Wednesday, 30 November 2016
Infographic | 9 Easy Steps To Become A Successful Virtual Assistant
Do you feel tired of the relentless running across multiple departments of your office to get your job done?
Do you feel like you can never manage your job responsibilities sufficiently, no matter how hard you try?
It happens to everyone who end up doing something they are not passionate about.
While many of us think that we need to keep on doing this for a successful career, it is not the truth.
You don’t have to settle for daily professional drudgery; you can achieve all your professional dreams with a successful career in providing virtual assistance!
Feeling skeptic about the future prospect of the job role?
You don’t need to!
The demand for virtual assistance has been steadily rising among global entrepreneurs who feel that they need an extra professional hand to manage their daily tasks.
Moreover, being a virtual assistant means that you can think and work independently while meeting the requirements of your clients from any preferred location at any pre-chosen time setting. You will get paid for the number of tasks you execute per hour/day!
Doesn’t it sound quite an overwhelming way to beat the 9-to-5 struggle?
However, if you have started thinking that you can start it right now and the clients will just pour in, you are mistaken!
Like any other business venture, virtual assistance also needs detailed planning and patience, and you need to follow some crucial steps to get started.
Want to know how?
Keeping your interest as a beginner in mind, MyTasker has developed an attractive infographic for you, which not only offers a great visual treat, but tells you 9 easy steps of becoming a successful virtual assistant.
Just have a close look at the infographic and start redefining your professional life!
The post Infographic | 9 Easy Steps To Become A Successful Virtual Assistant appeared first on Ninja Outreach.
source https://ninjaoutreach.com/become-a-successful-virtual-assistant/
Top 10 Tips for Building Your Tribe in Social Media
Whether you are a solopreneur or run a multi-million dollar corporation, one of the most important assets your business can build today is your social media tribe.
Your tribe drives your business, tells more people why they need to join the fun with you and let’s you know what you’re doing well and what you need to improve.
In short, your tribe becomes the reason you remain in business, your raison d’être.
Your tribe pays your mortgage, puts shoes on your kids feet and helping them do better and be better is part of what gives your life meaning.
Here are my top 10 tips for building your tribe through social media:
- Don’t just do something, research. Many people make the mistake of thinking that all they have to do is set up a Facebook account or other social media network site and start talking. Begin at the beginning. Research the keywords that your fans will use when they go to the search engines to find your business, products, books and services. This is a major mistake that many people make. They never really build an audience because they don’t know what their audience is actually looking for.
- Once you know your keywords, create hashtags. Your hashtags become searchable terms that people will use in social media to find you.
- Use a dashboard. Having used both Social Ally and Hootsuite I recommend Hootsuite. A social media dashboard is a single location where you can connect all your social media accounts. From this place, you can schedule your social media posts to be sent out multiple times throughout the day, set up systems to monitor your top hashtags, follow back people who follow you, research your followers and much more. In short, for $10 a month, you can automate, simplify and educate yourself.
- Find future tribe members by researching your hashtags. You can use your dashboard to find other people who are obsessed with the same topics that you are. Many people focus on Influencers, who are simply people who have a lot of followers who can sway many other folks to make decisions. But recognize that literally anybody in social media can have influence – either in your favor or against you. Make friends with your influencers. Follow them. Retweet them, share their information, engage them in conversations, offer to cross blog with them.
- Blog once a week using your keywords. You can definitely blog more than once a week, but our Search Engine Optimization guru Scott D. Smith argues that once a week gives you 80 percent of the impact you need. Put the keyword in the title and first paragraph. Realize that the most important part of your blog is the title, so learn how to create killer headlines that grab people’s attention. The second most important part of your blog is the first paragraph. If you don’t grab their attention with your headline and first paragraph, you’ve lost them. Realize that people today scan more than they read, which is why blogs based on lists (such as this one) are the most successful these days.
- Use a Jetpack on your WordPress website to automate publishing your articles all over the social media. When you set up your Jetpack plugin, every time you hit “Publish” on your blog, your article gets automatically sent out to all the social media networks connected to your website. This saves you a tremendous amount of time.
- Be a friend to have a friend. Share more than you sell. Retweet, share, engage with content that your raving fans create. Don’t just be a boring monologue ranting on “buy my stuff.” You create good karma in social media every time you share the meaningful content that other people create. They will be more likely to share your information once you have shared first. Give first receive later.
- Tell your story in a visual way. Recognize that Youtube is the second largest search engine in the world after Google. You can create one to three minute videos using your smart phone or video conference services like Zoom.us. Use your smart phone to photograph your customers engaging with your products and services. Use services like Canva to create graphics that grab people’s attention. Realize that if your social media post does not have an image, a video or a GIF, it’s less likely to be noticed or shared. Colored visuals increase people’s willingness to read a piece of content by 80 percent.
- Ultimately, your goal through the social media is to drive people to your home website where they will buy your products, sign up for your services and become paying customers. Create giveaways to lure people to sign up for your email newsletter. A good way to do this is create autoresponders through services like Constant Contact and market the material you are giving away for free through your social media.
- Use the Google analytics information on your website to identify what kinds of content your fans are responding to. This analytic information is free and available to anyone who has a website. You can see which articles people have been reading the most. Then give your fans more information about the most popular topics. Often you think you know what people are coming to you for but you won’t really know until you see the analytical information Google provides for you. Focus on these topics and share freely to your social media tribe.
Want to learn more about how you can Win the Game of Social Media?
Putting all this together takes time and is part of creating a successful social media strategy.
Join Catherine Carrigan and Ramajon Cogan at www.whatissocialmediatoday.com and we will show you how! Call Catherine Carrigan today at 678-612-8816 or email catherine@catherinecarrigan.com or contact Ramajon Cogan at (928) 821-4553 or email wheresramajon@gmail.com.
The post Top 10 Tips for Building Your Tribe in Social Media appeared first on What is Social Media Today.
source http://whatissocialmediatoday.com/top-10-tips-building-tribe-social-media/
source http://whatissocialmediatoday.blogspot.com/2016/11/top-10-tips-for-building-your-tribe-in.html
Tuesday, 29 November 2016
Social Media - The Key to Blogger Outreach
As Social Media platforms continue to grow and evolve as a communication medium, so too are marketing opportunities expanding. The latest trend in social media marketing is blogger outreach, otherwise known as influencer marketing.
So how do you make the most out this novel trend?
What Is Blogger Outreach?
It makes sense that we start off by looking at what blogger outreach actually is, and why it’s such an important marketing tactic.
Blogger outreach means coming into contact with already established social media personalities and asking them to promote your business. In a sense, it’s not much different than bringing in any notable celebrity to support your brand.
