Social media for customer service is growing in popularity. Many customers prefer the convenience of customer support through this medium. Companies, in an effort to increase sales and maintain loyal customers, are searching for ways to maintain good customer interaction. According to Social Media Today, customers are more apt to spend 21 percent more with companies that deliver excellent customer support rather than pay less and be treated poorly. This is impetus for business owners to search for ways to improve customer support.

Why Choose Social Media for Customer Service?

Business owners should recognize that their customers are already online chatting about their experiences. In fact, the average user will share their good experiences with 42 other people online. Every good customer support experience is an opportunity for someone to tell 40 or more people something good about your company. Business owners do not want to miss out on the chance to have free positive advertising to 42 other people.

Since people are already online chatting about their positive and negative experiences, it is only a natural progression that companies try to join the conversation. Companies can better manage a reputation when they know what customers are saying online. Business owners can thank customers for positive responses and address any negative responses. Negative comments reaching 42 other people can be detrimental to a company’s brand image.

Experts have found that customers enjoy communicating online through social mediums. They do not have to hold a phone waiting for a customer support representative. Customers can remain productive while waiting on a response. Often, when customers receive responses in writing, they can understand the response better. This leads to better customer support and fewer chances for miscommunication.

With phone transactions, there is more opportunity for customer support representatives to become emotional. Representatives have time to think and compose their thoughts with difficult customers. Poor customer service is less likely with this mode of communication. Since eight in 10 consumers have chosen to abandon a purchase because of poor customer support, companies must find ways to reduce poor interactions. Customer support online may be one possible solution.

Other Benefits of Social Applications for Customer Service:

Customer Service Software Costs. Customer support online reduces software costs. Online tools can be customized for businesses and are more affordable than traditional customer relationship management (CRM) software solutions.

Real-Time Customer Support. When companies view comments online, responses can be provided in real-time. There is not delay when people are constantly monitoring conversations.

Branding. Companies can build a positive brand image when responses are prompt and courteous. Customers can think back on the positive experience each time they consider the company’s product or services. This helps to build customer loyalty and a positive brand image.

Building Trust. When companies respond quickly and provide incentives for customers, trust is built. Customers enjoy conducting business with businesses they can trust.

How are Companies Currently Using Social Media

More than two-thirds of major enterprises are integrating social applications for customer support. Businesses can analyze data from customer interactions faster when social applications are used. Enterprises use social applications for crisis management and also for brand protection. Companies may also use social media applications to identify operational and product issues. Customers may discuss these topics online, and experts can use comments to improve products and services.

Companies are also using social media to sell products and services. Each opportunity to discuss a concern with a customer service representative is an opportunity to up-sell a product or service. This helps companies increase sales and increase company revenue.

Integrate Social Media for Customer Service

Companies should integrate social media for customer service. Integration will increase positive customer interaction, brand loyalty and sales conversions. Consider how social media integration can help your company.

In a major move that may change both microblogging and traditional blogging, it has been released that Twitter buys Posterous, an innovative, popular blogging platform. Terms of the purchase were not disclosed. CEO of Posterous, Sachin Agarwal wrote about the news on his personal blog. Both Twitter and Posterous claim that Posterous will remained unchanged for now. No changes will be introduced without ample warning. But the news that Twitter buys Posterous raises questions.

The Foundations of Posterous

Posterous was first released in 2008 by Y Combinator, a so-called “seed aggregator” that utilizes a unique method of funding startups. Posterous allows bloggers to update their sites using by sending an email to a predetermined email address. With this interface, Posterous allows bloggers to avoid the traditional difficulties of most blogging platforms. The platform also provides social platform integration, allowing users to link their blogs to their Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and YouTube accounts. Posterous also allows users to register a unique domain as part of the sign-up process. A feature to send blog updates by text message was added later.

