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How to Write Effective Tweets

May 31, 2013 By Leave a Comment

140 characters. Talk about a pair of pixilated handcuffs! But that limit shouldn’t be seen as an issue, it should be seen as an opportunity. It can be hard to get your point across within that limit, never mind getting people to actually act upon your tweets, but with the right approach, writing effective tweets will become like second nature. Read on for some key pointers…

Think message first!

Twitter moves at lighting pace – that means your tweets have to catch the eye! Lets imagine a scenario within which you’ve written a blog post and you want to share it via Twitter. What should your tweet look like? I’ll start with a bad example:

In my new blog post, I’ve written tips on how to write effective tweets so that your tweets get noticed – http://bit.ly/11sOdHu

Why is this bad?

  • It doesn’t hit the reader with a key piece of information first
  • It rambles
  • The language is clumsy

How can you make this tweet more effective? Start with the headline of your post:

How to Write Effective Tweets -  http://bit.ly/11sOdHu < essential reading for digital marketers #marketing 

The use of ‘how to’ lets the reader know that they are going to (hopefully!) learn something by reading the post. I then tell them exactly what they will learn. The link is nice and early in the tweet, meaning they don’t necessarily need to read the rest of the tweet. By saying ‘essential reading’, I’m making the reader feel like they must read this, or potentially miss out on key information. I’m playing on their minds a little. Notice I’ve only used one hashtag, I advise never to use more than two. There’s also plenty of characters left, meaning users can add a note if they want to when re-tweeting etc.

Always think key message first!

Offer value from within the tweet

Try taking a key point from your post and including it in the tweet:

Never use more than two hashtags in a tweet! More great tips here – http://bit.ly/11sOdHu #twitter #writing

This approach allows you to give the reader a valuable piece of info, and entices them to read more. Again, that tweet leaves 32 characters free. The 140 characters isn’t a target!

Don't be scared to mix it up! Image used under CC via MIKI Yoshihito on Flickr

Don’t be scared to mix it up! Image used under CC via MIKI Yoshihito on Flickr

Ask a question

Like this:

Struggling to write tweets that hit the mark? You need to read this – http://bit.ly/11sOdHu #digitalmarketing

This tweet is effective as it endeavours to identify an issue that people may have when using Twitter and offers a solution to it. Again, it uses a strong statement – ‘You need to read this’. An effective tweet with 30 characters to spare.

Invite audience participation

When you write and publish a blog post, you hope that people will not only read it, but comment on the article too. Try to spark some interaction within your tweet:

How to Write Effective Tweets -  http://bit.ly/11sOdHu < have you got any tips to share? We’d love to hear them!

Nice punchy start, link is early in the tweet and it asks a question at the end. With room to spare. Nice one!

Mix it up!

When I publish a blog post, I tend to tweet about it across the day in order to hit different timezones etc. This practice is fine, as long as there are other tweets unrelated to the post coming from you that day! Why not write a bunch of tweets that use the different approaches from above and test what works best for you in terms of clicks and re-tweets? Test and learn baby!

Good luck! Feel free to had any hints/thoughts in the comments below!


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Image used under creative commons license and via MIKI Yoshihito on Flickr.

Filed Under: Twitter Marketing Tagged With: , , , , ,

Banks Still Struggling to be Sociable

August 7, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Photo credit – telegraph.co.uk

News that the banks are scaling back their spend on social media makes for some scaremongering headlines.

‘Is This The Data That Finally Proves Social Marketing Is Bunk?‘ says Robert Tyson in the Tyson Report, and ‘Businesses are right to be turning away from social media‘ says Digital Media Editor Emma Barnett in the Telegraph.

Tyson suggests that the banks will soon ‘find’ somewhere to reinvest their savings, and that it will be in email marketing.

Barnett suggests that the transparency of social media has just added fuel to the fatcat fire, following several high-profile news stories.

Are banks a good indicator of social trends? Should business be scaling back their spend as 2013 approaches?

