Social Media Archives - Page 2 of 2

How to Measure Social Media Success

July 31, 2015

“How do you measure the success of brand’s social presence” is a question we receive time and time again. Evaluating the success of your social efforts can be challenging, but by using the five key components below you’re sure to unlock valuable insights into your audience demographic, competitive landscape and sales metrics.

1. Consumer Traction: Social media is a conduit between a brand and the consumer. Not only does it allow consumers to stay connected with a brand, it gives the brand real-time feedback on fan sentiment and position among competitors. Utilizing social media analytics can also help a brand identify new markets or customer segments that the brand is resonating with, providing guidance for other marketing efforts.

2. Reputation: Managing a brand’s reputation, customer sentiment and online presence is a key component to any social media strategy. The first sign of trouble for any brand can usually be identified first on social media. Having a dedicated social program provides the opportunity for a brand to manage potential grievances and keep consumers satisfied before they infiltrate the community with negative comments.

3. Engagement: One of the most popular metrics to determine social success is a brand’s engagement rate on social media is engagement. Monitoring and evaluating social engagement can help a brand determine how invested the social community is and how effective are its campaigns. Tracking these metrics is vital in creating an evolving social strategy. (should we add engagement stat to provide insight as to what would be successful? How about how we measure it?

4. Traffic: An increase in search volume ultimately leads to an increase in traffic to both the brand and retail partner’s websites. Social advertising efforts can be measured by implementing tracking pixels as well as referral traffic via Google Analytics. Garnering an increase in inbound links is another added benefit when engaging on social media. Most fans begin to share information about the brand on their own personal channels which leads to additional traffic and a higher organic ranking on search engines.

5. Sales: Utilizing both tracking pixels and Google Analytics can assist in evaluating how many leads were secured from social media thus further defining social media’s success.

How Social Media Can Impact Fan Sentiment

May 8, 2015

One of the most rewarding and fulfilling aspects of being a community manager is the ability to engage with a brand’s core fan base each day. Community management offers brands the opportunity to speak with fans in real-time – one of the things that make social media so unique and valuable, and most importantly, integral to a business’s growth.

Fans want to feel like they are valued by the brand and are a part of the team. While customer service is an integral part of a social media campaign, when a brand can elicit positive emotions on social media from a follower, chances are, you’ve done your job correctly. How you choose to interact with your followers is extremely important in the realm of sentiment. Positive word-of-mouth and sales leads are the goal, and keeping tabs on fan sentiment about your brand can offer key insights that can affect your businesses bottom line.

Here are four ways your brand can engage its fan base and increase positive sentiment:

Utilize Hashtags:By creating a unique hashtag for your brand, you can easily listen to and join conversations your fans are engaging in. Pro tip: Hashtags for entering a contest or creating evergreen hashtags can help you track and monitor communications about your brand.
Build Relationships: Start conversations with fans who interact with your brand and engage with them on other relevant topics aside from your brand. Liking their photos or commenting about a topic can often transform a fan into a brand advocate.
Cultivate Advocates: These are the fans who consistently talk about your brand and jump into conversations with you daily. Advocates are essential to community growth. Plus, their word-of-mouth praise can drive new business for the brand.
Take Advantage of Giveaways: Nothing says “I appreciate you” more than rewards. When a brand reaches out to its loyal followers and rewards them with product, the fan is typically overwhelmed with joy. Even if the fan was originally impartial to the brand, a giveaway or a prize can be the point at which they become true brand advocates.
User Generated Content: Sharing fans’ content on your brand’s channels can bolster engagement and brand affinity not only from the fan but also new potential customers. Seeing that real people use your product in their everyday life can be more of a motivation to purchase than any other methods of promotion.

It’s Handled: How to “Olivia Pope” Your Customer Service Inquiries on Social Media

March 13, 2015

On Scandal, there isn’t a situation that fixer Olivia Pope can’t handle. From international relations crisis to handling her love life, she does it all with cool confidence. So when it came to trying to break down the nuances of handling customer service, she immediately came to mind.

Following her no-nonsense attitude and skill for execution working with a variety of stakeholders are all core competencies that can be employed with customer service inquiries on social media. It is often the quickest and most efficient route to a resolution while building long-term followers. Now more than ever it is imperative for brands to have an integrated strategy to manage customer service via their social media channels.

According to the Customers 2020 report, the customer experience will be more important than any other factor to consumers by the year 2020. Having a good customer experience is already critical to a company’s success, and will only become more so. To further that point, Accenture’s Global Consumer Pulse Survey showed that 66% of consumers around the world stopped doing business with a company in 2013 due to poorly handled customer service. To succeed in managing your customer service inquiries on social, follow these simple tips:

Always Have a Plan:

It is important to think of your social media platforms as an integrated extension of your customer support team, and always keep your social media team informed with a plan that aligns with your internal customer support team’s best practices. Both teams should have a set of FAQ’s and best practices in place to handle all incoming issues. Having these in place will streamline processes and keep key brand messaging congruent.

