The Art of Making Customers Happy on Social Media. [Part 2]

 Continued from last post...

3. Make a connection

From a high level view, this strategy comes down to your perspective with social media.
It’s an honor and a privilege for someone to reach out to you on social media, amid the millions of other profiles and accounts to connect with.
When someone chooses to chat with you, be grateful, and respond.
Zappos, well known for its awesome customer service over the phone and online, has the following response numbers:

• Response Time:  < 20 min
• Response Rate: 100 percent

Yes, they reply to everyone!
In the book Traction, Gabriel Weinberg and Justin Mares talk about 19 traction channels to help gain more customers. One of these channels is unconventional PR, which includes customer service.
You can be so great at customer service that it becomes free, unconventional PR for your brand!

Consider: The average top brands worldwide tweet at least 12 times a day, and 54 percent of these brands are sending less than one @-reply per day.

There’s a lot of room to improve (and stand out) amid those numbers.

What this might look like in practice

When possible, connect 24/7 with your audience.
When not possible—and totally understandable if you’re a small business or a one-person team—communicate your availability.

Zappos does the 24/7 thing in a cool way by having their Twitter support team say hello and good-bye as they change shifts.

American Express gives us a good example of how to communicate when you turn off for the night.
Another way to make a one-to-one connection or conversation is through Direct Message.
Our co-founder Leo wrote a great article on Social Media Examiner about Twitter and customer service, and he laid out this quick 3-step guide for what to do when you’re communicating with your many people in your audience about a similar topic or bug.

Send one public tweet explaining the situation. Anyone who finds your Twitter profile will see that tweet first.
Then, reply to any @mentions with a DM. First, you won’t clutter your business’s Twitter stream with @replies for other customers looking for what is going on. Second, you can go into more detail explaining how you can help each customer.
Switch back to sending @replies if there is no acute problem anymore, but only regular questions and support requests.
DMs are also extremely useful when a simple @reply doesn’t give all of the information the customer needs.

DMs are also a great alternative to the “please send an email to name@company.com” line. You make a connection with your customer without sending them elsewhere to talk to you and dragging out the process unnecessarily.

What happens if you don’t

Not only do you risk alienating your community by not responding, you can also create harmful reactions to your brand. A research study in the Academy of Management found that companies who accepted responsibility for a problem saw favorable responses. Those who were slow in responding to complaints did not. It’s all a quite intuitive conclusion, though interesting to see backed by research in addition to intuition.

4. Be specific

This strategy is one borrowed from email marketing, where specificity—often seen in the form of segmentation and personalization—is a key driver of higher open rates and clickthrough rates.
A study by Jupiter Research found that relevant emails drove 18 times more revenue than general, broadcast emails.

Shane Snow and Jon YouShaei tested specificity in a series of cold emails, changing things like the subject line and the thank you message to see what worked best. Of the cold emails, sent in impersonal batches, only 1.7% of people replies, 12 out of 700.
Following the study, Shane cold emailed a single contact with a highly personalized email. He got a reply.

Here’s the email Shane sent:

Subject: Shook your hand at NextJump, would love your advice
Adam,
Fantastic presentation at NextJump yesterday! I was thrilled to shake your hand and say “thanks” right before you ran out. I was also happy to see your book hit the Print+Ebook bestseller list in the Times Book Review last week. The world needs this message.
I feel apprehensive asking you this, since I know you have plenty of opportunities to give already, but I wanted to know if, when the frenzy dissipates, you would be willing to coach me a bit on the work I’m doing for my first book? I just signed an exciting deal with HarperCollins (my editor, Hollis Heimbouch, works with Clayton Christensen and Jim Collins) for a book that I’m hoping will help a LOT of people. (It’s inspired, in fact, by XXXpersonal storyXXX.)
I’d love to tell you more about the book, which is provisionally titled Smartcuts, and pick your brain for one of my chapters. But most of all, I’d be delighted to get your advice on managing the whole process as well as you have. Perhaps we can grab a few minutes at your office or here in New York sometime?
Best wishes,
Shane

 

What this might look like in practice

Replying with specificity to your customers is a wonderfully smart and simple habit to get into. All it takes is a bit of notice.
When someone mentions you on Twitter, you can click on their username to see a popover with their bio and information.



What you might get from here:

• Location – “Hope the weather’s great in Boston!”
• Website – “Love the design on your site. :)”
• Favorite teams – “How’re the Red Sox doing?”
• School or alma mater – “Go ‘Cats!”
• Interests/passions – (attach a picture or gif)
• Work – “Hope all’s going great at CompanyX!”

