Internet Psychology from Graham Jones

Welcome to another weekly digest of material from my website grahamjones.co.uk. Enjoy. this is so important that they will be your person saving you the bother of dealing with all the messages and chit chat, but giving your company a real face. There are plenty of people earning a good living being ghost tweeters not just for celebrities, but also for many commercial concerns. However, much of what some social media experts tell you is based on assumption. To be fair, it is a good assumption that because social media is social it is about people connecting with each other, not people to some anonymous corporate. That is hardly social, is it? But like many assumptions, there is only partial truth in it and when someone actually researches the situation you find it is much more complex than at first it seems. A new study from Louisiana State University has shown that whether your company should have real people Tweeting or whether you can be corporate in the world of social media all depends upon the motivations of the person at the other end your customer or potential client. If an individual is merely interested in a dialogue with a company then you dont need to be real. People seem perfectly satisfied having conversations with the brand or the company itself. However, if the person wants to share information about the company or tell others their experience then having a conversation with a real person appears to be vital. Shush.its a secretbut some big name celebrities who are on Twitter dont actually Tweet! Gosh.totes amazeballs and all that! But strange as it may seem, some celebrities hire a PR agency to do their Tweeting. Not only that but when you have a conversation with John or Sally from customer service, that might not be their real names.! Indeed, your conversation may involve several different people. But they string together several Tweets or Facebook messages in the hope that you think you are chatting to one person. Other businesses are not such big fibbers. They only Tweet as the business not pretending that a real person is talking to you. Meanwhile, some social media savvy firms make sure that when you talk to them on social networks you always chat to the same, real person every time. These are two diametrically opposed views one that social media only really works if the company connects to its followers using real people, whereas the second view is that followers only want to connect with the brand, not real individuals who work for the company. Social media gurus are fond of telling you that you simply HAVE to be personal, making sure that the conversation involves real, identifiable people. Social media management companies tell you
1

Can your business Tweet or should social activity be from real people?
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/grahamjones/~3/Cr8yVilZ3ok/can-yourbusiness-tweet-or-should-social-activity-be-from-real-people.html

So, as a business this gives you a choice. If all you want from social media is to have conversations with customers but dont want anything else as a result, then you dont need to be real you can be corporate. But if you want people to talk about you, to recommend your products and services to their friends and to help you market your business with word of mouth, then you certainly do need to have real, identifiable people doing your social media activity. Related posts 1. Twitter works best if you are already well-known 2. Social media have wider influence 3. Social media is more problematic than cigarettes or alcohol

Blog Post Comments Help More Than Your Blog

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/grahamjones/~3/1V_jhwCTWmM/blogpost-comments-help-more-than-your-blog.html

3. Got a website or blog? Then behave like a publisher..!

Consumer Online Behaviour is Hard to Predict

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/grahamjones/~3/RaGb3TmGEcw/ consumer-online-behaviour-is-hard-to-predict.html

Blog post comments are a double-edged sword. For many bloggers they simply dont get any comments or enough of them. For others, their blog is so popular their comments are cluttered with hundreds of spam comments generated by bots which just trawl the web for blogs and then insert comments into them. The notion behind such spam comments is that there is value in having links the spam comments will usually include links back to some nefarious website where the owner believes (wrongly) that any link is valuable. Luckily, of course, there are systems to prevent bots from adding comments to your blog. This website uses Akismet which in January alone has already blocked 49,010 spam comments from appearing on these pages..! However, some website owners do not like using spam blocking software because it removes so many comments from their site it looks like no-one is commenting. Some people simply like to make their blogs look really busy by having loads of comments even if many of those comments are garbage. Another issue with blog post comments for many website owners and bloggers is they worry about negative and argumentative comments being published. The last thing they want is a bunch of people flaming them. So, they either switch off comments meaning their blog looks unloved and lacking interaction or they have to moderate every comment, wasting time and leading to delays in comments being published. Either way, such an approach is not good. New research, however, shows that such worries about negative comments are unwarranted. The vast majority of comments on blogs appear to be positive and supportive. We should not worry unduly about comments indeed bloggers should welcome them. In fact, as the study confirms, most of the comments on blogs are actually so supportive they end up boosting the self-esteem of the blogger. Whilst comments make your website look alive and interactive, they also have another added benefit. Because most comments end up making you feel good about yourself it actually means you become more likely to blog more, leading to more comments, leading to even greater self-esteem. Oh, and by the way, it also leads to more search engine benefits, more social sharing and more traffic! So, even if you dont use blogging as a business tool (and you should!) then blogging will certainly help you feel good about yourself. Related posts 1. 3 Reasons Why Your Staff Should Blog 2. Negative SEO: does it really exist?