The problem with banks, and it happens to businesses large and small up and down the country, is that they’ve thrown too much cash at it, expecting it to extract them from between the rock and the hard place.

The marketers have convinced them they need to be doing ‘social media’ without convincing them they need to clean up their act, modernise their business practices, or use it as a ‘channel for change’.

Yes, email on the whole will, for a while yet, be a better digital marketing tool. Print and TV will continue to be lucrative for banks for some time too.

Social media would have been the perfect opportunity for banks to focus on their customers and sort out some of the negative publicity they’ve attracted, but instead, the industry is still awash with story of fat cats, big bonuses and other shareable topics. Did no one tell them social media was transparent?

I’ve seen a few people raging about their banks on Twitter recently, but have seen no responses from the corporate giants and meaningless numbers have followed through their threats and jumped ship.

Yes, social media is an amazing customer service tool, is does pretty well at marketing too if you know how to sell your products.

But at the end of the day, if you don’t inspire any confidence in your customers, they’ll simply lose interest, pun intended.

Social media is an enhancer. If you’re doing things right, Twitter et al are great for spreading the good word, and if you’re doing things badly, that will spread too. Scaling down social media spend is just another knee-jerk reaction to a knee-jerk reaction.

The actual problem lies elsewhere.

Could banks have done things differently to see more success on social media? Do you care whether your bank is on Twitter or not? Leave a comment and let us know!

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Filed Under: Digital Marketing, Online Measurement, Social Media Customer Service, Social Media Marketing, Social Networks, Twitter Marketing Tagged With: , , , , ,

Social Measurement – How Do You Track Your ROI? [SURVEY]

June 18, 2012 By 8 Comments

If you spend much time chatting about social media marketing then the question of measurement and ROI has surely come up. Are you tracking the benefits that using social media as part of your marketing mix brings? What’s more important: qualitative or quantitative KPIs? How do you put a value on engagement? I’ve heard loads of answers to these questions from a variety of “experts” but am curious to know how you go about measuring your social successes and efforts:

1 – Do you measure the success of your social media marketing?

2 – Do you care if you can tie it to a measurable KPI (like sales)?

3 – Are you more concerned about your reach or the quality of engagement?

4 – What measurement tools do you use?

5 – Are you satisfied that you can justify social media spend?

Would be very interested to hear your thoughts! Please leave answers in the comments section below. If you would prefer to email your response ( we will publish your responses anonymously in the comments section) please feel free – Click Here


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Filed Under: Digital Marketing, Online Measurement, Social Media Marketing, Social Media Surveys, Social Networks, Surveys, Twitter Marketing Tagged With: , , ,

How to Deal With Online Reviews

May 8, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Image credit - freedigitalphotos.net

Let’s face it, online reviews are a staple now. Often times, if you Google a storefront business, apartment rental company, or service industry company, the first page is bound to turn up review results. Be it from Google Places, Yelp, Apartment Ratings or others, people are taking the recommendations of others to judge your business. What previously would have been only local word of mouth is now quite possibly the first thing prospective customers will see representing your business. If someone searches “Your business name reviews,” it is highly likely that the reviews will even show up before your own website’s listing in the results, depending on the depth of your SEO. If you fall into the category of a company that has a customer base of raving fans, this will certainly only help you. If you are a company that has inadvertently provided poor experiences to some very vocal customers, this could potentially stave off new customers, even if those few instances do not reflect the typical experience of your customers. So what do you do? You make your presence known and join in that conversation! Let’s talk tips on responding to online reviews. The slow, painful decline from red to yellow: 