From the above bio of Todd’s, I can tell with just a bit of Google searching and Twitter clicking that he’s based in Boston, he does content for a consulting company, he teaches at Bryant University (“Go Bulldogs!”), and he loves running and dogs.

What happens if you don’t

There aren’t too many downsides to an impersonal Twitter response. A response, any response, is better than none.
Personalization is what can help take your conversations from everyday to extraordinary. If you aim to delight your customers at every turn, then personalization in your social media replies is a great route to consider.

 

5. Say their name

“Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.” ~ Dale Carnegie

A Ball State study found that addressing customers by their real name is considered a best practice of brands on social media.

And certainly, the psychology backs it up.
“You” or your name is considered to be one of the five most persuasive words in the English language.

Some of the biggest brands in the world rely on this personal touch with their interaction. In the book High-Tech, High-Touch Customer Service, Micah Solomon shares an acronym used by Apple to help inform its customer conversations.
Apple takes the overall goal to … “Present a solution for the customer to take home today.” 
And they seek to achieve this with the following acronym:

A – Approach customers with a personalized, warm welcome
P – Probe politely to understand all the customer’s needs
P – Present a solution for the customer to take home today
L – Listen for and resolve any issues or concerns
E – End with a fond farewell and an invitation to return

 

What this might look like in practice

In most cases, the customer’s first name will be easy enough to find on their profile. Twitter bios, for instance, allow for a username (the @-handle the person chooses) and for a first and last name.



Take a quick peek at the name before replying, and you can easily add it in to your tweet or comment.

What happens if you don’t

Like personalized messages, adding someone’s name is neither a deal-maker nor a deal-breaker. It’s just another nice touch. And all these nice touches could very well add up to something quite meaningful over time.

Over to you

What strategies have you found most helpful in replying to people on social media?
I’d love to learn any of your tips on the subject. Feel free to leave any thoughts at all here in the comments!




https://blog.bufferapp.com/happy-customers-social-media?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+bufferapp+%28Updates+and+tips+from+Buffer%29

The Art of Making Customers Happy on Social Media (Part 1)

If you sell something online or if you run a business with an online presence—even if you’re just having a good time growing your personal brand—you’ll have the honor and the privilege of chatting directly with customers. 24 hours a day. 7 days a week.

This always-on mentality is an amazing privilege, and at the same time it can provide some challenges for small businesses. How can you best respond when conversations are happening constantly? And what if they’re not all positive?

How do you manage to make customers happy on social media?
I discovered a few tips that might help out here, some strategies and insights that are backed by a fair bit of research. There’s an art to making customers happy on social media, and the good news: There’s also a recipe.
Here’s what’s involved.

The 5-part recipe for making customers happy on social media

These are the five parts I’ve encountered in my research on customer happiness. It’s interesting to note also that the order here is somewhat important: Listen before you respond, for instance.
1. Listen carefully
2. Respond quickly
3. Make a connection
4. Be specific
5. Say their name

1. Listen carefully

You focus on listening rather than responding

Among the 10 Buffer values, seldom is there crossover between the specific phrasing of a value and the naming of a social media marketing strategy. We’re grateful for the overlap with listening.
Social listening is the process of finding the meaningful conversations and insights from all your mentions on social media.

In particular, these elements from our Buffer value seem to really resonate when it comes to successful social listening.

You seek first to understand, then to be understood
You focus on listening rather than responding

I really love the way that Lolly Daskall outlines the importance of listening as it relates to business and leadership. I think her description rings true for social media as well.

We listen to learn.
We listen to stay informed.
We listen to understand.
We listen to gain information.
We listen to acquire knowledge.
We listen to obtain wisdom.

Listening carefully comes in a couple of phases:

1. Finding the conversations
2. Pausing to listen to what’s being said

In terms of finding the conversations, there was some really neat research done by Mention, who analyzed over one billion brand mentions tracked through their tool.
They found that 92 percent of people talking to brands have fewer than 500 followers. So you should listen for more than just big influencers.
They also saw that 30 percent of tweets containing company names don’t use the company’s twitter handle. So you should listen for multiple keywords and variations beyond just your username.

 

What this might look like in practice

There are a number of useful tools you can put together into a social listening dashboard.
Mention is one of our favorites, as it’s able to track just about any variation of you or your brand name, as well as keywords, phrases, and hashtags. One cool tip is to sync up Mention with Feedly to build a listening dashboard, alongside your RSS consumption.