Consumer online behaviour is something every business website owner would love to predict. After all, if you could predict how your customers would behave you could produce exactly the right kind of website and be sure of certain success. Sadly, its not that easy. Indeed, it is not as easy as it is in the real world of retail, for instance. Large shopping brands employ retail psychologists to help predict the behaviour in their stores. A great deal is known about the way people walk around shops, where their eyes look and how they make their choices. Online similar attempts have been made to understand the behaviour of website visitors, but unfortunately the answers are much more confusing, contradictory and difficult to interpret. As an example, consider where consumers look on a web page. Eye tracking studies are frequently used particularly by major brands to work out where people look on their web pages. The problem is that such studies show exactly where people look, but they seem to be able to click on places they are not even looking at! Eye tracking studies of a humble Google search results page show that almost no-one looks at the right hand side of the page. Yet, clicks on that side of the page brought in Google some $50bn last year. Not bad from an area of a web page that doesnt get viewed. Similarly, research shows that people need to trust a website before they will properly engage with it. Studies show that there are a couple of key elements of a web page which help people trust the company. They want to see the business is real and that means having a physical address (not a PO Box) and a phone number they can call should they need to speak to someone. These are features which people frequently look for before deciding to buy. Yet, Amazon appear to be doing quite well without showing either on their main web pages. So, research into consumer online behaviour often produces one kind of finding which you can then discover is not always the case. And in fact, much of the academic research on online consumer behaviour concludes with a common theme we dont know much, so more research is needed..! But thats not much help if you run an online business and you want to increase your sales. Just what is a website owner to do? Well, even though the research is confusing there are some common themes which emerge. 1. Usability Whether or not your e-commerce site is usable is linked to success. Consumers leave websites which they cannot use almost
2

instantly. Things need to be obvious; for instance people look topright for the shopping basket. Put it somewhere else and they cant find it, even though it is obvious. Similarly, you need as few clicks as possible, your website needs to work on all browsers and platforms and all screen sizes. Far too often, it seems, website owners are concentrating on the aesthetics of their sites, rather than the basics. Consumers online expect you to have the fundamentals in place first and foremost. 2. Trust Consumer online behaviour studies show that trusting a website is vital if it is to sell anything. And even though people look for signals of trust, such as an address or phone number, there appear to be three key factors in trusting your website. First is the usability if your site works well, people start to trust you more. Secondly, people trust sites their friends trust; they do not want to know how many likes or fans you have but they prefer sites their actual, real friends use. And the third component of trust is your brand image and much of that is nothing to do with the website but about your real world presence. 3. Interaction It seems that online people want to interact with websites. If your website doesnt afford them the ability to comment, to add reviews or to chat about your products and services then you get more people leaving the page rather than staying even if they dont actually contribute. But it is the fact they could if they wanted to which appears to be important. Predicting the consumer online behaviour in your sector may be difficult and require lots of in-depth analysis and research. However, if you start with these fundamentals you will not be going too far wrong. Assess the chances of your website doing well by using The Web Success Scorecard. If you want me to help you research the behaviour of your online consumers so you can understand your customers better then call me on 0118 336 9710. Related posts 1. Want to make money online? Think about the future, not the past 2. How to check who to trust online 3. Search behaviour is not what you have been told

