There is a lot in the press at the moment about how Facebook are improving their security settings – complaints of spamming, identity theft and bullying via Facebook have forced the site to get stricter and savvier with their security settings.

We want to make sure that you are taking full advantage of the security settings that are available to you by simply ensuring that yours are switched on. Unless you have actually switched on the settings yourself then it is unlikely that you are browsing through the site safely as the default setting is non secure.

You should therefore follow these simple steps:

Take a look at your URL (top box on your screen.)

If you see “http” or just “www” instead of “https” you DO NOT HAVE ANY SECURITY ENABLED & can be hacked.

Go to Account Settings – Click Security on the left top corner -click Edit, Check box (secure browsing), click Save.

Do everyone a huge favour and pass this message on to anyone who has a facebook account.

Other things you can be doing to ensure that your identity is protected –

• Facebook Guide to Privacy

At the very bottom of every page on Facebook, there’s a link that reads “Privacy.” The linked page is “A guide to privacy on Facebook,” which contains the details of the latest privacy settings and what they mean. If you are worried, use the “Preview my profile” button on any privacy settings page to check how your profile appears to other facebook users/friends

• Think carefully about who you allow to become your friend

Once you have accepted someone as your friend, remember that they will be able to access any information about you (including photographs) that you have marked as viewable by your friends. If you are concerned about them gaining any information about you from your facebook profile, don’t accept them as a friend. You can remove friends at any time and report anyone to facebook who is abusing you by the click of a button

• Show “limited friends” less of your profile.

You can choose to make people ‘limited friends’ who can only have access to a limited version of your profile if you wish. This can be useful if you have associates who you do not wish to give full friend status to, or feel uncomfortable sharing personal information with.

Keep yourself secure and protected on social media sites – we have the option to do so now and should be making the most of it.

Enjoy the post…

For more social media marketing tips and advice – why not subscribe to our blog .

Enjoy the post… Vikki

Vikki Mills is Social Media and Marketing Executive at  Carvill Creative – the online visibility experts. A digital marketing and design agency based in Maidenhead, Berkshire.  The agency covers all aspects of online visibility – covering social media marketing and social media training, user focused website planning and conversion focused website design.

For marketing and social media advice – view the Carvill Creative Blog

As anyone who has spoken to me in the past few months will know – I keep raving on about the brilliant book, ‘Funky Business’ – written by Riddlerstrale & Nordstrom (see www.funkybusiness.com).

It was published in 1999 – so it is 10 years old – but a decade later and the messages and gems containedwithin are more relevant than ever.

One message which really resonates is about risk – taking risks, daring to be innovative and creative, being willing to be laughed at – to fail – taking it all on the chin, learning and trying again.

Isn’t that how great marketing works? Let’s face it, behind the majority of successful ventures or products – it is likely that there are tens, if not hundreds, of attempts that went before the success.

Even those success stories that just seem to have ‘happened’ and become an overnight phenomena –(eg: Twitter) will have had a previous format in a previous life that failed, was tweaked, tested, failed again, tweaked, tested – taking years to create a formula that works and brings huge success.

Of course, written 10 years ago – their view of a ‘traditional organisation’ – is one where innovation and creativity is not encouraged or nurtured. Failure carries the corporate equivalent of the death penalty – sending a message throughout the corporate system that failure is punished.

Of course, such a message inhibits innovation.

True innovators are prepared to fail in pursuit of the unknown – it may seem like a great idea – but no one’s certain. However, they go for it any way – risk takers or innovators.

In the book – Riddlerstrale & Nordstrom cite examples such as: Mahatma Gandhi’s India, Henry Ford’s Model T, Man Ray’s photographs, Ruben Rausing’s, TetraPack, the Beatles’ Sgt Pepper’s album, Akito Mortita’s, Sony Walkman – each of these attributing to their unusual ability to combine new technology, institutions and values in unexpected ways. They took risks!

Some risk their lives in the pursuit of creating something new and different. Again, Riddlerstrale & Nordstrom cite the “great value innovator Jesus took risks and was crucified”. And in our times, Nelson Mandela took risks and was almost killed for it. Alfred Nobel took risks and passed away in solitude. Van Gogh took risks, was ridiculed and committed suicide!

For every successful entrepreneur such as Michael Dell, Bill Gates, Richard Branson etc – there are thousands of others who tried and failed. However, rather than us viewing those that try and fail as ‘failures’ – and ridiculing their attempts – we should celebrate their bravery. After all – we all learn from our mistakes – it’s a basic inherent mechanism of human progress. We learn from our own mistakes and from the mistakes of others.

As the boys in Funky Business put it so succinctly – “If it were not for all the fools trying to do the impossible – over and over again – we would still be living in caves!”

The only way not to fail, is not to try. No failures = no development.

I love the quote by Philosopher Lugwig Wittgenstein: “If people never did silly things, nothing intelligent would ever happen”.

Of course, 10 years on – have things changed that dramatically? Given the advancement of technology – and the innovation this enables – then there are certainly more organisations professing to nurture creativity and innovation – and those that appear to be the leading lights in this arena such as; Google and Microsoft (to name just a couple) – are indeed enjoying great success.

Ask yourself:

• When was the last time you took a risk?
• Are you being innovative with your services and product offerings?
• Are you ‘floating in the sea of sameness’ – competiting with the competition or innovating?
• When was the last time you failed – what did you do?  Give up, tweak it and try again?
• How do you feel about failure?  Negative – or positive?  It’s a learning curve after all.
• What can you do to drive innovation in your business?

