Jun 26, 2017 | Blog, News
How social media can help your business
As it can be one of the most cost-effective ways to make your business and brand known, it is not surprising that SMEs in Australia are leveraging social media channels to build their businesses.
Everyday, the number of Australians using Facebook, Youtube, WordPress and Instagram increases significantly, creating more and more opportunities for SMEs to use the social media landscape to get in front of potential customers. Here are five advantages that social media, if done well, can offer you and your business:
Increase your business brand recognition
Where else could you open up your business to millions of people online? By creating social media profiles for your brand, you are opening up your doors for people to interact with your business through your content. With each post, you can slowly build your business’ reputation and invite a network of individuals and potential customers. Tested and proven–the more people who know about your brand, the better. And the more they get to know you, the more they will trust you and eventually buy from you.
Invite more inbound traffic
Just because you build a website, or even blog from time to time, doesn’t mean you’ll automatically generate traffic. And this is where social media can help.
Each time you create and post a blog on your website, you need to think of ways to promote your new content. By taking the link and posting it across your social media channels, you will increase the visibility of your content. Even better, if you put a small paid spend behind it (like using a boost on Facebook, or sponsored content on LinkedIn), you can attract a new audience to your content, and ultimately your business.
Be in front of your customers more often
More and more customers are taking to social media before ringing you. Being on top of your social media can help turn a complaint into a happy customer!
You can also use social media to get real time market intel. If you are making a decision on a new colour for an existing product, why not ask your community?
Add value to your customers long after the purchase
Once a customer has made a purchase, consider how you can keep them loyal through nurturing a relationship with the through social media. What content can you create that helps keep you front of mind in between purchases for your existing customers.
Make sure you also ask your customers for a review, so you can leverage their social media networks and extend your organic reach. We also know that while you can say how good you are, it is more meaningful coming from you happy customers.
Cost-Effective
Using social media platforms can reduce your overall marketing costs. Think about how much it costs to build a new website, or even spend money on an expensive email marketing platform. Setting up social media channels for your business is free.
But keep in mind, while use of social media platforms are generally free, there are still costs, like your own time, that need to be factored into your budget.
What value has social media marketing added to your business?
If you want help getting more out of your social media marketing, please download our free step by step guide today!
Jun 19, 2017 | Blog, News
Using Facebook Messenger to nurture your social community
Have you considered using Facebook Messenger to connect with your customers? Instant messaging is available to anyone with a Facebook profile, and even better, with the app downloaded on their phone. Facebook messenger has been growing over the past years and it has become more than just an app. A feature within Facebook is now one of the world’s most popular mobile messaging services.
Customers are expecting fast responses from businesses on Facebook and the answer to this is by using chatbots. This can help you in delivering the fastest and right answers to your customer’s questions, and in real time. In April 2016, bots have been created to add new services and features to the Messenger and up to now, there are more robots to be created.
But what can these bots do and how can they help in your business? Listed are some of their benefits.
- Chatbots can develop customer support. By using chatbots, the customer’s requests and questions will be answered instantly. With this, it can lessen stress as customers will no longer need to wait on a phone line for long. In other words, this can help in improving customer service and other members can have more time to deal with other issues.
- They can do different tasks for you. Talking about multitasking? Chatbot is the best example of this. They can answer customer’s questions, provides instant answers, inform customers with your latest products and others. With this, it can help you save costs and other employees can concentrate on running other parts of your business.
- A chatbot will help bridge the communication gap between you and your audience. They make it simple and natural and speak the language of your customers. For example, chatbots can provide knowledge to customers when they are figuring out on what right product they have to purchase.
- They help customers in understanding your brand and services. To other customers, your product may be hard for them to understand especially for new customers. The task of a chatbot is to simplify it and can explain to your customers a step by step process and also answer any clarification questions that they may have.
- Chatbots can get smarter and it can be more and more effective through time. The more knowledge it gains then it means that it’s able to answer future customer’s queries.
A little window that just pops up and saying that they are able to answer your questions- these are chatbots. To others, it may be annoying and they may have positive and negative experiences with them. If you use Facebook regularly to market your business, consider using Facebook Messenger as a channel to keep your customers happy and engaged with you and your business.
If you want help getting more out of your social media marketing, please download our free step by step guide today!
Jun 12, 2017 | Blog, News
Curating social media content with Feedly
Content curation an important tactic in social media marketing. And when it comes to creating content for your own social media channels, you don’t need to write everything from scratch. It is no secret that there is a lot of information on the internet so in order to be successful in content curation, it is important to display only the most relevant content. This is where Feedly comes in.
When it comes to content curation, there are lot of tools that can be used. There are millions of pieces of content shared each day and to find the most relevant content for your audience and your brand requires a tool that can organise this content in a sensible and easy to read way. One tool that you can use is Feedly. This tool helps you to easily organise all of the feeds and websites you follow in one single stream, making it organised and searchable. Feedly allows you to classify and sort information from hundreds of sources. But how can Feedly help in curating your social media content?
- Feedly better visualises your information feeds. You can set the display mode to each information feed that you need.
- The Preferences tab provides useful tools to customise the interface and it allows you to customise the home page and hide categories that are not updated.