Additionally, you can dive quite deep into Twitter using Twitter’s built-in Advanced Search. You can drill down into specific accounts or hashtags or keywords, including going way back into the archives if needed.

What happens if you don’t

When conversations happen about your brand on social media, you have the chance to get involved and make a positive impression on those talking about you.
If you miss those opportunities, you miss the chance to make an impression. You miss the chance to provide answers or solutions or to steer the conversation in a meaningful direction.
And to go a step further, people might not think you listen or care. Brands that never respond not only fail to make a positive impression, they can sometimes make a poor one with their silence.

2. Respond quickly

Customers expect a response on Twitter within 60 minutes

Twitter is perhaps the most real-time of the major social networks, with the half-life ot tweets measured in minutes.
Consumers expect this rapidity to extend to their conversations with you, too.
Research by Lithium Technologies found that 53 percent of users who tweet at a brand expect a response within the hour. The percentage increases to 72 percent for those with a complaint.



If you can pull of this quick feat (tips on this are below), you’ll go a long ways toward setting yourself apart. Few companies are able to answer so speedily.
A study done by Simply Measured found that nearly all brands—99% of them—are on Twitter and 30% have a dedicated customer service handle. Still, the average response time was 5.1 hours with only 1 out of 10 companies answering within an hour.

What this might look like in practice

Monitoring and listening with the tools mentioned above will be a great start for replying fast.
Additionally, tools like Must Be Present can help you track your response time on Twitter, or you can invest in software like Spark Central to stay on top of your customer support tweets.
If you’ve got a big team of support heroes, then a third-party tool like Spark Central is a great route to go.

If it’s just you, then you might look into the notification settings for your social network. For instance, with Twitter, you can sign up for Twitter email alerts and customize them so that you only receive the messages that you’d like—for instance, @-replies or new follows.

What happens if you don’t

Mark Granovetter in the American Journal of Sociology presented his social network theory that visualizes people as nodes. Those who are connected through a relationship are a single link away, while distant relationships are only a few links away.

Granovetter’s theory came out in 1973, well before the advent of social media (or the modern Internet, even), yet it still applies directly to the power of networking on Twitter, Facebook, and the rest. As a follow-up to Granovetter’s theory, a trio of UK researchers observed that most people are no more than six links away from any other person.

Put another way, word of a poor Twitter experience can spread far and fast. 
Jeremy Waite found that a tweet can spread from one person to 2.7 million within four generations—which is great for the amazing content you produce and share, and good to keep in mind for the conversations you have as well.



https://blog.bufferapp.com/happy-customers-social-media?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+bufferapp+%28Updates+and+tips+from+Buffer%29

2 Tools to Better Follow-up with Social Media Conversation (Minimal Style)

Social media is more than just a lot of fun. It has literally changed the way we communicate, giving us a new platform with its own set of etiquette, limitations and overall conduct. We can meet people we never would have known, speak to friends and family in an instant from anywhere in the world and even connect to entertainment or commercial brands we would not have known about. The applications for small businesses and independent projects have been especially intense.

But has anyone else noticed how annoying notifications are? It doesn’t matter if you are using Facebook, Twitter or Google+, the system never seems to work exactly right. I know that I miss a lot of responses and feedback, simply because the notifications don’t read on certain pages. Making me miss out on what could have been a really interesting conversation.

The good news is that there are apps out there that allow you to catch those comments and read them all in one place. Which means no more going from platform to platform and hunting down your replies in giant threads to figure out if anyone spoke back to you. Isn’t that cool?
While I have heard of multiple programs that do this, I have only ever used two myself.

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Fanmix

The best way I can describe the interface of this program is a Gmail inbox. It isn’t exactly the same, but it has a lot of similarities that remind me of one. The overall layout is very close to that email service, and so is the way it opens. It will even bunch multiple comments from one person together, with a mention of how many replies are located before you open it up.

As for organization, the folders work in the same way. You have the main inbox, and then priority and an important folder, respectively. Then starred, sent, archive and a contacts page for managing who you know from each social media site.
In addition to reading messages that connect from different social media services, you can compose messages, as well. All from your inbox, which is a pretty cool feature.

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Engagio

What I love most about this program is that they have a Gmail extension for Chrome. Otherwise, the many compatible programs (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Flickr, Gmail, ect) is a great benefit to using Engagio.
Rather than an inbox, is functions like a social media dashboard. Though it does have an inbox section as well, used for notifications whenever you have a new message or activity somewhere on your accounts. You can compose messages and contact people through this inbox.

