Tag Archives: online marketing

4 Shocking Facts About Social Media For Small Business

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Running a small business is much easier when you incorporate Internet marketing into your strategy. One way entrepreneurs are successfully doing this is with social media. There are so many different networks to test and try out. The nature of your business and the audience you cater to will determine which venues are the best. So before you shrug off the idea of using social channels, it’s good to give it a try. Or at least do a bit of research to see why your SEO company is recommending your brand to go social.

The following stats taken from the Social Media Marketing Industry Report help to prove that small companies can and are using these channels to market their businesses on successfully.

Facebook is the Most Widely Used

Small businesses just love Facebook. Numbers show that a whopping 93 percent of survey respondents use Facebook for their social media marketing. This topped Twitter, which was at 79 percent. Sixty-two percent of the small business owners surveyed also stated they would be increasing their Facebook marketing efforts in 2016. Sixty-six percent said they planned to increase their activity on LinkedIn, YouTube and Twitter.

Entrepreneurs Agree Social Media is Essential

Not all small business owners are on the same page, but more than half of those asked stated they strongly agree that social channels are indeed a critical component for their business (58 percent). Another 34 percent agreed. Only seven percent were uncertain and two percent disagreed or strongly disagreed.

Many Entrepreneurs Spend Six or More Hours On Social Media Weekly

If this sounds like too much interaction on your channels, you’re setting your campaign up for failure. If you don’t have the time to dedicate to your social media marketing, you can hire an SEO company to do it for you. An Internet marketing agency can set up tools to streamline your brands interactions across your social channels, such as Hootsuite and Post Planner. Small business owners can also use these to schedule future messages, videos and posts in advance.

Thirty-three percent of respondents in the survey said they dedicated between one and five hours to social media marketing and management each week. Another 25 percent said they committed to between six and 10 hours weekly.

Small Brands Build Exposure

One of the top reasons small businesses like social channels is because it helps to increase their exposure. It’s the medium that is affordable for small businesses and allows visibility just as great as television and radio. Exposure was voted the top benefit of social media for small businesses over increased traffic (77 percent) and creating loyal fans (69 percent).

Improve Your Reputation with Personalized Live Chat

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Remember those days in the late nineteen nineties when the Internet was in its infancy, websites took a century to load, and the only way you could deliver top flight customer service was either through a Hotmail email account or on the phone? We have surely come a long way in the past two decades not only in the realm of customer service in general but also in the broader context of an all-encompassing Internet presence in particular. Live chat has, for instance, seamlessly transitioned from Yahoo chat rooms to millions of customer centric websites where it is regarded as the front runner among all the major customer service channels. Here are three ways in which you can leverage the power and potential of live chat software to personally connect with your customer communities not just only during the live chat session but for many years to come based on a sustainable relationship which you can and should develop with all your customers:

Personalize the Live Chat Experience

Every live chat interaction between your chat agents and your customers usually starts with a short pre-chat form. This form typically asks for the customer’s first name and an email address. While the email address is a valuable asset to your CRM arsenal inn that you can use that email address for sustained customer engagement through an opt-in process, the first name provides your chat agents with an excellent opportunity to personalize the live chat interaction. Address your customers by using their first names during the course of the communication. You can also consider commencing the conversation with a welcome message and a reference to the city from where the chat has originated assuming this feature is active in your live help application.

Example: “Hi Mike, this is Daniel from (your company’s name). How is the weather in Seattle?”

This will put your website visitor at ease instantly and set the stage for a really productive dialog. Your customer will take full cognizance of the fact that there is a real person on the other side of the magic window and not a prosaic computer simply auto responding to their chat messages.

Send a Thank You Note

Use the email address your chat visitors provide you to send out a personalize thank you message once the chat session concludes. The message can include:

– An opt-in link for a newsletter or an alert sign-up
– A link from where your customers can download a copy of the chat transcript for reference purposes
– A Call to Action (CTA) with an offer

Integrate Live Chat with your CRM

If you are currently using a customer relationship management application (CRM) such as SugarCRM, Salesforce.com, RightNow, or one of the products from the big guys such as Siebel, PeopleSoft, SAP CRM or Microsoft Dynamic CRM, ask your live chat software company if they have an app that integrates their application with the CRM solution of your choice. One of the key advantages of this integration is that it will help you personalize your chat communication further by providing your live chat operators with access to phone records, chat records, purchase history and any other data your CRM is set up to capture, classify and categorize.

Spruce up your Visitor Chat Window

Your live chat agents can not only personalize the user experience through targeted communication but can also connect with your customers through visuals. Encourage them to use smileys and emoticons provided to the by your live chat service. The picture of the agent or an avatar can also add that personal touch to the entire experience.

According to a consumer trends research study conducted by ATG Global, 90% of customers believe that live chat is beneficial to them in achieving a positive and personal user experience. Implement these personalization tips and you will notice a visible increase in the number of customers who will award you a remarkable customer rating the next time you go out to survey them.