Posts Tagged ‘twitter’
Using social media is becoming one of the most popular strategies to retain customers that visit your business website. By directing your viewers to your Facebook page or Twitter account, you have opened the door of opportunity to continue communication with customers who have left your website without purchasing.
Your business website needs a way to direct people to your social media channels, to encourage communication between your customers and your brand. By including links to your social media pages on your website, you make it easier for you customer to learn everything they can about your product, and read why other customers are happy with what you have to offer.
Have social media buttons on your home page
In order to guide people to your Facebook page or Twitter account, have social media buttons on your homepage in plain view. Many online shoppers actually prefer spending time among social media platforms rather than business websites because social media is comfortable, familiar, and eliminates the customer’s wariness of salespeople.
Rich Brooks, of Social Media Examiner says;
“Many companies now see the long-term benefits of gaining a follower, fan or subscriber on a social media platform, even weighed against the short-term risk of sending them away from the website.”
The buttons should open up your social media sites in a new window. Because you’re sending your potential customers to a site other than your own website, having them open in a new window gives the customer easier access and incentive to return to your business website.
Why social media works
Having a social media presence so readily available to your consumers is a huge advantage because your consumer base is interested in what goes on behind the scenes in your company. By posting photos, videos, product tests, special offers, and anything else you can think of that’s fresh and new, you give your company a more personal touch.
Having a personal touch is the best way to have a leg up on your competitors. Your social media platforms will really show the true personality behind your brand.
There has been a tidal wave of blog posts throughout cyberspace discussing the idea that a business does not necessarily need to have its own website if it is able to effectively establish relationships via social media. While social media can be very effective in marketing your product, I am here to tell you why a business website is an absolute must.
E-Commerce
Your website is just about equivalent to your brick-and-mortar location in real life. It is a location where people end up (hopefully – if you’ve optimized your website correctly) after seeking out your product or service, receive viable information, and make the decision of whether or not to commit and purchase.
Your website should have your brand personality written all over it. It should be professional, and reflect what your business is all about. Facebook and Twitter can be very limiting in this aspect. Also, customers are used to shopping online from an actual website. Do you really expect people to find out all the information necessary to make a purchase from you on Facebook? You should use Facebook to guide people to where the magic happens – your business website.
You need to have a website that users can trust and give people incentive to give you their email accounts so you can follow up with promotions and personal offers. Social media is so open and public that people should very well be hesitating to make high-involvement purchase decisions after reading a few wall posts on Facebook.
You don’t own your social media site
It’s important to understand that while you have many options to customize your Facebook and Twitter profiles, they are still third-party sites. If people are discussing your brand or product, it seems a little silly to refer people to your Facebook profile rather than your business website, it’s less professional.
This isn’t to say you should disregard the potential social media has to generate your leads. You absolutely should establish relationships and participate in conversations through social media, but ultimately, you should be driving those leads and conversations toward your business website, that’s where the transactions should ultimately take place. Your business website is your property and it represents your brand, use it wisely.
There has been an incredible amount of buzz around cyberspace about Verizon’s launch of the iPhone 4. Many customers logged on and snagged their new phone at 3 a.m. on February 3rd. However, their cries of joy were soon snuffed out by the amount of outrage and frustration circulating on Twitter and Facebook of those customers who were confronted by Verizon’s website overload and inability to secure their new iPhone 4.
Verizon’s iPhone 4 available to existing Verizon customers for preorder, was sold out in less than a day.
Verizon’s Advertising
The first commercial launched by Verizon depicted a series of ticking clocks and countdowns in an effort to tease (and tease it did!) anxious Verizon customers anticipating their new toy.
Verizon has also been unleashing a series of new advertisements to promote the iPhone 4’s launch (I think this was totally unnecessary because the 6-month rumor did enough advertising for it anyway). The new advertisements are very competitor-oriented in that they completely slam AT&T’s network problems.
One 30-second commercial blatantly slams AT&T’s call-dropping issue. This is a clever strategy for Verizon to take up considering everyone already knows what features the iPhone has. How else can you promote it other than a ‘my network is better than your network, nanny-nanny-boo-boo’ strategy?
