social business Archives

Email Marketing Myths [INFOGRAPHIC]

December 12, 2013/by Corey Padveen

Email marketing is still alive and well, and there are plenty of email marketing myths that still scare marketers.

There is no shortage of email marketing myths out there that tend to scare some people away from the very successful platform. Email was the first form of social marketing, and it is still a viable option that should be considered in any strategy.

You want to reach your audience. That’s a goal for any social business. While billions have taken to the socialsphere, not everyone has adopted the platform yet. Despite seeing a mention of social media at every turn, it is still a new platform. Even marketers that have embraced social as the next big step in communications are still trying to figure out exactly how to sell on social platforms. With email, that trial and error period has been going on for much longer, and there are several ways to get your message across and sell your product or service via email.

In the infographic below, seven email marketing myths are laid out and dispelled. Take a look at them and ease your concerns about email. It should definitely be a consideration with any strategy!

How do you integrate email in your social business? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

Legal Implications of Social Media: Where is the Line?

December 11, 2013/by Corey Padveen

The legal implications of social media might not be written in stone (just yet) but they do exist and you, as a business or individual, need to know about them.

It is no secret that employers are using social media when researching prospective employees, or business partners. In fact, 1 in 5 recent graduates has reportedly been denied a job because of something a prospective employer found on social media. That relates to the social implications of these new media. But what about the legal implications of social media? Surely, with something as clearly defined (for the most part) as the law, they cannot be nearly as severe, right?

Wrong.

There are plenty of legal implications of social media, and your social business needs to be aware of them.

Your Workplace is Now Online

In 2009, a Philadelphia police station was sued by a group of individuals who felt that a discussion online between coworkers was creating a hostile work environment.

As noted above, your personal online activity can cost you a job, but you need to realize that if you are not paying attention to your employees’ habits online, you are as at fault as they are. It might sound like an extra workload, but ignoring social media is not an option – neither internally nor externally.

As a social business, you need to inform your employees of your expected best practices. The reputation and credibility of your firm might rest on it.

Know Your Limits

It is no secret that your best brand advocates can be your employees. You know they are loyal to your brand, and there is nothing legally or ethically wrong with asking them to share your company’s content in an effort to increase your reach. But you need to know just how far you can take that.

You are not allowed to require your employees to provide you with access to their social channels. The law might not have caught up to technology entirely, but the right to privacy is still alive and well. It might seem obvious for most business owners and managers, but for some, that is not the case. Understand your limitations when it comes to your internal process.

Words Matter

For a social business, anything written online is representative of your brand’s culture. For better or worse, people formulate opinions based on what they see. Now, objective comments and status updates are (usually) harmless, but it is in your best interest to stay away from touchy or potentially harmful subjects.

From an internal perspective, you do not want to create that hostile work environment mentioned above. You also do not want to use employees’ social channels as a means of blackmailing them. This can lead to a discrimination suit.

From an external perspective, the laws of libel and slander are still in effect. Not only is it bad form to criticize competitors on open forums – your best way to get past them is by providing a better product or service – but if you are not careful, you could wind up saying something that is not true. When that is in writing, you open yourself up to a world of unpleasantness.

The law is still catching up to social business. There is quite a ways to go, and each industry is going to have different standards when it comes to the medium. There exist, however, certain elements that we already know about, and these should be considered when you are putting together your social business strategy.

What stories can you think of that relate to the legal implications of social media? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

Social Shopping on #BlackFriday

November 29, 2013/by Corey Padveen

It’s #BlackFriday and the numbers show that social shopping is bigger than ever.

We hope everyone had a wonderful, relaxing Thanksgiving. It makes sense that the day following one of the biggest feasts of the year we are forced to exercise the whole thing off by running through malls and department stores offering the biggest savings of the year. But this year, something is different; social shopping is a major factor in this year’s Black Friday shopping. Below are five truly impressive stats about social shopping this year.

91% of e-commerce retailers saw a boost in the SEO rankings due to social referral traffic.

It is no longer speculation that social plays a major role in SEO, but these numbers are unprecedented. Social sites like Pinterest and Facebook are driving tremendous traffic to online retailers offering up some big deals this holiday season. So the results of being socially active? Your search rankings get a well-deserved boost as buying season gets into full swing.

There has been a 357% year-over-year increase in sales from social traffic.

No, we did not forget to add a period anywhere – that is three-hundred-and-fifty-seven percent. Social activity is driving more and more buyers to online stores to do their holiday shopping this year. That’s good news for the retailers with the foresight to have been aggressive with the their holiday promotions on social media in 2013.

