by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | Mar 5, 2014 | Marketing, Social Media
Your social media marketing efforts are the architectural structure, the blueprint toward creating communities, a positive customer experience, brand image, a following, online reputation and a strong digital footprint for a return on investment. It goes far beyond simply a few posts on various channels; it is a two-way conversation. Interaction. Collaboration. Education. Communication. Community.
Building and maintaining your online relationships will eventually turn into revenue, but it does take time and effort.
It is paramount that your digital footprint, in each platform remain consistent and representative of your goals and mission. Even your content must clearly define and support your company and brand. Everything in life has plan, an outline with action steps.
The Forbes’ article, “7 P’s Of Social Media Marketing That Drive Results” helps to define and outline some of the basic etiquette and how to’s to build your brand and your digital landscape.
Social media is a powerful brand building tool that can drive long-term, organic growth which is sustainable through any micro- or macro-environmental threat.
Developing the value of your brand should always be a top strategic priority. Brand value has saved more than one company or product from going under in recent years. Playboy and Twinkie are just two brands that survived another day thanks to the value of their brand names.
Click to read more: forbes.com
Image courtesy of forbes.com
by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | Feb 12, 2014 | Guest Blogger, Social Media
The way a brand manages its online presence on Social Media is critical. If the brand is managed poorly, they experience no growth and a decline in business. In comparison, if a brand is managed successfully, success follows with their audience going global about how great and unique the brand is. Resulting in increased sales and likeability. Below, are 8 tips for Social Media Success.
- Create a personal and memorable experience. Interact with your audience daily to ensure they know you acknowledge them. Surprise with a simple, “Thank You” and “How is your day going?” Respond to all negative and positive feedback publicly, well and quickly. Show them you care and value them when they reach out to you.
- Be ready with an answer to a question and solution to a problem. Do this by coming up with possible questions that may be asked or possible problems that may arise.
- Let your audience know they are your brand by asking what they want to see and their opinion. Then listen, respond and deliver. After all, a brand with no audience results in no brand and no growth.
- Work together as a team internally. Collaborate, hear all ideas and assign each person a task accordingly. Always have a back up person trained to handle online management in Social Media in case others are sick or an emergency arises.
- Make your online presence FUN. Let your audience know you are relaxed and inviting. Tweet and post humor, offer contests. Great aspect to have to show that you are friendly and ready to take the brand to relationship building.
- Plan ahead for the week. Have a backup strategy in place. Do this by creating a weekly agenda to help the brand stay on task and moving forward. It is important to always think ahead and be ready.
- Create content that educates and defines the brand as a valuable resource and engages. Create tips, share how to articles and ask questions to get your community involved. Keep it relevant, to the point, make it fun and never confuse!
- Being consistent on social media is the key to building loyalty and relationships. The more you show up, engage and create value on a daily basis the more others look forward to engaging with and trusting you. Being consistent also includes having a consistent brand message and voice across all social profiles which represents who you are, what you do and how you’re portrayed to the world.
Social Media success has many aspects and how well you adapt to each one will determine how your business performs. Time invested acknowledging, working together internally, educating and being consistent is a sure way to build relationships and see Social Media Success.
Guest Post by:
Jason Houck::Jason manages small businesses on social media and teaches engagement. He blogs at WeighYourMind.com and is a partner at Micro Media Marketing.
Connect with Jason
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by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | Jan 30, 2014 | Social Media
Social media has grown to be the inbound marketing tool and connector for businesses and individual users alike. It is a global tool to stay in touch, meet, greet, communicate, network and market. Looking at all of the social predictions for 2014 is a strong indicator of things to come as well as viewing the exponential growth experienced over the decades.
The statistics show that traditional media has taken a backseat to social media marketing and it will continue to explode, changing the way you do business and interact with your customers. Your consumers are online searching for information, longing to be educated, looking for solutions and sharing their brand experiences. You need to be online, listening and responding. If you don’t, your competition will.
- Facebook has over 1.19 active billion users per month
- 72% of online adults use social networking sites
- 9 billion photos are uploaded to Facebook every month
- 74% of Smartphone users use their phone for real-time location specific information
- Twitter adds 300 users per day
- 71% of consumers are more likely to make a purchase based on social media referrals
- 43% of all marketers found a customer via LinkedIn and 52% of all marketers have found a customer via Facebook
1. Relationships
Social media isn’t just tweeting and posting! Keep that in mind.
It is an extension of your brand, your mission and your values. It is meant to support your company, reinforcing your reputation, products, service and commitment to your customers. Build relationships in and around your social channels, showcasing your desire to serve your audience. These relationships are the foundation of your brand’s reputation, success and bottom-line. Build the trust and see the return.
