Category: Social Media

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Social Media

Breathing New Life into Your Twitter Feed

So many people discount Twitter as a busy platform for socialization, rather than an important platform for marketers and businesses. They often choose to focus on Facebook and other social media outlets instead, assuming Twitter marketing is just too hard or too frustrating.

Maybe it’s the 280-character limit, or the fact that Twitter is proliferated by people under the age of 30. Or, maybe it’s just the fact that hashtag targeting can be a complex and confusing topic at first, especially if you’re just entering the game for the first time. Either way, it’s really a mistake because the platform is a gold mine when used in the right manner.

In short, Twitter is for business owners…

…But only if you’re willing to put in the work needed to use it the right way.

Have a dormant Twitter feed? Whether it is totally abandoned or you just post once in a while as an afterthought, that profile isn’t a lost cause. Here are a few ways to breathe new life into your feed and gain traction.

Tweak Your Username/Handle

Your username and handle can actually impact how and where you show up in Twitter searches. Unfortunately, silly names chosen on a whim years ago aren’t likely to get you where you need to be. Instead, you need to align it with your goals.

Make sure your Twitter account username or handle closely matches your current brand. You can change your display name as well as your @twitterhandle within your profile’s settings; don’t start a whole new account just to fix this one issue.

As for what you should pick, aim for something that really represents your brand or goals on Twitter. Make your handle and username easy to recognize and try to use the same branded keyword s across different social platforms to strengthen your brand’s presence.

Update Your Profile Photos

Photos matter, especially on sites like Twitter where character messages are so short. Be sure your profile photo is a clear representation of your brand, image, or at least products and services. If you’re a self-branded professional, this is a good place for a crisp, professional headshot or your brand’s logo. If you’re a business, a logo or a representative image (such as a shot of your location) is the better choice.

As for your header image, you have a bit more creative license there. The header image is a perfect zone for highlighting your personality or showcasing your current campaign message, and can even be a fun place to show off subtle ads. Don’t be afraid to swap this image out regularly, especially as seasons or special events happen.

Be Creative with Your Bio

Your bio needs to be short and sweet – a maximum of 160 characters or less. The overall goal is to use a few words to describe what you do, brag on an accomplishment, or just plain appeal to your audience by being relatable.

Bios don’t need to be cold and boring, even though some people think that’s the case. Unless you work in an industry where strict professionalism is preferred (e.g., healthcare, legal), it’s okay to sprinkle some humor in to keep it interesting. You can even throw in a couple of relevant hashtags to make your account more visible.

Purpose and Passion

Please don’t put your business on Twitter and then start tweeting about everything under the sun. That’s just contributing to the current problem of users feeling overwhelmed by the sheer avalanche of useless posts they filter through every single day.

Instead, make your Twitter feed a place where people can truly absorb information about your passion, services, or products. Stick to a single focus and you’ll attract more like-minded folks (read: your target audience) instead of temporary visitors who bounce away never to be seen again. It should be almost immediately clear (within two posts or less) what you’re about and why, as that’s what catches visitors and keeps them coming back.

Incorporate Hashtags

Hashtags are important on Twitter – important enough that search engines are using them in search results. There is good evidence that they may improve overall brand SEO or even bring in organic outside traffic, too, so it makes sense to use them and use them well.

That said, you do need to avoid common Twitter hashtag pitfalls. Use them carefully and sparingly; two per tweet is really enough. Long strings of hashtags begin to look spammy and can amount to a wall of text for users, but you’re also limited to 280 characters. Thus, the terms you choose need to be relevant to your brand. Don’t reuse existing popular hashtags without researching their origin and what they mean.

Tweet Often, Tweet Regularly

While it may not matter as much on your personal profile, it’s important to tweet often. Not everyone you want to reach will be online at the same time and Twitter’s feed moves very fast. The more frequently you post, the better your odds of being seen.

There are hundreds of articles and infographics that claim they know what time of day is best for posting. The reality is that you need to test different options and see which work best for your brand. Every audience and demographic slice is slightly different.

Think of it this way: white collar businesses are most likely to view posts early in the morning, at lunch, or after work. That’s because most are either sitting at a desk, commuting, or taking a lunch break at these specific times. Millennials in the entertainment industry, however, may be more likely to seek out fun at night, after they leave school or work to head home.

Experiment with morning posts, afternoon posts, and with weekend posts. Identify which schedule best boosts your CTR and push forth with that to get the most out of your efforts.

Engage with Your Followers

Want to build your brand? You need to spend more time engaging on other people’s content than you spend broadcasting your own. Participate in public conversations, take part in polls from other users, comment on the posts that show up in your feed, and generally keep your eye out for trending topics and their hashtags. Just make sure you’re participating in conversations that loosely align with your brand. Moreover, do your best to avoid anything political or controversial, because a PR disaster is not your goal.

Build Your Network

Your goal on Twitter is to increase your follower-base organically. What does that mean? Essentially, you want to attract people naturally, without paying for likes or follows, and get to a point where you attract those people residually over time.

One of the best strategies is to follow people and then watch to see who follows you back, later unfollowing those who do not return the favor. This method works well, but there is a catch. You have to remember you are limited to the amount of people you can follow. Twitter doesn’t publish its specific followers/following ratio limits, but it’s safe to say you want the numbers to be as close together as possible for continued growth.

Another great way to build your network is to offer something in exchange for the follow. For example, you might have an infographic or ebook that potential followers may find helpful. While messenger bots are typically frowned upon in terms of general use, consider using them to automatically send your free gift to a new follower right away.

Size Graphics Specifically for Twitter

Here’s an enormous social media no-no: creating graphics sized for one platform, then attempting to port them over to other platforms unadjusted. This just doesn’t work. A square graphic designed for Instagram or Facebook ends up cut off and cropped when uploaded to Twitter – not what you want or what other users want, either.

Instead, size your graphics individually for each site. Hire a designer to create a suite of branded products, use your in-house team, or save money by using a site like Canva to create your own images. Add a border and your logo; then, swap in your own unique images or quotes as your needs for branded graphics come up.

Utilize Email Notifications

Twitter has more than 20 different features you can choose from in the email notifications section of your profile. Creating a custom setting system will help you to keep track of the actions and changes that are most important to you. Use these options to your advantage and ensure you always receive the right notifications.

Here’s a quick glimpse at what you can receive notifications for:

  • Replies to your tweets
  • Mentions from other users
  • Retweets or reposts
  • New follows
  • Likes, loves, etc.

Making an impact on Twitter takes more time and effort than other platforms, but it can be a lucrative part of your marketing strategy when it’s given the focus it truly deserves. This is doubly true if your target audience is hipsters or Millennials.

Remember, it’s better to master one platform before adding a new one to the mix. You should never add a new platform until you can give it the time and attention it deserves. Make your Twitter account work for you every single day and that consistency will deliver real results.

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Social Media

Worried About Muting on Instagram? Here’s the Fix

Frightening news for Instagram marketers who already need to jump through hoops to ensure they don’t break the platform’s in-depth advertising rules: you now need to worry about your target audience muting your account, too. Instagram just rolled out the new feature a couple of weeks ago, which gives users the right to “mute” annoying accounts for virtually any reason at all under the sun.

How Muting Impacts Your Business

If you’re marketing your business through the platform, the new mute button essentially means you’re at the mercy of your audience when they don’t like something you post. If viewers find you annoying, they can now turn you off or silence you on a whim. With the wrong content you just might find your campaign crippled by a mass muting spree.

Aggravatingly, the platform doesn’t even tell you when someone mutes you, and doesn’t require that they unfollow. There’s virtually no way to figure out how many people actually have your account muted, so being proactive matters.

Before you give up on Instagram altogether, let me brighten your day a bit: the mute button isn’t the herald of doom it sounds like. Remember: most established marketers use best practices so they don’t become overly pushy or annoying anyway. Even so, grey areas do exist, and nearly nothing on social media is ever black and white. Use the strategies in the next few sections to eliminate as much muting risk as you possibly can.