Influencer marketing, however, is different in that you can reach very niche audiences. Each community has a number of bloggers they follow, based on the field these bloggers work with. These fields can range from popular culture in general to astronomy, or just a specific set of gadgets.
It is more important than ever to create a strong network as recommendations are the most effective marketing strategy in our era of technology. The public is researching the products or blogs they want to adopt in their lives. They read reviews on popular websites about your blog before deciding to connect with you.
This makes blogger outreach an extremely powerful marketing strategy. But it’s also trickier than other traditional marketing strategies. Bloggers are not like your conventional celebrities.
Influencers maintain their audience’s loyalty by providing them with their own, unbiased opinions. Some influencers might be skeptical about working with a company since this can jeopardize their credibility.
The relationship between a blogger and company tends to be much more personal. This new wave of influencers doesn’t usually have a team of PR experts backing them up and helping them manage their public image. You’ll probably have to discuss with them one on one. This can be useful since you can address their concerns directly and bring in a personal touch to your conversation.
This approach worked very well for the whisky brand, Lagavulin. They asked Nick Offerman to promote their product. Together they created the #MyTalesofWhisky campaign.
The campaign seemed to be crafted around Offerman’s dry, manly-man persona, rather than around the product. This campaign managed to promote both Lagavulin and Offerman’s powerful character, by creating a series of stories that centered around his own interests, and featured Lagavulin as part of the setting.
On the other hand, they might not be so adept at spotting PR opportunities. And they also have to worry about the integrity of their online persona. And this usually tends to come first on their list of priorities. So you have to handle the whole process of blogger outreach with care.
How Do You Tap Into This Trend?
Now that we’ve seen what blogger outreach presupposes, we can move on to look at some of the ways influencers can be approached, and how a successful blogger outreach can be carried out.
Discover the Influencers in Your Field
As we’ve mentioned, bloggers operate in all sorts of fields. To get the most out of your influencer marketing campaign, try to target bloggers operating within your field.
To do that, you can join Facebook groups and follow popular people on Twitter that are related to your field. Use the power of Google to discover the people whose online presence inspires their public to improve their lives or evolve in the field you are writing about.
You can find influencers starting the other way around. Look for what posts are shared and who’s sharing them to see which bloggers are popular in your field.
Those people are your influencers. Pay attention to not confuse these influencers with your competition. Make sure they are known in your field, but they tackle different and contiguous issues or problems.
Influencers that have a lot of followers would be preferred since you get the chance to promote your business to a wider audience in one go. But it can be difficult to reach them since they are most likely swamped with offers.
On the other hand, there are some advantages to approaching a larger number of smaller influencers, or micro-influencers. Even though their audiences might be limited, fans of less known bloggers tend to be much more loyal. They are more likely to listen to their opinions and take them to heart.
A recent study showed that there is an inverse correlation between an influencer’s reach and the rate of customer engagement. That is, the more people followed an influencer, the less they engaged with them.
Preparing for the Conversation With Influencers
Though bloggers are now quite used to discussing with marketers, and setting up influencer campaigns, bear in mind that is not their main job. So when approaching a blogger, you need to convince them that your brand is worth promoting.
- Start by researching social profiles of targeted influencers.
- Find out what they are passionate about besides your common field.
- Interact with them for several weeks by commenting on their posts with witty and out of the box replies. Or you can share their posts and thank them for their insights to get noticed.
At this stage, it’s important to establish the voice of your brand. You’ll want to maintain a consistent brand persona, while still adapting your conversational style to each of the bloggers you are reaching out to.
This means that, if your brand tends to favor a more mature and professional style, you shouldn’t start using millennial buzzwords all of a sudden, in the hopes of reaching out to a younger audience.
Likewise, if your brand markets itself towards a younger audience, you shouldn’t try to change that tone to appeal to a professional, mature influencer and their followers.
It’s best to choose an influencer based on common interests, and common tone and approach as well.
Using an inconsistent brand voice on social media can look very bad because everything is recorded and easy to share.
Customers are going to spot the inconsistencies, and as a result, your brand’s image will be hard to understand. Or it might look like you don’t really have a brand at all. At any rate, many find brand inconsistencies quite frustrating.
You can also use this opportunity to breach the gap, and promote them on your own social media pages, or blogs.
Show them that you value their opinion before you ask them to promote your products. It doesn’t affect your business in any way, and it sends a positive message to your future promoters.
You can do this by sharing their posts, thanking them for their insights or even asking them for expert quotes for your future content.
Getting a scoop on the latest trends can also help you prepare your own social media presence. When approaching a blogger, you need a website that looks credible, even if you’re just starting out. The insights you gain by researching influencers in your field will help you spruce up your social media pages.
As part of this research process, you can also look at past blogger outreach campaigns and see what you can learn from them. You should adopt the personality of the influencer you’re targeting but a little bit of extra insight can’t hurt.
Strike Up a Conversation With Social Media Influencers
Once you’ve established a connection between your brand and the influencers you want to reach out to, it’s time you actually speak to them directly.
Before you do that, you should make sure they’re actually up for it.
Springing an offer to them out of the blue can be off-putting and it ruins your chances of bringing them on board.
You should also try to reach out to influencers through social media chats. It is more straightforward than the e-mail, and it is another impersonal way to communicate in real time. Apps like Facetime and other video chat apps can help you put a face and voice to your brand so that influencers will feel more at ease working with your company.
Just make sure it’s not too intrusive for them, and always ask beforehand how they would prefer to communicate with you.
Don’t focus your entire conversation on the lucrative business opportunity on hand. Bloggers are people, and that’s what you should be focusing on. Social media is a very relaxed environment, and one of the main benefits of promoting your business here is that you can breach the gap between your brand and your potential customers.
This should be your main focus, and you should state it clearly from your very first conversation with the influencers you’ve chosen to approach.
Create a Personalized Offer for Them
Sometimes influencers will be so enthusiastic about your products they will promote them just for a free sample. But bloggers are businessmen as well, and their influence is the main product they have. So you’ll have to sweeten the deal to get them to promote your product.
The image above shows the conversation between several travel bloggers who were approached by Diamond PR on behalf of Marriott. The bloggers were each given the opportunity to travel to a different region of the world, in pairs, and then speak about their experience. The travel destinations were tailored to the interests of the bloggers. Plus, it provided them with more content for their own blogs.
Sometimes influencers will be happy to take money in exchange for a promotion. However, some may feel that this can tarnish their integrity, thus losing their audience’s trust.
The best way you can convince influencers to promote your business is by creating personalized offers. You can discuss the products or services you have and see which one appeals to your influencer of choice and their audience.
