#90 Social Media Icons Debate, Building Shopper Confidence & Essential Website Tools

Jonny Ross: 00:00:14

Hello and welcome. It's episode 17. I'm with my very good friend Pascal. We are live. We live on LinkedIn. We live on YouTube, and we live on Facebook. Are you excited for this episode, Pascal? I am indeed. And you know, what's interesting is we're doing this on a Friday as a live recording.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:00:33

And thank you again for joining us on a replay. My entire week, every single day has been about websites, from workshops to one to and consultancy, to reviews and advice to from government websites to e-commerce websites to multilingual websites. But also that's been the case. We've been waving to each other on the motorways this week as well.

Jonny Ross: 00:00:53

We have we have it.

Jonny Ross: 00:00:54

It's fantastic that you've moved back to the UK. We're delighted that you're here and and, you know, stronger, stronger and better together. So yeah it's brilliant. Listen, thank you for joining us. Thank you for watching. Thank you for listening. Whether you're live with us right now or you're very, very welcome to leave some comments.

Jonny Ross: 00:01:14

If you live right now or perhaps you're watching the replay or listening afterwards. And also you can leave comments. But we are celebrating the launch of our new program and completion of the website Best Practice Webinar series. We wanted to find a way to continue to share more advice and insights about making your website work harder, and for you to feel proud about your website again. Each episode, as always, contains four segments. We have the you ask, we answer, we have website stories. We then move on to the website engine room, where we will share an app or a piece of kit, or a solution that will make it easier for you website managers or website content creators business owners, to be able to do something on your website to make it easier for you to create content or create, um, stories on your website. And then lastly, the website. Call to action one. Change your adjustment that you should be making to your website right now. So that's what we have planned. And really we should step right into you ask.

Jonny Ross: 00:02:20

We answer.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:02:28

Well-done again, Johnny, for the wonderful introduction and summary of what we are doing with this podcast. A source of inspiration. Some ideas for you so that you can find ways to be proud of your website. Again, this is a phrase that I really like to see and share a lot more, because I was actually very much the case, and I've had to quickly before I move on to the to this question. My experience of doing the workshop last Wednesday where we began, you know, just after lunch, and people really were almost embarrassed to give me a tour of their existing website. It was just one of those where said, listen, I'm a friend. You know, I've been there, done that. My first website were awful too, but the emotional kind of challenge of the room, and by the time we finished with the workshop and put together an action plan about those small, reasonable adjustments, they just couldn't wait to go back to this idea of, you know, wanting to share the URL and pointing people to their website.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:03:22

But to this question is an interesting one. This is an I got an email a few days ago from a client of mine asking me how to remove social media icons from her website, particularly the homepage, whatever. And my reaction was, well, which one you know, is there maybe one of the platforms that you want to step away from, which I always recommend you better having a small number of social networks than all of them. And you said, no, no, I want to remove every single icon from my homepage, but why would you want to do that? Well, I went to this conference and I was like, I was, oh, we go better than going down to the pub, I would say. But I went to this conference and the speaker said that one of the number one action we should all do is to remove all social media icons, because they are a distraction. We're going to lose visitors, they add no value, and so on and so forth. And if the visitor hate a particular platform, you know, they then going to dislike your website.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:04:19

And I thought that was a really extreme position to to have, but importantly run the risk of my clients, you know, causing, you know, spending time in an activity that actually is not really making that much of a difference. So I'll share my views and I will tell you what I recommended in a moment. But yeah, I mean, what's your position on social media icons and website? Are they a distraction and should we remove them?

Jonny Ross: 00:04:43

Well, if anything, I'm still getting asked questions on how we can add Instagram feeds and and even TikTok feeds two websites. So how can how we can integrate more. So sort of it's quite an opposite view. I am, I don't think I can't see how they're a distraction. I think they they're a way to build trust. I think they're a way to find out what's really going on behind the company, what's what's actually you know, websites, as we know, are not necessarily showing you what's happening today. Whereas whereas looking on social gives you a bit more of an idea on what's actually happening today.

