Bobst Marketing

1. Give Your Customers a Place to Talk

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Some companies are afraid to set up Facebook pages because they allow customers to comment, which means someone might write something negative. It seems counterintuitive, but you should actually want customers to complain on your company’s Facebook page. If your customers are complaining about you on their personal, privacy-protected Facebook profiles, you have no way to know if they’re complaining, much less reach out to them and make it right.

When customers complain on your brand’s Facebook page, you can respond and resolve issues. If you do it right (and get a little lucky), unhappy customers will turn their opinions around and recommend you to friends because of your fantastic customer service.

2. Integrate Social Media Into Your Customer Service

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Neglecting your social media properties when they’re full of customer complaints is suicide for your brand. It’s like publishing a customer service hotline phone number that no one ever answers. (Except worse, because the whole Internet can see your negligence.)

Don’t open up the floor for complaints without a plan to handle them. Predict the complaints you may get and construct policies for replying to them. You should also plan on responding to fans who compliment you. At the very least, you should thank customers for the compliment. But if you really want to make customers happy, show happy customers your appreciation with coupons or other rewards.

3. Activate Your Existing Customer Base

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Most brands have more customers than they do Facebook fans and Twitter followers. Start building your social media fan base by reaching out to your current customers — after all, they already “like” your brand in real life.

Think about how you currently contact your customer base and how you can use those communication channels to draw customers to your social media properties. For example, you could run a contest or promotion on Facebook and then include that promotion on your product’s packaging, in your next email, and in any touch point you have with your customers.

4. Be Proactive

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Don’t just wait for someone to post on your wall or tweet your account. It’s especially easy on Twitter to monitor for mentions of your name and reach out when someone has a problem, even if they haven’t mentioned your account. Set your brand apart by proactively interacting with customers who are talking about your brand, whether you’re thanking them for a compliment or helping them solve a problem.

Think about why your customers use social media sites like Twitter — it’s because they want to “connect” and to have a voice out there. Make them happy that someone, most importantly your company, is listening to what they have to say.

5. Reward Influencers

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Find the social media influencers for your audience and give them extras. This could be as simple as giving them advance notice of a special promotion, or complex as giving them a free trip and tour of your facilities. For example, check out what Musselman’s apple sauce did for its blogger network. Making people feel special will help turn them into advocates for your brand. Reward your brand ambassadors when they least expect it and you’ll see some pretty phenomenal results.

6. Create Compelling Content

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Give your fans something of value on your page. For example, Nordstom’s “Beauty Central” on Facebook provides a ton of relevant, useful content. You can do something similar to this in every industry. If you’re a movie producer, post behind-the-scenes photos, and if you’re a bank, write money saving tips. It’s hard to get people to engage with your brand when you don’t have anything interesting to say. Every brand can (and should) create quality content.

Social media can be a channel to make customers or followers feel special, like they’re in an exclusive club with your brand because they follow you. Make them feel this exclusiveness whether you have ten social media fans or 100,000.

7. Stand Out From the Crowd

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Some of the most memorable social media experiences are created by going beyond text. This can be as complex as Starbucks’s Pumpkin Picture app, or simple as using voice applications to let your brand’s spokesperson actually speak to your fans. The more interactive and engaging your social media presence, the better. In part, social media is a little anti-social because there can be a lot lost in plain text. By giving your fans a true voice on social media, or encouraging participation through photos and videos, you humanize the experience that much more. You’ll be doing so when most of the other companies out there aren’t really participating effectively this way.

 

Article Source :  http://mashable.com/

Actor-turned-businessman Michael Port, author of Book Yourself Solid, talked about how to foster growth at your company here are his tips:

• Think bigger about who you are. There are three types of business owners: dabblers, dreamers and leaders in pursuit of mastery. The future belongs to the learner.
• Marketing doesn’t get you clients. It creates awareness, which can then lead to sales after you build trust with those prospects over time.
• Put up a red velvet rope. Instead of having a desperate, take-all-comers outlook, position your company to take only the best clients who let you do your best work. That will lead to more great clients and enjoyable work.
• Kill your elevator speech. Who wants to listen to those? Instead, develop a personal brand identity that’s true to who you are, and talk about it.