Some Background Information About Twitter

In case you have been living under a rock, twitter is the world’s most popular microblogging platform. Founded in March of 2006 by Jack Dorsey, Twitter has grown at a tremendous rate. Its interface is simple; users send 140-character “Tweets” and follow others they find interesting. Despite its simplicity, however, Twitter currently boasts nearly 150 million regular users who send nearly 350 million Tweets per day and perform over 1.5 billion searches. Twitter’s ever-growing collection of users includes a number of celebrities with millions of followers each. World leader, star athletes and the world’s top entertainers use Twitter as a means to maintain contact with legions of fans.

But the future of Twitter is still unknown. For much of its early history, Twitter failed to turn a profit. Its growing pains are evident to users, as the Twitter “Fail Whale” still makes appearances on a somewhat regular basis. Some still question whether the immensely popular platform is turning a profit.

So, What Happens Now?

Many speculate about what Twitter’s next revenue-driving move will be. Many believe that Twitter’s simplicity is the key to its success, so it seems logical that Twitter would utilize a tool as simple as Posterous into new markets. But the news that Twitter buys Posterous still raises a question: What is Twitter going to do with this platform? Is the nature of Tweeting going to change? After Twitter buys Posterous, will they launch a “Twitter Plus” platform that allows Tweets longer than 140 characters? Or does the news that Twitter buys Posterous simply mean that Twitter is interesting in their developers?

Twitter may be feeling the crunch from Facebook’s recent IPO. While investors are certainly encouraged by the platform’s popularity, it has been in existence over six years; what is the next step? Users of Posterous undoubtedly have a host of questions as well, and first on the list is the question of what will happen to their beloved platform.

Social media has been growing in importance and popularity for nearly a decade. While advances in Internet technology are rarely predicted accurately, it has become clear that social media is going to remain a major force on the Internet for the foreseeable future. And while Facebook garners much of the attention, Twitter will not be satisfied with being the number two player forever. Though this purchase raises more questions than answers, the fact that Twitter buys Posterous shows that they are making a move.

It is difficult to ignore the impact of social media. The previous trend was branding, but now we are seeing it mature and begin to be measured and integrated into marketing campaigns universally. This should be no surprise, all things in this universe progress over time and become more sophisticated. Regardless of how sophisticated something is though, if it does not conform to the environment around it, it will eventually go the way of dinosaurs. Another powerful practice being utilized these days is content marketing.

Content marketing is a great way to build a community online around a specific topic or niche. By providing high value, relevant information on a specific subject or interest, people interested in that topic will naturally gravitate toward the content. They will also share and promote the content for free, which is an added SEO bonus.

So which one is better? Neither, they are both some of the most powerful and free tools current day to drive traffic to your website. Apples and Oranges really. The simple fact is that both tools work together like peanut butter and jelly, they were practically made for each other.

Content Marketing + Social Media = Awesome.

How can content marketing and social media work together? First, let’s look at how content marketing works, then we will take a look at how social media works, and then we’ll put all the pieces together into a composite whole.

Content Marketing

Here are the benefits of content marketing:

1. Content consists of text in the form of blog posts, engaging stories of success, and white papers to explain how something works. Content engages human interest by providing valuable information that can benefit the site visitor.
2. Content profiles the company and in the process creates a brand image of the values of the company. It influences how people think about the products and services offered by the company. It shapes their opinion.

Social Media

Here are the benefits of social media:

1. It traditionally engages the target audience of a company when done correctly and offers an opportunity for a two-way discussion which in turn builds trust. A successful social media campaign can turn customers into brand advocates who then promote and share your brand with others.
2. It is built on the virtues of egalitarianism and allowing everyone to honestly share their opinions. This is why it is so valuable. It’s a real people talking about what is important to them on a public platform like Facebook, twitter, Linkedin, Pinterest, or YouTube. You can get a level of understanding for how people feel about a brand by the way people talk about them on these popular social networking websites. You can then use that understanding to find areas of improvement, or opportunities like new potential customers.

Combining The Two Marketing Tools

When you put the two together, you provide content on popular platforms, as well as share popular social information on your own website. This synergy between the two marketing tools creates a wider field of interaction and engagement with the target audience than either one alone.