Jonny Ross: 00:05:20

Are they active, what's what's being currently said. And so my instinct is that not having social makes it more difficult for me as a client or a customer to get to know you and to buy in to actually wanting to develop the conversation further. So yeah, and I guess playing devil's advocate, if you have social media platforms that haven't been touched for five years or even, you know, even a couple of a year and, you know, there's no updates and there's nothing on them, then I guess that doesn't help. So so, you know, it can hinder by having links to your, to your social media where you just haven't, haven't been active whatsoever. But I don't think we'd ever promote non active social media accounts. We might promote just focusing on one maybe. But I think unfortunately social media is really important to have some kind of presence.

Jonny Ross: 00:06:18

Yeah I mean I have.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:06:19

To concur with you. I thought it was just such an extreme view because the opposite is, for me, the absence of indication.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:06:26

The active on social media is not helping your brand whatsoever. People would be surprised. I would say in 2023 onwards that you don't have at least one. And I like, you know, I've seen more and more website with just one icon, but they put all the energy to create a wonderful social, you know, media content experience. And and for me it was more this idea also of I don't actually agree with with a view that someone's going to go on your website after, you know, a desire to know more about you, perhaps if they met you at an event, or perhaps they responded to Ashley, of all things, a social media post and so on. They arrive on the website with the desire to know more about you. They see in a little icon in the top right hand corner or the bottom left, whatever you've done. And then somehow they feel compelled to leave the website to go on social media. I don't believe this happens whatsoever. I think the likelihood is people glance, they get some form of reassurance that you are active on social media, but they're going to pursue their quest for knowledge and information and, you know, ways to trust.

Jonny Ross: 00:07:27

Chew afterwards.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:07:29

Indeed, for a second, third, fourth visit they may said, do you know what? Actually, I don't want to miss out on any information. Let me find a bit more about what they do on LinkedIn or Facebook, or Twitter and Instagram and TikTok. And I use the icon and I think for me. Then back to your point about the feeds, if you are particularly proud not only of your website, but the way in which you do things on a platform, then there should be actually a very strong and evident call to action to join you. And he could even summarize the value of joining you on social media and how that complements the website. But there, there I just can't, you know, see, and maybe there's data that was going to prove me wrong. I can imagine someone going on your website journey. They see the little in in the corner and that's that's it. They leave to disappear on LinkedIn. I think I'm going to go, yeah, of course, Johnny is on LinkedIn and must remember that.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:08:19

But let me pursue my website visit first and foremost.

Jonny Ross: 00:08:23

Yeah.

Jonny Ross: 00:08:24

Yeah, very much so. I think it's I think it's all about, you know, you can create communities on social media and if anything you should be signposting people.

Jonny Ross: 00:08:33

Yeah.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:08:33

So you've guessed as much. I'll recommended that my clients ignore these was in an advice. Was it a tirade from that speaker? I'll never know. But I'm going to ask you a follow up question, if I may, Johnny. Then parallel to that, so we do rationalise. I do recommend people remove a small number of. So we are left with maybe 2 or 3 good social networks. And the conversation right now is so do I change the Bluebird to X or do I leave the Bluebird. What say you, Johnny Ross?

Jonny Ross: 00:09:04

I think I think the answer is it does need updating. And my my answer is that, you know, embarrassingly, is my own website updated yet? I'm not sure. But my I would I would absolutely suggest that all websites do update sooner rather than later, because I think it's unfortunately a bit like seeing an old year in the footer, and it just shows you that you're not as up to date as you should be.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:09:36

Yeah, even though the URL is still 2020. Twitter.com for slash whatever. And even though you may have to change it again when Elon Musk changes from X to something else.

Jonny Ross: 00:09:48

Yeah. Well yeah, you've.

Jonny Ross: 00:09:50

Got a fair point. You've got a fair point. And listen, perhaps the speaker that was suggesting to remove those social icons is listening or watching right now come. And challenges. We want to we want to know why. We want to get into the detail. We think you're wrong, but we're also up for being challenged.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:10:08

And for our viewers and listeners. Let us know where do you stand? Are you still with a bird or are you going with the X?