You can also work on cross-promoting your blogs and social media pages and focus on creating a professional relationship and keep them updated with your latest work while they do the same. They can mention your work and recent studies in many of their articles while you do the same. After all, you do have same interests, yet different approaches.
This kind of cross-promotion is very popular, and it benefits everyone involved.
To make this work, however, you need to boost your own social media presence. Otherwise, bloggers might feel like they’re getting the short end of the stick. Still, investing in a strong online presence is always a plus, and if you can boost it even further, that’s even better.
Working on creating personalized offers can also expand the range of products you have. If the influencers you’ve tapped agree with it, you can name certain packages after them. You can use their endorsement to promote further these products and maybe even send a couple of clients back to their blogs as well.
Keep This Blogger Network Constant
If you have not heard of them in a long time, follow up with them via social platforms.
If you neglected them for a while due to personal issues, reach out to them again and ask them to update you with the latest news in your common field.
Keeping this social media dialogue going is essential to the success of influencer marketing. You want your brand to become part of that community. If you’re products fade out of the conversation, leads might soon forget about it. Or they won’t return to your business as often as they could simply because they don’t know the latest news.
Take for example Red Bull’s partnership with Felix Baumgartner. In 2012, his epic skydiving video became one of the most popular videos of 2012, and, subsequently one of the best influencer campaigns. But the viral video quickly faded from memory, as it didn’t really have a follow-up. Once the novelty of the act wore off, there wasn’t much to say about it.
Remember that social media is a very dynamic place where trends and opinions can change completely overnight. All of the social media attention you’ve gained through one successful blogger outreach campaign can go away if you don’t follow up on it.
You can create a kind of hub around your product. Encourage a dialogue between multiple bloggers over your product.
As an example, you can look at the “Let’s Play” phenomenon.
There are many Youtube channels dedicated to influencers playing video games for a large audience. One of the most popular influencers in this medium is Pewdiepie, with over 13 million subscribers. These videos started out as reviews of video games (and to a certain extent gaming hardware) and became an entire genre in and of itself.
You can try to make your brand more appealing to younger generations by setting up challenges surrounding your products or services.
One of the most popular viral challenges was the ALS Ice Bucket challenge, that combined entertainment with a noble cause to reach out to its audience. These sort of contests help bloggers share their audiences and keep them entertained. At the same time, you can keep your own product in focus, without forcing it into the conversation.
You can also promote your influencers future endeavors without necessarily placing your product at the heart of it all. You can sponsor a project of theirs or a web series and just ask them to mention your brand while they’re at it.
American Express created a very successful campaign by partnering with Putnam Flowers. The company sponsored their trips around the world sourcing flowers, while the florist duo posted pictures of their trips on the company’s Instagram account.
The more natural the promotion seems, the more likely it is to gain positive attention. And the easiest way to do that is via social media since these platforms are all about sharing little insights into our daily lives.
One very important point here is that you shouldn’t get too aggressive on follow-ups. If your blogger has decided to stop promoting your products for whatever reason, you shouldn’t badger them into it. This can be very bad your brand. Word spreads fast through social media. And that can be harmful in some instances.
Blogger outreach will soon become one of the most powerful tools in a marketer’s arsenal. It’s going to help brands and customers connect like never before, and it will help businesses stay in touch with the needs of their clients.
Dustin Ford is very passionate about marketing and social media. He started writing about these topics and now he gathered some attention from the online community. He works on becoming a real influencer in this field and getting recognized and valued for his opinions.
The post Social Media - The Key to Blogger Outreach appeared first on Ninja Outreach.
source https://ninjaoutreach.com/social-media-blogger-outreach/
Monday, 28 November 2016
Wednesday, 23 November 2016
5 Smart Ways to Hijack Influencer's Attention Using Content
Reaching out to influencers and gaining their attraction is a smart way of marketing.
As a blogger, you cannot do it all alone. You need extra hands.
And influencer marketing is a great way to easily gain traction and skyrocket your growth.
The key is - you just have to make sure that you don’t reach out to influencers, or any other fellow-bloggers with the sole aim of getting benefited.
I personally love to make friends - and it is the only “casual” and “cool” thing that I do in my business that doesn’t sound like “work”.
I love building genuine relationships with fellow bloggers, readers, and influencers.
The benefits just follow - but I don’t reach out to anyone with the aim of getting only the benefits myself. I have this as a strict rule in my outreach campaigns.
Having said that, in this post, I will share 5 smart ways in which you can gain the attention of influencers.
If you have been trying to get in the radar of any of your favorite influencers and have not succeeded yet, I highly recommend you to follow these tips.
#1 Create expert roundup posts
Before you give that “duh” look, let me tell you this - I totally agree that roundup posts are a bit overrated these days.
For one, there’s too much of this kind that’s published every day. And second, the quality of round ups get diminished as the volume increases.
More and more people are embracing this approach in order to get more shares, comments, and traffic.
But the whole purpose of publishing such roundups is often overlooked and under-used.
Of course, there is no right way and wrong way of doing this.
Whom you choose as experts to include in the roundup totally depends on the kind of your business, which influencers you want to attract, and what outcome you expect from the post.
All these differ from business to business - so I cannot give you a one-size-fits-all blueprint.
However, what I can suggest you are a few important tips to keep in mind to make this work.
When you plan to do an expert round up, you have to decide on two major things -
- What do you want the outcome of the post to be?
- Who are the experts you are going to invite?
Number 3 is the question you are going to ask them, but this is of lesser importance than the first two.
For the purpose of this post, I assume that you want to get in the radar of a few influencers and that’s why you want to feature them. If so you need to first take a list of influencers you want to reach out to.
And all of the list members should not be solely the influencers you want to reach out to.
You should also add your fellow bloggers and friends to the mix - ignoring your friends is not a good idea!
And remember you won’t get a 100% response to your expert round up invitations. So you have to prepare a longer list than you expect to feature in your expert round up post.
And, make sure this is not the first time you hit them up all with your cold email.
You have to have established some sort of pre-relationship with them (a reach out, a “hi” in social media, leaving comment, or contributing a guest post on their blog, sharing their stuff and so on) before you reach out to them.
#2 Publish interviews
Publishing interviews of influencers is a great way to get in the radar of the influencer as well as their followers.
However, this is not so easy. Most influencers are certainly busy.
With an expert roundup, their response is going to be very short - and you can probably get their response.
But a dedicated interview means more content and more time spent for the influencer.
Depending upon how well you have established your pre-relationship with the influencer, you might get a yes, or no or a no-response!
So publishing interviews is more challenging than publishing a roundup - but in an interview, you feature just one person.
The whole focus of that interview is one influencer - and he/she might enjoy the full attention a lot more, as opposed to being featured alongside a list of others in a roundup post.