I totally concur with the boys at Funky Business – ‘companies must become breeding grounds of risk takers’. And more respect should be given to those that take risks – even if it does result in a failure. Failure happens, that’s a given. Give people trust and it will happen more productively.

And just think of what celebrating risk and failure would do to morale!

For more marketing news, views, ideas and tips – why not subscribe to my blog or follow me on Twitter

And I highly recommend the book Funky Business, by Ridderstrale and Nordstrom. It’s an excellent read – informed and thought provoking. Visit www.funkybusiness.com or their site www.business-minds.com .

Michelle Carvill is owner and Marketing Director at Carvill Creative – a graphic design and marketing services agency based in Maidenhead, Berkshire.  The agency covers all aspects of graphic design and marketing – covering social media marketing and website planning and website design.

DON’T ask people to register unless it’s absolutely necessary!

I recently read an article on Webcredible – it was about optimising user registration and, of course, enhancing the user experience.  The article went something like this…

“Do you ever get annoyed at having to make yet another password for one more website? Too many websites still force users to register without good reason, or provide an ineffective registration process. You can avoid frustrating users on your website by thinking about the following points:

1. Ask users to login or register only when necessary. Those parts of a website that aren’t personalised should be equally accessible by registered and non-registered users. Only ask people to login or register when it’s required to complete an action, not earlier.
2. Make registration optional where possible. Customers shouldn’t have to ‘create an account’ in order to buy products from an online shop. If a site needs to remember simple previously entered information, this can also be done by using a cookie, which of course requires no effort from the end user.
3. Prominently explain the benefits of registration. Users will be happier to register if they know that they’re getting something useful, rather than if registration is seen as a barrier between them and their task.
4. Avoid lengthy registration forms. Another source of frustration comes from questions in registration forms that look irrelevant to the task in hand. Remove such questions and explain the rest e.g. “We need your phone number to notify you in case your flight times change.”
5. Consider progressive registration. This means asking only the bare essentials in the beginning (e.g. an email address and a password), and enabling users to update and complete their full profile at a later stage.”

Reading this – I concurred with every one of the 5 points.  However, I didn’t feel their warning on the perils of asking people to registere was strong enough!

Having worked on a number of ecommerce sites over the years –  when we monitor where users are ‘dropping out’ of the process – the majority of drop out is around the registration process.

In my opinion – Amazon operate a ‘seamless’ and totally user friendly way of getting users to buy.  It’s simply a case of inserting your email address whether you are a returning customer or a new customer.  Same process – tiny switch of a radio button and that’s it.

It’s only when I go to buy – (psychologically commit to interacting with the site) that I then have to hand over more details.  And, from a consumer psychology perspective, when I’m in buying mode and have committed to the purchase – we are more than happy to share more details – as we recognise that we need to make the purchase and receive the goods.  For that, we will give our address details, our card details, our date of birth – all sorts.  We are much more open to sharing information.

But where we are asked to share details before we’ve even seen the value of the proposition and have committed to buy – as soon as we are asked to share details – the conversation in our head goes something along the lines of ;

” What? Why do they want my email address, date of birth, name etc?  I’m only researching at this point! I don’t want to get email after email spamming me with their sales pitch.  Oh enough of this – I’m off!

If we look at point 2 in Webcredible’s feature – there are still lots of site where it is compulsory to ‘create an account’ – before you can access any information which is required for your decision making process.

I did some research recently in the company credit report arena – and approximately 80% of the sites I reviewed didn’t provide me with basic information such as the price of their reports. Incredulous! And when I called a couple of them to ascertain how much their reports actually retailed for – as I couldn’t find that information on the site – I was advised that it was best I registered and then I would be able to see the information I wanted!  Crazy!  Perhaps they hadn’t bothered to register on their own site and so weren’t too sure themselves!

Plus – the amount of sites asking for an email address – without a ‘why we need this’ link explaining their email policy – is incredibly high!  C’mon – it’s pretty simple to do – and an excellent way of being transparent with your customers and nurturing the all important trust factor.

I always remember, in a previous consulting role, being lectured by my CEO:  “Make it as easy as possible for the customer to buy”.  Online – it’s imperative that our information pathways and signposts and processes are not prohibitive – but welcome the customer on board – which makes engaging with us, or buying from us – a simple and positive experience.

Progressive registration is indeed the way to go. Taking only the bare minimum and then progressively extracting more when the customer is in sharing mode.  From a consumer psychology perspective – once a customer is engaged and in buying mode – they are more than comfortable to share heaps of information.  And if it’s really necessary for your customers to create an account – as that’s where they need to return to access the thing they’ve consumed from you – then fine, but do this as part of the purchasing process – post commitment – NOT before they’re even sure about purchasing from you.  Done too soon – it will most certainly kill the commitment!

“It’s the crazy messed up world of E-commerce videos” from the fab GetElastic – hit the nail right on the head – this amusing video gets the message across – oh so well… Have a giggle!

Enjoy…

For more marketing news, views, tips and advice – why not subscribe to my blog or follow me on twitter .

Michelle Carvill is owner and Marketing Director at Carvill Creative – a graphic design and marketing services agency based in Maidenhead, Berkshire.  The agency covers all aspects of graphic design and marketing – covering social media marketing and website planning and website design.

The creation of your business may have been down to many factors – timing, a brilliant innovative idea, discovering a gap in the market, an invention – however, whatever it was, to bring your business to life and ensure its longevity, then knowing where your business is heading and having a vision, which you can ‘share’ with employees, investors and customers – is an all important, yet often overlooked, part of the business planning process.