Verizon iPhone 4 Review
People have been furiously updating Twitter statuses and blogs with reviews of Verizon’s iPhone 4, now that the embargo on reviews has been lifted. The basic consensus is this: Verizon’s iPhone 4 is better for voice, worse for data.
Although the voice calls were reported to be very crisp, clear, and consistent, the data speeds have many (still) waiting customers a little antsy.
Walter S. Mossberg, a blogger for All Things Digital, says:
“AT&T’s network averaged 46% faster at download speeds and 24% faster at upload speeds. This speed difference was noticeable while doing tasks like downloading large numbers of emails, or waiting for complicated Web pages to load. AT&T’s speeds varied more while Verizon’s were more consistent, but overall, AT&T was more satisfying at cellular data.”
The Verizon iPhone 4 cannot do voice calls and data simultaneously and also only works in limited foreign countries, for voice calls only, and at very high roaming rates.
With the craze only increasing, I think it’s safe to say that Verizon’s marketing strategy was pretty spot on.
Picture this, you’re starting up your own business, just barely getting it off the ground, and you want to take the next step. You want people to know the name of your company, or you want people to be able to choose your company over competitors for a reason. If this sounds like you, there is only one answer. You need to start working on building your brand identity.
I spoke with a very successful retired marketer yesterday, and had an extensive conversation of how marketing is going to change in the future. Robert Silberberg, a former marketer from New York, has a pretty clear understanding of how things are going to change in the future.
“Everything is going to be online, obviously. Traditional marketing is dead,” Silberberg said.
Social Media is Vital
You can absolutely use social media to build your brand identity. However, the game has changed. Because consumers who avidly use social media are becoming more and more desensitized to the existence of social media marketing, people will eventually start ignoring marketing efforts online. So what can you do with social media to avoid being labeled as just another marketing ploy?
The answer is: (dun dun DUN!) interact with people on social media. Use Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and blogging to your advantage. However, instead of bombarding your followers and fans with links, images, and offers, actually open up a two-way communication channel with customers.
If you want your company to be seen as a resource for people who are looking for your product, you need to encourage conversation online. Post a question every week that actually encourages people to respond. Use your status to encourage feedback and opinions. If you can use people’s opinions to find opportunities for improvement, you are well on your way to mastering the power of social media.
Have an Effective Website
One of the most vital things you need to have a successful marketing strategy is an effective website. You need a content management system that allows you to continuously update your content in order to keep up with changing demands. Your website should allow for comments and feedback from browsers. Your website also needs quality content that gives your customers a plethora of reasons to transform from browsers to buyers.
Travis Hodges, a freelance social media consultant, gives us wary social media users some advice on how to avoid wasting our valuable time and marketing efforts. It is important to use social media marketing to your advantage. There are many components of social media that can become a distraction to your objectives, so pay attention.
Do not follow too many blogs
Try sticking to blogs that directly relate to your industry. Also, weed out blogs that aren’t as informative as others. You should follow blogs that you can learn from on a consistent basis. In addition, pay attention to how much time you’re spending reading each blog, you should be able to get a wide variety of information, not sinking into one particular blog for an absurd amount of time.
Do not read every single tweet, post, or status update
Social media is completely overloaded with unnecessary content. If you follow tweets or updates that can be valuable or informative to you, that’s fine, but try to avoid those that don’t quite make your favorites list or group.
Do not follow or friend too many people
You don’t necessarily have to be friends with everyone you possibly can. This is just poor networking and is inefficient. If you friend every person possible, you will undoubtedly be labeled as a spammer eventually. Again, follow and friend people that you can learn from, or converse with, all for the better of the community, your company, and yourself.
Do not spread yourself too thin over social media networks
For small businesses, the most recommended social media networks for you to join include: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and blogs. These are the most widely used and the most effective if you are using social media for your marketing strategy.