Responding to bad reviews

Don’t over react! How you handle bad reviews and criticism is crucial, but is also the toughest part. Someone is criticizing your life’s work, your passion, your well-thought business practices, and that can hurt. You can NOT, however, get into a screaming match online. If you can’t step back and look at the situation objectively, get someone else to handle the responses for you. This is especially important if the response has to be public (which is the case for all Google Places reviews and some user-designated Yelp reviews). Arguing online never gets anyone to a better place, EVER. You WILL indefinitely come out looking like the bad guy. Remember, people are checking these reviews because they aren’t familiar with your business, and they will inevitably side with other customers. Humble yourself, thank the customer for visiting and reviewing, and try to reel them back in. With the ability to post reviews via mobile devices, they may have hastily posted a review in the heat of the moment. Perhaps with some reflection and your calm response, they may change or remove their review entirely. Even if they don’t, you’ve shown that you care enough to make the effort, and that goes a long way in the eyes of someone who knows nothing about your business.

Responding to good reviews

Don’t ignore them! Sure, you may be thinking, “It’s already good, why do I need to do anything else?” This is where many business owners go wrong. These good reviewers are your fan club, your brand advocates, and they ought to be commended. They didn’t have to go online and tell everyone how great of an experience they had. In fact, many people don’t. Many simply expect to have good experiences and don’t feel the need to boast about them. So few businesses respond to good reviews that people are shocked when you do. Literally. I’ve seen so many people come back with “Wow. It’s so awesome to see a business owner who actually cares what people think. I’ll definitely be back now!” And that, my friends, is good old fashioned loyalty. Most reviewers just want to be heard, so stroke that ego a little. It can pay off.

Compensation

Don’t make it your first line of defense! Often times, the knee jerk reaction to bad reviews is to give something for free. I say don’t do this unless you absolutely have to. Refer back to two things I just mentioned.

1. People sometimes write reviews in the heat of the moment.

2. People often just want to be heard.

Responding to a negative review and asking the customer to give you another opportunity to WOW them can sometimes be enough to encourage another chance. Feel customers out. After an initial response, if they are still hesitant, then perhaps offer something. However, if in their review they specifically state that they would never come back to this establishment or never do business with you again, you may try upping the ante right off the bat. Most importantly, ask the customer to revise their review to reflect their new experience if they do in fact give you a second chance.

Working with Yelp’s filtering system

It’s like trying to find sasquatch riding a unicorn over a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. I’ve yet to meet anyone who completely understands the secret sauce to Yelp’s filtration system. Some reviews that get filtered are obvious. Things like “posted by the business owner” or “violates terms” make sense. Sometimes, however, completely legitimate reviews from completely legitimate customers get filtered, and it sometimes seems the reason is lack of engagement with Yelp itself. There’s a great article here that offers up some tips on ways to potentially get around Yelp’s system and get some of the good reviews to be unfiltered. The thing about filtered reviews is that they don’t count toward your overall rating. If you have 2 good reviews and 10 terrible reviews showing up, with 8 more good reviews filtered, your rating is awful, even though you have 8 completely legitimate customers who gave you great reviews.

The most important part is that you are engaging with your customers and being part of the conversation. Be sure that you’ve claimed your business on Yelp and Google Places, engage users online and encourage those that visit you or use your services to give you a review. People are going to talk about your business, so you might as well be part of the conversation. The downside is that this can be very time consuming. At Main Street Hub, we can help you with online reviews and work to get your online reputation back to where it belongs by responding to reviews and working to help you get filtered reviews to show up. This is just one of the services that we offer. Check out our website for more information. Right now, U.S businesses only.


What are your experiences with online reviews? Any horror or success stories? Anything else you’d add to the list above? Chime in below!

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Filed Under: Consumer Opinion, Digital Marketing, Guest Blogging, Local Focus, Online Measurement, Social Media Marketing Tagged With: , , , , ,

The Truth About Peer Recommendations

May 3, 2012 By Leave a Comment

If you have been getting friendly with the likes of Klout Perks, Yelp and BzzAgent then you’ve likely noticed that there is some serious swag you can get your hands on these days (and I don’t just mean landing a job). But is this just internet’s way of saying “I Love You” or is there a less touching force at play?

