#94 Navigating Social Media Controversies, Innovative Marketing Strategies, and Essential Website Upgrades

Jonny Ross: 00:00:15

Hello and welcome. I am with Pascal Fintoni, how are you, Pascal? I'm very, very good. You know, this has come around very quickly. Episode 19 of the website Mastery podcast. It's great. It's great to be here. And, uh, yeah, I mean, these episodes are racking up. And we were reflecting on the amount of content that we've gone through on each episode. Uh, we've we've covered a lot of boxes, but what's frightening is there's so many. There's still so much to talk about, uh, which, you know, brings us into what are we going to be talking about today? This podcast is all about welcoming, uh, the, uh, celebration of our new program and the completion of our website best practice webinar series, the 90 day website mastery, uh, podcast. We wanted to find a way to continue to share more advice and insights about your website, making it work harder for you and for you to feel proud about your website.

Jonny Ross: 00:01:07

Again, we're going to dive straight in. We have four segments. Uh, and um, we always start with you ask, we answer, which is a question submitted by the community or where we've done some research online, and we dissect and give you our opinion and see what you think as well. So, Pascale, I'm going to go on to you ask. We answer.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:01:34

Thank you very much, Gianni, for the introduction. And this question actually is fascinating. Let me give you a bit of background. You found me. This was a question I was asked face to face, doing a trip down to London for a B2B marketing expo in London, and I was on my phone, as you do, deleting lots of unwanted emails from my inbox. I use Trend Travels to clear the inbox, and sure enough, in there on the socials we saw some of the memes of Elon Musk and his latest outburst during during a conference, and I was showing my screen to to my kind of travelling companion and he said, you know what? I've got this Twitter feed on my website displaying our latest post and Twitch with you.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:02:15

This platform and its new owner, they are so surrounded by controversies, I wonder whether I should remove the feed off that website so that we don't almost in a tarred by the servers, and we had a kind of interesting exchange about this idea of you do want to have your business and by extension, your website associated with them. Brands do share your values, but what do you do when a brand abates into the owner? Misbehave? Shall we see? And therefore, are you likely to have a negative impact on your own personal brand and your own business brand? If you have this association where the feed from Twitter eggs is very, very present on your website. So the discussion was should I leave the feed or should I remove the feed? So yeah, what do you say?

Jonny Ross: 00:03:01

Well, it's interesting because some people listening right now, um, probably have moved away from Twitter and, and are focusing on the likes of Instagram, the likes of meta, some very different platforms. But as we know, there is still a huge core audience on Twitter.

Jonny Ross: 00:03:20

And it it is absolutely right. Absolutely right for certain brands. So and and and what's the reason I'm mentioning that is because sometimes people don't realize the opportunity that they're missing out on Twitter because there's absolutely an audience there. It's just about is it your audience, is it relevant, etc., etc. in terms of the controversy and whether, you know you want to be related to that, there's certainly advertisers pulling out Elon's telling advertisers to, to, to uh, to disappear as well. Um, I think it comes down to the individual circumstances, which is, is your audience on there and is your content, uh, being is it engaging? Are you getting interaction on the platform? And if you are, then I think it does add valuable, um, rich media to your website. Uh, I think it's, uh, it, you know, if, if it's if you're interacting on a regular basis and, uh, and it's engaging content, then it can totally add value. If, on the other hand, you're just putting posts out and they're not really doing anything and you're doing the same post on other platforms anyway, then that questions, well, forget the controversy, but should you even have the feed there in the first place? So I think it's less about the controversy.

Jonny Ross: 00:04:34

It's more about more about the relevancy. Um, and uh, and just being cautious if things do blow up where, you know, you do need that distance.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:04:46

Yeah. Fascinating. And what is interesting is we could almost expand the question to the purpose and usefulness of feeds from social media platforms, because I'm in two minds about it. On occasion, like you, it feels as though this was something that was put up at the time of the launch of the website, and then it's been forgotten forever. And actually, when you go on it, it doesn't feel like there's any value or thought process behind it. I much prefer when actually people single out a specific tweet or Facebook post or Instagram post and use it as a hook. So that could be, for example, you got a thank you message, you got a praise from a happy customer. And that is more important to have it almost as a standalone item somewhere within a contact page or whichever is right for you. Then for me, as a first time visitor, maybe to find my way through the feed and looking for something that maybe is relevant.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:05:36