Otherwise, go to your dashboard to see the social media feeds of everyone you have followed. It should show them all, from each platform. The only annoying thing about this is that when you sign up, they will immediately add you to the follow list of nine people. Which you will have to manually remove if you don’t want them.

Some other cool features are the engagement portions of the dashboard. There is one box for websites where your friends are engaging. Then another one for articles where they are engaging. So you get to see where they have communicated around the web using their different social media sign ons. It is an interesting way to both find content to interest you, and to get a look into their own enjoyment, without the limitations of them having to like a Facebook page or post a link on Twitter.

The Tool		FanMix	Engagio
Supports	Twitter	Yes (multiple Twitter accounts)	Yes(multiple Twitter accounts)
	Facebook	Yes	Yes
	Facebook Pages	Yes	Yes
	Linkedin	Yes	Yes
	Google Plus	Not yet	Yes
	Youtube	Not yet	Yes
	Hacker News	Not yet	Yes
	Foursquire	Not yet	Yes
	Gmail	Not yet	Yes
	Disqus	Yes	Yes
Reputation management		Tracker (add any keyword and see new results each time you log in)	Search social inbox and enable instant search alserts!
Prioritizing features		Priority inbox (both manually starred messages and automatically deemed as important go there)	Priority filter

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Conclusion

Maybe in time the notification systems for different social media sites will be improved. Maybe they will even further link the different platforms for better cross-site communication between users. But until that day, these two helpful services can really get you past the little annoyances involved.




http://www.internetmarketingninjas.com/blog/social-media/social-media-conversation/

How Can Social Media Help Your Business?

It is hard to believe that anyone isn’t really on board with social media, but a lot of businesses haven’t quite managed to settle of a solid strategy. Small or local businesses in particular tend to create a page, and never come up with a cohesive way to work it to their advantage.

Hiring an expert is a worthwhile investment with a lot of return. But not all business owners are convinced. What does social media really do for a brand, especially when that brand isn’t one of the well established names that permeate the global market?

A lot, actually. While the success of social media campaign from huge corporations aren’t able to be directly replicated on a small scale, you can learn a lot about what to incorporate into your own strategy.
For example, look at these recent cases of social success for big businesses, and what they can teach you:
#MumbaiInANewLight Promotes Phillips And Tourism In One Sweeping Campaign



The Gateway of India is one of the biggest monuments in the tourist-friendly city of Mumbai. Phillips, in cooperation with the Maharashtra Tourism Development Corporation decided to take advantage of the visibility and popularity of the site to help boost brand recognition and tourism in the region.

Using their new LED lights, they created a brightly colored spectacle. Then they released an app that let people create their own lighting, and share it for the chance to win prizes. The campaign was huge on YouTube, Twitter and Facebook as people flocked to the app to show off their own lighting scheme.

What You Can Take From It: People love the chance to play around creatively, and share it with others. Give them a chance, and they will take it.
American Express Releases OPEN Forum, Targeting Small Businesses With Combined Social and Content Strategies



In the world of B2B marketing, it is important to target your audience correctly. Because AMEX was aiming for small businesses, they decided to give their potential (and current) customers what they could really use. So they created OPEN Forum.

Instead of going for something glitzy and trendy like many brands may have tried, AMEX kept it simple and focused on content. They created a place to read articles by industry experts on topics important to small businesses, then connect with a community and ask questions. They provided quizzes and panels. They paved the way for dialogue.

The Twitter page has more than 203,000 followers for the OPEN Forum alone.
What You Can Take From It: Consider what your audience really wants and needs, not what follows the current trends and popular tactics.
A1 Rebrands Their Sauce For The First Time In Decades, Fails At Pinterest But Becomes A Hit On YouTube





A1 is a steak sauce, but they didn’t want to be a steak sauce any longer. They wanted people to think of their brand as associated with any kind of food that could use a bit of a kick. So they implemented a seemingly good idea, and created a Pinterest page that contained recipes and attractive food photos for users to try something new with A1.

This was a huge flop, as there are only 15 followers to their account at the time of this writing. However, what did take off was a video on YouTube where you see A1 on their Facebook page taking a step away from their long term relationship with steak, and exploring new avenues with lobster, pork, meatballs, chicken, and other foods.

Cheesy? Yes, but it has had more than 1,300,000 views, and counting.
What You Can Take From It: Sometimes your first idea doesn’t work, but that doesn’t mean your campaign won’t have an impact.

 

How Social Media Can Help Your Personal Business

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Now that we have seen some examples of businesses really taking advantage of social media, here are some other reasons to get on board.

