Estate Agents: Property Marketing and Pricing

We've been analysing the local property market to feed back to a local, independent estate agent. 

Starting with Rightmove, we noticed that their website favours areas with more properties (understandably but unfair); it highlights 'popular' towns and postcodes. Properties and estate agents in 'other areas' are listed in 'other areas', which is where village and rural properties will be found. For example, Welwyn village, Oaklands, Tewin Wood, Digswell, etc. are some of the most desirable areas, but these are in postcode AL6, which is not in the 'popular' list - perhaps they should extend the page information to include 'desireable'. Residents and past residents in this postcode include Lewis Hamilton, Kim Wilde, Marty Wilde, Alan Brazil, Keith Burkinshaw, Frank Warren, H.G. Wells and Vincent van Gogh's sister Anna, to name but a few.

Searching on Rightmove for Flats/Apartments in Hertfordshire, there are 25 properties at £500,000 (at the time of writing).

We have selected some 'exclusive' properties for a comparison, as shown below:

Four of these properties are in the same price range. Some offer more than others in terms of internal space and layout and their annual charges vary accordingly; some may be shared freehold or leasehold. External facilites, such as the size of shared grounds, amenities (e.g. tennis courts), landscaping and ponds maintenance, parking, etc. also vary; annual fees may include insurance, gas, water, sewage, cleaning, building repairs and maintenance, etc..

The fifth property will appeal to someone who can afford over well over £1m for an opulent set of rooms with an unusual layout. If it's right for someone, there is very little competition.

The key to successfully Marketing a Property is to cast as wide a net as possible. Opportunities for listing them on the four major property search engines plus social media (YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and more) are supplemented by paid advertising in local newspapers and, of course, a good agent keep in contact with people who have contacted them regarding buying a property. The problem that many agents have with social media is that they pay little attention to it, claiming that very few enquiries arise from that area, which is a chicken-and-egg scenario.

Pricing for a unique property also poses difficulties as there are no 'markers' other than historical sales. It's almost a moot point because, as with everything, it's value is determined by potential buyers making offers. The government of the day has some influence, too. 

If you're looking for a different kind of home, check out some of those shown above. Feel free to comment with your opinions on the ones you'd like to live in. 

Manage your Website or use a Professional?

To run a small enterprise, your first task is to learn to juggle. Also, flexibility helps. Flexible thinking because you don't have to be an acrobat, but you do need to keep an open mind.

These days, it's so easy to generate a small website yourself but many forget to visit their own site each month to check that it's still suitable. News posts are often forgotten after the first couple which causes two major issues:

1. Visitors may think "This website is neglected - is the company/charity still a going concern?" Or they may just assume so and pass it by. Not only visitors but search engines, which takes us to...

2. Search engines regularly look for updates and if there continues to be none, they move on, possibly demoting the importance of the website.*

The monthly check should take only a few minutes...
Do not put it off. A monthly news post will take a little longer but is essential to keep the site fresh, particularly as it then provides a landing page for linking to, particularly from your social media posts. You do post regularly to social media, don't you?

We created a website for a client who holds regular events, at least monthly. The person responsible for uploading these often runs out of time, therefore none of the events had been posted for this year. As they realised that this lack of information was detrimental to numbers attending, we were approached to do the updates, which are now completed for the foreseeable future.

Another client, a start-up enterprise, has been slow to add content to their new website and has added only an occasional post to their social media. When advised to post more regularly, there was reticence, as they did not want to bother their Facebook followers unless there was something significant to say. This shows that the person responsible is not a big user of Facebook. Those followers will be sent hundreds of posts every day, mostly not even from anyone they follow, so the chances of seeing one post every few weeks are negligible.

Note that we are all for website owners updating their own content and social media. We are not so impressed by those who neglect it or who won't admit that they need help.

*assuming the website has quality content, of course

Try being different...

Marketing professionals and employment agencies are very good recyclers - of words. No matter who the client is, the professionals use the same words to sell the product or service. It becomes a bit samey.

Employment Agencies.

For example, we receive 'junk' mail that advertises job vacancies. Yesterday, 9 of the 11 received were looking for candidates who were 'passionate' about the roles to be filled. As an employer, we are not looking for passion in that way because it seems, frankly, quite weird. We prefer to employ someone who gets on with their designated projects whilst being happy to engage in office banter, who is happy to suggest ideas and whose passions are found outside of work, whether it's music, sports or whatever. Maybe it's because we're a small company of creatives where work is an enjoyable challenge - rather than a corporation whose a 'passion' is to grow rapidly, make tons of money and sell to the highest bidder. No, that's not us. 

Marketing terms.