The Visioning Process is really the critical starting point – if you’ve clearly set out a vision for where your business is heading, you have something that you can live by – and any other stakeholders, can easily understand. After all, if you have everyone associated with your business singing from the same hymn sheet – all clearly focused on the direction of the business – then you are ahead of the game in getting there…

Visioning isn’t simply about creating an inspirational ‘tag line’ such as ‘Be the best’ – it’s about the processes which are implemented and the values that underpin what ‘being the best’ means.

I recently read a case study about the vision at Motorola – their vision is very simply ‘wireless’ – simple, yet hugely ambitious. 3M focuses on ‘solving unsolved problems’. These statements are simple enough to be shared by all team – and they are clear in saying what the companies should not be doing. Try showing up at Motorola with a wire and see what happens!

Visioning is an important strategic process – which whilst may take a bit of time to implement, is certainly worth doing – to ensure that you are 100% clear on where you are heading.

There’s a great saying; “People who set out without a target hit it 100% of the time!” – so let’s take a look at the Visioning Process – to ensure that you have a Vision to live by…

Step 1: Where are you now?

1. Do you have a vision?

2. Could you write a brief statement of your own vision?

3. Do you or your team have a mission of purpose statement? (Do they know what the business is focused on?)

4. Do you have a unique competence? (And unique is the word here).

5. What strengths, weaknesses, and areas of special skill do you or your team bring to the business?

6. What is the scope of your business? (Current products, services, markets and customers).

7. From number 6 above, can you identify what will be expanded or dropped in the future?

8. What distinguishes your business or products/services you provide.

Going through the ‘Where are you now’ questions helps you to consider a framework for your Vision.

Step 2: Preparing for Change

You’re now into the design phase of your Vision. You’ve probed and asked questions of yourself and your business – and now you need to create a vision which is clear and focused. So some more areas to consider helping you drill down into your focus:

1. What is the direction of your future?

2. What future range of responsibilities, skills and new or expanded services will you consider?

3. How will the current and future ranges of skills or products differ?

4. What key capabilities and resources will you need to succeed?

5. How will your vision impact your businesses growth?

6. If you could create the future, what future would you create for yourself?

7. How many categories of future development can you identify that will impact your vision?

8. Can you make a list of expectations for each of those categories of future development?

9. Can you prioritise that list of expectations for each of those categories that would have the greatest impact on your vision?

Step 3: Pulling together your Vision

With all the ‘background’ analysis undertaken – you are now in the position of putting your vision together. This is the combination of your intuition, personal vision, experience, judgement, information, values and culture.

Of course, your vision has to be shared with those associated with your business. Therefore, the vision must be distinctive and establish standards that employees and partners find necessary to follow. Doing this is no easy task – but the steps below provide a useful model for ensuring you have considered all areas:

1. Review all the information and materials you have compiled. This information is valuable and insightful – however, don’t ignore ideas you may be avoiding – consider all possibilities.
2. Consider all your driving forces:
   1. Products or services offered
   2. Users/customers
   3. Markets served
   4. Low cost production, capability, capacity
   5. Marketing/sales methods
   6. Technology
   7. Method of distribution
   8. Return/profit
   9. Size/growth
   10. Natural resources
3. Prioritise the key elements within your vision. In your view are your strengths, driving force and culture and values consistent? Is consistency important – or is change a higher priority?
4. Having prioritised, and satisfied yourself that this is the vision you really want, you are now ready to create your vision focus. By this stage, you should be able to put it into a really short, easily understandable statement that focuses and reflects:
   1. An exciting future
   2. The creation of value for you and your team
   3. Standards of excellent and reflect high ideals, standards and uniqueness to everyone that you and your team interact with
   4. Clear criteria for decision making and evaluation
   5. Enthusiasm and commitment

Step 5: Cementing your thinking

You’ve gone through the information gathering and analysis process – and created your vision for a new direction. And so at this point – it’s a time for reflection:

1. Is this the best vision?
2. What are the chances for its success?
3. If it fails, what can I salvage?
4. Should we even try?

Whilst these questions may seem hard-going – it’s important to ask yourself these questions in order to remove any doubts that your vision inspires commitment and enthusiasm. Do YOU really believe in it? It is right for everyone who will interact with it, will it lead to business success and improved performance?

Doubt and uncertainty are inevitable when considering a new direction – so resolve this doubt by asking the following:

1. Does everyone clearly understand the vision?
2. How does the current situation compare with the new vision?
3. How will the vision affect the business and team?
4. What changes, if any, will be required to make the transition to the new vision?
5. Will your new vision require new or additional resources, technology, skills?
6. Have you set a timeframe – it is realistic?

And of course, if you are not wholly confident of your Vision – test it – get a small group of people you trust to be honest to act as a sounding board.

Step 6: Implementing your Vision

Of course, your Vision Statement is nothing more than words until it is put into action. Whilst the words are important – it’s implementation that changes your business direction. So many times, time is given to an important strategic process – be it, business planning, strategic planning, marketing planning etc – and yet the all important implementation – the getting on and doing it, just doesn’t happen. It starts – but then fizzles out… loses energy.

There used to be a ‘mantra’ – lead by example. And indeed – for any change of Vision and business direction to happen, you have got to ‘live’ it. And I suppose this is where passion comes into it – because if you are truly passionate about something – then you are more likely to pursue it than let is ‘fizzle out’.

