Heads up, business people! It’s time to invade social media.
For those of you who have not registered to Twitter now, I’m telling you, you’re missing a lot of fun and tremendous opportunities
Why Twitter? You ask. Twitter is filled with people who share different ideas, thoughts, and opinions every single day. One “tweet” can make a lot of difference for a topic to talk to. These people also long for fresh ideas and insights.
In Twitter, you can easily find out how many people are talking about you and your business, and you can track down comments and issues. Therefore, you can effortlessly address customer queries, complaints, and whatnots. This is a good way of building a positive business image to all Tweeple out there- building relationships and addressing customer issues as soon as you can! Don’t miss the chance to grow your business without spending much and learn from people all at the same time!
Browse around a little bit, and learn the ropes. Then start talking to people in Twitter and eventually engage in conversations.
How to use this powerful social media for the benefit of your business? There are a few basic steps, but we should start off with presenting your brand.
So how should you present your brand?
When doing so, there are a few things that you should remember.
Choose your business name.
This expresses your brand the most. This name is the one that appears with all your Tweets. This is what people see. Make sure it’s catchy, and leave out punctuation marks to make your name easier to type using cell phones. If people want to tweet about you, they won’t have to go through an excruciating process of typing your complex, over-punctuated business name. They might not want to do it again!
The Profile Image
There are two types of profile images: the Twitter profile photo, and the Twitter profile header.
The Twitter profile photo is a square photo, and it appears with every tweet you send. You can use your company’s logo. However, for a lot of businessmen, they use their own photo combined with their business name for the account. They do this to establish a more personal touch to the account.
The Twitter profile header is equivalent to Facebook’s cover photo. The background that people see when they visit your profile can be customized.
Complete Your Profile!
No one wants to read an unfinished profile, right? Yours should be complete as well. This is a good venue for you to talk more about your business. And when completing a profile, do not forget the following:
1. To provide additional information to Tweeple, do not forget to share your website or blog, and make sure your site or blog has a good Twitter landing page, where you give out information about you and your business that you did not give out in Twitter.
2. The “location” helps people find you. Give enough detailed information about where people can find you. Some people might not be from the same state or neighbourhood. This way, you can help them spot your definite location.
3. Fill out the 160-character bio to tell people who you are. Mostly, tell them what you can offer and the benefits you deliver.
Look for People... and follow them
But take into consideration Twitter’s rules about aggressive following. Choose whom to follow, follow them, but take it slow. Let’s not get our accounts suspended, shall we?
Don’t just follow people in random. Make sure they’re customers, contractors, suppliers, business partners, business in your neighbourhood, professional organizations, etc.
For now, focus more on whom you are following. People may also start following you, but fix your eyes on the prize.
After following people, what next?
It’s time to Talk!
But before you do that, listen first. As soon as you get the confidence to speak, you may send a Tweet, which is a message in general- you send this out to people who follow you. Apart from tweets, you may also send a reply, mention a username, a DM or direct message, and a retweet. These will get you to connect more with people.
Go Mobile!
Welcome yourself to the 21st century where phones can access to Twitter. You’re a businessman; you need a good, up to date phone. You can set up your phone’s push notification settings for you to know when someone actually mentioned you, retweeted, sent you a DM, or even get a new follower. This can help you immediately connect with someone, especially if the message is about your business.
Your smart phone can also help you post photos in a snap! People love to look at photos. When you get to have activities about your business, get out your smart phones, take photos, and share with your community. And most importantly,
Establish a Good Name
... and you can do that by giving people valuable information and answering their questions as well. It is important to talk about how your business can benefit people. People will consider you as a valuable member of the community if you started paying attention to others rather just merely promoting your business online. And if you had to send out tweets, be creative. Try saying the same thing differently. See which approach gets more responses. Use that approach for future posts!
Spread your Virtual Influence now.
Thursday, August 15, 2013
Is Social Media Our Secret Weapon In Business?
Social media is an internet
technology that transforms regular communications into a more interactive
dialogue. It allows millions of people to instantly interact with one another
even if they are separated by thousands of miles or kilometers. It’s a tool
that is used often by individuals and you probably have a social media account
yourself – Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare to name a few…
While individuals use social
media almost on a daily basis, many businesses still haven’t found its benefits.
Social media marketing
can help your business grow by allowing you to truly connect with what every
business needs – customers!