extra income. However, the vast majority of online businesses fail to achieve the expectations of their owners. Besides, there are an almost countless plethora of dormant business websites, where the owner started full of enthusiasm but gave up after a while. One of the issues with running a business is personality. There are some people who are cut out to run their own online business and other who simply will find it more difficult. Research on self-employment or running a home-based business has been fairly consistent over the years. Ultimately the studies find that there is no single personality type associated with selfemployed business success. There are lots of different types of people who seem to make a go of running their own business. However, there are a few characteristics which do seem to be quite important. 1. Curiosity People who are curious tend to stick at self-employment for much longer than those who are not always poking their nose into things! The problem for the curious individual and the online world is that curiosity can take you off track; youll get sidetracked into fascinating blogs and social networking discussions. So curiosity can help you run your online business for longer than people who are not so curious, but it can be a negative influence on the success of your work because it helps you lose focus. 2. Independence The individual who has a strong sense of independence is the kind of person who sticks at self-employment for longer. In fact, an independent streak makes it much more difficult for people to be employed. They dislike being told what to do, they dont want to follow a set pattern or rules and they want to be in control. None of that makes it good for them to have a boss! But independence online can also be a problem; instead of doing things the way that works, independent people frequently want to do things their way, which means a lot of re-inventing the wheel happens, wasting time of the self-employed person. 3. Tenaciousness The self-employed person who succeeds tends to have a tenacious streak. They dont let go or give up easily. This is essential for someone running their own business because it means they keep at it until they succeed. But once again, this can also be a problem for the online business owner who ends up being so tenacious trying to get some piece of online software to achieve something they spend fruitless (and wasted) hours in their attempts. These are the three key characteristics which research shows will help you succeed in self-employment. But online you need to be constantly aware of the potential negative consequences these aspects of personality may have on your potential for achievement. Related posts 1. The Five Cs of Great Web Content 2. Which came first? Social networks or social people? 3. Forget Myers-Briggs: all you need is Facebook

Are you cut out to run an online business?

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/grahamjones/~3/edtPuXCaB0M/are-youcut-out-to-run-an-online-business.html

Millions of people run businesses online; indeed millions more run a website whilst holding down a full-time job in a bid to gain
3

Can you be addicted to SEO?

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/grahamjones/~3/-wUzMKVKgiI/canyou-be-addicted-to-seo.html

activity which may well be worthwhile for your business, but it needs to be less addictive. Forget the reward of those tracking graphs and your detailed analytics. Instead, focus on the reward of the extra cash in your bank account thats a much better graph to track for a business. The fact that SEO can be so diversionary is highlighted by the case of the recruitment firm KAS Placement where the boss focused so much on SEO he ignored many of the other aspects of running his business which were equally, if not more, important. Ultimately, the chances are you cannot be addicted to SEO but like KAS Placement you can easily get drawn in by its charms, which are substantial. Related posts

