Ewom Marketing

Identifying and acting on trends is important in every business. It helps to identify new opportunities and provide insight into a more effective marketing strategy. Trends provide you with the opportunity to steal a lead over your competitors, especially if you learn to quickly identify the early signs of a new trend.

One of the biggest trends in the past few years, which many companies capitalised upon, was social networking. Now social networking is one of the biggest things on the Internet. Video sharing sites like YouTube and social community sites like Facebook, and MySpace have become the most viewed and used sites. Due to their popularity, they can also be a good starting point to help identify trends. Remember to keep an eye on your competitors. Ensure you find out what they are doing, what offers they are currently running, and whether they have any new product launches.

Furthermore look at the communities where they are most active. Being first to a new trend is an advantage but, failing that, coming in late allows you the opportunity to better your competitor's efforts. Look for areas where you believe you can improve it. Finding out where your competitors are advertising or networking will lead you to the sites or opportunities that present relevant information. The more sources of potential trends you can find, the more accurate your data. You should be an active and eager member of the communities within your industry so use this information in tandem with the information you manage to dig up.

Identifying new opportunities can be a difficult task (and long), but by getting involved in markets and networking in relevant circles you will begin to identify the most relevant topics for your niche. This can help to increase market share and strengthen your brand by being the first to provide a new and wanted product or service. But remember as I mentioned before, if you do find yourself behind your competitors, you then have the chance to improve on their efforts.

Facebook has been in the news almost every week for the past month! A couple of weeks ago it was because of Mircrosoft and Facebook agreeing on an advertising deal! Then only yestaday Facebook was accused of promoting volience, because one of applications allows users to virtually stab each other!

However the major story that really caught my eye is that according to early reports Facebook will undergo a revamp in the next 2 months. The new look Facebook will feature a simpler design. But Facebook are tasking careful precautions not to make any sudden changes. Facebook will be inviting users to preview and use the new design and try out the improved features by navigating back and forth between the new and current versions of the social networking site. Access to the new design will be limited at first, but over time will become available to all users. The new Facebook design will be made available to users under the following URL: http://www.new.facebook.com/.

Brand republic report that among several new features will be included in the revamp. This includes a "publisher" feature which enables users to create content in a centralised area allowing users to add photos, upload video, or write notes, rather than navigating to each individual application. Also facebook are keen to tidy up unwanted applications/widgets by allowing users will have the option to interact with an application before adding it. Therefore allowing users to decide if they actually want the application on their profile and if they do, where. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg stated that the new design will make it a lot easier for users to share information.

Why change a winning formula? Facebook should concentrate in making Facebook more international friendly, It may be the most popular social network group in the UK and U.S. elsewhere in the world Facebook doesn’t dominate the social network universe.

Facebook Pages:
This capability is for companies trying to create a brand image inside Facebook. Obtaining a Page is free and it is great for businesses such as: bars, pubs, music artists, and sports teams. It allows businesses to connect with customers on Facebook similar to the way users connect with their friends. Through a Facebook Page, users can show their support by becoming a fan, writing on your Wall, and other actions that automatically generate News Feed stories. Once joined advertisers can send updates to fans such as special news or offers. You can also link the page to your Facebook social ads.

When your fans interact with your Facebook Page, the actions they take are automatically generated into social stories. These stories are published to News Feed, which friends may see the next time they log into Facebook. The stories link back to your Facebook Page, inviting more people to interact with it, which generates more social stories and drives even more traffic to your Page. Viral marketing at its best!

Facebook social ads:
Facebook Social Ads allow your business to become part of people's daily conversations. Ads can be displayed in the left hand Ad Space, visible to users as they browse Facebook to connect with their friends, as well as in the context of news feed attached to relevant social stories. The social stories, such as a friend's becoming a fan of your Facebook page or a friend's taking an action on your website, make your ad more interesting and more relevant. Social Ads are placed in highly visible parts of the site without interrupting the user experience on Facebook.

Facebook Beacon:
This function allows customers to share with their friends the actions they take on your website. For user actions you define, Facebook Beacon will publish a story in the user's profile and to friends' news feeds with a link back to your site. Facebook Beacon actions include purchasing a product, signing up for a service, adding an item to a wish list, and more. When a user performs the action, they will be alerted that your website is sending a story to their profile. Facebook Beacon enables your brand or business to gain access to viral distribution within Facebook. Stories of a user's engagement with your site maybe displayed in his or her profile and in news feed. These stories will act as a word of mouth promotion for your business and may be seen by friends who are also likely to be interested in your product.

Facebook Platform:
Facebook Platform provides you with the tools to quickly create custom experiences for users to interact with your business and their friends while maintaining the look and feel of the Facebook interface. you can create an authentic social experience for your users by integrating your current web site or web application directly with the Facebook Platform or sponsoring an existing application. You can also integrate mobile and desktop applications with the Facebook API. Facebook Pages enable you to easily create a custom business presence on Facebook, and you can further customize the experience with a Facebook Application. You can create an application to engage even more with your users or leverage one of the thousands of compelling existing applications. Facebook Platform makes it easy to authentically connect with your customers.

Facebook Polls:
Tens of millions of people express themselves authentically on Facebook, you can accurately target your Polls by gender, age, location, interests, and other demographic data. Your poll will only be shown to the people who meet the criteria you set.

With the easy to use creation interface, you can create and deploy a single question poll within minutes. The polls will immediately start showing up in your target audience's news feeds where they can respond as soon as they log in to Facebook. Based on the level of activity at that time, your question could be answered by hundreds of people in as little as 30 minutes. The detailed results are broken down by age group and gender.

Facebook Insights:
Of course with all these types of advertising advertisers need a way of measuring the success. Therefore Facebook’s offers an Insights package that allows social ad users and pages users to see metric data, including different activities such as how many people viewed videos and photos, the fan demographics, ad performance, trends and more.