Here are some ideas on how to find content ideas that will engage those who frequent popular social platforms:

1. Keep track of conversations in your industry. When you can keep your finger on the pulse of what is engaging the interest of your target audience, you will be able to more easily come up with relevant and timely ideas. There are many ways to do this: for instance, noting hash tags on twitter, visiting authority industry blogs, and joining groups in Facebook and linked in related to your industry.
2. Sign up for the leading newsletters in your industry. Instead of hunting down the latest news, let it come to you.
3. Follow the news that is broadcasted on the major media outlets to catch any possible associations between what is happening nationally or internationally with what is occurring in your industry.
4. Use social search tools in combination with Google Adwords Tool and Google Insights to get a better picture of how your blog content will perform based on the topic and keyword selections. Social search is your lens into what the most popular topics of interest are in any given industry, as well as the most popular people.

How to use Popular Social Listening Tools to Get Ideas For Content

Anyone who has written for and maintained a blog knows the power of keyword research. If you don’t, you are truly missing out. What a lot of professional bloggers don’t realize is there are other tools besides Google Adwords Tool and Google Insight. There is an abundance of social search data being shared on popular social media websites like Twitter and Facebook that can be mined for valuable content marketing ideas. Just like you can use the Google Adwords tool to identify topics that will garner traffic, you can use social search tools like the ones below to find trending topics within a specific niche or industry. The following are two of my favorite social search tools at the moment:

Social Mention

This social search and analysis engine works by aggregating user-created content into a single information stream. You can keep track of what is happening in real time about a variety of topics streaming across the social media world. Social Mention monitors over 100 social media platforms, including the major ones like Google, Facebook, twitter, YouTube, and Digg. This is one of my favorite free social search tools currently.

Click Here to Visit Social Mention

Addictomatic

This social search engine combs images, videos, blog posts and news sites. It keeps pace with the hottest topics by searching the most admired providers of popular content. It allows the user to personalize the search and to decide how to browse the news.

Click Here to Visit Addictomatic

Conclusion

Social Search and the open graph combined with Search Marketing tools and lazer focused ccontent marketing is basically the holy grail of marketing. There, I said it. Never has their been an ability to find people in their need states and provide such a level of targeted, relevant advertising. If you are not utilizing these kinds of tools in your marketing mix, you are truly missing out.

Your Guide To Linkedin Optimization

Profile Headline –
The first and most important field to optimize on your LinkedIn profile is the headline.  It’s a way to explain what you do and how you do it to the world without having to use one of those awful labels known as a “job title.” Use your established keywords for your business and try to incorporate them atleast 3 times in your headline with your contact info.

Profile Summary -

A LinkedIn summary is a chance to describe who you are, what you want to accomplish, and what you aspire to be. In SEO and Social Media terms, I like to think of it as the first 100 words of the page. This is a great opportunity to add a ton of keywords, related terms, and longer, more descriptive strings. While it’s important to use your targeted keywords a few times throughout your summary, keep in mind this is a professional profile and if you sound like a spambot you most likely won’t win the bid or get hired. Just like any effective website, a LinkedIn profile optimized with user experience in mind will get the sale long before a keyword-stuffed can of Spam.

Job Title and Description -

Another important field when looking to optimize a LinkedIn profile is the job title and description. The job title can be optimized simply by placing your keywords in there accordingly. The job description you provide doesn’t have to and most likely shouldn’t be word-for-word verbiage from your job offer letter. Remember, your target audience has even less time than you to spend reviewing job applicants or proposals so cut to the chase.

Group Memberships & Connections -

Group memberships and the total number of first, second, and third-degree connections also play a part in determining your ranking in LinkedIn search results. Group memberships and connections are a lot like incoming links, and the closer your connection is to the searcher, the higher up you will show if they use the one-click filter option to sort by relationship. It is wise join as many relevant groups that you can.

