Stronger social media strategy in 2016

Apple will be launching its latest operating system, iOS 9, in September. Google has updated its algorithm to give far more priority to mobile search results. And pretty much every popular social media channel will be offering not only advertising by instant purchase options by the time 2016 rolls around. There’s no better time than now to anticipate and prepare for the trends of tomorrow. So here’s your 5-step guide to ramp up your social media strategy for 2016. To know where you’re going, you have to know where you’ve been. Auditing your existing content, especially if you don’t currently have a greatsocial media marketing university grasp on social, can be a tedious process. But it is well worth it in the end. Start by identifying your key players. What channels are you on? Who has access to them? What type of content have you been posting? What has been the reaction from fans, both quantitative and qualitative? All of these auditing questions can be answered with tools like SocialMention and Warble Alerts. Investing in them is key. Another key is tapping into your business’ existing resources – both online and off – to find out what collateral you can convert to valuable social media content. Do you take a lot of product and client photos? Could you use one of your best customers as a case study? Have you hosted any events that show off your helpful, human side? You’ll be surprised with the treasures that mask themselves as clutter in your file room. Social is one of the most powerful weapons in your marketing arsenal. It’s a great tool for public relations, advertising, customer service, market research, what is social media marketing and now, even sales. You can do a lot with social. But, the reality is, if you just keep shooting everywhere without aiming, you’ll end up with a lot of wasted bullets and little to show for it. Setting specific, ROI-driven goals is essential. Otherwise, you’ll end up using vanity metrics such as likes, retweets, pins, and bare clicks to determine success. Identifying your ideal buyer and outlining the digital buying path they are likely to take are nonnegotiable. Once you have these nailed down, carefully consider how your social media efforts can ignite, fuel, or augment that path. Don’t be pushy, but don’t distract your audience with pointless, shiny objects either. While lots of social media campaigns can be fun and might even get you a lot of attention, if they don’t come from the right audience or contribute to your bottom line, in the end, they’re worthless.

MANAGING CUSTOMER SERVICE COMPLAINTS ON SOCIAL MEDIA

Social media is a great customer service tool. While most companies view Twitter and Facebook as a great tool to monitor what customers are saying about them, I’ve written that they are missing opportunities to enhance the customer service and experience by posting value added content. That said this short article is about how to respond to the irate customer who decides to air his or her grievance using social media channels instead of reaching out to the company directly. Or worse, maybe they tried to reach the company via traditional channels (phone, email, etc.) and didn’t get the response they were looking social media marketing jobs for. When a customer complains on social media channels like Twitter or Facebook, the customer’s usual goal is to get the company to respond. The company’s goal is to mitigate or eliminate any negative impressions, and show the customer, and the rest of the world, that they are there to support and help the customer through the problem. The company is trying to avoid a PR nightmare. Managed properly, the result will be the opposite of the nightmare, showing the customer, their friends and potentially the rest of the world that the company stands behind their products and offers amazing customer service. There are many tools that can help you in creating and monitoring your social media presence and participation. It is important to look at your statistics. There are many monitoring tools social media and marketing available, including Google Analytics, which is free; Facebook Insights; Twitter; and Instagram. You should be reviewing these weekly or biweekly, at least. Sometimes, it takes some experimenting and really getting to know your audience for social media success.

Integrating social media metrics into the BI process

This is an excerpt from Chapter 4, "Four Steps to Social Business Intelligence," from the book Social Data Analytics: Collaboration for the Enterprise, by Krish Krishnan and Shawn Rogers. Krishnan is the founder and president of Chicago-based Sixth Sense Advisors Inc.; Rogers, formerly an analyst at consulting and market research firm Enterprise Management Associates Inc., is now chief research officer for the information management software group at Dell. In the chapter, Krishnan and Rogers provide a four-part strategy for organizations seeking to leverage social media analytics to help increase business,social media marketing agency raise brand awareness and enhance customer service. Included are tips on using social media for business purposes, collecting and analyzing social media metrics and linking social media monitoring efforts to business strategies. Social media and business intelligence integration will provide valuable insights into the external forces that influence and guide your business every day. The biggest question that puzzles the industry today is how to make this integration happen; there are a few distinct steps to take for creating this impact within your organization. Once your strategy is set, it is time to implement the plan. The simplest way is to be really organized and set up a social media content calendar. This calendar needs to consist of different types of posts. What types of content should you post? This depends on the social community that you want to create around your brand, products and services. Apart from the creation, there is also participation in customer-owned and -driven content. You need to be able to foster the growth of both these channels simultaneously. This step is more important than any other, but it is also the most social media marketing company overlooked. Social media is not just about talking at people, it's about talking to people. To ensure success in your social media presence and create the visibility of participation in conversations, join in other conversations. The biggest success in the world of customers and prospects is to truly get to know and care about others, and it will come back to you. Create a value system around the social media networks and avoid noise. This will create a true, loyal set of folks who will benefit you and your brand in the short and long term.