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5 unique advertising methods

Trying to get heard amongst all the competing advertising noise out there is not easy. Estimates suggest we are exposed to over 10,000 brand / company messages each day. Clearly, advertising is highly competitive. Millions of different companies and brands are fighting for the attention of their target audiences each day. Online, in print, on TV, radio, billboards, mobile and more, advertisers are in danger of drowning each other out.  With this in mind, companies are always on the lookout for unique and innovative ways to get their message across.

This week, we thought it would be interesting to take a look at some of the more unusual advertising techniques. Here are some of our favourites.

 

1. Wi-Fi network names

In March 2016, Audi attended the New York auto show with a unique and clever advertising hack. The German car company set up a number of free Wi-Fi networks and gave each network a name that doubled up as an advertisement for the back-then brand new Audi A4. Each network was named with one reason to choose the A4 and also bashed their rival BMW 328i at the same time, including statements such as “#:1 A4 more horsepower than 328i” and “#4: A4 has CarPlay”. It’s not the first time a company has used Wi-Fi networks to double up as advertising, but we can see how it could be an effective and amusing marketing technique to get your brand or product stand out, particularly for an event where free Wi-Fi is just about the first thing mobile users look for.

 

2. On our food
Using a laser etching technique, brands have even found a way to safely advertise on our food! This advertising technique is most commonly found in Butcher’s markets to advertise sellers produce, or in the health and fitness industry for advertising the likes of gym memberships or nutritional advice. Laser etching or printing on foods has typically been used in the food industry to mark produce with dates and numbers to identify their location or factory source. Taking inspiration, some brands have now hijacked this technique, adding messaging to their food. Alongside meat, the technique has been seen on egg shells and even the skins of fruit and vegetables, including avocados, melons and potatoes.

 

3. Human Body

Have you ever heard of forehead advertising? No, us neither! But some people are willing to do bizarre things to make money, one of which is getting yourself tattooed with a logo or company’s website address. The tattoos can be temporary or permanent and are not just limited to the forehead; people have sold areas of their arms, neck, chest and legs to make some serious buck! Similarly, a Japanese advertising firm recently sold advertising space on commuters armpits to a beauty treatment clinic. The advertisements measure nearly 2” x 4”, are placed in the armpit and cost approximately £68 for one hour of exposure on a commuter train or bus. We’re not sure if this advertising technique will take off in the UK but keep an eye out.

 

4. Captchas

We’re all familiar with captchas, those annoying boxes that appear on websites. They often appear when entering personal credentials to purchase something online or to access an account. A captcha will usually ask you to type a series of letters or a phrase into a box to prove that we’re not spam robots. They display text in a distorted font, a range of upper case and lower case letters or with a line straight through, supposedly making it too difficult for anything non-human to decipher. Sometimes they may even show a series of images to click on or a short video with a message at the end which you need to copy into the box. The aim is to ensure that a response is not generated by a computer, but copied by a human behind a screen and they are deemed necessary for protection against spam. While banner ads can often be overlooked and ignored, captchas require a user’s undivided attention and advertisers caught onto this. Captcha’s use of words and pictures are more often random and have no significance, but some companies have purchased captcha space to use them to advertise their names, slogans and brand. They can also include clickable links to their website and run on a PPC model or cost per impression basis. They might be irritating, but they cannot be ignored.

 

5. Hi-Jack other advertisements
Advertisements can be costly and coming up with an ad that is creative and unique can be hard work, costly and time consuming. So why not save the money and effort of designing an ad and instead deface another advertisement by placing your own label right on top of it? In Germany, Hubba Bubba adopted a questionable-at-best guerrilla advertising campaign which involved using other brands’ advertisements to display their iconic bubble gum. They hijacked billboards advertisements containing people, including a model advertising a lingerie brand, and added pink balloons with the label Hubba Bubba over their mouths to replicate a bubble gum bubble. Hubba Bubba is iconic for their creative and unusual advertisements and this type of guerrilla marketing definitely caught people’s attention.

What are some unique or clever advertising techniques you’ve come across? We’d love to hear your thoughts! Email us at info@tlc-business.co.uk.

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What SMEs need to know for effective marketing in 2016 – seminar summary

Last week, TLC Business held our annual marketing seminar at The Mayflower Theatre in Southampton, but with a slight twist. We teamed up with Simon Harmer and his company Blown Away to deliver an inspirational session for businesses looking to get their marketing up and running.

