Month: November 2018

Steps To Sell Your Boss On Social Media Marketing

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With words like tweet, blog and unfriend entering our standard lexicon, theres no question that social networking has a significant place on our contemporary culture. And its no surprise that many companies have been using social media to connect and communicate with their customers online.

But the benefits of social networking arent always immediately apparent to some. And that is especially true for businesses who are interested in having a lot of control over their brand name and brand image. Convincing some that every business has something to gain from social media marketing can be difficult. It can be hard to see how social media marketing can result in a positive return on investment (ROI).

When it comes to convincing your boss or colleagues to invest in social media, it helps to have a plan. Here the seven steps you can take when it comes to selling social media marketing to your boss or company.

1. Explain how social media is an unbeatable research tool. When a company is effectively tapped into the social media landscape, they get to hear a lot of chatter that they wouldnt hear otherwise. Those engaged in social media marketing campaigns will be able to monitor channels for any mention of their company, competitors, industry, clients and potential clients. Setting up a social media marketing listening campaign lets a company know who is participating and what is happening.

Thanks to tools and services like Quantcast, Alexa and TweetMeme, it is now easier than ever to track and measure what people are talking about online. This information is invaluable for developing future marketing strategies, both online and offline.

2. Match the benefits of social media marketing with your companys goals. Whether your company or your client is a service provider, a business to business specialist or a business to consumer retailer, theres a social media marketing strategy for them. But in order to convince others of social media marketings benefits, you have to be aware of the companys goals. Do they want to enhance their customer service operations? To they want to reduce costs? Do they want to manage their reputation? Social media marketing can do a lot to help achieve all those goals. When you know what your boss or company wants, you can show how social media marketing will help them achieve it.

3. Start small. Even if theyre not bullish on social media marketing, your boss or others at your company are probably aware of the range of social media applications and services that are out there. They may think that launching a social media marketing campaign will be a huge undertaking, one that will require many work hours just to set everything up.

But thats not necessarily true. A social media marketing campaign doesnt have to include a setting up a Facebook Fan Page, a Twitter account, a blog and a YouTube channel. In fact, its often easier to start small. Figure out which service will best match the stated goals of your boss or your company. It may be something as simple as registering a Twitter account and starting to engage people via tweets. Starting small requires little time and less cost. But the results can become apparent quickly. You can even begin to measure such results with a tracking service like Quantcast.

4. Set up a strategy and follow it. A social media marketing campaign can appear strange and different, even to people who have plenty of marketing experience. If you dont have a clear strategy for implementation and execution, reactions to your plan will be understandably skeptical to your social media marketing strategy. Take time to explain each step of the plan, describe why its being done and how it will benefit the company.

5. Look for examples of social media marketing success. Lots of businesses, large and small, well-known and unknown, have been able to already achieve a lot with social media marketing. From Charles Schwab to FujiFilm to Goodwill, there are countless examples of companies who have been able to successfully use social media to achieve their corporate goals. Find them and broadcast the results.

6. Anticipate Questions. Its natural for people to be skeptical of new things and new ideas. While you may be well aware of the benefits of social media marketing, keep in mind that resistance may simply be the result of some people being overly cautions. Thats why its important to anticipate any and all questions or objections someone may raise. Find good case studies and other examples of social media marketing successes. Have these on hand to use as examples. Here are some common questions that skeptical bosses may have about social media marketing:

Our customers arent online. This line of reasoning is being used less and less, but some companies may still think this is true. The truth is, at the cusp of the 2010s, nearly everyone is online. Online activity isnt restricted to any gender, income level, education level, or location. There are countless surveys to prove this. One of the largest survey groups, the Pew Research Center, frequently provides data for online use, broken down by several categories.
What if someone writes something bad? This is a common fear among those resistant to social media marketing. But studies show that when companies engage with customer complaints and criticisms, they end up looking better than before. Mention that people will likely complain whether youre engaged in social media or not. Its better for nearly every brand to appear involved with its customers. Even the angry ones.
Its too time-consuming. After setting up social media marketing accounts on networks like Facebook and Twitter, the actual maintenance doesnt take that much time at all. You can spread social media marketing efforts among the staff, or you can task a single person to handle it. Either way, social media marketing doesnt require countless work hours. Create a timeline showing the typical amount of time one will spend on social media every week to help prove this point.

7. Make your case. Prepare a short, punchy presentation that hits on all the above topics. Give your boss or colleagues plenty of time to ask questions. Think about your boss or colleagues personal preferences and consider how you can best sell your social media marketing idea. And remember that there may be some things you dont know. Social media marketing is still relatively new, and that means that there are still many unanswered questions out there. Be honest about what you dont know, but make sure to point out all possible benefits to social media marketing.

