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Friday 30 August 2013

How Will The Update To Twitter Conversations Affect Businesses?



On Wednesday, Twitter made changes to how conversations are displayed on its apps and website. Tweets which are part of a conversation now show up in chronological order. Up to three tweets can be displayed, with a blue line connecting each tweet through the profile picture. Users can tap the tweet to see all the replies it has received. Twitter announced the update on its blog:

Today we're updating out iPhone and Android apps, as well as Twitter.com, to make it easier to discover and follow conversations in your home timeline. From buzz about the VMAs to debates around upcoming football games, people come to Twitter to take part in these real-time, global, public conversations.
In addition to this update, Twitter has made it easier for users to share conversations off the site. Users can now send tweets via email, as well as via direct message on Android devices. Also, Android users can now report individual tweets for spam.

The update, which is slowly rolling out to all users, has already received some flack, mostly from Twitter users who don't like the new look. Business Insider has gone as far to say that “some people are freaking out” about the new update, despite how small a change it is.

So, despite the immediate backlash, how can the changes help your company? Firstly, it will be a lot easier for you to find and engage with relevant conversations on Twitter. Instead of having to expand tweets to see replies, you’ll be able to read each tweet in chronological order. Finding conversations which are relevant to your business and getting involved is a great way to get new followers and promote your brand.

Secondly, if you reply to any tweets, your replies will be immediately visible beneath them. If you respond to a popular tweet, one that has been retweeted often but maybe doesn’t have that many responses, commenting with a funny or intuitive comment can gain you a lot of publicity.

Thirdly, companies can take advantage of the new email sharing options. If one of your tweets goes viral, or you have a really great conversation on Twitter, you can share it with your customers via email. You can also share important tweets with your colleagues so that you have a record of them that’s easy to recover.

Finally, companies need to be aware of the new reporting options available to Android users. Spamming on Twitter is always a bad idea, so if your company tweets appear to be spam, then you need to change your strategy. It’s so easy to report spam on the service now that you might get your account blocked at any point.

What do you think of the new Twitter conversations update?

Wednesday 28 August 2013

Five ways to get Twitter users to retweet your content


Since Twitter introduced the favourite button, businesses have been plagued by an ever-increasing problem: dead-end content marketing. While the favourite button is intended for users to flag a tweet they like, or to bookmark a link so they can refer back to it later, many are now using it in lieu of the retweet function. And this means your content isn’t being shared.



While favouriting (or liking) something is an excellent way to endorse posts on closed social networks like Facebook, favouriting has the opposite effect on Twitter. Instead of spreading the word, promoting participation and improving exposure (and followers), the favourite button gives users the option to simply flag a post instead of retweeting it. This means content they might have otherwise shared is disappearing into a social media abyss… and that’s not good for business.
The task for businesses is now tougher than ever before. If people aren’t sharing, it doesn’t matter how great your content is. While you can’t force Twitter users to avoid that favourite button, here are five ways you can encourage them to go for a good old-fashioned retweet instead (or – if you’re lucky – as well).
  1. Keep your tweets brief
People like to add comments to tweets that they share, so don’t use all 140 characters when you’re tweeting as this will put them off. Shorter tweets catch the eye and give your followers space to add their own remarks. This in turn endorses your content and will hopefully encourage their followers to share it too.
  1. Retweet other people
Practice what you preach. If you want people to share your content, then share theirs – particularly content from key influencers within your industry or area of business. Of course, you should only retweet things that your audience will find relevant, but once you start retweeting others, they will start to notice you. And if you start catching their eye, this means they will be more likely to spread your content in return.
  1. Have compelling material
Get to know your followers and their interests – not just in terms of business, but their hobbies too. If you tweak or angle your content so that it’s more relevant to your followers, this will make it more far more retweetable. Providing top tips, promoting giveaways, contextualising content with current affairs or even just making users smile are all sure-fire ways to grab their attention. And once that happens, chances are they’ll be more willing to retweet you.
  1. Time your tweets
This one might sound obvious, but time your updates carefully. There’s no use tweeting when it’s too quiet (such as in the morning or late at night) because fewer people will see your content. Equally, tweeting at peak times often means your post will be lost amid a sea of other content. Tools such as Tweriod are excellent for helping find out when your followers are online so that you can increase exposure and your chances of that coveted retweet.
  1. Ask for a retweet
As the old saying goes: ‘If you don’t ask, you don’t get’. If you have compelling content that’s relevant to your followers, asking them for a retweet can really pay off – interestingly, studies have also shown that spelling out ‘retweet’ rather than writing ‘RT’ improves the chances of sharing by about 23 times. Asking for a retweet can be an excellent way to promote discussion while increasing coverage and showing your followers that you’re interested in what they have to say.
Finally, engage with people, and don’t take yourself too seriously. Whether you’re a business or an individual, the best way to promote yourself on Twitter is to be real – after all, it’s called social media for a reason.
Did you find this post useful? Then start as you mean to go on: don’t just favourite it – share it!
Will Hillier