This year, the focus was to ‘Get Your Marketing in Order for 2016’, and this blog will outline the main themes explored on the day, just in case you missed it!

Social media

With social media now firmly embedded into all our lives, it is clearly of big importance to us marketers. To help you succeed in your social media exploits, here are some top tips:

  1. Make sure your timing’s are on point. Many businesses fail to engage with their social media audience because they are posting at the wrong times. There are now a variety of scheduling platforms such as Buffer that suggests the best times to post updates for your business – so take advantage!
  2. Get your business on the right platforms. If you’re looking to build meaningful B2B connections and the ability to forge lasting business relationships, then LinkedIn consistently comes out on top as your best bet. In contrast, if you’re a B2C organisation and are looking to drive audience engagement and ultimately sales, then Facebook tops the list.
  3. Ensure that your posts have that ‘visual’ appeal. Posts that contain an image are 94% more likely to be shared than ones that don’t. Many marketers miss out on this simple trick that can increase social media engagement and reach dramatically!
  4. Posting the same content to all channels can become a bit tedious for your audience if they are present on each platform. Take advantage of the respective strengths of each social media platform and post content accordingly.

SEO

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is still perceived by many as a bit of a dark art. Despite constant algorithm updates, there are still opportunities to play the SEO game effectively and win.

Google is increasingly positioning itself as an ‘answers engine’. The advent of mobile has also put the cats amongst the pigeons (excuse the pun for those SEO geeks out there!) meaning there are even more opportunities to make your local business standout from the crowd.

Tips:

  1. Ensure that Google Analytics and Webmaster tools are installed and active on your website. Combined they will give you all the information you need (and more!) to get your website to be the best it can be. Google Webmaster tools will tell you what terms your site is being found for in Google, as well as identify any aspects of your site that are holding it back.
  2. Take full advantage of Google’s Keyword Planner to help inform the decision making process behind the keywords you choose to optimise your website pages for. And remember, keywords don’t have to be one word; they can effectively be phrases too.
  3. If you only do a few things SEO related on your website, make sure two of them are creating unique meta titles and descriptions optimised for the keyword-focus for each particular page.
  4. Get involved with Google Developer for page speed insights and how accessible on desktop or mobile your website is. Google gives marketers an insight into the loading speeds of their website, and will also give tips on how to increase load speed times. Alongside this, Google Developer provides a mobile-friendly test that will give marketers the tips and improvement suggestions they need to make their site better for mobile users.

PPC

96% of Google’s revenue comes from PPC ads, so clearly PPC is an important tool for them. We are sure you must be aware of the ads that populate Google’s search results pages! Statistics show that the top 3 ads on each search page receive 46% of traffic. PPC click-through rates are also shown to be 10 times higher than organic search clicks.

So what influences a good PPC ad? Each ad on every search page is ranked by Google. One’s ad rank is based on their cost-per-click and quality score. Your ads quality score has the ability to make or break your campaigns success. The quality score is made up of your ads click through rate, alongside your ads relevance to the keyword and your landing page’s relevance to the targeted keyword. The more relevant the better!

Tips:

  1. Make your ad text as relevant as possible to the keyword and ensure your landing page is targeted at that keyword too! Try getting your landing page’s URL to include the keyword in too.
  2. Get retargeting. Retargeting has given us marketers another tool to boost our marketing with. With retargeted visitors 70% more likely to convert, it doesn’t come as a surprise that retargeting is another highly effective marketing technique. To put it in its most simple form, retargeting is the practice of serving display ads to people who have previously engaged with your brand. It is vital for marketers looking to increase marketing results in 2016, helping to drive sales and increase brand awareness.  The numbers are compelling. Statistics have shown that retargeted ads receive a 0.70% click-through rate, compared to just 0.07% for regular display ads. Following this, brand search exposure can increase by over 1000%, just from retargeting. With this in mind, retargeting is a must for 2016!

E-marketing

With 2.6 billion email users worldwide, it doesn’t come as a surprise that e-marketing is still a massive hit with marketers. It is reported that for every $1 spent on email marketing, the average return is $44.25, providing yet more reason for you to start thinking about promotion through email if you haven’t done so already.

The popularity of email marketing is continuing to grow, and more email scheduling platforms are being introduced. Platforms such as Campaign Monitor, ReplyApp and MailChimp are great tools for creating, scheduling and managing marketing email campaigns.