A few years ago, Google was instrumental in promoting certain keywords and larger-budget companies took advantage of this, incorporating the keywords into key pages on their websites. Smaller companies cannot compete in this way but they can exploit their other qualities, using genuine keywords to describe what they do. 

Do you prefer a company that says "We have a large, dedicated team with a passion to provide our clients with an excellent service by utilising leading-edge technology " or "We talk to our clients to agree the best way forward to work together"? It's the same service but one describes it without the over-used buzz-words.

You may counter that, without the buzz-words, you're losing out on search results - but how many people use these terms to search? It's better to focus on real search terms - ask your clients what words they would enter into a search bar and make sure these are covered in the first couple of paragraphs of your key pages. 

AI: using this to write your unique message is never going to work because there is nothing unique about the AI process - it recycles words and phrases that it finds on the world wide web. By all means, try it to get you started but never publish AI text direct to your website - it's very easily obvious.

Recycling may be a great concept for many things but when it comes to describing your products or services, originality and uniqueness is refreshing.

Simple Strategies for Promoting Your Website

Link Building is still key

There are good and bad links so - beware. First, the links have to relevant to your website from relatable, legitimate high traffic sites and, in particular, from the individual pages that have traffic from real people, rather than machines. 

Be aware that some websites that Google’s recent 'Helpful Content Update' (HCU) affected appear to have rebounded after cleaning up their link profile, you likely want to be particularly careful about the quality of links pointed to your site, and the linking text.

Of course, all of the usual caveats in terms of ensuring that links are from reputable sites that have links pointed to them apply as well.

Industry or Local Contacts

If you have a good relationship with other website owners in a similar industry, suggest to them that links to each other 's website would be beneficial to you both. For example, you may own a Mexican food restaurant in your town and could recommend a Cajan restaurant in the next town (and vice versa, obviously). Ideally, these links should have similar words on the linking page and the destination page.

Perhaps the businesses in your locality bear no relationship with your offering other than a 'support local business' element. Again, enhance the quality of the link(s) by using words from the designated landing page within the paragraph containing the link. 

Social Media, News and Blog Posts

If the websites have News pages, links can be incorporated in a post on the website(s) otherwise the information can be submitted to blog sites, as appropriate to your target audience. These may include WordPress, Substack, Tumblr and, of course, Google. 

You should take advantage, if you haven't already, of free publicity in the form of Facebook, X-Twitter and LinkedIn. Instagram doesn't link to websites from its posts. Videos and image slide-shows can also be uploaded to YouTube and TikTok. There are other social media apps, the most popular are covered here.

Need support? Let us know in the comments.

Videos can help with your Marketing

Our recently watched YouTube videos average almost 6,000 views per month, globally. In the UK, there are 300ish views per month (10 views per day). 

One of our videos has been watched just shy of 60,000 times, no doubt helped by being accessible from the front page of a client's website. 

Today we published a quick-fire video, required urgently, as shown here: 

This video comprises a series of stills and messages, rather than shooting a movie with a smart-phone or from a drone. Given more time, that would be our preferred option. However, the pace of the video is critical - too slow may lose your viewers early but too fast means they can't blink or they'll miss something! I prefer faster rather than slow - you can always run it through again.  

Of course, everyone is on YouTube now - and Google is loving it! And you don't have to be a vlogger or podcaster if your primary reason is to market your 'widget' company. It's better for your products or services to be seen a little than be invisible.

If you want more information regarding the property above, visit Alexander Bond in Knebworth or go to the abc properties website.

Increasing your views on YouTube

Here is a YouTube visits chart from the past year, showing new (blue) and returning (green) visitors: 

A good many of the visits originated in India (mostly males, aged 25-40) so I checked and found that this is in line with general YouTube visits: 

 

As much as our target audience is the UK, this is a 'numbers' game therefore any hits could be considered worthwhile.

This is the breakdown by country:

1 year :July 2023 - July 2024

During the past year, there were almost 3,000 visits from the UK to our YouTube channel 

However...

10 years :July 2013 - July 2024

For the past ten years, the average of our UK visits per annum was around 5,550 and the Indian visits - excluding the past 12 months - was negligible, not even an average of 100 visits each year.

So, in fact, our UK average had been about 100% higher in prior years. Why is this? Well, the most popular video (more than 50,000 views) features a currently available product. The next three are not current (uploaded 2013-2015) and have had a combined total of 55,000 views to date. It's also fair to say that we have only uploaded 3 videos in the past 3 years so, yes, our viewing figures were bound to suffer.

So, why else might the YouTube views reduced? The answer is probably Meta. More people than ever are using Facebook, about 500 million more than YouTube. However, Over a billion hours of video are watched on YouTube every day, which is more than most other video media combined. 