Both expert roundups and interviews have their own pros and cons; which is why I suggest you do a combination of both!
#3 Publish a content roundup
Who doesn’t love links and mentions to their content? Every blogger will certainly appreciate a mention and a link back.
By publishing content roundups you feature a list of excellent blog posts you came across in a week or in a month.
A word of caution here - just be sure that you maintain high standards when selecting content to feature in the roundup.
When you start to publish content roundups in a consistent manner (say every week, or once in a fortnight), you might end up not getting enough posts to feature.
So you might be tempted to settle for mediocre posts to fill up the slot - and this is dangerous.
Over the time, your roundup posts will slowly fail to pick up interest from your readers.
When you keep up the standards and when you do this consistently you increase your chances of getting in the radar of your favorite influencers (by including their content in your roundups).
And, not to mention - publishing such roundups will also help you deliver highly useful content to your readers that you did not necessarily create yourself!
#4 Write a follow-up post
This is more of a personal approach where you publish a follow-up blog post on your own blog based on another blog post written by an influencer.
For such an approach to work perfectly, you have to totally base your blog post on one particular idea or one particular blog post by the influencer.
Freely and openly mention that you have based your blog post on that particular idea and link out to that blog post.
Freely use quotes and ideas from the blog post and give credit.
Once the post goes live, don’t forget to send a personalised email to the influencer telling that you have published a piece of content voicing your opinion on the topic and that piece of content is solely based on/motivated by his/her blog post (mention title and link of blog post in email)!
A word of caution - don’t overdo this. Use sparingly!
Here's an example post by Henneke - note that at the end of the post, she acknowledges Kathy Keats for inspiring the post!
#5 Publish a case study
A case study? Yep!
This takes a little more work - but this approach puts you directly in the radar of your favorite influencer.
All you have to do is this - pick up a particular piece of advice, a strategy, or a product of the influencer.
Apply whatever strategy/tip he/she teaches in that!
And publish the results as a detailed case study.
Now this is not something you sit down and do in a day or two.
First, you should identify that such a strategy or a tip or a method that is solely taught by that influencer. If it is a product, that’s an added bonus!
Nowadays, lots of “generic” tips are being shared all over the internet.
So you have to make sure you pick that unique thing shared by that influencer alone - something like the Skyscraper technique by Brian Dean or the Drafting technique by Derek Halpern.
Apply it to your business, do a case study, track the results and publish it as a blog post.
Let the influencer know about your case study once it goes live!
This not only puts you in the radar of the influencer; you might even be featured on their website!
Conclusion
Influencer marketing is a big thing these days. Not only it helps you to skyrocket the growth of your business (speed is important, don't you agree?), but it also helps you to build an empire of great contacts.
You never know which contact can come up with what opportunity for your business.
At the same time, getting the influencers to pay attention to you is not an easy-peasy thing!
Influencers are busy, and they've got so much noise around them to notice you!
But that doesn't mean you should drop the plan!
In this blog post I've shared 5 smart ways to use content to gain the attention of your favorite influencers!
Implement these tips and see the results for yourself.
Do share your thoughts in the comments below.
Jane shares brutally honest blogging tips at her blog. She suggests you to pick up her content creation course and create killer content for your business on a regular basis!
The post 5 Smart Ways to Hijack Influencer's Attention Using Content appeared first on Ninja Outreach.
source https://ninjaoutreach.com/attract-influencer-using-content/
Tuesday, 22 November 2016
5 Key Takeaways From Social Media Mistakes Big Brands Have Committed
The evolution of social media is a story filled with curiosity, awe and, to an extent, disbelief. It seems like just a few years back that people were using this new platform called Orkut, sending inane messages and sharing personal news and photos with “friends.” Then Facebook happened. And the world, as we knew it, changed. Forever.
Social media became a platform for marketing and brands started using it to connect with their customers. With more than 2 billion users of social media the world over, the marketing potential of social media is tremendous and presents opportunities for brands to engage with customers in ways never before possible by traditional forms of marketing.
But social media has its own perils, its own set of “Dos and Don’ts.” Brands missing out on the unwritten code of conduct can, and have, suffered severe backlash, not to mention a dent to their carefully acquired reputation.
The biggest feature of social media is to be in the “now.” In order to capitalize on it, many brands have posted content that was thoughtless and in bad taste. Let us see some social media fails and gaffes and more importantly what we can learn from them.
1. The “WTF!” moment of US Airways
In April 2014, a flier named Elle Rafter was unhappy that her flight got late by an hour. US Airways responded and the conversation went to and fro for some time and then US Airways dropped a very NSFW bomb on poor Elle by sharing an extremely graphic image.
While the post itself was innocuous, thanking Elle for her feedback, the accompanying image was in very bad taste (pun intended!) and conveyed sarcasm. The image stayed on their feed for more than an hour and got some pretty bad press. US Airways did finally pull it down and apologized profusely stating that it was “an honest mistake.”
Takeaway – Social media is notorious for making apparently harmful posts viral; ones you wouldn’t have dreamt could become popular. If you thought that the life of a post on social media is a few minutes, think again. Once a bad post is out the damage is done.
For a brand it is imperative that every post goes through a screening system to assure that no inappropriate posts go online. There are software like Social SignIn, Social Instinct and Crowd Control HQ that could notify senior members or editors before the post is about to go live.
2. Blackberry “loves” iPhone
In early 2015, they apparently hit its own foot with an axe when Blackberry tweeted from an iPhone. This was a shock to the millions of Blackberry fans when they saw the tweet. What Blackberryorgot to realize that when a tweet is sent from a mobile device, it invariably displays the message “sent via Twitter for …,” in this case iPhone.
BlackBerry is tweeting from an iPhone http://t.co/TAlDTazdsX pic.twitter.com/DUI3Nwuy6A
— The Verge (@verge) January 13, 2015
Blackberry quickly removed the post, but, unfortunately, it was seen and the damage was done.
Takeaway – Well, it’s pretty simple. Never, ever, use your competitor’s products. The tweet made a lasting impression and is still being talked about, months after the gaffe.
3. That hashtag is trending! Let’s jump on it!
Now this has to be the most common mistake that brands are guilty of committing. And there are hundreds, if not thousands, of examples of major brands goofing up. Let us take two examples of brands using highly sensitive and emotional trending hashtags or events to promote their brands. It made them look plain stupid and highly insensitive.
The first is DiGiorno, the frozen pizza brand. A video involving NFL player Ray Rice and his then-fiancé, Janay Palmer was circulated and it showed Rice punching Palmer in the face. This disturbing video became the precursor to women taking to Twitter to share and discuss their relationships with abusive partners and why they chose to stay in such a relationship. The hashtag that started trending was #WhyIStayed.