Friday 23 August 2013

PR Agencies and Social Media: 4 Tips to Power Social Brand Building

PR professionals today are using social media to either supplement or add to their existing strategies, signaling an evolution in the role of PR over the last few years. Public relations specialists were among the first few to understand the power of social media, making them leaders in the social space. Along with handling website content, more and more PR pros are responsible for their company's and clients' social media presence. The gradual shift towards, what industry experts call 'the social media release', indicates how the traditional long form press release is changing. According to David McCulloch, director of public relations at Cisco Systems, "The press release of the future will deliver its content in text, video, SMS, microblog and podcast form, to any choice of device, whenever the reader decides, and preferably it will be pre-corroborated and openly rated by multiple trusted sources."
eMarketer expects PR as well as ad agencies to witness an increase in their social media revenue in 2011. Findings from a joint study by the Transworld Advertising Agency Network and Worldcom Public Relations Group show:
• In 2010, 28% PR firms said that between 15-33% of their revenue came from social media.
• This number has grown by 44% in 2011.
• The study indicates that, when compared to ad agencies, the PR industry is more effective in leveraging social media.
The Road Ahead...
Industry research firm IBIS World has predicted the factors that are likely to fuel the growth of PR firms in the coming years and the expected rate of growth.
• PR firms are expected to grow at an average annualized rate of 5.7% to $12.8 billion from 2010-2015.
• This spurt will be attributed to the increase in demand by companies who want PR firms to handle daily interactions with consumers and the press on their social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter.
• The recent shift from traditional media to more direct media (social media) will result in PR firms specializing in or launching divisions devoted to blogs, social networking sites, mobile media and podcasts.
• Over four-fifths of PR firms are anticipating an increase in digital and social media work in the future.
Whether it is consulting with clients from the agency point of view or working with an in-house team, PR agencies need to be social media ready. Position² lists a few guidelines that will help your agency survive and stand out in the digital space:
1. Making a Pitch
Social media has given a whole new meaning to the concept of 'pitching'. While the idea of e-mailing a press release to journalists, editors and bloggers is not completely obsolete, it is easy for the readers to hit the delete button and forget about it. Incorporating social media in your PR strategy will ensure your pitch is heard above the din. In order to effectively use social media in your PR pitch plan, we recommend a few points that can be added to your 'to do' list:
o Avoid the Fancy Stuff:
Too much information laced with fancy catch phrases like 'cutting-edge, mission-critical applications to improve business process, etc' can put off readers. Keep in simple.
o Getting your Tweets Right:
If you are planning on using Twitter to make a pitch, keep in mind, you have 140 characters to get it right. According to Nicole VanScoten, a public relations specialist at Pyxl, getting your tweets right leads to high response rates than e-mail.
o Don't Spam them:
Whether its journalists or bloggers, no one likes to receive random tweets or Facebook messages. It would be a good idea to learn about the journalist or blogger before reaching out to them. Read their Twitter profile or personal blog to find out if these are the contacts that need to be targeted and then make your pitch.
o Build a Relationship:
Once you have figured out your contacts list, the next step is easy. Building a relationship with a journalist or editor involves getting on their radar. What you can do is a) check out their Facebook page and comment on the posts you like b) retweet their messages and c) comment on a blog post. This will ensure your presence on their radar, even before you decide to make a pitch.
Here's an example of a good pitch made by a PR professional to a marketing blogger:
For PR pros, using social media to make a pitch saves time as well as money, besides yielding much higher response rates.
2. Delivering Value to Clients
The last 2-3 years have seen PR agencies don an entirely new role in organizations. A large part of a PR specialist's job involves educating clients on the benefits of social media. Handling a company's or a client's account these days includes everything from building brand loyalty to promoting and monitoring content on various social media platforms (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn). In order to be a successful, we believe a PR firm should deliver value to its clients. Here are a few simple suggestions:
