You now have a platform you built from scratch. You’ve learned to go listen to the community around you. You know how to respond, and keep conversations alive. You know how to add some depth to your social platforms, by incorporating older evidence of your success into the newer mediums. You have done all of this to start gaining new customers and retaining current customers. Now that the frameworks are assembled, you can move forward. Disney has fired people for removing parts of a costume or uniform anywhere other than the staging area, because they understand that in their industry, every employee is constantly on stage. The same is true of your business: if you are at work, you are being observed... Every single customer interaction should be seen as a potential for both good and bad publicity. You never know when the person you are serving has 200,000 followers on Twitter. Once you understand that every customer has the potential to publish your interactions, whether you encourage it or not, you should be actively recruiting every single customer as a member of your marketing team. If you had a sign at all of your registers, that said: Tweet “I just saved 5% at @yourcompany right now!” NOW and it will be true! Do you think you would have people in line, pulling out their smartphones? Your goal is to have customers talking about you in real time, while they are still in your establishment. This is just one example of how to accomplish this goal. Many companies have given one time discounts for following them on Facebook. Others use Facebook to distribute weekly or monthly savings information. Fewer still list certain sales as “Facebook only”, and tell the customer to print things out. Of these three, all require no input from the individual, other than initially pushing the “Like” button. Your customer can sit back, and watch what goes on. There is no interaction in order for them to take advantage of the sale, and it is closer to traditional advertising on a social media channel, rather than being social. One suggestion to constantly create buzz is to give away free stuff for online interaction. When a random customer responds to your comment in a positive light, give them a “We couldn’t agree more! Here, have a $5.00 gift certificate for your next visit. I’ll send it over to you in a message!” Do you think you would have more interaction on your page? It would encourage your fans to talk on your page, in the hope that their comments would solicit a gift certificate. Remember, comments feature more promenantly than likes on your fan’s friend’s Facebook pages. Give away twenty of them a month, and your fans will be scrambling over each other to comment on your site. If you have done these five steps, you will have a powerful social media presence. This is an overview, and there is some fine tuning that you will have to do behind the scenes to fully orchestrate all of the different aspects. We welcome the opportunity to talk with you more. Please feel free to contact us.
Starting Social Media from Scratch doesn’t mean your company is brand new, the day you start on Facebook, Twitter, etc. If you’ve been in business a while, chances are you have some positive pieces of mail somewhere. Just about every business that has ever touched a person has received either a thank you card, a letter of appreciation, or something from a customer that says that you are a good business. Some businesses frame these, and hang them on a wall, while others bind them up in a book, that potential customers can flip through while they wait. There are other businesses that may do nothing with these acknowledgements, and put them in a filing cabinet or drawer, to be forgotten forever.
When your company first opened, there’s a good chance you took a picture with the first customer or client. Many owners in the past have had the first dollar they received signed and dated. Was there any sort of ribbon cutting event? Did you have a group photo of your first employees? Was your company written up in the newspaper when you opened? It is time to start thinking back, remembering all of your initial press, because you are going to need it.
It’s time to dust these off, and get them ready for your social media. A good scanner is a requirement. You need equipment that will allow you to capture the age and quality of the original material and transfer it into a new digital image file. If the paper is old, if there are fold lines, if there is a small stain, that is not only perfectly okay, it is preferred. You want your copies to look as original as possible. Do not digitally enhance these image files of letters. You need to capture the air of authenticity, so never retype an original letter. Even if the original spelled everything wrong, and looks like it was written in crayon, leave it as is. After you’ve scanned all of these letters, cards, photos, etc. you need a place to store the images. I strongly recommend using either Flickr or Picasa Web Albums. Each image has a location that is directly linkable, and you can tie these into your site as necessary. You also want to tie them in on your Facebook account. I recommend putting these images in a couple of different places. Facebook is great, but it is always nice to be able to use those images elsewhere, which is why a picture storage tool like Picasa or Flickr is useful. Now it’s time to make all of these public. On Facebook, create an image folder, named Appreciation. Put them all in there. Invite your fans to tag themselves in your albums. Post links to these on Twitter, with statements like “Check out @yourcompany’s first happy customer, way back in 1975” or “Another @yourcompany happy customer, thanks Bob!”.
