Brilliant newsagency social media campaign from newsXpress Eli Waters
This is a Facebook post from newsXpress Eli Waters Tuesday this week putting out a challenge – seeking likes to get Allan Wickham, one of the owners, into a Mrs Claus outfit. The post generates 1,475 likes with more than 20,000 seeing the post thanks to viral sharing.
This is excellent use of Facebook – it’s fun (for most) and engaging … without being commercial. It’s the type of post that facebook as a company likes to see from businesses. Their new rules and policies for 2015 indicate they prefer this to blatant business advertising in their free posts.
This photo shows the result of the post. Allan was dressed as Mrs Claus for the day and from all accounts customers loved it. It certainly made for a different experience in the shop yesterday – probably a welcome break to what is usual at this busy Christmas time of the year.
I thought Al was going with a more risqué outfit but I suspect he decided to go conservative and protect the eyesight of his customers.
What I love about this is the business, the owners and customers all getting in on some fun.
Well done everyone involved. It has been executed well. As I said: brilliant use of Facebook.
Newsagents can learn a lot from what they have just done at newsXpress Eli Waters. The best part? It all cost nothing except, as Al told me – his dignity.
FYI newsXpress Eli Waters are the newsXpress Retailer of the Year. This facebook campaign is a small example of how they play outside the pack and why they deserve kudos.
Thanks Kara’s Aunty
Twitter can be inspiring sometimes. Check out the tweet I just found from @KarasAunty: Time we boycotted ALL chain supermarkets & reclaimed our High Streets. Local newsagents have emerged as the real stars 2day. #TheNational. Great stuff.
The more newsagents on Twitter and engaging in relevant local community discussion the higher the profile for our channel.
More special interest magazine publishers support newsagents
Here more examples of magazine publishers supporting newsagents as the go to retailers for their titles. The screen grab is from Twitter this week. It shows how the two publishers are specifically promoting our channel.
While Australian Boxing Legends and Stage Whispers are not volume sellers, people who purchase them are valuable to us as these titles are unique to us, they reflect a point of difference.
Australian Family Tree magazine is another special interest title promoted on social media and actively pushing newsagencies as the businesses from which to purchase the title.
These special interest titles are more important than ever for us. We need to support them and be more aware of how they are supporting us in social media.
Sunday newsagency management tip: fail well
It’s natural to fear failure in personal and business life. Online and offline gossip about friends, colleagues, competitors and others is often about failure, intensifying our own fear of failure. Today, news of failure is amplified more than ever because of the ready access to the megaphones of social media.
My uneducated theory is that volume of gossip and talk by some about the failure of others reflects more about them than those of whom they speak. But that’s not what I want to write about this morning.
We need to embrace failure. Indeed, if we are to fail, we need to fail well.
By failing well, I mean we need to leverage value from the failure. This could be getting it right the next time, helping others from our experience, having fun with the failure or in some other practical and life lesson type way.
Every failure, large and small, presents the opportunity to fail well. Whether we do fail well is up to us. It is up what we do as a result of the failure. We can choose to fail or fail well. My management advice today is for us to fail well. This starts with us owning the failure. Next we have to think about how to leverage it. Finally, we need to talk about the experience with others, to share positives from the experience.
It could be that you have a dud product that you have brought into the business. Call it out. Have fun with it on the shop floor. I now of situations where this has been done in a fun way and the dud product has become a success. Think of some dreadful movie failures that have become cult classics and commercial successes.
If the failure is on a bigger scale, like a whole of business failure, own it, walk through it, learn from it and confront every challenge head on. The best advice I can give is to look ahead and take a small step at a time … oh, and don’t listen to those talking about you.
Running and hiding from failure denies you the opportunity to grow and others the opportunity to learn from your experience.
As for those who enjoy talking about the failure of others, ignore them for they live in a sad world.
Good social media campaign
This is a good use of Twitter to drive traffic for an offer from WH Smith to their 21.500 Twitter followers – many of whom would be shoppers in the UK.
I am posting this here as Aussie newsagents using Twitter and Facebook for business may want to use this as inspiration.
Their mechanic is clever as the shopper needs to show the tweet to get the deal – this helps them directly measure the impact.