BzzAgent describes their process as the chance to try “cool new products, share deals with friends and influence top brands.” But actually it’s your network that is being influence by your promotional efforts, not the brand. Facebook has made a pretty good business from your influence with their “Sponsored Stories” advertising program.

From Facebook Sponsored Stories

Your Facebook activity and corresponding influence is a hot commodity. But as most of us have heard at this point, if you’re not paying for the product then you are the product! And that is certainly true with the content you publish online.

Free is good, right?

Privacy issues aside, if you’re being rewarded with a free product or service then surely it’s you’re the one getting the most benefit out of the transaction, right? Sadly no. Peer recommendations are the most effective form of marketing*, far more effective than print, TV or online marketing. And harnessing peer recommendations, likes, pluses and shares on social sites is big business. Though the majority of marketing budgets are still being spent on TV and print, there is a noticeable shift towards platforms with social integration. Trust in traditional marketing has fallen so drastically in the last decade that it only a matter of time until marketers figured out what to replace it with. Ever notice how keen Starbucks is to give you access to free wifi while they’re “rewarding” you for being such a lovely customer?

I like giving reviews!

If you like giving your opinion but would like to maintain more control over your influence then stick to sites like Yelp and Trip Advisor where you have plenty of space to give your what for and the reviews can remain as anonymous as you would like.

*Ninety-two percent of consumers around the world say they trust earned media, such as word-of-mouth and recommendations from friends and family, above all other forms of advertising (SOURCE: Nielson “Global Consumers’ Trust in ‘Earned’ Advertising Grows in Importance” 

Image credit – www.bzzagent.co.uk/

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Filed Under: Consumer Opinion, Klout, Social Media Influence, Social Media Marketing Tagged With: , , , , , ,

5 Social Media Objections and How to Beat Them

May 1, 2012 By 2 Comments

This post first appeared on my slot over on the great Sprout Insights blog.

Have you ever tried to convince a business owner, or someone in a senior position at your company/employer about the merits of using social media as part of a marketing and communications mix? If the answer to that question is yes, I can bet that you came up against one of the objections below! Being able to counteract those objections is a great weapon to have in the quest for social media adoption – this post will help.

1 – ‘I don’t want to open up our business to negativity’

Ah, that old chestnut! A business should be committed to delivering the best possible experience and service to its customers. Yes, actively using social media platforms may well give people the opportunity to tell you about a less than flattering issue, however, wouldn’t you rather know about that issue? From experience, I know that many modern consumers won’t bother to make a complaint via ‘traditional’ routes such as telephone or email – they want to be able to make a quick connection via Twitter, Facebook etc. Give them the tools to be able to do that. Being active in social media is a fantastic way to uncover insight and opinion with regards to your business. If you have the right processes in place, you can take a negative experience and turn it into a positive one, all via social media. Who knows, that may even lead to a future purchase or a retained customer. Cool huh?

2 – ‘We don’t have anything to say’

I’ve heard this one time and time again and each time, I’ve managed to uncover a number of things that could be used as the basis of impactful content. A few years ago, when businesses really started to adopt social media, many of them used it as an opportunity to give a sneak peak behind the scenes of their company. This is becoming less and less common now and I can’t understand why. Focus on the people that make things happen at your business and you add a human edge to your brand. Share pics of them doing what they do best, interview them, allow them to be the voice of your organisation (with some structure!) and before you know it you are saying a lot! Product news, competitions, polls, live Q&As etc are all simple ways to create meaningful content, or opportunites for your audience to open up a dialogue with you. After all, this isn’t all about you talking! It’s called social media for a reason.

3 – ‘We don’t have time’

Does the business in question have people within it that take care of customer service? Perhaps they take phone calls, respond to emails or even letters (remember those?). Is their time as efficient as possible? I’ve worked with a company to train their customer service staff in the use of Twitter. Now those staff respond to queries and issues in-between calls and email responses. This approach ensures the business is using staff who live and breath customer service and are at the heart of social media efforts, but also alleviates the need to have dedicated social staff. In an ideal world a business would have people with the sole purpose of delivering service via the social media platforms, however that is an understandable step too far for many businesses.

