Entries Tagged 'social media marketing' ↓

Social media changes faster than a fast thing. It’s important to read up on the latest comings, goings and techniques if you want your social media strategy to continue to work well for you.

A recent post on SocialMediaExaminer looks at some surprising social media research findings that will affect your social media strategy. Below is a summary of the findings (the link above takes you to the whole article).

1. Facebook – the social login favourite

Research by eMarketer shows that the majority of people prefer to use their Facebook (51%) credentials when logging into websites.

How does that affect you?

Well, if your website requires the user to register before accessing information you could enhance your number of registrations by offering a Facebook login option.

There is a concept known as password fatigue – 92% of shoppers will abandon a website rather than go through the laborious process of recovering a lost or forgotten password. But if you offer a social login, 65% of shoppers are more likely to return.

2. Twitter is the place for social customer service

Twitter is the consumers’ preferred platform when they want to reach out to brands.

Recent research undertaken by Socialbakers shows that 59.3% of customer questions are asked on Twitter, compared to 40.7% on Facebook.

Social media means consumers are used to getting feedback quickly, so it’s important that you train your staff to be responsive to any questions that come through Twitter (or any other social media channel).

Answer their questions quickly (within the hour) and make sure you personalise each tweet with your name or Twitter handle, especially if you use your company logo as your avatar.

When you monitor mentions of your brand name be prepared to jump in and help. If they are having a problem get in tough straightaway and ask if you can help. If they are paying you a compliment, say thank you.

3. Younger audiences don’t unfriend Facebook

There’s been a suggestion recently that teenagers are turning their back on Facebook, but research by eMarketer would suggest otherwise.

Sure, there are other social sites out there that they are attracted to (such as Snapchat, Instagram and Vine), but Facebook appears to remain a firm favourite.

The truth is they are multi-platform users. There’s no need to panic, just broaden your use of social media to enhance the experience for them.

If they are cross-platform users, you become a cross-platform user. Offer them information and stories that are relevant to them and that show how other teenagers are engaging with your brand.

Above all, make sure everything you do is mobile friendly.

4. Instagram is rapidly growing

TechCrunch announced in January that Instagram was the platform to watch, doubling its active users in 12 months (180 million in January 2014).

Why do people love it so much? Well, images are creative, interesting and instantly shareable.

You could share your followers’ photos and make them instant stars, create videos that capture the ethos of your brand and ask your fans about their lifestyle likes and dislikes.

Generally, all these platforms allow you to interact with your customers and fans instantly and in an ‘intimate’ way.

You can get instant answers to questions helping you plan future campaigns, provide excellent customer service and generally create a ‘family’ atmosphere that will endear your brand to them.

Hopefully, these stats and survey results will give you some fresh ideas about how to refine your social media strategy.

Over to you

What’s the biggest takeaway for you?

Will you now be changing your social media marketing strategy?

Leave a comment below or share this with someone you think may find it useful.

Author: Sally Ormond, freelance copywriter and MD of Briar Copywriting – once cycled 300 miles in 24 hours for charity.

Social media is a must for any business these days.

It’s a fantastic way to have immediate contact with your customers, interact with them and develop long lasting relationships.

That word, ‘relationships’, is very important, which is why I’m dumbfounded at the number of companies that farm out their social media activities.

As the image above shows, social media is all about interacting, chatting, having a bit of banter and generally conversing with your customers.

Your customers follow you on Twitter and Facebook because they want that immediacy of contact, they want to feel part of your business and they want to be able to talk to you whenever they want.

Granted, social media can be time consuming (if you let it), but that’s no excuse to get someone else to do it for you.

Feeling cheated

If you followed your favourite celebrity on Facebook or Twitter, how would you feel if you posted something and they responded to you?

On top of the world probably.

But how would you feel if you later discovered that the celebrity in question hired someone to write the tweets and updates for him or her? What you thought was a personal message from them was in fact nothing other than a response from a faceless person.

Well that’s how your customers will feel if they knew their messages weren’t being read by you or responded to by you.

Any trust they had in you would be eroded beyond repair.

Immediacy of contact

The whole point of social media is to be able to instantly reach your customers with news, information and updates.

If you hire someone to do that for you they have to phone or email you to find out what’s happening, wait for you to reply, then put out tweets and updates. What’s the point? In the time that took, you could have sent out the update yourself.

A bit of banter

For me, one of the greatest aspects of social media is the way you can show the personality behind your business.

People can get to know you, like you and trust you.

But if you’re not the one sending out the tweets and updates, how can your customers really get to know you?

It’s not your personality that’s coming across so there will be a disconnect between what they read and what they see when they meet you or do business with you.

Stop outsourcing your social media and talk to your customers. It doesn’t have to be time consuming and, assuming you have a smartphone it can be done anywhere.