The AFL promotes newsagents
The AFL has promoted newsagents to their 255,000 Twitter followers in promoting the AFL premiers magazine which is out now. Their tweet was retweeted 23 times – extend the reach of their support. Good stuff AFL!
Footnote to suppliers promoting newsagents – please don’t use the term good newsagents if the newsagents themselves have no control over whether they get your product.
Empire magazine makes excellent use of Vine
I love the use of Vine being made by the publisher of Empire magazine. Check out the Vine video – 6 seconds – they have done for the latest issue of this terrific magazine.
Vine is a brilliant platform for this type of social media promotion.
Their tweet mentions newsagents:
Empire’s #Interstellar issue is finally here, both in newsagents and on iPad and Android. https://vine.co/v/OZzbzFIZZBO
Ros Reines fails to backup sledge of newsagents
Ros Reines from Sydney Confidential in The Daily Telegraph recently claimed to 17,500 Twitter followers that some newsagents don’t put out magazines each day. I responded and found out it was two newsagents in Bondi. Reins has not responded to other questions I’ve put.
A professional journalist would check the facts before publishing. I want to know if Reines checked the facts. What was the title being sought out? Were staff in the businesses asked? Was the title some place else and not in the usual location? Was the comment based on unopened bundles? If so, these could have been extra stock.
If the newsagents in question did not have titles out that should have been out, shame on them for their treatment of the products and for their damaging of our reputation.
Right now, however, we don’t have the facts and Ros Reines is not responding.
This is not a gossip piece like you find in Sydney Confidential. This is a sledge against a small business channel, a sledge that needs to be responded to.
Beware of paying for likes, friends and links
With more newsagents relying on Google, Facebook, Twitter and other search engine and social media platforms to drive traffic, there his a temptation to get attention, numbers and followers by paying a service to achieve this for you. My advice – don’t! Paid for eyeballs are of no benefit to your business.
Paid for links to drive traffic to your blog or business website will be seen what what they are. Google and others will mark you down and your competitors will see how desperate you are to get attention.
The most important likes, friends, visits and links you can get are those achieved naturally and because of the good content you provide.
Don’t use Facebook as a megaphone
When using Facebook for your business, use it with care and in a way that respects the kind of conversations you have with customers in your shop and across the counter. Be relaxed, have fun and engage with your customers without trying too hard to sell to them.
If you want to bring products to the attention of customers to get them to purchase, don’t say now in stock or come here and buy this, engage with them creatively and in a way that seeks their opinion.
If you have an item offered in multiple colours – ask which they like. If you offer a product that has to be assembled, make a video and show you doing it. If you see a story in the paper that collects with a local issue, write about it.
On Facebook and Twitter talk with your customers as if they are in front of you. This will build your followers and enhance trust in you.
Terrific poster for The Saturday Paper
The poster provided for promoting The Saturday Paper this past weekend was attention-grabbing and current. It reminded me of like newspaper posters we used to see years ago from Fairfax and News. We used it. It caused comment – like a good promotional poster does. Good stuff.
Footnote: I tweeted about this poster yesterday and it was retweeted element times – reaching many thousands more than my 579 Twitter followers. That experience was a reminder of the viral nature of social media.
The ANF promotes newsagents versus Officeworks
It’s dangerous for the ANF to promote that newsagents sell four colour Bic pens for $3.20 with Officeworks at $3.61 – dangerous because newsagents are not consistent with pricing and dangerous because Bic is not the only brand pen we sell.
I sell a Papermate four colour pen for $2.60. I think it’s better than the Bic product. The ANF promotion does not support my business nor the businesses of many newsagents with this pitch.
While I understand what the ANF was trying to do with its tweet, I don’t see it as good use of the social media platform. There are other tweets the ANF could more safely send for newsagents.
I’d be interested to low if the ANF engaged with GNS and Ancol about this.
Two more magazines supporting newsagents today on social media
Kudos to the publishers of Slam Skateboarding and Hello May for their support on Twitter today supporting newsagents. Publishers telling their followers about our channel is excellent practical support we should embrace through our shop-floor actions.
Newsagents: Slam Skateboarding and Hello May deserve our support tomorrow.
Fortean Times supports newsagents
It’s terrific seeing the publisher of Fortean Times use social media, in this instance Twitter, to promote newsagents as the retailer of their magazine. Their tweet reached out to their 14,900 followers. It’s endorsements like this of the newsagency channel, here and in the UK, that is important to us. Thanks Fortean Times!