In the important ‘Futuristic’ business book – Funky Business (written some 10 years ago I must add, but still highly relevant) – they cite examples of organisational vision being driven top down – such as: the multi-billionaire founder of Ikea still travels economy and stays is ‘value’ hotels, rather than 1^st class and 5 star – as some may expect. Is it okay for senior management to travel first class when those not part of that tranche are tasked with saving money on paperclips? Over to you… But at Ikea – the founder is living the vision.

To put the new vision into action you need to:

1. Demonstrate a personal commitment to the vision. You are the direction setter, the change agent and even coach. You are the visionary leader – and therefore, you must consistently apply the vision to all your actions and decisions.
2. Commit to communicating the significance of the vision to everyone. Your team need to know that your vision is working – and know that your commitment is true. It’s important to regularly communicate and demonstrate how the vision is impacting the business.
3. You are the primary communicator of the vision. Beware! It is doomed if your actions and words fail to reinforce it.

Step 7: Keeping your vision alive!

There are no set rules as to when to re-evaluate a vision – but 6 monthly reviews are probably sensible. Of course, by definition, all visions are always ‘just beyond reach’ – and therefore, you need to be assessing that this is the case – refining and revising in line with ongoing environmental changes. Remember, your vision needs to be keeping ahead of the rapidly changing times and technology – so reaffirmation and support for the vision are crucial.

Clearly, a vision statement is far more than a ‘paragraph’ – it’s the starting point for quality management and continual improvement. It captures as ideal, unique and attractive image of your future and answers the question, “What do I want to create”.

For more information about the Visioning Process – Building a Shared Vision, by C Patrick Lewis is a great resource. Many of the stages of the visioning process included within this article are gleaned from his book, which provides a practical framework for effective vision creation.

For more marketing advice, news, ideas and tips why not subscribe to my Carvill on Marketing blog – or follow me on Twitter

Michelle Carvill is owner and Marketing Director at Carvill Creative – a graphic design and marketing services agency based in Maidenhead, Berkshire.  The agency covers all aspects of graphic design and marketing – covering social media marketing and website planning and website design.

As an avid Twitter user I recently came across a white paper written by Michael Stelzner – it’s the first official ‘marketing industry report’ on social media that I have come across – no doubt many, many more will follow.

The report, titled; How Marketers are using Social Media to Grow their Businesses is most certainly worth a read. It documents the findings of research geared to ‘marketers’ with a sample size of approx 900 participating.

Of course, it is a US sample – but given the context of the questions (behaviour based) – geographical location is pretty much irrelevant.

Whilst I’ve been ‘in marketing’ for over 15 years – I am a relative newbie to Social Media (just about 9 months!). Yes, I’ve been blogging for about 9 months now – and participating in forums for about the same time – and have absorbed myself in Twitter for the past few months.

I’ve never really been a Facebook fan – as when I dabbled some months back – I felt that it was more of a ‘popularity contest’ – (how many friends do I have) rather than a useful resource – and from a B2B perspective, in my view, it still has a lot of ground to break. I had researched Facebook and the other social networks, both established and emerging, quite rigourously – about 18 months ago – as I was (and still am) involved in the development of http://www.bizzbug.com which for me, is a far more practical and useful (not to mention more private) resource.

On Twitter I’ve connected with some really very interesting and useful people. And often I think of myself as a ’student’ – listening to the wise musings of those that appear to have been part of the social media scene for years!

When digging around however, for research and best practice methodologies and strategies for social media – there’s not much around. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of Top 10, Top 20, Top 100 articles (some of which are very useful) – but clearly the territory is still too fertile for established ‘research’ and documented strategies.

I was therefore somewhat comforted to read in Michael Stelzner’s report findings that 72% of those using social media in their business – have only been doing so for a ‘few months or less’.

Further, it was good to see that the main platforms that ‘marketers’ were engaging in were; Twitter, Blogs, Linked-In and Facebook. So the fact that I am active in three out of the four didn’t make me feel too left behind.

I was surprised that Forums didn’t rate higher than they did. I participate in two or three very relevant forums and I find them really useful. Where relevant I can point people to solutions I may have written about in my blog – or to other resources – and answer specific questions, sharing my experience, advice and views. And of course, when stuck or looking for a ‘feel’ on things – then I can pose questions. A forum is far more ‘tightly knit’ than say ‘Twitter’ – and I notice that forum members tend to be genuinely protective of ‘the community space’ – spammers and users on a forum for a quick sell, are quickly given the boot.

It was during a forum thread about Social Media that I came across a tribe of people who are clearly upset that ‘marketers’ have jumped on the social media bandwagon and have bastardised the concept – ruining the platforms for people who want to have genuine conversations and connect. The view was that people were sick of ‘marketers’ muscling in on ‘their’ spaces and that they were going to have to find another means to ’socialise’!

Now then, I do indeed socialise, I have various groups of friends that I keep in contact with – from days as a singleton living and working in London, to old school friends I’ve known for over 35 years (blimey is it really that long…) and of course, to the fabulous network of ‘mums’ that have assisted my sanity and survival in the epic adventure known as motherhood (and who, thankfully, continue to do so)! Do I ‘Twitter’ with these people, no I do not – do I Facebook (if that’s a term) with these people – no I do not. Do I ‘Link In’ with these people (perhaps a few I was at Business School with and who I don’t really keep in touch with and am interested to see what they’re up to) – but with my ‘friends’ – no, I do not.