If you already have a YouTube channel with existing videos, how can you increase their views? Well,  don't waste time asking Google - all their suggestions involve paying them! Here are our top ten tips for you to consider:

◻ add a watermark 

◻ enable embedding 

◻ include subtitles - videos are often watched silently at work 
◻ make the title interesting, include keywords  

◻ choose or create an interesting thumbnail
◻ create a playlist so that the video following yours is... yours    

◻ consider adding a transcript  

◻ encourage sharing, especially from other blogs and websites   

◻ email your contacts with the embedded video or link

◻ personal preference but, for a silent video, leave it so. Don't add free music!

   

These are the basics just to start you thinking. There is more help all over the internet but, remember, if your video is too long, not to the point (especially if the point is entertainment) or just plain boring, you will lose viewers' interest within seconds. Make a good start and maintain that level throughout.

Lastly, some current facts: Music videos account for more than a third of total YouTube views and, believe it or not, Peppa Pig is currently the UK's most popular video! 

Social Media Stats Update

There are approximately 8 billion people in the world (give or take a few) which makes interesting reading for the Social Media stats, below. Take the following 'facts' with a pinch of salt!

Top of the list, as always, is Facebook. Statista shows this platform as having 3,065,000,000 (probably rounded to the nearest million) meaning that 3 billion of the worlds population uses it. We are aware that many people have more than one account but it's likely that a quarter of the world's citizens are active on Facebook at least once a month.

Top Ten Social Media Platforms 2024, according to Statista.com

Other popular platforms are YouTube, Instagram and WhatsApp, each with 2bn or more active users. All of these top platforms are owned by Meta, except YouTube which is from Google. 

Accordingly, X (formerly Twitter) has 600 million monthly active users with competitors Threads at 100 million and Mastodon and Bluesky  fewer than 2 million. However, according to an NBC report, X's share is falling and was roughly 174 million earlier this year. 

Here's the link to the previous Social Media Stats post.

New Website Launched for Client

We are pleased to announce that our client, Signcraft, has signed off their new website design and it has been launched today, 20th June 2024. 

They have taken great care with the presentation of images and the descriptions of their main services, with high reliance on letting their project photographs do the talking for them. There are image galleries that will grow as new photographs are supplied.

The website is launched to coincide with a major news announcement, a strategic partnership with Clean Air by Resysten.

The Signcraft website is created by The BPc Ltd - Professional Solutions using WordPress.

2024 Social Media in the UK - Stats & Strategies

The UK has one of the highest rates of social media users world-wide, per capita. It has become popular for the millions of businesses using various platforms to connect with potential clients and to promote brand awareness.

Social Media has become increasingly important, particularly since 2020 (Covid & Lockdown), not only for social interaction but for commercial reach, both B2C and B2B. Here follows a collection of statistics regarding Social Media today, with a focus on business use in the UK.

In total, the annual growth in active social media users is almost 9% - that's 57 million of the total population of 68 million, almost 60 million of whom own mobile 'phones. Just over one million people in the UK don't use the Internet, which is a significantly low percentage (approximately 0.02%). As an aside, we'll assume that the majority of these may be very young, old or in some way unable (homelessness, comatose) to be Internet users but what of those who choose not to? Interesting, but a different topic.

Across the age groups, active female users outnumber male users except for work-related social media where male users are dominant. 

For example, LinkedIn is meant to be B2B and, therefore, is not strictly social media. Nevertheless, it is the 5th most popular platform with almost 20 million users. You'd think it would be perfect for businesses to connect and push their brands but, if you actively use LinkedIn, you will see that success rates for creating new, lucrative business sales are rare. People who post are more discerning than on, say, Facebook but LinkedIn has it's fair share of humorous posts. It's also considered a good platform for companies who are recruiting. 

Meta's Facebook, still leader of the pack with almost 50 million users in the UK, is used by businesses to  encourage followers and to sell to consumers, although some of the advertisements have received scathing reviews. Meta's Instagram is a fast-growing medium and is heading towards 40 million users. X formerly known as Twitter has 30 million active users. After LinkedIn, X-Twitter is the platform that boasts a reasonable number of active male users (more than females). 

This could have been a different story - more than 30% of users considered leaving when Elon Musk acquired it, re-naming it as X. Interestingly, the most popular Twitter account in the UK is BBC news with around 37 million followers from around the world. Other popular social media (not covered in this post) include Pinterest and Reddit. TikTok, Tumblr and others are way down in the rankings.