65% of consumers research gifts using social media.

Using social media for research and recommendations is nothing new. But it is hard to imagine why anyone would not take advantage of such a vast majority of online users looking to social media for advice. Imagine being able to talk directly to a prospective customer without ever having to get them in the store. The sales process is changing, and numbers like this prove it.

Buyers originating on Pinterest average almost $200 per sale.

Simply put, that’s a big number. Of course we expect consumers to be spending more around the holidays, but we would expect the numbers to even out when we aggregate the data. On Pinterest, it is all high purchases. Pinterest’s most prominent demographic is women from high-income households. It is no wonder that smart businesses turned to that network to drive higher social-driven sales.

Social drives as much online traffic as in-store.

For retailers that discount the importance of social media because they are brick-and-mortar only, think again. Statistics show that social media is driving as much traffic to physical stores as it drives to online stores. Remember, social is a research tool. So no matter what your business structure is, a large part of your audience is starting on social.

Good luck with your holiday shopping this year!

If You Ignore Your Social Data, You Ignore Your Business

November 15, 2013/by Corey Padveen

If you are not paying attention to your social data, then you are ignoring one of the most valuable assets you have in your social business.

With every action taken on social channels, social data is being gathered and analyzed behind the scenes. First, let’s dispel one rumour very quickly: activity on social media is measurable. You just need to know what to measure and where to find your social data.

Paying attention to these insights is going to be an integral part of running a successful social business. How will you know if your strategy is generating results and helping your business grow if you are not monitoring your initiatives’ performance?

Below are three types of social data you should keep a close eye on when it comes to your social business’s performance (and a few places to monitor that data).

Demographics Engaged

There are billions of people active on social networks every day. It is nice to think that every one is a potential customer, and a good way to overcome the fear of getting started, but the reality is that your real potential customers are making themselves shown every day – you just need to know where to look for them.

Look at your Facebook Insights to see what groups of people are consistently engaging with your content. The new Facebook Insights provide some great ways to do this. If you are running Twitter ads, pay close attention to those most actively clicking on your promoted tweets. On LinkedIn, look at your company page stats to see what groups of people find your company most interesting.

These are just a few of the easy ways you can monitor your most engaged demographics and understand how you can better align your business to target these markets.

Ad ROI

Social advertising is not being given enough credit (yet) as a legitimate source of advertising. Trust us, it is. But still, entrepreneurs running their own operations are often throwing a few dollars behind a Facebook as hoping that is generates some clicks and brand awareness. Not enough!

Set goals, target specific demographics and, both when it is over and while it is running, pay attention to your results! When looking at this social data, you might find that a user-base you hadn’t anticipated being so attracted to your offer is up there with the most active. Knowing your market’s wants and tailoring your services to provide for those wants is what keeps you ahead of the competition.

And it’s easy to find! In your Twitter Ads Manager, Facebook Ads Manager, LinkedIn Ads Manager and others, you can see all of this data in real-time!

Content Strategy

Once again, simply sharing content is not going to drive the results you hope to get as fast as you hope to get them. Every once in a while, we have a brilliant idea that helps our content go viral. And I don’t know about you, but those blue moons have been coming around less and less since the whole world has started trying to create their own viral video. Focus on how your content is being engaged with, and optimize your strategy accordingly.

Again, Facebook Insights provides you with some great insight into what types of content are generating interest. You can also look at your LinkedIn Page Insights, among other sources. This information is out there ready to help you succeed on social. Use it to your advantage!

Find out how t2 can help you leverage your social data here.

How are you leveraging the power of social data? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

Op-Ed: You’re Only as Good as Your Worst Interaction

November 8, 2013/by Corey Padveen

Managing your reputation on social media is an integral part of any comprehensive social business strategy.

If you are not paying attention to the perception of your brand by audiences, then you are forgetting about one of the most important features that makes a social business successful. The management of your reputation on social media is a living organism, and you need to pay it regular attention.

One of the realities of doing business is that the larger we grow, the more likely we are to encounter that individual that doesn’t like our product, our service, or simply has a bad experience. And what happens then? Well, a recent study by ZenDesk shows that 95% of customers who have a bad experience tell someone about it, compared to 87% who shared a good experience. Maybe we just like to tell others about our suffering, but the fact remains that you can be sure that a customer who has a poor experience with your company is going to go out there and tell the world. And it is now much easier than ever before.