Instead - I call them, drop them an email with latest news, send a card and call me crazy, but I meet up with them, organise a quick ‘glass of wine’ – or visit them or invite them to visit me.

Don’t get me wrong, I truly appreciate that there are not enough hours in the day to fit everything in – and email and sharing photos etc (I do this via Bizzbug but I can see how people find FaceBook useful for this purpose too – but it’s a bit open for me [interject here for a mo with a quick Facebook dilemma, I was 'befriended' by a long distant uncle from my husbands side of the family whom I have never met and given his ridiculous postings nor would I wish to – but how do I switch him off without him knowing!]) – anyway the point is that technology certainly helps me nurture friendships when I don’t have the time to call or it’s not logistically feasible to regularly meet up with folks. But it’s certainly no substitute.

And I now regularly ’speak’ to people online via these channels – but I’d call that ‘networking’ instead of ’socialising’.

For those that are upset because we ‘terrible marketers’ – are using social media platforms as another communication channel and advising our clients to do the same – my advice is ‘get out more’ – (in the nicest possible way…).

I’ve written a couple of posts about how I am using social media, both personally and with one particular client of mine.

As I mentioned before – I’m involved with a social media resource www.bizzbug.com – and when putting together the strategic model for growth the team behind Bizzbug considered the growth framework:

• Influencers
• Early adopters
• Early majority
• Laggards (late comers)

Even though the main social platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and Linked In have significant numbers of users (we’re talking millions) – if we categorise Marketers as ‘Influencers’ – advising their clients and contacts to leverage these platforms and educating them in doing so – and given that 72% of marketers surveyed stated that they’ve only been using social media platforms as part of their marketing for the past ‘few months’ – then that would suggest that we really are only scratching the surface of what’s to come…

And to cement my thinking, I recently read a great post by Seth Godin ‘The Paradox Of The Middle Of The Market’‘ – in essence the article focuses on the importance of designing products/services which are ‘interesting’ enough to be picked up by the Influencers – but that have practical appeal with the all important ‘middle market’.

When products/services cross the chasm – (as Twitter is now doing/has possibly already done) – then those ‘first users’ – can feel left out – almost cheated (by those nasty marketers)! But actually, it’s naive to think that the guys behind Twitter didn’t design the product without the vision of the all important middle market in mind. Not many products and services do cross the chasm – but when they do – boy do they reap the rewards.

Follow me on Twitter http://www.twitter.com/michellecarvill and for instant blog updates, why not subscribe to my blog. Simply visit and insert your email address top right hand corner. It’s packed with marketing news, view, ideas, free stuff, twitter icons and badges and advice – so take a look round.

Michelle Carvill is owner and Marketing Director at Carvill Creative – a graphic design and marketing services agency based in Maidenhead, Berkshire.  The agency covers all aspects of graphic design and marketing – covering social media marketing and website planning and website design.

I remember during one of the recent ‘Apprentice’ episodes – ‘Shr’ Alan’ making the statement that, ‘once he’d had a taste of working for himself, even when he wasn’t making a fortune, wild horses wouldn’t have been able to drag him back to work for someone else’.

Having been self employed for the past 7 years – I found myself nodding in agreement with his statement.

But that got me questioning just why I agreed so readily with his statement. Let’s face it – I am aware of many people who are very, very happy working for someone else. They get rewarded both financially and personally – enjoy paid holidays and sick days, pensions, perks and generally really enjoy their roles. And whilst I’m not undermining the pressure of many roles – having been employed for most of my working life, I recall, that there’s definitely more opportunity to ’switch off’ – after all your ‘role’ is a job and as conscientious as one may be – you are ultimately not the business owners – that’s somebody else’s challenge! And unless your role is ‘commission’ based – then you’re not often directly constantly concerned with winning and developing new business to keep a constant revenue stream through the business.

So given how attractive employment is, what then is it that drives an individual to rough it through the very real challenges of ’self employment’?

I have been pondering this for a few days now… and whilst it would be a simple task for me to write a list of the pros and cons of employment -v- self employment: flexibility, accountability, responsibility, exhaustability (is that a word?!) to name but a few.    However,  I believe it actually runs a bit deeper than that.

From my perspective, it’s the balance of the relationship that’s an all important factor. Plain and simple – it comes down to ‘playing fair’.

I think we’ll all agree, that regardless of the type of management style we operate, or participate within [hierarchical, non hierarchical] – in all cases an employee is viewed differently from a ’supplier’. The expectation of an employee is to ‘do’ for the business. The expectation of a ’supplier’ is to supply to the business. With employees there is usually some form of ‘hierarchical’ structure – and ‘boundaries’ to play within – yet with ’suppliers’ the balance is far more equal.

To put it another way – as a supplier, the objective is to keep the customer/client as serviced as possible. You’re up against the competition – so you’ve got to ensure you stand out from a crowd, differentiate, provide exceptional services, be creative and dynamic – and all the time managing and marketing your own business in an efficient and effective way.

So what makes someone want to get out and do it for themselves – whilst others feel totally comfortable with employment?

Fortunately, I was perhaps very lucky in the roles I had when employed – I was always empowered to make changes, implement ideas etc – lots of ‘freedom’ to make a difference which is great initially – but not so great when, regardless of how well you are compensated, the realisation that you’re putting in all the effort to line the pockets of others starts to bug you. (Perhaps it’s when you’re given so much freedom as an employee the thoughts that ‘I could do this myself’ are triggered…).