But what of YouTube? Its users are also more than 50% male. Worldwide, YouTube is second only to Facebook for numbers of users, with Instagram and WhatsApp (both Meta) in joint third place with two billion users each. The UK does not feature in the top ten countries, which are: India (heading for half a billion users), The USA (over a quarter-billion), Brazil and Indonesia (more than 100 million), Mexico, Japan, Pakistan, Germany, Vietnam and Philippines (more than 50 million). However, Per Capita, the UK is in third place, with 391 billion views, and in top spot, worldwide, with 5,750 views per person for the last year. 

Undoubtedly, whilst most YouTube content is leisure viewing rather than business, there is a significant commercial element - YouTube ads. In the last quarter of 2023, these generated around $8bn in revenue for Google's YouTube arm, almost $2.5bn from the UK (whether advertisers were happy with the results, we can only surmise that, if they're not, Google's revenue will eventually decrease). 

Interesting note - the longest YouTube video is over 570 hours of a slide show of many, many photographs of a user's trip to Chile!

According to Alexa, the most visited websites in the UK are Google then Amazon then Reddit. Google is also the most popular search engine in the UK, with over 90% share. 

See later post for updates

Blogging replaced by Vlogging?

A blogger noticed that views have declined rapidly. Their stats (immediately below, with permission) are for 12 months and total in excess of 6k so let's remove the Singapore views for this exercise and we are left with a total of well over 1,000 views a year.

Total blog views in 30 days (above) = 81

As an ongoing average x 12 months = 972 per year

- OR -

removing Singapore = 8 per month, let's say 100 per year 

(less than 10% of the previous year)

Based in the UK, the blogger is surprised that

THERE ARE NO UK VIEWS DURING THE PAST 30 DAYS. 

Time to check The BPc blogs and see how they compare 

Blog 1 https://thebpcuk.blogspot.com/ 

Over 1,000 views in the past 30 days, almost 13,000 views in the past 12 months - steady average. 

Here's the odd bit - just under 50% of these views came from The Isle of Man!! Really, Google?

Blog 2 https://myportfolioltd.blogspot.com/ 
Over 1,000 views in the past 30 days, almost 23,000 views in the past 12 months - declining average? 
More than 90% of these were almost equally divided between The USA and Singapore.

Other blogging hosts 

Wordpress & Tumblr have not, in the past, been as successful as blogger/blogspot. Indeed, we struggle to make any headway whatsoever with the latter. 

YouTube

The BPc's YouTube channel has had almost 3.5k views in the past 30 days and almost 18k in the past year. This indicates that views have improved and, on further analysis, we see that visits in the second half of the year increased phenomenally: 

Our conclusion is that... we don't know the reasons for any of these fluctuating stats. We'd be delighted if anyone can explain in simple terms. 

Other hosts for social media video include Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. Good luck out there! 

So this is Christmas

...and what have we done? 

We're glad you asked! We've been updating and maintaining clients' websites and managing their social media. We've also created a couple of websites, proof-read books for publication, created scripts and written a few blog posts. We are also still consulting for a couple of companies. 

We've played with AI and concluded that it's good for some basic writing but falls short of creativity and substance. We've tried generated images with AI but are not enthralled with the results, although our research continues. 

As most of our work is desk-based, you'd be hard pushed to describe it as exciting, but much of it is interesting. 

What we dislike, though, are advances in technology that make us step backwards because, while it improves on what it can offer, it falls far short on reliability. We've been around long enough to remember when users told the machines what to do, not the other way round - perhaps science-fiction is not so far-fetched, after all.

Have a great Christmas! 

IONOS / 1&1 Support

Today is the turn of IONOS (1&1) - and it isn't about the irritating woman on their ads - it's the difficulty of finding out how to get support via email or chat for a written trail, rather than a telephone call. 

There are some good reasons to use IONOS, including their introductory offers for hosting and SSL certificates. However, their support options are a major issue. We've been having problems for the past week or so, which are... 

• On October 3rd, we received notification of a client's hosting renewal, This was no longer required so we set the renewal to cancel; 
• The confirmation wasn't clear so we checked with 'chat' who confirmed that it was cancelled. We copy/pasted this conversation for possible future reference; 
• Last week, payment was taken for renewal. 

Since then, we have tried several times daily to contact 'chat' with this result EVERY SINGLE TIME 

So, to summarise, currently there is no 'chat' facility, they have also removed their 'raise a ticket' facility and all reference to all email addresses (we searched the site). Notification emails from them are all no-reply.

Next, we searched through our emails and found previous emails from support and billing so we sent our query to these addresses, with no luck. However, we did find an email address on the internet for their cloud support and actually received a reply, which was: 

Hi,

You are here on the IONOS Cloud support, and you are a IONOS Core customer.
Please contact them:

support@ionos.de
0049 (0721) 170 555

Their support is now only available from Germany?  Unbelievable. So I contacted them and here is their standard response... 