Article Source : http://www.entrepreneur.com/blog/219561

How do you define leadership? Leave us your tips for successful leaders in the comments below.

When you’re running here, there and everywhere to grow your business, it’s easy to feel disconnected. Make your smartphone an organized business command center with these handy apps.

SQUARE:

Easily accept credit card payments anywhere with Square. You’ll get a free credit card reader and be charged 2.75 percent per transaction, with no monthly fees or contracts. The service is secure and does daily deposits. Available for iPhone, iPad and Android.

DROPBOX:

Dropbox makes your documents, videos and photos available on all your devices and on its website, so it’s an effective backup tool. The basic package is free; higher-volume data users can get a beefier $20 version. Custom packages are offered for large groups. Available for iPhone and Android.

PRO ON GO:

Track receipts and mileage with the bare-bones version of this financial app or add elements like time tracking and credit card transaction syncing with more advanced versions. Pricing ranges from $1 per month for a basic individual version to $290 per month for the souped-up business version. Available for iPhone, iPad, Android, BlackBerry and Windows Mobile.

EVERNOTE:

Jot and record notes, take a photo of a business card, clip web pages and more. The basic version (with ads) is free; the premium version is $5 per month or $45 per year. Available for iPhone, Android, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile and virtually every other platform.

Article Source : http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/220445

Successful small companies are adept at responding to opportunities and challenges at the drop of a hat. Employees in these companies will step outside of their day-to-day responsibilities to respond to such events. But to be effective, these go-getters need fast access to information they might not normally have at their fingertips. Companies that rely on e-mail as their primary means of knowledge sharing slow down the process of decision-making because e-mail is limited to people on a list and can get buried in in-boxes.

In contrast, by having employees engage and collaborate on a social network platform specifically designed to meet business needs (think Facebook for companies), decisions are made faster, expertise is easy to find, and colleagues stay connected. By using a social network, employees can ask questions and quickly get answers and stay on top of events, updates, and news. Here are some of the benefits of using these tools to collaborate.

1. Boost morale. Social networks help new employees ramp up more quickly, and get the information they need to be successful at their job. Employees are more engaged because they are contributing to a community of knowledge, with real-time feedback and recognition. In an open setting where participation and contributions are encouraged, employees at different levels or across various departments can work together like never before.

2. Open the lines of communication. With social networks it’s possible for any employee regardless of job description to share a business lead with the sales team, report a bug to product development, discuss a potential competitive threat, or debate a strategic decision. The information is there for people who are interested and/or can contribute value. This also eliminates the need to think about who to include on e-mail threads, allowing people to focus on success, not administrative overhead.

3. Asking questions saves time. When asking questions on a social network, employees can see that a similar question has already been asked and find the answer immediately without having to disrupt co-workers. If the question has not been asked, it can be answered by anyone who may know. This eliminates having to know who might know the answer just to be referred to someone else.

By unlocking information exchange from the grip of e-mail and enabling communication through a platform that is open and familiar, employees are better connected and can execute more efficiently to address the daily challenges of a small company.

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What is the best time to share content on social networks for maximum exposure?  Should you post first thing in the morning?  During lunch?  At the end of the workday when people are getting ready to head home?  And how do you account for the fact that you may have potential customers living in different time zones?  A new infographic from KISSmetrics answers these questions and more with a new infographic called ‘The Science of Social Timing.’

The infographic, which was released late last week on the KISSmetrics blog, is Part 1 of a series of infographics related to timing on the social web.  According to the blog, this week they’ll be releasing a second part, discussing timing and email marketing.

Here are a few key takeaways from the Science of Social Timing infographic:

• The best time to tweet is 5PM ET
• 1 to 4 tweets per hour is ideal
• The best days to tweet are midweek and on the weekends
• The best day to share on Facebook is Saturday
• The best time to share on Facebook is Noon ET

Check out this link to see the article and view the KISSmetric graphs!

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Author – Megan O’Neill

As I mentioned in the introduction, Facebook Pages present a massive opportunity for brands to directly engage with their existing and future customers, even the occasional passer-by. This conversation brings with it the power that all other social media tools and platforms provide which is why this latest release of Facebook Pages is so important for brands. Yes, changes will come to the Pages product over the coming months and years but as many early adopters know, it’s often best to wait until the second version of a product arrives. Now that the second version of Facebook Pages has launched, it’s time for you to take your brand to the next level.