I’m sure many balance the financial quarms and boundaries out with – “hey, well, whilst I work hard, I get lots of responsibility and a good salary” – so that’s good enough for me. But I suppose, over the years, I became less satisfied with that.

Reading Malcolm Gladwell’s marvellous ‘Blink’ – then perhaps my need to ‘do it for myself’ stems from the fact that my parents divorced! His research has shown there’s a correlation! But perhaps that’s a little bit too random an explanation.

Personally, I didn’t ever see any reason why I shouldn’t do things for myself? I remember friends of mine from my home town in Lancashire being horrified when I was leaving the safeguard of the group I’d known since I was 5, to work in London – by myself, with no friends or family south of the M6. But for me – that just seemed highly practical – the advertising agencies I wanted to work for were based in London – so that’s where I had to be!

Adventurous? I wouldn’t say that – risk taker? Not really! Power crazy? Nope, I’m certainly not looking for world domination – and control freak? Well, maybe a little bit of a ‘Monica’ – but I’ve got to keep on top of a lot of things – so working for myself, that trait seems to help.

So, what say you …? What made you move away from the ‘comforts’ of confines of employment? And do you attribute it to your background, your personality or was it merely circumstances and the right time?

Join the conversation… visit or follow me on Twitter http://www.twitter.com/michellecarvill

Michelle Carvill is owner and Marketing Director at Carvill Creative – a graphic design and marketing services agency based in Maidenhead, Berkshire.  The agency covers all aspects of graphic design and marketing – covering social media marketing and website planning and website design.

As a marketer with a mantra of ‘be targeted’ – then I always raise an eyebrow when I receive messages from Twitter followers advising me how to get 1000 new followers in 48 hours! And, I certainly don’t follow back those on Twitter who clearly only have the goal of creating a huge number of followers (but to what end!).

I find Twitter a really useful resource – but that’s because I am following – and largely being followed, in a targeted way.

I’ve conversed with my followers to bounce ideas around and get feedback from – and given that I am talking to a relatively targeted audience – then it’s all highly relevant.

To assist me in my targeted strategy – I’ve been using TweetBeep (http://www.tweetbeep.com) – I am aware that there are other alert apps out there – but this is the one I started with – and it’s doing the job marvellously.

Effectively, I use the alert process for a number of things:

• I set my alerts on certain keywords that are relevant to my interests, eg: user experience, social media marketing, usability and online psychology.
• I get alerted via a TweetBeep email each time these keywords are triggered.
• This allows me to read through the messages –check out who the people are – and decide whether to follow them or not. If relevant, I do.
• It’s also been really useful in identifying areas where I can assist and share information. For example – when I saw messages from people looking for a social media strategy outline – I was able to send across a document I had put together. Without the TweetBeep, I wouldn’t have been able to help. I add value to them, they then start following me – subscribe into my blog etc – they’ve found a ‘relevant’ contact.
• Likewise – I’ve found relevant contacts in the same way – and have found some really useful people to follow.
• It also enables me to monitor my own ‘reach’. I often come across my own tweets – being shared across the network by people who are not necessarily following me. And of course, if you set an alert in your own name/twitter handle – then you’ll get alerted on these too.

Of course, when I do follow a new user – then I always check out who they are following – this enables me to grow the people I follow in a targeted way. Like often attracts like – and I am finding that many of the people I am connecting with – are also following in a targeted way – so hence – in their followers, I am finding a great pool of relevant contacts for me to explore.

You can set the alerts on anything which is relevant to you – and so if you too have a targeted strategy, rather than a ‘follow anyone in the hope they too have a follow all strategy and have autofollow set ‘ one – you can watch the relevant conversations that are taking place – and then decide how and whether to participate.

The TweetBeep alerts are pretty instantaneous – and so not only relevant but timely. As I said – there are other alerts out there – and I am told that Tweetdeck has this facility within it.

So, whichever, alert you go for – my advice is cut through the noise and ‘get targeted’.

For more marketing news, views, strategies and advice – then why not subscribe to my blog

Or follow me on Twitter http://www.twitter.com/michellecarvill

Michelle Carvill is owner and Marketing Director at Carvill Creative – a graphic design and marketing services agency based in Maidenhead, Berkshire.  The agency covers all aspects of graphic design and marketing – covering social media marketing and website planning and website design.

It was a weird start to the day. Having gone to bed very early the evening before (poorly daughter had kept me awake for much of the previous 3 nights) – I had missed all the news on Twitter and so awoke with no idea about the terribly sad news of Michael Jackson’s death.

They say that you always remember where you are when you hear shocking news – and so there I was – in the kitchen, robotically preparing weetabix and bagels.

I turned on the news and the media circus was, as one would expect, in full swing.

From the myriad of documentaries that were given pride of place in the programming schedules (and I viewed 3 consecutively) – they all seemed to have been splitting Michael Jackson’s life into 3 sections:

1. The early years – how he started, the Jackson 5, the Jacksons
2. The King of Pop – how he changed music, broke down barriers of ‘colour’
3. Whacko Jacko – how we went off the rails, his appearance, ‘the court case’, self destruction and his debts

As true marmite lovers know –  all brands, and in particularly with superbrands – thrive on ‘brand loyalty’ – people grow to love their ‘brands’ so much – that they won’t hear anything negative said against them, they become protective of their brand, and no matter what slurs are made against that brand, it takes a lot to switch true brand loyalty.