4 – ‘Social Networks are for Kids’

Wrong! Take a look at these charts from the guys at Kiss Metrics and take in to consideration the age breakdown of Facebook and Twitter users.

Facebook Users By Age (via Kiss Metrics)

Twitter Usage by Age (via Kiss Metrics)

Armed with those stats, you can’t go wrong!

5 – ‘We Can’t Prove It’s Working’

The ROI (Return on Investment) from social media question is one that is failing to go away. The web is full of debates around the subject and it would be a waste of pixels for me to spend too much time giving advice on this issue. However, if I can give one piece of advice, it would be that the thinking must move away from the ‘bottom line’. Yes social media can effect sales and revenue (and ultimately should do if done well) however getting hung up on that is the reason that may social media strategies fall by the wayside at an early stage. Shift thinking to customer retention, sentiment increase, queries answered versus pre-social media introduction, product feedback and advocate creation and you are well on the way to have a nice round ROI picture. For more on this, read ‘Social Media Isn’t Free, But It’s Worth It’.

There are many other objections out there! What have you been stared down with when trying to make people understand the importance and power of social media? Have you been successful in changing those views? Please do tell us in the comments below.

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Filed Under: Social Media Marketing Tagged With: , ,

Rapid Response – 3 Tips For Using Social Media in Financial Services

March 29, 2012 By 1 Comment

I’m currently sat on my regular bus commute and decided to ask my Twitter followers if there is a burning social media question they would like me to answer in the time it takes (about 60 mins) for my journey to end. My pals at @NectreGroup asked – ‘Do you have any tips on the use of social media in financial services?’ I’ve worked ‘in-house’ on social media at a large pensions company so have hands-on experience of this. Read on for some quick tips…

1 – Use social media as a channel for education – Products like pensions are far from sexy, however saving for the future is rather important. At times the options can pretty confusing, use social media to reach audiences that will appreciate the more laid back approach that the platforms allow. Think how you could appeal to demographics that need help such as young adults or new parents. Take an educationary angle and don’t be too ‘salesy’ Great content will work well for you while building relationships and help to ensure you’re front of mind when a person needs to invest in a product. Oh, and try and make the content something that people are going to want to watch, read and share. Old chubby guys in pinstripes and bowler hats is not the way to go.

2 – Use social media to build thought leadership - the financial services industry is constantly in the spot light, opinions are always strong and it’s very rare that an opportunity to be the voice of reason doesn’t exist. Get the people who are really in the know at your organisation to regualrly comment on news stories, industry trends etc. Use a well designed and structured blog as the vehicle for this. If you react quickly (take your work to your favourite Compliance team member!) and with great copy, you will start to become a trusted source for opinion. Not to mention the wonders that frequent and relevant content can do for your SEO!

3 – Use social media to build relationships - if you are a IFA looking to find clients to advise, becoming a master at a platform such as Twitter could be a major weapon in your (one nil to the) arsenal. First thing to do is start curating industry news, interesting lifestyle based articles etc and make yourself a resource for your (soon to be) followers. Acting as a filter of great content is an effective way to build trust. If you are creating your own then all the better! Remember to use relevant hashtags (no more than two in a tweet, one ideally) to help people discover your tweets. Once you are in the swing of curating content, start using Twitter advanced search to find people in your locale that are talking about financial services, or even tweeting and asking for advice on products etc. Follow them with a view to getting a follow back and then seek a dialogue. Never ever be to pushy or intrusive, take it easy and be genuinely helpful. You’ll start to see results if you really take the time it requires.

The tight regulation of the FS industry clearly means that you have to be careful when it comes to what you discuss on social media. It can also mean a dynamic approach can be hard to take due to compliance turnaround. Don’t let this put you off, look at it as a challenge and as a catalyst for great content.