Tips:

  1. Use email marketing platforms such as Campaign Monitor to split test each email campaign. This will allow you to identify what content and approach is most effective at meeting your objectives and enables you to continually refine and improve on what works best.
  2. Personalisation is key! Send emails that are personalised to the recipient. Include their name in the subject line, reference topics and include content that they have expressed in interest in. This will not only help build better relationships between your business and consumer, but it will be demonstrable through better engagement and open rates.
  3. Make the email content mobile-friendly, that way the emails can be accessed by a wider audience.

Content Marketing

Creating and sharing content that engages your audience (Content Marketing in a nutshell!) is now a vital component of the marketing mix for marketers. New and fresh content should be published regularly. What regularly looks like depends on your audience. For B2B marketers, 26% post news and updates multiple times a week.

92% of businesses that use social media, use it as a tool to present content. Email is another vital content distribution tool.  LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube make up the top 3 for effectiveness when sharing content, but all have different advantages and disadvantages; therefore it’s important to make sure your content is tailored to your different channels.

Top Tools

With 2016 approaching, what are the top tools for more effective marketing? We have identified Datananas as a potentially effective tool for those looking to build their professional database, with its ability to export LinkedIn users and their contact information from LinkedIn without the need to be connected to them.

Other platforms like Buffer have also popped up on the radar, with its unique imaging software – Pablo! Brands are now able to upload an image of their choice and add text to it, making each social media post unique and eye-catching for their audience.

SumoMe is another top marketing tool for 2016, incorporating a series of apps all designed to get your website and content working. The toolbox includes on page analytics, free traffic for your site, image sharer and a smart bar that will increase your number of email subscribers – amazing!

What else is there to add to the marketing tool list? Google’s Webmaster Tools crops up again! As mentioned before, Google’s Webmaster Tools is a vitally important tool for anyone with a website. With the ability to understand your site’s organic search performance, as well as providing tips and tricks on how to get more traffic, the tool is a must.

One New Year’s resolution for you – download these marketing tools!

So, what matters for SMEs?

We think the top 5 themes that SMEs should consider in 2016 are:

  1. Content is king – still!
  2. Analytics
  3. Personalisation
  4. Online ads
  5. Video

We hope you find this useful and would like to thank everyone who attended. We look forward to seeing you again soon!

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The Rise in Digital Media – Continued

The nights are drawing in and winter is on its way, so what better time for companies looking to boost their marketing by getting online and involved in social media on the dark and dreary afternoons that we have been experiencing lately. Following on from Joshua Spencer’s presentation on digital marketing in July, we examine some more benefits to digital media and what it can do for your business.
Digital marketing is hugely effective for connecting with consumers in an interactive and engaging way. An increasing number of people are interacting and communicating within the social media sphere, and therefore investing in an online presence for your business is very important. Effective use of social media is no longer an option for companies, it‘s now a requirement.

Last week the luxury fashion brand Burberry told the Financial Times that they were investing more of their marketing budget into the digital arena, a total of 60%, more than three times the average.  In the past, Burberry relied heavily on traditional methods of marketing, such as print advertising; however they now feel that they need to be totally connected with whomever touches their brand and engaging with their audience via social media is a means of achieving this. The shift to digital marketing highlights how quickly industries are moving away from traditional methods of marketing in order to interact with consumers globally. Reaching out to consumers on multiple channels makes it more important than ever for a business to make sense of this new ‘marketing mix’

Create a two way conversation

As we have mentioned in the past, digital media can be a valuable asset not just for larger B2C organisations but also for your everyday SME. Twitter is currently dominating the marketing landscape, used by 82% of the B2B social mix. When it comes to expanding a business, “tweeting” has real value, enabling a two way conversation with customers, as well as promotion for any organisation. It is used by small businesses, as well as global companies, facilitating customer feedback, free marketing, improved brand recognition and a stronger connection with customers. Starbucks use of social media is a brilliant example of this.  The coffeehouse giant posts new offers and participates in interactive discussions with their customers about the offers on twitter daily. Computer company ComCast also offers a friendly Twitter customer support, including a photograph of the member of staff you are talking to.

Audience participation

Video is another personal yet dynamic way to engage with consumers, allowing them to participate and interact with a brand in order to obtain more information. Google recently reported that 35% of B2B marketers already using online video will increase their video budgets in the future.   A tool which is mainstream and accessible to all, video enables businesses to accumulate larger audiences quickly and effectively. The value of video is reflected in HSBC’s recent campaign. The bank held a competition for a £15,000 student bursary last year, and the decision to keep the media interactive was integral to the success of campaign. Students uploaded a 90 second video to Facebook stating why the money would help them change the world. Response to the campaign was outstanding: there were 50,000 interactions in one month and more than 2 million impressions. Check out Sprites Zero Skate ‘n’ Splash video below and HSBC’S winning entry.