Superbrands are superbrands because they are able to sustain ‘loyalty’ over a significant period of time. It’s not really about ‘Michael Jackson’ himself – but more about the values, beliefs and feelings we as ‘consumers’ associate with him. What does Michael Jackson mean to you? That’s the loyalty factor.

Michael Jackson as a brand has been growing this loyalty for over 45 years – and so his superbrand status is truly embedded.

In reality, even shocking allegations of child molestation, whilst not great for the brand, didn’t really do much to dent the brand power. The several millions of people tuned into ‘the verdict’ is testament to his brand strength and reach – with people from all over the world screaming and crying at the ‘verdict’ – as if it was one of their closest family members. And personally, I just didn’t believe it. Call me naïve if you wish – but whilst I figured he was clearly a shrewd businessman, I really couldn’t get my head around him being anything other than emotionally ‘innocent’.

And it isn’t surprising – many of us around the 40 ish age – grew up with Michael Jackson. I know in my household – my mother’s Sunday morning cleaning ritual was supported by Shirley Bassey and anything ‘motown’ – and The Jacksons featured heavily – so I was about 7 when I was dancing to ‘I want you back’ with a duster in my hand.

And so it went – each time he reinvented his brand, giving it a new edge or angle – we all followed his journey.

It’s a rare thing to find a person who hasn’t got the ‘Off the Wall’ album (somewhere) or who watched the Thriller video in awe, with a household of friends – video-taped it and then relentlessly endeavoured to replicate the steps in perfect sequence to showcase at the school disco! (Or perhaps that was just me and my friends!).

Thriller was such a ground breaking event in music – treasured by billions of people of all ages. In fact, when my mother died and my sister and I were sorting out the house – we found the Thriller video which she had recorded years earlier, and kept (video cassettes in the era of dvds!) alongside video recordings of our family. She clearly couldn’t part with the tape – even though she no longer had a video recorder! And I took it home with me – dogged and worn with the fingerprints of my family and friends – an old video recording of Thriller – but such sentiment and value – loyalty to the brand.

Prior to going it alone, I worked in a global consultancy – when we did our 3 day intense management training seminars, the supporting music was Michael Jackson’s, ‘Man in the Mirror’ – strategically selected because of his power to connect emotionally with audiences.

Whilst the media are keen to advise us of just how much debt he is in and what a terrible mess he’s made of things – £400 million, (or it is billion!). Then at least from a financial perspective, we can all rest assured that the death of a superbrand is good for business.

The debts will pale into insignificance with new album sales, downloads, memorabilia, tribute concerts – and long may they all continue. It’s a shame it takes his death to give his range of music more airtime, and for us all to remember his outstanding achievements and contribution to music.

As I said earlier – a brand isn’t about the ‘object’ ‘product’ or ‘person’ – it’s about the values that the object, product or person instils in the hearts and minds of the consumer. And over the years, Michael Jackson has given us so much to value – such value builds a barrier which makes it difficult for any negativity to penetrate.

I found the ‘Wacko Jacko’ emphasis in the programmes I watched last night – distasteful, but that’s because they are not part of the values I associate with Michael Jackson – and from a psychological perspective – once those values are embedded, as any brand manager looking after a ‘superbrand’ will tell you, they are excruciatingly difficult to shift.

The tributes from people who really knew Michael Jackson all seem to concur with the fact that he was a genius talent, a genuinely nice guy, shrewd in business, yet gentle and childlike, often introverted – and through pressure, he lost his way. Fame beyond fame – but at what cost? He had so much to live up to – it was interesting when his sister was talking about the pressure surrounding the lack of success of the HIStory album – to learn that even though this was deemed a ‘failure’ – it still had more sales than most recording artists could even dream of achieving. The bar was certainly high!

I may have seen him a few times (in concert), I certainly never met or knew him. And so, my views about Michael Jackson can only be based on what he and his music has meant to me over the years.

Genius talent and King of Pop for sure.  There’s no doubt his music will continue to be played forever.  And yes, my children have already been introduced to The Jacksons and Michael Jackson,  as we dance around the house with our dusters on a Sunday morning!

Superbrand indeed – yet also an all time icon!

Michelle Carvill is owner and Marketing Director at Carvill Creative – a graphic design and marketing services agency based in Maidenhead, Berkshire.  The agency covers all aspects of graphic design and marketing – covering social media marketing and website planning and website design.

Of course I respect the level of commitment and work a business participates in to get in a prime position to be noticed online.

Optimising your online presence so that it is picked up by the all important search engines is of course a key tactic for success. We know from our own user experiences that once we search a ‘keyword’ or phrase inGoogle then it’s likely that we’ll only review the first two, three or, at a push, maybe five results.

Dependent upon your market and the competition in that sector, and your business model – it may be that running online advertisements and keeping your ‘pay per click’ budget top of the game isn’t too onerous or costly. However, with more and more businesses vying to get themselves top of the first search page – then this tactic alone is likely to be a cash hungry one.

Research in this area has identified that there is a strong correlation for being ‘the chosen ones’ when you have both a ’sponsored advertisement’ and you are in the top section of the natural listings. No easy task!

And as I mentioned earlier, I concur with all efforts to get noticed.

However, it’s fundamental that we keep in mind what happens for the user once we get that all important click – and the user is on your site. The SEO effort and Ad content has done its job – you’ve got them where you want them – and, so… now what?

I’ve blogged before about all the effort at the, let’s call it ‘front end’ – getting the users to visit your site – becoming a total waste of energy if, when the user gets there – they are confused, don’t like what they see, or even worse, are misled!