Take it Offline:

Remember to always address all public questions, complaints and concerns and then take them offline by directing a consumer to a private message or to the support team’s channels for further assistance.

Complaining vs. Trolling:

Assessing the type of complaint is just as important as handling it. Researching where a complaint is coming from and evaluating its validity can save time and resources. If the complaint or inquiry is a legitimate concern from a consumer then answer their inquiry and continue to follow-up until the matter is resolved. Most fans who are legitimately complaining just want to feel heard. If you assess the complaint and find that it may be a person trolling your page, address the issue head on. If they continue to spam your account you may have to take extreme measures such as blocking said user. It is important to provide a place for your fans to engage with your brand rather than a breeding ground for complaints.

The Customer is Always Right…Even When They Are Wrong:

The old adage of the “customer is always right” is still a good reference to stick to within limits. Many times, it’s not the actual problem, but how it’s handled that leaves a lasting impression and can convert an angry customer into a lifelong brand evangelist. When you make it clear to a concerned customer that you are doing everything in your power to assist them, you will find that they are more appreciative after their issue is solved. It can often lead to them taking their gratitude back on social media to sing your brand’s praises.

Earn Their Trust:

Being able to quickly turn around an issue is another reason why consumers are turning to social media rather than the traditional customer support channels. Allowing the consumer to feel heard and offering a quick solution has become commonplace on social media. An industry standard is acknowledging the issues within 24 hours, though many brands do so sooner. This does not mean that the problem will be solved in this time frame but they will at least know that a resolution is in the process.

Snapchat – Transitioning from nudes to news?

February 6, 2015

It’s clear that today’s media and content landscape is more fragmented than it’s ever been. Amazon winning Golden Globe awards is a prime (Amazon pun intended) example, and it’s truly unclear where the next great story might come from. The latest entrant into the content distribution landscape is Snapchat. With the introduction of Discover, the photo-sending app is now getting into the content game. The latest addition to the platform gives users the ability to see a variety of stories from some of the biggest and most influential media companies in the world. It’s an interesting and significant move for a few reasons.

First, Snapchat understands that the novelty of sending photos will eventually start to wane, and it’s critical to maintain an active user base. Snapchat has managed to capture the coveted millennial demographic, which is both a very powerful and influential group. By offering another reason to open the app, Snapchat is hoping to maintain and grow that engagement.

Second, it’s legitimizing the app from a novelty that had some questionable beginnings, to a source of news. While the stories feature brought more meaningful storytelling to the app, it was still up to the user base to generate the content. Having thoughtful curation specifically for the platform should yield more dynamic and interesting content.

While it remains to be seen how many users engage with this feature, it’s still a win for telling stories from our perspective. Our business is telling thoughtful and engaging stories, and we always welcome a new platform with which to do so! Find us on Snapchat!

*You can “Snap to Add” us by placing your Snapchat camera over the ghost in the photo above.

6 Easy Steps to Conquer Instagram

January 22, 2015

Follow these 6 easy steps and your social strategy will be singing one happy tune!

1. I Know Who You Are:

Knowing your audience and whom you are trying to target is one of the most important steps you need to decipher to ensure a successful Instagram social strategy.

2. Take a Look At Me Now:

Instagram’s claim to fame is mainly due to its focus and usage of visual media. In order to break through the clutter and reach your target audience it is imperative that your content is visually appealing.

3. Time After Time:

Timing is everything when it comes down to posting content on Instagram. Utilizing sites like Iconosquare can help you identify which times of the day are best to engage your audience.

4. Hashtag Rules Everything Around Me:

Utilizing the right hashtags can help your content exceed its reach beyond your followers and to new users.

a. Track the most popular hashtags in your space and ensure you are applying them to your social copy.

b. Remember the more hashtags the better!

5. I Will Follow You:

Want to increase your exposure and community base? Engage & work with Instagram influencers to help build your audience. Leveraging a relationship with an influencer can ignite your social presence on Instagram.

6. Lean On Me:

Don’t forget to cross promote across all of your social channels. Sharing content on your other social channels can lead to new followers who already have an affinity for the brand and help cement a strong and integrated social strategy.

Increasing Kickstarter Campaign Awareness with Social Media

October 30, 2014

One of the key components missing from most brands Kickstarter campaigns is a fully integrated social media campaign. In order to avoid losing out on these opportunities use these checklist items to help your social media strategy stay on course.