Phew! Hope that was useful!

Please note, this was written in Evernote, on an iPad, on a shaky bus on pot hole ridden roads, so excuse any spelling/grammar errors and lack of links/images please! This first appeared on my Tumblr.

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Filed Under: Social Media Marketing Tagged With: , , ,

Why Social Media Imagery is More Important Than Ever

March 19, 2012 By 1 Comment

A picture is worth a thousand words. A video perhaps even more. As the social media channel matures, there is a clear increase in focus on the use of imagery, both still and video, across the established and emerging networks.

The Instagram and Pinterest Effect

I’m not going to talk about the rise of Instagram and Pinterest, don’t worry! The reason they are included as a key part of this post is the clear and rather obvious fact that they are built upon a foundation of imagery. The people that partake in these networks see an image as their first interaction with a piece of content, yes there may be comments attached to the image but it is the photograph (or video in the case of Pinterest) that grabs the initial attention. That image then (hopefully) compels the user to take an action. This could be as simple as a ‘like’ or a deeper action such as clicking the image on Pinterest in order to visit the site that it originated from. What happens then can clearly range from an actual product purchase to a further share on to another network via social sharing buttons – Twitter or Facebook for example. Both of these actions are highly desirable for a brand or business. This all points to the fact that images are becoming an essential on-boarding function.

Facebook Timeline

March 30th is looming and any brand on Facebook better have their Timeline in order. What is one the key components of the Timeline? Yup, a big fat ‘cover image’ that sits a top your TL (that’s what the cool kids are calling it) like a beacon in the night. Your cover image may well be the first impression your business makes on the Facebook audience. If it sucks, they may not proceed any further. If it catches their eye and puts across something special about your brand, it may well be the start of a beautiful relationship. More on-boarding. When it comes to user Timelines on Facebook, images play a huge and attractive part of them. If a user takes a snap on Instagram and shares it via Facebook (on to their Timeline), said image is placed in its full size glory slap bang in the middle of their Timeline. There is real potential there. I’m saying no more, you clever people can work out how to make use of that!

Credit - http://www.zazzle.com

Words Are Still Important!

This blog post will contain over 450 words once complete. It will also include an image. There is a fair chance that that image will offer you very little in the way of information. The real value (assuming you have gained any from it of course) is in the good old fashioned collection of letters, words and punctuation. Blogs and well-written web copy should still play an integral part of your digital communications mix.

What Next?

Be sure to consider how imagery and video will feature in your activities now and in the future. When you are planning your social media content, take the time to work out what activity will allow you to create and make use of great (emphasis on great!) imagery. If you aren’t already considering how photo-based networks like Pinterest could play a part in your strategy, then give it some time ASAP! Imagery works well across all key media consumption platforms and especially mobile. If that doesn’t sell it enough then nothing will.

How are you using imagery across social media? Have you seen great results?

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Filed Under: Instagram, Social Media Marketing, Social Media Skills Tagged With: , , , , , ,

5 Great Ways to Deal With Social Media Negativity

March 13, 2012 By 4 Comments

This post first appeared on my slot over on the great Sprout Insights blog on March 2nd.

Business owners dream of the day when everything about their product or service is perfect, their customers are super happy and that the balance sheet is constantly on the up. In reality, it can be near impossible to keep everyone happy, and the social media platforms are now a first point of complaint for many disgruntled customers or indeed prospective customers. So what do you do when faced with a negative comment? Read on for five tips that will help you smooth the way.