Improve Your Targeting

Instagram users mute accounts because they feel annoyed, offended, or somehow “put off” by the account. If you’re doing a poor job of targeting a specific demographic of users on the site, you’re more likely to offend or be annoying.

Think of bad targeting like a horrendous blind date. Both people are probably just fine separately; together, they just don’t make any sense. Worse yet, they probably bring out the worst in each other, making everyone cranky and unsettled.

Here’s a marketing-specific example: a corporate cleaning supplies company attempting to market their products to a teenage girl. Or, a men’s clothing company attempts to sell their products to pregnant women. Sure, someone among that demographic will buy, but otherwise, it’s a waste of everyone’s time.

Bad targeting leaves people with a bad taste in their mouths – and that bad taste just happens to be their experience with your business. It’s what leaves consumers saying things like, “Ugh! Why do I keep seeing messages about men’s clothing?!” or “OMG! I don’t want your product, stop tagging me!”

Enough of bad targeting and your consumers will mute you so they don’t have to be annoyed anymore, but there is a preventative fix.

First, figure out who it is you’re targeting in the first place – how old are they? Are they male, female, or gender non-specific? Create a persona for your average audience member, then review who you’re following and/or advertising to and adjust your campaign as needed.

Keep in mind that the more vague your demographic is, the greater the opportunity for bad targeting to happen. In the words of WordStream writer Dan Shewan, “Everyone” is not a demographic.

The more narrow your demographic, the better your targeting. Sending out ads to all women over 40, for example, leaves a tremendous amount of room for mismatches. Sending out ads to women over 40, who have children, who are married, and who have an interest in, say, sports, is much more in-depth. Of course, common sense applies; if you get too specific, you may find your niche too small.

Put Your Consumers First

In today’s episode of “which came first, the chicken or the egg?”, let me ask you a question. What’s more important in marketing, your campaign’s success or your consumers and how they feel about you?

No matter what you answer, you’re partially incorrect; it’s a trick question. Campaign performance is deeply connected to audience satisfaction with your business; really, one can’t exist without the other. You can follow a genius campaign to the letter and still never see results if your audience is already disgruntled.

If your current campaign involves little more than spamming similar messages about products or sales every few hours or days, you may already be at risk. Mix it up, add in some value with content your audience loves, and spread out direct sales requests so they aren’t as staccatoed.

The fix? Put your audience’s needs first, not your sales. Use demographics, market analysis, split testing, and feedback to figure out what the heck it is they want to see or experience, then tailor your campaigns around that. Providing your audience with value will always be the key to better conversions – Instagram muting notwithstanding.

Don’t Steal Content (Even Inadvertently)

Instagram marketing is really content-heavy; the site relies on pictures and videos, and you need to be able to capitalize on that quickly to catch trends. Unfortunately, this is exactly what leads many businesses to grab a meme, gif, or picture off the Internet, attach a few hashtags, add a positive message, and post – all without realizing their curation has turned into content theft in the process.

Suddenly, angry reactions and comments accusing you of plagiarism and theft begin to flow onto the photo. You went viral for all the wrong reasons, and people are now actively muting you over it because they don’t want to be associated with a business that steals content. Your well-meaning self feels baffled; after all, all you did was share a meme, right?

Unfortunately, content theft just isn’t that black and white, and many, many people misunderstand what plagiarism even is in the first place. You don’t need to take and recycle someone else’s content word-for-word or image-for-image exactly to qualify; in fact, simply sharing someone else’s content (respun or not) as if it was your own is enough.

Real content curation – the process of gathering, structuring, and presenting information you find online to your audience – isn’t the same. In curation, you give credit where credit is due, always link to the creator when you can, and disclose that you aren’t sure of the source when you don’t. It’s all about being transparent while still showing appreciation for other creators.

So, what happens if you inadvertently find yourself accused of stealing content you thought was CC0 on Instagram? You can save face by asking the commenter to send you information for the creator so you can contact them for permission, or at least credit them correctly in the subtitles. This can also be a great opportunity for collaboration and outreach if you play your cards right!

Ask for Feedback

Instagram is unique from most other social media sites because users love when businesses interact with them, ask them questions, and encourage back-and-forth communication. It’s a much more organic and communicative environment than sites like Twitter or even Facebook – which is exactly why the platform exploded Influencer Marketing in the first place.

If you’re not sure whether you’re hitting targets right, or if you’re pretty sure you’ve managed to annoy at least some people into muting you already, ask your audience for help. Ask them what they like or dislike. Alternatively, try flipping the script by saying you want to get creative and branch out into new content themes; create a survey with a few options and ask them to respond with tags.

Another great way to get the conversation flowing and encourage brand loyalty without being overbearing and annoying is to get out there and be helpful. Offer to answer questions about your business or product, or encourage them to show how they interact with your brand through images and tags. Use what they share to learn more about them and adjust your content marketing strategies to match their needs.

Remember: feedback is also a form of user-generated content (UGC). Research tells us that the presence of UGC on social media can boost overall engagement by up to 7 or more percent if it’s positive. Get the conversation flowing and you just might find you get more interaction and fewer struggles with muting, too.

P.S. – If you’re struggling with your audience, including gaining followers in the first place, I can help. I wrote a piece on how to get more Instagram followers early in February; check it out at the link.

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Social Media

Can Responding to Reviews Boost Conversions?

Online reviews have been a contentious topic for a very long time. Depending on who you ask, they’re either the best way to connect with your customers and clients or an incredibly risky endeavor that can backfire, leaving you to deal with significant public relations disasters. This uncertainty often leads businesses operating in the online sphere to avoid getting involved in reviews whatsoever.

I’m not convinced that’s the right approach. I’ve seen social proof and word of mouth work magic for businesses; it can be the very core of what drives someone’s product or service viral. Plus, there’s plenty of convincing evidence to illustrate that responding has more benefits than disadvantages.

According to at least one recent study by a digital marketing agency involved in search engine marketing research, probably not. The study in question backs the theory that more positive reviews directly influences how likely sometime is to “convert” after finding a company through a paid search result.

First, I want to break down the study’s findings and make them a bit more approachable and easier to understand. Then, I’ll give you helpful tips to improve your own reviews and tell you how, when, and where to respond to them when they crop up.

Review Study Statistics

The agency behind this particular study put a significant amount of effort into finding hard evidence instead of solely relying on personal experience. Altogether, they included information for just over 7,000 businesses pulled from Google Adwords campaign data (a total of 93 million impressions) and 32 months of historical user review data pulled from Google Reviews.

Researchers identified two interesting points:

  • Businesses with higher star ratings were much more likely to see a higher conversion rate. Businesses with low stars suffered beside their higher-rated search result competitors.
  • There is a statistically significant difference in conversion rates between businesses who responded to reviews and those who do not respond to reviews, for better or worse.

Here’s what that looks like in practice.

Businesses who had the lowest average of stars in the study (3.31 stars) enjoyed a conversion rate of around 10.42 percent. That means just over 10 percent of all searchers clicked through or interacted with the business’s search result once they saw the number of stars.

Businesses on the other end of the spectrum (4.96 stars) enjoyed conversion rates closer to 12.83 percent – over two percent higher than their lower-star counterparts.

Exactly how much is two percent really worth? It’s difficult to say because there’s so much nuance in search, but the company doing the research approximated it to mean a loss of around 13,000 potential leads for the lower-rated companies. In terms of localized search and local business, this is a significant loss.

But it’s just the beginning; they also looked at whether or not businesses responded to reviews (both positive and negative) and how their responses influenced the decision to convert.

When businesses responded to approximately 8 percent of customers who left reviews, conversion rates shot up to 13.86 percent. In comparison, businesses who responded to just 5 percent of reviews lost conversions, ending up at just around 10 percent. We can infer that having a policy to just plain never reply significantly hampers conversions.

More Evidence From HBR

It isn’t just this particular agency doing the research, either; Harvard Business Review released a similar article sharing the same mindset back in February of this year. Instead of focusing on Google Reviews, they looked at reviews on travel site TripAdvisor, who has a robust community that very often aids travelers in making decisions about where and how they travel.