Jonny Ross: 00:10:15

Let's move on to website stories.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:10:24

Thanks again for your reaction on the social media icons on or off the website. Want to get more reaction from you Johnny with this article from think with Google. So think with Google is probably a second or third kind of appearance on the show. This great, you know, platform based on data, research and insights from from Google.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:10:45

And I love the way they organize things on marketing strategies, future of marketing, online tools. And they also have a section on consumer insights. You know, they do test with Google AdWords, they do test on websites and so on. And this article was written by people who are part of the Research and Insights team, Tamara Bowes. And I've got also Jonny, another Jonny spent like you, Ashley Protheroe, and they are both in charge of marketing for Europe, Middle East and Africa for Google. And I liked the title because I think there was a kinship with what you and I stand for in terms of how to build a gold star website that boosts shopper confidence. So we talk about actually filling front of the website as a website owner manager. But reversely visitors also need to have an experience that gives them the confidence to make that buying decision. And this article is really a summary of their findings. By doing some test with an e-commerce website. This very practical example was looking to sell a sofa for online visitors.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:11:49

And I love this idea of this of being there to support the decision making process and helping consumers navigate what they call the messy, messy middle and deciding what to buy. So this ID journey of people left with options, but they are staring at the many options and they're not going further forward. Then for us in business, you know, this hesitation phase or the do nothing phase is actually a big, big risk because, you know, days go by, months go by without getting the hit reaching the sales target. So what it's been interesting about this, this thing. So the argument being that if you know that there is some emotional kind of dimension to the buying decision, which I think has been well documented, can we apply some behavioural science and can we aid that decision making process? So most people when they launch the website journey, they have that starting position which they've coined in this article, the kind of bronze medal page, you know. So a good starting point that you can't fault it.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:12:50

But what can we do to improve it and go from bronze to sell them from silver to gold? So with regard to the move from bronze to silver, what they suggesting is these are simple adjustments you can make that would really support the decision making process. And again using science from behavior and consumer insights. So number one social proof and adding some elements of recommendations so that you can really make sure that people understand you've done this before. And others just like me, as consumers approve of the way you do what you do and the product, they also suggest you've got to find ways to make information easier to digest what they call cognitive ease. And that could be either reducing the number of words or improving the quality of the icons, or reorganizing the information. You've got things know I've discussed many a time. One thought the interesting in terms of science, this idea of anchoring. So it may be that by the time your customers reach that particular landing page, they have read, listen to and watch other information.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:13:53

So to recap in summary format about what they've seen early on, the decision making process seems to boost confidence. And then finally the coined it emotional priming. This idea of, you know, making emotional decision. And they are asking everybody and listening to Adina, whilst this is obviously using the example of a business to consumer environment, and I always say that you can learn enormous amount from that for the business to, to, to business environment in fact, being two people. So updating and working very hard on the hero image is fascinating. And the example that show the two example where they were selling the sofa that was being used by a family, having a wonderful time in their living room, and then one hero image with just the sofa. And that image did better. And I can see you're nodding because of your background in retail. And I know that was the case with me when I was working travel. You can show a destination with lots of people in the hotel lobby and swimming pool and so on.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:14:54

You can show the same venue empty, and the empty pictures do better. It's fascinating, isn't it? So that will take you to silver. So how do you go from silver to gold and optimise a landing page and boost confidence. So what they're saying is fine. The number one concern your customers have in the world of B2C, it's delivery. So they call this delivery friction. But find what it what what. The number one kind of concern and worry is for your industry and literally. Tackle it head on and write information. Put images and icons that explain how you do what you do to remove that concerns. They have another one which is known to Yanai and to many of our viewers and listeners, the paradox of choice do not give people too many options, otherwise they won't be able to decide and move on to the next stage. And they ask people to go back. Then from silver to gold with the organization of images, copy and so on, and make sure that composition and framing is just as it should be.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:15:56

And then of course, you can supercharge all the principles earlier. But there was an interesting kind of ongoing thread throughout, you know, the goal, the bronze to to silver to gold, which is investing in new photography regularly. And I think that's true for all sectors, no matter where they are. In fact, I was having conversation on a yesterday with a customer about their own photography. So the article is really great to read and it's fast and they have a visual examples to have animations and so on. So you can understand each of those little adjustments in in situ. But the bottom line is their argument is if you can boost someone's confidence in making the right buying decision, you're going to vastly increase, of course, the experience of using their website. You can then yourself promote the website at being a great destination. And of course you will increase sales.