Nurture and cultivate your audience with real conversations and engagement, offering value and rich content. Don’t just push URLs and self-promote; get involved. Share. Ask questions.
While disseminating information is helpful, people buy from people and they want to get to know you. Humanize your brand and be personable. These relationships that you build will lead to increased brand advocacy. Make the time!!
Your relationships may not just be client based but colleagues, co-collaborators, business partners, vendors or friends. Enrich one another
2. Brand Advocates
Creating an online brand experience for your consumer is an opportunity to engage and interact on a more personal level than traditional forms of old age media. You are speaking WITH instead of AT them. These relationships can evolve into strong brand advocates to share your message, service and products. This word of mouth advertising and shouting from rooftops (social channels) is the greatest form of marketing your brand can hope for. Each consumer is connected and has a voice – they will share their testimonials and experiences with the world, so it is your job to make it a positive one. Pay attention to them, understand their pain points and give them viable solutions.
3. Global Communities
One of the greatest opportunities of social media marketing is to create your community, your network all over the world, not just in your backyard or down the street. You can interact with customers all over the world without ever needing to leave your office. You couldn’t get this from a newspaper and you don’t have to wait to respond to an editorial comment on page 15 of the paper (if you happen to catch it). Social is immediate and interactive. You are of course monitoring your brand and industry via alerts and other key search channels. Right?
It is this responsive communication that keeps the customers engaged and coming back for more. You build trust, authority and loyalty which again translates to generating brand advocates.
There are little to no geographical boundaries when it comes to socially marketing online. Your bandwidth far exceeds local advertising giving you the opportunity to reach and engage with millions of people across the open seas. Personally, I marvel at my connections and know that without social media, I never would have had the great fortune to connect with so many incredible clients and colleagues.
Relationships, brand advocates and global communities are of course just part of the short list of why we love social media. As you know, this is just the tip of the iceberg. It has become an integral part of our business and lifestyles; whether good or bad, it is here to stay.
- Embrace it.
- Understand it.
- Invest in it.
What are your top 3 reasons for using social media?
by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | Dec 16, 2013 | Social Media, Time Management, Virtual Assistant
Social media marketing is not fading away. As 2013 comes to a swift close, SM Marketers are looking back at the year in review and projecting some potential future trends for the coming year.
Brian Solis: “This year marked social media’s move into the mainstream. Social media is now part of our fabric of society, like mobile phones and computers — it’s a staple of our everyday life.”
SMM continues to expand exponentially and you should be on board with the 2014 trends; otherwise you may just be shouting noise with a plugged up megaphone or simply lost at sea. Since its inception, SMM has exploded the opportunities and platforms for both B2B and B2C. The online digital office provides YOU with a GLOBAL reach but only with the right strategy and planning for your brand. It is a mandatory tool for businesses of all sizes. You can’t NOT have a presence if you want to be found, talked about, and grow your revenue. You will want to be “linked in so you are not left out.”
2013 offered a great deal of tools, tips, platforms, and innovations, but what still stood out?
Content Marketing! It is a must have, must do, in your marketing arsenal. Uberflip’s infographic clearly outlines the trends and potential for CM. Remarkable content reaches your audience. It is shared. It is talked about. It has the potential to reach pain points and have an impact on your buyer. As one of the main 2014 trends, you need to consider how YOU will bump up your efforts, your blogging, your website and all of your content, to seize the attention of your audience. If you don’t, your competition will be serving the entree.
In a recent study by MarketingProfs and the Content Marketing Institute their results demonstrated that 93% B2B organizations now use content-based tactics for their marketing promotions and 73% specified they now produce more content than the previous year!
Other projected social media trends
Justin Pearse:
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Brands will start investing in the people, processes and technologies to deliver truly compelling content.
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2014 will be the year job titles such as head of content and content director become common at brands, both B2C and B2B.
Juliet Stott:
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2014 will see more brands embracing social media as an integral part of their content marketing strategy.
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There will be a race for engagement on social across all the channels.
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Brands that delight and reward their followers and harness the invaluable (user generated) content they create will be the most successful.
Ben Barone-Nugent:
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Businesses and agencies are going to more formally recognize distinctive types of content strategists.
Jayson DeMers:
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Investment in social media will become a necessity, not a luxury.
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We’ll see even more companies hiring social media strategists or full-time social media managers.
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Businesses who are finding themselves spread thin with their social media efforts will increasingly turn to Google+ as the closest thing we have to a ‘one size fits all’ social network.
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Visual content will increasingly become a critical piece of any solid content strategy, and social networking site.