This interactive YouTube video lets you instantly skip from one segment to the next, deciding exactly what you’ll see and when you’ll see it. Using keyboard keys 4 to 9, you can replay the skateboard tricks, skip others, and create your own rhythmic masterpieces.The promotional YouTube video, dreamed up by Coca-Cola Germany for Sprite Zero, minimizes branding because it’s creators “wanted the focus to be on the content and the interactivity.” They added, “This sort of video is quite different from what we at Coca-Cola usually do, in terms of ‘edginess’ and branding.”

 ‘Likes’ are not the be all and end all

Facebook is used by 67% of B2B marketers and 200 million people access Facebook via a mobile device each day.  It is guaranteed to expand your business presence on the web. However, it is also important to be careful with the type of interaction your social media attracts.  A recent study has shown that the more “likes” a brand has on Facebook, the less participation there was to a page by consumers.  A study by L2, an organisation for digital innovation, has found that the quality and not the quantity of consumers is extremely important.  Therefore, in the fast changing social media landscape, it is important for businesses to keep their pages up to date and interactive.

Another huge advantage of social media is that it is a free or low cost marketing strategy.  It brings a new dimension to an organisation’s communication – forecasts indicate traditional marketing will represent only 30% of SMB marketing budgets by 2015.  The objective of social media marketing is to draw the customer closer to your brand. Once engaged, maintaining an effective dialogue must be a priority. It is no good collecting likes, connections and followers. The real power of social media is only realised through regular communication and relationship building. Only then can your start turning followers into customers.

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A Digital Christmas

We know Christmas is upon us when the Monday morning office discussion is based around Mariah Carey vs. The Pogues or Buble vs. Bieber, like it or not, Christmas is a matter of days away.  Whilst many B2B businesses look at the lead up to Christmas as an opportunity to get their house in order, for many B2Cs this is the most important time of year. With shoppers keeping tighter hold of their purse strings this Christmas, it is important for marketers, whether in the B2B or B2C sectors, to think creatively about how to use the wealth of marketing channels out there.  Here is how some more well known brands have been using social media and mobile marketing to engage with consumers this Christmas.
Mobile marketing – Santa’s little helper

Christmas is just around the corner and recent surveys have predicted a significant growth in the use of mobile this Christmas. With almost half of the UK population now owning a Smartphone, more people are turning to their mobiles for shopping research and purchasing decisions. Consumerchoices.co.uk has found that the UK alone is to spend as much on Christmas via mobile phone as the rest of Europe. The growth of mobile commerce continues to show that consumers are becoming more confident in using their mobile phones for shopping and purchasing items on the go.

The NSPCC are a great example for those thinking about mobile marketing in the lead up to Christmas. The NSPCC is once again running a seasonal campaign that will send the child (or big kid!) a ‘Letter from Santa’. The latest campaign from the NSPCC will be promoted and delivered via mobile marketing, with the charity looking to capitalise on the growth of the mobile internet in order to raise more funds in this festive period.  This year, the NCPCC have taken their traditional letter campaign a step further, a special microsite has been established, where parents will be able to order a letter from Santa for their children simply via their smartphones.

Mobile is becoming a key component in marketing and mobile advertising spend is expected to ramp up this Christmas as advertisers focus their efforts on reaching a growing, and increasingly engaged, mobile audience.

Social media this Christmas – Spread a little festive cheer

 Companies are finding new ways to talk to their consumers this Christmas. Stephen Haines, UK commercial director, Facebook, said: “Retailers are seeing more and more value from joining conversations on Facebook as a great way to hear directly from fans about what they want and what’s interesting.

“This Christmas, we’re seeing a lot of brands taking advantage of those conversations to reach not only fans but also their friends in fun, creative ways – including wish lists, gifting apps, exclusive deals and special Facebook offers. “

Facebook gives companies the forum to interact directly with their customers and for a real conversation to take place about the brand. This year Nivea launched a new Facebook campaign for Christmas, the Facebook page is designed to fit in with the skincare brand’s ‘Feel Closer’ positioning. Consumers can use the app to buy and send a friend a Nivea gift set, which will be wrapped in personalised wrapping paper featuring photos they have both been tagged in on Facebook. 