Jonny Ross: 00:16:49

What I love is that the phrase behavioral science is being used, and I did a podcast only a couple of weeks ago about how behavioral science drives DTC ecommerce businesses, and it's about just getting into the head of your user, into the head of your audience, the potential client, the potential customer, and really understanding them and and optimizing to go from that, you know, bronze, silver, gold.

Jonny Ross: 00:17:20

Some of the things that that I was talking about a couple of weeks ago were very much related. So the whole thing of too much choice is can be very off putting. And it's about, you know, if you can find a way to. Collect data very early on when they arrive on your website. So, so a lot of a lot of websites have this sort of pop up that says, you know, give me your email address and we'll give you 5% off. But perhaps if you were to ask 1 or 2 questions at the same time and really understand who that person is, and then take them to the perfect landing page and really hone in on the choices for them, you know, are they looking for something practical, or are they looking for something fashion conscious, or are they looking for what? What exactly are they looking for? And try and find that way to to limit choice. But one of the things that there was two other things that we talked about which which feed into this, it was new to me, the pratfall effect.

Jonny Ross: 00:18:18

So the pratfall effect was around. Nobody's perfect, and it was showing some kind of imperfection. So going back to Guinness, if you think about the advert, the imperfection they showed was how long it takes to pour a pint of Guinness. But they used that to really capture the imagination of.

Jonny Ross: 00:18:39

Of.

Jonny Ross: 00:18:40

Absorbing you into their world, and how that can humanize the brand and make it more sort of authentic and realistic. And then the, the, the, the other thing that I got into, which was really interesting, was I've always thought that you need to use scarcity marketing to make things more difficult to buy, because the more difficult it is, the more people want it. And, and, and one of the things that we talked about was purchase ceilings. So limited quantities. So you're only so I mean, obviously it depends on what the business is, whether, you know, it's a service or product or whatever else. But if we're using e-commerce as an example, possibly not sofas, because you're probably not buying ten sofas.

Jonny Ross: 00:19:20

But if you if you tell someone that the maximum number you can buy is three, for example, you'll find the data shows that the majority of people will buy more than if you hadn't have put a maximum number in. So it's so it's really I love that we're thinking about the the behavior, the science behind it to then implement strategies into optimizing that landing page to ultimately get that conversion. And I can see how this all fits together. And I think the article that you've mentioned was just having a quick scan. Um, it really would bring it to life. Anyone that's listening or watching right now that wants to just get a better understanding of all this, that article would be a really, really good place to start.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:20:04

I think so, because it would really stimulate conversation in the office and beyond with the extended team of your technical partners and so on. And I will really, really encourage people to read it no matter your sector, even if you're in business or business, if you have a service, because the paradox of choice is still true.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:20:20

So our decline to have that, you know, expert knowledge. And they'd find different way to package it. But there was so many different packages that in a way, it was even hard for them to remember what was in it and the price and so on. And I've seen examples where you go on a website which is service based, knowledge based, and they have one offer and one service and one package, and I can guarantee you they're getting more inquiries because of that simplicity in the offering. And then of course, once you're in front of the customer, you can tailor accordingly. So I can say this the second or third time that we have an article from something with Google, but they are just so good every time, and they relate directly to the performance of websites. So very, very happy. Talking of websites and performance, let's move on to our third segment, the website Engine Room. Nine. Each episode surprises each other with an app solution. The software may be a piece of kit that can help us be more productive as web site managers and website content creators.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:21:26

So what is your gem for this episode, Jonny?

Jonny Ross: 00:21:30

Well, this you know, some of you may well be aware of it. I'm surprised I've not mentioned it in the series so far, but it just felt it's an important one to make sure that we do mention it. Hotjar hotjar.com. It's a behavior analytics and user feedback tool. Very much relates to what we've just been discussing. To be fair, it helps you understand how users are interacting with your website. It offers heatmaps, session recordings, and surveys to get insights into user behavior and feedback. It's a bit like Google Analytics. You can end up going down rabbit holes with it and sort of get lost in the data. But if you've got a very clear purpose in terms of okay, this is the particular page of the website that we're trying to increase the conversion, let's have a look at how users are using this particular page. How are they? What are they? Where are they scrolling to? What are they clicking. It's even identifies issues, potential issues with the website as well where things don't work.

