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Social listening is an important strategy that brands need to consider if they’re to stay up to speed with Millennials and rapid speed conversations. But does social listening contribute to delivering a great customer experience? Can it help your brand in proactively meeting customer needs? Yes, it does! And here are 5 ways in which Social Listening can take your customer relationships to the next level. 1. Engage with a large audience (larger than you could ever imagine!) With a proper social listening software, you can effortlessly listen to those who are talking about your brand, your product or service and also about your competitors on social platforms. Furthermore, Nielsen has found that 33% of customers even prefer to contact brands using social media rather than the telephone. When that is the case, listening can be a definite first step to understanding what the customer wants. It’s necessary to stay in-sync with the latest customer expectations else you run the risk of losing out to competition. And social listening is the ideal way to stay ahead in this race! 2. You get the ‘real’ scoop on social Have you wondered why customers are sometimes too nice while filling feedback forms? One of the reasons is that they don’t have the time (hey, you might be asking too many questions!) nor the patience to explicitly express what they think. How can social listening be of value here? It helps your brand filter out negative comments and get tangible insights from these comments. Let’s say a majority of your audience is criticizing the lack of information on your website. An intelligent social listening software will filter out these comments and deliver an actionable insight like “Working on availability of information on website can help boost website experience” 3. It’s where real-time customer service happens The need for businesses to go real time would have been written in stone by now – It’s been repeated that often. Well, there isn’t any better place you can hope to achieve this than on social platforms. You’d have come across the incident where Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, made sure to respond back to a valuable feedback on Twitter. If you haven’t yet, check out the story here. Customers want to be heard and they treat social media as a platform to engage with your brand and get instant remedies for their issues. 4. Make marketing personalized. Let social content drive engagement! Personalization is the key to unlocking great experiences and social customer relationships. Social listening tools can help you identify the way your target personas converse, the words they use, its tonality and unravels their specific needs and expectations from your brand. The insights you gather here can in turn be leveraged to run personalized marketing campaigns! Moreover, a powerful and dynamic social listening platform can help you segregate your social audience into different categories which also helps in creating relevant content and offers for specific customer groups. 5. Staying proactive Exceeding customer expectations can be a sure shot way to deliver customer delight. But unless your brand is well equipped with the necessary information and insights, going past expectations isn’t a cakewalk. By constantly monitoring what your customers, as well as other prospects, are talking about and engaging with them regularly, you can come up with a proactive and futuristic customer experience strategy for the long run. And social listening can help you monitor rapidly changing customer needs, anticipate trends and most importantly, deliver actionable insights on how to go about executing these changes. Social listening is one of the most reliable means to make sense of the myriad conversations and comments on social platforms. Not just that, it provides a platform to learn more about your customers, their changing preferences, and expectations, and connect with them on a personal level no matter how far they are. Social media is already a huge repository of information. Now, converting that information into insights that can build customer experience is the advantage you have with social listening. Roy Garton FDMC Social and Digital Media LLC www.floridadudemarketingconcepts.com
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When Snapchat first took the mobile world by storm, most people assumed it was just another teenage fad. Six years and a $16 billion valuation later, one of the most talked-about IPOs to date has since made it clear that Snapchat’s influence goes far beyond silly pictures.