Link Juice

One fact of utilizing Social Media Optimization on a LinkedIn profile is the strength of the domain and the presence of customizable anchor links. Your profile allows three links for your website, blog, or Twitter with default anchor text like “My Website” or “Other”. The “Other” field, when selected, allows for customized anchor text. Instead of selecting “My Blog” or “My Website”, use the “Other” option and give yourself some link love from a trustworthy PR 8. Basically it is helps with your websites rankings in search engines.

When marketing online the one of the key objectives is to be found easier. It isn’t going to be easy for people to find you if you don’t have all the information that describes you structured properly. This not only applies in social media but also on your website in search engine placement. These social media optimization tips will help your potential listeners find you easier which in turn help build your network.

Twitter Optimization

First off, when you set up a Twitter profile, make sure you always have your website link in your bio. Determine keywords or search terms that best describe what your business does and apply them to your bio. This will help when people are using these terms in Twitter’s internal search engine to find other users profiles. Try to have a background that has more info about you or your business that won’t fit on the limited space allotted in the bio section of your profile.

Also, if you are targeting a specific geographic location, make sure you have that location as your location on your profile. This will simply help because more people are likely to follow somebody in their own community and they can find you easier in Twitter Search. The key to being optimized on Twitter is similar to SEO for websites. You are simply working the system in order to help you being found in search easier.

Facebook Optimization

Get Your Vanity URL

Facebook offers brands the opportunity to set up a custom URL, which can not only make advertising and word-of-mouth marketing easier, but also plays a crucial role in search engine optimization.  Its a rat race to hurry up and claim URL’s on Facebook. You will need at least 25 “likes” or “fans” to claim your vanity URL on Facebook.  In general, you should go with your company’s name, or targeted keywords, sticking as close to the original brand as possible.  It’s worth noting that Facebook doesn’t allow dashes or underscore in the vanity URL, so this limits the amount of typical URL keyword trickery you can do. This user name cannot be changed, so choose it carefully.

Fill Out the Company Information, Keywords and All

Facebook gives you three fields to describe your business from a high level: About, Description and General Information. To have a truly optimized Facebook Page you need to make the most out of these fields.  The “About” field is for a shorter, one to two sentence tagline about your business. Description and General Information give you more space to describe, in concise detail, what your business does. This is an ideal place to include as many relevant keywords as you can.  The more fields under the “Information” tab you can fill out, the better.  This will help people find your brand no matter where they’re searching.

Pay Attention to Your Company’s Name

It may seem obvious, but the name you use in your brand’s Facebook page is really important. Again, sticking to the original brand is important here, as it will help people find you not only via search engines, but on Facebook itself.  You have a little bit of leeway to include keywords in this field but don’t stray too far from the company’s actual name. Don’t worry, there will be other opportunities to get those keywords in.

Link to It

Let’s not forget that at the heart of Google’s PageRank algorithm still lies the hyperlink. Link to your Facebook page from your main Website and at any other (appropriate) opportunity that arises.  Linking back to your site’s content within Facebook status updates, it should be noted, does not help your search engine optimization directly, since these links include the no-follow attribute, which means they do not count for search ranking purposes. With that being said, these links still can be a huge source of traffic back to your brand’s site. Once these Twitter and Facebook Optimization techniques are applied to your profiles you will notice the difference immediately.

Create a Personal or Branded Profile

When it comes to your social media you have two options: you can either use a branded profile with your company’s logo, or you can opt to create a more personal profile that unites your own personal brand with that of the company.  If employees are using Social Media to primarily engage with people on behalf of the company, they should have a branded profile. A branded profile is one that clearly identifies the user as an employee of the company; usually through a username or has a branded background picture and bio.

Whichever option you choose, there has to be a level of balance. Branded profiles are great for certain things – for example, industry news, contests, investor relations, etc. Personal profiles are more beneficial if your organization wants to leverage the employee’s or wants to have a more human presence.