Amplify messaging about the campaign utilizing all social channels! Are you promoting your campaign on every social platform at your disposal?
Curate engaging and fun content: fun taglines, user generated content and real time photos. Keeping your audience engaged and your content shareable can help expose your campaign to new potential backers.
Your content should be consistent and timely. Social media gives you the opportunity to tell a story. Use daily posts as a portal of insight to make fans feel like they are taking the journey with your brand. You’ll find this can lead to an increase in backers.
Use your social media channels to highlight your team (behind the scenes photos). People want to know who they are helping. An emotional bond will help boost brand affinity.
Tweet a lot & remember that it’s ok to repeat a tweet. Most fans may have missed the tweet the first time around.
Real time engagement is very important. Jump into relevant conversations and introduce your campaign to new eyes.
Submit your Kickstarter campaign to sites and Twitter handles that promote ongoing campaigns
Add CTA’s (Call to Actions). People need to be told what you need them to do with your content.
Introduce extra incentives to encourage backers to share that they’ve contributed to your campaign with their audience.
Feature backers on social channels. You can create an entire campaign highlighting your social backers.
Create short Facebook, vine or Instagram video content featuring the products. Video is just another tool in your social media tool belt to help you reach potential backers.
Reach out and connect with influencers on relevant social channels to introduce them to your product and potentially support & promote your campaign.
Host mini contests outside of the Kickstarter to get fans ramped up. The contests should encourage them to Share, Retweet, Like, Comment and Favorite for chances to win relevant prizes.
Give fans weekly-daily updates to let them know how close you are to reaching the goal. A visual is even better to include.

Rules of (Social) Engagement: Addressing Negative & Positive Social Interactions

September 4, 2014

OK, you dived into the large pool that is social media and identified the best social media platforms for your business. What’s next you ask? ENGAGEMENT, of course! Getting a handle on communicating with your fan base is one of the most important elements of a successful social media strategy. Once you start to engage how do you react to positive or potentially negative comments? The solution is simple. Utilize these key steps when engaging with your audience in the digital space.

Negative Comments:

Never ignore or delete a complaint

Refrain from removing a complaint or comment unless it is offensive to other customers. It is better to engage and address the issue head on so other fans see that your brand is engaged with its community. There are always exceptions to this rule so your first step should be to assess the comment. You need to determine if the “fan” is attempting to cause trouble, at which point you should eliminate the comment, or if they are genuinely trying to offer feedback to better improve your product/service, which would warrant a response

2. Keep calm and …

Remember to remove emotions from any response. It can be a difficult tactic to implement, but you’ll be glad you remained level-headed further down the road. Many brands make the mistake of responding to negative comments emotionally and regret it later. Take a step back from the situation and discuss your response with the rest of your team. The saying “two heads (or more) are better than one” definitely applies in these situations. (*This is one of the reasons many brands chose an outside agency to manage their social media needs.)

3. Acknowledge the issue

Always address a complaint publicly and actively engage to steer the conversation offline via a Direct/Private message. Most of the time fans just want to feel that their concerns are being heard and the brand values their patronage. Referring a complaint to a customer service number or instructing them to send a Direct/Private message are efficient methods to address the matter away from the peering eyes of the public.

4. Stock up!

Creating a template of canned replies for frequently asked questions and complaints can help streamline the process of engaging with negative comments.

5. Follow up is key

A brand should always follow through with a solution once a complaint is addressed. Leaving the matter unresolved can turn a situation from bad to worse.

Positive comments:

Take action

Always acknowledge a positive comment with some form of social action (Like, Comment, Retweet, Share, etc.). There’s nothing more gratifying for a fan than to feel like a brand has singled out their response and engaged with them.

2. Timing is everything

For both positive and negative interactions it is imperative to respond in a time sensitive manner. If you wait to reply you can miss out on an opportunity or even have a negative situation escalate. The recommended time of response should be 10minutes to 30 minutes at the latest.

3. Rewards

Remember to surprise and delight “super fans” with special offers, codes, gift cards and more to ensure continued brand affinity.

4. Share User Generated Content (UGC)

Utilizing UGC can go a long way as a tactic to convert a fan into a brand advocate. It can also provide your product or service that third-party stamp of approval that every consumer longs to see. Customers are more trusting of a review from an actual consumer’s experience, a third-party source, rather than the brand itself.

Now that you have the tools you need to successfully address positive and negative comments go out there and get social!

Media Insights for Manufacturers

August 26, 2014

Any good PR and Social Media program will have people talking about your product, and hopefully a large part of that discussion will be positive. But, it’s also important to listen to the people that will ultimately make the next generation, or even your organization, better. Most products are conceived during an internal brainstorm, but it’s not always easy to see the product objectively when you’re so close to it.

That’s why our media friends are an amazing resource for unique product insights. Other than consumer product testing organizations, who else gets their hands on all of the competitive products in any given category? These insights span from unique selling points and core functionality, to packaging and quick start guides. For us, it’s a given that we keep our clients updated with potential product and service improvements and the media help us give an unbiased and holistic perspective.