Example of a brand using a trending topic without understanding the context #Advertising #SocialMedia #WhyIStayed pic.twitter.com/iTSmfaT6Xv
— Scott Paul (@scottfpaul) September 9, 2014
Trying to leverage this trend, DiGiorno, without even considering what this hashtag was all about jumped in with an insensitive tweet that said #WhyIStayed You Had Pizza!
Another example is that of the Seattle Seahawks and their failed attempt to use a trending hashtag, #MLK Day. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is a revered figure in the history of the American civil rights movement. To connect football with MLK Day, the Seattle Seahawks used the famous quote by Dr. King, “We Shall Overcome,” and showed a picture of quarterback Russell Wilson in tears after a hard-fought victory.
Although the post had good intentions, no doubt, many people were offended by the comparison of football with the fight to overcome racial discrimination.
Takeaway – Spare a few minutes to understand what a hashtag is all about before jumping on to it. Use your judgment and foresight to understand how people will react and respond to your post.
4. Brand Promotion from the Spirit World!
That a brand like Apple can goof up in their social media marketing efforts is proof that nobody can take social media marketing for granted. Social media can be the best and worst of places to market your brand. If you aren’t careful, the repercussions could be disastrous.
Comedian Joan Rivers was roped in by Apple to promote the iPhone 6 on her Facebook and Instagram accounts. As scheduled, the posts went live. The problem? They went live two weeks after Joan Rivers died. Social media users had a field day and one Twitter user posted “Well if the iPhone 6 is good enough for Joan Rivers from beyond the grave, it’s good enough for me. ;-)”
#iPhone6 so big, Joan Rivers came back from the dead to endorse it. #JoanRivers #JoanDay #iPhone pic.twitter.com/OIP1vgP7en
— Rebecca (@Mrs_Hickling) September 19, 2014
Takeaway – While scheduling posts is a good way to organize your campaigns, they need to be constantly monitored and updated regularly to reflect the latest changes. So when Joan Rivers died, her accounts should have been updated so that the posts would have been deleted and Apple would have been saved from the embarrassment, not to mention the awkwardness around the memory of the late Joan Rivers.
Conclusion
Brands need to understand the risks of having their social media accounts managed by inexperienced staff and should have a solid strategy and multiple checkpoints to avoid such gaffes. Any content that you post should excite, inspire and engage people and motivate them to know more about your brand. Any other kinds of posts are a waste of time and in most cases can severely backfire.
Apology, genuine and sincere, can be a balm for such misguided occasions. Brands that have made insensitive posts have been spared after genuine apologies. Whatever you post on the internet remains there forever. Brands need to be extra careful in choosing what to post lest it harms their carefully constructed reputation.
Avinash Nair is a digital marketer at E2M, India's premium digital marketing agency. He specializes in SEO and Social Media Marketing services. You can find him on Twitter: @AviNair52
The post 5 Key Takeaways From Social Media Mistakes Big Brands Have Committed appeared first on Ninja Outreach.
source https://ninjaoutreach.com/big-brands-mistake-takeaways/
Monday, 21 November 2016
Saturday, 19 November 2016
Coming Soon: Our New Book, Get Ready to Win the Game of Social Media
Ramajon Cogan and Catherine Carrigan, partners in www.whatisocialmediatoday.com, are pleased to announce we will soon be publishing Get Ready to Win the Game of Social Media.
Get Ready to Win the Game of Social Media will be the first in a series of books we plan to publish over the next year.
Whether you are a solopreneur, authorpreneur, mompreneur, ompreneur or run a multi-million dollar company, you need this book if you want to succeed in today’s competitive marketplace where everybody’s marketing message tries to speak louder than the next person’s.
Written by Catherine Carrigan, Get Ready to Win the Game of Social Media empowers you to develop the mindset to succeed in social media.
Our second book, Keywords, Hashtags and You, Oh My! will follow shortly afterwards.
“As humans, we go through a distinct psychological process whenever we are making changes,” says Amazon No. 1 bestselling author Catherine Carrigan.
“Social media is no different.
“Many people feel overwhelmed by the thought of adding one more task to their daily responsibilities and come up with many excuses about why they either can’t or won’t be able to win the Game of Social Media.
“Learning how to develop your unique digital social signature is essential to succeeding today no matter what your business is.
“Get Ready to Win the Game of Social Media teaches you how to overcome your blocks to social media so that you can not only manage to fit this responsibility into your daily life but also enjoy developing an online brand identity that propels you to the next level.”
We want to take this time to express our gratitude to Denise Cassino, Amazon marketing expert of www.bestsellerservices.com, who designed the logo for www.whatissocialmediatoday.com and the cover for our series of books.
Ramajon Cogan is in the process of formatting the new book, which we hope to publish as soon as possible.
What you will learn in Get Ready to Win the Game of Social Media:
- How to overcome your overwhelm if you happen to be an ordinary mortal
- Why you don’t need to become a geek to succeed
- Why you need a social network even if you don’t know what that is
- How blogging can build your brand identity
- How to set up enjoyable rituals of human connection
- What happens if you keep sticking your head in the sand and do nothing
- How to decipher what people are actually saying online
- The mindset required to succeed in social media
- How to have fun
- How to overcome your fears
- How building your tribe may be the most valuable thing you ever create in business
At the end of the book, you’ll discover a coupon for $500 off the next program we’ll be offering here at www.whatissocialmediatoday.com.
We’ve been taking a group of hardworking folks through our program and empowering them to become social media superstars.
Want to learn more about how you can Win the Game of Social Media?
Join Catherine Carrigan and Ramajon Cogan at www.whatissocialmediatoday.com and we will show you how! Call Catherine Carrigan today at 678-612-8816 or email catherine@catherinecarrigan.com or contact Ramajon Cogan at (928) 821-4553 or email wheresramajon@gmail.com.
The post Coming Soon: Our New Book, Get Ready to Win the Game of Social Media appeared first on What is Social Media Today.
source http://whatissocialmediatoday.com/coming-soon-our-new-book-get-ready-to-win-the-game-of-social-media/
source http://whatissocialmediatoday.blogspot.com/2016/11/coming-soon-our-new-book-get-ready-to.html
Friday, 18 November 2016
#SproutChat Recap: Identifying Your Metrics & Goals on Social
Marketers understand that the real value of social media isn’t represented in the data but rather in the analysis. The metrics that have real meaning will inform your overall strategy and impact your business’ bottom line. However, in order to accurately measure social ROI, you need to first identify the data and compile presentable reports with digestible social media metrics.
This week at #SproutChat we discussed which social metrics to look for, how to establish social goals and offered tips on best practices for presenting insights to a broader team.
