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Our Guide to Killer Blog Design

September 30, 2011 By 2 Comments

Starting a blog is simple. You find a template or theme you like and start writing.

Blogging platforms like WordPress.com, Blogger, Tumblr, Posterous, et al have thousands of templates and themes readily available, and anyone can sign up and start blogging in minutes.

But if you’re serious about blogging, or blogging for your business, you want your site to be as professional as it can be, or at the very least, digestible. And there are a few things you should consider before putting pen to paper, or finger to keyboard!

The way it is designed will be largely in the hands of your blogging software, but there’s more to a design than a logo and a colour scheme, so whether you already have a blog, or are thinking about starting one, these handy tips will keep you on the right track.

Design for content

This is your blog’s reason for being. If you remove all the visual styling, it should have the same value to its readers. Make sure your spend time and effort on your content. Bad spelling, punctuation and grammar all make difficult reading and reduce trust and confidence in your content’s worth.

Pictures add interest and there’s no excuse for not having some sort of supporting illustration. If you’re blogging for your business, then you should be able to lay your hands on a picture that illustrates your point. If not, get out your phone and take one! Failing that, go to a stock photography site and buy one! Or use an image from a photo hosting site like Flickr, but make sure your image is marked ‘Creative Commons’ and check the licensing details, or you could end up infringing copyright.

On the subject of copyright, always make sure your content is original. Never, ever, EVER, cut and paste large portions of someone else’s work, unless they have given their permission or you are using it as a reference or discussion point for your own blog and provide a link back to the resource.

Make sure your headline is eye-catching without being too clever. Clever headlines may work well in tabloid newspapers, but poorly in blogs. Use words that describe your content or no-one will read on. Your headline may be all that potential readers see on, say, Twitter, so you need to ‘sell’ your content in one line.

Design for readability

Easy reading is enjoyable reading. Correct spacing, colouring and typography is essential to make your blog a pleasure to read. So make sure:

  • you use dark type on a light background.
  • you use a clearly readable typeface, if in doubt, Arial or Georgia are safe choices.
  • column widths sensible. Too wide or too narrow can both have detrimental effects on readability.
  • that letter-, word- and line-spacing are sensible. This is controlled by your blog’s ‘stylesheets’ which you may not have access to, but if you have a choice, use your eyes to judge readability

If your blog allows you to edit your stylesheets, make use of Google Web Fonts, which currently has a range of over 250 free fonts, and it’s very easy to implement. But be sensible!

 

Seven businesspeople looking at laptop

Tick all the boxes and you could have a popular blog.

 

Design for concentration

Avoid distractions on your page, such as flashing adverts, spinning or animated graphics. Bright coloured side panels and backgrounds will draw the eye away from your content.

Make sure your focus is on your content to maintain concentration. If your blog is too long, people may tire of reading it, or become easily distracted. Cut it down to a reasonable reading length or split it up into parts, or pages. Use pictures to break up sections and make use of subheadings, blockquotes and bold/italic to allow readers to speed-read your page.

Design for sharing

Make it easy for readers to share your content if they like it.

Put buttons for Twitter, Facebook, and email at the end of your post. That’s exactly where readers will stop and think ‘that was a good read, I’ll share it with my friends’, make it easy for them. Use a sharing widget such as AddThis or ShareThis, both have analytics built in. Twitter and Facebook also provide their own content sharing buttons. Make use of them.

Make sure you share your own blog posts on your own networks when you publish them. WordPress can make use of plugins to automatically share your posts when they are published, but otherwise it’s as easy as posting the link into Twitter or Facebook along with your headline.

Prompt your readers to sign up to your mailing list, RSS feed, Twitter or Facebook and they’ll get your updates ‘pushed’ to them when you publish them, rather than relying on them returning to your site.

Design for comments

Comments are the lifeblood of any blog. Encourage commenting and you will build a thriving community around your blog. This can only be good as long as you manage your comments well. The downside of this is that commments can also become a haven for spammers and bots. If your blog software supports it, use a spam blocker like Akismet for WordPress, which almost completely eradicates spam.

Be bold. Ask for comments. The first comment is the hardest one to attract, especially for a blog that doesn’t generate a lot generally. but ask a direct question of your readers, and they are more likely to respond.

Design for search

Your blog could turn out to be an excellent tool to get your content well-ranked in search engines. Remember to use relevant keywords in headlines and body text, but never write as if to influence the search engines, otherwise you risk alienating real readers if your copy is too keyword-heavy., Write for human consumption, but be aware of how search engines work. Use proper headline tags (h2,h3, etc) for subheadings and make sure your main page title has an h1 tag around it. Blogging software generally does this automatically, based on ‘heading styles’ and you may never see tags like h1,h2,h3 at all.