Jonny Ross: 00:22:22

And perhaps a user has tried to do something that you hadn't realised they might do. And it's all about trying to understand where users expect buttons to be. And you can do some AB testing as well. So there's a free plan, and on the free plan there's quite a bit of data you can get out of it. It's hotjar. Com if you've not heard of it, you should absolutely add it to your website just to get a bit more of a you've got the ability to see how your users use your website, and that helps inform the behavioural science side of things to ultimately increase conversion.

Jonny Ross: 00:22:54

I was mainly.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:22:55

Listening to you because, you know, we research separately and then we come together when we go live and we didn't discuss that. We're going to talk about behaviour so much today, but there's just great. Now Hotjar is a wonderful platform. Well, similarly for me it's an oldie but a goodie. So I want to talk about SlideShare which you can find the SlideShare now, which is the YouTube of professional presentations, documentations and PDF and have them in conversation.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:23:21

So client of mine did a did a talk at a conference, and I've been pestering them to recall the audio too much to get a very simple zoom audio recorder plugged into the the deck, you know, from the company, they got the audio transcribed, it got edited, and they had an article. And it's a kind of a look. Can you help with the layout and so on. And he was saying, I'm just not sure what to put as the hero image. Do you use that term again? And I thought, well, I think you should put the slides up on it. You know, the very visually stimulating that you spend a lot of money on the design and they don't give too much away. They've got the key word, the key sentences in this section. So somebody actually could just fly through the presentation, get a good idea of what the content is, but they'll have to read on the full version to get really the meaning of what you were talking about. And he would say, well, how do I do that? Do I go on Canva? Do I do this and say, no, you go on SlideShare and like you, perhaps, you know, sometime I'm very guilty to assume people know this stuff because they've been around forever.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:24:23

I mean, SlideShare used to be owned by LinkedIn before, before they were an indie. Now they're owned by Scribd. So literally all of you, if you have presentations gathering digital dust on your computers, just get them on SlideShare to begin with and consider writing an article. And then what you can do with SlideShare like you would with YouTube I mentioned a moment ago, you can copy and paste the embed code, and this will appear on your web page. And people can just click on the left and right arrow to slide to go through through the slides. But particularly if it's very visual, that can really a extend the length of stay on that web page, but show that you care deeply about someone's experience. So SlideShare, it's been around forever and we should use it more.

Jonny Ross: 00:25:06

And I can categorically tell you that I get business as, as in clients directly from SlideShare. So as a, as a marketing channel, I get leads that have come directly from SlideShare. I've got possibly hundreds of presentations on there.

Jonny Ross: 00:25:25

And so yeah, I love the idea of digital dust. Take them out of your hard drive, take them out of Dropbox, get them online on SlideShare, embed them on your website. It adds a ton of value and you never know. You might open another door.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:25:41

Thank you very much. We've reached the final segment of our show, the website Call to Action, just after this. So this is about the one change, the one adjustment you can make right now that would make a huge difference to your website and for you once again to get better results. So Johnny, what is your recommendation?

Jonny Ross: 00:26:06

Well, as.

Jonny Ross: 00:26:06

You say, we sort of both go off and do research and then we come together and actually, you know, we've come together even stronger than normal because my website, Call to Action, fits right into where you started in terms of the behavioral science and the choice paralysis, paralysis on homing down and not giving someone too much choice. So my website Call to action for this week is an enhanced autocomplete advanced filter search.

