Tips For Using Social Media Successfully

Using social media creates a great opportunity for your company to really engage with consumers. Follow these tips to ensure success:

Be yourself. If all of your posts are about product features and increased sales, well, that's kind of boring. People relate to people and honesty is encouraged. It's alright to give your readers a sense of who you really are, even in your professional posts.

Show some enthusiasm. Why should anyone follow your blog or Twitter feed if you don't show passion for your work through your networking? Your excitement breeds excitement within your customer base. If your posts are comical and/or thought-provoking, chances are those words will later be shared and discussed by people outside of your current readership, i.e., future customers.

Develop consistent messaging. Before you turn an army of social media evangelists loose on the world acting as the face of your company, teach them about your brand and your products. Give them a cheat sheet to use when responding to questions. Having a brand toolkit available ensures that your representatives will provide knowledgeable (and honest) answers.

Post regularly. Establish a regular and consistent posting schedule. Make sure someone is monitoring all of your social media channels no less than twice a day. Patience is a lost virtue. Don’t make your readers wait for answers.

Accept criticism. Not everyone will love what you do. Know how to respond to negative comments before you get them. Simply deleting them is not an option. Acknowledge all opinions. Explain drastic actions going on within your company that might have people on edge. Prove that your business is active and organic, growing and prepared to weather ever-changing industry climates.

Establish a social media policy in your employee handbook. Not every employee knows that posting about clients’ or proprietary company information is a bad idea. Let employees know what they can and can't post, and that they are sure to get the ruler to the back of the hand if they stray from the rules.

Getting Started With Social Media

Follow these guidelines when developing a social media strategy for your business:

Make sure to know your entire audience. Yes, you have your customers; however, another key audience segment is prospective employees. Do your research and understand which social media platforms will be most effective for reaching all of your target audiences.

Choose your platforms...wisely. You don't have to be on every network (yet). But, at the very least, you'll probably want some presence on Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin. Once those are established, you can expand to industry specific communities.

Start building your network. Don't worry about the size -- focus on quality. If your demographic is potential employees, the real value comes in developing connections with people who will become your next hire.

Start talking. Your conversations can't be only one way. The great thing about social media is the opportunity to create a true dialogue. Respond to comments, pose different questions, thank people for compliments and address negative comments. In general, show people you are listening and that you truly care about what people are saying.

Measure your results. It is absolutely mandatory that social media strategies are tied to business objectives whether you are trying to generate leads, increase sales or improve the talent pool of potential employees.

Go Ahead, Try And Fight Social Media. You Won't Win.

The explosion of social media has transformed the relationship between a business and its customers. Way back in the day, the worst that a business could expect from a poor customer experience was an irate phone call and one lost customer. In today's world of Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin, one angry customer can very quickly turn into 100...or even 1000 at a mind-blowing rate of speed. If one of your customers posts a negative status update or tweet for the day, hudreds of people are going to read it. And let's not be foolish, bad pub,licity is not always good publicity.

However, these social media channels also offer business a means in which to interact with their customer base and repair damaged relationships. Businesses can use these sites to improve customer satisfaction by acknowledging problems and publishing the steps that will be used to fix the issues at hand. That is, of course, unless the businesses choose to sit on the sidelines and watch the social world pass them by because of one or all of these reasons:

Fear of Disclosure. Umm...so....I wasn't supposed to post our marketing plan on Facebook? A lot of people worry that the utilization of social media will lead to confidential information being shared with the online world.

Fear of Stupidity. What? You didn't know that the president of the company would post slanderous content in his blog? Many fret over what kind of wacky stuff employees may say when they have the mic.

Fear of Time Suck. Aren't employees just going to spend all day looking at friends' pictures and playing Farmville? Many believe that social media is only social, with no room for professional productivity.

Businesses must remember that they don't really have a choice. Customers have come to expect the level of interaction with businesses that social media affords them. You know what that means -- you'd better find the pull-start on that Twitter machine...like now.

Things You Need To Include In Your Email Marketing Campaign

Write A Compelling Subject Line

Take some time to think about what will get your email opened. Look at your past campaigns, see which ones got the highest open rates and try to emulate the type of subject line you used.

Ask to Get Listed in Your Recipient's Address Book

If the email address that you send your email campaigns from is listed in your recipient's email address book, your email goes directly into the inbox and your images are automatically displayed. You'll want to get as many of these as possible.

Include a Forward-to-a-Friend Link

You don't know what it's going to take to entice your recipient to forward the email to a friend of theirs so your message gets out to a wider audience. So even if they don't click on a "forward to a friend" link you include, it may make them remember to simply forward it using their email client.

Prominently Display Your Logo

Simply put, nothing works on your recipients like a familiar logo of a company they do business with.

Include Your Postal Address

This is simply the U.S. Federal Law, so be sure to include your postal address in each of your email campaigns.

Display an Unsubscribe Link

Even the best email marketing campaigns get unsubscribes, but bottom line is you don't want to continue to send emails to recipients that don't want them. Not only is this included in the federal CAN-SPAM legislation, but it will end up tarnishing your company reputation with negative word-of-mouth.

Insert Lots of Links

If you think you've got too many links...add more! You never know what link your readers will be compelled to click, so make sure you're linking words and images and you're linking often.

Use Your Social Media Links

If you've got people following you on Twitter, or people who are Facebook fans, make sure you include these links in your email marketing campaigns. You'll spread the word to a wider audience from within these campaigns.

Above and beyond these "must-haves" you'll obviously want the articles in your newsletter or your sales copy to be compelling as well. Use this as a checklist for your next email marketing campaigns!