Mr Rick wrote:

Here is a link to the CW Facebook page.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Christoph ... 5610416390

Best thing on there is this link http://www.flickr.com/groups/1759249@N23/pool/, may be wrong but why is it not on the main site so people can see the real world pics?

Update facebook often and encourage more customer reviews on facebook. CW's brand is built on customer's satisfaction, reviews and feedback. When potential customer see positive reviews flooding in, it would be contagious!

So did some customer put up the FB page on CWL?

Exactly...

Jimleymurmer wrote:CW need to be more proactive on Social Media. The difficulty with having a Facebook page and not using it, is that the Social Media savvy will regard you as sloppy. I cannot think of a quality brand that doesn't use Facebook so why an Internet-only brand or its supporters should think that CW doesn't have to or shouldn't is beyond me. Not everyone is a fan of FB or social media more generally OR for that matter blogging. But SOMEBODY will appreciate CW involvement so why wouldn't a brand want to use all channels? Some forum members may not be fans BUT are any of us so marketing-savvy that we would advise CW that 800 million global users of FB have ALL got it wrong. My tuppence worth for CW is embrace it and embrace it quickly.

Agreed, as an 'old Git' CWl having a Facebook presence won't impact on me in the slightest, but it will bring them to the attention of 0000's of others who use this media, the same with Twitter.

The most important thing is keeping the content fresh, it needs to be updated at least weekly and in a way that interests the majority, ie non watch geeks!

Something like a short piece linking the most appropriate CWL watch to the event of the week ( return of the route master, British classic, Malvern), just something that can be linked and retweeted easily will work.

My 2c

Rob

Time to stick my oar in here too with my own opinion.

Like it or not, social media is the dominant marketing tool at the present time. Not to be involved with it, in some shape or form, is becoming virtual business suicide.
Old standard forms of advertising, such as newspapers and TV are becoming devalued with the onset of streaming TV (which allows viewers to skip ads completely) and E-readers which allow people to take their daily papers without pages of advertising to trawl through.
If CWL want to increase their exposure and attract new customers rather than rely on repeat custom and word of mouth, then unfortunately, Facebook and Twitter should not only be considered a possibility but should be seen as a necessity.
The first thing that potential customers do nowadays is to check out their social media streams for information on a product. If there is no on-line presence in these areas, then it is generally perceived that the Company is either not moving with the times or somehow "cheap" or else have something to hide. Noncense, I know, but that is the way of the world.
Yes, managing this kind of thing can take up a little time but the ROI is significant. The power of social media is quite frightening and has the ability to make or break a company in a matter of days.
CWL's reputation for customer service and quality products would play perfectly into the hands of the likes of Twitter, where essentially, "word of mouth" would spread their name like wildfire.
All that aside, it is also completely free advertising.

The only question in my mind, is how CWL want their company to be seen? Is it as a small niche watch maker who is happy to 'trundle along' or do they want to increase markert penetration and be seen to have 'ambition', driving their business in the direction of the more well known brands who spend obscene amounts of money on advertising?

Its a fascinating area of research and one that I know, from personal experience, has the power to expose and expand your business significantly with very little by way of effort.

sibex wrote: Like it or not, social media is the dominant marketing tool at the present time. Not to be involved with it, in some shape or form, is becoming virtual business suicide.

It will be interesting to see. Having been involved in Y2K, The dot.com bubble, the VMI revolution etc, and seen open government and many other 'new wave' ideas, I will watch and wait. In actual fact, the basic principles of business (supply and demand, cash is king, and you have to make a profit for reinvestment) have barely changed in centuries.

This is such a phenomenon the consulting companies have even managed to come up with a model. It is called the "Hype Cycle", and it has a ring of truth about it.



When it comes to Twitter and Facebook as real business tools, I'd say we are just approaching the "peak of inflated expectations".

downer wrote: I will watch and wait.

Don't you mean, "I will buy a watch and wait"?



I think everything has its cycles and while they go up and down they are still useful tools in the present but never forever. Twitter and FB may have reached their peak but they still reach a vast pool of people.

As an aside the CW website has taken a massive leap forward in the last 120 days going from daily traffic in the top 1% of all websites to the top .5% of all websites (a 130,000 position jump if I recall).

Whatever they are doing it's working and I am guessing that sales are following the up tick in traffic.

Lawrence wrote:
I think everything has its cycles and while they go up and down they are still useful tools in the present but never forever. Twitter and FB may have reached their peak but they still reach a vast pool of people.

The point of the model is simply to say that FB etc will never reach the level of success that is anticipated. The challenge for advertisers is to keep the message constantly in front of the target audience. Maintaining momentum on FB is going to be tricky, and again, the basic laws of business will intervene.

Lawrence wrote:
As an aside the CW website has taken a massive leap forward in the last 120 days going from daily traffic in the top 1% of all websites to the top .5% of all websites (a 130,000 position jump if I recall).

Whatever they are doing it's working and I am guessing that sales are following the up tick in traffic.

I'd be interested to know the source of that statistic.

Im not going to argue with Gartner!

sibex wrote:Im not going to argue with Gartner!

I would and frequently do. Each Gartner analyst does their own research so you quite often find them contradicting each other. Unlike other analyst firms which take a company view. Always fun to ask them about their Hype Cycle and how many of their predictions came true.

Ahhh... I didn't know that about the way they operated. That's very interesting actually. So ending up in the top right quadrant in one of their service or product reviews is really down to an individual analyst? Hmmm. I assume they all work to a certain criteria though.

like everything else, you ride the waves as they come. current wave is social media. honestly, to some extent, social media has the potential to be far more dangerous than it is valuable.

the positives are (relatively) free visibility and an opportunity to get your message out to loyal customers or potential customers. many companies use facebook, twitter, etc to be visible in their customer community (my company also has a significant presence on linkedin, architizer, youtube, flickr, etc.).

the negative is that consumers can use it against you. ask the susan g komen foundation, who made a serious faux pax recently, how social networking can absolutely hammer you. good news travels fast, bad news travels even faster (and has a longer memory.

that said, if you create a positive presence in social media, you should find some benefit in it. and, if something negative *does* happen, you're in a better position to respond if you're already out there and have a presence. but you really have little control over the negative side (besides continuing to provide a quality product and quality service, which is the best first defense against negativity).

The CW Blog goes live!

http://www.christopherward.co.uk/blog/

UK Audience Insights:

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10151260561439870