HBR’s review demonstrated an uptick in conversions directly alongside efforts to begin responding to reviews for the very first time.

First, they estimated that around half of all hotels currently respond to around a third of all received reviews on the site. Then, they looked at the other 50 percent of hotels who don’t normally respond to reviews (including newer hotels who are less likely to have reviews in the first place) and how their ratings changed when they began to respond.

HBR’s data showed that when non-responsive businesses began responding to reviews on TripAdvisor, leads began leaving around 12 percent more reviews. Most importantly, this increase in reviews translated out to a star rating increase of around 0.12 stars. Given that TripAdvisor measures stars by the half-star, it was enough to bump many hotels up to the next level.

Relating back to the previous study for a moment, let’s consider a hotel who has a hard star rating of 4.20 (shown as 4 stars on the site). An increase of 0.12 stars effectively bounces that hotel up to 4.5 stars on the site. We can infer that this tiny but influential increase probably means an increase of 2 to 3 percent in lead conversions – and that’s no small feat.

What it All Means

Tempted to call it wash since it’s only 2 to 3 percent? That tiny percentage can be the difference between hundreds or thousands of new leads, giving credence to the concept that online businesses should not only encourage reviews, but respond to them when they’re left.

Sure, exactly what that 2 to 3 percent looks like will depend on your business and how many conversions you enjoy now. If you’re converting 10 people a month, it’s an extra two to three people. If you’re converting 100,000 people, it’s worth a bit more (around 2,000 to 3,000 people). But either way, it’s impactful and requires only minimal effort on the part of the business.

The biggest takeaway here is that reviews have a powerful ability to influence conversions, especially where paid search results are concerned. We’ve known for years that higher ratings directly correlate to a higher perceived trust rating online. But simply having reviews isn’t enough; visitors and leads want to see businesses interacting with reviews, thanking clients, addressing complaints, and being involved, too. Responding to reviews is an important tool in a complex, competitive organic search engine marketing environment.

How (and When) to Respond

Now, down to what matters: how – and when – should you respond to customer reviews? The answer isn’t always as straightforward as you might think. You have to develop a sixth sense for intention and place your efforts where they’re most effective.

Glowing Reviews

Don’t be afraid to thank customers for leaving positive reviews. It takes only a second to thank them for their business, yet this one simple action can improve loyalty and keep them coming back time and time again. Every positive new review (even if it’s a repeat customer) means an improvement in perceived trust, a boost to your star rating, and potentially, more conversions. Keep it professional, simple, and respectful for best results.

That said, don’t feel like you need to respond to every positive review, especially if you’re large, have multiple locations, or have thousands of reviews. Pick the ones you want to stand out and address them instead.

Average Reviews

If the review in question is lukewarm – often the case for clients who like you, but just had a subpar experience this time around – you should definitely respond. There is an opportunity to save the customer here; your words can make a big difference between whether they turn it around or leave for good. Thank them for any praise, address their complaints directly by telling them you hear them, and let them know how you plan to address the issue to eliminate it in the future.

Remember: average reviews aren’t necessarily bad, so you shouldn’t look at them like a black mark on your reputation. They’re an opportunity to improve and increase loyalty if used right.

Negative Reviews

Completely negative responses are a bit trickier; you have to really understand what the intention is before you address them. Moz’s resource, “Diagramming the Story of a 1-Star Review” does a really good job of illustrating just how different intent can be message to message.

First, start by determining the individual’s intent. Are they being flat-out malicious or do they have a legitimate complaint? Remember that what you might find ridiculous isn’t necessarily ridiculous to the customer; they have different perceptions. Don’t assume that anger necessarily means malicious intent.

That said, there have been instances of competitors and irrational customers leaving malicious reviews with incredibly damaging lies on review sites in the past. Malicious reviews should be reported to the site in question. If they aren’t gaining traction, ignore them – encourage your loyal customers to leave more positive reviews to push it down.

If the person has a legitimate complaint, such as a terrible experience with your business, take the time to address it as soon as you can. Start off with an apology, and be accountable – that’s what matters most. Then, demonstrate how you plan to be accountable and/or offer to speak with them one-on-one in person or over the telephone. If they’re particularly angry, try to encourage them to speak with you privately to prevent misunderstandings in the public sphere.

Most critically, never be tempted into falling into mean-spirited insults or subtle jabs, no matter how angry or frustrated you feel. While we’ve all been in a situation where we know a customer’s complaints are unjustified, “two wrongs don’t make a right” applies here. If you’re upset, walk away, take a breath, come back later and respond when you won’t risk coming across the wrong way.

If you’re really struggling with a malicious review campaign or can’t seem to control online reputation issues, it may be time to call in the pros. This is where having a solid digital marketing agency on your side can help. Don’t be afraid to reach out for advice; everyone needs guidance once in a while.

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Social Media

What You Need to Know About Twitter’s Scheduling and Publishing Changes

Twitter recently announced major changes to their scheduling and publishing features in response to concerns about spam and safety on the platform. If you’re marketing products or maintaining a social media presence there, you should know that these changes may impact how, when, and what you post.

One of the most impactful changes for businesses is the fact that Twitter is now actively limiting coordinated posting across multiple accounts. This includes posts made through API services like TweetDeck and Hootsuite, the biggest multi-platform interfaces available to date.

It may also surprise you to learn that some types of automation have always been against the platform’s guidelines. Yoel Roth, who works for Twitter’s API policy team, wrote about the issue in a recent statement. “Twitter prohibits any attempt to use automation for the purposes of posting or disseminating spam, and such behavior may result in enforcement action.”

So, let’s get down to the nitty-gritty: What do you need to know going forward? And how can you make sure you’re staying within acceptable use guidelines? Let’s take a look at the most important “Do Nots.”

Don’t Cross-Post Identical Content

This is the biggest change out of all the new guidelines. You won’t be able to automate or cross-post the same post across multiple accounts any longer, especially if you’re using an API-based app to do it. In fact, this functionality has been completely removed from most apps, including TweetDeck and Hootsuite, so even if you try, you will find it’s just not available.

What’s the issue with identical content? After all, doesn’t it make sense in some cases (such as a major global corporation posting an update to all of its location-based Twitter accounts) at the same time with the same info?

The problem here is that cross-posting of identical content often negatively impacts Twitter’s algorithms. This is especially obvious when looking at trends, which monitor the volume of posts with specific content or hashtags. Some users were abusing this fact by creating apps backed by thousands of accounts that blasted spam messages, misleading users about what’s actually the hottest conversation of the day. Twitter alleges such users may even include people attempting to sway voters during the last U.S. election.

Don’t Automate Likes and Follows

Similarly, Twitter is also removing access to automated likes and follows. This will be even more impactful for businesses if they buy fake likes and follows or use API-driven programs that automatically create fake accounts for the purposes of growing their following.

To be fair, spam likes and follows have always been against Twitter’s Terms and Conditions. But it’s only been more recently that they’ve really started enforcing those standards uniformly across the board. Perhaps it was this report from the New York Times in January that motivated them to make the change.

Just how prevalent are fake likes on Twitter? For that, I’ll turn to the website Twitter Audit. Let’s take a look at Katy Perry specifically; she’s the most followed person on Twitter, yet the site reports that 68 percent of her 92 million followers are “probably” just bots or purchased likes.

Running the same search against @justinbieber shows a similar trend: 22,414,558 fake followers and 83,314,487. Of course, that means he has 78 percent real followers, which is at least better than Perry.

Don’t Use Spam to Force Trending Hashtags

This falls in line with the information in the last two sections, and is really an extension of the same, but it bears repeating and is important enough to have its own section. If you’re posting identical (or similar) posts across multiple platforms, and you happen to also be using identical hashtags, you may be falling out of line with the platform’s Terms of Service.

Here’s where things get sticky: this isn’t something all businesses do on purpose. Consider the aforementioned cross-posting for global conglomerates. They have a special worldwide contest going on, so they create a campaign and include the identical post with the same hashtag to get it going.