Earn Your Social Stripes

To be a successful brand in Social Media, you have to build credibility and equity. That doesn’t necessarily refer to the number of followers, friends, fans, or retweets you may have, although these are important factors. Rather, it’s more about developing a reputation as a respected resource of information or being seen as an expert in a particular field.

You won’t succeed in building your Social Media equity by pushing out one way marketing messages about your product. Instead ask questions, be personal, and engage people naturally within the Social community. Otherwise, customers won’t listen to what you have to say.

It is standard to follow the 80/20 rule: Which is that 80 percent of tweets are conversational and more personal, 20 percent are about the company you work for. I’ve found that this has really helped build customer engagement and link click-through rates.

Deep Searches to Target Your Audience

Most social networks reach a pinnacle of popularity and then decline.  But one thing you can always apply to finding your target audience is deep searches. These advanced search techniques can help you target your audience by geographic location, company, industry, interest, and many other factors. Remember that we are talking about these advanced searches are within these networks and not your common search engines.  Once you find these people read their blog, check out their links, and introduce yourself. Once you do that the door is open for you to request to follow or add them as a friend.

Monitor Activity

Any enterprise or medium sized business should invest in a paid social media monitoring service likeRadian6 or Nielsen to better track Twitter conversations, identify trends, measure sentiment, and to get a good scope of what is going on in the social web. If you are more of a small business I would suggest using a more affordable service like Hootsuite.

One metric you absolutely must track: How much has Social Media lowered your cost? How many issues did you solve, leads did you create, and dollars did you save through Twitter engagement versus traditional resources? If your goal is to handle customer service issues through Social Media, it’s wise to check if there is any decrease in the call volume to your support center. And if you are selling products, you should of course measure your sales leads.

Listen Before You Speak

Don’t just start blasting out updates assuming that the Social Media community is going to accept you with open arms. It’s important that you spend some time just listening and observing the behavior of those you want to interact with and especially those who are talking about you or your company. Understand what your customers tick and adjust accordingly for best results.

On Twitter, for example, you don’t have to follow everyone that mentions your company to listen in on the conversation. In fact, this may irritate some people. Instead, when you’re ready to start answering questions, @reply them. In my experience, nine times out of ten, they’ll end up following you. Let the relationship grow from there.

Be Authentic and Convincing

Authenticity is of up-most importance in social media. Many people have known this for years, but there is another, related rule that is just as important: to be believable. This means spending time listening to your community, observing it, and learning about the dynamics of that community. You will become believable only after you have established trust among those in your community. Because I am trusted by my followers, if you are a trusted source and have an update that says how much you like a new product chances are people will look into that product also.

Don’t Just Talk, Deliver

We spend too much time on strategy with little to no execution. When you have too many ideas and not enough people who are willing to roll up their sleeves and get stuff done, you are going to find yourself late to the game. Or, in the case in Social Media, late to the conversation. By spending too much time trying to think of the best strategy, you are going to miss priceless opportunities to fix problems, answer questions, turn sour situations around, and create brand affinity with customers. With Social Media your strategy should be to just get out there and try it.

If you look at how many of the great social media marketers online you will notice a trend, the trend is called “Marketing By Sharing”.  People want to follow others because they want to see updates that are informative or entertaining and not because they are always trying to sell you something or get you to your website.  Too many people in social media have made the mistake of demanding attention instead of letting people come to the organically.

That’s why tools like Yahoo Pipes and Twitterfeed are so useful because you can choose a niche that is close to yours and automatically have fresh, relevant information in your industry posted to all your Social Media Channels. It’s good for making you look like an expert in your vertical without having to search, curate and publish all your own info.

The more useful you are to your followers the more they will “Retweet” or “Like” your posts. So it is very important to find content that is unique and interesting otherwise it will not generate any attention. Also be on the lookout for people who have questions or concerns in your area of expertise. Any chance you get to help somebody out do it especially if its something simple. A little help can sometimes go a long way.