Even in advance of a product launch, we’re able to execute a non-published strategic review that will flesh out recommendations for a manufacturer even before the product hits the market. In addition, our collective decades of experience mean that we’ve seen our fair share of products and can give council to our clients on improvements that can be made to their products – also known as their “babies”.

Beyond the editorial feedback, gaining customer insights through social media has proven to be valuable over the years and directly resulted in significant improvements being made to second generation products. There are a variety of channels to gain insight into how to build a better mousetrap and ultimately make an offering more desirable to customers. What’s important is to make sure to convey the feedback to the marketing team, product managers and engineers so that brands can stay at the forefront of their respective industries.

Mastering the Art of Live-Tweeting During Events

April 21, 2014

In this day and age, businesses want to be part of relevant conversations that help create awareness, drive traffic and build a community where engagement between a brand and its audience is celebrated and meaningful. So it’s no surprise that live-tweeting has become a focal point of many brands that try engaging relevant audiences by participating in conversations around live events as they happen.

But what exactly is live-tweeting and how does it differ from common/day-to-day tweeting? It’s actually pretty simple, and is the act of tweeting around a live event as it happens.

There isn’t a single correct way to live-tweet; at its core, live-tweeting is supposed to be organic, conversational and in real-time but there are tips that will help facilitate live-tweeting as a company.

Use the correct hashtag in the conversation. Many live events broadcasted by major channels create a hashtag specifically for the event. Make sure you are reaching the right groups of people by using these hashtags. If there is more than one hashtag you can use them, but don’t go hashtag crazy and use a different hashtag for every tweet you put out. If you’re hosting the live-tweet, make sure you let your followers know ahead of time the hashtag you will be using to facilitate the conversation so they know what hashtag they should be using.
Tag the people and companies that are relevant to the event in your tweets when you mention them. Who knows, you might get a retweet, mention or follow from that person. Remember, live-tweeting is all about engagement!
Don’t go to Twitter jail. There is such a thing as being locked out of Twitter for over-tweeting. The rules of not landing in Twitter jail are: don’t go over 100 tweets an hour (this includes retweets), 1,000 tweets a day or more than 250 Direct Messages a day. Over-tweeting can also overwhelm your followers. If you find yourself locked up with the blue bird, it can take an hour or more before you can tweet again. Time is everything during live events, so be mindful of how often you are tweeting so you don’t miss out on the conversation.
Engage, engage, engage. The real magic of live-tweeting is that it allows you to connect with people who might share a similar interest, so make sure you monitor the hashtag you are live-tweeting about and start relevant conversations with others around the topic being discussed.
Track your conversations. Using social measurement tools (like Co-Tweet or Bit.ly) help you keep track of any relevant hashtags and also keep track of click-throughs to any links you might have tweeted during the event.

Live-tweeting is a great way for brands to connect with consumers and if done right can be a great way to get new followers, and expose your brand to new customers. Remember to have fun, put some thought into your tweets and interact with people having the same discussion to get the most out of your live-tweets!

The Media Landscape Has Evolved – Have You Kept Up?

February 28, 2014

Twitter. To some, it means keeping track of news, sports, celebrities, and tracking your favorite food truck. To others, it’s just another platform that wastes time. There are also those who aren’t sure what it is and if it’s important. No matter your personal feelings about the microblogging service, it has inserted itself into many facets of or lives. It seems that hashtags are everywhere- even Facebook adopted them in June of 2013.

Perhaps no community has embraced it more than the media. With a few years under their collective journalistic belt, Twitter has evolved into an indispensable tool for many looking to not only connect and share stories, but to find sources and stay abreast of headlines. PR pros have also taken note, and used the medium as an extension of the symbiotic relationship of exchanging information to create compelling stories. At least the good ones have.

So, how can Twitter help land your next placement? First, it’s important to engage. Keep in mind Twitter is a community, and hollow attempts at pitching journalists will often be met with silence. Start by following journalists who cover beats you not only enjoy reading about, but also beats that are related to your clients. By following the conversation (and participating with a RT), you’ll reap the benefits of continuing your own education about the topic.

It’s also important to pay attention. We’ve been able to help journalists who have tweeted a story idea or a need for a source or product. If you can assist, let them know with a reply, and follow up with an email as quickly as possible with more information. It’s also important to pay attention to other topics and be helpful when you can. We recently connected a journalist who was looking for freelance writers with someone looking for freelance work.

Create value. If you find something unique, newsworthy, funny, inspiring, or clever, share it! By actively participating in the community, you’ll be able to make connections and expand your own network.

The moral, as so many of them are, is to use common sense, be helpful and pay attention.