Using Social Media to boost business

This is a topic that I have been considering for some time. As an avid Twitter user, I have observed companies using Twitter to boost their business. Some do this well, some not so well.

This will do as an excuse to post this pic

My background is not in media studies, I am looking at this purely as a consumer. If I were running a company instead of a family, I would be looking to increase interest in my brand. In the same way that bloggers seek to increase interest in their blog, and websites seek to increase interest in their site.

Interestingly, it is not always the big names who do this well. The companies, or brands, who do this successfully follow a few basic rules, I have observed:

1. Don't do it half-heartedly.
If you are going to use Twitter, then use it. Don't say to the office junior, "You are young, sure to have your "finger on the pulse" of what young folk want. You can do the Twitter account". This is not a job for someone who does not know your product, or your brand. Or does not have the time to dedicate a couple of hours a day to it. Ideally they should be able to check constantly so that they can respond to queries and comments.

 An example of doing it half-heartedly is Oven Pride - I blogged about the product a week or so ago. And tweeted a link, @oven-pride. No response. Nothing. And look at their Twitter feed - barely any followers, and only 7 tweets.

2. Do it with humour
Getting consumers to follow your Twitter feed is easier if it is not all just boring, "Look at our product, isn't it great?". Allow your Twitter-rep to joke with consumers, maybe post links to other sites that are - loosely - linked to your products or brand. This is a fine line to walk, but worth it as potential customers will actually want to follow your Twitter feed.

Marks and Spencers have shaken off their fuddy-duddy image and are showing others how this is done. This week I posted this response to M&S

This was their reply

3. Post regularly

My favourite jewellery designer Monica Vinader posts a couple of times a day; enough to stay interesting but not too often to start to annoy followers. If I look at your Twitter feed and see that the last post was two weeks ago, then I am unlikely to follow you. 

4. Reply to followers

It is boring to follow someone who doesn't reply. This also goes for slebs, most of whom don't bother to reply to tweets. Ok, they are followed by thousands but an occasional RT or reply would not go amiss. The same applies to companies - if your customers speak to you, then answer. And follow some of those following you. Writers are not companies, or brands, but they are trying to sell us something - their books. Some writers, such as Jill Mansell, Katie Fforde reply to their readers, using Twitter as it is intended to be used - as a  interactive tool. 

5. Search for comments 

Have a constant search set up so that whenever a customer mentions your company or product, you can respond to it. This can be a consumer complaining about your product, to which you should take the time to get in touch and try to sort out the problem. Or it could be a compliment, which you can RT to your followers.  Don't however do as Asda do - and only react to a customer complaint when the customer creates a Social Media storm - I have seen two instances in the past 6 months where customers have been left with no groceries, and no refund of payment after a computer glitch in Asda's systems meant that a home shopping delivery was cancelled. Only when the customer posted on Mumsnet, and the thread was subsequently posted on Twitter was the issue resolved.

Twitter and other Social Media websites can be great for businesses - see the success of the Babyliss Big Hair due to posts on blogs and comments on Twitter. I had over 1000 hits on my review of the Babyliss Big Hair - over a period of several months, then the product was featured in several national newspapers. Suddenly I had hundreds of hits a day, until I took the post down as I had photos of myself on it and I was wary of the privacy aspect. When I googled the product, my face was on page one of the google image searches, which was slightly unsettling. 

Using Social Media to promote your business can backfire, as Microsoft discovered to their horror when they promised to donate a $1 to the Japan quake fund for every RT of their Tweet from their search engine Bing's twitter account. They later apologised  and promised to donate $100k to the Japanese earthquake fund.

Old Spice showed how it could be done. 

The campaign with actor Isaiah Mustafa was incredibly successful - even MrLindt was tempted to buy Old Spice deo when he was on a business trip to US, culminating in a "remake" of the Old Spice ads here in Geneva. 

What companies do you follow and which ones have you swiftly unfollowed, and why?

Frock It!

It has been a week for frocks. 

Blogger Queen ThisMid30sLife is capturing frocks in her meme "Frock It" - every week she will post a photo of an outfit that caught her eye. Joining in are various other eagle-eyed amateur style critics. KateTakes5 already posted about THE frock that almost made me faint in horror. Eugenie and Beatrice displaying the fashion sense so obviously inherited from their mother. 