Conduct a Social Media Audit
Whether you’re starting a new job or revamping a social strategy for a client or existing employer it’s important to conduct a social media audit before diving in and implementing any new initiatives. Having an understanding of what social content already exists and knowing what your brand’s follower numbers, engagement metrics, impressions and click-throughs are is essential for any progress.
@SproutSocial A1. Overall vanity metrics (followers, engagement rates, impressions) + web clicks/visits. #SproutChat
— Jordan Bath (@jbath13) November 16, 2016
A1: I do a full-blown social audit! I want to know where everything is (including competitors) before I start to dive in. #sproutchat
— Meagan DeMenna (@mdemenna1) November 16, 2016
A1: What content types are getting the highest engagement, and what are people saying about it? #sproutchat
— Annaliese Henwood (@MktgInnovator) November 16, 2016
A1: likes, comments, clicks, how many different people are responding #sproutchat
— Brad Lovett (@Brad_Lovett) November 16, 2016
A1 Too soon to say "WHO CONVERTED?" (my favorite metric) #sproutchat
— Linda Mann (@TalentExch_Biz) November 16, 2016
A1) Why is the org on social? Awareness? Conversions? Customer service? For all, I'd want to know how each is trending and why. #sproutchat
— Kyle Murray (@TheKyleMurray) November 16, 2016
Present High-Level Learnings
Communicating the ROI of social to your boss can be challenge. It’s likely that senior leadership doesn’t speak the same language as your team does. Social metrics that are interesting and important to a social media manager may not be valued by the CMO and that’s OK. Secure buy in by the causation for visits to your website and conversions that came from social. Use your reports to clearly outline high-level learnings that directly impact your business and explain how engagement and other activity ties back to ROI.
A4: Always the vanity metrics (followers, overall page likes). But we always try to re-educate as to the more insightful metrics #sproutchat
— Nicholas Scalice (@nscalice) November 16, 2016
Retention rates. RT @SproutSocial: Q4: Which metric typically wows your boss the most? #SproutChat
— GeofSloanSr (@GeofSloanSr) November 16, 2016
A4 We love seeing interaction/engagement. If you have thousands of followers but no interaction, is your content really working? #SproutChat
— Brenna Smit (@bren_smit) November 16, 2016
A4) positively handling your followers concerns/complaints #sproutchat
— Meredith Erikson (@MeredithE_JOUR) November 16, 2016
A4: Most get stuck on growth in audience size… I'd love them to catch onto engagement or reach being a bigger value. #sproutchat
— meghan speer (@meghan5580) November 16, 2016
A4: the twitter comparison tool via @SproutSocial always makes us look good. #SproutChat pic.twitter.com/ChrSyLiVZg
— Chris Norris (@CNorris_10) November 16, 2016
A4: and then they ask, ok we have n amounts of followers, DO THEY BUY? #sproutchat
— Val Vesa (@adspedia) November 16, 2016
Continue to Educate Your Colleagues
Team members outside of your social media marketing team will often have a misconception about what quantifies as success. Some people will assume that follower count means success while others won’t understand that a successful social strategy will have a balance of paid and organic distribution. Try to proactively educate your colleagues so everyone’s on the same page with your social media goals and industry best practices.
@SproutSocial A6: That it's all about the number of likes- but shares, retweets and link clicks are way more meaningful! #SproutChat
— Nicole Schneider (@nicolemaries__) November 16, 2016
@SproutSocial Misconception: # of followers is the goal/sign of success. Must explain the importance of quality, not quantity. #SproutChat
— Adeline🍴 (@AdelineJessica) November 16, 2016
A6B) Great EX: Poise & Purpose on FB. 350K followers, little engagement. Sub group of that page, Poise Chat (1/2) #sproutchat
— Kyle Murray (@TheKyleMurray) November 16, 2016
A6 That retweets and shares are all you need. Need to emphasize the importance of engagement and consistency with SM teams #SproutChat
— Evi (@sinopidou) November 16, 2016
A6 Don't wait for ppl to reach out to you – pick up the ball and engage. #sproutchat
— Toby Metcalf (@Toby_Metcalf) November 16, 2016
A6b: If your content is good (should resonate with intended audience) but doesn't- You might be building the wrong audience. #SproutChat
— Tim Mohler (@TimothyMohler) November 16, 2016
Q6: that # of followers isn't important. Not top metric, but shows how everything ties together. No engagement = no growth #sproutchat
— Jessie Brown (@jbrownsocial) November 16, 2016
Due to Thanksgiving, we’re skipping #SproutChat next week. But join us on Wednesday, November 30 to discuss content distribution with Sprout All Starand Content Marketing expert,Erika Heald. Looking for more ways to stay connected with our community? Join our Facebook group to connect with other chat participants.
This post #SproutChat Recap: Identifying Your Metrics & Goals on Social originally appeared on Sprout Social.
source http://sproutsocial.com/insights/sproutchat-metrics-goals/
Wednesday, 16 November 2016
How to Leverage Influencers to Build the Best Content Upgrade
Content upgrade is a powerful way to capture leads, as you’ve probably heard before. Influencer marketing is a powerful way to increase your reach and, ultimately, your bottom line.
I propose combining these two methods into a single, potent strategy.
Here are few quick statistics to warm you up to this idea:
- 92% of people trust recommendations from individuals (even if they don’t know them) over brands.
- Influencer marketing is more effective than Facebook advertising.
- Brian Dean from BackLinko (@BackLinko) received a 785% increase in conversions using content upgrades!
- Tim Soulo from BloggerJet (@TimSoulo) saw a 300% increase in email captures using content upgrades.
Convinced? Good.
So, what happens when you combine these two incredible powerful tools?
Results.
Now, this post is split into 3 sections:
- The kinds of posts that attract influencers
- How to create a content upgrade that catches an influencers eye
- How to get influencers to talk to you
Here goes nothing!
Kinds of posts that attract influencers
Before you can create a content upgrade to attract influencers to your brand, you first have to create the content you’re going to upgrade from.
The kinds of posts that attract influencers in the first place are those that involve the influencers themselves.
Of course, before you can involve your influencers you must first find them. You can use Ninja Outreach to do just that!
Now then, what are the kinds of posts influencers like?
It’s simple, if you think about it - people love feeling important. Not a single person on Earth doesn’t want to feel important on some level.
Write posts that make your influencers feel important!
That could mean posts like:
- List posts of the best tools
- Interview posts with the top influencers
- Roundups of the top content from influencers
Let me explain these in further detail:
List posts of the best tools
This one may not seem like a good idea for influencer outreach. Why would listing tools attract influencers?
