Tag: social media marketing

Facebook Just Keeps Getting Better & Better For Business. Here’s Why.

Facebook just announced new updates that you may have already begun to notice in your business page settings.  Here are three of them that are sure to help your company’s customer service on this social media platform.

Page Responsiveness 

Remember when your page asked your to respond to messages quickly so that you could be seen as a ‘Very Responsive’ page to your followers? Well, that feature, introduced in September, is now getting a much needed upgrade.

You’ll notice if you go to your page Settings, there is a new tab called “Messaging” which gives you some information on Response Times and Instant Replies… if you’re into that sort of thing.

“Starting this month all Pages can set the average time it takes for them to reply to messages. Admins can choose to show that they respond either “within minutes,” “within an hour” “within hours” or “within a day”. Average response times for Pages are calculated for each Page automatically and the response time shown on the Page defaults to their average response time, but admins can now control what response time shows publicly on their Page. So even if a Page typically responds to messages within an hour, they can set their visible response time to within a day and set customer expectations accordingly.” 

One of the new features that I find helpful is the fact that you can now set your status to “away” so that people know that you are not currently available to respond to their message/comment. Facebook will still be rating your response time, but not when your “away” status is up, so keep that in mind!

Inbox Redesign

You might also notice changes to your Messages Inbox.   For example, you can view the bio information on person you’re speaking with for a better and more personal customer experience.


This new inbox displays an array of information about the person your are communicating with including when you last spoke. Admins can also take private notes on the conversation, so you could record their purchase history or certain preferences that person has that you’d like to remember for your next conversation. These notes are viewable to page admins only. But wait… there’s more!  You can also categorize and tag conversations to better organize your inbox… kind of like email. Pretty nifty, Facebook.

New Activity Tab 

You might not have noticed this one as Facebook used to have an Activity tab… but this tool is way better at tracking conversations on your page.

“This new tool offers admins a single place to view and respond to customer comments on both desktop and mobile. Admins can flag interactions for follow up, reply privately or mark them as done, helping them keep better track of comments in need of responses and eliminating the risk of skipping over a customer comment.” 

This one hasn’t rolled out everywhere yet, but is something to look out for as a useful tool for the future. One thing’s for sure… Facebook is still not going anywhere, at least for a while, in my opinion.Looking forward to continuing to improve business with it as long as it remains a relevant and an integral part of the marketing world.

@Stephsandy Consulting, LLC

www.stephsandyconsulting.com

SMARKETING. Let’s Discuss

So, if you’re a pun person like me, you may think that “Smarketing” stands for Smart Marketing… I sure did, (and we’re not wrong by any means.) However, the word “smarketing,” according to HubSpot, actually combines two major parts of a company, sales and marketing, into one super smart goal-oriented team.

I recently learned this when I decided to take HubSpot’s Inbound Marketing Certification Course, just for fun. (#NeverStopLearning, right?)

Although combining sales and marketing sounds like common sense, many companies start out on the right foot and then somewhere down the road get off track. Sound familiar?

SMARKETING Things To Keep In Mind:

  • Both sales and marketing should be working toward the same goals (TEAM REVENUE!!)
  • The marketing pipeline should be tied to sales quo.
  • Both should have a clear view into each other’s dashboard (or reporting.)
  • Compensation should be based on shared marketing & sales goals.
  • There needs to be continual communication & education on buyer personas. (Keeping the smarketing team on the same page when it comes to their prospects/leads/customers)

If this information interests you, please feel free to watch the video on the subject here: http://academy.hubspot.com/ic15/the-power-of-smarketing

It goes into a lot more detail, and is a great refresher on integrating sales and marketing to maximize your bottom line.

For more social media tips/tricks/everything, follow me on Twitter: @Stephsandy

Facing the Truth about Social Media and Advertising.

I remember when social media was (or should I say felt?) completely free. Even for businesses that wanted to join in on the action, it was the unpaid medium of the future!