Below, I have outlined 10 tips for creating engaging Facebook Pages. These are only the top 10 and there are many other lessons to be learned but this should serve as the ultimate starter guide for any brand/company looking to make their entrance into Facebook.

1. Develop Custom Tabs for Custom Ads

Advertising your brand’s page is always extremely important. One of the greatest features of Facebook’s new pages product is that you can link directly to specific tabs. That means you can separate which pages a user views by default based on the ad that they clicked on. For example, perhaps you’d like to target two groups of users in different geographic locations. You would display one advertisement for people in Washington, D.C. and those users will land on a page which is specific to users from Washington, D.C. A different page would be displayed to users from San Francisco for example.

While this system isn’t necessarily the most scalable (for example having 500 tabs doesn’t really make much sense), it can instantly increase the conversion of new visitors into fans. This method also requires a bit more investment in customization but I’d argue that it’s well worth it, especially for smaller brands and companies.

2. Don’t Let New Users Land on the Wall

Why on earth would I tell you not to let users land on the wall? Well, my biggest concern is that they’ll bump into humpty dumpty. Seriously though, there is a huge opportunity to present users with engaging information and while the content provided by fans of your brand can be engaging, you have absolutely no control over it. That’s why it’s much better to have new visitors enter a controlled environment and then proceed to navigate through areas with less structure. Yes, the wall can be extremely valuable for letting users talk to you and your brand but such unfiltered waters are the last place you should force a new user to navigate through. Provide your users with a safe entrance to the muddy waters we call “social media” and they will forever thank you for it, trust me.

3. Create a Unique Page Image

I honestly believe that this is one of the most important components of a fan page. It’s a simple component yet within the confines of a 200 pixel wide box, you would be surprised with the creative ideas that people come up with. Recently Rob Banagale, a guest author on AllFacebook, published an article entitled “5 Creative Ways to Hack Your Facebook Profile Photo“. If you haven’t read it, I suggest you check it out. More impressive than the photos included in the tutorial are the photos that numerous users posted at the end.

I cannot tell you how many standard Facebook Pages I’ve seen in which the basic logo is displayed. If your company has more than one employee (has extra resources), there should be no excuse for not creating an engaging photo for your Facebook Page. It’s one of the first things users look at and it has the potential to leave a lasting impression so make it good!

The photo posted above is a unique user profile photo but I think it illustrates how you can develop creative photos that take advantage of the awkwardly positioned border. If you have other creative profile photos or Page photos that you’ve created or seen please let us know about it.

4. Integrate Applications To Increase Engagement

The last thing you want is for users to land on your Facebook Page and leave immediately. The greatest opportunity you have to capture their attention is through engaging applications. There are currently over 55,000 applications on the Facebook platform and a relatively large portion of them can be directly integrated into your fan page. Over the coming weeks there will be numerous applications that are built around the soon to be updated Facebook Page API which will make it easier for brands to launch a relatively engaging Facebook Page within minutes.

For larger brands I highly recommend that you develop a more robust experience for the user. Games, quizzes, and other types of dynamic content in general can help keep users on your Facebook Page for longer durations of time. As you know, we live in an attention economy and that means you want to get all the attention you can from consumers. One thing you should make sure is that your application has a call to action so that when a new user lands on the page they are immediately engaged.

5. Join the Conversation, It’s Not Optional Anymore

As I stated before, this is the first time that brands have the opportunity to be a major part of a user’s conversation on Facebook so take advantage of it. That means every time someone comments on your new status, a photo, a video, a discussion thread, or anything else, you need to comment on it. Gone are the days of a one-way conversation in which the brands talk down to their customers. We are in the midst of a conversational revolution and your company needs to be part of it. At this point, you don’t have the option not to participate.

Failing to engage your customers and potential customers means less revenue, and it also means you’ll be losing to your competition who is engaging with their customers on a regular basis. Whether you are a small business (dentist, physician, plumber, restaurant, etc) or a large corporation, you need to be talking to your client and the only way to do that is through a two way dialogue. They’ll ask you questions that you can reply to and you can ask questions as well. Ask about what would improve their experience with your company. Also, ask them about the world in general because at the end of the day, they’re humans just like you.

