogy again. Say you’re wanting to promote your new landscaping service, generate content by using ‘landscape’ as your guide. Put it into the Google news tab, see if it’s trending on twitter or being talked about on Facebook to discover what people are reading. Then, the content should practically write itself.

3)      Break up the Text: Did you know that the average user spends about 2 seconds on a web page before moving on. You have to catch their attention and break up text, so they can look for what they want. Do what we’ve done for this article and use sub-headings, lists etc. With numbered lists as well, for example, you can then use it as a benchmark to help you generate content.

4)      Repurpose Old Content: If you’re stuck for something to write about, look at what you’ve done before and put a new spin on it. For example, last week we asked what is content marketing, and this week we’re use that as a base to create an article about the best ways to generate content. There’s really no such thing as a new idea anymore, didn’t you know?

5)      Get the Tone of Voice Right: All of this is useless, if you aren’t speaking to your readers on a level that will appeal to them. That is why you need to decide what tone of voice best represents your company, and use this to determine the type of language you use, the style of sentences you write with etc.

What Would Your Customers Like to Read?

Writing content for your blog can be difficult, but not impossible. Webwindows would ultimately advise that you think about what your customers are most likely to read, use that as a benchmark and go from there. 

When It Goes Wrong On Twitter, It Goes REALLY Wrong

If you learned anything from Brazil’s epic thrashing in the world cup last week, Webwindows suggests it be, when it goes wrong on Twitter, it goes really wrong.

Webwindows Watched in Shock as Germany Annihilated the Home Team

Webwindows is a web marketing firm which offers a range of key services that make sure you walk away with the right marketing strategy for your business. Part of that job description means we follow current events with a dedication you could only call single-minded

Just like the rest of the world, we watched with a sense of disbelief, when Germany thrashed Brazil 7-1 in the world cup semi-final last week. It was quite simply a car crash of epic proportions, and of course, it all blew up on Twitter.

The Match Racked Up a Record 35.6 Million Tweets

Let this be a lesson in how Twitter reacts when you fail at what you do. According to the Guardian, following Brazil’s fierce beating by the German team, Tweeters took to the social media site in their millions to weigh in on the most shocking result ever witnessed in the world of football. The match was the most discussed sporting event ever on Twitter- it racked up a phenomenal 35.6 million Tweets.

Twitter wasn’t the only social media site users chose to air their disbelief, though, as it triggered the highest level of conversation EVER seen on Facebook for any World Cup game (as of the time of writing). Specifically, more than 66 million users had 200 million interactions about the biggest humiliation in Brazil’s football history; Brazil dominated over a quarter of that global conversation on the site.

More Popular Than Miley Cyrus, Beyoncé and Barack Obama

It gets even worse for Brazil though, as data from Twitter went on to reveal that because of the rate that Germany was scoring goals - five goals in an astonishing 18 minutes – the match racked up a record number of tweets per minute. The peak came when Sami Khedira racked up Germany’s fifth (we still can’t believe it) goal – which saw 580,166 tweets posted per minute.

This means that Khedira’s goal was more popular than Miley Cyrus’ infamous MTV VMA’s performance last year- which crested 360,000 tweets per minute, Beyoncé’s 2013 Super Bowl halftime show (268,000) and US President Barack Obama’s Democratic National Convention acceptance speech, which topped at 52, 756 tweets per minute.

Twitter Can Make or Break You!

If you learn anything from this, it should be that when it comes to online marketing, Twitter can make or break you. If you epically screw up, you can be sure that within a few seconds, the whole world will know about it and, all of a sudden, all that effort you’ve put into your web marketing strategy means nothing at all. 

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 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.