Be careful how much you rely on Facebook to promote your business
Sam Biddle, writing at Valleywag, raises questions about the viability of Facebook as a marketing platform for business, saying the company could be about to make businesses pay.
Will Oremus writing for Slate and republished in Australia by Fairfax, picks up on the story and explores further the place of facebook in promoting businesses and others who want to be heard. It all makes for interesting reading, especially if you question the long term role of Facebook in your business marketing plan.
I published my own thoughts about Facebook over a year ago. While I use the platform for business, I am not relying on it.
As with any investment – of time, space or money – do your research, be frugal and cut your losses if it’s not playing out as you need.
Social media catches SA newsagent and would-be MP
The Advertiser reports how social media posts by a SA newsagent and Liberal Party candidate for the state election pitch him as rude and offensive. The story is a reminder that posts on social media are like sharing your thoughts through a megaphone that remembers forever what you have said.
Should Curly Wurly bars be mandatory?
Emily Hall, a UK journalist, told her 1,667 Twitter followers overnight that all newsagents should be forced to sell Curly Wurly chocolate bars. David Johns, an ITV broadcast journalist rewteeted Emily’s tweet to his 777 followers. I responded to Emily and this was copied to my 521 Twitter followers as well as Emily’s followers. I mention this to illustrate how tweets spread, how we can engage with Twitter to talk more about newsagents and newsagency businesses, to ensure our relevance to those using social media. I also mention it to show how we can humanise who we are and what we do. Plus responding was fun. I love the Curly Wurly chocolate bars.
It’s important we use our own voice when using social media in small business
I heard a social media expert recently telling a group of small business retailers that they should pay his company to run their special media program for them. His pitch was compelling. He had lots of success stories, I was impressed as were many who were at the presentation. He made it sound easy, that using social media for your business could be automated.
The pitch was cleverly preying on people in the audience not understanding social media, it was leveraging their ignorance to have them pay for an outcome without understanding the process.
Whether you use Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Google+ or other social media platforms, the most valuable voice your online presence has is your voice.
You can’t pay someone to speak for you, certainly not a service provider business that spends an hour a month or less on your business.
Unfortunately we there are many consultancy businesses and service providers offering to run social media for small businesses including newsagencies. Some I have looked at are clueless. Others are lazy. Others use technology to automate updates. In each case, your voice is lost, the tweets, Facebook posts and Pinterest pins are not from you and as such are removed from who you are and what you stand for.
You or a trusted long-term employee are the best people to speak for your business through social media.
Using a social media consultancy would be like paying someone else to mingle with your customers or paying for an automated posting service would be like using a robot to do this for you. neither case works for small business. Small retail businesses like newsagencies are personal. Our tweets need to be personal. Our Facebook posts need to be personal. This can only happen if you control it.
Yes it is time consuming and time is a resource you probably lack. However, if you want the best outcome you want the best person on the job. That’s you or a trusted colleague. You can’t contract out someone else as the voice for your business.
The social media expert I heard speak recently claimed that automated posts were the way to go, ignoring that good social media engagement is conversations, many conversations. Conversations rely on humans on both sides actively engaged with each other.
My advice to small business newsagents of social media is to speak for yourself. Take small steps. Find your voice. Speak for your own business by talking about what matters to you and your customers. You don’t need to pay someone to do this for you.
For more reading on this, check out: Sunday newsagency marketing tip: use social media for a conversation.
Dainii Minogue promotes newsagents to 1M+
Dannii Minogue promoted Aussie newsagents in a tweet to her 1M+ Twitter followers promoting the latest issue of Who magazines.
Every promotion of our channel by a celebrity or a company with a decent number of Twitter and or Facebook followers helps promote our channel and reinforce our relevance – especially if we’re the only outlet mention as in Dannii Minogue’s tweet.
if you go to Twitter you can see the engagement that followed the Tweet.
Cool Boost Juice election-themed marketing
I like the campaign being promoted by Boost Juice in the lead up to the election this weekend. They’re driving sales of their protein balls on the back of a survey where you nominate your preference of Tony Abbott or Kevin Rudd. It’s a simple and topical campaign with a commercial outcome focus. If you’re not a protein ball lover you can’t vote.