Tag: twitter

Be More Visible – Create a Video
By Categories: Blog Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Video sharing is becoming increasingly more popular. They’re not just for family sharing anymore, but businesses are using video to sell their products and services. Video can help you introduce yourself and your business to potential customers online via your website, YouTube, Vimeo or even in your email.

Using a video, you can include your staff, provide a walk-through of your offices, show employees working and interacting, share information to potential employees, and much more. You can also show your customers how your product or service is manufactured and/or how it works.

Are you a nonprofit organization? Do you have a story to tell? Be creative. Use video to show potential donors why their money is needed and how the funds will be used.

If you have funds to put towards developing your video, research video production companies in your area. Get links to review videos they have completed before making your decision. Ask for references to contact.

On a tight budget? Think about producing the video yourself. You are not producing a full-fledged movie – but a three to five minute video. Put together a strategy and a script and then figure out who will be the “on-air” person to present your concept. Also, keep your audience in mind and develop your strategy around that.

Need a few ideas? Go to YouTube and do a keyword search to see if others have developed a video similar to what you have in mind. This will help you create yours.

Once you have your video completed, you can use a video editing program to insert text, overlays, even music.  A free program on most PCs is Windows Movie Maker.

When your video is finally ready, you can upload it to Youtube, Vimeo or another video storage website. Most, if not all – come with additional editing functionality such as annotations (text bubbles that are overlaid on the video while it’s playing) and embed codes for embedding the videos on your website.

To take advantage of search engine optimization (SEO), be sure to complete as many fields as possible in the video information such as title, subtitle and/or captions, description, keywords, and category.

Use “share buttons” to share your video to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and  other social networks to which you belong.

Creating a video should be a fun project. Don’t make it too complicated. Do put together your strategy first so you can keep on track. Just don’t forget to have fun with it.

Be More Visible – Be Informative
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Whether it’s a blog, Facebook message, tweet on Twitter or an update on LinkedIn, always be truthful and avoid overkill.

  1. Write a blog or an article. Start with a trade magazine. Send a tweet. Inform your clients and potential clients about what your company is doing, the latest advancements in your industry and general information. Comment on blogs. Search your industry or area of expertise and read what others are saying. Post your comments and links to your blog site.
  2. Post it. Always put the information in your blog and on your business Facebook page. Remember to tweet your followers and let your connections on LinkedIn know about it.
  3. Conduct a seminar or demonstration. If you know, what you know, what you know… then share it. It’s one of the best ways to boost your credibility. Not sure of where to begin? Start with your local community. Many offer a variety of classes to residents and non-residents, such as computer literacy, tax tips, retirement strategies, cooking, health and fitness and, “how to start a business.”
  4. Produce a video. Make it short and to the point. Post it on your website, YouTube or make a DVD to sell or give away.
  5. Send a press release to the media. Are you offering a new product or service? Are you proud of an accomplishment? Is a special event planned? Do you have a great human-interest story that involves your product or service? Let the media know. They are always looking for positive stories.
  6. Write a book(let). Pass along your knowledge and pay it forward. Speak about your book. Mention that you are an author on your email page, business card or website. When you meet someone, tell them about your book. Now is not the time to be shy. Have a book signing. These can be held at coffee shops, in bookstores (obvious), out of your car (not so obvious). Always carry books with you and always be ready to talk about it. People are thirsty for knowledge and will be happy to take a drink from you.
  7. Write a white paper (or whitepaper). These are authoritative reports or guided that often addresses issues and how to solve them. White papers are not as costly as books (many are downloadable from websites), yet they can be very useful to the end user.
  8. Pick up the phone. Call a former client. Call a potential client. Just call. Remind them that you are still around and available for business.

Customer Satisfaction and Negative Social Media Don’t Mix
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One bad customer experience + One Tweet = Disaster

Immediately after contact, many companies offer customer satisfaction surveys to their customers both online and by phone. For example, some surveys may ask, how well the representative handled the call or if the problem was resolved. Or, you may visit a website and within a few seconds a “pop up” window asks you to participate in an online survey. It asks you to rate the website, if navigation was easy, if the information was easy to locate and how quickly the information was found. Hospitals and healthcare facilities are offering patient surveys that inquire about patient wait times, how patients were greeted, how the doctors performed and the overall satisfaction of health care.

Before social media, most people called or wrote a company to share their frustration and dissatisfaction with a product or service. The chances that someone at the company called or wrote back were slim to none. Now, we have Facebook and Twitter – two powerful resources for immediately venting frustrations out to the universe. One tweet on Twitter could end up as a “Retweet” or be “Retweeted” five times or 100 times. It could then be “Liked” and “Shared” on Facebook. Before you know it, the information has gone viral and everyone is sharing how awful the company’s product or customer experience was.

The 2012 American Express® Global Customer Service Barometer was conducted in the U.S. and ten other countries, exploring consumer attitudes and preferences toward customer service.  The results found that the greatest amount of influence came from customers who have used social media for customer service.  They also indicated that those customers will tell approximately 53 people about a bad customer experience.  Forty-six percent were found to vent their frustration about a poor service experience.