No matter how old it is, it's your press, use it. Recycling is always a good idea!
“Hi, how’s it going?” Person A asked. “Not too shabby. I’m not looking forward to the snow Wednesday.” Person B replied. “I’m great today. Did you see the football game last night?” Person A questioned. “No, I had to work. What a horrible night.” Person B responded. “Did you see that interception Cassel threw? Glad we traded him away, huh?” Person A said. Person B quipped back, “If you aren’t going to listen to a word I say, why am I bothering to talk to you in the first place. Good bye.” Often times, our social interactions online are similar to this demonstration conversation. We fail to appropriately acknowledge what is being said. This blog discusses and illustrates the potential failures, and how these failures can destroy our social media campaigns, and how to proactively stop this from occurring. First of all, if people comment on something that you say, show the world that you heard. On Facebook, comment about their comments. On Twitter, @theirname mention them back. If one commenter closed down the discussion with his or her comment, and ended the topic (e.g. , they answered a question in which there is only one answer) then thank him or her for answering. There should never be a time that anyone makes a statement, asks a question, or mentions you at all without you having input after. If you’ve never had the chance to have the last word, your time has finally come! On Twitter there is a great feature called “Favorites”. It allows you to mark a Tweet, and save it for later. Every time someone says, “Thank you” on Twitter, mark it as a favorite tweet. Anytime someone replies to you in a positive light, mark it as a favorite. Let’s say you have 50 positive things being sent to you, or about you, out there in Twitterland. Instead of simply sending people to: Your goal is to always forward the conversation. If you have someone responding, do not simply answer a question with a statement, and don’t answer with a question. Here’s an example of what I mean: Customer Comment: How’s the weather at the store today? - Wrong #1: Great.
- Wrong #2: Are you planning on swinging by?
- Correct!: The sun’s shining, and the walkways are clean. Planning on stopping by soon? Can you bring me a coffee? –Just kidding!
Obviously, if you own a coffee shop, I wouldn’t recommend requesting a beverage, but otherwise, you could probably get away with it. Don’t be afraid of acting like a social human being. They call it social media for a reason, right? If you were to take your interactions off of the web, and hand people a printed copy, could they read it as a script back and forth, amongst the group? Your goal is to have your interactions look like a dialogue between people, not a monologue or soliloquy. Make sure that you are acknowledging your social media the same way you would if someone was speaking it in front of you.
The hardest part of creating a social media presence from scratch is creating an audience. To do this, we need to look at Twitter and Facebook the same way we would look at the beginning of any new social interaction. Bust out the way back machine and think about your first day of school. Chances are, you didn’t walk in the first day, yelling out, “HI MY NAME IS BILLY AND I AM HAPPY TO MEET ALL OF YOU! I HAVE PEANUT BUTTER AND JELLY FOR LUNCH, ANYONE WANT TO TRADE?” Can you imagine how that would have gone down? I can tell you, it wouldn’t have been pretty. A more accurate look at that first day of school would probably show you walking over to a group of children and listening to them talk. You got a feel of what they were discussing, and then volunteered information on the subject. You didn’t try to immediately dominate the conversation, and you didn’t interrupt. You joined into a conversation. Hopefully, you added to the conversation and gave the other people a reason to talk to you. In essence, you gave people something to talk about. The same is true of Twitter, Facebook, or any other social platform. If you are brand new, you need to politely join a conversation, otherwise you will be that weird kid screaming about PB&J. Of course, the online techniques for doing this are a little different, but overall, the goals are the same. The first step is to search for people talking about things in which you could add to the conversation. Search out the established people, and follow them. Read what they are saying. Retweet the statements you agree with. Get a following from your peers. Start dialogue with people that know what they are talking about. It will give your future followers proof that you are an expert in the field and are a valued member of the expert community. Chances are, you aren’t planning on selling to these other experts or peers. You need to find customers. Step two is to start to follow your potential customers. If you own a jewelry store, search for people that talk about jewelry. Do you not sell online? Better search for people by location, or you aren’t going to find customers. Search for local community events, and see if people are talking about them. Retweeting community events can lead you to additional local followers. Remain positive. Misery loves company, and retweeting sarcastic comments can gain you sarcastic people. Although these people do buy things, you never want to give your business a negative personality. I recommend asking if a sale will work before putting the sale out there. If you are making declarations and statements of a factual manner, what can people say about it? “Buy one get one half off today only” is not going to stir up conversation. Ask some questions. “Should we do a buy one, get one half off? Would you buy one today?” is more likely to get a response. Take your time and build a strong community. I can show you how to get 1000 followers in a week, but they aren’t going to do anything for you. You want followers that add to the conversation, and respond back. Otherwise, you risk being followed by 1000 people named “BILLY!”