- Feedly can also manage your information. By using keywords that is integrated to Feedly, this will allow you to search in the news feeds. Feedly offers you several keyboard shortcuts that can help you in searching those feeds.
- It’s also connected to services that can save articles that you can check later. Posts can be shared or added immediately to your queue and be shared at a later time.
- The platform also includes buttons that can share information. These tools can help you for easy sharing with your audience.
- Feedly is an awesome tool for finding timely articles on topics you want to share. By using Feedly, you can find content and organise it by categories.
- Feedly can follow topics that are important for you and your business. You can also create custom configurations to best fit your reading style.
When curating content, you get to provide content and value to your audience way beyond what you create yourself. These connections can help you in increasing your reach, connecings with influencers and it expanding your audience’s experience. Content curation does not only benefit your audience but you as well. It’s faster and cheaper to create unlike always creating original content.
Content marketing is no simple task. Just always remember, that whatever company you are in, make sure that content curation should be personal and it should build value.
If you want help getting more out of your social media marketing, please download our free step by step guide today!
Jun 7, 2017 | Blog, News
Engaging with Social Influencers – a how to guide
When you first heard the term social influencers, what is the first thing that popped into your mind? Generally, an influencer is someone who has the power to change another person’s decision making skills by carrying influence over others. A social media influencer therefore is someone who wields that influence through social media. The level of influence varies for every individual (and even by channel!) because no two influencers are the same.
One of the most valuable forms of marketing is word-of-mouth. Studies have shown that a person’s purchasing decision is affected by someone they respect and trust. And every potential customer is highly receptive to recommendations.
From the traditional word-of-mouth into the world of digital relationship – influencer marketing has evolved largely. A social study found out that 49 percent of consumers seek purchase guidance from social influencers before they make the decision to buy. Also, a survey held found that Youtube creators took eight spots of the Top 10 influencers – thus proving that social influencers are creating a bigger world outside the realm of digital marketing.
So, Why Does Your Brand Need Influencers?
Note that an individual will generally trust a recommendation from a third party more than the brand itself. Brand brag about how good they are all the time – that’s what marketing is all about. But how more pwerful is a positive statement about a brand, if it comes from someone outside of the organisation?
Social influencers not only bring you to the right audience but they also do bring their networks. Because of the loyalty of their audience, an influencer can drive their audience towards you and your website, increased your social media exposure and even accelerate product purchasing.
Influencers on social media do not just sit around and take photos of green smoothies (even if they do look delicious); they work hard and continue to learn adapting what they already know to the ever changing world of digital marketing.
Here are some of the most effective marketing tools used by Social Media Influencers:
- Demographics Pro for Twitter
- Facebook’s Pixel
- Followerwonk
- Hootsuite
- Influencer Strategy Template
- Insightpool
- Right Relevance Pro
- Streamview for Instagram
- TrendSpottr for Instagram
- UTM Parameters
Using a social media influencer can be a helpful marketing strategy – a practice that seeks to build a lasting relationship with the people who can build relationship for you. It is where you can create a larger audience from people who possess high level of influence and credibility over others. And whether it is a small or large audience, a social influencer is able to reach their consumers with their blogs and social channels that your brand may not be able to.
If you want help getting more out of your social media marketing, please download our free step by step guide today!
Jun 1, 2017 | Blog, News
Instagram stories can tell the story of your business
Instagram is fast becoming a favorite social marketing tool of brands and businesses, with Instagram Stories being used by big brands daily. Today where most people enjoy being visually stimulated, it makes this social network so powerful for almost any industry.
Once based on image sharing, Instagram has a new feature that lets you deliver a more complete message than a single image can provide to your prospective customers. It’s called Instagram Stories. If you’re wondering how this function can help you boost your marketing strategies, here are three easy ways to use Instagram Stories for your business:
Brand Your Special Offers for Better Results
Instagram Stories is designed to enhance your brand. So whenever you have special offers for your customers and target audiences, it would seem extra-special when complemented with the unique delivery of an Instagram story. To deliver your special offers via stories, you just have to refer viewers to the link in your bio. You can post a coupon as an Instagram story and announce that the offer is valid for a 24-hour story period only. You can take advantage of the time-critical nature of the Instagram story which delivers a sense of urgency for your customers to click on your landing page so that they can learn on how to redeem your special offer. But remember; make sure you offer something valuable! If you stick with low-value offers, there’s a high chance that they’ll tune you out.
Use Targeted Looks to Build a New Level of Trust with Your Audience
Showing and sharing your creative work and skills with your audience can be persuasive. It lets you show the value of your brand and the power of your services and those that you’re capable of providing. It can be in the form of a design sketch, a video of you checking out the manufacturer behind your product, or simply an excellent shot of the final item. These types of personalised approaches can build a new level of trust and interest with your audience.
Humanise Your Brand
Instagram stories may be temporary, but used effectively, it would surely leave a mark on your overall brand. By sharing polished stories that features a more created look at your business in real time, you are improving your brand to existing customers and attracting sales even more. One good example is by sharing a brief behind-the-scenes looks at your business.
With approximately 500 million active users, Instagram is now a super tool in the social media world. By consistently applying best practices and putting an effort to maximise the power of Instagram stories, rest assured that positive results for your business should come in no time at all.
If you want help getting more out of your social media marketing, please download our free step by step guide today!