o Creating Content:
PR companies are expected to be experts when it comes to writing. Therefore clients expect your agency to figure out how to turn a boring announcement into interesting content. This could either be a campaign or a company blog. Churning out good content will not only get the required media coverage, but will also help generate leads.
o Identifying the Influencers:
Identifying and developing relationships with the 'influencers' in the PR domain is an added advantage. Instead of simply looking for bloggers and journalists who are magically expected to create buzz and drive sales, it will be wiser to:
o Determine who the real influencers in a noisy market place are. This can be done by connecting with reporters, bloggers and journalists who cover the topics that are closer to the market your client is interested in.
o Keep in mind, the size of one's audience does not always translate into influencer popularity.
o Engaging and Monitoring Conversations:
Social media monitoring and engagement is vital for any PR agency that wants to deliver value to its clients. Brands understand that they not only need a social presence, but are also keen to work with PR agencies to know what is being said about them in the market. By using social media monitoring tools such as Brand Monitor, you can:
o Measure your influencer scores: Social media monitoring tools make it easy to identify journalists and bloggers with high influencer scores.
o Handle Crisis Situations: By keeping a watch on blog conversations, twitter messages and Facebook posts, your agency can help identify signs of trouble. Following this, you could either diffuse the situation yourself, or alert your client asking them to respond as necessary.
o Measure the consumer sentiment for clients' brand (s) and products (s) and quantify impact.
o Measure the connection between press releases and news coverage with social media activity.
o Assess the effectiveness of your communication strategies.
o Provide you clients with domain expertise based on the data obtained.
o Measure detailed metrics such as popularity, share-of-voice etc.
When videos of rats running around at a Taco Bell outlet in NYC were posted on YouTube, owner Yum Brands saw its stock sink to an all time low, with customers doubting Taco Bell's hygiene standards. Within hours, duplicates and versions started multiplying. Customers looking for reassuring information from the brand had a hard time finding it. Although Yum Brands' PR team was not entirely ignorant (the CEO posted an apology on YouTube), monitoring the situation better and engaging with customers in real-time could have averted the PR crisis.
With the public relations industry evolving rapidly, the need to monitor social media channels has never been more important. According to Daryl Willcox, founder of PR industry information firm Daryl Willcox Publishing, listening is a critical part of social media strategy - a proactive process as much as a reactive one. A survey by his company indicates that almost 60% of PR agencies and departments that monitor social media channels spend less than two hours a week doing so. These statistics indicate the growing need for PR companies to monitor social media.
3. Sorting Out your Social Media Toolkit
With so many social media platforms to choose from, how would you know what's best for you? As professionals in PR domain, it's not always about putting a PR pitch on Twitter or Facebook; the social media platforms with the most value must be used to connect with a client's target audience and should function as a meaningful place for brands to connect with journalists, bloggers and consumers. We believe that each social media tool has its own benefits, depending on what your agency wishes to achieve.
o Facebook & LinkedIn:
While Facebook and LinkedIn are almost perfect for establishing and maintaining relationships with media, these tools are slightly more personal than Twitter. It would be wise not to start sending friend requests to every reporter possible. After using Twitter to initiate a friendship with a journalist or a reporter, you can then follow this up by connecting with them on Facebook or LinkedIn.
If you are looking to increase engagement or reinforce your brand's reputation for value, then Facebook is the place to be. For instance, when the Healthy Choice brand aimed to grow its fan base and increase engagement, the company decided to target its huge Facebook fan base and launched a progressive coupon on the Healthy Choice Facebook Page. This was supported through a variety of PR tactics. Efforts by the brand's PR team resulted in the Healthy Choice's Facebook page growing from 6,800 to nearly 60,000 fans. The PR team also distributed over 50,000 buy-one-get-one-free coupons.
o Twitter:
Twitter is a great tool:
o If finding influencers in on your agenda: What you can do is look for influential blogs in your industry, subscribe to them and start following the authors on Twitter.