• Turn your customers into believers: I love it when brands reply me on Twitter. As a customer, I feel much more willing to recommend a brand to my friends if I am somehow connected to the brand on social media
• Build trust: We are in a world now where companies are expected to offer customers a personal touch. That means one on one engagement, and nothing makes that easier than social media. Not having an active account can actually damage your brand’s reputation.
• Build other sources of awareness and traffic: Don’t depend on search engine traffic! Build a more reliable online presence by diversifying your sources
• Learn about your customers: Customer statistics are easy to learn over sites like Facebook and Twitter. From basic demographics, to preferences, interests and potential tie ins to other businesses (collaboration hot right now), social media makes a great data gathering tool.
• Monitor and influence social media sentiment around your business: It is never nice to hear an insult about your business. But not even knowing it is out there is even worse. Social media gives you a chance to monitor your own reputation, and address issues the moment they creep up.
• Generate leads: The most successful call-to-action on Twitter is “Download”: Use this tip to promote your eBooks and build leads!
• Keep your eye on the competition: Don’t just monitor your own reputation, also look at the other guys. The competition (and their customers) are on social media, and you can learn a lot by watching them.

http://www.internetmarketingninjas.com/blog/social-media/can-social-media-help-business/

5 Social Media Management Tools and Services You May Not Know About Yet (But Should)

If you follow my writing, you know that I love introducing people to new things. There’s nothing I enjoy more than getting comments from readers on how they had never heard of something, but can’t wait to try it. In this post, I’d like to introduce you to five social media tools and services I have mentioned in posts this year that have elicited that reaction and what you can (and should) be doing with them.

Be sure to click to enlarge the images for a better preview!

1. KnowEm

Have you ever visited @Apple on Twitter? While the account has 31.9k followers, it doesn’t actually belong to the Apple that we know and love.

If you’re in the process of creating a brand, don’t make the mistake of creating one that you can’t claim on social media. KnowEm is a free tool you can use to check and see if your name, business name, product name, etc. is available on social media.



Not only will you be able to quickly see which networks you can establish your name upon, but you will also discover over 500 social networks. They are broken into categories including blogging, bookmarking, business, community, design, entertainment, health, information, microblogging, music, news, photo, tech, travel, and video.

2. $99 Social

You know you need a social media presence, but if you’re time-starved like many of us, even the best tools won’t help you keep things under control. Especially considering there are so many social networks that you “must” be a part of to reach your audience.

$99 Social is a social media management company based in the US in my former hometown of Phoenix, Arizona. For $99 a month, they will post an update to your Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ profile or page once a day, seven days a week. In addition, they will also promote your products and services to to your social communities and optimize your profiles to appear in social search.



As a busy freelancer, I know how hard it is to get even one update a week to some of my social profiles. This service will ensure that your main social profiles never go dry again. And of course, the less time you have to spend worrying about keeping your social profiles maintained with quality content, the more you time you can spend simply engaging with people.

3. Oktopost

For those who have time to dedicate to social media, Oktopost is a powerful social media management tool at an affordable price. You can use Oktopost to publish updates to your main social profiles including your Facebook profile, Facebook page, LinkedIn profile, LinkedIn company page, Twitter profile, and Google+ page. But what I love in particular about their platform is that you can schedule posts to the Facebook and LinkedIn groups you belong to. They even provide analytics so you can see engagement statistics for each profile, page, and group that you post to.



This tool is an absolute must for content promotion. In the case of Facebook and LinkedIn groups, be sure that you have taken the time to get to know the group to ensure that link sharing posts are welcome. When you do post content to the groups that allow it, be sure to review the analytics for each campaign to make sure your posts are getting published and receiving engagement. Use that data to weed out groups that aren’t engaging with your content, especially if you’re near your group membership limits (300 for Facebook and 50 for LinkedIn).

4. RivalIQ

Competitors can be a great resource when forming your social media strategy. Rival IQ allows you to analyze your competitor’s social media strategy. For example, you can quickly see your social media profile bios compared to your competitors.



You can get insights into how your social media activity, engagement, and audience growth compares to your competitors. You can even get alerted to changes competitor’s make to their social profiles. Soon, they will have a feature that allows you to see the top Twitter mentions for you and your competitors based on total reach.

5. Cyfe

Do you do the rounds across your social media networks to check to see if you have new fans, followers, likes on your posts, and so forth? The more social networks you belong to, the longer it will take. Cyfe simplifies this process by allowing you to create a dashboard with all of your social media analytics on one screen. Click on the below image to get a full view of just a portion of my social media dashboard.



