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Visibility

2010-03-01T20:52:00.002-05:00

One of the many reasons your company should consider incorporating Social Media into your current marketing program…. Visibility. More and more people are engaging in social media each day. This provides you with an attentive audience at your finger tips (literally). The first step to gaining visibility is to determine where your target market is hanging out on-line (Facebook, Twitter, etc.), then you simply engage in the conversation. Having an active presence on the right social media sites, will allow you the opportunity to interact with your clients, gain valuable feedback and answer questions that may arise regarding your products or services. Not only are you reaching a much larger audience than with traditional marketing methods, but the connections you are making are much more powerful.

Social Media – The Next Dimension in Customer Service

2009-12-27T11:58:00.002-05:00

Many companies are reluctant to take the plunge into social media marketing. However, these companies will begin to realize over the coming months and years that they cannot afford to avoid this powerful venue for reaching new clients and maintaining happy ones.

We’ve all had a bad customer service experience at one time or another. So what did we do? We called the customer service department for assistance. Didn’t get good results via phone support? We shared our frustrations with our friends and family. Basically, we utilized our right to use bad “word of mouth” advertising to let everyone we know we were unhappy. So, what if we take that scenerio to the social networking world? When someone posts frustration about bad customer service the reach is much greater. Instead of sharing bad experiences with a few dozen people, you can now spread this message to a much larger, world wide audience.

As Erik Qualman discusses in his book Socialnomics, there was a gentleman getting nowhere in dealing with Comcast customer service via the telephone, so he went to the internet to vent. Not long after the he submitted his posts, a friend began to redistribute his message, and so on. Within about 20 minutes, he was contacted by Comcast and his problem was solved the next day. If Comcast was not active on social media and never saw the post, it could have caused much greater damage to their image. So basically, by taking a proactive approach to social media, companies like Comcast can take advantage of the opportunity to turn unsatisfied customers into happy ones.

Of course, the true answer is to provide exceptional customer service and fix the problems before they hit the social media realm, which could have the opposite effect.. However, we all know that you can’t make everyone happy all the time. There are going to be instances, from time to time, when the customer is not satisfied for whatever reason. In this scenario, damage control is key and being proactive on the social media scene is an easy, inexpensive way to control these situations. The point is, if your customers (happy or not) are on the social networks, you should be too!

If you want to truly provide great customer service, you should include social media as an extension of your customer service department. Bad comments about your company can be more damaging than they were back in the days before social media. Your on-line customer service effort is simply one aspect of your reputation management plan. Do you have a plan? Is it effective?

5 Reasons Why Your Business Should Embrace Social Media…

2009-11-22T21:58:00.004-05:00

Is your traditional marketing plan working for you? TV viewers today are using DVRs to record their favorite shows and skipping through commercials. Satellite radio with limited commercials is impacting the radio waves. Newspaper subscriptions are dwindling every day. So how are you supposed to reach your target market? Answer: You have to go to them. By embracing social media you can reach your clients and a countless number of potential customers with great results. Below are five reasons why you should be using social media today.

Visibility. As more and more people begin to engage through social media each day, you have an attentive audience at your finger tips (literally). By becoming active in the social media realm, you will widen your audience by leaps and bounds over any other traditional marketing methods.
Reputation Management. Whether tweeting, blogging or posting on Facebook, people are talking about everything you can image. So, what do you think they are saying about your industry, your product, your services or better yet…. Your company. By being active in social media, you can monitor and actively respond to these conversations.
Drive Traffic to Your Website. We’ve all heard “if you build it, they will come.” When you launched your website, you learned quickly that this statement is not true on the internet. You have to point visitors in your direction. Social media is a great way to drive traffic to your website for information, tips, content, etc.
Connect Directly with Your Clients. Using social media provides another dimension to your customer service department. Engage. Assist. Interact. Listen. Basically build the relationship with your clients (and potential clients) with direct input and feedback from your target audience.
Brand Recognition and Position. Branding your company is important. Social media is a relatively inexpensive way to market your brand. So, why not do it. Chances are your competition is. So, can you afford not to?