Two weeks ago or even six months ago. So I think I'm okay with the feed being on the website, but I'd rather people worked out, um, ways to get more value from it. And and I do like that a lot. So with my customers, we on purpose single out praises and and and well-done messages and put them as part of a landing page. And then if we've shared, for example, a very insightful article or a resource, again, we'd want it to be lost in a long, long kind of column. I've got to go up and down with single out and actually write an article around this resource. And we actually put the tweet as an embed as well.

Jonny Ross: 00:06:12

Yeah, there was a there was a huge trend where, um, website owners believed that they needed to have social feeds on their website because Google saw it as fresh content, as new content. But the reality is Google is not daft. Google can see if social, if if it's a social media feed that's just been embedded on the website.

Jonny Ross: 00:06:32

So I think long gone are the days of. Doing it just to please Google. And I think if and I think you've got to ask the question, why is this feed there? And if the answer is it's the because I was told that it makes it better for Google, then that's then. Then it's time to to remove it. If, on the other hand, you're sort of opening your website visitors to a community that they may not have been aware of or to content they may not have been aware of, and, uh, and you'd like to, to move them to that community or certainly get them to engage with that community as well, then that's where the value is. So yeah, I, I do agree here. There's a bigger question. Um, I think in terms of the controversy, though, it's more about is it relevant in the first place? And if it's relevant, I think you can ignore the controversy unless it sort of gets past that tipping point.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:07:19

Which completely, you know, you know, if if there's evidence like initially that, you know, the chap is linked to crime or something like this, you know, but I would imagine he would lose his position.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:07:27

So for viewers and listeners, let us know where you stand in with regard to feeds in general from social media on the website. And, and have you got examples of where it's worked well for you have a good example where you actually you removed them and actually it had a positive impact on the website experience. Jonny time is against us. Can we move on to our second segment, the website Stories? Now VoIP is 19 of the website Mastery Podcast, which hosted an article from Modern retail.com, which is not something that we typically go for. We tend to go for, let's say, digital marketing or tech type platforms. But I like the lessons from the world of B2C. The lesson from the weather retail, maybe because essentially I started my career in B2C with travel and other you did as well. So we still have some fondness about, you know, that particular way of communicating with customers. This is an article written by Gabriela Barco, and here's the title for you. Jonny Black Friday and Cyber Monday have lost their meanings as brands extend promotions.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:08:36

I will give you a bit more information in a moment, but this idea of, you know, the article is about written research. Lots of data and examples about this idea. Are retailers trying to stay alive at a time of inflation and, you know, kind of disposable income shrinking month by month? Are they wrongly or rightly criticized for using the terms Black Friday and Cyber Monday, where some of those special promotions in those campaigns are lasting for for weeks on end? You know, there's some examples where PetSmart has a 20% off Cyber Week, literally, not just on Monday. The entire week we have Nike, who had a kind of Cyber Monday offer running till mid December and so on. So for me, the question is almost linked to what we discussed earlier the use of language, the appearance of something that's been thought out, but also, you know, consumers reacting. So there's somebody saying, you know these brands can't keep extending Cyber Monday. It's Wednesday, guys come up with something else please.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:09:34

And someone was very, very cheeky. Literally tracking back that Black Friday started on the Thursday. And that Cyber Monday has carried on through the following Friday. So we need to have a fortnight of special offers. And is it time to let go of those terms?

Jonny Ross: 00:09:50

Yeah, it's for sure. It's definitely a bit confusing in terms of actually who's doing what offer at what time. And uh, and, and the sort of the consumers are just mind boggling in terms of is this a good offer or is it not a good offer? Uh, which is really difficult. Uh, and so I think it's about thinking about how you could potentially create your own offers at different times a year where it's got nothing to do with Black Friday at all, nothing to do with, you know, choosing something random in the middle of May, in the middle of June, whatever it might be, and owning a particular weekend or a particular, uh, day or week or whatever it might be, and sort of standing out and saying, look, this is our big, big sale.