Using this dashboard, I can get all of the data I want to know in a quick glance. If logging into Cyfe is too much to add to your plate, you can simply have your dashboard emailed to you on a regularly scheduled basis. Add in widgets for your website’s Google Analytics, keyword rankings, SEO stats, and other data, and you can monitor your business in one screen or PDF!







http://kikolani.com/5-social-media-management-tools-services-may-know-yet.html

7 Steps to Becoming a Rockstar at Social Media Marketing

Writers of fiction and indeed all artists are creative but most importantly, they are natural born leaders.  If they were not leaders, they would not start creating in the first place.  The mark of a great artist is that he or she continuously improves and gains vitality with each new creation.
A true artist never stops exploring new ground with their art.

Artists are open to feedback (and feedback is often negative), are resilient in the face of adversity and use all that happens in their lives to improve their self-expression.  They balance the challenges of staying true to their vision with commercial viability.

If you’ve been working in social media for a while, chances are, you relate to the plight of artists.  Like great artists, the best social media marketers are creative and are natural born leaders.  Inspired artists express themselves without the presence of a manager or any sort of supervisor.  They just simply do what comes naturally.

Be willing to experiment

You probably jumped on social media marketing without any manager or boss telling you to use social media as a marketing channel.  As a marketer, you have the innate curiosity to find out how you can shape the new social media channels and like all great artists, you’re not afraid to experiment.  You don’t allow trolls to deter you and you keep pushing for your vision for your business or career.

Maybe you’re already inspired by a mentor, a manager or a business person and are seeking to become more like him or her.  You have a vision for the life you’d like to create for yourself.  You are focused on self-actualization and insist on delivering the best of your abilities no matter what you do.  You are in a way, an artist.

The habits

So what are the seven habits of artists who end up enjoying success in their careers?  By the way, success can have different meaning to different people.  It does not always mean fame, fortune, you know the trappings.  It could be the mastery of a particular style, a mentorship or acceptance by a group of people whom one respects highly.

1. Be inspired

Follow those who inspire you.  Observe what they’re doing.  Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.   For beginners, visionaries like Steve Jobs, Sir Richard Branson and Arianna Huffington all have biographies that you can read.  Once you’ve started there, find out the people they worked with and start following them on social media.  Observe very carefully what they talk about, what they share, read, read and read.

2. Connect with others

As you go on reading about those who’ve made a huge impact on our lives, you’ll also observe some of the people they’re inspired by and some people they collaborate with.  By all means, connect with these people on social media.  Make an attempt to find out what they’re working on.  At this stage, start forming a strong idea of how your strengths (you know your personality type, your strengths, skills, weaknesses and what you love to do) can contribute to projects that you’re finding yourself getting excited about.

3. Get Personal

You will get rejected and you will have good and bad interactions with others in your pursuit of strengthening your personal or business brand on social media.  Let all of these interactions be a lesson to you.  Do not be afraid to be vulnerable.  Reveal any weaknesses you felt and how you could improve for next time.  Think and express these thoughts on social media in a way that can help others express themselves and objectives better.

4. Get over yourself

I love to throw in the random Prince reference.  If you haven’t seen Purple Rain, check it out ASAP.  In the movie, Prince is a real dickhead.  He bullies his band mates and refuses to look at the songs they write (even though they’ve just written Purple Rain).  He strokes his own ego by literally jerking off on stage with his guitar.  Don’t be that guy.  Write stuff that will be meaningful to others and that also brings me to my next point.

5. Seek collaboration

There are people out there who are possibly doing a better job than you are.  Acknowledge and seek collaboration opportunities with them.  You will learn so much by working within a team.  Yeah, yeah, creating and being an artist is a solitary profession, but consider this, David Bowie is known to have brought out the best in the musician he’s worked with, so seek people who have a knack for bringing out the best in you, and do great work together.

6. Accept that sometimes your less inspired work will be rewarded

I will throw in another David Bowie reference here, my apologies.  I’m somewhat obsessed with his career.  You will also find that sometimes your most inspired work will not be the one that gets the most amount of attention or attracts the most funding.  Ziggy Stardust was truly inspired stuff, as was Thin White Duke, but when we talk about David Bowie’s commercial success, that peaked with Let’s Dance, an album that David Bowie does not consider to be his most inspired work.  Such is life.

7. Never stop exploring

No matter how many goals you’ve kicked, how many followers you’ve got, who you know, etc… there’s always got to be something you’re striving for, otherwise you might be on your way out.  Find some way to always have something to look forward to.  You can.
Take these tips, apply them liberally and see where it takes you.  I look forward to connecting.