Seems sensible, right? Isn’t that the basis for viral marketing?

Well, yes…until they suddenly find themselves banned for spamming. Even if their intention was good, it’s still against the TOS because it can inadvertently manipulate trending hashtags.

If you are actively creating fake accounts simply for the purposes of fake hashtag boosting, even though you know it’s against the TOS, you’re probably facing eventual suspension at this point. This is especially true if you’re interfacing the platform from an API. Better monitoring tactics means Twitter will be better able to identify these behaviors faster, which also probably means more bans in general.

Don’t Allow Users to Post Spam on Your Behalf

Have multiple users interfacing with your Twitter account? That’s how most businesses handle social media campaigns these days.  Whether the “user” is a staff member or someone from a social media management agency, you need to be especially careful about how, when, and where they post in the coming months.

The problem here is that far too many businesses assume they can assign someone else to make the posts, or create a fake account, and then blame that account or person when something goes wrong. Not so anymore; now, Twitter will action both the account providing access and the user at the same time. Rather than just banning the fake account, they just might also ban you.

This will probably be most impactful for developers and large companies who may have thousands of users running posts on the platform at any given time. But even if you just have Sally from accounting posting for you, you should still take care to review your social media posting policy and get everyone up to speed.

Don’t Leave Mass Posting Functionality in Apps

This last one is mostly specific to developers: if you still have functionality built into your API-driven apps that allows mass identical cross-posting, you’re at risk of a ban. Twitter gave developers until March 25th, 2018 (before this post even goes lives) to remove functionality. Now, they’re actively searching for developers and apps breaking this rule – and if they find you, they will ban you entirely. For devs who base their entire business or app on social media functionality, a ban like that can be devastating. While you may have to take your app down temporarily to fix it, it’s much preferred to the alternative.

That said, there is one tiny exception: if your app specifically provides cross-posting or identical post dissemination for emergencies and disasters, you’re in the clear. Twitter has indicated that this falls within reasonable use because it allows government entities and other organizations to get safety information out to the general public faster.

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Using Facebook Ads to Enhance Direct Mail Campaigns

Facebook Ads are an integral part of your online marketing strategy. They not only help build your community on the platform itself, but can help build traffic to your website, and advertise sales and other offers for brick and mortar businesses. Beyond integrating with other online channels such as email, you can use Facebook Ads to integrate with your offline marketing channels, too.

Despite the fact that we get mailboxes full of junk mail in 2017, the reality is direct mail still works. A United States Postal Service study showed 60% of recipients also visited the promoted website – and first-time shoppers were the most influenced.

But this isn’t just the case for B2C businesses. In the B2B sector, one agency targeted companies making $30 million or more in revenue, and got a 25% response rate. It’s a different approach, which is the reason it stands out and gets an above average response rate despite the fact that it’s so simple.

Let’s talk about how to make direct mail campaigns work with your Facebook Ads.

Begin with Your Direct Mail

You can get direct mail pieces “off the shelf” from companies that are just a search away. But if you want something automated, you can use a company like Lob to integrate with a number of APIs and setup triggers to deliver direct mail to customers at prime times during your online marketing campaigns. Prices including the printing, mailing, and postage so you have a set and forget direct mailing solution.

If you want to create something custom, start by connecting with local commercial printing shops. They can help with design concepts and implementation. Whatever you come up with, make sure it’s specific, targeted, memorable, and personalized.

Figure Out How You’re Going to Track Everything

When it comes to tracking the results of a direct mail campaign, you have two options: unique phone numbers and personalized URLs.

The unique phone numbers are generally 800 numbers that go back to a major account, company, region, city, or segment of your audience.

With personalized URLs, you set up a variety of custom domains to make them easy to remember, and refer them to the correct place. This is the option we’ll focus on since the goal is to get people to your website, and to combine the tactic with Facebook Ads.

You can use referring domains to send people to a specific landing page you created just for their company. Or, you can send them to a case study or portfolio piece that focuses on the work you’ve done for a company just like theirs.

This way, you’re connecting with those hard to reach, specific companies and sending them back to a message you’ve crafted just for them. And you can track the entire thing, then retarget them.

Combine it With Facebook Ads

You should use this approach with a longer sale that takes a while to develop. After all, studies show it takes anywhere from six to eight touch points to generate a qualified sales lead.

Sending a single piece of direct mail isn’t going to be enough to turn that company into a lead. That’s why you need to follow up across multiple channels over time, to make sure you get results.

Add a Facebook Pixel to your website so you can track events and then use the Facebook Custom Audience to create an audience of people who have visited a specific page or URL. Create a custom audience for anyone who passes through the referring domains you’ve created specifically for your direct mail campaign.

Consider making a different campaign for people who bounce, people who stick around and look through your website, and for people who take the time to download your introductory offer or join your mailing list, and so on.

To create your own audiences, login to your Facebook Ads manager account and click “Audiences > Choose Audience > Lookalike Audience.” From there, you’ll be able to choose the source of the audience, such as the people who’ve already liked your Facebook page, or people who’ve visited the Thank You page on your website. Then you’ll choose your target audience size. The smaller you choose, the more targeted it will be. Each custom audience you create will be saved for use in future ad campaigns.

This retargeting approach allows you to automate the process of getting the second, third, or fourth touch points with your target prospects, so you don’t have to manually do all the work. This saves you time and money, while helping you grow your qualified leads database.

Tips for Success

You can use the mailing data from your direct mail campaign on Facebook, too. You can create a custom audience to show Facebook ads to your direct mail recipients who are also Facebook users.

Start by preparing your mailing data for import into Facebook Ads Manager. This means you’ll create a CSV file with as much data as you can gather. Facebook will allow you to create your target audience based on a number of factors, including:

  • First Name
  • Last Name
  • Phone Number
  • Email Address
  • Age, Date of Birth, Year of Birth
  • Location: City/State/Country/Zip Code
  • Gender
  • Mobile Advertiser ID
  • Facebook App User ID

Since you’re working from mailing list data, you should have the zip codes and names at the very least, but the more information you have, the better you will be able to target Facebook users. Use Excel or Google Sheets to create the CSV file, and create a header row for each data point you have.

If you need assistance, you can download the sample CSV from Facebook, and you can learn about how to setup the columns and data.

Once your file is ready, it’s time to use it to create a custom audience. Open Facebook Ads Manager, then open the Audiences tool. Click Create Audience > Custom Audience. Then choose Customer File in the pop-up window. Click “Add Customers from Your Own File.”

Upload the CSV file you created with the mailing data. You’ll be prompted to match the fields in the file to the categories Facebook Ads Manager uses. Go through the list to make sure Facebook recognizes and maps the fields correctly, ignoring anything that’s not relevant. Remember, the more data you use, the higher the match rate.

Follow the rest of the prompts to secure the upload and process the audience file. Once this is done, you’re ready to start building the campaign. It could take some time for Facebook to build your custom audience, based on the size of your import.

At this point, you’re good to setup landing pages, or direct traffic to the landing pages you’ve already created.

Once you get the results of the preliminary campaign, you can segment your custom audiences to target your high-value segments of your list – particularly those who visited your landing pages but didn’t respond to your conversion points.

Make sure you coordinate the timing of your direct mail and your Facebook Ads You want to make sure there is time for people to respond to the mailer before you start serving them ads on Facebook. This way, recipients will be more likely to react since Facebook isn’t their first interaction with the campaign.

Allow one to two weeks after your mailers have gone out to ensure they are delivered to your audience and they have time to respond or abandon before you start running your ads.

Marketing Must Be More Than Clicking Boxes

If you’re doing the same thing everyone else is doing, you can’t expect anything more than mediocre results with an average ROI. If you break out from the rest of the crowd, you’re taking a risk, but you’re likely to get better returns because you’re creating your own path, rather than copying what those ahead of you are doing. Take advantage of direct mail sine you know it still works, and combine with automated targeted Facebook Ads. You may be surprised at how effective it is at bringing you new leads.