We poured over the pictures of the rich and famous at the Royal Wedding, analysed which hat was too big and whose shoes were ridiculous (VictoriaB, are you listening?). We gasped in admiration, not only at Catherine's wedding dress but at her sister Pippa in that stunning gown, as BodforTea posted. 

Like SAM, I loved Kate's (no not that Kate, the other one) Union Jack dress. 

LifeWithAFussyEater showed that even normally self-assured slebs can get it wrong, while MotherVenting and Keira Knightly triumphed with a quirky yet simple dress. 

If you gather a bunch of celebrities for the Met Ball in honour of McQueen then you are sure to see some fabulous frocks. Some of them were not my cup of tea, but this one worn by Salma Hayek is fabulous - interestingly it is from Sarah Burton for McQueen - the designer of Kate Middleton's wedding dress.

The cut shows off Salma's enviable curvy figure, the overlay of tulle making the dress more diva-ish. Or perhaps a Greek Goddess would be the correct description, as Salma showcases her flowing hair and glowing skin. Nude colours are difficult to wear, and can leave the wearer looking washed out and pale but this is the perfect colour for Salma. Stunning.

When your child gets lost...

It is one of those moments when time stays still. You look up from what you are doing and notice that your child is not there. He was there just a minute ago, you look around wondering where he is. He cannot be far.

Maybe he is a bolter, an escapologist and you are used to this. Maybe this is the first time that he has done this. Either way, your heart starts beating faster as you search for his familiar face. You try to remember what he was wearing - was it the red or the blue tshirt? How can you not recall this?

Shouting his name you start to walk faster and faster, asking strangers if they have seen a little boy, about this high, with blonde hair.

This was me last summer. We had gone to the beach in south of France. In the moments that it had taken to take the towels out of the beach bag, shake them and lay them on the sandy beach, he had shucked off his tshirt, slipped out of his flipflops and headed off down the beach.

"Wait, you need suncream", I shouted after him, bending to search in the voluminous beach bag. When I straightened, he was gone. I stood with the suncream in my hand, shading my eyes with my other hand as I looked to see where he was. Gone. Disappeared.

"Oh, for goodness sake. Where did he go?", I asked  my husband. At first we were annoyed, then we grew more concerned. It had been a couple of minutes, we searched back and forward across the beach then I went to the lifeguards to ask for help. They were great. What was he wearing, how old, what did he look like.

A tannoy announcement alerted others to the missing child saga taking place. The group of elderly French women next to us on the beach looked concerned. We searched. The lifeguards searched. He was gone.

He was not one to be silly at the beach. We live near the lake, he knows not to go in alone, not to go too deep, not to go without swimming aids. Could he have forgotten?

Trying not to think about other scenarios - the ones that make every parents' heart quake - we searched again. I clutched my daughter to me - the lifeguards told me to stay at our blanket in case he wandered back.

Then a shout. I looked up and saw the lifeguard coming towards me, my son running ahead of him. He was wearing the stripy swimming trunks, not the ones with fish on them as I had described to the lifeguard. He looked bemused by the fuss, stood silently while I gathered him in my arms. My sobs embarrassed him but I could not stop myself. Drawing back, I asked, "Where were you. We were worried?", that timeless query of a million mothers.

He was making sandcastles,  just down the beach with some French children. How we did not see him when we went past, I will never know. Perhaps because we were looking for a single child, not a group.

The French grandmothers next to us smiled, relieved to see the family reunited. I sat on the sand, my hands still shaking, my heart beat slowly returning to normal as I wondered if it were to early for a G&T.

When we got home I ordered some tattoos from PleaseCallMum.com with my mobile phone number on it. For a while he wore one when we went out.

We also agreed on a password as we recognised that part of the problem was that he would say, "I am going to ...." and not wait to see if I had heard before bombing off. The password was not just "yes" or "ok" as sometimes I would say that without really listening to what he was saying - doesn't every mum do this sometimes? - but a silly word such as "Banana Cake".