Jonny Ross: 00:10:32

This is our this is the big one. And, um, and just, just in some way distancing from the because because this is a downward spiral. It's the trouble. Yeah. Well the you know, that's, that's, that's what happens in consumer. If you go with price then you just constantly, uh, you know, trying to beat the of the competitor. Um, and no one wins. So I think yeah, I maybe, maybe I've just seen too many offers and just a bit too, you know, I don't know, it's. Yeah. It's I think it's very confusing for me.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:11:15

You're touching on two points to begin with. Yeah. I think you're going to move into the four PS and seven PS. I was going to do the Happy Marketers victory dance because, uh, you know, they still work. So competing on price only is tricky. Piggybacking something that very much like we said earlier, is not always linked with positive stories. I mean, my goodness, the Black Friday stuff, you know, to begin with, I mean, we've all seen, um, you know, the news reports from the US first and then in the UK of people literally battering, you know, the doors of shops because there were women behind in the opening times, the Cyber Monday, my memory.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:11:49

Please correct me, Jonny, was it started maybe 20 years ago because it was literally in and around this idea of delivery times and availability. So basically some of the Monday was in and around. If you don't place your order today, we can't guarantee you going to get your goods and Christmas presents in time for, you know, the Christmas party and so on. Um, I think that argument has gone because, my goodness, you could order now on Amazon something that could deliver on the same day. Um, but I think the gentleman that was saying, you know, come up with something else, it's probably a ride. 20 years on, is it possible that it was of its time and we must move on? I remember working travel, which I mentioned a moment ago. We used to do this thing which had this very unfortunate acronym of Bog off. People would probably smile remembering that buy one, get one free. So essentially, if you booked one holiday, you can have the other one for free the next year.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:12:44

So something bizarre this, and I resented the fact that my marketing function was reduced at planning discounts all the time. Actually not coming up with something creative that would allow people to. And I was always torn. I was probably because, um, you know, you don't understand all of it. This idea of if you booked a holiday, let's say, in February, you paid full price. If you booked it in June, you got a heavy discount. I was thinking there's some interesting dialogue here to be have about the customer who's loyal enough to book early. What can you do for them?

Jonny Ross: 00:13:17

Yeah, you're absolutely right. By the way, I apologize for the background noise and some building work going on in this building. And it's not. The timing of it is appalling. And however good my tech is, I'm not sure if it's canceling everything out. Um, so, yeah, you're right. With Cyber Monday. Um, it's just in 2005, 2005. Wouldn't you know what you said? 20 years? It's it's almost 20 years ago.

Jonny Ross: 00:13:40

And and, you know, online shopping was was tiny back then. Um, but but you're you're right. It was the idea was to get people to realize that if they wanted, if the if they wanted to shop online and they wanted presents in time for Christmas, this was the day to start doing it. Whereas, you know, now you can order it on Christmas Eve and it'll turn up the same day. So. So, so I think there is time for change. Um, and um, and and yeah, for me it's, it's just so difficult to stand out if you jump on the same bandwagon. And, and I think there's still a connotation that people just think it's the biggest discount is on TVs. So it's, um, I think, uh, what what what can you learn from this? The, the big thing for me is differentiation. How can you not instead of following and being the follower, how can you differentiate? How can you stand out? How can you how can you own it and make it something that's a bit unique, a bit different, and your own take on it that really gets the true value across and makes it abundantly clear whether something is a real deal or not.

Jonny Ross: 00:14:51

And that's that. That I think, is where to to focus the mind.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:14:55

Thank you very much. I mean, interestingly, the article, which again, doesn't take a position or cast judgment, just says this is, you know, what is happening. Um, one of the the argument from the retailers saying, well, what we're doing now is being more strategic and we're extending the duration of the the special offers and so on for brand building and to give customers more time and more reason to purchase through us. And I'm sure that's an argument amongst, you know, many of you could have used. But for me, it's part of this idea of is it already or is it been the case for some time that it's just white noise and that consumers now behaviors and habits are not as seasonal as they used to be? I mean, don't get me wrong, you may have to buy something uniquely for that period of time because, you know, if you go for a skiing holiday or if you go for summer holidays, but in general, the way in which online has disrupted this idea of, well, whatever you want it, we can get it to you.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:15:50

You don't have to wait anymore. I wonder whether, you know, we're going to see, like you said, something more creative, more, more targeted in next year, in the years to come.