In the 2012 survey, eight in ten (79%) Americans cited the following Big Four Service Gripes as their reason for switching brands:

1)      Rudeness:  An insensitive or unresponsive customer service representative – 33%

2)      Passing the Buck:  Being shuffled around with no resolution of the issue – 26%

3)      The Waiting Game:  Waiting too long to have an issue resolved – 10%

4)      Being Boomeranged:  Forced to continually follow up on an issue – 10%

In addition to having a well-trained customer service staff, someone should monitor customer satisfaction from a social media perspective. This person can watch satisfaction keywords on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, as they are associated with the company name, product and brand.  If your company does not have a way to survey customers, this is a definite plus to consider for strategic planning, as surveys are a key ingredient to maintaining a positive brand.

To read more on the results of The 2012 American Express® Global Customer Service – visit this article on American Express – “Social Media Raises the Stakes for Customer Service”

Twitter Shortcodes: Making it Simple and Sweet
By Categories: Blog, Tips Tags: , , , , ,

If you are just jumping into the Twitter parade, there are a few things you need to know before getting started.

First, you are limited to 140 characters, similar to text messaging. Before you start typing away in that little box, you may want to think about what you want to say or share, then limit it to 140 characters or less. One way to do this is to use “short codes” or abbreviations of commonly used words.

For example, instead of writing “because” you would write “b/c.” Or instead of writing “two” or “to” you would simply type the number “2.”

Some frequently used short codes include:

Hashtag (#) – is a way to organize or categorize your updates. When used, it acts as a search engine to pull all the tweets that have been tweeted with that hashtag, i.e., #bacon would result in anyone talking about bacon.

@reply – means you are replying to a Twitter update that someone else posted. It is directed to the person to whom you are replying, i.e., @reply@BeMoreVisible …

RT – Retweet – you are retweeting someone elses tweet.

MT – Modified Tweet – you are retweeting someone else’s tweet, however you have modified it.

PRT – Partial Retweet – you are retweeting a Tweet but have not included the full original Tweet.

DM – is a direct message to another Twitter user you are following.

#FF or FollowFriday – you write this along with the Twitter accounts of people you would like your Twitter followers to also follow. You can write it with or without the (#) hashtag.

For more short codes and frequently used terms, check out Twitter’s Glossary.

Another way to make sure you fit everything into that little box is to use a URL Shortener that converts a long URL into a shorter length. It still directs the user to the same web location. This is very useful on Twitter, however – URL shorteners are also used to disguise the real URLs to websites that may be harmful to your computer… be cautious using them.

A few URL shortening services include:

Google – http://goo.gl
Bit.ly – http://bit.ly
Tiny Url – http://tinyurl.com
Ow.ly – http://ow.ly/url/shorten-url

If you’ve decided to join the millions that are tweeting and posting – take time to check out Twitter Basics.  Knowing how to navigate within Twitter’s universe will make your Tweeting experience less frustrating and more enjoyable.

Too Busy? Outsource Your Social Media
By Categories: Blog Tags: , , , , , , ,

Social media in today’s business world has become a vital part of branding and in building new business relationships. Some businesses have found that they are unable to commit the time, personnel and resources in maintaining a successful social media campaign. Instead of pulling your hair out, you can outsource this function to an outside consultant who is an expert in your business field.

Social Media

Although this is an important function, you need to make sure that the consultant you choose has a successful track record in social media. What they write on you or your businesses behalf could potentially harm your business and brand.  You must ensure that they write and/or share information that represents your business’ vision, ideals and overall brand.

To begin searching for the right consultant, ask a few key questions on the role of the social media consultant:

  • Will the consultant merely look for information and share it on your behalf?
  • Will they be a part of your team helping to develop a campaign, marketing new business initiatives, or launching new products or services?
  • Will they voice “an opinion” on your behalf?
  • Will they provide content via your blog?

Defining the role is going to be very critical in the beginning to eliminate any misunderstandings and errors.

The next step is selecting a consultant. Visit their website. Read their blog and look for comments. Review their writing style. Does it fit with your business or brand? How often do they blog and how many “shares” are they averaging? Look for testimonials from their clients. Visit their Facebook and Twitter accounts to review the information they have written and shared. Look at the number of shares and “retweets.” Check their Klout* scores. These are just a few of the many strategies that will help you make a clear decision.

Develop guidelines and identify tasks for the consultant:

  • If they are writing blogs on your behalf, create a list of topics that should not be included, such as religion, political views, negative comments about competitors, etc.
  • Develop a list of topics that require your approval before publishing.
  • Create a schedule for performing these tasks. And lastly,
  • Delegate a member of your team to oversee the consultant’s progress. Someone who will follow up and keep track of what is being shared and also any feedback that might come back to the company.

Social media is evolving daily. For you business to reach new clients, it should be someone’s daily responsibility.  If you are unable to do it – think about outsourcing it.

*FAQs about Klout.. “Klout digs deep into social media to understand how people influence each other, so that everyone can discover and be recognized for how they influence the world. You can use the Klout Score to understand how influential you are; you can use your topics to shape what you are influential about; and you can be recognized for your influence by receiving +K from friends or Perks from brands.”