Businesses often rush into social media avenues, without planning them out first. The thought is, “Better to be there sloppy than not at all!” I don’t think I am the only person that would disagree with that thought process... Let’s spend some time talking about your social presences on each platform. The number of social media tools and networks available grows larger every day. Some of these are highly inclusive, and cater to everyone, while some are very niche market oriented. Many social media strategists start to talk about the universes that encompass social media, and there are several graphics that illustrate the hundreds of sites and programs related to social media. Today, we are going to discuss 2: - Twitter
- Facebook
Don’t get overwhelmed with the other stuff out there. Start where 95% of the population is. Remember, these social sites are an extension of your traditional website. This means that there must be a cohesive feel to all of your different sites. Do you have puffy clouds as the background of your website? Is light blue prominently featured in your color scheme? Chances are the default background on Twitter has nothing to do with your website. Therefore, we need to clean that up fast. · Make sure there is a smooth aesthetic transition from one site (and sight) to the next. If your website has a red background, then so should your Twitter page. · Your logo should be displayed as more than simply your avatar (the picture next to where you type, for those that are not comfortable with the word). Incorporate it into your background. · Your profile is 140 characters long. Use this space to tell your readers who you are, not how to reach you. Do not clutter it with phone numbers, street addresses, etc. Instead incorporate geographical information into your background. Facebook has been criticized for its lack of customization. This is no longer true. You can create a custom landing page for those who have never been to your Facebook page before. On this page, you should include: · Branding (logo, tagline, etc.) · Current Promotions (graphic links to ad pages, if you have any, or whatever else you are currently using as a promotion.) · Selling points (Three bullet points as to why to do business with your company) If you only have 3 seconds to grab someone’s attention, make it worthwhile! Make sure your landing page is up to date. Nothing will turn off your customer quicker than a 4th of July Savings Ad in August. Have a “Facebook only” promotion, and list it as such. Now that you have the customers’ attention, keep them coming back, and looking for more. If they have never been on your Facebook page before, and all they see is your information page when they arrive, they may be too disinterested to go any further. We’ll talk about what types of content you should post in steps 2 and 5. For now, focus on making your social pages look as well put together and professional as your main website.
 No one likes to be the last one picked for a team. When businesses finally decide to start using social media, they often feel the same type of anxiety. You cannot launch a brand new social media site, and instantly have hundreds of Fans on Facebook, thousands of followers on Twitter, or immediately have an award-winning blog read daily by millions. These things can take time. The problem that most beginners have is that most of the help written about this subject is aimed at those who have an already-established online presence of some kind. We talk about Growing Social Media, Strengthening Social Media, Re-Kindling Social Media, etc. all the time, but forget about starting from scratch. We are going to focus on building a social media presence out of practically nothing. We’re going to discuss ways to add additional relevant content from places you never considered looking. Rather than another blog that discusses social media maintenance, the following five blog posts will teach readers how to create new buzz. That’s not to say, “Stop reading this if you’ve already got it going on!” There are some ideas in here that should be launched when you first start your social media campaigns, but if you didn’t complete our recommended steps, it’s never too late. The beauty of these postings is it doesn’t matter what level your social presence is at, it can always get better. The same way you can patch cracks in the foundation in your building, you can do the same with your social media. Let’s start this journey today. We’ll begin with Step one, Fully Create Your Social Platforms.
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