Getting users to visit your site is indeed paramount – however, once you’ve got them – then you really want to be focused on ‘converting’ those customers to the positive outcome you had in mind when you planned your site.

In my view, considering what the end goal of the site is should be the key driver for design and process when building and planning a site.  Asking yourself the simple question: “What do you want your customers to ultimately do?” – and then ensuring that your design, signposting and processes, enable them to do just that – quickly and simply.  It’s the basics of effective web planning.

If that end goal is to convert customers to buy – then you really need to be constantly considering what can be done within your site processes to improve that all important conversion rate.

Like all marketing activity – regular monitoring and tweaking is necessary. And understanding how users are actually using your site can provide you with valuable, conversion changing information.

Exit Rates

One such simple way to understand how users are using your site is to regularly review ‘exit rates’.

Via Google Analytics – you can measure where customers are ‘exiting’ your site – the metric shows the percentage of ‘exit rates’ a particular page has.

Whilst this method doesn’t provide me with an exact overview of an average journey of a user through the site – what it does do, is highlight possible problem areas.

For example:

• If you see a page which is showing that 99.3% of people leave the site from that page – then you may expect this page to be a ’successful transaction page’. However, it may be that you don’t want them to leave at that point – you may want to try and recapture them into purchasing another product (Thank you for your transaction – continue shopping, you may also want x etc).
• If your page where people go to pay is showing a high exit rate – then this alerts you to the fact that customers are leaving or dropping out here – they are getting to the critical commitment area and then exiting… why? What can you do to improve and aid more conversions?

Recently I reviewed exit rates with a client and we found a few weird happenings. When we looked at the pages with unusually high exit rates we realised that we had a ‘dead link’ on one page – leaving the user with nowhere to go. We found a service promotion which was totally back to front – the features and benefits and how to buy the product were hidden well below paragraphs of useful, yet incorrectly positioned text.

I come from a school of management where, when I would put forward a 40% sales conversion rate – (albeit offline), my CEO would question why it wasn’t higher. “If we’ve got them talking – then they should see the merits in our products and buy”. The fact that 60% didn’t, would concern him considerably.

Therefore, with 8% conversions rates deemed successful online – you can see where my quest for businesses to focus effort on conversions once they’ve got them on the site is inherited.

And of course, keeping the system flowing and enabling customers to do exactly what they were looking to do on your site, in a simple way, is clearly great for user experience – and positive word of mouth.

So my quick checklist is:

• Ask yourself what the key goal of your online presence is?
• Once you’ve decided that take a step back and review whether that is the most paramount thing your site promotes?
• Do you make it easy, clear and simple for the user to do exactly what they want to do?
• Does your ‘adwords’ content clearly promote what the user is going to get when they get to your site?
• Do you regularly review and update where people are leaving your site – troubleshoot and enhance the user experience?
• Do you know what your conversion rate is?
• How regularly do you review it and what do you do to improve it?

I appreciate that conversion rates are impacted by a number of factors. However, my quest is that all angles are looked at; like I say, it’s wonderful if you can drive serious amounts of traffic to your site – but traffic alone does not create conversion. You’ve got to give the user what they are looking for in a seamless and simple way – it’s not simple to execute – but definitely worth considering how you can improve conversion once they’re on your site!

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Michelle Carvill is owner and Marketing Director at Carvill Creative – a graphic design and marketing services agency based in Maidenhead, Berkshire.  The agency covers all aspects of graphic design and marketing – covering social media marketing and website planning and website design.

Having been in Euston, London, on a training course last Friday – to get back home, I entered Euston tube station, to hear soothing classical music. Stark contrast indeed to the hustle and bustle of the busy Euston Road. Brain had to engage a little,’what is that I hear?‘ – but no big deal, I assumed it was the talents of a nearby busker and that the deeper I went into the station, the source creating these soothing, and clearly very well rehearsed tones, would become apparent.

And then I realised! What! Classical music being piped through the speakers in the tube station. All throughout the train station? How incredible.

Having moved to London some (yikes almost 20 years ago now!) – and therefore, been reliant on tubes for as many years… I can honestly say that this was the first time I had ever heard classical music – or any music for that matter – being ‘piped’ through the speaker system!

It was totally unexpected, very pleasant – and certainly made me smile. The soothing tones somehow deflected from the shabby tiles and dull opaqueness of the decor. And being 5.00 pm on a Friday afternoon, it also detracted from the start of the busy rush hour(s)!.

The tones were totally unexpected – but actually didn’t take much to implement. The system for communicating ’sound’ was clearly already in place. The tube station experience was definitely improved – and I speak on behalf of a few others around me who were smiling at one another, making comment about the music and raising eyebrows in amusement/surprise. The atmosphere was lightened in a positive way.

Inspired yet simple. Leveraging the systems already in place but doing something different with them. Something that couldn’t have cost much or taken much effort (cost of plugging in a cd player/ipod to the pa system!) – can make a big impact and improve the user experience – get people talking.

The novelty may wear thin when all stations do this – and we become used to hearing soothing music (without the guilt factor of not having any change to throw in the hat!) – but it presents food for thought to all of us.

Never thought I’d be drawing inspiration from London Underground – but maybe we should all be considering what we can be doing differently, leveraging systems already in place – to stand out, surprise, make an impact – and improve customer experience!

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Michelle Carvill is owner and Marketing Director at Carvill Creative – a graphic design and marketing services agency based in Maidenhead, Berkshire.  The agency covers all aspects of graphic design and marketing – covering social media marketing and website planning and website design.