When it comes to application,
social media can be used for a lot of things in business. You can use it to
promote who you are, what your business is and what you have to offer in terms
of products or services. You can use it to attract new customers and strengthen
your relationships with current customers. At the same time you can use it to
find out what people think about your business and how it can be improved.
As for the benefits of social
media, well where do we start?! For one thing you get free marketing. It’s a
place where you can interact with your customers and offer deals or freebies
that not only engage them but keeps your loyal customers happy. Customer
acquisition is almost a byproduct, simultaneously attracting new clientele who
hear about what you have to offer and are influenced by your engagement with
current fans. Because social media has such a broad reach, you can touch as
many potential customers as you want. Think of this – If you have only 100
raving fans each with 1,000 friends, then your potential reach is up to 10,000
people!
At the same time you can
target your marketing to specific demographics or groups of customers using
social media. For example, Facebook and Foursquare allow you to target specific
groups based on different criteria and locations. This way you can pinpoint
your message to these specific people and make it more personal and heartfelt.
You also get a chance to
manage your reputation. Reputation management is important for any business and
social media gives us a tool to monitor what is being said and even respond to
any negative comments about you. Bad reviews will be on social media regardless
of whether your business is - this way you have a chance to do something about
it before any damage is done.
If you want to use social media marketing for
your business you can start by creating an account in any of the social media
sites out there like Facebook, Twitter or Foursquare. If you’re just starting
out, master one first before you add more. While doing four or five may sound
like a good idea you do want to give it some attention so it’s better to focus
on one and develop your connections first before expanding.
Be active on a regular basis!
Creating a social media account is one thing, but there’s no point having one if
you’re not showing up there and taking your interaction with people seriously.
Schedule a regular online presence. Take this opportunity to launch your secret
weapon - engage your audience in 2 way conversation, show customers that you
really care, and watch your business grow.
Friday, August 9, 2013
Inexpensive Ways to Measure Social Media Results
Social media marketing is one of the best ways to get your product or company known to the public. It is fast; it is cheap- if not, free. All you have to do is to register your product or company to Facebook, Twitter, or even YouTube. These sites are visited by literally millions and millions of people every single day. With just a few strategised types and clicks, you can already promote your business and expect it to reach out to tons of people every day. How is that for a good start? For a big or small business, this marketing strategy is not to be disregarded.
If you have already registered to these sites, then, Congratulations is in order! That is the first step. What next? Do you just leave the site be? Definitely, no! Aside from all the efforts of making accounts for your new products to be promoted online, what else is there to be done?
Listen To Your Customers
Social media marketing is pointless if you don’t pay attention to your customers. You have the chance to connect with them; grab it!
And how do you measure listening? Take Twitter, for example. When you choose to follow potential clients, make sure that you monitor their tweets every day. You need to be aware of what they say about your business. You can answer questions; extend help when you can. Customers are always impressed with businesses that care for them. With Twitter, you can monitor the number of people you are actually helping and if the number of people is actually increasing. You will also have the chance deal with customer issues that may lead to negative impressions about your business.
After identifying all the problems through measurement, immediately take action for improvement. Delaying can only cause problems and sustained customer issues. After taking action, you can measure its impact through the cost savings or additional revenue.
Use a Rating System
This is one of the best strategies when you want to measure your hard work that you invested in social sites to make your business known. When posting an update about your business launch in Facebook, for example, you will notice that people will start liking the post. The following day, you post another update of your launch, and you will notice that your posts don’t just get “likes”; they also get comments. Not just that, people will start sharing the post, which is better for you and your business. Likes do indicate support, and comments signify more interest of the post. Lucky if you get shares, for the updates will go beyond your page!
A tiered point system for Facebook used for measurement may look just like this:
Shares = 10 points/share
Comments = 5 points/comment
Likes = 1 point/like
Also a similar thing for Twitter:
Reply = 1 point/ reply
Retweet = 5 points/ retweet
You can create a numeric goal for objectives at the start of your campaign. The tiered points system will be your tool to measure the kind of engagement people commit to your posts and updates. By adding up the numbers during your campaign, you can see if you are improving in terms of reaching your goal or not.
Create More Value. Sell. Measure.
Sounds easy, right? So what’s behind this strategy? Say for instance you are a proud restaurant owner, and you have a new entry in your menu. The goal is to have 200 people to try the new entry over the approaching weekend. Are you reaching for the stars? Not quite, if you use a good strategy and a add a few good punches to your new menu entry, things may just work out fine for you.