Addiction is a strong word. Some psychologists believe you cannot be addicted to something unless you have withdrawal symptoms if the item to which you are addicted is removed. Hence people addicted to alcohol start to shake if they cannot get another drink. Similarly, gambling addicts can suffer insomnia or headaches. And people addicted to cocaine can become very sleepy or deeply anxious if they cannot get another fix. Other psychologists disagree with this strict definition of addiction, suggesting that anything which you use regularly and which disturbs your normal life or affects your relationships with other people is an addictive substance. That means you can be addicted to almost anything. Indeed, you will hear people say they are addicted to their favourite games machine, or they are addicted to a particular social network. What they probably mean is they are obsessed by it, rather than actually addicted. Few people are using social networks so much that they interfere with their normal day-to-day activities and examples of people getting physical symptoms because their games machine has been withdrawn are hard to find. So when it comes to something like search engine optimisation is it at all likely that people could be come addicted to it? Or is it that some people are merely obsessed with it? SEO shares a common feature which is present in most addicted substances obvious, positive stimulation leading to a sense of reward. People who are prone to addiction get a sense of elation and feel rewarded by the substance to which they have become addicted. This is why we can get addictions to non-physical things, like gambling or looking at pornographic images. For some people SEO has properties which make it stimulating. You track down the keywords you want to be found for, then you fiddle with your web page wording and settings and submit your page to the web. Then you check and use analytics software to see how well you are doing. You track the graph and get stimulated by seeing your web page rise from nowhere to within the Top 10 and then to the Holy Grail of the Top 3. Every day you check your results, you search for more advice on tweaking your web pages and you make more changes to get right to the top of the search engines. Some might say you are already addicted. It is this reward cycle which dominates SEO which could be a problem not that you are ever likely to need therapy for SEO addiction! But what it does is take our mind off the real goal. The real aim of business web activity is NOT being top of the search engines but financial profit. And there are plenty of businesses making stonking great profits who are not top of the rankings. Search Engine Optimisation is just ONE way in which you can derive those profits but it is not the only way. So, yes, it is an

1. Google releases two new ranking algorithm updates 2. Search behaviour is not what you have been told 3. Social media is more problematic than cigarettes or alcohol

Get close to your customers to avoid bad decisions

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/grahamjones/~3/qX7WNNS81p0/getclose-to-your-customers-to-avoid-bad-decisions.html

The global economy is in trouble. Big trouble. Today, for instance, we hear that yet again- the UK economy fell by 0.3%. Even though there have been a handful of quarterly rises in the past few years, largely the British economy has flatlined since 2010 and we are still 3.3% lower than we were at the beginning of 2008. Once the global banking crisis triggered a worldwide recession the economy has been in the doldrums. In fact, back in 1990 when we had a recession GDP had grown to 7.58% 56 months afterwards. Here we are 56 months after the 2008 collapse and we are at -3.3%. Not a pretty picture. And all the while that governments and big businesses struggle to work out what to do, there is another issue affecting their actions. Ethics. Never before have we witnessed such widespread ethical outing of businesses. From the massive outpouring of media bile heaped upon international banks to the millions of people criticising Starbucks for not paying UK tax we have seen big business under attack. This week, for instance, the names of senior executives allegedly involved with interest rate fixing have been published in yet another example of increased criticism about the unethical behaviour of big business. There is more and more clamour for big firms to behave ethically, to be beyond reproach and to start contributing to the economy rather than to their own deep pockets. Profit is almost a dirty word again.

New research, however, suggests we may be fighting a losing battle and it is all because of global business. Being global inevitably means increased distance from your customers. The powers-that-be at Starbucks or Amazon havent got a clue who you or I may be in spite of clever software and Tweets which give us the illusion of a relationship. The bigger the business, the more remote they are from any kind of real, meaningful relationship with their customers. Now, I hear you saying, but thats always been the case. Not true. Big banks have been global for decades but their relationships were always local. Your local High Street bank manager was a pillar of the community, someone who knew all the local tradespeople and who could make decisions as to who to lend to without any need for any data or information other than knowing the person. Now, you no longer have a bank manager who you can call a friend. Instead you have a relationship manager who is sometimes only a name at the end of a phone in a call centre miles from you. They dont know you and you dont know them. Some kind of relationship that is! Interestingly, the amount of bad debt which banks have to bear appear to have increased the more data they collect and them more stringent they have become and the more computer checking they do. Their proportion of bad debt was much less when the decision to lend was down to the local bank manager who took time and lunches to get to know you. And thats precisely what this new research really shows us. It shows that when you are more distant and your relationship is thereby weakened you start to make poor perhaps even unethical decisions. The more big business globalises and the more it centralises decision making the more it is going to make bad decisions. And that means we will continue to be in the economic doldrums. There is, however, an answer if you run a small or mediumsized business. Make sure you dont get caught up in the whole global is better theory. Concentrate instead on developing deep and meaningful relationships with your customers and potential clients. That way you and they will make better decisions which are also going to be ethical and sound. Once again, this new study merely confirms which all those exbank managers knew anyway the best business comes from relationships. Related posts 1. Social Media Studies Can Confuse 2. Little words matter a lot online 3. Are you actually reducing your potential for online business?