Social Media is marketed as a human communication medium. This is ideal for businesses because it allows businesses to give a more personal and accessible touch to their marketing efforts. However, as business’s use of social media grows, so does the consumer awareness of business’s social media marketing strategies.
So how do we differentiate that perception as a business? Below are a few tips you can use to make your business’s social media strategy a little more “human,” and less automated. Having a more personal social media presence will help your credibility and encourage people to genuinely participate in conversations with you.
Group pictures
Instead of using your icon or logo for your profile picture on Facebook, Twitter, and blog channels you use, try using a photo of your staff for a period of time. This will show that there are real people behind the Facebook comments and Tweets.
Introduce your staff
Have a page on your blog that discusses each member of your team – including a photo. Radio station websites take advantage of this asset to give their radio personalities more accessibility (literally giving a face to the voice) to their listeners. Include briefs in your About Us section in your Facebook that describes each member of your team.
Employee stories
Feature a blog post or Facebook post on one of your employees each month. Use your employees’ experiences with your product or service to build interesting stories that will be engaging for you consumers to read, as well as build more of a personal connection with your product’s benefits.
Encourage personal accounts
Have your employees use their personal Facebook and Twitter accounts to communicate with potential customers about your product or service. Give them free reign about how they communicate with customers. They should however, include a few photos and their affiliation with your company. Be sure to have them include a link back to your business website to help drive traffic.
Do you want to participate in the social media revolution You should. What better way to market your product or service than to engage in the network with the capability of reaching 500 million Internet dwellers at the touch of a button?
Use these steps to begin your social media marketingcampaign.
Step 1 – Perfect Your Website
There are certain things your website MUST have. It must beeasy to navigate – organization is key for retaining visitors. You need ane-commerce page where people can order your product or service safely andquickly. Most importantly however, your copy must be informative, and be filledwith keywords to help your search engine optimization.
Try not to use too many flash players, as search engines donot rank them very high.
Step 2 – Choose Your Channel
While there are literally thousands of different socialmedia networks you have the option to join, choose the ones where you feel youwill actually dedicate time to. Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn are the mostrecommended. As for blogging, join multiple blog netoworks like WordPress,LiveJournal, and Blogger. Publish your post to all three blogigng platforms.
Step 3 – Make Friends and Play Nice
If you come crashing into social media with a great salespitch, you may make a few conversions but it is more likely that you are isolatedalmost immediately. There are thousands of spammers out there that use socialmedia as well, try not to sell directly through social media, but begin bynetworking with people and building relationships first, the sales will come.
Step 4 – A Little Goes a Long Way
Try to dedicate an hour or more per day to your social mediamarketing efforts. It is extremely important to continuously join andparticipate in different discussions, respond to comments on your blog post,and simply be a part of the mass conversation that we all know is taking place.
Social media is a great way to drive traffic to yourwebsite. However, in order to begin your social media marketing campaign, youmust have a solid website, join effective social media channels, think of it asnetworking with PEOPLE instead of CUSTOMERS, and participate at least once aday.
Do you own a blog? If so, would you like readers to be able to share a Tweet about your blog? The official Tweet Button has arrived, and you as a blog owner can now allow your readers to simply click the button, and share your blog with fellow Twitter users.
Mashable, a news and trends site for social media, published a blog post today on how to incorporate the Tweet Button into your website.
Here is an excerpt from the post:
“The official Tweet Button has arrived; and while it’s as simple as a single click to use for the vast majority of end users, it brings scores of questions for casual and professional bloggers and other publishers.
How can I put a tweet button on my WordPress blog posts? How can I check the stats for my tweet button links? How do these buttons work with Blogger?”
The Basic Code
“First of all, Tweet Buttons work with a little bit of HTML and a little bit of JavaScript. If you go to Twitter’s page on the buttons, you’ll get an auto-generated snippet of code to pop into your site’s HTML wherever you’d like the button to appear. Alternatively, you can use an iFrame, remembering to use query string parameters to customize the button’s behavior. You can choose one of three design styles, as well.