It takes extra effort to engage your clients and going that extra mile will always keep clients coming back. You want to promote an exceptional brand right?

6. Publish Interesting and Relevant Content

Just like in other areas of social media (blogs, Twitter, etc), it’s extremely important to provide interesting content to your readers. Facebook is no different. By regularly referencing other relevant content, your fans will keep returning to your page. While attracting repeat visitors is not the single most important component of fan pages, repeat engagement is easily the second most important variable. In virtual economies, one of the most effective measurements of the state of an economy is repeat usage. Facebook pages and other digital content channels are no different. Users that return to your page regularly are significantly more likely to become paying customers.

Even more important is that existing customers who return to your Facebook page are more likely to continue as customers. The bottom line is that a plain looking Facebook page is not doing your company any favors. Yes, having any sort of presence is always better than nothing at all but if you took the time to read through this guide, please do me a favor and make a little extra effort to create an engaging Facebook page. So how do you find interesting content?

While I won’t dive to deep into the details about finding interesting content, you should be able to find relevant content to your readers by doing a search on Google Blogsearch, and leveraging an RSS reader like Google Reader. Typically I would assume that most readers of this site know what RSS is but if you don’t it’s a simple way to read the content on sites without actually having to visit each site individually. If you want to learn more, check out Google’s Feed 101. If you want the short answer for finding interesting content: look for it. I wish I could say it’s easier than that but unfortunately it still takes time to find interesting content.

You can turn to other forms of content aggregators like Delicious.com and Digg.com but those typically only serve specific communities. If you are outside of the new media industry, you’ll have to use traditional sources like Google News, Google Blogsearch, and the mainstream media.

7. Repost Comments By Other Users

If you are on Twitter, reposting information is essentially the same as a retweet. By reposting a person’s information, you are complimenting them and they will be more likely to pay attention to you. I should note that I’m using “you” and “your brand” interchangeably in this part because in social media, you should be placing a face on your brand. Right now Fan Pages aren’t extremely conducive to putting a face on the brand but that will change overtime. Reposting the information that other users post is extremely valuable.

Don’t overuse this though! I can’t tell you how often I see people on Twitter retweet other users continuously, hoping that it will suddenly increase their follower base drastically. While it will help, this is not something which should suddenly drive thousands of users to your fan page. Instead, it’s a good habit to get into as overtime you and your company’s reputation will build for engaging users on a regular basis.

8. Update Regularly!

While it’s extremely important to monitor the conversation that users are having within your branded Facebook Pages, it’s also extremely important to help spark the conversation. By posting questions to users, creating new topics within discussion forums, and performing other activities that create dialogue (such as the previous one mentioned), you’ll keep users coming back to your Facebook Page. This is similar to the concept of posting blog posts regularly (which by the way can be automatically imported to your Facebook Page) on your company blog.

Just as I’ve emphasized the importance of quality content and engagement with your fans, the most important thing is persistence. Unless you keep engaging your fans on a regular basis and continue to post interesting content, you are going to find it difficult to continuously attract new fans.

9. Post and Tag Users in Photos and Videos

Tagging users in photos and videos is probably one of the most effective promotional activities that you can do. The only challenge is coming up with content to tag users in. The best way to get photos and videos of your fans is through hosting events as I mention in the next tip but if you can’t host events, you’ll need to come up with creative ways to tag your fans. So how do you do that? That’s a bit more complicated but nothing that a creative marketer can’t figure.

One way would be to introduce a contest to your fan page and then tag the winners of those awards in a trophy photo. If you want to take that idea a step further you could actually integrate your fans’ photos into the trophies. This is just one idea though and there are a limitless number of ideas out there. Tagging users is a naturally viral process because as soon as you tag one person, their friends see it and then users are driven to that album which in this case, resides within your fan page.

There is one extremely limiting factor about fan page photos though: you must be a friend of a user to tag them! Yes, it’s unfortunate and honestly I don’t think it makes much sense. While Facebook should enable fan pages to tag members of the page, they haven’t done so yet. Theoretically I could suggest leveraging “guerilla tactics” or overly aggressive techniques to tag members. What are these “guerilla tactics” that I speak of? Well you can figure it out on your own but one example would be adding a fan as a friend for the sole purpose of tagging them in a photo.