Hallo,

vielen Dank für Ihre E-Mail.

Ihre Zufriedenheit mit unseren Produkten liegt uns am Herzen! Daher ist uns Ihre Anfrage sehr wichtig.

Wir werden uns innerhalb der nächsten 48 bis 72 Stunden in einer persönlichen E-Mail um Ihre Anfrage kümmern. In Ausnahmefällen kann es auch mal länger dauern, bitte haben Sie dann etwas Geduld mit uns.

Unser Tipp für Sie: Antworten auf viele Kundenanfragen finden Sie jederzeit in unserem Hilfe-Center unter https://ionos.de/hilfe .

Für weitere Fragen stehen wir Ihnen unter der Telefonnummer 0721 170 555 rund um die Uhr - zu Ihren Festnetzkonditionen - zur Verfügung.

Basically, they usually respond within 3 days. 

What a farce! 

UPDATE. There's a Twitter account for UK support - message has now been sent to them... 

FINAL UPDATE (hopefully). It took a while but, by various means, we received a response from IONOS Support, asking for proof of cancellation confirmation, as they could not find it in their files. This was sent* and, almost instantly, we received confirmation that cancellation has been activated. 

*To vindicate our insistence of a written support trail, how would things have worked out if we had only had a verbal exchange? The difficulty with finding an email contact address far outweighed the difficulty we may have had in proving that the service was confirmed as cancelled.

UH-OH ANOTHER UPDATE Pleased to report that the refund has been applied to the account. An account that will not be used, going forward. So we now need to get back to them to request that the refund is returned to the card from which it was taken. However this is resolved, we'll post it here. 

REFUND RECEIVED

Case closed.

Thanks, IONOS.

Oh, Google, Give us a Break!

Have you tried editing the details of your Google Maps entry? It has become so complicated now! 

Also, did you know that Bing accesses the Google Maps data rather than bother with their own? So getting an accurate Google Maps Entry is important. 

One of our clients has moved their head office and they noticed that their entries on Google and Bing are out of date. They are unaware of having an account for it (and we couldn't find one) so they've asked us to set one up and manage it for them. That's the easy bit! 

Listed below are some of the hoops we're having to go through.

Having edited the details, we were presented with this message:

So we hit the Get Verified button. This used to generate a postcard with a pin code being sent to the address given. It wasn't a great idea because it wasn't addressed to a specific person and larger companies often just binned it. However, Google seems to have gone too far in another direction... Read on to see what happens now.

Well, let's see what the other options may require...

Is that it? Contact support or Verify Later? Oh, well. Let's look at the video tips.

We know that there are no other verification options so we have asked the client (whose new office is 3 hours drive from here) if they can provide a video. Meanwhile, they are listed on Google Maps at the wrong address in the wrong city. That can't be good for Google's integrity. 

If anyone finds an easier way to Get Verified and have the correct address information shown on Google and Bing, please let us know!

AI Images from Microsoft

Returning to the topic of AI I tried out MicroSoft Create to see how useful the results would be. 

First, I asked the software to generate an image of '5 men and 3 women sitting in a circle':

• It gave me 5 people (so it can't do maths);
• They were in business attire;
• They were all aged in their 30s.

Not a bad start so I refined the description to '5 men and 3 women, casual clothing, aged 40 to 60, sitting in a circle:

• 5 people in one image, 9 people in another!
• dressed casually;
• they were mostly silver-haired and very sociable.

Finally, I tried again, adding the word 'watercolour', hoping that this would blur details of the people:

• Create was still unable to count to give me the number of men and women I wanted but the image I chose was acceptable as a partial group for the purpose I had in mind.

I was still puzzled about the number of people, so I put in the number 8 - below are the descriptions and the resulting images:

Quite exasperating.

By adding the word 'watercolour' there was a slightly different result:

Each those groups of images included one group of 8 people. However, is it really AI? I'm left wondering if these images are generated on request or, quite likely, are found in an image database, meaning that the description is just a database search.

So... I did a reverse-image search and, to be fair, whilst there were many similarly structured images, I couldn't find the exact same one, therefore it seems that Create is at least partially generating AI. Free and fast, it's definitely worth a go.

I'll try another online AI image creator next time and compare results.

AI and Metaverse in Business - what does it mean?

The world of digital marketing has undergone a seismic change since the emphasis on Artificial Intelligence (AI) by technology giants, such as Google, Meta (Facebook) and Microsoft. 

Website analytics and optimisation have to be virtually scrapped and regenerated to take account of the trends that are here to stay for the near future. Companies that have recognised this are the ones at the top of (for example) Google searches. Posts on social media would also benefit from using AI to reach a more targeted audience.