Speaking of future, a lot has changed since 2004.. And, it’s funny because I still have clients that don’t want to spend money on social media marketing. I’m here to say that it is time. You can no longer afford to NOT spend money on social media. This is my advice:

PAY TO PLAY

Just because things have changed, doesn’t mean that social media is no longer the way to go… it just means that you must “pay to play.” And trust me, you want to be in this ballgame. Social media companies today have targetable mass audiences that you can easily reach if you make the investment to do so.

EXPERIMENT

If you’ve never done any type of social media advertising before, how do you know what works for your target audience? You may have an idea – and that’s great! Start there. Social media platforms have built-in analytics that show you the likes, comments, shares, favorites, mentions, retweets, etc. so that you can see how well your ad is performing in real time. Find out which ads work best and then put more money into either, those ads or ads with similar qualities. It’s all about tweaking until you find the best mix of placement, content and copy for your specific target audience.

STAY TRUE TO YOU

Just because you’re experimenting with content, doesn’t mean that you should completely diverge from what your company or brand is all about. Videos and memes of kittens are great, but what do they say about your company? Stick to relevant, valuable content that is close to your company’s heart. This forces you to get creative, and that’s a good thing! If you stay true to you, you’ll find that the interaction you receive is quality interaction from people that support your business. That’s the kind of engagement you’re looking for in a social media marketing campaign.

DO THE MATH

Know what your marketing goals are before you start your ad campaigns so that you can really calculate your return on investment. Social media has the potential to help you in so many areas of the sales funnel, but which ones are you focusing on? Being able to measure the impact of your ads will reassure you that you’re putting your money in the right place.

It’s really not that scary, I promise. Good luck!

–Stephanie Amy

Taking the “Blah” out of Blogging.

Today I am making a presentation about “How To Write A Blog Post,” which is kind of ironic, because I hardly write blog posts myself…

Yet, I am very capable of writing them, as are you! I think we all just “get a little busy” and take the easy route of posting articles or subject matters on our social media outlets that we want to share. I am 100% guilty of this.  But just because a blog post should be longer than 140 characters, doesn’t mean it has to be boring!

So how do we find the time to sit down and write about what we know and what we think others would want to know in a way that, shall I say, “gets people going?”

Get Organized

Step #1: Organize your brain thoughts. When you are able to pick ONE good thing to write about; a blog post becomes so much less daunting.

Step #2: Know your audience. Who are you talking to? What are their interests? Put yourself in their shoes and ask yourself if what you’re writing about is at all interesting… Be honest!

Step #3: Write an introduction that connects with the people you’re talking to. Grab their attention with a story, a joke, a relatable scenario, a SUPER surprising fact or statistic. Make the connection and then, keep going! You have more to say and they’ve followed you this far.

Step #4: Create an outline. What are the most important things that you want to say and how are you going to say them in a way that is not too overwhelming to the reader? Create sections, lists, bullet points – do something to break up the information in a way that is easy on the eye. We all really appreciate that, right?

Step #5: “Fill in the blanks” of your outline. Just start writing – you can always go back and edit. (And did I mention, you should? We’ll get to that.)

Step #6: PROOFREAD. Go back and actually read what you wrote. I know this seems like common sense, but you have no idea how many people do not go back and put their eyeballs on the things that they’ve written. This isn’t Gmail, there is no undo button – so before you publish a post with a TON of typos, do yourself a favor and re-read the whole thing. In fact, if you have a buddy or coworker that wouldn’t mind taking a glance at it; even better! This will save you time (and embarrassment?) in going back and correcting things that you or one of your readers found after the fact.

Step #7: Seven is my lucky number, so I had to include one more step! Add more information at the end of your blog post… Give the reader something else to look at or something to do. Again, they’ve stayed with this you this long, it’s only fair that you give them something even more beneficial to top it all off.

And there you have it, a formula for a blog post that is sure to impress the masses.

P.S. Don’t do as I do, do as I suggest. Or take someone else’s word for it, like Michael Stelzner. Here is his post about “Blogging Basics: How To Write Blog Posts People Love To Read.”

Happy Blogging!