I don’t recommend using this technique or any technique similar to this though because you may end up in Facebook jail (a.k.a. getting banned from the site). For the time being I would recommend posting as many relevant photos as possible and tagging those users that are in them. The more tagging that takes place, the quicker your page will spread.

10. Leverage the Power of Facebook Events

Events provide an amazing opportunity for brands to reach out to their fan base. Best of all, these events don’t actually need to be in person events! While it’s not possible to view the network density of the fans of your brand (you can’t easily see how many fans are friends with each other), when multiple people RSVP to an event there are increased odds that your event will be distributed through the social graph, in turn driving new users to your brand’s page.

Like previous tricks or tips that I mentioned, there are inherent limitations. The primary one being that messages sent out to an event created through a fan page do not end up in a user’s inbox. Instead, those messages are sent via page “updates” which are displayed in a separate area. Fortunately, Facebook’s redesigned homepage, which is launching this week, includes updates at the top of a user’s homepage, making them more visible.

Article Source

Nick O’Neill

When Facebook re-launched its fan pages earlier this year, companies were thrilled. At last, there was a solid way to have a presence on Facebook, and users were actually responding positively. Within a couple of weeks it seemed as though every major brand had put up a page. However, very few are using them well.

Sure, anyone can build a fan page in under 10 minutes, and some big brands may even attract fans without any real effort. But even if you have 3 million fans, if the extent of their involvement with your brand is that at one point they “became a fan,” is that really benefiting you?

The fan pages that are doing it right are the ones that are actively engaging with their fans. These pages have creative content, two-way communication, active discussion boards, videos and images, and a fun and casual tone to match the medium. Below are five mini case studies of brands that are doing everything right when it comes to Facebook fan pages, presented so that you can learn by example. Please share your favorite fan pages in the comments.

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1. Pringles

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The fan page for popular potato chip brand Pringles stands out mostly for its great use of video. While Pringles has created an inviting laid back tone, and managed to engage fan via reviews, discussions, and original interactive games, the most notable aspect of the page is definitely their use of video.

Because videos are so easy to consume, video is among the most commonly shared types of content online, which is why many companies strive to create videos that will go “viral” (be shared an exponentially growing number of people). Of course, creating a viral video is not easy. There is no ready made formula for create viral content.

Pringles, however, has recognized that its audience on Facebook reacts well to comedy and have used their fan page to catalyze the spread of a set of videos that certainly have the potential for virality. The videos are low budget productions with little editing or props depicting people singing goofy songs. It’s not much, but Pringles clearly knows its demographic, and the way Facebook works. By distributing the videos on their fan page, they’ve given users the chance to spread the Pringles brand to their friends without resorting to paid ad placements, which is exactly what thousands of people have done by “liking” the videos, an action which is then repeated in the newsfeeds of their friends and can potentially attract new people to the Pringles fan page.

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2. Coca-Cola

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The Coca-Cola fan page seems generic at first glance, but upon closer inspection it is really a testament to the brand’s commitment to user participation. First, Coca-Cola has taken the unorthodox step of displaying user created content in their main page Wall feed by default, something that most brands shy away from. That means that the page is really powered by user generated content, good and bad. That’s a bold move for Coca-Cola, but one that really demonstrates their interest in getting fans involved with the brand.

Another way that Coca-Cola stands out, is their approach to photo albums. Many companies simply incorporate an album of product pictures and call it a day, but Facebook offers companies a chance to get creative with photos, and Coca-Cola realized that. They have a number of albums showing off the product, workers at the company, photos of Coke fans, pictures of Coke products from all around the world, and pictures of old Coke nostalgia. Coke knows that their brand is an icon and people don’t just interact with their product by drinking it — they actually collect it. Their photo albums reflect that.

However, the best example of how Coke is truly committed to their fans on Facebook is the awesome story of how the page came to be. The page was originally created by two fans who just loved Coke. Coca-Cola found the page, and rather than trying to buy it or create another “official” page, they rewarded the two fans and worked with them to continue building the page and representing the brand. By empowering their existing fans, rather than trying to marginalize, shove aside, or steam roll them, Coca-Cola has been able to build on the connections that were already established with fans on Facebook before they even arrived in an official capacity.