Design for the future

Most blogging platforms are free to use. WordPress for example, allows you to download their software and install it on your own site. This gives you total freedom to build and control your site away from the constraints of a free account.

Consider how you think your blog may grow. Will a free platform always be right. If it’s a business blog, you may want your blog to be part of your site, branded with your colours and logo, etc. Free services will limit your options in the future.

WordPress is a perfect ‘evolution platform’ – you can start free, and convert to a self-hosted version at a later date without losing any content or functionality.

Canary Dwarf are our wonderful technical partners. Be sure to check them out for amazing web and blog design, paired with top-notch service.

Filed Under: Blogging Tips Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

The Massive Introduction to Social Media Advertising: Part One

September 28, 2011 By 3 Comments

Just got to grips with how to use social media for business? Good. Well, now there’s a ‘new’ social media tool you need to start playing with: social media advertising.

It probably goes against the grain for anyone who jumped on the social media bandwagon for all that lovely “free” publicity. But advertising is an increasingly useful and sometimes even essential tool in any social marketing strategy.

As you’d expect there are nearly as many different advertising platforms as there are social networks, here are some of the big ones:

Facebook Ads

The giant of the social sphere has an advertising platform of its own, Facebook Ads, offering advertisers sponsored slots on their site.

How does it work?

Facebook works on either a cost per click (CPC) or CPM (cost per thousand impressions) basis. So whether you are aiming to send more traffic to your website/Facebook page or simply want to get your brand name out there, there’s a pricing model for you.

You can target users based on everything from their birthday to their favourite films – with any and every variation in between.

Why use Facebook Ads?

750 million members, half a billion users logging in on just one day, do we really need to explain why you should be using Facebook Ads?

In case you don’t get it, Facebook’s USP is the huge amount of data that they have at their fingertips. You can get super specific with your targeting; helping to keep your advertising costs low and your response rate high.

Are there any downsides?

Facebook ads look like display ads, and so they suffer from ad blindness experienced by other websites, however good your targeting is.

Not as simple as this these days!

LinkedIn Ads

The professionals’ Facebook with 120 million users worldwide, offering advertising through their platform LinkedIn Ads.

How does it work?

Like Facebook, you can either pay for clicks (traffic to your site) or impressions (views of your advert). You can target users based on job title, area and more, however due to the nature of the social network you won’t get the laser targeting that Facebook allows.

Why use LinkedIn Ads?

If you work in a b2b (that’s business to business) industry, Facebook ads are not for you, but LinkedIn can provide interesting opportunities. You have the option to target just decision makers in an organisation, so you know your advertising spend is all going on people who might make the leap and become customers.

Are there any downsides?

The space for LinkedIn ads is minimal and indistinct from any other area of the site. Potentially this means they avoid the “banner blindness” issue, but it also makes it harder to create adverts with real impact.

Advertising on Twitter

Twitter joined the advertising party in 2010, offering a platform with several different services: Promoted Tweets, Promoted Trends and Promoted Accounts.

How does it work?

Promoted Tweets are charged on a cost-per-engagement basis – with charges for every time a user retweets, replies to, clicks or favourites a Promoted Tweet. Promoted Tweets can appear in the timeline of any user, and at the top of relevant searches on twitter.com.

Why use Promoted Tweets?

The jury’s still out over whether you should be using Promoted Tweets or not. Without the targeting of Facebook or the guarantee of a long-term place in front of potential customers eyes, its effectiveness is still up for debate.

Are there any upsides?

Do you have a compelling message that’s just begging to be retweeted? Potentially a promoted tweet will push your message in front of eager eyes. However, initial reports suggest that advertising on Twitter is expensive compared to the returns it brings.

So, there’s your introduction to some of the biggest social media ad platforms around, tune into part 2 to find out more.

Katie Saxon is a Certified Google AdWords Consultant working for Boom Online Marketing, follow her on Twitter @ksaxoninternet.

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Filed Under: Digital Marketing Tagged With: , , , ,

There Are Still Too Many Social Media Phantoms Out There

September 26, 2011 By 28 Comments

My views on people (and agencies) posing as social media ‘experts’ are well known. I’m not about to go on another rant about ‘gurus’ I promise. Bear with me on this one.