Social media marketing is an exciting new medium that companies can use to achieve just about any business goal. By convincing your colleagues or your boss of the effectiveness of social media marketing, youll be on your way to discovering the enthralling, challenging and rewarding new world of social media marketing.

Social media for business

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Today’s fast pace marketing arena has moved to social media. It’s affordable and connects with your customers and future customers with a personal contact. Your social media presence is crucial rising you past your competitors. Google is still king but not for long. Sites like Facebook and Twitter and gaining market share and improving their grasp of the public. Facebook alone is adding features to explode it’s on line time; the time a user stays on the site. Let’s take a look at some of the social media sites.

Facebook is about to take over Google. Businesses are moving over to Facebook with “fan pages” to interact with the customers. You can find a companies Facebook page and see what is the latest changes or upcoming events that the COMPANY change instantly. It is not like they can not do it now but changing or updating a website either takes a full time employee to manage the website or you have to go to your website company to get something changed. Meanwhile companies can change their page information relatively easy or what most are doing now is hiring a Social Media Manager to work part time on spreading information about you your company.

Twitter is a funny little animal that man want to fight. The general population thinks it’s just a site to tell people what time the went to the bathroom or they just ate lunch – who cares – I know. But as we have embraced Twitter in the business word it is real time updates on promotions, products, what is going on during an event, and so on. Persuading your customers to follow you on Twitter is crucial to your business.

LinkedIn is the world?s largest professional network with over 80 million members and growing rapidly. LinkedIn connects you to your trusted contacts and helps you exchange knowledge, ideas, and opportunities with a broader network of professionals. Again, I think the key word here is “networking” with other automotive owners and see what is working for them or where you should stay away.

And many many more – There are hundreds of social media sites and no you can not keep up with all of them. Your expertise is to run your business; not sit in front of the computer and update all the time. Let a Social Media Manager do the work for you at a fraction of the cost. I hear all the time ‘I can do it’; well how is that working out for you? Social media is one big time suck. If you do not have the proper software to run updates and post to multiple locations your day will be gone before you know it. Does that mean we have all the time in the world? No, it’s what a media marketing manager does – automate! Most companies spend thousands of dollars on automating software to improve speed and accuracy to pinpoint posts and updates. Run your business and don’t get caught up productivity killing venture that can be done at a fraction of the cost of you or having an employee.

Steve has been in sales and marketing for over 25 years. With the growing market of social media and the demand for small companies wanting to have a social presence; he has added this valuable service. Please visit http://LGsocial.com for more information if you want to grow your social presence.

Key Tips To Enhance Customer Engagement On Social Media!

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Whilst many businesses make a genuine attempt in keeping their social media pages active by the frequent posts, they often fail to analyse the responses their social media strategies generate. As social media is a two-way communication tool, your posts should be engaging enough to resonate with the audiences and spark a conversation with them. If you are not getting the desired response from your audiences, you need to re-think your social media strategy. Some of the tips that will boost social media engagement with your target audience are as follows:

1)Make Use of Visuals:
Many studies suggest that visuals are far more powerful in conveying messages to audiences than plain text. It immediately captivates the audiences attention and compels them to respond. Social media posts with photos receive 93% more engagement than the ones without any photos. They are also more likely to be shared than the contextual posts. As a result, for enhancing your social media engagement, make sure that your social media posts are always accompanied by an enticing visual. Ask your followers to caption an image as it would enable the audience to interact with the brand. Consequently, making use of effective visuals helps businesses to reach out to a wider audience and gain participation from them.

2)Ask Questions/Feedback/Suggestions:
Asking for input from your followers makes them feel important and a part of your brand. Engage them by asking them thought-provoking questions related to your industry. Involve them with your brand by carrying out a fun activity. For example, whilst launching a new product for your business, ask them to suggest a name for it. Show them their feedback is valuable to you and ask for their feedback/suggestions on what they would like to see more.

3)Share Customer Testimonials and Experience Stories:
Your potential customers would be interested in finding out about the experiences your previous customers have had with your business before making a purchase. Highlighting your customer testimonials and their experiences makes audiences understand the kind of services they can expect from you. Additionally, tagging those clients whilst sharing their stories helps to build engagement and create a greater buzz.

4)Organise Competitions:
A simple and fun-filled competition is one of the best methods to boost engagement whilst gaining many likes/followers/connections. Organise a competition on a special occasion and relate it to your products/services. Also, offer some amazing giveaways as prizes to your fans. Lucrative prizes easily attract audiences as people love to win gifts.. Once your contest becomes a success, you can expect many more loyal fans to be waiting for your next competition. Activities of this kind make your brand popular amongst the audiences and also help spread a lot of brand awareness.