According to Snap Inc.’s recently updated Form S-1 SEC registration statement, the app boasts 158 million active users each day, and those users spend an average of 25 to 30 minutes on the app each day. Clearly, Snapchat has ingrained itself as the king of a social media niche that Facebook and Twitter never knew existed. For businesses that use social media to interact with consumers, Snapchat presents opportunities no other platforms can replicate. Whether your company's goal is recruiting new talent, engaging current employees or marketing to the masses, Snapchat has something for everyone. The many faces of Snapchat Snapchat users become princesses, cowboys, aliens and puppies all the time. Why shouldn’t the app be just as versatile for business? Direct consumer marketing is the obvious first step, but Snapchat works for internal communications and recruitment, as well. Certainly, a 10-second snap isn’t the best way to notify employees that their bonuses have been delayed. But, for small recognitions, company events, birth announcements, new hires and goals achieved, Snapchat provides bite-sized slices of company life that employees will actually look at A Snapchat channel of employee posts, such as the one Cisco uses, can also be a great tool to show potential candidates what life at the company is really like! Cisco, for example, allows its employees to post on the channel themselves, giving viewers a live look into the company’s different roles, office locations and special events. The channel has been a great success: Cisco found that 70 percent of its viewers had watched its stories all the way through, and more than five million minutes of its content had been consumed. What's more, the oversaturation issue doesn't apply here: Just because everyone else uses Snapchat for direct marketing doesn’t mean it isn’t worth looking into, yourself. 10 seconds to better business With a platform as versatile as Snapchat, most businesses have trouble figuring out where to begin. The following five strategies will help businesses get the most from their Snapchat experience. 1.Keep your content candid. Creating custom-designed snaps is expensive and inefficient. Users of Snapchat want to see slices of real life, not heavily designed ads. So, let your employees post directly to a feed, or put a personable social media expert in charge of capturing moments to share. With brands now posting an average 13 stories per month and 11 snaps per story. 2. Bring in well-known guests. Social media influencers and niche celebrities provide excellent brand exposure. Let someone else take over the Snapchat story for a while, and see what develops. Not only will brand loyalists appreciate the shakeup, but fans of the talent that was previously unaffiliated with the brand might become new customers themselves. 3. Call users to action. Attention is great, but action is better. According to Sumpto, 67 percent of college age students want to receive more discounts and promotions from brands on Snapchat. Encourage followers to visit a website or share on other social media platforms. Incentivize engagement with special Snapchat filters or contests for prizes. 4. Build a following through consistency. Twitter followers may rally around hashtags, but how can brands create a following on an app that relies on transience? Simple -- by making Snapchat a bigger part of the branding outside the app. 5. Track snap data. Even though Snapchat lacks the more advanced analytic tools other platforms use, it still provides some interesting insights. Total views are useful, but story completion (how many people watched all the way through) and screenshots (how many thought it was worthy of sharing) pinpoint the most engaged users. Don’t be fooled by its often-silly exterior -- when it comes to marketing, Snapchat is the real deal. Follow these strategies to start building better stories and engaging with more users. Roy Garton FDMC Social & Digital Media LLC www.floridadudemarketingconcepts.com If 2015 was the year that brands and advertisers embraced online video, then 2016 will see the medium take the next step as live streaming takes off.
Live streaming video refers to broadcasts in real time to an audience over the internet. While the concept of live streaming has been around for years, mobile-first video platforms with user-generated content have just recently begun to make serious waves thanks to improved video quality, faster broadband speeds, and enhanced mobile technology. Online video has become a key part of the strategic business model for both brands and marketers as they seek more innovative ways to capture consumer attention. Creative live streaming video initiatives and campaigns are a way for companies to cut through the digital clutter and have emerged as the medium of choice not only for person-to-person sharing, but also for business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) communication. Brands are increasingly using live streaming to reach audiences. Its importance has grown significantly thanks to substantial investments by social platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, Snapchat, and Twitter to build and enhance their live-streaming platforms. Advertising dollars are likely to follow. 88% of agency respondents stated that they “might” or “definitely will” invest in live stream video advertising over the next six months, according to a recent Trusted Media Brands survey. Live streaming video will further accelerate streaming videos overall share of internet traffic. Streaming video accounts for over two-thirds of all internet traffic, and this share is expected to jump to 82% by 2020, according to Cisco’s June 2016 Visual Networking Index report. Live video’s value comes from its unique ability to add an authentic human element to digital communications. As a result, brands are leveraging three main streaming methods to connect with their viewers: tutorials, product launches, and exclusive and behind-the-scene footage. Advertisers will continue to invest heavily in online video, especially as live streaming video gains traction. Already in the US, digital video ad revenue reached $7.8 billion in 2015, up 55% from 2014, according to figures from the Internet Advertising Bureau. While live streaming is still in its early stages, brands are leveraging micro- payments, mid-roll video ads and direct payments from social platforms, to monetize their live streaming videos. The success of live streaming video hinges on brands overcoming a lack of measurement standards in the space, as well as changes in social media sites' algorithms that affect what content users see. I encourage small businesses to seriously look into live streaming the next time you want to generate traffic to your next event! Social Media continues to evolve. It seems to be changing every month with new platforms, new trends, and applications. So you have your business on Facebook and Twitter and you think you are doing just fine in the world of social media. But are you really? Here are a few facts with business and social media. As Facebook becomes more of a "We want your money" operation, more and more people are drifting away to find the free platforms for their business to reach their masses. If you want the goodies now on Facebook, you are finding you have to cough up some dough to get it. Facebook's recent audience network launch program means for the business, the days of something for nothing is over.