Social Media Week has just wrapped up in Glasgow. It was a great week, with a really diverse range of events (massive respect to the organisers for running it so well). During the week I attended an event that focussed on ROI from social media and how you can measure it. It was held by a ‘full-service’ digital agency based in Glasgow and London. I always enjoy hearing other people’s perspective on social media as a marketing channel and the ROI debate is one that appears to have some serious mileage left in the tank.  The speaker from the agency in question took the stage and ran the audience through a typical intro to social media (cliché after cliché). After this, the topic changed to measurement and trying to prove ROI…

We were taken through a talk on some very basic metrics that can be accounted for. That was about it. No insight in to how these are used to prove value, assess effectiveness and shape the way a business uses the channel. The speaker used the old ‘social media is not about sales’ line which we all know is accurate to a certain extent, although I believe there has to be business actions coming from social media activity or serious questions will be asked. I think this speaker and the agency the speaker works for are likely hiding behind this excuse. I judge this on what I saw in front me and nothing else, to me, I think if you are given the opportunity to speak to an audience about such a well-versed topic, you need to get up there and really go for it, get people thinking and give solid advice and examples.

He is a Good Phantom. (image - www.freeonlinemovieworld.com)

After the show was over, questions were invited from the floor. There was a barrage and not in a good way. The type of question that was being asked pointed to an audience that felt severely un-enlightened by what had unfolded before them. One person asked ‘are you guys tracking clicks through to websites and the outcome of those?’ The answer – ‘no that’s not possible at this time, it’s in beta with Google’. Really? Dear lord. Oh and did you know that Brandwatch is exactly the same as socialmention.com?

I’m not attacking the speaker here. The agency should never have put the individual on the stage. At one point the boss of the agency asked the speaker two questions that the speaker really struggled to answer. It was painful. The whole thing got me thinking, how many agencies are delivering true value to the clients that decide to spend their no doubt tight budgets on their services? If an agency is happy to work on a basis that ROI is ‘very difficult to prove’ and the client is happy to pay on that basis, then good luck to them. For me, this approach just devalues the work of people and agencies that are really pushing to de-mystify the social media channel, ensuring they are on the cutting edge of the game and ultimately delivering value that not only does all the nice fluffy engagement and brand building stuff that all and sundry preach about, but also actual bottom line results.

Will the wheat eventually be separated from the chaff? Or will businesses continue to be blinded by the ‘ROI is so hard to prove’ line? Thoughts would be appreciated…

Mike

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Filed Under: Anti-Guru, Online Measurement Tagged With: , , ,

Dear Facebook & Co – Please Keep it Simple, Stupid.

September 23, 2011 By 4 Comments

Facebook has changed. By now you know this and if you don’t, then read all about it here. I’m not going to go through the changes, I’m just going to offer my thoughts on a strong feeling I have. If you ask me, the changes that Facebook are rolling out and the impending war between them and Google+ are in danger of making this whole shebang a lot less social. Facebook allows us all to keep in touch with people and it has done this very well for years now. Then f8 comes along and starts talking about ‘open graphs’ and all of a sudden Facebook becomes an all- web consuming beast. Zuck and co don’t want you to leave their environement, and when you do, the extended plug-ins will ensure FB is still in your face. The ‘social bar’ for external sites? Come on! There will now be so much content flying around Facebook that the actual human interactions will become lost. The Timeline approach means that many will be over-sharing without even realising. Not to mention that it now looks like someone barfed on the old interface. Confused? You will be. It’s an age-old Facebook problem, they simply do not communicate major changes well enough, leading to user backlash and a bunch of Facebook addicts stoating about lost like social network zombies. Those who use Facebook as a marketing outlet are likely to be chomping their nails off at the prospect of yet more learning and changes to the way they operate.

(image - http://joseflakes.blogspot.com)

Is Zuckerburg and his army crapping themselves at the prospect of a successful Google +? Are these moves designed to stomp on G+ momentum? Well, if I was on the G+ team, I’d be working to one mantra right now – keep it simple stupid. The basic set-up is right, circles allow direct and relevant sharing, it’s easy to share various media types, it’s nicely integrated with search and other Google products. Google + has foundations that lie in a well thought-out social entity. The opportunity is there to catch the people that will find Facebook a little too much to swallow. Please G+, keep it simple and offer us a socially smart haven.

Keeping it simple can be a very good approach to social media marketing. Often the most successful content and even strategies are the simplest. Us humans are pretty simple really. Over-complicating things can turn us off and make us move on. Make sure you take a step back and look at your marketing through the eyes of a human. Afterall, you are human yourself. Right?