So heres todays pub quiz question: which tech company performed overall better than any other technology firm in 2012? The chances are you might say Apple or Google. After all, Apple had by far the highest net income in 2012 in spite of todays excellent results from Google. You might be tempted to answer the question with Facebook or perhaps take a punt on Groupon yet both of those had dismal stock market performances, wiping large amounts off their valuation. For a company to be doing well its net income has to be good preferably better than last years plus its actual value should increase, as reflected in share price. So which company had both of those in 2012? The answer is a business which only has 200m users absolutely tiny compared to the more than 1bn on Facebook or similar amounts that use Google every day. Gosh more people even own an iPod than use this business. But the company in spite of its comparative smallness in the technology sector saw its stock market performance outshine the competition and its net revenues rise by the greatest percentage. The company is LinkedIn. So the second pub quiz question therefore is this: what is different about LinkedIn in comparison with other tech companies? The answer is that unlike Apple, or Google or Microsoft, the company is focused on one thing business networking for jobs. Indeed, only recently the firm has started to strip out unnecessary parts of its website which take it away from that core such as LinkedIn Answers. Many people who run big business seem to think that the answer to their survival and success is to get bigger. They focus on big numbers, big projects, big statistics. They grow by acquisition bringing in loosely connected services and products which extend our offer. Ultimately, all that does is confuse the staff and confuse the customers. LinkedIn thus far is bucking that trend. It is focusing, focusing and focusing. Sure, it will lose people who would like it to provide more services, but those who remain will be the core customers who rely on the company and will help it generate even more income. It is a lesson for us all. Diversification is a mantra from big business and frequently it fails to deliver what the directors hope for. Often it leads to problems. Focusing on core products and services and your niche customers is the way to success which the latest statistics on tech companies shows. Bigger is not always better. Related posts 1. Twitter and Facebook face trouble as they focus on money instead of users 2. Google+ fails the like test 3. Are you actually reducing your potential for online business?

You dont have to be the biggest to be the best

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/grahamjones/~3/0KaIl4I-BBk/you-donthave-to-be-the-biggest-to-be-the-best.html

Seven ways to get your website noticed WITHOUT using the Internet!
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/grahamjones/~3/wowFxU-MEd0/sevenways-to-get-your-website-noticed-without-using-the-internet.html

visitors and more recommendations, but there is nothing to beat speaking at live events for being able to promote your website to a large number of people all in one go. Ask to speak at Chambers of Commerce, business networking groups and other organisations who are always on the lookout for speakers. Drop your website address into your talk and youll get some interested visitors. 5. Write articles Get articles published in your local newspaper or your trade periodicals. Offer to write a column for them! Dont ask for payment, say youll provide the content free of charge, just so long as they give your website a plug! If your website appears in your local newspaper once a week in return for an article about local business then youll be a regular front of mind company amongst the thousands of people in your area. 6. Get interviewed Make sure you are interviewed by journalists for all kinds of media local radio, regional TV, magazines, national newspapers and so on. The more interviews you do, the better your name, company name and website address will become a regular part of the media landscape, meaning people are always aware of you. Think: they should feel as though they have seen me everywhere. 7. Publish a newsletter Sure, you may well have a newsletter that is emailed out but why not produce a printed version too? That can be used in exhibitions, handed out at your local rail station, gosh you could even leave it in your doctors surgery waiting room! We all get email newsletters, but printed ones are a rarity these days. So, you will stand out! Just make sure each newsletter has something in it which gives people a reason to visit your website. So, there you have it, seven straightforward ways in which you can get traffic to your website, without ever having to go near the web itself. Related posts 1. How to get high local search rankings 2. Sometimes SEO is stating the obvious 3. How to leap ahead of the competition on Google