Jonny Ross: 00:16:00

Yeah, I do, you know, it's a bit like, um. So I see a lot of companies do Christmas presents. They will do, um, so to their customers, they might send a Christmas hamper or, or some kind of present at the in the holiday season. And it's a sort of thank you for doing business with us over the year. But, you know, the ones that stand out are the ones that do something really special in January.

Jonny Ross: 00:16:30

So they they choose.

Jonny Ross: 00:16:31

A different time of year because because very few people will be sending some kind of really nice hamper in January to say thanks for the business that you did with us last year. And, and and the trouble, the trouble with doing it in Christmas is that you're then one of many. And so, you know, you people aren't thinking about you as much, whereas so I think the, the whole differentiation thing I think is there's a, there's a lot of, uh, of, of credit in it.

Jonny Ross: 00:16:58

Um, and um, and not getting lost in the noise as well.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:17:02

Super. So my second question then, for our viewers and listeners is how do you react? How do you find yourself reacting now to the term Black Friday and Cyber Monday? And do you look forward to it? Do you just ignore it doesn't even register anymore because you do things differently than you did 2 or 3 years ago. And actually, back to his term, are you more someone like me actually looking forward to a ways of starting the year that has more meaning, more excitement to one, because, I mean, ultimately in January, as you may remember from a marketing point of view, there's that famous, uh, Blue Mondays that write for memory. So, you know, which again, was invented by a travel company, actually, of all people.

Jonny Ross: 00:17:44

You know.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:17:44

All you do now.

Jonny Ross: 00:17:45

Yeah, yeah.

Jonny Ross: 00:17:48

We'll make you feel so sad and so upset that you can't wait to book that sunny holiday.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:17:54

Hey, Italian.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:17:55

Anyway, thanks everyone for listening to those deliberation. We're going to move on to taking action with our next segment, the website Engine Room. So in each episode I present to you a new app, a new piece of kit that can make life easier as a website manager and content creator. So Jonny, what is your selection?

Jonny Ross: 00:18:19

So I know that some of my regular or regular viewers and listeners will already know this app because I know clients that I work with it on, but there is people that are listening and watching that probably haven't heard of it as well. So unbound.com. It's a an app that enables you to create landing pages, so specific landing pages for uh, campaigns, whether they be email campaigns, uh, meta advertising campaigns, Google Pay per click campaigns, or perhaps even, you know, uh, billboard campaigns, whatever it might be. But it's the ability to be able to create, to continue the journey for the user, thinking about that user journey, to be able to continue the journey, uh, having the same look, same feel, same style, same messaging, messaging, but very, very quickly.

Jonny Ross: 00:19:10

So without having to go to your web developer, without having to start creating, uh, additional pages on your website, unbound. Com gives you the ability to build and publish and a B test landing pages very, very quickly without the need for any it any tech. It gives you, as marketers, the ability to increase, uh, campaign conversions, uh, and to really easily test and, uh, different landing page variations, you know, instantly. And, and so for that this week I'm suggesting unbound.com.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:19:47

Thank you very much. You know, I completely forgot about them. I feel very bad. But thank you because actually the timing is impeccable. I'll be using that actually with a couple of my clients I'm working on at the moment. We want to rethink the email marketing strategy. We want to rethink the landing pages and the hooks and lead magnets. So that's going to be absolutely perfect. And, you know, my work is around building an online reputation by creating better content faster.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:20:09

Uh, one thing I've not been able to do is to conjure up more time for my customers. So, you know, we discussed the time budget. It's limited like everything else. And how can we make best use of that time to create the content that is going to have the right impact, it's going to be relevant and so on. And very recently I was contacted by a platform called headliner I headline, I've been using them on and off to create those, um, audio guides. You know, those visuals that plays the audio. You can see the sound wave and you can see the captioning live over a static image and done very, very well and done with a bit of care. They really do have an impact and a bit of a y factor on social media, but they've launched a new free tool for now and free for now, because I'm guessing once it becomes very, very popular, there might be a very, very small charge, a tool called Eddie DIY, which I think comes from the word editing.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:21:00