Time will tell and heck, after a period of adjustment, the Facebook masses may well embrace the changes and fall in love again. I just hope Facebook and G+ don’t spoil the fun for us all by trying to be each other.

What are your thoughts on the Facebook interface changes? Do you wish they would keep it simple? Are you embracing Google Plus? Please do tell us in the comments below!

Mike

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Filed Under: Social Media Marketing Tagged With: , ,

Attention Bloggers! Pitching Content? Follow This Advice…

September 22, 2011 By 2 Comments

This post first appeared on the Higher and Higher blog on Sept 9th

As the owner and editor of a popular social media and digital marketing blog, there’s nothing I like more than an incoming email from a blogger that is interested in contributing. It makes me tingle a little as I ask start to think about the possibilities, has the next big thing in social media blogging just come my way? Will their post be a must-read for one and all? I still find it amazing that someone would like to take the time to write for my blog. Well I’m sorry to say that the vast majority of the time (no exaggeration) I am left feeling deflated by the end of the approach email. Why? Well just read the tips below and ensure you are not a blogging disappointment…

No.1 – Find out the name of the person behind blog…

Nothing riles me more than Dear Sir/Madam etc. My name is all over the blog, take the time to find it and use it. It makes things much friendlier and immediately shows that you are taking this seriously.

No.2 – Do your topic research…

Every day I receive an email from a blogger suggesting that they cover a topic that has already been covered on The Social Penguin Blog. For the love of penguins please make sure you have actually read the content before pitching. Easy right?

No.3 – Don’t cry if an editor asks you to change something…

I recently received an email back from a blogger that I had given some very constructive criticism to. I liked their post, but it just needed some refinement…

Hi Mike,

I feel a little insulted that you have given negative feedback on my post, I spent a lot of time working on it and feel reluctant to spend more time making the chances you have suggested. If you want it as I sent it, then fine, if not I withdraw my post and am likely to stop reading your blog.

Mr X

Come on. Really? Sad thing is it would have been a great post, but if you can’t take a little heat, you need to get out the game. Or something like that.

No.4 – Offer a different angle and be up to date…

Some say there is nothing really new in marketing. When it comes to social media and the wider digital landscape there is one heck of a lot of content out there. Ensure that you are offering something different, give useful advice, be controversial. Just please make it different. Oh yeah, one more thing, don’t offer to cover a new network, app or start-up 4-5 days after the rest of the web has covered it. Snooze, lose etc.

No.5 – Include a bio and all relevant links…

Editors tend to be busy people, help them out a little by including a short bio that includes links to your site/social media profiles etc. Talking of links, if (you should be) you are linking to external sources within your blog post, make it easy for the editor to know where to link to. A simple way of doing this is like so:

‘The fact is that the iPad < (link to http://www.apple.com/ipad) is still the dominating force in the tablet world.’

No.6 Speak proper…

The first thing an editor may know about your writing is the email you send. Please make sure it is well laid out and that your spelling and grammar is up to scratch. That goes for the post you submit too, don’t make an editor fix basic mistakes. Disclaimer – I don’t profess to be a spelling and grammar Jedi master.

No7. Make sure your approach email includes…

  • A little something about you and what you do for a living
  • A topic idea and why you think it will appeal to the readership of the blog
  • Links to examples of your work (where possible, everyone has to start somewhere)

Attention PR pros!

The vast majority of these tips apply to blogger outreach too. Take note. For example, the email I received yesterday from an international hotel chain didn’t quite cut it…

Hello,

Please cover our video, it has had 100k views and is viral.

I swear that was it. Deleted.

I hope these tips were useful and your blogging future is rosy. Why not share your tips in the comments below?

Mike


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Filed Under: Guest Blogging, Social Media Skills Tagged With: , , ,

Brand #Fail and How to Regain your Social Media Composure [INFOGRAPHIC]

September 19, 2011 By 2 Comments

How many brand related crisis events can you remember that have played out in the fast-paced arena of social media?

There was the Habitat one, the Vodafone one, the other Vodafone one, the Halfords one, the Paperchase one. Then there was the Dominos one, the United Airlines one and the Nestle one and many more besides. They all had an impact, maybe just a flash-in-the-pan but an impact of a pejorative nature nonetheless. The long-tail impact is another blog post for another day.

A crisis may happen and how you handle it is critical to your brand equity. No business has been brought to its knees by social media alone but when you look at the social media data behind a crisis situation, you can also see the results and impact of the type of response a brand has had to return increased (and usually negative) volume to the baseline.