5)Share Inspirational/Funny Sayings:
Share inspirational/funny messages that inspire your followers, make them laugh or help them relate them to their lives. It makes audiences look forward to your posts as it has healthy mix of informative posts about your products as well as some more casual posts that will capture their attention. For example, a funny message on Monday mornings would surely be liked by your audience who dread Mondays.

Building conversation with followers, engaging them and listening to them strengthens your bond with your customers and helps you gain their loyalty. Social media marketing (SMM) services are not restricted to updating regular posts on your page, but it involves encouraging participation from your followers, interacting with them and building a loyal fan base. Since social media is an integral component of online marketing, hiring a professional internet marketing services provider for managing all your businesss social media accounts would be a wise investment.

Using Social Media Marketing to Promote Your Business

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One of the best ways to get your product out there in today’s world is through the use of social media. This can help your small business reach the most customers because they will notice your brand daily. If you do it right, you can achieve business success.

Social media marketing is a type of marketing that uses the Internet to communicate marketing items like videos and images to generate traffic. This usually works well for those whose businesses have small budgets and are not able to buy spots in the newspaper or on television.

Before you set up your business plan, you need to decide what kinds of goals you have for your business, otherwise you will get lost in the media world. This will require brainstorming by yourself, or with others, about what your goals should be, who you are trying to reach, where can your audience be reached, why they use social media, and what message you want to get out through this type of marketing.

When you are putting together your goals for your social media marketing, there are some things that may help you. These include knowing the amount of website traffic you want, conversions, and how aware people are of your brand. It’s also important to create a brand identity and make sure that all your associations are positively communicated to your audience.

There are some tips that may be important to follow when you are advertising your business on social media. First, you need to plan ahead and put together ideas that will attract an audience, while making sure that your content is valuable to your potential customers. Next, you should set up a blog so that you can share your plans, any contests, and special events that you are having to introduce your business. Make sure that you include the right links so that potential customers can do their own research into everything that your company has to offer.

Another thing you should do is keep an eye on any competition so that you always know what they are doing to increase traffic on their sites. While doing this, you can gauge the success of your social media marketing by attaching tags on each post to analyze the data later. There are several marketing websites that will walk you through the process.

Finally, knowing what your platforms are, as they do vary, requires a unique strategy for each one. Just remember that whenever you are using social media marketing, you need to keep track of your customer preferences. If you target your audience properly, your online business should continue to grow and result in success, as long as you only improve on it regularly.

When in need of social media marketing, Kansas City businesses turn to Will GladHart Consulting. Learn more at http://www.willgladhart.com.

The Major Challenges in Using Social Media in Litigation

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Even in today’s world where everything on the internet is said to be permanent, the volatile nature of the world wide web coupled with computer-savvy netizens still make it a challenge to use posts and information gathered from social media as evidence in litigation. The absence of clear guidelines and condensed, useful information can still render e-discovery useless.

Despite stories proving otherwise, a lot of people still believe that when something is deleted on a social media account, a trail of evidence can still lead to it. However, if the poster (the original person who created the post) is able to delete it from the servers, the other party would find it hard or might not even be able to locate the trail or the original post. Many people are intelligent enough to at least attempt this when they are facing litigation. If the poster deletes the post successfully, the information used for evidenced could be regarded as outdated or even disregarded. .

When one is presenting to a judge or jury, one is attempting to tell a believable story. Social media discovery materials, when used correctly, help make your story more credible. When creating a “big picture” for the judge or jury making a determination, tweets or online posts that indicate intent or any other part of the story that is central to your case can be very helpful. All of this will be dependent on your lawyer’s ability to obtain e-discovery (electronically stored information) materials and preserving (archiving) them in a safe location so that they can be used in court proceedings.

Another challenge is authentication of social media posts for the courtroom. Attorneys who are familiar with the Federal Rules of Evidence know that when social media posts are used as e-discovery material, the post itself is not enough. Beyond the screenshot of the post itself, information about it should be provided so that it can be considered for admission in court. Metadata of a social media post often include the means of creation of the post, time and date of creation, creator or author of the post and location on a computer network where the post was created. That is just for a text post. In a media-rich post, related links, videos, embedded files within the post should be recorded as well.

A lawyer should be responsible in making sure that e-discovery materials containing social media posts are forensically accurate and that they pass a jury’s scrutiny or, moreover, be given the appropriate weight relative to the case.

James F. Page is a certified electronic discovery specialist. He is also approved as a certified mediator and has been helping individuals throughout Florida settle their disputes using mediation. Call 407-341-0069 to learn how mediation can help you or visit http://www.pagemediation.com for more information.