Rant over.

Sally Ormond – copywriter, tweeter, MD Briar Copywriting Ltd

Social media is a revelation.

It is immediate, interactive and great fun. Now you can chat with your customers any time, any where and you can ‘get’ to those hard to reach decision makers who have always hidden behind an impenetrable wall of secretaries.

But with all the different platforms about, it can be difficult to make sure you’re getting the most from them.

Well, as usual I’ve been scouring the Internet to find some tools that will help you use social media more effectively.

My search led me to Social Media Examiner who have asked a gaggle of social media professionals for their take on their favourite social media tool.

They came up with a list of 29:

• RivallQ
• Pocket
• ShareRoot
• PowToon
• EveryoneSocial
• vCita
• OptinMonster
• smqueue
• Nimble
• BuzzSumo
• Harvest
• Calendly
• Friends+Me
• BuzzFork
• Newsle
• Piktochart
• 22Social
• Jelly
• NeedTagger
• Pushover and IFTTT
• Swayy
• Circloscope
• Songza
• Talkwalker
• Hang w/
• Meddle
• tchat.io
• Canva
• LeadPages

You can read more about them and what they can do for you here.

The British are odd folk (I can say that because I am British) – some would say reserved, which perhaps accounts for our reluctance to get stuck in to social media.

There are oodles of guides out there that tell us what we should be doing, but much of the wisdom comes from across the pond, relating to American audiences.

But what about the UK?

“The British Book of Social Media Marketing” by Gemma Thompson addresses the need we Brits have for a straight talking, comprehensive guide as to what on earth we’re supposed to do on social media.

Written specifically for the British market, Gemma explores the various social media platforms, but not in a ‘this is what’s available, get on with it’ attitude, but rather a ‘come with me and I’ll help you find the right solution you need for your business.’ It’s a breath of fresh air.

It makes you stop and think about:

• What it is you want to get from social media
• How to place your customer at the centre of everything you do
• Branding
• Scheduling
• Understanding your social media goals
• How to measure your effectiveness
• Building your audience and engaging with them

All from a very British perspective.

It’s a great reference tool that you can dip in and out of as and when you try new social networks.

An inspired touch is the downloadable workbook. By having action points throughout the book, you are actively learning and building your own social media strategy as you read.

Offering a mixture of professional marketing tips with practical information gives this book the edge. It doesn’t dictate which platforms you should be using, but rather explains the pros and cons of each and who uses them so you can identify which will be most beneficial to your business.

If you are a British newbie to social media and need a guide to tell you what’s what, the differences between the platforms, how to use them and – possibly more importantly – how to avoid the common pitfalls, this is the book you need.

The British Book of Social Media Marketing is available as a Kindle on Amazon (the link takes you to the Amazon page).

Social media is immediate.

Once you’ve pressed send, your tweet, Facebook update or Google+ status shoots out into cyberspace to be read by your followers.

That’s it – bam – your thoughts have slipped from your fingers and are out there for all to see.

Did you see that phrase?

“Your thoughts.”

If you’ve outsourced your social media content how can you get your thoughts out there?

You have to be there to build a relationship

How many times have you been told social media is all about building relationships?

Lots?

So why have you ignored it and got someone else to do your thang for you?

To me it’s like being asked to pitch for a new job and sending in someone else to do the selling for you.

Or going on a date, but sending someone else in your place.

If you’re a small or medium sized business there’s no reason why you should be passing the buck in this way.

You don’t have to spend hours doing it; dipping in and out is fine. Plus, if you have the relevant apps on your smartphone, you can get hold of your alerts (when people contact you via social media) wherever you are, so you can make sure you respond quickly.

“But I need a constant presence”

Sure, you need to update and tweet regularly, but you don’t have to be chained to your social media channels to do that. If you blog (what do I mean ‘if’, of course you do) make sure you set up a feed to each of your social platforms so once a new post is published all your followers get to hear about it.

Other than that, put something out there when you want to. There are no hard and fast rule that says ‘thou must tweet 20 times a day,’ tweet when you want to tweet.

When it comes to interacting with others, during your breaks have a quick peek at your feeds to see what people are saying. Set up lists so it’s easy to find those you want to follow and engage with. Then, when they post something, you can easily pick it up and start a conversation.

It all comes down to relationship building and you can’t that if you’re not the one doing the talking.

You know your business better than anyone. There’s no great mystery to what makes a good tweet or update, so when you have something to say, or you want to comment on something in the news, say it, don’t waste your money paying someone else to do it for you.

Doing your own social media updates will make sure your personality shines through and that’s what your followers want. They want to see the real you, they want to get to know you and they want to know interact with you.

Stop paying that retainer and start chatting.