The other buzzword is the Metaverse, originally associated with Meta and also Microsoft. It is now taking on a life of it's own. The concept is like a tadpole who expects to metamorphose into a frog but could become a prince. Or... 

"The metaverse can be defined as a simulated digital environment that uses augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), and blockchain, along with concepts from social media, to create spaces for rich user interaction mimicking the real world."

For the 'gamer' generation, this will seem quite normal. 

So how can SMEs catch up?

First, ensure that your website is using Google Analytics' latest update which includes AI options. Second, consider using AI to create some of your content for both your website and social media. Third, Ensure that videos are a major part of your digital marketing strategy.

There are some companies that are optimising their websites for voice search activation, for the growing number of people who 'talk' to their devices rather than type into a search engine. 

Creating content with AI

AI is more intelligent than a plain old robot so, when used properly, you won't end up with the same text as all your competitors. And don't forget - you should always check the article to ensure that it says what you want it to. It's editable by you. too (in which case, have the edited version checked for errors by another party).

A popular choice is to use ChatGPT but, at the time of writing, there are some issues. The following was generated with toolbaz.com (free, online) by inserting the title:
Discuss Using AI for SEO

As the internet continues to evolve, so does the way we search for information. As the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) becomes more prevalent, it has become an invaluable tool for search engine optimization (SEO). AI can be used to improve the quality of search engine results and to give users better content. AI can help understand and interpret complex user queries, identify relevant content and identify patterns in user behavior. AI can also help with keyword optimization, content optimization, and link building. AI can also be used to analyze user behavior, such as click-through data and the number of searches done for a particular topic. This data can then be used to create more targeted content that is more likely to be found by users. AI can also be used to identify trends in user behavior and create content that is more likely to be seen and clicked on. AI can also be used to improve the speed and accuracy of web page indexing by reducing the amount of time it takes for a page to be indexed. AI can also be used to optimize the structure of a website, making it easier for search engine algorithms to crawl and index a website's content. AI can also be used to create personalized content for users based on their past searches and interests. AI can also be used to automate the process of content creation by generating content based on user queries. AI can also be used to monitor the performance of a website and make changes to make it more search engine friendly. AI can also be used to identify new opportunities for SEO and to create more effective strategies for SEO.

That text was created instantly. Obviously, it has been generated for an American audience therefore some spellings may need your attention.

It's accurate but, in my opinion, it's s bit generically bland and far too wordy. Still, it's free and a great starting point - writers often struggle when faced with a blank page.

We'll be writing more on other aspects of AI and keeping it simple. We hope it helps! 

Stay in Business: Go With The Flow...

Do you still use 'Twitter' or have you started calling it 'X'? In business, there are always changes and going with the flow is the only way to survive.

For example, The BPc began as a graphic design and marketing agency in 1990. Eventually, DIY design software became publicly available and some companies started creating their own logos, marketing materials, etc. Ironically, we soon had a surge in design requests because clients realised that, just because you have the software, it doesn't mean you have the experience of good graphic design.

Around 1996, we included website design services (thankfully, the co-owner had a technical background, therefore writing HTML was a doddle). Since then, the majority of our work was website design, including optimisation and internet marketing to keep our clients on page 1 of Google. Then internet service providers and software companies started to offer DIY website solutions for users to 'be in control of their own destiny'. Hmm. What it really meant was that users were tied to the company who owned the website software and, of course, their monthly costs often escalated. But, as had happened with graphic design software, a number of new clients approached us to update their websites or, in some cases, rewrite them.

As an additional marketing service, we offered video shoots and recruited a film graduate to produce professional videos for our clients but now everyone is an expert with a smartphone. We are occasionally asked to create a more professional look to 'movies'. 

Social Media management is one of our popular services. Everyone can do it but most smaller businesses don't prioritise it, preferring to spend a small amount per month to have a reliable service manage it for them.

But we are nothing if not flexible. Moving on to today's projects, they break down (approximately) as follows:

• Website design, updates and maintenance (40%)
• Blog and Social Media marketing (30%)
• Literary proof-reading and Script writing/editing (20%)
• Graphic Design (5%)
• Troubleshooting, video work and miscellaneous (5%)

Note the new entry in the middle of the table. 

Going with the flow has kept us solvent for nearly a quarter of a century so we thoroughly recommend it for some SMEs.

We wish you the best of luck with your endeavours! 

Thousands of Followers on Social Media?

The growth of  'followers' is often used by Social Media agencies as a gauge of how well they're doing for their clients. But is it enough? 

Not these days. We manage some Social Media accounts for small number of clients; there are thousands of followers but very few interactions. Depending on the main purpose, this could be OK or it could be an issue.