Read more at http://www.jeffbullas.com/#mgimKxxEoF7D5Dc4.99

How To Generate Leads From Competitors (Via Social Media Monitoring)

I’m beyond frustrated, I will never use your product again – There it is, those are the golden words which can be wonderful triggers for new business. Social media has enabled customers to communicate their likes, dislikes, preferences and more. This provides an opportunity to generate leads via competitors monitoring through social media.

Intent to Switch – Legally steal your competitors’ customers

One of the key indicators of a potential customer is when customers are frustrated and complaining about a service or product. Traditionally it was very difficult to observe and know when your competitors customers are intending to switch. Most customers would typically vent by calling into customer service via a phone call, making it impossible for you to know if they are facing issues.

The Social Media Advantage

Social media has turned the tables in your favour completely. Social media networks are common grounds where customers can directly speak their minds out about a product or service issue. It also enables you to connect with the customer directly.

So is this really possible? Do companies do this, especially enterprise companies?

Nokia versus Samsung
A classic example of this is the case where a Samsung Blogger was complaining about an activity done by Samsung. Nokia jumped in publicly contacted the blogger and offered to help him. What do you think the blogger did?

The bigger advantage

Not only did Nokia show the agility which is needed, it also created a large amount of positive buzz for itself.

Is it really this simple?

In order to generate potential lead from your competition you need to be monitoring them. Social media makes it simple to monitor however, the challenge often is that the volume of conversations on social media channels can be overwhelming. Especially when you monitor multiple competitors.
The problem is further multiplied if you’re an enterprise organization with multiple lines of products and services.

There is another challenge

Don’t run off to open your competitors social media pages and handles right away hoping to find possible leads. You’re most likely going to be disappointed as you won’t find customers necessarily complaining at the moment in time when you visit there. It might be a longish wait.

Lead generation monitoring approach

Without a lead generation monitoring approach you’re going to get frustrated pretty soon. An effective lead generation monitoring and execution approach needs to take into account a number of external and internal factors in order to be successful.

CCC KIT

1. Competition – Who all are you going to be monitoring, and across which social channels.
2. Conversation topics – What topics aligned with products/services
3. Contact and engagement rules – How to approach the potential lead.
4. Keywords – What are keywords which can trigger intent.
5. Integration with sales and other teams– A work flow to ensure the appropriate teams are flagged and assigned tasks.
6. Tagging – A system for recording opportunity area and probability.

Though the above are stated as single line items, you need to give considerable thought to each. (I’ll cover these in another article)

Other advantages

There are some other advantages of monitoring your competition.
E.g. Customers speaking about the competitors product problems can be turned into showcases of your product strengths.They can be brilliant testimonials.
E.g. Customers speaking about things they like about their products can be used to enhance your products and be valid direct feedback to your product teams.

What are the common points of failure?

1. Wrong keyword selection is often the first point of failure. For e.g. if you search for I want a new xyz product or service name. It’s quite unlikely that people express this. People are often talking about a challenge or issue they are facing with a product, not so much as expressing a desire for a product. So keyword selection for monitoring involves first looking thru the kind of conversations people are having and then deciding probable keywords. Keyword selection is a continuous process and not a one time process as different people express their desires, frustrations in different ways.

2. How to connect with the customer: So you see a customer complaint about your competitor, how do you approach the person, do you make a direct contact and sales pitch? The risks being a) the competition does the same back to you, b) the customer getting irritated. You need to work out a clear approach plan, based on the context, and need to have different types of conversation starters to avoid a backlash.

Summary

Social media has enabled one to legally view your competitors and their customer interactions. The potential of lead generation via your competitors is huge. You need to clearly define your CCC KIT for lead generation and be aware of the points of failure.

http://www.business2community.com/marketing/generate-leads-competitors-via-social-media-monitoring-0880251#!bigsek

3 Simple Tips for Social Media Success in E-commerce

Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Google+, YouTube, Tumblr, Instagram and the list keeps growing. Social media is now the number one activity online, with almost three-quarters of online adults using social networking sites. You can’t ignore social media as a part of your marketing mix.

So you make a choice. Do you want to simply exist on social media, or do you want to use it to make a difference – to your customers, to your culture, to your bottom line?

“Social media allows you to find your potential customer in a much easier way,” says Matt Kreikemeier, founder of Leverage New Age Media, a creative and tech agency based out of St. Louis, Missouri. “Not only can you target and search specific demographics and interests across these platforms, but you can go one step further and analyze the interests of current customers and learn where you should next promote your product – fan pages, tech forums, blogs, and other similar outlets.”