“If you’re relatively code-savvy and you feel like getting fancy, you can also build your own dang tweet button and customize the styling and behavior of the button itself any way you choose. Alternatively, if you’re not terribly code savvy or you’re using a platform that won’t let you edit too much of the code yourself, you can always use the same URL to create a text link that mimics the behavior of a Tweet Button:”
You now have the quick and easy ability to have your readers Tweet about your post. This will help your search engine rankings, your social media participation, and your visibility on the web.
Bank Info Security recently published a blog post discussing social media policy. The idea of social media policy is stemmed from employees becoming less productive due to using social media sites on the job for non-business related purposes.
Below is an excerpt from the blog post.
“Popular sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter have had a phenomenal impact in the workplace – both as a corporate channel for communication and marketing, as well as a vehicle for employees to communicate both professionally and personally.
The latter is a key point. According to a new survey conducted by Trend Micro, a global internet content security company, employees increasingly are using social networks while in the office and on the clock. The survey looked at the habits of 1,600 internet users from the U.S., UK, Germany and Japan and found that over the past two years alone, social web use in the workplace has risen from 19% to 24%.
It is debatable how much the rise in social networking has compromised employee productivity, but it’s indisputable that much of this activity is occurring in the absence of formal policies.”
John Pironti, an ISACA board member and president of IP Architects, LLC., says:
In its simplest terms, there is anarchy in the absence of social media policy and training…without proper direction and clarity, it is hard to enforce appropriate consequences on someone.
Social Media Anarchy
“Because of this anarchy, organizations are starting to take action. Fear of compromised productivity, reputational damage, data loss and inappropriate behavior is leading many employers to introduce strict controls on staff access to social media sites. Robert Half Technology, an IT staffing company, recently reported that 54 percent of U.S. companies have banned workers from using social networking sites while on the job. The study found that 19 percent of companies allow social networking use only for business purposes, while 16 percent allow limited personal use.
“Organizations such as Navy Federal Credit Union have implemented a social media policy for all employees, addressing appropriate conduct on social networks. “The policy provides clear rules for those authorized to communicate on behalf of Navy Federal and rules for those that are not authorized, but choose to engage in social networks,” says Aisha Rasul, project manager, delivery channels at Navy Federal Credit Union.
“Such policies are being developed by organizations across industry. In short, a social media policy outlines the corporate guidelines or principles of communicating in the online world. A social media policy involves identifying and training employees who are representing the company and have a public facing presence.”
Even businesses who do engage in social media marketing for their organization must enforce social media policies. What goes on the Internet will always be on the Internet, so a business owner must have a clear understanding of his or her employees’ conduct online.
If you have a Facebook business page with a following of fans that seems “good enough,” you have an obligation to maintain communication with them. Having a large number of fans can look great on the surface, but if you aren’t using your Facebook page to communicate with them, the number of fans lost will start increasing as well.
While your Facebook interactions may not directly contribute to your ROI by a 1:1 ratio, it is still important to drive traffic to your website by using attractive and effective methods.
Here are a few strategies you can use to maintain your relevant consumer fan base.
Target Your Audience
Instead of just playing the numbers game, try and acquire fans that will stick around a little longer because they’re genuinely interested in your product. There are several methods you can use to maximize your target audience such as free giveaways and limited time offers.
Use Facebook Promotions
Use a giveaway page to give away free products for a limited time. If you promote your brand by giving away free products to your fans for a limited time, your fan base might triple in size, and those fans will stick around to see if you have any more promotional offers.
Use Other Channels
By collaborating with popular blogs, Twitter members, and other Facebook groups to get your promotion out there, you not only increase their visibility, but you increase your own credibility. The more prevalent your brand is, the more people will be willing to participate in your promotions. It’s a win-win situation.
You can even offer limited specials to the affiliates that promote your brand as well. You can gain even more loyal fans by rewarding the influencers you collaborate with to promote your offer.
Generally, managing your Facebook business page is all about maintaining relationships. The social media marketing strategy is effective simply because consumers feel involved and important to their brands, so maintain that perception and you will see your fan base grow in numbers and loyalty.