Have you ever received a piece of direct mail and then started seeing ads for it on Facebook? Did it improve your impression of the company?

Categories
Social Media

How to Get More Instagram Followers for Your Business

As of just last year, Instagram boasted nearly 500 million users. That’s more members than the United States has citizens throughout the entire country, and more than 10 times the population of Canada. Around 15 million of those members are businesses and/or digital marketing experts who use the platform to drive more conversions and sales.

These are exciting statistics. There’s so much potential on Instagram for businesses who are willing to put in even a small amount of effort to grow their presence on the platform.

Just look at these incredible success stories and my very own recent post on Instagram. Brands enjoy around 59 times more engagement on Instagram as they do on Facebook. That number roughly doubles to 120 times if you consider Instagram versus Twitter.

While these numbers might be compelling, they aren’t actually the focus of today’s post. Instead, I want to talk to you about how you can ensure your own success on the platform – specifically, how to grow your Instagram followers.

We’ll also talk a bit about the difference between targeted and mass followers, how you can tell which you’re attracting, and the one common mistake we see businesses make time and time again.

Don’t Buy Followers

I mentioned the one common mistake we see businesses make on Instagram time and time again; this is it. Buying followers may seem logical; after all, following begets more following, doesn’t it? Well, as it turns out, no, not always.

When you buy followers, in many cases what you’re buying is essentially follows from fake or dead accounts. Sellers buy them or create them en masse and then sell them back to you for an exorbitant amount of money. They temporarily inflate your numbers until Instagram discovers the deception and shuts them (and possibly you) down for gaming the system.

But the best reason not to buy followers is also the simplest: they don’t convert, and they don’t support organic shares. This is the marketing equivalent of “empty calories” in nutrition.

Create a Consistent Brand Personality

Rustin Nethercott, a Forbes writer who works for email marketing client Constant Contact, says that successful brands use Instagram “as an outlet to craft and show the personality of their company.” He also states that developing a brand personality that’s genuine, yet relatable to your target audience will let you develop an emotional connection with your brand.

Rustin is right; brands with strong personalities know who they are. They also know who their target audiences are and how to be relatable with them by consistently exuding their personality every time they post.

I’m not just talking about persona; while persona development is an important part of marketing, this is less about your target audience and more about the face you show the world. It includes who you are, what you represent, why you matter to your target audience, and even what themes or aesthetics best represent your brand.

Whatever you choose for your public-facing personality, it’s important to remain consistent. Your goal is to keep your audience interested without inducing boredom, all while revealing your business’s personality along the way.

Keep your visuals, text, messaging, themes, aesthetic and even fonts as uniform to your brand as you can. Find ways to mix up your content without losing that anchor to who your brand really is. Your brand’s theme and personality should always be the anchor that makes your followers say, “Yes, I like that!” or “Hey, me, too!”

Be Helpful, Available, and Interested

Too many businesses schedule in posts and then walk away, never interacting with their followers or other businesses on Instagram. This can give the impression that your business is cold, unavailable, or even impersonal. This, too, can become a part of your brand personality, and when it does, it can cause them to shy away from engaging with your Instagram profile. Like a standoffish person, it’s just not a great way to forge an emotional connection.

Instead, be the “person” you’d like your brand to be. Focus on being helpful, responsive, available, and willing to go the extra mile, even if it’s just to respond to a customer when they’re happy (or unhappy) with your product. Others will see you making the effort, and that social proof often convinces them to follow you, too.

Post Consistently

Followers need time to get to know you. They need to see you posting, learn about you, learn your brand personality, and then develop a strong connection to it before they will consistently share your posts. All of this requires constant reminders of your presence. The best way to do that is to post at least once a day (if not more).

Which brings us to the second-biggest mistake businesses make: tossing down a post once a week, usually with a link to a blog, and then calling it a day. If you do this, you’ll certainly exist on the platform, but you won’t hold attention. This can stunt your growth and prevent organic reach.

Feeling overwhelmed by the idea of posting daily? Don’t sweat the small stuff. Curated posts are fine during busy periods. Just be sure it represents your brand’s personality and contains at least a comment on the content directly from your business.

Activate Instagram for Business

If you haven’t already, strongly consider activating your Instagram as a business account rather than a personal account. Doing so gives you access to a whole suite of new features for tracking, analyzing, and even rolling out advertisements to attract new targeted followers to your page.

The analytics tools alone are useful enough to let you investigate each post you make for what works, what doesn’t work, and what you can potentially change.

Here’s the catch: there are a few potential caveats in using Instagram for business. Some marketers believe Instagram limits reach for businesses like Facebook. It doesn’t seem to happen across the board, so it’s hard to base a decision around that alone. Most businesses will probably benefit more than they’ll suffer from making the move.

Instagram does require that businesses link their profiles with an established (or newly created) Facebook business page. This may seem like a drawback, but really, the majority of businesses have Facebook pages already. Extra social media representation is always a good thing!

Determine the Ideal Time to Post

Instagram user activity waxes and wanes throughout the day, the week, and even the year. If you can identify when your target audience is most likely to interact with your posts, you can tailor your posting schedule to meet people when they’re already online.

The natural result here is that your followers miss fewer posts, meaning they’re more likely to see, interact, and share, winning you new organic follows along the way.

Let’s say you want to determine the best time to post for a small niche. You have two approaches: you can turn to past studies like these or experiment with your own Instagram account to find what works best. Your goal is the same: post when your followers are most likely to be online.

As for past evidence, most studies seem to agree that posting outside of regular 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. work hours is best. That’s because most people work during these hours, meaning they’re less likely to be browsing Instagram for photos. Instead, you should post between 6 and 7:30 p.m. on weekdays and 11 a.m. on weekends.

When is the absolute worst time to post? There’s no hard and fast rule, but most of experts consider late afternoon the most common posting black hole. This stretch of time certainly seems logical; it’s right on par with afternoon rush hour.

Categories
Social Media

A Comprehensive Guide to Proving Social Media ROI

A while back on my company blog, I wrote a post about how to track social media campaigns in Google Analytics. If you’re not already doing that, stop reading this post, and go check that one out. It’s a critical part of proving the ROI on your social media campaigns.

The definition of social media ROI will depend on what your objectives are. Are you trying to build brand awareness? Grow revenue? Improve customer satisfaction? For the sake of this blog post, I’m going to focus on the fact that social media ROI is the sum of all social media actions that create value. After all, you’re putting in time, money, and other resources. You deserve (and need) to know what their return is so you can adjust your strategy accordingly. That in and of itself is why many brands struggle to properly calculate ROI.

Let’s say you decided to measure your ROI by revenue. Your formula for that would look something like this:

Profit / total investment (people hours, ad budget, etc.) X 100 = social media ROI (as a percentage).

So, if you made $1000 in revenue from social media as a result of an $500 investment, use made $500 profit that’s earning a 100% return on your investment. The problem with this approach is that it’s not a catch all formula for proving ROI. With social media, there isn’t one formula that will appropriately demonstrate all possible returns on investment.

Plus, when you consider that not all organizations will be able to attribute the revenue directly to social media, value won’t necessarily be measured in dollars and cents. Relying on this approach with ROI of social media prevents you from identifying the various other ways your social investments are paying off.

Let’s look at some of the various ways you can prove ROI, to see where your current strategy is getting you, or to justify spending more money on social media marketing.

 

Using Cost of Goods Sold (COGS)

Let’s say you spend $100 on Instagram ads. Because of those ads common you sell 10 products at $25 each. This means you’ve earned a total revenue of 250. If you subtract the gross sales by the marketing investment you get 150. If you divide this number by the marketing investment of 100 comment you get 1.5. Multiply this by 100 to get the percentage which brings us back to 150. With this calculation, our return on investment would be a 150% which is of course an impressive return. Though this is an easy way to calculate ROI, it’s not very accurate because it uses gross sales instead of accounting for the profit margin.

So, with the cost of goods sold you get a more accurate picture of your return. Let’s say each one of those $25 products earn you $15 in profit. That information needs to go into your ROI calculation. That formula is a little complex to address in this post, so use this article to figure out your COGS and then come back with that information to move on.