The infographic plays out the story of three notorious #fail events. If you would like further insight into this analysis or an eBook on Reputation Management, then take a look over here. Be sure to leave a comment below on how you feel certain brands handled their social media #fail crisis.

The Fail Trail

The Fail Trail Infographic

Now that’s what you call a long infographic! Thanks to James Ainsworth at Alterian for the post!

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Filed Under: Social Media Marketing Tagged With: ,

The Huffington Post UK Launches Social Media Opinion Tool

September 16, 2011 By Leave a Comment

The Huffington Post UK has today launched ‘The Gauge’, a tool that will allow readers to give a simple opinion on one of the biggest stories of the day. The user can simply give an ‘agree’ or ‘disagree’ vote, however this can then easily be spread  out on to Twitter, using #agree or #disagree and a link back to The Gauge, allowing that person’s followers to weigh in with their opinions.

The Huffington Post UK launches The Gauge

The app then aggregates Twitter feedback and displays it within the page. Facebook can also be used by the voter to share with their friends and gather the thoughts of their dearly beloveds. The opinions from across the social web are also augmented by the opinions of the bloggers that make up The Huffington Post community.

A clever way to get your content out there 

We think this is a smart move that will ultimately help raise awareness of The Huffington Post UK to a wide reaching audience, by using the contrasting user-ships of Facebook and Twitter, they are ensuring a mixed slice of the population can be reached. Of course, this depends on people taking the time to vote and then share. For further details on The Gauge, read their blog post here.

We will certainly be keeping an interested eye on the progress of The Gauge. Is this something you are likely to spend time doing or are you already giving your opinions in too many places?

Enjoying reading The Social Penguin Blog? Why not subscribe to our RSS, follow us on Twitter or join Dave on Facebook.

Filed Under: Technology Tagged With: ,

Social Media Week 2011 Coming To Glasgow! (Sept 19th – 23rd)

September 6, 2011 By 5 Comments

Social Media Week will be hitting Glasgow on September 19th, with a jam-packed series of events filling each day up until September 23rd. There will be something for everyone, from one-man bands, SMEs, third sector organisations and corporations, the variety of events shows how much the digital community in Glasgow has savoured the chance to shine.

The Big Partnership Social Media Speed Consulting

On September 21st at 10am in the Wellington Room at the Grand Central Hotel, I will be taking part in Social Media Speed Consultancy with my colleagues from The BIG Partnership (Allan Barr and Suzanne Fairbairn). This is a chance for anyone to come along, sit down with one of the team and pose them a social media question. Facebook more like Faceache? Bogged down in blogging? Twitter making you feel like a Twit? Pop in and see us, no question is too big or too small.

Please do register here and we look forward to seeing you!

The Be Good Be Social Surgery for the Third Sector

If you are involved in the Third Sector , we can recommend the event from Be Good Be Social, they are holding a surgery session on Wed 21st from 8am and is free to charities, social entrepreneurs and community groups. For full details and registration, see here.

If you can’t make it to the events, be sure to follow the Twitter hashtag for the event - #SMWGLA

Social Media Week Glasgow schedule

Enjoy Social Media Week, and I hope to see you on Wed 21st for some speed consulting!

Follow @mike_mcgrail

Social Media Week, Glasgow 2011

 

Filed Under: Events Tagged With:

Book Review – ‘No Bullshit Social Media’ by Jason Falls & Erik Deckers

September 6, 2011 By 7 Comments

Everyone knows how valuable a marketing tool Social Media is right? Wrong! There are still hundreds of thousands of business owners out there using all sorts of excuses not to implement a Social Media strategy. Jason Falls and Erik Deckers believe reading their new book ‘No Bullshit Social Media’ will change the minds of these crazy people. Using an “All business, No-hype” approach, their secret ingredient is one which should appeal to all business people; they’re going to help you monetize your actions online!

No Bullshit Social Media

Written by Falls (Founder of the ‘Social Media Explorer’) and Deckers (Owner of ‘Professional Blog Services’), ‘No Bullshit Social Media’ is one of 2011’s most anticipated releases in Social Media circles. The authors’ knowledge and experience speaks for it-self and is reflected through the content, which offers fantastic advice, in a way which is easy to digest. Take their definition of Social Media Marketing for example; they manage to cut down a complicated process, into one, easy to understand sentence – “Exceeding customer expectations, often but not always, in the online world, through human connection and relationship building”.