It hopes to target women aged 30-54 by encouraging the use of Facebook to share “moments of closeness” by uploading photos and liking, sharing and commenting on other people’s pictures.

Mobile service provider O2 has launched its festive social media marketing campaign, which will provide customers with a personal message from Santa. Using the social media platform, Twitter, consumers can send their messages to the O2 Santa.  O2 will then create a personal video message for the sender, which can be shared amongst friends.

This Christmas campaign has been designed to spread a little festive joy. Consumers can participate by tweeting the official O2 Twitter account, @O2 with the hashtag #O2santa. All of the video messages created will be hosted on YouTube, enabling customers to watch them again and again.

Head of social media at O2, Alex Pearmain, commented on this latest social media marketing initiative.

“Our social channels seemed the ideal platform to cheer customers up and we hope this campaign will help to cut through some of the current consumer gloom and spread some festive cheer.”

For any business owner, developing a strategy to encourage new business or shoppers back into stores for the crucial Christmas period is increasingly difficult; however, Christmas is a great time to get creative and build customer interaction, ready for the New Year. Last year, we reflected on the increase in online shopping. This year, online marketing has gone social.  So what will next year bring? Will Santa be teleporting his gifts down the chimney? We are looking forward to finding out!

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Safety First

You may be aware that earlier this week the BBC launched their ‘Share Take Care’ campaign, encouraging everybody to actively protect their online activity. As a society, we are concerned about the photographs, status updates and information we share with fellow family members, co-workers and friends, taking time to monitor our own security settings. However, how many of us apply the same effort and methods to protecting our business accounts online?
Social media presents businesses with many opportunities, including customer support and the ability to communicate quickly with customers and suppliers. The communications giant NETGEAR recently commissioned a piece of research looking at how important social media has become for businesses. NETGEAR asked 300 small business owners and IT managers how they were using social media in their company. Nearly half of those polled said they were using social media to stay in touch with their customers and nearly 60% said they were using social networking for internal communications. But only 29% said that had made moves to educate their staff about the risks social media may present to their business and what they should be doing to monitor their brand awareness online.

The reputational risks of social media can easily equal or exceed the reputational benefits. The reason is simple; the vast reach of social media platforms enable brands to communicate every second, globally, providing both opportunities and risks. You may remember last year, TLC Business highlighted key areas to help protect your business online.  We thought now would be the prime time to inform you again of the simply steps you can perform, in order to secure your business and its reputation on social networking sites.

Educating employees:

The developments in social media are here to stay, so empower your employees with best practices and guidelines.

  • Create, update, communicate and enforce a company policy that specifies social media do’s and don’ts, including how employees may interact with visitors and use visitors’ information.
  • Identify the key players who will be responsible for developing, executing, and monitoring your social media strategy. Assign at least two administrators for your account. The admins should monitor and promptly respond to new Facebook and Twitter policy changes and features, always considering the impact on the business
  • Sit down with your team and explore the topics and voice you would like to channel to your target audience; create a content plan that employees can follow and use as a guideline throughout the year.

Monitoring conversation online:

Here at TLC Business we recommend Google Alerts as a vital tool to monitor what is being said about your brand. Google Alerts is about understanding what type of information is out there that’s tied to your name, and most importantly your business.

Google Alerts are email updates that are sent to you for whatever keyword or phrase you decide to set the alert. As soon as your name is mentioned anywhere on the Internet, you are sent an alert immediately.

There are other tools out there that do a similar thing but be aware that the results are not definitive, the web is a massive place.

There are only 5 pieces of information that you need to provide to start using Google Alerts:

  1. The word or phrase you want to be alerted about: company name, your name, your products, etc
  2. The type of search: news, blogs, video, discussions, or everything
  3. How often: as it happens, once a day, or once a week
  4. Volume: only the best results or all results
  5. Where the alert should be delivered: email address or feed

One of the latest social media activities to come under fire is a campaign ran by McDonalds. The fast food chain started a campaign on Twitter promoting #MeetTheFarmers, to show how good McDonalds is, but suddenly they changed gears to #McDstories; which unfortunately backfired when people shared their horrifying stories.  See below for some of the tweets circulated worldwide:

  • #McDStories Take a McDonalds fry, let it sit for 6 months. It will not deteriorate or spoil like a normal potato. It will remain how it was
  • ‘These #McDStories never get old, kinda like a box of McDonald’s 10 piece’

Like any business feature or marketing activity, creating and communicating a clear plan is crucial to avoid mistakes. If you are worried how your brand is going to be perceived online, spend time evaluating the right message you want to send out to your target market, what information they will find useful and more importantly what messages can be monitored and dealt with by your team.