In the example above, your COG is $100, meaning your true profit is $50. Divide that $50 by the total marketing investment of $100. You’ll end up with .5, which when multiplied by 100 for a percentage shows us we get a 50% ROI, meaning that the ads are worth the investment because we make 50% more than what we spend to run them.

 

Year Over Year Growth Rate (YoY)

YoY can be used to report on any metric, and you don’t have to wait til January. You can compare any month to the same month in the previous year, quarter to same quarter in the previous year, and so on.

Let’s say at the end of 2015 you had 9,000 Facebook fans, and at the end of 2016, you had 10,000. Subtract the previous year (9,000) from the recent/current year (10,000.) You have a difference of 1,000.

Divide the difference by the current year (1,000/10,000). The answer is .01. Multiply this by 100 to get a percentage of growth. The answer is 10. That means your growth for 2016 was 10%. If you follow the same path, that means at the end of 2017, you should have another 1,000 fans, for a total of 11,000 fans.

 

True Conversion Rate

Google Analytics will give you one, but it may be a little low. Take the total goal completions in Google Analytics – this won’t work until you setup goals – there’s more about that in the article I linked to at the beginning of this post – and then divide it by the total website visits. Then, multiply the result by 100.

If you had 50 goal completions and 1000 visits, your result is .05. Multiply that by 100 and your conversion rate is 5%. The goal could be anything from ecommerce purchases to leads, downloads, or email subscribers.

But that’s still not your true conversion rate. To get that, we need to be looking only at the total visits from your target market, Create and apply a new advanced segment. Name it “Traffic from Target Market” so you only see the traffic from those who would be potential customers. This way, your percentage is higher, and you can truly show the conversion rate.

Let’s say only 500 of those visits were from target audience. Then you have a 10% conversion rate. Is that great? Not necessarily, but it certainly looks way better than the original 5%.

 

Customer Lifetime Value (LTV)

I’ve chosen a simple formula here, because depending on your business, LTV can get complex. You must have a certain amount of data to get the calculation right, so let’s look at that first.

  • Average order value (AOV): How much the average customer spends in one visit. Work with your accountant or financial department to get the information. Look at your total revenue and the total number of orders placed for the last year. Divide revenue by number of orders to get your AOV. If you made $100,000 and had 5000 orders, your AOV is $20.
  • Purchase frequency (PF): How often are customers purchasing from you? Every week? Every month? Every year? You can track this data with a loyalty card, but if nothing else, you can divide the total number of orders by the total number of unique customers. If you had 5000 orders from 100 unique customers, then each customer placed an order nearly every week – there are 52 weeks in a year.
  • Customer value (CV): This is the average value of a customer – or how much money we can get from their wallet. To get this number, we multiply the AOV by your PF. If we multiply $20 by 50, we get a CV of $1000.
  • Customer’s average lifespan (CAL): How long will a customer say a customer? This varies from business to business.

To get the LTV:

Multiply your CV by the CAL. If your CAL is 5 years, then you can expect each customer to bring you $5,000.

 

Looking at Your Social Media Objectives

If your social media goal is to drive brand awareness you wouldn’t be focusing on revenue and profit as your main metrics. Instead, you would focus on engagement and audience reach.

To do this, consider the types of things your target audience did after seeing your campaign. Did their actions align with your goals? And, how can they be improved for another campaign?

To estimate the gain from consumer actions such as page views, email list sign ups, downloads, and purchases, you need to turn to your analytics to determine which conversion events came from social media. This will help you define your social media ROI and thus prove its value to your business.

In this case, if you were forced to assign a dollar amount to it, rather than a percentage of growth in your reach and engagement compared to before the campaign, you could use your true conversion rate formula to determine how many social media fans converted – or took the action you were aiming for with your campaign. Then, you can look back at the total amount you paid for the campaign to see how much you paid for each conversion.

You could also use that YoY growth rate to determine how much you spent to gain each fan. If you earned 1000 fans, and spent $300 in ads targeted at gaining fans, then you would divide the total spent by total fans earned, assuming they all came from ads. You would have spent $.30 per fan. That’s a great ROI.

Now, let’s say 500 of those fans become customers. That means you invested $300, plus the cost of other advertising of course, but let’s just say your customers became fans and made a purchase within three months without any further advertising dollars, to keep things simple. You spent $300 to earn an average of $500,000 a year from those fans.

 

Social ROI is Difficult Because It’s Unique to Your Business and Goals

The reason so many businesses struggle with proving social media ROI is the complexity of the math involved, and it can be hard to assign dollar values to people who are your fans, but haven’t yet made a purchase. It can be difficult to assign a dollar value when the goal of your campaign isn’t immediate revenue, but to build a base of followers in hopes that they will become customers later.

At Sachs Marketing Group, we handle all the social media development for you. You tell us what you want to spend and what you want to accomplish, and we’ll show you growth. Get in touch to learn more about how we can help you.

Categories
Social Media

How to Integrate Facebook Messenger Bots with Facebook Live

I’ve written about Facebook Messenger bots before – but today, I’m going to take it a step further and show you how to use Messenger bots with your Facebook Live videos to help you generate more qualified leads. The bot will allow viewers to easily sign up for your email list to stay in touch and receive offers.

Why Should You Use a Facebook Chat Bot with Your Live Videos?

Chatbots automate communications with your customers or prospects through Facebook Messenger. The bot does the talking for you, and when it’s set up correctly, will deliver the information your customers are looking for, which saves time for both you and the customer. It’s a win-win situation.

If you use Facebook Live, you can add a bot to the live video, to help you deliver content directly to your viewers through Messenger. This approach helps boost engagement since viewers will comment more. As a result of that increased engagement, you’ll end up with higher reach and more views, since the Facebook algorithm rewards engagement.

If viewers are watch your live video for a certain topic, they’re interested in what you have to say and what you have to offer. If you can deliver a freebie or lead magnet that relates to your video topic, you’ll be able to get more qualified warm leads.

Viewers just have to take in a keyword while they watch your live stream. It’s easier for them to say yes to you this way, rather than going to your website and entering their email address.

Once your viewers opt in, you can nurture the campaign just like you would with email marketing drip campaigns, and hopefully convert them to a paying customer.

If you don’t want to deliver a lead magnet, you can use a bot to let viewers:

  • Receive notifications whenever you go live.
  • Participate in a multi-day live video challenge through messenger.
  • Participate in a multi-day video series
  • Receive a direct link to your sales page.

There are wide variety of bot creation tools available, but for the purpose of this tutorial, I’m going to walk you through how to use ManyChat to create your bots and integrate them with your live videos. Start by creating your free account there. It’s free forever, but limited to only two broadcast sequences and four growth tools – including the Facebook Comments tool we’ll use to set this up.

If you want to go Pro, you’ll pay by the number of subscribers you want to engage every month, with pricing starting at $10/month for up to 500 subscribers. Each connected Facebook Page is billed as a separate account.

Creating Your Messenger Bot with ManyChat

After you’ve created the account, connect ManyChat to the Facebook Page you want to stream live video from and use the bot with. If you want to do it with multiple pages, you’ll need to go through the process for the first page, and then repeat the steps again for any subsequent pages.

Scheduling Your Live Video in Facebook

Before you can set up your bot, you have to connect Facebook Live video to ManyChat so your bot knows what to do and when to start doing it.

To schedule your stream, you have to broadcast from a desktop using something like eCamm, Wirecast, BeLive, or Lightstream.

If you must use your smartphone to go live, you’ll have to get the majority of your setup done in advance and then have a trusted friend of colleague login and activate the bot while you’re live. If you try to activate it yourself you will create a poor experience for your viewers.

To schedule your stream, click on Publishing Tools from your Facebook Page. Look for and click Video Library on the left-hand side of the page.

Click + Live in the upper right-hand corner, then click “Next” on the next page.

Write a description for your live stream in the box and the top of the window, and then click the drop-down arrow next to “Go Live” and click “Schedule Live.” Choose the date and time you plan to go live and click “Schedule.”