And what you can do with Eddie is upload a sound file. It could be an MP3 or m4a, and so you can upload a sound file, get the transcription. Dawn of that conversation. I'll give you an example in in a moment. And then you can use that transcription to edit and construct an article series of. And if you've listened some of Jonny's contribution in previous episodes, you could use AI powered solutions to help you create a condensed version of that transcription. So two scenarios that might help people understand. So I was at a conference a few weeks ago. I was recording the, uh, the keynote presentation because it was so dark, I couldn't take I couldn't take notes. And I got the audio, and I don't have permission to use that audio as is an event transcription. But I could do use Eddie to literally transcribe the audio. And it was really, really precise. I mean, I think there was the odd Arab who was more to do legibility and the quality of the sound.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:21:55

And then what I did from Eddie, I was able to use ChatGPT and a few others to give me a series of mini blog posts about that. Not unusual, but what about you? All of you listening? Perhaps having a zoom meeting with a client, which you recall? How about having a team meeting where you discussing, uh, you know, actions, maybe you just giving advice and so on. What you can do is get that audio recording from zoom and other platforms, get it onto Eddie and add the transcription. And that's the beginning of your next blog post series.

Jonny Ross: 00:22:27

Yeah.

Jonny Ross: 00:22:27

This is this is sound bites, isn't it? This is the ability to be able to have varied content. So whether you're taking, uh, video content or audio content irrelevant, you're turning it into a soundbite that has this audio wave as the visual. And that just looks a bit different. Uh, there are people using it online, but not lots. Uh, and and again, to stand out, to differentiate, you can take these little soundbites.

Jonny Ross: 00:22:53

You know, I love the idea of having of recording an internal team meeting and taking a couple of soundbites that can publicly go out and say, you know, you know, as a team, this is what we were working on today. Um, and this is, you know, this is what our, uh, whatever manager said, um, you know. As long as it's something that can be shared. But how you could turn that into a soundbite and an audiogram, I think, is what people call it as well for this visual wave. Brilliant. Yeah. And having played with the app as well, I really like that suggestion. Pascal. Thank you.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:23:24

And you can do something even more, Jonny. You can do an audio Grimes that becomes the promo of the transcription of the article that you've created on your website. So the audiogram is picked up on social media. It entices you to want to know more. When you click on the link, you're taken to a transcription that's been edited so that you can have a word for word of understandably for a reason that you're about to explain, and then you have a good use of that time.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:23:49

So that team meeting that 1 to 1 coaching session with the client, you can anonymize all the things are what I call content moments. You've got a.

Jonny Ross: 00:23:56

System. Yeah I.

Jonny Ross: 00:23:58

Like that. And well, well you're just making me think, you know, when you're getting feedback from a client that could be turned into an audiogram as well. Uh, there's an advert on the radio that's doing just that right now, but there we go. We're going to move on. It is time to move on to the website. Call to action.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:24:22

So this is the one change, the one adjustment that's going to make a big difference to your website experience and help you feel proud of your website again. Jonny, what is your advice for today?

Jonny Ross: 00:24:32

Well, I'm not sure if it's one word or two words. I think it's one word. The one word, the one word is white space. I think I think I'm sure it's one word. Um, white spaces is my tip for today because this is about giving clarity to the user, making it really simple, really easy, and making them real, you know, taking them on a journey, helping them see exactly what they need very quickly and very easily.