Jonny Ross: 00:26:34

So a search box on your website people are used to using search. They use it on Google. They use it on Amazon. They use it on ChatGPT. They use search, they use a search box. Have you got a search box on your website? And more importantly, how does it work? So does it offer autocomplete? Does it offer most search? Does it? Does it try and shape what people are searching and you've got the ability to shape it by having some autocomplete in there. And more importantly, what does the results page look like? Is it relevant and do you have filters to try and then home down? Whether it be blog content, content, whether it be articles, guides, whether it be products, whether it be services, what happens on that search page. So. I'm saying there's no point having a search box for the sake of it, but have a search box where you can take people on a journey and ensure that that it actually the usability and the design and the layout is just as good as the rest of your website, because in most cases, it's a lot worse because it's something that looks that people look at afterwards.

Jonny Ross: 00:27:43

My my call to action is really look at how you could enhance and add filters into your search box and make the results page really stand out and have that wow factor.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:27:57

Well, like about it is back to what we'd do with the 90 day website mastery program is to show evidence your approach to customer service and show that you care, that what you do is thoughtful and and you put the audience first. And that's why my call to action mirrors a bit where you're saying, which is kind of being helpful in advance. So what are people to organize a meeting with the customer facing team mates, you know, so some of us sometimes are not always talking to the customers first hand. And you're going to have your colleagues who talk to them. They see them regularly. It could be they are chat could be fixed about events and would like people to list all the questions that they find themselves answering frequently. So it's not. The frequently asked question is to frequently answered questions, and the only being that then that gives you the structure for your next free e-book.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:28:49

Because the habit people got himself into and is similar to what you said about the search, is what are the FAQs and the just plonk them on the website and sometimes they do something clever with drop down menus and whatever. But it feels very dry, very automated and not particularly again, thought out. But if you've taken the trouble to compile all those frequently answered questions with the answer in way, you do it normally into a free download where you can really put in all your branding and all your wonderful visual experience with a call to action at the end to get in touch. That, to me, elevates again the experience for your visitors, and it's clear evidence that the way you do what you do is a lot more caring and thoughtful than a competition.

Jonny Ross: 00:29:32

Brilliant. Well, what a jam packed episode as always. And you know, we started with social media icons, whether we should have them or not. We've then gone, gone into the sort of gold standard of landing pages and how to optimize little tweaks that you can make to ultimately increase that conversion.

Jonny Ross: 00:29:50

We that opened the whole behavioural science, which we've then explored in terms of choice paralysis, limited purchase and the delivery friction. So making it, you know, and bringing in all that social proof and, and everything else to ultimately increase that conversion. And then we talked about SlideShare. Net hotjar.com. And in the website Call to Action, we've covered the advanced search and organising a meeting with your customer facing teammates to list all the questions they frequently answer, which then turns into a brilliant e-book. I'll do it all. I'll do it. I'll implement it all this afternoon. Pascal.

Jonny Ross: 00:30:29

Now?

Pascal Fintoni: 00:30:29

Totally. And I'm always, I say this every single time. And we managed to do all of this in in half an hour, which is really quite an achievement for you and I, who are more familiar with long form content, which is very, very good discipline to have. And for me, it's back to what we've been saying all along throughout this episode, which is there will be a case in point with our you ask, we answer.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:30:49

There would be people with with really firm opinions and positions about things and actually step back a bit and ask yourself the question based on behaviour, would my customers actually do that, or would they react in that manner? Or there's just some strange urban myth, they just being passed around on the on the interweb and sometime at events as well. I think you should really trust yourself more and making the judgement calls because you know your customer's so well.

Jonny Ross: 00:31:20

And so much so taking on board what we've said today instinctively pick 1 or 2 things that have jumped out for you and put them into action this afternoon or tomorrow, or perhaps even next week, but no more than that. Within the next seven days, pick 1 or 2 things and start implementing. That's it for today. This was episode 17 of the new podcast series, The audio companion to the 90 day Website Mastery Program. For more information, please visit 90 Day Marketing mastery.com and you'll be able to book your discovery call with either myself or Pascal. We'll be back with another episode, but in the meantime, feel free to send your questions, share your preferred apps and links to your website.

Jonny Ross: 00:32:00

Once you've made the changes we spoke about, and we'd love to give you a shout out, let us know if you're going to be changing to the Twitter Bird or sorry, changing from the Twitter bird to the axe or sticking with the Twitter bird. But that's it. Bye for now everyone, and we'll leave you with a fun video and audio montage whilst you go through your notes and actions. Take care.