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Top Marketing Tips For March 2012

  1. Following on from this month’s blog on Google+, we have provided you with a useful website that includes 5 simple steps to building a good business page on Google+.
  2. Pinterest is the latest social networking site aimed at sharing what interests and inspires users. Pinterest is a pinboard-styled social photo sharing website. The website allows users to create and manage theme-based image collections. Pinterest’s goal is to connect everyone in the world through the ‘things’ they find interesting.
  3. Twilert is a Twitter application that enables you to receive regular email alerts of tweets containing keywords associated with your brand, product and service. Think of it as theGoogle Alerts for Twitter.
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Are your Lead Generation campaigns LinkedIn?

You may be aware that we regularly discuss the importance of social media for a business, providing you with insights into the latest social media trends and top tips about how to engage effectively with your consumers within the variety of social media platforms available.
From our experience of working with SMEs, the same questions pop up time and time again, ‘How can social media fit with my industry’? ‘How is social media going to generate sales for my business?’

Not all social media sites are relevant for every business, for example, product based B2C businesses are more likely to engage with consumers on platforms, such as Facebook and Pinterest, where a business can take advantage of the visual functions available. If you want to communicate to a B2B audience and business professionals, then LinkedIn with its 150 million members is a good place to start.

LinkedIn enables members and businesses to create profiles, connect with like-minded individuals, share blogs and news items. However, more and more businesses are now discovering the hidden powers of LinkedIn, not only as a social networking site, but also as a platform that can be the foundation for marketing campaigns and a vital component in a company’s lead generation efforts.

So how can your business use LinkedIn for lead generation? Think of LinkedIn as a treasure trove with over 150 million contacts that can be used to support your business activities. LinkedIn is rich with information you can use to help qualify prospects, target businesses and research competitors.

Below are some examples of how your business can use LinkedIn effectively:

  • Do you have a list of potential companies that you wish to target? Are there contact names missing or is the list simply out of date? If so, LinkedIn is a great tool for identifying key decision-makers working in the organisations you are keen to engage with.  This helps eliminate the dreaded entry phrase ‘I can’t put you through; we work on a no name basis’.
  • Is your business launching a new product or service and you are keen to research your target audience? We use LinkedIn as a valuable market research tool. It gives you access to a range of groups and contacts, many of which are keen to share their opinion. Post a question on a relevant group and engage with your target audience to get their thoughts and ideas, there’s nothing better than a service or product that really addresses the challenges and problems customers face.
  • Join groups and develop yourself as an expert in your field. LinkedIn enables you to join and set up industry and career specific groups. Groups of like-minded professionals are excellent for gaining knowledge, sharing news and conveying your expertise. LinkedIn groups allow you to see the issues that your target audience are facing, providing you with an opportunity to share your knowledge and build relationships with potential customers.

A great example of a business getting to grips with the power of LinkedIn is Cathay Pacific. Cathay Pacific Airways is an international airline based in Hong Kong, offering scheduled cargo and passenger services to over 140 destinations around the world. Cathay Pacific faced the same challenges that most businesses face, how to crawl through the jungle that is an overcrowded marketplace and reach their target audience with a message that is compelling. In order to achieve this, Cathay Pacific turned to LinkedIn to help target people who would fly business class between the United States and Asia. The aim was to identify members who belong to LinkedIn groups related to business travel in Asia, such as Global Workers, China Networking Group and Hong Kong Connection, in order to engage with time-strapped business travellers in an environment where they were already comfortable, engaged and spending time.

Cathay Pacific established a company page in LinkedIn and started to engage with the groups and individual members, providing regular status updates. As well as increasing the brand awareness, Cathay Pacific’s LinkedIn activity generated a total of 1,324 responses from business travellers, produced 97 LinkedIn page recommendations and increased the clickthrough rate on to their main website.

With the ever increasing array of social networking sites available to businesses, large and small, and the constantly evolving digital world, a business must establish the platforms that offer their business most value. Social media is free but your time is not. You need to use it wisely. We believe that increasingly, if you operate in the B2B sphere, LinkedIn represents an effective investment of your time. It is now so much more than just an online CV; it unlocks the doors to millions of opportunities for your business.

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