The key is to include tools made by influencers.
While you can simply list their tools and write some BS about how great it is even though you’ve never tried it, I suggest actually using their tool first. Most of them have a free trial (Ninja Outreach does!)
Once you’ve tried their tool, write about it. What makes the tool so great? Try to include quotes from the influencers that made them for maximum impact.
Interview posts with the top influencers
Interview posts are awesome as well because being asked to be interviewed is incredibly flattering; It must mean you’re doing well.
I’ve had a lot of success with this method. The best part is that it’s easy because you don’t have to actually write any content - the interviewee gives it to you!
You can choose to interview just one person or multiple people. I like interviewing multiple people because it’s interesting to get a lot of different perspectives. Alternatively, you can interview multiple people and turn each interview into it’s own post!
The hardest part here is getting the person to take 20 or 30 minutes to sit down and talk with you. You have to make it a no-brainer for them - give them two or three dates and times, and promise not to take more than 15 minutes of their time.
I find that 15 minutes often turns into 30 or even 60 minutes. People love to talk about themselves!
One thing to keep in mind when writing interview posts - don’t give away the full interview in the original article. You’re going to want to hold the full thing back for use in a content upgrade (which I’ll explain in the next section).
Pro Tip: If you can’t get them to agree to an interview, then create a list post of “The Top X Experts in [Your Field]”. Mention them, link to them, and talk about their achievements. Then, let them know you mentioned them! They’re likely to share a piece writing about them as an expert - wouldn’t you?
Roundups of the top content from influencers
Here's an example of an expert roundup using Neil Patel
This is another super easy strategy because, again, you don’t have to write as much of your own content.
The easiest way to do this is by going to your list of influencers and checking out their blogs. Look for what seems to be great content, then add that content to your post.
Be sure to write a quick summary of each article with a few key takeaways. Don’t give away the whole article, but talk about why you picked it for your roundup.
I also like to add a mention of each of the writer’s names directly with their Twitter handles afterwards.
For example, my friend Jacob McMillen (@jmcmillen89) wrote an interesting article about the 7 skills every entrepreneur should develop, and one of them was being able to balance hustle and life. I couldn’t agree more - it’s such a difficult thing to balance, yet so crucial to our happiness.
You’ll notice a few things I did in this mention:
- I called him my friend (we’ve only exchanged a handful of emails, but I still consider him a friend).
- I used his name.
- I added his Twitter handle to make it easy for others to follow him.
- I mentioned his article.
- I talked about a key takeaway and expanded on it slightly.
When this article is live, I’ll mention it to him and, hopefully, he’ll return the favors by sharing this post with his followers. (Hi, Jacob!)
Pro tip: Look for someone who is an authority on the subject, but isn’t so huge that they won’t be pleasantly surprised at your mention of them. Someone who has seen success, but not so much that they’re mentioned everywhere and won’t care that you mentioned them.
How to create a content upgrade that catches an influencer’s eye
Now, to the heart of the article - getting not just your content, but your content upgrade to catch an influencer’s interest.
Depending on which article type you chose in the last section, there are a few different things you can do in order to influence the influencers.
If you chose to showcase the best tools, then an in-depth guide to using one of the tools, or multiple tools together, would make an excellent content upgrade. For added benefit, you could have the influencer help you create the guide with insider tips, a few quotes, or even a video or audio piece with some extra help.
If you chose to conduct interviews, then your content upgrade could be the full interview, with one specific person or multiple people. You did hold back some value for this like I mentioned in the last section, didn’t you? For example, you can post snippets or key takeaways from the interview as a main blog post, then release the full interview as a content upgrade in exchange for the viewer’s email address.
If you chose to do a roundup of the top content, then your content upgrade could be a condensed list of your key takeaways from all the articles. Alternatively, you could create an in-depth explanation of one of the topics on the list, or even an interview with one of the authors of the content on the list.
Out of all three article types, I find the list of tools to be the most effective. The reason is because it’s very flattering (and highly beneficial) to the influencers who created them, and it’s fairly easy to get them to give some extra tips for your content upgrade.
How to get influencers to talk to you
Mentioning influencers is only half the battle. You have to actually *gasp!* reach out to them!
I know, it sounds daunting if you’ve never done anything like this before. However, you’ve already made it easy for yourself - You already gave them the credit.
The rule of reciprocity is one of the golden rules Dale Carnegie talks about in his book, How to Win Friends and Influence People.
You did something for them, so they’re more likely to want to do something for you. You also made them feel special, which will make them like you even more!
However, there are a few things you can do first to make this cold email outreach easier.
Comments and shares
There are two things every blogger loves: Comments on their posts and shares.
We work hard on the content we produce. We want to feel appreciated for it.
So, find the influencers you plan on reaching out to, and start commenting on their blog and social media and share their posts. Be sure to mention them when you do.
Just read this awesome post about expert roundups by Brian Lang @sbizideasblog! Had no idea how powerful this was! https://t.co/N0vZ12AzLw
— Bill Widmer (@BillWidmer1) October 23, 2016
You’ll notice a few things about the Tweet above.
- I directly mentioned the writer’s name, not just the blog they wrote for.
- I talked about a direct takeaway I gained from their post (understanding how powerful expert roundups are).
- I expressed that others should take a look at his work through my enthusiasm.
Wouldn’t you feel warm and fuzzy inside if you got a mention like that? I know I would.
And again, the rules of reciprocity and making the other person feel special are critical.
Don’t stop at a Tweet, though. Comment on their blog with some key takeaways too! You can also engage with them on their Facebook page, if they have one.
Now, it’s on to the next step…
Reaching out via email
It’s time to actually reach out to your influencers and get some of that coveted influencer love. If you’ve taken all the previous steps, the person you’re reaching out to should recognize your face and name, at least a little bit.
There are 3 things to keep in mind when reaching out to an influencer using email:
- Mention them by name, if possible. A person’s name is, to that person, one of the sweetest sounding words in the world. Thanks, Dale.
- Keep it short and sweet. Influencers are some of the busiest people in the world. (Or, at least, they like to think they are and you should assume so as well.) Your email should be no longer than a 15-30 second read.
- Make it skim-able. Just like it’s important to format your blog posts for easy reading, it’s also important to make your emails easy to read. The easier you make it for the person you’re sending it to, the higher the chance they’ll say yes.
Not sure what to say when you reach out? Click here to download Ninja Outreach’s free influencer outreach email template. It already has all the things mentioned above so you can just copy-paste with a little bit of personalization each time you send it out.
*Hint, hint - in case you didn’t realize, that free download is a perfect example of a content upgrade!
Once you’ve sent the emails, give them a few days to respond. I like the 3-5 day rule - remember, you’re asking them for a favor, so don’t be too pushy.