1 – Say Sorry

Sounds obvious right? But simply saying sorry can quickly stop a minor issue from turning in to a lengthy negativity nightmare. Take a bus company as an example (lets call it Wonder Bus). Stephanie’s bus was 10 minutes late this morning, she jumped on Twitter and posted:

‘My @wonderbus bus was 10 minutes this late, so annoying’

Note, that she isn’t actually asking a direct question, merely venting her frustration. From the Wonder Bus point of view, this doesn’t look great as this is a public grumble from a customer. From experience, a simple apology may well be enough to restore Stephanie’s faith:

‘Hello @stephanie we are really sorry to hear that your bus was late, please do let us know if you have any issues in the future’

You have apologised and let the customer know that you are there for them should there by a problem in the future. Make a private Twitter list of people that have complained, that way you can keep a track of any historical issues. Create similar lists for other key platforms too (spreadsheets etc). A simple yet effective approach.

2 – Have a Process

Clearly, not all issues will be resolved with a simple apology. When a more serious complaint comes in, you need to be in a position to deal with it effectively and quickly. Creating a simple process will aid this:

1 – Establish a dedicated point of contact within key departments – this will be the person that you flag the issue to and that will take ownership of the complaint. You need to maintain contact with them and ensure they are working to resolve the issue.

2 – Set expectations with the customer – once you’ve received initial feedback from your department you should get back to the customer and let them know when they can expect a full response. Please note, you should have already interacted with the customer, if they complaint is public in nature, aim to take it private (email or even phone) as early as possible, this not only makes it easier for the customer, but keeps any further negative details out of the public eye. Set an internal time scale rule for responding to complaints that were instigated via social media – you don’t have the time luxury that existed before the growth of social media customer communications.

3 – Respond - Once you have the relevant information, respond to the customer with a resolution. That may be an explanation of what went wrong, or perhaps an offer of a discount on future purchases, this is down to your business and how you wish to deal with complaints.

4 – Publicly resolve – While you should always attempt to communicate and come to a resolution with the customer away from the public eye, its very important to publicly resolve the issue. For example, if the initial complaint came in via your Facebook Page, you should close off the initial comment with a message such as ‘We are very happy that we have managed to help you with your issue and look forward to your future custom’. This shows your customers that you do pay attention to issues flagged via social media and that you will work to resolve them.

3 – Make Changes

The best way to avoid negativity is to not create any reason for it! By having a process in place, you will learn so much about the things that your business is not doing so well. Take that intelligence and work with key departments to make changes that will go a long way to improving your customers relations and overall sentiment around your brand.

4 – Encourage Advocacy

It may sound strange, but often customers that receive great service after an issue can be the best advocates for your brand. Nurture those relationships and the results may well be surprising. Building advocates is a huge area, but one you must have in mind at all times.

5 – Never Take Things Personally

If you are in charge of monitoring social platforms, it can be difficult to maintain calm during times of high levels of negativity. The worst possible thing you can do is react in a defensive or aggressive manner, you must maintain a helpful and reasonable approach at all times. Yes, there will be times when a customer is being unreasonable or even using ‘harsh’ language, but never, ever respond in a similar fashion!

How is your business dealing with negativity? Do you have any great tips to add? Please let us know in the comments below!

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Filed Under: Social Media Customer Service, Social Media Marketing Tagged With: , , ,

Social Media Isn’t Free, But It’s Worth It

March 8, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Don Power is the Managing Editor of Sprout Insights, a blog by the company Sprout Social, which also offers social media management software. He writes content and edits articles produced by other contributors. Don is also a Social Media Consultant and Professional Speaker. Connect with Don on Twitter: @donpower.

In response to questions about the ROI (Return on Investment) of social media, entrepreneur and social media juggernaut, Gary Vaynerchuk, is famous for his reply: “What’s the ROI of your mother?”

According to Vaynerchuk, it’s just understood that one’s mother (like social media) has an intrinsic value and trying to measure that value is unnecessary. When it comes to social media, Vaynerchuk’s advice is simply to stop measuring and start doing.

On the other hand, Mark Schaefer, social media advisor and author of “The Tao of Twitter” says: “As marketers we should measure EVERYTHING. And generally, we can. It’s imperative that businesses evaluate the resources spent on social media to determine whether those resources are producing positive results. If you’re in business, chances are you are trying your best to make a profit. If you’re using social media as part of your marketing strategy, then you need to know if that strategy is paying off.