Now with the new implementation of Google’s new algorithm Google Caffeine websites are now being ranked partially by how many people “like” or “retweet” links from your website. So now more then ever your interactions in Social Media effect your placement in Search Engines.  I’m not saying to only post links from your website. Its good to mix up interesting, relevant information from other websites that attract your listeners and from your own network.

Providing useful information to your listeners makes you look like an authority figure and makes your profiles as a resource in your industry.  Cultivating the best content for your Social Networks always provides value to all of your listeners. The goal is to have your pages be the definitive resource in your industry.

The Importance of Setting Up a Social Media Editorial Calendar

One of the most effective ways to organize all of your information you plan on sharing to your audience is to curate a social media editorial calendar.  One of the ones I like to use can be easily found for free using Google Docs with the editorial calendar template. The editorial calendar needs to include the various topics and targets that fit your strategy, such as promotional updates, industry-specific news, conversational updates, etc.

It is good to start with landmark dates, like events, for example, that are not likely to change: conferences, product/ press releases, holidays, and historical dates.  This brings some organization and a bird’s eye view into your social media marketing strategy. It also helps to ensure that the right messages are getting out there at the right time, and prevents any mistakes you may make.

Lets say you have clearly defined all off your topics for your editorial calendar.  The next thing you need to do is physically write all of your content that’s mapped out by the calendar.  It’s is a whole lot easier to visually see all of the topics of content mapped out day by day because it gives you a scope of how much work you have ahead of you and when each piece needs to be published.

When it comes to anything you publish on the web, your goal is to have the best original content you curate to be published on your website via your blog. Try to have only well written, relevant blog posts ( at least 500 words ), this will give your blog content more weight with the various search engines.  I recommend that a good percentage of your content that is planned out on your editorial calendar is published on your blog except for your conversational updates.

Once all of your content is written in accordance to your calendar you need schedule your publishing. With most blog platforms you are able to publish immediately or schedule for specific date. Once all your blogs are scheduled you will not to go back to blogging again until its time to create another editorial calendar.

So now that you have you blogs scheduled you need to have them automatically synced up to your social media channels. There are plenty of products out there that takes your published blogs and blasts them out via your social media. Social Oomph is a useful tool that does this but there are others out there available.

Now as far as your other updates you have listed in your editorial calendar you can schedule them as well also. Hootsuite is a great product for scheduling your updates. You easily can upload all of your updates and schedule them at a specific time to be published. You can also monitor all of your social media accounts with this tool.

The editorial calendar when used this way can save you a massive amount of time and really pushes your message effectively.  You will still need to monitor your activity and add some genuine real-time updates whenever possible. It may be hard at first with the planning, writing, and scheduling of your updates in this process, but once that is done all you have to do is be casual and just monitor your marketing activity.

With a blog, you can easily have fresh content for your website and social media profiles as often as you like. Writing original content about new product announcements, updating your customers, company or industry news is ideal subject matter for your blog. Despite what you may think you don’t have to be a web developer to post a blog on your website. It can actually be more easier than you think.

All of this blog content should be planned out with an editorial calendar, scheduled to be published, and shared via social networks once published. This is the process that get you the most out of your blogs. Once blogs are curated and published they get need to get shared across your companies social media accounts for maximum visibility. There are tools out there that can help you out in this process. Social Oomph is just one of the many tools out there in the market that can easily take your blogs as they get published and blast them out your designated social media channels assigned to that given post.

Use your keywords wisely into your posts and you will acquire a better position in search engines for those keywords.  Search engines hate spamming, so the only way you could get Google to notice your business’ website is to have a keyword-rich pages that is both relevant and organic. The over-usage of your keywords can also hurt your rankings if overused so make sure to not have use them more than 5 times for every 500 words.

Your website can claim that you are the best painter in town, but with your blog posts, you can show them that you really are.  Writing knowledgeable posts, tutorials, instructions, and even dispensing advice not only make people return to your site, but it also helps establish you as an expert. This all goes back to the “Marketing by Sharing Approach”.