Connecting Your Scheduled Facebook Live to the Messenger Bot

Next, you must go back to ManyChat to connect your bot to your scheduled live video. To do this click “Growth Tools” on the left menu.

Then, click “New Growth Tool” in the top right corner. Though there are many choose from, you’ll want to click “Choose Facebook Comments” to connect your scheduled video to your bot.

Next, click “Select a Post.” Choose your scheduled post from the list in the pop up window.

Turn on “Track First-Level Comments Only.” This is optional, but I recommend using it so people can have conversations with you and one another without trigging the bot.

You can add the keyword you’ll ask your viewers to type in to request your freebie or lead magnet in the “Only Trigger for Comments With These Keywords” text box. When you’re finished filling in the details, click “Next.”

Creating the Initial Message

Now, you’re ready to create the first message your viewers will see. You need to tell them what to do next, because they must reply to the message to double opt-in and get the freebie or whatever you’re offering. Click “Next.”

Choosing Your Opt-In Action and Message

Now choose your opt-in action. I recommend “Send to Everyone Who Replies” because this is the simplest action, and no matter what a user says in response to your initial message, they’ll get your opt-in message. The opt-in message should be the delivery of whatever you promised.

Click Save. Activate the tool. Test it before you use it in your videos.

Going Live on Facebook

Now that you’ve set up your bot, you can go live to your scheduled post (when it’s time, of course) and tell viewers to comment with the keyword you’ve chosen to trigger the bot. The bot will handle the rest, and you can watch the leads flow in.

Conclusion

With the paid version of ManyChat, you can create a number of highly complex bots that go several levels deep, depending on the conversation with the user and the triggers you’ve setup. It’s possible to do a great deal more with them, but I recommend starting small and keeping things simple. Then, as you get more comfortable with it, you can experiment with more complex bots.

Will you be integrating chatbots into your Facebook Live videos? Why or why not? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Categories
Social Media

A Best Practices Guide for Live Chat with Customers Online

More than half of consumers say a business needs to be available 24/7. Implementing a live chat feature on your website can help with this a bit. When you consider that 42% of consumers prefer live chat because they don’t have to wait on hold and 51% of them use it for multi-tasking purposes, if your site doesn’t offer a live chat support option, you’re risking making nearly half of your customers unhappy. Perhaps the biggest reason to consider adding it as a customer service channel? 92% of customers feel satisfied when they use live chat to resolve an issue… that’s more than when using voice, email, or social media.

If you’re ready to start using it with your business, make sure you understand these best practices before you get started. Doing so will make it easier for your staff and your customers.

Aim for a Low Average Response Time

If it takes you too long to respond, customers will abandon the chat and become dissatisfied. There are several things you can do to make sure you can respond quickly.

  • Use Canned Messages: This allows your agents to greet customers quickly without a lot of repetitive typing.
  • Use Pre-Chat Surveys to Direct People to the Right Department: This ensures you can find out what kind of issue customers are having before they start typing. This information also makes sure your customers are being routed to the right department from the start, saving time for agents and customers alike.
  • Use Shortcut Keys: Setup shortcut keys for the most used operations, like your canned messages, to save time.
  • Use Other Media: Send screenshots, images, and videos to avoid having to write out long responses. This helps keep the issue clear, which helps solve it faster compared to writing a lengthy explanation every time.

Set Clear Expectations for Your Customers

Of course, you want to be able to respond to your customers immediately, but at times when the queues are particularly full, that’s going to be nearly impossible for your live chat agents. When this is the case, it’s important to set reasonable expectations for your customers. Do this by:

  • Clearly Communicating Wait Time: If a customer has to wait, let them know how long they’ll be waiting and what they will be waiting for. If you have to research their issue, or transfer them to another agent for any reason, let them know right away. This way they know you’re doing what needs to be done to take care of them, rather than thinking you’ve forgotten about them.
  • Stating Live Chat Operational Hours: If you’ve made your live chat available 24 hours a day seven days a week, you need to say that. If you haven’t, make sure you’ve disabled live chat on your site when your business is closed or agents are unavailable. Clearly display the hours live chat is available, so customers don’t expect you to be available when you’re not.

Be Human

  • Greet Customers by Name: This goes a long way toward good customer service, and personalizes the chat. When possible, personalize it with buyer history. This should be relatively easy to do if your live chat system integrates with your customer relationship management (CRM) platform.
  • Make a Connection to Each Customer: Use representative names and photos to help your customers connect to you from the start of the interaction.
  • Acknowledge and Empathize with the Issue: Regardless of the issue, make sure your agents know to be sensitive to their needs. Acknowledge and validate their concerns, and ask the agents to think about how they’d feel if they were in the customer’s shoes. This way the customer sees you care rather than hurrying them along to get to the next person in queue.
  • Remain Positive and Friendly: Throughout the entire conversation, use positive and friendly language. Avoid abruptly saying goodbye. Only do this after you’ve asked if the customer needs something else and they say no. Tell them to enjoy the rest of their day and you’ve enjoyed chatting with them before logging off.

Be Clear with All Your Communication

  • Read Messages Carefully: Make sure you are reading what the customer is saying carefully, especially if you’re working with multiple tickets at once. If anything is unclear, ask for clarification. Working too fast means you could give an answer unrelated to the issue or send the wrong answer to the wrong customer.
  • Respond as Accurately as Possible: Don’t let speed take the place of accuracy. If you don’t know the answer, take the time to research before giving one.
  • Let Customers Know if You Need Time to Research: If you need a few minutes to make sure you can give the most accurate answer, let the customer know. This way they know you’re working on their issue rather than completely ignoring them.
  • Write with Proper Spelling, Grammar, and Sentence Structure: Don’t use speed to neglect proper use of the written word. Don’t use lingo or technical terms the customers may not understand.
  • Proofread Before Sending: Check for typos. Give agents commonly misspelled words and grammar issues so they know what to avoid and how to make sure it’s correct when replying. Let them know you’re using live chat supervision features to monitor the quality of the chats going out to customers. The second set of eyes will ensure you’re producing quality.

Treat Complex Issues as Multiple Smaller Ones

If it is too complex, it’s easy to get confused, and to confuse the customer. Break the issues down into smaller issues, and work sequentially through them until everything is handled. Some issues are too complex for live chat, and if this is the case, recommend the customer call for better service.

Offer Detailed Solutions

There are several issues that are likely to come up again and again, but it’s important to provide detail for them each time. This is where keyboard shortcuts can come in handy – agents who often have to send the same messages over and over can do so quickly, allowing them to get issues resolved faster and head to the next customer.

If you can’t assign a keyboard shortcut, keep a library of documents and videos handy that you can use to help the customer learn how to solve the problem. The alternate media may do a better job at helping them resolve the issue than a written step-by-step guide. Plus, they can

Encourage Self-Service When Possible

If you have a knowledgebase or FAQ area where customers can get help, or an article on your blog that would have solved their issue, always be sure to point them to the resource so they can use it in the future. You’re letting the customer know where they can try to solve issues themselves should they come up later. Be sure you reiterate they are always free to contact customer support if they can’t find a solution in the self-help library.

Give the Customer a Chance to Leave Feedback at the End of the Chat

Once your agents have closed the chat and made sure the customer doesn’t need assistance with anything else, give them a chance to fill out a survey rating their performance. You can also email them a link to follow up with, in case they close the chat window too quickly. Though not all customers will take the time to do this step, those that do will be providing you with valuable information about your agents are performing. And, the customers who do leave the feedback will feel like their voices are being heard.

Integrate Your Live Chat with Existing Help Desk Solutions

If you’re already using a help desk as part of your customer service effort, integrate it with your live chat solution. This can help you pull in offline messages and chat transcripts so your support team gets a better picture of the customer, regardless of which channel they’re coming from.