Although the book is an excellent read for anyone with an interest in Social Media, it is undoubtedly targeted at professional people who question the practicality of ‘SocMed’ as a business tool. Falls and Deckers have therefore been very clever in the way the book is set out. Instead of just stating how productive the use of Social Media can be, they confront the excuses often used by businesses for an inactive approach. For example:

“Our customers don’t use social media.”
“People will say bad things about us.”
“It could damage the company’s reputation.”

Using well thought out case studies and stripped back advice, these three ‘excuses’, amongst others, are tackled head on, making it an invaluable read for any business owners with a sceptical view of social media.

Our Favourite Thing About The Book - 

What we liked best about ‘No Bullshit Social Media’ is its ability to develop the readers’ understanding of why social media is such a useful tool, particularly in a professional context. Every business knows it exists, and most know that they should give it a go, but they don’t really understand why. Put simply, it’s like when you’re younger and you’re studying for your foreign language exam. We could all memorise what we were supposed to say in the ‘speaking’ part, but we never really understood the theory behind the translation. This book is like a really good French teacher!

Our Least Favourite Thing About The Book -

Not so much a least favourite aspect of the book, more like something we think could jeopardise its selling potential – surely the duo are taking a big chance by using a swear word in the title. I know what you’re thinking, I sound like my Gran! However the problem is that Jason and Erik are targeting professional people who don’t use/understand social media and a chunk of them will undoubtedly be more ‘conservative’ business owners, with a more ‘traditional’ professional outlook, which doesn’t involve the use of bad language at work. I think a lot of the target audience will therefore be reluctant to pick this book up off the shelf, purely because of the front cover.

Worth A Read?

Absolutely! As I say, don’t be put off by a teeny-weeny swear word. The content is fantastic and it really does tackle all of the common misconceptions people have about the dangers of using social media for business. We highly recommend ‘No Bullshit Social Media’ to our readers.

Review – 8 Penguins (out of a possible 10)

But a copy on Amazon here!

What do you think about the book’s title? Are you put off by the swearing, or do you think its eye-catching front cover will help separate the book from its competitors? Let us know your thoughts… 

Euan 

 

Filed Under: Book Reviews Tagged With: , ,

Are Corporates Still Struggling to Get Social Media? [STATS]

September 2, 2011 By 7 Comments

This is a guest post from Harry Rollason of usefulsocialmedia.com - be sure to download the presentations from BestBuy and Boingo, very useful indeed.

The rise of social media has changed customer service beyond recognition.

In today’s competitive landscape, customer service is more important than ever. A company’s reputation for satisfying their customers has never been so valuable.

It’s worth pointing out that it takes three times as much internal resources to acquire a new customer as it does to retain one. In these lean times it puts an awful lot of pressure on companies to ensure retention rates are as high as possible. And good customer service is a great tool to do this.

But are companies getting it? Does it look like big corporates are responding to this change in the landscape?

The short answer is no:

  • Over 58% of tweeters who have tweeted about a bad experience have never received a response from the offending company
  • 55% of consumers expect a response the same day to an online complaint – yet only 29% receive one
  • 43% of consumers say that companies should use social media to solve customers’ problems

Getting it? (credit - http://the-space-in-between.com)

These statistics lay out clearly how the game has changed. Customers will no longer be happy with ‘old style’ customer service. To satisfy your customers, it’s essential to have a responsive social media presence.

To be fair, things are changing. By the end of the year, 75% of US-based companies expect to use social media for customer service. It’s a reaction to the changing game. Gone are the days when social media was all about marketing through Twitter and Facebook. It’s now an integral tool to ensure you are responsive not reactive, contactable not aloof and authentic not robotic. And increasingly, it’s about solving customer’s issues in real time through social channels, showing your dedication and transparency to your customers.

I ramble I know, as I have a tendency of doing, but there is a reason for my rant. On my return back to the office last week – having recently returned from #CSMSF and #CSMNY – I stumbled across some great examples of companies embracing the power of social media for customer service and I thought I would share them with you. It looks like companies are trying to solve this problem, but aren’t quite there yet. So maybe I can help.

We’ve got some free presentations from Gina Debogovich, Director and Social Media Leader from BestBuy – on how BestBuy have rolled out Twelpforce and made it company policy. And Baochi Nguyen, PR and Social Media Manager from Boingo on the best ways to create a customer service centric policy at your company – all interesting stuff!

You can grab a copy of both presentations by heading here.

Or if you would rather talk than read – then connect with me at @HRollasonUSM or drop some feedback in the comments below!

Filed Under: Social Media Customer Service Tagged With: ,