We started by creating our own wonderful page.  And yes, it’s fun and interactive.  Move the slider to the right and watch our moon come down. Go ahead and like us!  After all, we’ve got a fun Facebook page!

But this is missing the point.

When was the last time you actively clicked ‘Like’ on a Facebook page?  For me, it was a long time ago.  Yet a whole industry has sprung up around the creation of funky corporate website pages begging you to like them. eg Redbull.  Why?  Once you’ve pressed ‘Like’ you will never see that page again, unless you actively seek it out.  It’s usually on the top, left-hand menu called Welcome or Home. Instead, anyone who selects ‘Like’ on a web page, should they ever return to that company’s Facebook page, will be taken directly to that company’s wall.  Significantly, anyone selecting ‘Like’ on a company’s Facebook page will have given the company the right and power to write to your wall. Hence the stampede to get you to ‘Like’.

It seems to us at BusyView however, (and this is the reason I probably haven’t selected ‘Like’ for a long time), there is little incentive for anyone to ‘Like’ many Facebook pages out there. There’s usually a lack of any marketing proposition. Many corporate Facebook pages (and ours is currently no different!), don’t provide you with any reason or incentive to click ‘Like’ – unless you’re Virgin Active and you hide your whole Facebook page and associated content until you’ve been “Liked”.  As a marketer I’m tempted by this approach.  But isn’t this a bit irritating for a prospective customer who has yet to decide to buy into your brand?  I guess you have to decide who your Facebook page is for first.

We’re about to start work on two Facebook pages for clients.  We’ll be deciding who the pages are for, and setting up compelling marketing propositions. We know why clients want a Facebook page. It gives them the right to write to many user’s walls. But we’ll be starting from the user’s perspective. What’s in it for them in the long term? ‘Like’ our page and you can buy our product a month before it comes on the open market. ‘Like’ our page and we’ll enter you into our monthly draw. ‘Like’ our page and we’ll give you 20% off every month. Every month someone who has clicked ‘Like’ on our page will be helicoptered into our HQ for lunch.

Interested?

Having launched Arron Storey’s site earlier this month, BusyView has just unveiled Brace Yourself!, a new website for a popular West London Covers band.  From The Killers to Kylie, and the Kings of Leon to The Kaiser Chiefs, we think Brace Yourself! has everything…

Our first work of the new year just gone live: http://www.arronstorey.com.

Arron is a professional musician.  He not only plays and teaches music, but writes and composes too.  We’re fans.  Let us know what you think.

Simon

In conjunction with Regasys, we have developed the following virtual tour for Ealing Squash and Fitness.  (Click on the banner on the home page).

With faster broadband speeds and the development of more sophisticated software, we are now able to represent our clients more effectively through visual technologies.

So, here’s another piece of terminology I’m going to try and use (with a straight face of course.)  I won’t pretend it’s mine.  A corporate conglomerate might get a bit upset.  But from now on, if your web content isn’t “liquid and linked” then you are doing something wrong.  Cool huh?

Liquid and linked!?  Apparently the on-line world isn’t short of content.  In fact, there’s too much of it.  So, any new content you produce must be liquid.  This means it has to be of such power and sufficient interest, that it becomes porous ie of sufficient value that it’s passed on and shared exponentially.

Linked?  Well there is no point producing liquid content if it isn’t linked.  ie linked to your brand, your core values and your marketing strategies.

Liquid and linked.  You heard it here first!  Err, unless you work for an extremely high profile soft drinks manufacturer….

Simon

This is a question we often get asked.  And we occasionally come across companies who physically count down to as many as twenty pages of Google themselves (before employing us, of course!)

We use many tools to track client progress, but if it’s just “Where is my page in Google?” one of the better tools around is Free Monitor for Google from Cleverstat.

Unfortunately, however, we never expect much from these utilities.  You see, what you see on Google isn’t what I see on Google.  Not only are results tailored towards your location, they are also influenced by your search history.  So there is a limit to what can be delivered by any software promising to tell you where you sit in Google.

Search has become personal, and is getting more so.

Yes, we read this, so you don’t have to!

It’s about time Google chucked out all those domain holding pages containing nothing but ads.

Mmmm… Olympics website down.  Not great.

We love PPC.  It’s a ‘no-brainer’.  Work out what each new customer is worth to your organisation and work with us run an AdWords campaign which wins new customers for less than that amount.  Simple.