o For connecting with other independent PR professionals: This will help establish valuable relationships with other PR agencies and professionals. By using Twitter, you can connect with the rapidly growing independent PR community to exchange advice, references, and suggestions in general.
o For Increasing Tweetability: Writing a headline with 'tweetability' in mind can influence the number of tweets or retweets your press release registers. This will help get your agencies or client's name noticed in the social web. While writing a tweetable press headline you must: a) keep it short enough to include a Twitter handle and link b) ensure that the company or product name is in the beginning so that it does not get cut off c) add relevant keywords to make it searchable d) and keep it attention-grabbing enough to generate retweets.
o Blogs:
Blogs can be useful for sharing multimedia content and news that does not always require a press release, but is important enough to pique the interest of the media. Blogs are beneficial:
o If you have a small budget, but want to influence your customers and increase readership.
o For creating a sense of community with your present and future potential clients and customers.
o For providing valuable content to your clients or their customers instead of simply advertising to them.
o For publishing successful case studies; this will also help build your brand.
o For designing campaigns for your clients.
When the BALSAMS Grand Resort Hotel in New Hampshire decided to use social media to stand out in the digital space, the hotel partnered with agency bobdonpaul. The agency's PR strategy involved selecting one 'resorter' from several entries and allowing him to blog and post videos (in addition to other social media activities) about his experiences. The campaign was a success and saw 20% increase in hotel bookings in a month.
4. Measuring ROI
How can you tell if your public relations efforts in social media are working? To determine the success of your PR strategy or programs, we suggest measuring the return on investment (more appropriate in case of PR- return on efforts). The benefits of measuring ROI include:
o Knowing if your efforts are generating the desired results.
o Helping you decide if your current strategy needs to be reworked.
o Bringing about positive changes in popularity and online traffic.
o Helping your client make informed buying decisions.
How to calculate your social media ROI?
o Assess you reach: Evaluating how many Facebook fans or Twitter followers you have. How many 'likes' has your Facebook page registered.
o Tracking how many 'likes' on your clients' Facebook page are actually converted to sales.
o Comparing Results Before and After Launching Social media initiatives: Has your newly launched Facebook page or your new twitter account make any difference to your brand's reputation online?
o Listen, Measure and Engage: Social media monitoring tools like Brand Monitor offer you a platform to listen, measure and engage with customers across the social web.
Conclusion
What gives the modern PR firm the edge over its yesterday's counterparts is the fact that today's public relations professionals are more open to syncing social media with their existing strategies. Whether it's in-house assignments or working for external clients, PR agencies understand that surviving in the digital space is centered on getting their social media strategy right. While mass social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn will continue to be important to a certain extent, niche, industry-specific networks are expected to be of greater value in the future.
In the next five years, the most important tools in PR will be monitoring and measurement tools. PR specialists, as well as their clients, will be more concerned with what happens after a message is out there. We expect PR companies to not only dedicate a budget for their social media efforts in the future, but also hire social media specialists to handle their client's social media activities. The social media world is dynamic; however, the job of the PR person remains the same: generate positive coverage across media to help build brands. It will be interesting to see how PR pros in the years ahead will leverage the power of social media to do what they always have been doing; communicating and connecting.
Position2 is a Search and Social Media Marketing firm that delivers continuous growth for our clients using our proprietary "Surround and Intent" Marketing Methodology, delivered by our products. Our proprietary methodology is a result of years of experience in working with diverse clients to deliver customer acquisition goals through search engine optimization (SEO), social media marketing (SMM), and Pay Per Click (PPC) and online media advertising.
Position2 was founded in 2006 with funding from Accel Venture Partners, and has offices in Palo Alto, Bangalore and Mumbai. Position2 is a certified agency with Google, Yahoo, Bing and is also part of the Google Adwords advisory council.


Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6316425

Thursday 22 August 2013

Can Facebook Rewrite the Industry Standard For User Engagement?

The "monthly active users" figure has long been the industry standard for user engagement in social media. It's easy to digest, but more importantly, it's a benchmark capable of comparing the most social of social networks to the new kids on the block.
When it comes to Facebook, however, monthly active users have become a mere side dish to the more relevant main course that is "daily active users." During the company's Q2 earnings call, there was an entire menu of them: Daily actives worldwide (699 million), mobile daily actives (469 million in June), and even the number of active users during America's daily primetime television hours (88 to 100 million).
So when Facebook unveiled its daily active users figure for the U.S. last week — 128 million — it didn't simply break the industry standard, it began the process of rewriting it.
"A lot of people focus on monthly active users or even registered users to demonstrate their size and scale," the Menlo Park, Calif. company wrote in an email to media. "We think this is becoming on old way of looking at the media world. In this world, understanding who comes back at least once a month is only part of the picture."
Facebook defines "daily active users" as those who "actively visited/engaged with Facebook." In other words, active users are considered anyone who uses their Facebook login, even if it's for a third-party app.
A company spokesperson said the announcements highlighting daily active users won't come regularly, and that there is still value in monitoring and publishing monthly active users. Facebook's actions, however, seem to demonstrate its dedication to using the new metric.
For a company with the social-media giant's user base, there are multiple benefits to releasing daily user figures. For starters, they uphold the network's position as an industry leader, but these figures can also have a major impact on ad sales by providing marketers with information on exactly who they can reach and when.
"Our clients rely on Facebook to connect their message with the people that matter to them, every hour of every day," Will Platt-Higgins, Facebook's director of global accounts, said in a statement. "We want to provide marketers with helpful metrics and insights on consumer behavior, across all devices, to maximize the effectiveness of their campaigns. If a business has a sale on Monday, or if a film is premiering, Facebook gives marketers the certainty that they are reaching the right people, on any given day.”
Of course, changing the industry standard — intentionally or not — requires participation from said industry. Of course, changing the industry standard — intentionally or not — requires participation from said industry. Other social networks don't break out daily active users, although some appear to share Facebook's mindset.
"We look at a number of signals for engagement, but since most members rely on Nextdoor on a daily basis, it makes sense for us to focus on daily and weekly actives," Nirav Tolia, co-founder and CEO of Nextdoor, said in a statement. Nextdoor, a social network for neighborhoods, does not reveal its daily active user data.
"What we care most about is that people use the app multiple times every day," Nate Johnson, the company's vice-president of marketing, said. "We pay very close attention to that." Path also doesn't publish daily user data.
Other social networks such as LinkedIn, however, are not convinced.
"LinkedIn will continue to use monthly average users as a way to gauge engagement," according to a company statement. "Because we focus on the quality of time spent by our members rather than the amount of time, monthly average user continues to be a meaningful metric for advertisers who want to drive engagement over time."
Both microblogging service Twitter and Google+, the second-most popular social platform behind Facebook based on monthly active users, declined to comment. (Vine, the video-sharing service owned by Twitter reported total registered users on Tuesday, but not monthly actives.)
For the time being, Facebook appears to be in a league of its own, and said it plans to continue releasing monthly active user metrics. After all, it is the industry standard.
Would you rather receive data about a social network's daily or monthly active users? Give us your take in the comments, below.

Monday 19 August 2013

How To Use Twitter As A Marketing Tool Part 1: Links


In this three part article, which will be posted in segments over the next three days, I’m going to describe some of the methods you can use, and practices you can observe, to promote your business and your products onTwitter. Today, I’m going to tell you how to post tweets containing links in order to gain the trust of your followers, increase your following and drive traffic onto your sales website.

I’m also going to describe how you can use hashtags to compliment your tweeted links. If you want more information on using hashtags than that which is provided in this article, have a look at an article we posted earlier this month, entitled “How To Run A Successful Multi-Platform Hashtag Campaign”.

URL Shorteners

Twitter’s 140 character limit means using URL shorteners in tweets is a must. Twitter has its own automatic link shortener, but it shortens links to 22 characters, which is still quite long. I wrote an article last week about SMF’s five favourite link shorteners, with bitly taking the top spot.

There are some who consider URL shorteners to be spammy, but bitly’s great features – customisable links, analysis tools and private links, to name just a few – make using the service a better option than wasting characters, even if some people won’t click on a shortened link. After all, as long as the content you are posting is good, people won’t care how the links you post on Twitter look.

Provide Value

Post links to content that will be valuable and interesting to your customers. You want to attract followers who might be interested in buying from your company so that, in the future, you can post deals and offers with links to you company website. You could even post links to deals that are exclusive to your Twitter followers, giving people even more of an incentive to follow you.

Use Twitter to break news about new products and company updates. Tweet the news with a link to a blog post or article detailing the announcement in full. If you’re announcing a product you could even post a link to a sales page. Make sure that you alternate between links to your own blog and websites, and links to other content you’ve found online that will interest your followers.

Make Them Sharable

The best way to ensure that your links get seen by as many people as possible is to make them sharable. If you provide your followers with links to interesting content, you’ve gone some way to ensuring the tweets get shared. Try not to use all 140 characters in your tweets, use around 100 so that people can put their own thoughts/comments in retweets.