According to research by Deloitte, 75 percent of online Americans say product information found on social channels influences their shopping behavior and enhances brand loyalty.

You sell digital products, so 100 percent of your customers are online, and they are most tech-savvy consumers out there. Whether you have a large budget with a team of experts or you are tackling social media with limited resources, you’ve got to know what you’re doing. We’ve put together some simple tips to help you make the most of your social media presence.

1. Have a Strategy

Whether your social media is produced in-house or through an agency, it’s imperative to have a real plan. Social media can be the most visible part of your marketing mix, so you want to make sure it’s well thought out and impactful.

Companies no longer have interns running their social media campaigns. They have skilled experts who not only know social media, but also understand analytics and reporting, as well as the company’s strategy, brand voice and message.

“A true social media strategy makes a world of difference, but can be one of the most difficult aspects of your marketing strategy to maintain because of its ‘always on’ nature,” says Kreikemeier. “Have a strategy and stick to it. Develop a brand voice or content pillars to ensure your message is consistent and on brand. Be responsible and promote brand safety – don’t let just anyone tweet on behalf of your brand.”

A number of variables affect your strategy, like company size, culture, product lines and budget. Dell Software has a very specific social media strategy that includes training and certification to ensure any employees representing Dell on social media know how to appropriately present the company.

“For a company like Dell, it’s important that all employees represent the company fairly and accurately,” says Mark Dykstra, senior manager of Internet marketing at Dell. “Social media certification ensures that Dell employees know the rules around social discussion of their employer and know how to promote our products and services effectively.”

Whether your strategy is extensive or simple, the important thing is to have one.

2. Don’t Use Every Platform

Find out which social media tools your audience uses the most and make sure you are there. Research each social media platform and choose the ones that make the most sense for your goals and target market.

Each social channel is unique and can deliver different types of benefits. For digital products, being active on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ will give you a well-rounded social media presence. “Know your audience, and know how to write content specific to each channel,” says Dykstra. “Each channel is a different in terms of demographics, styles, etc.”

Facebook

With more than one billion users around the globe, your customers are looking for you here. Facebook provides the largest opportunity to communicate with your customers. Check out companies you admire and see what they are doing on Facebook to connect with their audience.

Twitter

With 5,700 tweets per second, Twitter requires constant monitoring, and can be overwhelming. But if you take the time to delve in, it can serve you well. “People love Twitter because of its easily digestible content,” says Kreikemeier. “You can leverage the ‘instant gratification’ we all crave, and allow users to take action in the moment – greatly increasing your conversion ratio versus a website sign-up form.”

LinkedIn

As the largest business-focused platform, LinkedIn attracts key decision makers. More C-level executives are on LinkedIn than any other social media platform. Users may not be as “active” on LinkedIn as compared to the other big social media sites. So you may get fewer eyeballs, but make more meaningful connections. LinkedIn could be a great place to schedule regular posts, but you should probably look elsewhere when looking for active participation in a product launch or contest.

Google+

“Google+ has a fairly substantial tech community made up of early adopters and other tech enthusiasts, which makes for a great environment for targeting users who are eager to support new products and ideas,” says Kreikemeier. “However, it can be a slow process to build a community on Google+ so it wouldn’t hurt to mirror your Google+ strategy over to Facebook as well, since they are so similar.”

3. Always Be On

Instant gratification is why people love social media. Your customers expect a quick response. Make sure you give it to them.

“People are going to talk about your product whether you are there or not, so you might as well be there listening, engaging, learning and refining,” Kreikemeier says. “Social media allows you to put a ‘face’ to a company or product, humanizing your brand and building a reputation you control. You are then free to communicate with your customer base in a more natural way.”

Staying on top of your social media accounts can be intimidating and time-consuming. Lucky for you, there are a variety of tools to help you. From scheduling posts to compiling metrics, there are plenty of useful tools to help you master your social media accounts – like HootSuite and TweetDeck – and many are free. So take advantage.

Keystone

You can’t ignore the possibilities for social media success in e-commerce. “Social media drives traffic to our sites, resulting both in increased search engine presence and in direct lead and revenue generation,” says Dykstra. Be willing to put in the work to research your audience and the different social media tools. Then create a strategy and stick to it. Use the tools that benefit your company the most and stay active.

http://blog.cleverbridge.com/2014/05/3-simple-tips-social-media-success-e-commerce/