Jonny Ross: 00:24:59

And the way to do that is lots of white space. And Google's looking at this as well. Google's looking at the, uh, the, the proportion of uh, text and image ratios, but also the layouts and the style and how things look on the page. And it's, you know, we use this word clean. You want a website that's clean to look at. And by that we're talking about lots of white space, making it visually easy on the eye where we can very quickly and easily jump to the right area. And websites are not good at considering white space. So my call to action for this week is have a look at 2 or 3 of your key pages, and consider how you could create a bit more white space. What's your tip? Your call to action this week, Pascal.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:25:44

So I'm gonna go back to this idea of, uh, end of year review. But the purpose being to create new case studies and testimonials for 2024. So what are people to do? So we get this advice, if you recall, six months ago.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:25:57

So now we're now six months later. I want people to look back at their completed projects over the past six months and compile a list of contacts to get in touch with in January. Let's give people the space and time and you want to get in touch with them. And this is what I'd like people to do have a zoom call or similar record and use edit to give you the transcription, so you can edit and create a compelling stories that will be featured on your website, and then use in bounce mentioned by Johnnie to try different ways in which you can create a compelling landing page using those success stories. But it's really important because we're too busy, all of us moving on to the next project or the next client, take a moment to stop what has happened the last six months. You could even go as far as have you potentially been a guest speaker at an event. All those things are important for next year's kind of third party validation. Make the list, contact them in January, record, transcribe, edit and move on to the next one.

Jonny Ross: 00:26:55

Yeah.

Jonny Ross: 00:26:56

People buy through stories. It's all about telling the story, and it has to be a compelling story. And the more up to date and the more compelling it becomes. And I think Pascal is absolutely right that we do move on to the next project without really reflecting, uh, a lot of the time. And reflection is so, so, so important. That has been episode 19 of the 90 day Website Mastery podcast. Thank you so much for joining us. Uh, we, uh, we've covered everything from should we be controversial or should we allow the controversy from Elon Musk to put us off, uh, using the Twitter feed, uh, the Twitter feed on our website? The answer is if it's relevant and if your audience are on there or if there's an opportunity, then there's nothing wrong until it becomes too controversial. Um, Cyber Monday, Black Friday, consider how to stand out and be different. We've given you some great apps and tips from unbound, uh, and Eddie Headliner to using white space and reviewing and creating new case studies and testimonials.

Jonny Ross: 00:28:03

What another great episode, Pascal.

Pascal Fintoni: 00:28:05

Thank you very much. You know what? It's been interesting. So where this idea of being aware what is happening in your in your sector but and beyond and making the judgment calls. But this idea of be careful not to be too implicit in your communication. So you have to be explicit and and share more. But then you've been challenged about how you lay out that copy. And thank you for the reminder about the white space. And more importantly, try and find a way to use the roads less travel. So if you know the entire industry of yours is jumping on the bandwagon of the International Day of Cyber Monday, over Blue Monday and so on, it is likely that therefore the impact of your on FOB diminished. Can you, as only mentioned, find ways in the year to actually be the one to stand up from the corner? Can you be more creative in your attempted, you know, a reminder? The gift of the internet and having a website is to find a way to communicate and in a manner those as unique as you are and as unique as your business.

Jonny Ross: 00:29:05

Please do let us know what you think. Please let us know if we if there's particular topics you wanted to discover to talk about, if you found a particular article, or maybe there's an app that we've not even mentioned that you think that we should be. But the point of this is we want. You to feel proud of your website. We want to take the moment that someone says you're potentially selling, trying to sell something, and they say, what's your website address? And we want to take that moment where your stomach suddenly goes because you think, oh my God, I don't want to give the website address because it's old, it's out of date. It doesn't really reflect. It doesn't give that compelling story. We want you to feel proud of your website. And that's what this is all about. The 90 day Website Mastery program is all about making you feel proud about your website again. So please do have a look at 90 Day Marketing mastery.com. You'll be able to book a call with a discovery call with even myself or Pascal for more information, we'll be back with another podcast episode.

Jonny Ross: 00:30:07

In the meantime, feel free to send you questions, share your preferred apps and links to your websites. Once you've made the changes we've spoken about, because we'd love to give you a shout out. It's bye now for from us and we'll leave you with a fun video and audio montage whilst you go for your notes and actions. Please do make sure that you like, subscribe, comment, do all the things, share the love with us. If we are helping you to be inspired and to start feeling proud of your website again. Pascal, it's been lovely seeing you.

Jonny Ross: 00:30:36

Thank you very much.

Jonny Ross: 00:30:37

We'll see you all soon. Take care. Thanks for watching. Thanks for listening and thanks for joining.