As I said earlier, I’m only going to be talking about hashtags in relation to posting links on Twitter. Use hashtags to make your link-containing tweets more sharable and easier to find. Create and promote a hashtag about your industry, encouraging other users to tweet links to related content with the hashtag.

Drive Traffic

Ultimately, the reason you’re using Twitter is to drive traffic onto your website, so that more people will buy your products. You need to keep this in mind, but be careful, don’t just post links to your website and your products. As I said earlier, post links to content that is both valuable and sharable.

There is no point, however, posting valuable content if you don’t get anything in return. Make sure that enough of your links funnel your followers back to your website and sales pages where they can buy your products.

How do you use links in your Twitter strategy?

Friday 16 August 2013

Why You Should Use Twitter As A Customer Service Tool



Twitter, as everyone knows, is a fantastic B2C communication tool, helping companies to connect, engage and interact with their followers and customers. One of the advantages of Twitter’s readily available communications network, is that customers can directly contact companies by including their Twitter handle in tweets.

Companies should always pay attention to the questions and queries mentioning them on Twitter. By monitoring and responding to these questions, a company will improve its reputation on the social media site. The companies that respond to their customers tweets are often well regarded, by customers and the general public alike. Analytics site socialbakers recently released figures showing the top 10 fastest responders to Twitter queries. Halo BCA, the fastest company, has an amazing response time of 3 minutes.

Of course, response speed isn’t everything but, as communication becomes more and more instantaneous, it becomes increasingly important for companies to respond to queries, questions and comments on social media sites as quickly as they can. Here’s how you can use Twitter as a customer service tool.

Respond To Mentions

Try to respond as quickly as you can to comments, questions and queries to do with your company. Monitor and search through the tweets which mention your company on Twitter. Try to respond to all of the questions, even though this may take time. Search Twitter for comments about your company that don’t include your Twitter handle, not everyone will mention you directly if they have a complaint to make, but they will probably appreciate you taking the time to respond.

Of course, you don’t have to respond to all the comments – the ones that are downright offensive, for example – but it’s best to monitor and analyse the sentiments expressed online about your company. Use a tool like Ezeesocial to manage, monitor and respond to all the questions and queries you get on Twitter.

If you run a larger company, it might be worth creating a dedicated customer service Twitter handle – 30% of Fortune 100 companies have a specific customer service Twitter site. A dedicated customer service account can draw attention away from negative comments about your company, as well as helping you manage complaints and queries.

Be Polite

Be personal and polite. Always answer customer queries and complaints with an apology and an offer to help. To make it even more personal, you could use the ^ symbol and include your initials. By doing this, customers will know they are talking to an actual person and not a faceless company. You could also address your customers by their names: check their bio or Twitter handle, their name will often be there.

There are examples on Twitter of employees judging the tone of tweeted queries and changing their response accordingly. For example, telecommunication agency O2 made headlines last year by responding to a customer complaint in London slang. O2 were not only able to help the customer with his problem, they also got a lot of publicity for their brand. Of course, I would generally advise against this approach as it is more likely that you will offend the customer than anything else, but it’s always worth assessing the tone of customer queries and complaints anyway, in order to judge how best to respond.

For that extra personal touch to customer service, you could even follow up the more difficult customer problems a few days or a week later. Just tweet the customer after a week to make sure they aren’t still having problems. Try not to be too invasive, however, and don’t be offended if they don’t respond. Most customers who you help will be happy to compliment you on Twitter, which can really help your reputation.

Always Respond

You should always try to respond to questions, even if you can’t answer them. By acknowledging someone’s query, you ensure that they know that you are listening. If you don’t know the answer, direct them somewhere they might find it. Of course, it’s always better to try to give them the answer yourself.



If someone has a complaint that can’t really be expressed fully in tweet form, then ask them to direct message you their personal details, privately, so that you can continue the conversation on the phone or via email. A phone conversation is probably the best option: talking to a customer directly is often the fastest way to get a problem sorted. Of course, Twitter is great as the first line of communication, as it takes less time and effort to answer problems on the service.

Be Proactive

You don’t only have to respond to direct customer queries about your company, you can also look for tweeted questions to do with your industry that you can answer. You could even find funny or interesting questions to respond to, if you feel that you could shed some light on the subject.

Make sure your Twitter handle is in an obvious place on your website so that customers know how to get in contact with you. Put recently asked questions and answers in the FAQ section on your website: most people will look through this before turning to Twitter to help. It’s sometimes worth posting these FAQs on Twitter: useful information that might help your followers and customers.