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3. Starbucks

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Starbuck is clearly dialed in to the world of social media, and that is reflected in the Starbucks fan page. The page incorporates great videos, varied content, and has active engagement with the fans. But what makes it truly exceptional, is its use of status updates.

Status updates are an important aspect of any fan page because they provide two-way communication between company and fan, while keeping the page fresh with new content and information, which gives fans a reason to return. So many companies struggle to understand how best to utilize these updates and either don’t use them at all, update solely about product announcements, or update so often users become overwhelmed and the updates turn into so much noise. Starbucks, on the other hand, has established a good frequency of updates, sharing something new every couple of days.

More importantly, though, the content is varied, fun, and interesting. Their updates share videos, blog posts about all aspects of coffee — and not just on the official company blog — including how to grow coffee beans, articles about Starbucks and Starbucks employees. The tone of each update is informative and casual, and even their product updates are kept varied enough to remain interesting, for example, by offering up reviews of new music or books for sale in their cafes. As a result, the quality status update content has led to a very engaged fan base, with every update receiving thousands of comments.

The Starbucks Facebook fan page is a great example of how a company can still engage fans without the use of flashy apps, and instead simply focusing on quality content.

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4. Adidas

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The Adidas fan page offers all the usual attributes of a strong page: active fans, a branded application, lots of content variety, plus, good video, pictures and notes. That’s all good stuff, but what really makes them stand out is the way they use their page’s tools to promote their other social media and advertising campaigns.

Running a contest on Facebook brings variety to a page’s content, engages fans, and has the ability to directly increase the company’s revenue by introducing new customers to the brand. Lots of brands attempt to promote campaigns on Facebook, but there are only a few that I have seen do it well. Adidas is one of those brands.

Most recently, Adidas teamed up with MTV to run an exclusive Facebook contest where a fan could win an all-expenses-paid house party. Their campaign was successful for a few reasons. First, Adidas chose a prize and partner that would resonate with the Facebook user demographic. Second, they wisely chose to promote the contest on their fan page not only before the contest, but after it had ended as well.

Once they had chosen the lucky winner, they used their page to share the fan’s blog posts, photos, and videos from the party. The integration of status updates, photos, notes and videos, with a smart contest, resulted in a whole lot of fan engagement, and keeping the winning fan involved even after the contest had ended showed their commitment to fans and helped them get extra mileage out of the campaign. The contest also gave the page content variety by breaking up the usual status updates with something new, fun, and with an included call to action for fans to get involved.

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5. Red Bull

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The Red Bull fan page is easily one of the best on Facebook simply because it has been able to break out of the typical fan page mold by providing fun content that encourages fans to interact with and ultimately connect with the brand. Their uniqueness is captured in their innovative incorporation of Twitter into their Facebook fan page. Integrating a Twitter stream is not special on its own, but Red Bull doesn’t just pull in tweets from their official corporate account, as you might expect most brands do. Instead, Red Bull has aggregated tweets from sponsored athletes like skateboarder Ryan Sheckler and snowboarder Shaun White and included them directly in their Facebook presence. Associating themselves with popular athletes, and letting fans connect to those athletes on a separate social network (i.e., not boxing them in) gives Red Bull some instant cool points.

Their page’s “Boxes” section is also pretty darn incredible. Red Bull has built all kinds of content and applications that help them break out of the vanilla Facebook mold that forces all brands to look and feel more or less the same. My favorite app is one that lets fans rate phone calls of people who “drunk dialed” the Red Bull 1-800 number. It’s not only hilarious, but it also smartly encourages additional fan engagement.

Red Bull, which is a drink popular with teen and college ages kids, definitely knows its audience, and they’ve played to that face by categorizing their page under business type “pharmaceuticals.” Clearly, this is a company that understands their audience and knows that the best way to connect with them on Facebook is with humor, fun, apps that get people engaged, and by being creative.