I also had to learn to be more exact when telling him what we were going to do. If I said, "We will finish eating then go to the loo", he would do exactly that. Saying, "When we have all finished eating, we will go together to the loo, don't go without me", meant that he would wait for me to accompany him.

Over the last year, he has stopped disappearing and I am able to relax more and enjoy days out. At last.

Oven Pride - A Review

This will make my mother fall over in shock. Me reviewing a cleaning product. How ironic.

But I do have to share this one with you, because it is for perfect for lazy housewives like myself. One of my most hated jobs is cleaning the oven - or ovens as we have two. Against the advice of our estate agent, we use both - he said that using just one oven would save on cleaning but I love having two ovens. It makes cooking large meals such as Christmas lunch much easier to coordinate.

So when I read on Mumsnet recently about a product that made cleaning the oven a piece of cake, I knew I had to try it. My husband was recently in Scotland and brought me back a packet of Oven Pride.

According to the manufacturers, "Transforms racks and grills" and can also be used on BBQs.

The box contains a bottle of cleaning fluid, a large sturdy plastic bag and a pair of rubber gloves - latex ones so if you have a latex allergy, you will need your own.

The idea is simple. You put the wire shelves into the bag, fill with half the bottle of Oven Pride, close and seal the bag, give it a bit of a mix and leave at least four hours.

The rest of the fluid - it is a gloopy gel - is spread over the oven. Now I have to admit that I have not properly cleaned the ovens since we moved in. I have given them a quick "wiech" (as my mother would say) but not scrubbed them. So they were in a bit of a state. Stand by for slatternly oven pics.

Yeuch. 

So, a couple of hours later the oven looks like this: 

And this is how easy it was:

The Oven Pride did not get every single bit of grime, but then the baking trays were in a right state so I would have to scrub a bit to get the rest off. Or perhaps reapply another coating of Oven Pride. But the result was very impressive.

The best thing about it was so effortless. No scrubbing, no elbow grease, no stink. It was one of the things that I hated about cleaning the oven, the sharp stench of ammoniac. It did not smell at all, which is amazing considering how well it worked.

So there you have it. A big thumbs up from MmeLindt for Oven Pride - Oven cleaning without even chipping your nail varnish.

There IS no place like home...

... it is not just a cliche.

We spent a week with my in-laws in Germany (more blog posts to follow with tips and recommendations for holidaying in Bavaria) but are so glad to be back home in Switzerland.

Not only because the weather is better here, but being able to relax in the garden and enjoy the peace and quiet is wonderful. The in-laws have a city apartment with a balcony, but city life is busier than village life. And I never thought that I would ever say this, but I prefer it.

I am a city gal, born and bred in the outskirts of Dundee, lived for almost a decade in the city centre of Wuerzburg but have come to appreciate the life in the country. The quiet leafy garden, being able to hear the birds sing, red kites twirling and diving in the blue sky above me.

When we lived in Germany, I would have to plan ahead if we were due to return from a trip at the weekend. The shops stay closed on Sundays, as they do here in Switzerland. Luckily, we are just a short drive from France so this morning I left the children playing and my husband sleeping to nip to the local market.

Our MGB, awakened from it's winter hibernation, purred and roared its way along the windy French country roads, the sun shining on my head, the wind tousling my hair. I sang along with Adele as she implored her ex to remember.

Pulling my shopping trolley (called HackenPorsche -HeelPorsche in Germany, by the way), through the market, I inhaled the scent of lavender soap, roasting chicken and ham, marinated olives and garlic, not to mention the smelly cheese of Haute Savoie. Before long the trolley was heavy and full with delicious produce from the area. Tonight we will feast on aforementioned chicken with fresh salad, followed by rhubarb crumble. I have a bottle of champagne cooling in the fridge ready to have a couple of succulent raspberries dropped into it.

On leaving the market, I stopped to buy a sprig of Muguet - Lily of the Valley - which is traditionally sold on May 1st in France and given to loved ones as this blogger explains.

I returned home to find the family waiting for breakfast. Freshly baked bread, jambon cru, Fromage de Abondance, miel de lavande, creme de chocolat, cafe au lait, and good old PG Tipps.

Bliss.