Hopefully, your customers won’t have too many queries or complaints, but in the business world, they are inevitable. Thanks to Twitter, companies now have a platform on which they can communicate quickly and easily with their customers and vice versa. Twitter really is the first line of b2c communication in the modern world of social media.

How do you use Twitter as a customer service tool?

Wednesday 14 August 2013

Integrating SEO and Social Media Marketing

Search engines are constantly trying to increase the search relevancy experience for users and are updating their algorithms more frequently. With search engines becoming stringent about link building policies and content usage, website owners now need to cautiously plan their SEO and digital marketing strategies.
The Twitter and Facebook revolution has forced search engines to give additional credit to social media activities. SEO and social media are made for each other pair. By integrating social media with SEO, companies can definitely achieve their digital marketing goals.

Here are some major factors you should consider while integrating SEO with social media marketing:

Picking the right keywords
Pick keywords people would normally search on social networks. Do not make a huge list of target keywords. More than 40% of the social network users engage through their smartphones and cell phones and don't like to type much while searching. Get insights from Google analytics about which keywords are mostly used by your visitors to search you.

Creating social presence
Create your company profile on all major social networking platforms. It is not important to cover all the social networks. Focus on those which are more relevant to your industry and can be easily managed. Customize your fan pages with clear call-to-action. Creating profiles on social networks is not just enough. You need to actively engage with your user community with content that adds value and helps you in reaching prospects.

Content marketing approach
Create optimized content which can be easily shared through social channels and can result increased visitors to your website. Content should be compelling and include target keywords within. Blogs, videos, articles, whitepapers, recorded events links are some of the most effective content for social marketing. Your updates and posts should be optimized with #hash tags on target keywords.

Website optimization for social media marketing
Link your website and corporate blogs to all major social profiles. Also give your visitors options to share your web pages and blog posts easily.

Setting targets for social engagement and conversions
Setting targets for new followers, replies/comments, favors/likes, enquiries, leads and sales can help you measure the ROI from social activities. Social media activities take lot of time, efforts and resources. Try integrating these targets with SEO and sales targets and ultimately with business goals.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7914481

Monday 12 August 2013

A quick look at Ezeesocial (Infographic)

Social media is increasingly becoming a large of any businesses activity. There are a variety of platforms in which businesses can engage with other businesses and consumers in an instant. Ezeesocial lets you manage, monitor and engage on all your connected networks from one 'ezee' place.

Below is an infographic, detailing the main features of the social media tool. Be sure to try the 30 day free trial, and harness the power of Ezeesocial



Let us know your thoughts on this social media tool. 

Wednesday 7 August 2013

Facebook Starts Experimenting With Trending Topics





Facebook1
Two months after Facebook introduced hashtags, the social network is now testing another popular Twitter feature: trending topics.

AllThingsD reports that Facebook started experimenting with its own version of trending topics on Wednesday. Facebook confirmed the news to Mashable in a statement.

"Today we started running a small test that displays topics trending on Facebook," a Facebook rep told Mashable. "It is currently only available to a small percentage of U.S. users who use Facebook's mobile web site (m.facebook.com) and is still in very early stages of development."

Facebook trending topics

Those users who are part of the test group will notice a tile in their mobile news feed that lists one or more trending keywords ("Shark Week," for example). If you tap on that topic, you'll be shown posts from other users — including those you're not directly connected to — mentioning those words.


Facebook has borrowed several features from Twitter over the years, including "@" mentions, verified accounts and the option to follow influencers. With the introduction of hashtags and now trending topics, Facebook appears to be trying to foster more real-time discussions with an eye towards boosting user engagement and, of course, drawing in more real-time ad dollars.

How do you feel about Facebook potentially introducing trending topics? Share in the comments.

Image: Brendan Smialowski/Getty

Monday 5 August 2013

Social Media Optimization: The 3 Reasons To Go With It

Today, social media divides people. Some people - a great majority in fact - cannot go through the day without logging onto their Facebook account. This is the little gossip area where they can know at a glance who has done what. Others not only do not use Facebook but they have an aversion for it. The gossip cloud above it has such a negative fingerprint on Facebook that they cannot see beyond it. The first group of people thinks they are embracing the trend, the second one thinks they are blessed to stay away from it.
Where is the truth in these two statements?