Most of our clients use social media to show their products with a hope that their followers will be interested to buy or share details with others. It's a way to get the company's name known to more people. 

One specific client posts products, opinions and related information, inviting feedback and with a view to gaining more followers to interact with. It's a completely different approach from that of most companies because he is a one-man-band who likes exchanging views of his and others' work. This client is struggling to gain followers, more than the others are - possibly because there are very few products to showcase (3). For whatever reason, he remains largely invisible.

Whether you have accounts with Meta, X, Tumblr, LinkedIn or other social media, having followers is not an indication of success. People follow you if you can give them something for free, e.g. humour, glamour, cute cats, etc. but it isn't (and never has been) a great medium for promoting your products or services, just because you have a high number of followers. And now, sadly, it's not always good for interacting.

Take Tumblr, for example. Tumblr has 'Ask me anything' that can be added to your profile. Author Neil Gaiman (Good Omens and other fiction) is excellent at interacting with his Tumblr followers, fans of his work, and they feel closer to him and the glamour of his world. I have only one client on Tumblr and nobody is interested in asking about his work. To be fair, he has only managed to gain 8 followers (0.001% of Neil Gaiman's entourage) in just over a year.

Today's favoured medium is video - whether on YouTube or TikTok - and again, these are classed as SOCIAL media. However, it's useful to upload videos for incorporation into websites. Many of our clients are not suitable candidates for Webinars or 'live' broadcasts - although there is one client who publishes a regular podcast which is popular with followers. Unfortunately, we have no further stats at the moment, regarding this medium.

Social Media, in general, is not designed as a business tool yet advertising revenue from businesses are the main reason that social media can function as a free service for others.

The issue for smaller companies with low budgets is that social media has become saturated and competition is as fierce and futile as competing to get a website listed on page one of Google, especially amongst the myriad of 'sponsored' entries that take priority.

We are currently looking at the cost of in-app advertising for one of our clients. We'll let you know what we find out and when we spot the next opportunity for small businesses to compete on a level playing field, we'll let you know.

How Popular are Blogs in 2023?

First, let's redefine what a blog is. This blog is an ancient one created on Blogger (Google) well over 10 years ago. Blogs started as text-on-the-web-logs, a diary or journal that may have been a creative outlet for some but was essentially to record whatever you wanted, either shared or not shared. It quickly became a business tool for businesses to announce news about their products, services, activities, etc. Now, such blogs are usually incorporated into a company's website as their news page. 'Professional' blogs followed, brand-building for the entrepreneur who wanted to share experience and gain kudos.

Then blogging caught on in a big way. Generally, as an outlet of people referred to as 'influencers' whose main goals are to gain followers by bringing trends and know-how to the public - where to go, what to see, how to look, and other lifestyle tips, including fashion, furnishing your home and a variety of other lifestyle topics. Travel blogs are usually well-researched and often provide essential information. Food is such big topic that it has it's own category - people were now able to follow recipes and cooking styles from around the world, which were previously unknown.

Reviews began as genuine opinions but have too often become a form of advertising. There are rules to follow - they are supposed to tell followers if they are being paid to promote the product or service or if they are affiliated in some way. Popular YouTuber TomSka is always bringing ASA (Advertising Standards Agency) rules to viewers' attention. 

News blogs are a major part of every network's website, though many of them are not regularly updated. No doubt you've been unable to avoid them. Here's a recap... 

• Personal blog 
• Business/company blogs 
• Professional/branding blog 
• Lifestyle/influencer blogs 
• Travel blogs 
• Food blogs 
• Affiliate/review blogs 
• News blogs
• Multimedia blogs 

More recently, there has been an explosion of multi-media blogs: vlogs, podcasts and video channels. Personally, I prefer to read blogs because I can do it at my chosen pace, depending on what parts of the content interests me, and it's easy to skip over the bits I already know.

Both audio podcasts and visual information (e.g. YouTube) have become extremely popular, far more so than a traditional blog such as this. However, there are considerations before using them. Audio: is your voice or regional accent going to be listened to and understood by your target audience? Video: have you practiced speaking into camera? Is your backdrop a distraction? Do you have an adequate setup for filming? 

Definitely have a go at all forms of information sharing but make sure that you check and, if necessary, edit the final blog/vlog/podcast before you share and publicise it. 

Link: https://youtu.be/AuYuzkGA3SI

Wishing you the best of luck! 

Using the Internet to Promote your Small Business

Talking to the owner of a local business about his internet activity... 

Backgound: he and his son have two part-time assistants. The owner is approaching age 60 and preparing for his son (who is half that age) to take over the business in the next few years. The business has had a website for many years and it covers their needs (although the content could be updated). The main source of leads is from a large, specialised marketplace service - think Etsy, RightMove, etc.  Typically, the son has been tasked with the social media aspect of the business as the dad has limited knowledge of it and does not want to start learning it now.