If 3 days have gone by and you haven’t heard anything, feel free to reach out again. You can say something along the lines of:
Hey, [Name]!Just wanted to reach out to you again to make sure my email didn’t get lost. I know how busy you must be and answering an email asking for a favor isn’t a priority.
Let me know if you don’t mind sharing the article!
Thanks,
[Your name]
Conclusion
Like many of the digital marketing tactics these days, influencer outreach can be a numbers game. Don’t expect that everyone you reach out to will get back to you. The more emails you send, the better your chances will be.
As long as you keep in mind that people like to feel special and are more likely to reciprocate favors when you do something for them first, your chances should be fairly high.
I hope this article helps you get through to some of the influencers in your industry, and helps you increase your traffic and grow your business! If you have any questions or need help with your influencer outreach, leave me a comment below!
Bill is a content marketing expert and freelance writer. He believes in making the world a better place through writing and smart marketing. Find him on Twitter @BillWidmer1 or send him a nice note at info@billwidmer.com
The post How to Leverage Influencers to Build the Best Content Upgrade appeared first on Ninja Outreach.
source https://ninjaoutreach.com/influencers-for-content-upgrade/
Tuesday, 15 November 2016
How to Improve Customer Service Using Instant Message
D. Michael Abrashoff, who wrote ”It’s Your Ship,” an amazing piece on management techniques, said that “what is needed now is a dramatic new way of inspiring people to excel while things are happening at lightning speed.”
Image source: Altimeter Group // Flickr
The question is:
Does Your Business Inspire Its Community, Customers And Leads?
And does your audience really get your message?
Here is how things stand in 2016:
- Right Message : It’s not just a matter of starting a blog and twitching the content here and there. In fact, launching a business blog in 2016 comes with additional responsibilities, as Jamie pointed out in his A Beginners Guide To Creating Your First Blog . The goal is to create an environment that sends the right message to your audience.
- Extra Attention: Customers want the extra attention. And they deserve it. Never take your clients for granted. Instead, show your gratitude and build on the premise of a great business relationship.
- Community: Everything runs more smoothly when there is a community to back you up. In fact, members can suggest strategies and ideas that significantly contribute to business growth processes. We all know how Pokemon Go screwed up. Learn from their mistakes.
- Three "V": Vision – voice – value. These three are interconnected and ensure stable communication. We talk about voicing the right message to your clients, and the next element in the cycle is value. Your message must convey value to your audience. Otherwise, your strategy can only become half-successful.
Moving to the next step…
Image source: Oatsy40 // Flickr
Just How Well do You Know Your Customers?
In the last five years, more companies have shifted from transactional value to lifetime value. It started with Zane’s Cycles back in the ‘90s, who introduced a new sales mod, by focusing on customer experience. Read the full story on Inc.com
Instead of instant profit, the company relied on generating customer loyalty which drove profit by the second year.
Increasingly more companies go for ‘freemium’ and progress to paid membership plans in order to retain customers and increase value of services.
This Harvard Business Review article differentiates between what should be free and premium.
The platform or marketplace model is quite the case study. Think of freelancing marketplaces which do not offer only free membership plans but also premium ones.
From one membership to another, clients and freelancers get to compare benefits and services. Upgrades cost as little as $10/month and billing is done monthly or yearly.
Customers love complementary services. It’s no hidden fact that once a customer becomes loyal to a service, the probability of needing a complementary service certainly goes higher. And customers would use the same service provider or go through recommendations.
According to Inc.com, small businesses can trigger loyalty compared to bigger brands, which also leads way for SMEs to expand their services palette.
With these aspects in mind and new technologies constantly seeing the light of day, companies need to combine new and old sales strategies.
Introducing the WhatsApp Instant Messaging Model
As of February 1st, one billion users call this app their preferred messaging platform (source: WhatsApp Blog).
Not only that, but starting in the first quarter of 2016, effectively, the company is inviting businesses to join with free membership plans (that’s right, it is now a 100% free service).
The company even sent a message to all users informing them that sensitive information is secured and will not be shared with any third parties--which makes their app “one in a billion” (pun intended).
Even with the new terms of service updates, you can opt out of them and still continue using the app if you do it in the next 30days.
Wondering how the WhatsApp business model can prove beneficial today? Check it out below.
Image source: Sam Azgoz via Flickr
#1. Individual Customer Assistance Experience
In a world of spam and numbers, being able to offer a one-on-one customer experience is probably the best gift to your loyal followers. WhatsApp is personal and spam-free, which makes for a great chatting experience. There are three ways to offer assistance: voice calls, voice messages and text messages - all free.
#2. Real-Time Support
The idea of “here and now” is not new. However, we often see customers suffering from delayed support on the company’s side. In most cases, the inability to offer an instant response to someone’s problems can cause frustration, which eventually leads to cold relationships and even a loss of customers.
#3. Reinvention and Adaptation
You can adapt the service to fit your business peculiarities. Here’s an example: online ordering and concierge services. A new trend is here: the “Whatsapp order.” Companies offer a way for customers to order online and keep in touch with their favorite brands. From restaurants and cafés to clothing stores, any ecommerce business, product or service can benefit from the experience.
#4. Customer Feedback
With real testimonials growing in importance, a brand can now receive customer feedback, immediate, online and at their disposal. Websites with mobile versions can easily be updated with a simple mobile print screen of a customer’s testimonial--a great way to generate more visual content, too.
#5. Communication and Project Management
The idea of group chat doesn’t just mean a way to keep in touch with friends, but also an innovative way for colleagues and teams to work together. Communication and project management in one place. Going further, why not add your customers in the mix? WhatsApp seems more friendly and personal than other “virtual rooms,” due to the instant call-to-action nature of the app.
Image source: Kamaljith KV // Flickr
To Sum It Up…
The main idea is to find a common line between the needs of clients and those of your own business. There is always a way to voice your message in a more direct, personal manner. We witness the end of an era, where everything is automated, impersonal.
To close with D. Michael Abrashoff’s words again, “the key to being successful […] is to see the ship through the eyes of the crew. Only then can you find out what’s really wrong and, in so doing, help the sailors empower themselves to fix it”. In this case, the crew is not just your team. It’s also your customers.
Roxana has been a digital entrepreneur for the past 8years, owner of several online ventures and a passionate community builder. She enjoys challenging companies to upgrade their marketing strategies and create a better place for their customers and teams. You can connect with her anytime via Twitter: @roxanasoi or her marketing blog, SERPlified.com.
The post How to Improve Customer Service Using Instant Message appeared first on Ninja Outreach.
source https://ninjaoutreach.com/instant-message-customer-service/