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LinkedIn is positioning itself as one of the largest sources of content creation and curation for professionals.
TwinEngine
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Content marketing is the key to attract and retain customers.
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Images outrank words for engagement.
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Companies engage with consumers in real-time.
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Hashtags become a leading search tool.
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Mobile marketing surpasses traditional marketing.
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Digital exceeds a traditional marketing budget.
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Building relationships with inbound marketing is critical to long term growth.
WOW Isn’t that an extensive list of social media projections!? How can a business possibly manage to stay on top of the trends, research the current tips, tools and best practices, never mind maintain all of the social platforms? It sounds so painful and extremely time consuming when you need to run your business, attend to your clients, troubleshoot and every other day to day task. That is just way too much for one person to consider.
BUT what if you had a team?
A vested partner perhaps to help you:
- deal with the overwhelming social media trends
- with your social media plan for 2014
- to execute and manage ALL of it
- invest your valuable time where it should be spent
- become more productive and efficient
- scale your business!
While you are very cognizant of the FACT that social media is a necessity for your business, it may not represent the best use of your valuable skills and talents. It isn’t your core genius! Your passion! Your job! BUT it is a requirement to help promote your online marketing efforts and generate income.
CONTACT us today to discuss how we will kick off 2014 and make it a more profitable and productive year.
by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | Dec 4, 2013 | Entrepreneur, Social Media
If you have ever ventured into the world of online dating then you know how crazy and time consuming it can be. Sifting through the profiles and bios, trying to discover your authentic mate to date. You view the photos and written content, sorting out fact from fiction, never mind grammar and spelling. It can prove to be amusing and confusing.
Your social media presence should follow similar rules and etiquette if you want to meet your match. Your best client. Colleague. Business partner. Co-collaborator or even a mentor.
Make sure your bio represents the REAL you and your company. If you are on several social channels, ensure the same branding otherwise you will create confusion as to who you are, what products and services your business offers and who you serve.
Spelling and grammar do count. If you want to attract the best and be seen as a business professional, then take the time to proofread every piece of content. Don’t depend on spell-check. It isn’t human and certainly doesn’t catch all of the errors.
Every bit of correspondence is a reflection of you, your expertise, your brand, customer service and interest. Choose your subject lines carefully, respond in a timely manner, include methods of contact and again, spelling and grammar cannot be overlooked. There are no shortcuts.
Maintain professionalism on your platforms. Abstain from inappropriate images, content or any other verbiage that may portray you in a less than desirable manner. While each social network has its audience and voice, you still should tailor your speech and photos. You don’t always know who will be watching or searching for you.
93% of online research starts with a search engine, and 68% of consumers check out companies on social networking sites before buying. Brandpoint
Don’t try to be someone or something you are not. Authenticity, honesty, integrity will help your brand and help to define you as a thought leader. Be credible.
Your online reputation will live in the depths of the virtual world for eternity. Don’t stand on pretense and false bravado. Be real.
97% of all consumers search for local businesses online. Relevanza
Upload professional images- fully clothed, nothing risque. No spinach in your teeth either. Just not advisable.
Engage in direct and straightforward communications. People can smell BS!!
Respond in a timely manner.
71% of consumers receiving a quick brand response on social media say they would likely recommend that brand to others. (Forbes)
Immediately troubleshoot any issues.
Using Twitter for social media? Great idea, but you’d better be listening. 81% of Twitter users expect a same-day response to questions and complaints aimed at brands. (Forbes)
Don’t simply depend on email or texting. Nurture your relationships via phone or SKYPE.
Do not email incessantly trying to sell yourself, your products or services. It is overkill and very unattractive. It takes time to build a foundation, rapport and relationship. If you are pestering people, or constantly blowing your own horn, you will need another dating service. Ease up. Breathe. Be the person YOU would want to do business with.
The top five social networks used by B2B marketers to distribute content are LinkedIn (83%), Twitter (80%), Facebook (80%), YouTube (61%) and Google+ (39%). (Social Media Today)
78% of small businesses attract new customers through social media. (Relevanza)
Blogs convert readers into buyers. 42% of consumers look to blogs for information about potential purchases; 52% say blogs have impacted their purchase decisions; and 57% of marketers have acquired new customers with their blogs. (leaderswest Digital Marketing Journal)
Social media has a 100% higher lead-to-close rate than outbound marketing. (HubSpot’s State of Inbound Marketing)
Keeping all these social media stats in mind, you can understand the vital importance of maintaining consistency, cross branding and professionalism. Social media is a fabulous tool to build brand recognition, establish credibility, create long-lasting relationships and scale your business, but it takes time, thought, planning and a little creativity.