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Conclusion

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The brands mentioned in this all benefitted from having a solid brand image and loyal following before they actually joined Facebook and started using social media tools. Still, they offer insights into what makes Facebook pages work for brands. The key takeaways are that you have to know your audience, you have to provide quality, regular content, you need to encourage discussion and engagement, and you must not take yourself too seriously.

Callan Green

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Social Media Marketing is the one of the most trending topics in online marketing these days and you can see a lot of articles and publications on social media marketing, its importances, ways to implement and so on. Most of the companies are trying to get themselves engaged in various social media channels for various purposes. If planned and executed well Social Media marketing can be one of the most cheapest and effective mode of online marketing and promotion. If your social media marketing is not well planned and executed, it may end in a disaster.

The are many reasons for why a company needs to turn towards social media marketing and it depends upon various factors such as the company profile, its products, it customers etc. Day by day the importance of an effective social media marketing campaign is on the rise for almost all the companies.

Here I would like to mention 10 major importance of social media marketing for a company.

1.) Branding

Companies can use social media channels as a way for increasing its goodwills and trustworthiness which may ultimately result in better branding. Companies can have conversation with its customers, which makes a great amount of credibility among its customers.

2.) Lead Generation

Lead generation is another reason why companies should opt for social media marketing campaigns. Lead generation is an integral part of a company’s success and social media marketing strategies and campaigns helps in targeted and relevant lead generation.

3.) Engage with its customers

Social media channels helps it more easier and flexible when it comes to engaging with its customers. Customer engagement is the most important benefits of social media marketing and this helps to retain its existing customers and also increase brand credibility. During the recent economic downfall, a lot of companies succeeded in retaining its customers with the help of customer engagement through social media channels.

4.) Generate Relevant Traffic

Traffic generation is the sole purpose of all the online marketing campaigns and social media channels are highly powerful traffic generation sites. There are many niche social media channels which makes it easier to generate relevant and quality traffic to the website.

5.) Improve ROI

Promotion of your products in relevant and product niche social media channels can help you in increasing your return over investment (ROI). Industry relevant social media marketing can help in making your conversion rates better and enjoy a enviable ROI.

6.) Getting Customer Feedbacks
Customer feedbacks are the backbone of any industry and the feedback helps in improving the products as per the customer’s requirements. Since social media channels helps in making customer engagement much easier, customer feedbacks are always there on the top and one can always expect helpful customer reviews and feedback which can help in making the products or services even more better.

7.) Announcing New products or services

There is no other better and cheap media than the social media sites to inform the customers about the arrival or release of new products and services.  Social media channels helps it easier to spread the news of new product and service arrivals to targeted audience.

8.) Know more About Customer Preferences

Social Media allows you to know more about the trends and preferences of the customers and act accordingly. Customer preference can also be related to the 5th and 3rd points mentioned above. Knowing the preferences of your customers makes it easier for you to enhance your product and plan your online marketing campaigns in much more effective way.

9.) Influence on Search Engine Rankings

Search engines are the most relevant and consistent traffic generator for any website. Effective Social Media campaigns can bring out a remarkable influence on your search engine rankings. Since most of the search engine giants are going on with real time search results, the social media updates and bookmarks can help your site rank much better in the search engines.

10.) Enhance Customer Relationship Management

Customer relationship is an integral part of the growth of any company and when customer relationship fails, the company and its operations are also bound to fail. Social media channels helps in making strong bonds between the customer and the company much more easier and thereby increasing the stability of the company.

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Social Media Marketing is one of the hottest thing in the area of online marketing and is also considered as one of the best viral marketing strategy that exist on the internet. Social Media Marketing have always complemented the traditional SEO activities and if you are really serious about your online marketing campaigns, then both of them should go hand in hand.  Most of the internet marketing professionals make the serious mistake of excluding social media marketing from their SEO activities.  Some online marketing guys also interpret social media marketing and social media optimization as the same, but the fact is that both are entirely different.

It has been proved time and again that Social Media marketing acts as a boosting activity for the SEO campaigns. With proper and effective social media marketing websites gain a lot of benefits in an SEO point of view. In short social media marketing always helps in boosting the SEO activities of a web site.  Some of the major advantages for SEO with an effective social media marketing program are listed below.

1) Branding
Social Media is one of the best platform available to enhance your  reputation and branding on the internet, provided it is carried out in the right and legitimate way. Remember, branding cannot be achieved overnight, but needs continuous effort and patience.