Image credit - wildfireperformancemarketing.com

So, is the investment in social media worth it? Does it provide a positive return on investment? Whether it’s in terms of person-hours spent engaging on social media, money paid for social media management tools or additional staff, there is growing evidence to suggest that the answer is “Yes!” Here’s why.

The Myth of Free Social Media

Although participation in social media is technically free, there are still costs associated with this activity. Perhaps chief among these is the physical time it takes to engage meaningfully with your target audience.

If you haven’t assigned a dollar value to the time that you and your staff are spending on social media, you’re not alone. According to a recent survey from Awareness Inc., 57 percent of marketers said that they “have not allocated budgets to social marketing, but rely on people resources”. Yet these marketers must be realizing a positive return on investment, since in the same survey 78 percent of respondents said that “expanding social reach” will be a major marketing initiative for them in 2012. Like any form of business marketing, you have to allocate an appropriate time frame before you can expect to see results; an investment in social media is no different.

Social Media Marketing Vs. Traditional Advertising

Some business owners may still be inclined to scoff at social media and the time investment it takes to produce results. They may prefer to forego the effort of social media marketing in favor of traditional advertising instead. Not Jonathan Kervin. Since investing his time into social media marketing for his inbound marketing agency, Jonathan has seen traffic to his website increase by ten fold.

“Before social media, I would have spent upwards of $1000 a month on advertising to produce that kind of traffic,” says Kervin. When asked if he’s come out on top of the ROI equation, “Definitely!” he says.

Kervin also takes issue with those who say traditional, or even online-advertising doesn’t take the same effort or committment as social media. He says, “What about the time it takes to research and fine-tune your ads, what about split-testing different versions? This all takes time and money.” No matter what type of advertising you’re doing for your business, you have to make strategic investments to produce positive returns. Now, says Kervin, “instead of money, I invest my time.”

What many business people also tend to overlook when it comes to investing in social media is that you can create reusable social content like videos, podcasts, blog articles and so on. These marketing tools continue to promote your business long after you’ve invested the initial time to produce the content. “I’ve gotten better at social media”, says Kervin, “now that I have the learning curve out of the way.” The bonus, he says, is that “now I have all this content and it’s producing traffic for me even while I’m sleeping!”

It would seem that if you compare the time commitment of social media vs. the money committment of traditional advertising, social media has its advantages particularly if your business is on a tight budget. Factor in the hands-on marketing training and reusable advertising content you produce while investing your time in social media, and the relative dollar value of social media marketing is something a business person can no longer afford to ignore.

Facebook Fans Worth $50 Million

You may have seen the chatter on the Internet asking: “What’s a Facebook fan worth?” Well, according to beer company, New Belgium, the answer is 50 million dollars. More precisely, when the company surveyed its Facebook fan base, it calculated that each member spent an average of $260 on its products. Collectively that amounts to approximately $50.7 million in annual revenue. For an initial social media investment of $235,000 “mostly dedicated to Facebook,” that equates to a very positive endorsement of social media ROI.

Of course, not every business has the social media budget of New Belgium brewery. In fact, the Awareness Inc. survey (mentioned earlier) found that only eight percent of businesses spent over $50,000 on their social media budgets in 2011. Still, as we’ve seen in the above examples, you don’t need to break the bank to get positive results from social media.

Even if you don’t generate immediate sales from social media, there is immense business value in using these social platforms. Whether it’s increasing awareness of your business to a global audience, providing transparent customer service, or establishing relationships with future customers, the results of your social media activities are tangible, measurable, and definitely worthwhile.

[Sources: watermill3, B2C, Awareness Inc., Usa Today; Image credit: D. Sharon Pruitt]

Filed Under: Digital Marketing, Online Measurement, Social Media Marketing, Social Media Stats, Twitter Marketing Tagged With: , , , ,
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