The people who visit your website are real and live in the real world. In fact, most of their daily life is spent in the real world, not the virtual one. So, if you spend most of your efforts on real world promotion of your website rather than virtual methods, such as search engine optimisation or link generation you stand a significant chance of getting plenty of visitors. Indeed, some of the biggest names on the web spend most of their marketing dollars on real world marketing. Some dont even bother with SEO, yet still do very nicely, thank you very much. So, here are seven ways in which you can get more visitors to your website without having to go near the Internet itself. 1. Literature and packaging promotion Many businesses put their domain name on their company letterhead or on the packaging of their products. But simply having it visible and making people want to visit the site are different things. Instead of just printing your website address on your literature, give people a reason to visit. Invite them to download a free report, or accompany the domain name with a discount code so people who have just bought something have an incentive to get back online and buy some more. There are several ways in which you can use printed company literature to attract more visitors to your website but simply printing your domain name is not enough. 2. Postcard marketing People like getting postcards especially if they are handwritten. Send your clients a postcard from your trip away, include a web page address in your message and youll get more visitors. Write postcards from events you have attended, from conferences and from your holidays. Be inventive! 3. Meet more people One of the reasons why some businesses are more successful than others is because they have a real world social network, not a virtual one. The owner or the directors simply know lots of people and meet up with them regularly. In turn that leads to more wordof-mouth recommendations because the well-known people are always front of mind. Get out and about more and hand out business cards with your website special offer on them. That could be a discount code or a landing page for a free report. It doesnt really matter, but the more people you meet, the more people there are who can find out about your website. 4. Speak at live events If you simply glad-hand a dozen people a week it is going to take you ages to generate lots and lots of traffic; you will get more

Social Media Studies Can Confuse

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/grahamjones/~3/61EiTPbvuxo/socialmedia-studies-can-confuse.html

One minute social media is great for business, the next we get research telling us its a big failure. Indeed, not so long ago you were told to forget social media! Now, wouldnt you know it, theres a new study telling us the opposite that social media usage definitely leads to profits. So what is a business owner to believe? Is it worth spending time and effort on social media activities, or not? The answer is that you should be asking a different question! The latest research shows that if your customers use social media to communicate with you they spend around 6% more with a business
6

than people who do not relate via social media. The researchers found that social media customers are more profitable than those who dont use social media to connect with a business. In other words, it appears that if you use social media to connect with your customers they will spend more money with you. But earlier research found that 99% of all purchases had nothing whatsoever to do with social media. So one study reckons social media lead to higher profits whilst the other implies social media is a waste of time. Who to believe? Both of them. Thats because they are both saying the same thing. And thats why the question is social media a waste of time the wrong question. The real question to ask is the one answered by the contrasting research studies and that is does forming deeper relationships with my customers help my business? And the answer, as shown in both pieces of research, is yes. The people who spend most with a business are those who relate well to the company and have a stronger bond and affinity than those who only occasionally deal with the business. The reason why 99% of online social media fails to lead to a financial transaction is because there is little, if any, relationship. The 1% of sales are from people who have that strength of attachment to the business. In other words, as if we didnt know it, relationships lead to business and social media are just one way in which you can strengthen and maintain those relationships. If you are looking at social media as a way of getting business, without having to do the relationship building stuff, then you are likely to find social media activity is a waste of time. But if you believe that business is all about relationships and you want to use social media as a way of enhancing and strengthening such connections, then it certainly will not be a waste of time. So, forget what the research says about the effectiveness of social media and the potential for sales. Instead, concentrate on building strong customer relationships, using social media just as one tool in your box of tricks. Related posts 1. You can forget social media if you want to make money online 2. Time management for social networkers 3. Little words matter a lot online