2) Getting More Backlinks
Social Media marketing helps you to get more backlinks to your website, both directly and indirectly. In other words, if your website content is marketed on relevant social media sites, you would surely be getting a handful of backlinks to your website from there directly.  If your content is promoted well on the various social media channels, other webmaster might naturally link back to your content, which is considered as the indirect but the best way of getting backlinks through social media marketing.

3) Traffic Generation
Traffic generation is another major benefit of social media marketing, that is liked by most of the web marketers who are into social media marketing. A site that is  marketed well in the social media platforms would be bringing you a large amount of instant and targeted traffic to your website.

4) Better Search Engine Performance
Social Media marketing is an amazing marketing strategy that helps in achieving a much better search engine performance for your website and it has been proved many times. And with the real time results by Google, social media marketing efforts has further improved its ability to improve the search engine rankings of a particular website.

5) Get More Targeted Traffic
Since marketing activities through social media channels is carried out on a specific groups or communities, it is quite clear that one would be getting more targeted traffic on to his web site. This aspect would certainly help and enhance the SEO campaign which is aimed at getting traffic from a targeted niche group.

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These days, every customer counts.

So why then do companies lose them? Between moving away or passing away and switching to a competitor — the excuses are many for why customers may jump ship. But the No. 1 reason why customers bail is the feeling of indifference toward a product or service.

To counter this ambivalence, it’s key to make sure your customers feel and perceive that they’re wanted and want to stay where they’re appreciated. But to make customers love you, you’ll have to work even harder. Here are seven ways to win the devotion that makes for loyal customers:

1. Never assume. You may think you know what customers want. But what if you’re wrong? The main reason such a high percentage of new businesses fail is because those companies are trying to create demand where there isn’t any, or they’re built around untested or unproven ideas that are hard pressed to attract even a small sampling of customers. Don’t make the same mistake. Test and start small, and build your product, service or value proposition around the wants, needs and desires of your target customer. Not only will you get a better understanding of customer needs, you’ll be able to identify innovative ways to solve their problems and exceed their expectations.
2. Always deliver. To win customers back, you need to deliver on time, every time. If a problem arises, inform your customer right away. Explain how you’re going to deal with it. Then follow up again — and again — to ensure positive results. This also goes for your invoices and any correspondence. You might even create a system to ensure that each task gets completed correctly and is always delivered in a timely fashion.
3. Personalize loyalty programs. In order to ensure you have a winning loyalty program, you must plan, design and execute it in a systemized way. Plus, you need to show the value of it and continually demonstrate that value to your team. An example of a really big company that does this on a personalized level is Caesars Entertainment, which has mastered the art of customer loyalty programs on a massive scale to drive profit. For instance, Caesars knows, down to the penny, just how much its top customers are likely to spend at any of its properties, and what types of activities individual customers prefer when they stay — be it gaming, dining or taking in a show. This knowledge allows the company to issue customized offers that may be more appealing to Caesars’ best patrons.
4. Train your staff. Here’s where scripting comes in. Use periodic training sessions to help give your team the skills that are necessary to boost your company’s reputation, trust, empathy, flexibility and verbal communication proficiency. This is vital because each customer contact with your team is an opportunity to build your reputation — or destroy it.
5. Say “Thank You.” Sounds obvious, but consider this: When was the last time you received a thank-you note from a company you do business with? Or any notice, other than when a payment is due? This simple strategy can really make an impact and says a lot about your company and the value you place on customers.
6. Stay connected. While the frequency may vary, every customer should receive an off-line “touch” at least once per quarter and, with an email or e-newsletter, even more often. For instance, once a week with an “opt-in” message may do the trick. Over time, you can develop a relationship with your customers, especially if your “touches” are information or educationally-oriented and are designed to add value to their experience with you, rather than just as a mechanism for pushing products or services.
7. Play favorites. New customers are critical to growth, but you must ensure that current or long-standing customers get VIP treatment as well. Nothing is worse for loyal customers than to see products or services they bought at full price discounted to entice new customers. You can turn this around by offering exclusive loyalty programs, deals or specials geared specifically to your best and most loyal customers.

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Brad Sugars