What is becoming more popular for target marketing is video and images. Many of the Fortune 500 companies are moving in this direction for advertising and marketing. Images tell a lot and young shoppers especially are using this to their advantage and in their shopping habits. Pinterest and Instagram are picking up not only more users but advertisers as well as they pull away from traditional desktop platforms. Mobility, video, and photo images is 3 key words you as a business need to grasp and embrace for marketing and advertising. Video and still images have helped push Instagram, Pinterest, and Vine to new heights. Another popular tool for the young 15 to 25 crowd is Snapchat. While advertisers and still trying to figure out how to capture this new hot platform, Snapchat has become very trendy to this key target market. While I am not saying you should not still keep a solid market plan in place for Facebook and Twitter, businesses need to be open to new platforms and monitor social media trends to capture that market share. keep up regular engagement conversations with your customers and stay connected. Remember, spending your marketing dollars in an empty room is not only fruitless, it is silly. Capture your market share and stay abreast of technology changes. Be a leader in the social media circle. Reach your goals. If you are into social media deeply or have been using it for some time, then you are probably somewhat familiar with Klout. Klout is a company that tracks your social media influence. It is easy to sign up for and gives you a
measuring and marketing platform to see how effective your efforts are. This company has been around awhile but recently has gained some popularity and is getting a foothold in businesses for providing analytics. The key word here is influence and not so much anything else. So having said that who would care about using Klout? In a nutshell those who are trying to influence their audience or market share. As you use social media and are trying to get a certain sector of the population to pay attention to you or your product or service, then using Klout will help you via your score they provide. The higher the score, the better your influence. If you are a small business or enjoy a local or small regional market then Klout is probably not for you. Klout works best on a national or international stage. How it works. As you produce engaging content or topics, followers who tap into your feeds are tracked by Klout through their very detailed analytics or algorithms. Simply, the higher your score (up to 100) the better you are influencing your followers. Some say that Klout does not really work that well and at the moment as I stated for small business, that is true as there just is not enough sampling for the system to be strongly effective. But if you are a say a famous speaker, offer a service or product geared toward a specific market and you are wanting a larger share of that market then give Klout a try. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Get yourself a plan of action, build great content and start loading your social media! We have a few months behind us in 2013 already so what are businesses doing with social media? Doing some research, video is quickly becoming the tool to draw customers. Web video is becoming big business. YouTube recently announced they are now getting 2 billion users a day world wide. That in itself, is amazing. Besides video however here are some quick fast observations about
where social media is trending in marketing and advertising. Facebook and that "Like" button: Businesses in the past loved those Facebook landing pages and getting customers to like them to get traffic. But that is no longer enough to keep your customers. Now it is solid relationship building. It must now move across other platforms such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and YouTube. (Ahh, that Video platform again!) Marketing Your Market: SMBs can no longer sit on their laurels and expect magic things to happen on one platform. If you talk about your business let's say via a single source such as a web or blogging site, you are already losing your base. Right now it is the trend to embrace multiple platforms to talk about your products or service via Twitter, Tumblr, StumpleUpon , Pinterest, and your own YouTube channel. This has been popular with e-Commerce or e-Books in marketing. Video Entertainment Advertisers : As I mentioned before businesses are embracing web video to sell their products and using big bucks in the form of entertainment to do it. As more and more consumers are pulling away from their armchairs and going mobile so has the trend to market to the web. They are creating dynamic high-profile ads to reach that market. Reality Marketing : Although it is nothing new in the sense of selling, "Call To Action" advertising and marketing I noticed, is also making a larger presence. I am seeing this not only in print media but also on the web and television. The soft fuzzy ads are being replaced with "So what are you gong to do about it Mr. or Mrs. Consumer?" They are telling you to make a decision and make it now before it's too late. This is becoming in tune with the fact we are now a fast paced and action oriented society. Being mobile and with all these tools to take action now via our cell phone, tablet, or laptop, we can now buy cars on-line, make a reservation for dinner or a hotel room, and even buy a plane ticket. Reality or augmented marketing is growing leaps and bounds this year. We are 4 months into the new year and look how social media has shifted! I will be anxious to see how the rest of the year shapes up! Mobility is no longer a communications utility, but a media distribution hub. Our mobile phones now account for over 10% percent of our media consumption time. So what does this mean? The answer in a nutshell is apps. We spend over 2 hours a day on the average using apps. We don’t even surf the web as much as we use apps on our cell phone. I took a look at the trends users had with apps this past year. For developers and publishers to be successful in mobility, these trends might be helpful for future content as they create apps for mobile devices. Let's take a look at the most popular mobile apps and examine how mobile usage is an addictive activity.