Let's be fair to everyone. As private person, social media is something you can totally live without. Whether you like or dislike this, tweet or not that, it has absolutely no incidence on you. However, if you are a businessman, you must step in social media. Why? Here are the 3 reasons why you do not have the choice.

  • People. The majority likes social networks. We are not talking here about your competitors but about all the people you want to reach with your website, your services and your products. This is precisely why you must jump into the social wave and get carried around. Your clients are very likely to use Facebook, Twitter and Google+. You must take advantage of their dynamism to share data about your company and all the things you have amazingly done for them. People are not always ready to trust a website or ads but they already trust their friends.

  • Today's Search Engines. Search engines such as Google love social media as well. Ranking algorithms evolve. In the past, counting the number of backlinks was the best way to assess the popularity of a website. However, search engines got tricked by link farms. Inbound links have lost their shine, at least the way they were. Today, ranking algorithms are more and more listening at people' opinions. Search engines can use behavioral data from websites i.e. bounce rate, browsing time etc. because it cannot be manipulated. Similarly, social networks represent a tremendous amount of data. If people like a website, they talk about it and each time they share a link, they create a backlink.

  • Tomorrow's Search Engines. You have probably heard about Google Knowledge Graph. This is not quite ready yet but it represents Google engineers' dream, a world where Google knows what users want and gives them the answers regardless websites & backlinks... This feature relies on the ability to precisely identify the intent behind the query, to pull out the right entity and the corresponding data. Social networks can help building the entity around your company and it brings a web 2.0 feature to your website i.e. a dynamic interface that evolves with your company and grows with it.

You probably realize if you did not before that the social game is on. Do not worry. You will not have to go against your hatred for social networks. You always have the option to get a SEO company that offers SMO Services. Good luck and see you soon on Facebook, Twitter or Google+!

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7894103

Friday 2 August 2013

Why Social Shopping Is Great For Retailers

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Social media has had a huge, positive impact on the retail world: retailers have a brand new platform to advertise on and engage with customers, while shoppers have somewhere to look for inspiration and ask for advice. Shops can also use social media to keep their fans up-to-date with new products and releases, or to post the latest offers and deals.

Retailers can employ a number of strategies, both online and off, to make the most of their social media profiles. Social media is aptly named: people use social networks to socialise with their friends and share their interests with others.

Communities:

Communities of users form based on their shared interests, where fans of particular activities, products or brands share their appreciation. Retailers can use social media communities to connect with their customers, discover more about their target market and find influencers to promote their products.

Users already access social media to find inspiration and ask their friends for advice when shopping. By ensuring that they promote their products on the right platforms, to the right audience, retailers can inspire users to buy their products, or better yet, to share these products with their friends.

Retailers can also look for bloggers and social media experts who influence the actions of other shoppers. Ask influential bloggers to review your product. A positive review on a popular blog can really boost sales. Your products might already have influential fans. Do some research online, found out whose opinion matters and ask them if they want to write about your products.

A happy, active community can help drive interest in your brand and the sales of your products.

Coordination:

Retailers should also coordinate their online and offline selling strategies. The social pinboard sitePinterest recently introduced ‘rich pins’ to the service. Thanks to rich pins, product, movie and recipe pins pinned from certain sites display more information about their subjects, saving users having to search off-site for it. Product pins display prices and link to the parent site where the product can be purchased.

Facebook has also recently released a new online shopping feature called SeeItShopIt. Using SeeItShopIt, retailers can create interactive posts, displaying catalogues of new products with prices and information clearly displayed. SeeItShopIt uses eye-catching images and clever widgets to catch the attention of the enormous Facebook audience.

By using Facebook and Pinterest as, essentially, virtual store fronts, retailers can show their wares off to a larger audience. Social media sites like Pinterest and Facebook also make it easy for retailers to measure how successful their products are online.

Social media platforms have numerous analytical features, allowing retailers to collect data on how many impressions, likes and click-throughs their products are getting. Using this data, retailers can find out which of their products are popular and to who.

Some companies are even starting to introduce social media into their shops. A lot of shops, for example, have signs inviting customers to like their Facebook page, or follow them on Twitter. Nordstrom has gone a step further, mounting in-store displays featuring their most popular products on Pinterest. Thanks to the displays, users can find popular products both in-store and online.

By keeping their social media profiles up-to-date, connecting with customers and influences in communities and adding social media furnishings to their stores, retailers can keep their customers interested, up-to-date and in a buying frame of mind.

How do you coordinate your social media presence with your in-store strategies?