Now, you are so convinced that your new dish is a hit, but it won’t reach that level if people don’t get to try it. A visually appealing entry can be very attractive when posted in Facebook or Instagram. Make sure the photo can make mouths water. However, instead of solely talking about how delicious your dish is, you can start posting articles and FAQs about healthy eating, which will eventually lead to your newly created dish as one of the foods that qualify as healthful. The good thing about that is your customers will feel that you care for their well-being, and it starts with you being a responsible restaurant owner who serves healthful food.
With that value added to your new food entry, you can use your Facebook or Twitter again to offer coupons for your restaurant. You will be able to measure the fruits of your labour through the number of people who redeem the coupons.
You can actually go back to Use a Rating System- the tiered system to be more specific, as evaluation to see if you’re moving closer to your goal or not. You can also create landing pages for the customers to easily purchase or download what you are currently selling to them. Make sure that the landing page is unique or specific, so that you can clearly see or measure the success of your campaign.
Social media marketing should be inexpensive- or if not, free- right? These measuring guidelines will save you from settling with expensive measurement tools. Take advantage of social media now to market your business!
If you have already registered to these sites, then, Congratulations is in order! That is the first step. What next? Do you just leave the site be? Definitely, no! Aside from all the efforts of making accounts for your new products to be promoted online, what else is there to be done?
Listen To Your Customers
Social media marketing is pointless if you don’t pay attention to your customers. You have the chance to connect with them; grab it!
And how do you measure listening? Take Twitter, for example. When you choose to follow potential clients, make sure that you monitor their tweets every day. You need to be aware of what they say about your business. You can answer questions; extend help when you can. Customers are always impressed with businesses that care for them. With Twitter, you can monitor the number of people you are actually helping and if the number of people is actually increasing. You will also have the chance deal with customer issues that may lead to negative impressions about your business.
After identifying all the problems through measurement, immediately take action for improvement. Delaying can only cause problems and sustained customer issues. After taking action, you can measure its impact through the cost savings or additional revenue.
Use a Rating System
This is one of the best strategies when you want to measure your hard work that you invested in social sites to make your business known. When posting an update about your business launch in Facebook, for example, you will notice that people will start liking the post. The following day, you post another update of your launch, and you will notice that your posts don’t just get “likes”; they also get comments. Not just that, people will start sharing the post, which is better for you and your business. Likes do indicate support, and comments signify more interest of the post. Lucky if you get shares, for the updates will go beyond your page!
A tiered point system for Facebook used for measurement may look just like this:
Shares = 10 points/share
Comments = 5 points/comment
Likes = 1 point/like
Also a similar thing for Twitter:
Reply = 1 point/ reply
Retweet = 5 points/ retweet
You can create a numeric goal for objectives at the start of your campaign. The tiered points system will be your tool to measure the kind of engagement people commit to your posts and updates. By adding up the numbers during your campaign, you can see if you are improving in terms of reaching your goal or not.
Create More Value. Sell. Measure.
Sounds easy, right? So what’s behind this strategy? Say for instance you are a proud restaurant owner, and you have a new entry in your menu. The goal is to have 200 people to try the new entry over the approaching weekend. Are you reaching for the stars? Not quite, if you use a good strategy and a add a few good punches to your new menu entry, things may just work out fine for you.
Now, you are so convinced that your new dish is a hit, but it won’t reach that level if people don’t get to try it. A visually appealing entry can be very attractive when posted in Facebook or Instagram. Make sure the photo can make mouths water. However, instead of solely talking about how delicious your dish is, you can start posting articles and FAQs about healthy eating, which will eventually lead to your newly created dish as one of the foods that qualify as healthful. The good thing about that is your customers will feel that you care for their well-being, and it starts with you being a responsible restaurant owner who serves healthful food.
With that value added to your new food entry, you can use your Facebook or Twitter again to offer coupons for your restaurant. You will be able to measure the fruits of your labour through the number of people who redeem the coupons.
You can actually go back to Use a Rating System- the tiered system to be more specific, as evaluation to see if you’re moving closer to your goal or not. You can also create landing pages for the customers to easily purchase or download what you are currently selling to them. Make sure that the landing page is unique or specific, so that you can clearly see or measure the success of your campaign.
Social media marketing should be inexpensive- or if not, free- right? These measuring guidelines will save you from settling with expensive measurement tools. Take advantage of social media now to market your business!
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