Don’t Feel Like You Have to Offer Live Chat Everywhere

You do not have to offer live chat everywhere for all your customers. You could just offer it to the sales team who will be talking to prospects. Or, you could offer it only to your VIP customers as an additional benefit. Many live chat tools make it simple to target your chat only to certain pages of your website, so you can control where it’s an option.

Learn from the Past and Make Adjustments

How many chats can your team handle at the same time? What do the customer satisfaction ratings for your chat customers say? How do those ratings compare to ratings on other channels? Talk to your team and see how they feel about everything. What’s working for them? What do they feel could benefit from a change? Make changes to the process where you see fit to improve the experience not just for your customers, but for your agents, too.

Categories
Social Media

11 Tips for Using YouTube to Generate Quality Leads

When it comes to lead generation, most people go to obvious places like Google AdWords and Facebook Ads first. What this means is platforms like YouTube are often underutilized, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a great place to be. (It’s a wonderful thing for you if your competition hasn’t caught onto it yet.)

Take a look at how to make the most of your video marketing efforts to generate more leads with YouTube.

1. Write Lengthy Video Descriptions

Writing a long, detailed video description allows you to optimize it for both YouTube and search engines. The longer and more in-depth they are, the better chance they have of ranking highly in the relevant searches. Contextual keywords are a major part of both Google and YouTube search.

When you write a long video description, I’m not talking about simply relying on single long-tail keywords. The detail you go into can help you rank for many related searches. It can also possibly boost your chances of getting keywords and phrases you didn’t use.

As you write, include multiple relevant keyword variations. Make sure the first few lines of the description are interesting enough to grab attention. Keep the most interesting information above the “Show More” link. Optimize this part of the description for the keywords you want to rank for.

Include a link to your website to your website in the first part of your description. Add a UTM parameter to the link to track how many clicks your video generates in Google Analytics. Make the link clickable by adding the http:// or https://, so users can easily get to your website.

Break up your paragraphs into bite-sized pieces to keep the viewers from getting bored reading. They’re there to watch a video, not to read an article.

2. Organize Your Videos into Playlists on Your Channel

Chances are, you’ll create multiple videos for a single campaign that all end with similar CTAs and send viewers to the same landing page. Group those videos into a single playlist to help nurture your leads. If your users aren’t ready to click on your CTA at the end of the first video, they’ll automatically move onto the next one, and the next one, and may find themselves more likely to click.

When you intentionally create playlists, viewers will bounce around on your channel longer, instead of potentially running off to your competition for more. The more content they watch from you, the more they’ll trust and remember you. Yes, there’s a chance they won’t convert right away, but they are more likely to convert at a later time if they’ve watched multiple videos on your channel.

3. Treat Your Channel as an Online Video Library

Your YouTube account will allow you to organize all your videos in one place, to create a library of sorts. Upload videos after they’ve gone out to your email subscribers, so new subscribers can look through the archives and see what they’ve missed before they came on board.

Use your YouTube channel to show other videos that may be appropriate for your audience, but not necessarily appropriate for email subscribers, like press appearances, for instance.

4. Use YouTube Cards to Drive Traffic to Your Website

YouTube cards make it possible to add more interactivity to your videos. You can add a call to action (CTA)with a link, to entice viewers to take the action you want. This feature was developed for mobile users, so it’s responsive on all devices, allowing you to send mobile YouTube viewers to your website.

When you add a card to a certain part of your video, a teaser will appear in the upper-right corner of the video for five seconds. If a viewer clicks or taps on the teaser, the card is shown. If after five seconds the viewer doesn’t click on the teaser, an “I” icon will be shown in the same area.

To add YouTube cards to your videos:

Go to your YouTube channel’s video manager and locate the video you want to add the card to. Below the video, click the arrow next Edit and choose Cards from the drop-down menu. On the next page, click Add Card and choose the type of card you want to add. Click Create. Customize the card in the next window. IF you choose a link card, add the URL you want to promote and include your CTA. Once you’re finished, click Create Card.

Choose where you want the card to appear in your video. Drag the marker on the timeline to the correct location.

If you want to use more than one YouTube card in a single video, space out the cards to keep viewers from getting distracted. Limit the use of cards to no more than three per video. Don’t use pointers or arrows to draw attention to the cards because not all devices operate the same way. It’s possible the cards could appear at different spots on the screen.

5. Direct Traffic from Videos to Specialized Landing Pages

Use the URL card to drive traffic from videos to relevant specialized landing pages. To get the best results, make sure you’ve designed a great landing page that’s entirely focused on generating leads.

6. Follow a Schedule for Uploading New Videos

To build an online following, follow a regular schedule for new videos. Whatever that schedule may be, stick to it. Make sure this doesn’t work against any other video marketing efforts you may be doing. For instance, only add videos to your YouTube channel or other video sharing shared after they’ve been sent to your email subscribers, so those members get the first look.

7. Use End Screens to Promote Landing Pages

End-screens are a mobile-friendly way to end your videos with a CTA. You can use the end screen to promote another videos, playlists, or channels. You can also encourage viewers to subscribe to your channel, use it to promote your website, newsletter, or products and services.

If you want to add an end screen, your video must be at least 25 seconds long. The end screen will appear in the last five to 20 seconds of your video.

Go to your YouTube channels video manager and locate the video you want to add the card to. Below the video, click the arrow next Edit and chooseEnd Screen & Annotations from the drop-down list.

On the next screen, make sure End Screen tab is selected. If you have annotations, YouTube will ask you to unpublish them.

Now, you can use a predefined theme, by clicking the Use Template button and choosing the template you want to use. Customize it as desired.

You also have the option to create an end screen from scratch. Click Add Element, choose your elements and add as desired to get the template the way you want it. You’ll need to include at least another video or a playlist. If you want to include a custom image, you’ll need to make sure it’s at least 300 x 300 pixels.

If you’ve already used End Screens in the past, you can import one of them from your other videos. Click Import From Video and click Select an Already-Published Clip. Edit the elements as needed.

8. Develop Your Goals Specifically for Your Video Audience

Let’s look at a scenario where videos will have different audiences:

Your video newsletters are a lead generation technique to build opt-ins and potential customers. With online video hosting sites like YouTube, there’s not as much insights about who is viewing your content. So, your goal should be to use video there to raise awareness about your company and reach people who aren’t already subscribed to your video newsletter.

9. Use Tagging to Organize Your Videos by Topic to Help Viewers Find Them in Search

Once you’ve added your videos to your YouTube or another video sharing site, tagging makes it easier for people to find them. You can use these tags as keywords to help organize your content. This not only helps people find your videos in search, but also helps your videos show up in related content, as well, so people can find your content when they aren’t looking for you by name.

Use keywords, and test a range of tags to see which ones get you the best results.

10. Respond to Comments

You shouldn’t expect potential leads to reach out to customer service if they have a question or a concern. A lot of the time, they’ll just comment on the video. That’s why it’s important to pay attention to and respond to the comments. You’ll have a chance to answer the questions, address objections, and direct them to contact you for more information.

This shows you care about your viewers, which goes a long way in building trust and relationships, too.

11. Share Your Videos Far and Wide

Promote your videos on other social media channels. Use the built-in Share function on YouTube to share it anywhere you know your target audience is active.

12. Bonus Tip: YouTube isn’t the Only Option

YouTube may be the biggest and most well-known video sharing site, but it’s not the only one. Use different services for different applications to provide the best possible customer experience while still reaching your goals.

Rely on YouTube for reach and exposure. Because they are the largest one, they have the largest audience to expose your content to.

Use something like Blip.tv to embed your videos on websites. This way you can rely on someone else’s bandwidth to host the videos, but you won’t have to deal with the branding/watermark issue like you would if you embedded your YouTube videos on your website.

Conclusion

YouTube and video is a great way to connect with your audience and show them more about your company and what you do. You can help them learn about your products and services. You can show them how to use your products and services. The possibilities are nearly endless.

At Sachs Marketing Group, we know video production and marketing can be intimidating, especially if you’ve got a limited budget and are nervous about investing in your own equipment. That’s why we’re here to help. If you want to break into video marketing, but need assistance with video design, get in touch!

 

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