Looking at their website links to social media, we see Facebook and Twitter: FB is updated regularly and Twitter has not been touched for 5 years. Although it's not mentioned on the website, there is also an Instagram account which is frequently updated and is more popular than the other two media combined.

What is Marketing?

Having been in Marketing since before Internet use was widespread, we understand the many facets of above/below the line, direct/indirect marketing and the difference between marketing and sales (often a blurry line dismissed by ambitious salespeople). Marketing is not only about making money today but ensuring stability for future sales.

But we've wandered off-track a little... marketing is essential to seek out potential customers and persuade them to contact your sales force - whether that is a visit to your website full of stuff to spend their money on or by encouraging them to contact you by 'phone, email, whatever.

Social Media Marketing

Social Media is a very powerful marketing tool and cheaper than advertising, although the two can work together. For example, if you are not getting enough Facebook followers by natural growth, you can pay a few pounds to kick-start a 'follow-us' campaign. This has worked extremely well for some of our clients. Of course, the way to keep followers engaged is to post interesting and varied information with images or a video - regularly but not too often as to get on people's nerves!

With Instagram and Facebook being linked, one post can be shared to both media simultaneously. 

Social Media is 'horses for courses' and you will have to determine which suits you best. It's free so try a few but be sure to suitably tailor your posts. Don't forget to interact and be friendly because this is a social environment, not an excuse for free in-your-face advertising! This means that you should look through others' posts and react to them (nicely, of course) to build a rapport.

Data Analysis

Another aspect of growing your business is knowing (not assuming) which avenues have been successful in bringing in potential customers. Insights are available with most social media and websites can have Google Analytics installed. As with all statistics, you need to understand how best to interpret the data.

For example, when we were selling a property, the agent provided us with a copy of the Rightmove property views data for the first month. It showed that, after the first day, views dropped to a daily average of 10% of the initial number for the rest of the month. The graph was labelled 'property views' with no other explanation. We asked the agents if a 'view' was of the property listing within the scrollable results or whether it was an in-depth view of information, photographs, etc. They didn't know so the information was mostly worthless.

Which of these is considered a 'view'?

(deliberately fuzzy because the content detail is not relevant to this post)

Tip: when you first talk to a new contact, ask how he/she discovered you, e.g. via search engine, by recommendation, advertising, etc.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics provides considerably more information regarding the activity on your website. Sadly, the website we referred to at the start of this post has not been linked to a Google Analytics account therefore there will be no historical performance date from that resource.

We hope this helps you to refine your internet marketing and social media management. Feel free to post questions in the comments or contact us if you'd like our assistance.

Best Social Media Platforms 2022

In our recent experience, the top three on the list below have led the way during the past couple of years, best for business posts. We also use YouTube, Twitter and, occasionally, Tumblr (depending on the type of business). So far...

 Note: click here to read the updated review of UK social media stats, 2024.

We have several clients for whom we manage social media and an analysis of their activity concurs with this statistic. Facebook is, without doubt, top of the heap. Instagram works well if there are relevant images. YouTube works well for video (obviously). Twitter is good for interactive clients.

Interestingly, videos uploaded to Facebook and Instagram are more widely viewed than static images.

As with all social media, you get the best results when you take the time to use it. For example, post interesting stuff regularly and keep an eye on any notifications or responses, reacting positively where appropriate. Andsocial media is not all about you! Additionally, you need to show interest in other posts, comment on them (nicely) and maybe strike up conversations. 

For example, if your business is a service and you have difficulty with relevant images, connect with people about their interests, whether it's sport, arts, gardening, etc. You will gain followers which helps your 'popularity'.

In our case, we design websites and manage social media therefore the best relevant images we have are snapshots of our clients' businesses. We also offer to edit clients' own videos and we have been planning to set up a studio for promotional video filming (that was pre-covid so other things took priority). 

Meanwhile, some of our social media clients are their own worst enemies - we set them up and they don't use it because they don't have the time. Time spent building your online network and interacting with people is similar to, yet much cheaper than, training salespeople. Those who do take the time to build (e.g.) a Facebook following, will notice the benefits, which is why it's so popular, despite its many irritating ways. Not to worry, though - help is at hand. We offer this service too!

It's also worth using analytics to monitor the progress of your activities (we can do that for you).

We also set up WordPress blogs for smaller clients with low budgets & we offer a blogging service.

Check us out! 

• https://twitter.com/BPcUK/ 
• https://www.facebook.com/TheBPcUK 
• https://www.instagram.com/bpcuk/