Here's an overview of the top 4 trends with apps.
It is no secret that mobility is fast becoming the standard for social media. Tablets and smart phones are in the consumer's hands and the desktop is taking the back seat. Where we eat, where we are going to travel, where we are going to shop, where are we staying on that next business trip, all decided from the couch or arm-chair. Businesses need to know the methodology of mobility and how the consumer are responding to those wonderful apps and tools in their hands. Some are for business and others are for their personal needs.
I have found however, that many business have been very proactive in predicting this new generation of mobility toward social media. Customer interaction via surveys, on-line communities, tapping their customer's preference levels for contacts and so on. Many have developed interactive apps for easier navigation of their products and services designed specifically for smart phones or tablets. So what does this all mean? Two words. "Customer Satisfaction" Happy clients or customers means increase profitability. The easier it is for customers to deal with you, the easier it means they will come back. Business value and your ability to connect to the mobile market especially in this next year may determine your bottom line. Large corporations are investing millions into revamping their social strategy to include mobility and making sure their marketing is either including or even better, leading with mobility. So where does your company stand? Think about how you are reaching the mobile marketplace. Is your website mobile friendly? Does your company have an app for downloading? Do you even have a social media plan? Make sure your new year's resolution include social media and mobility! Like Social Cam which I talked about in my last blog, another fast up and
coming app is Instagram. A little bit of Facebook , Twitter, and a little bit of Social Cam rolled into one. You can "like" a photo, you can follow or be followed, you can upload your shots onto Facebook or Twitter or both, whatever your little heart desires. Don't get me wrong, I am not against Instagram. It just that it kind of rehashes some apps that you can all ready do with others. I guess what makes it kind of neat is that it attempts to roll many things into one app. As to its longtivity as a popular app it yet to be seen. It is available for most smart phones but you need to sign up on their website (at least for the Android version from what I can tell) and specify your phone and it downloads the app for you. http://instagr.am. To try and download it from the Play Store without going through this procedure, it is not going to happen. Not a big deal in my opinion. From there, find your friends through Facebook who have the app and begin to follow them, start taking pictures so you can fill your album and they will follow you or see the popular pictures of the day from the web collaboration and like them too. As seeing this as a social media tool for SMB's or an enterprise level, yes, there "could" be some possibilities through promotions such as liking a picture of an event your doing and tying this in with your Facebook fan page but the verdict is still not in on using Instagram with business. Since signing up for it, I am seeing mostly young people having fun taking goofy or fun pictures of themselves like with Social Cam and just enjoying themselves. On a personal note, a lot of my friends have started using Instagram. So even us "over the 30 mark gang" are having fun with it. If a smart social media administrator wanted to capitalize on the fad and apply themselves, yes Instagram could be a cool tool to use to capture real time events or promotions and intigrate with present tools since you can merge as with Social Cam, to Facebook and Twitter. Take a look at Instagram and decide for yourself. We just had Pinterest and it has caught on well as a social media tool for business. Now we have Social Cam. Many of us have "played" around with this on our personal Facebook pages and Twitter but then it hit me. How could this app, if at all, be applied for business usage? While it is still kind of new and being used mostly by young people, I do see some possible benefits for business applications.
First if you are not familiar with Social Cam, it is an app that can be intigrated to Facebook and you sign up for it on the web. You basically watch short unedited videos of people and events. Some are silly, some are interesting, some are touching, but most are just kids doing anything and everything and uploading it so their freinds can see where they are in pretty much "real- time". Ironically as of this writing, you only can use Social Cam through your smart phone's camera to shoot videos and upload them from there. They are working to allow desktop publishing of videos or using your web cam that is on your home desktop but as of today, that is not happening. Perhaps that is the whole novelty of Social Cam and to do that would just make it another YouTube sort of experience. Now for the business aspect. Look at this scenario. Suppose your business is having a huge sale. You pay for live radio remotes or television commercials. You have your smart phone with you and would it not be cool to shoot some quick real-time video of your sale? Why not shoot some crowd action or interview a customer you know personally and get their excitement and upload it to your Twitter or FB fan page site? Wow, you just reached out to your masses! I see other postive uses of Social Cam for businesses as well. Applicants sending short introduction of themselves, maybe answering a question you submitted , new product line introduction, but I digress. Let me know your thoughts. Will Social Cam be a novelty or will it grow into a huge new social media tool? |
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