And so we come to the title of this article: your brand is only as good as your worst public interaction. What did an angry customer have to say about your brand? How did you handle it? Your reputation on social media – on every platform from Facebook to Yelp! – is going to be affected in a much greater way by how you handle your unhappy customers than how you handle the satisfied ones.

The Intelligent Traveler

Put yourself in the customers’ shoes. Let’s say you are planning a trip and you are considering staying at one of two hotels. Assume the prices and amenities are all the same. Well, if you are like 65% of online travellers, then seeing a management’s response to comments on a social channel like TripAdvisor would sway you to book with the responding hotel. (Google, January, 2013)

People like the idea of accountability, and when you avoid dealing with issues head on, you are hurting your reputation on social media. Owning up to your brand’s mistakes, and showing people that you are taking strides to both remedy situations as they arise and prevent them from ever occurring again goes a very long way.

Nobody Cares What You Did Right

When you are buying a product on eBay, and you see that a seller has a rating of 99% from 100 buyers, are you going to care about the 99 people that said, “Great job! Fast delivery! Recommend seller!”? Or would you be more concerned with finding that one comment that reads, “Item was not as described. Seller did not respond to questions. Would not recommend.”? Probably the second one.

You can do something right a thousand times, but that one time that things go wrong, people will remember it. It is here that you need to shine. It is easy to handle happy customers. How you handle unhappy customers on public forums is what is going to influence future buyers.

The Ostrich Never Dealt with Social Media

Burying your head in the sand while people speak out against your service or brand might have worked back in the days of phone and mail. But now, when people can reach out to networks of thousands, you had better be ready to respond. Clearly, ostriches never had to deal with issues on social media.

Have a plan in place for every plausible scenario. You need to know the Dos and Do Nots for handling crises and unhappy customers before you have to deal with crises and unhappy customers. The last thing you want to do is learn from your mistakes when your mistakes have already resulted in consumers making up their minds. Read up and do the research on the mistakes of others and devise strategies for managing your reputation on social media from these.

It might not be an ideal situation, but the fact is that your brand is only as good as it’s worst interaction on social media. This is where people are going to do their research; consumers trust each other, not your brand. But you can change that by properly managing your brand’s reputation on social media!

Find out more about becoming a social business and managing your reputation on social media here.

Do you research products and services on social channels before making a decision? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

3 Departments to Involve in Your Social Business

November 6, 2013/by Corey Padveen

Has your social business involved every department it can?

We all know that the marketing department is going to be among the first to adopt new media when it comes to social business, but what other departments can contribute to it? These three departments are generally forgotten when it comes to social business, and it is easy to understand why: a lot of people don’t know how they can be social!

Customer Service

Now, this is a little paradoxical. Yes, your customer service department is inherently a ‘social’ department per se. After all, it spends the day dealing with people. But when becoming a social business, your customer service department is going to become much more public then ever before. And that’s a good thing.

Social Care – or, customer service on social channels – is increasing in popularity and becoming a favorite among consumers. When evolving into a social business, you are certainly going to want to get your customer service team on the front lines. Just be sure you have a strategy in place for every possible scenario! Now, with social in the mix, your customer service team is a pseudo PR department. They are a direct reflection of how your company treats clients, so make sure they are doing it right.

Tech/Support

Has there ever been a department more suited for conversing on the web? Your tech and support teams need to be able to show that they can help with anything at any time. They are like an extension of your customer service team. In fact, they are your customer service team.

Think about it. When you call a customer service line, they are generally going to connect you with the department most able to assist you with your problem. By making these departments as easily accessible as your customer service team, you can help cut out the middle man and save time on all fronts. Let people deal with matters in the most efficient way possible, and your business will be functioning at optimal capacity.

Sales

If your sales team is not already on social, get them on there! You never know where you might find a new client, but you can rest assured that wherever you might find that client, there is a pretty good chance you will find them on social channels, too.

Your sales team should be listening to the conversation around your industry and involving themselves in the conversation when and where it is appropriate. Take a look at this blog post about cell phone carriers to see some great examples of Dos and Don’ts when it comes to social selling.

What other departments do you think would benefit from a presence on social media when you become a social business? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

The Power of Social Media [INFOGRAPHIC]

November 4, 2013/by Corey Padveen

We all know that social media is important, but have you really considered the power of social media for your business?

We’ve said it countless times before, and the evidence can be found all over: the power of social media is great, and leveraging the platform properly can mean big things for your brand.

There are a lot of very interesting statistics in this infographic from Buzzsmith. Every year, new data emerges that supports the adoption of large-scale social media strategies, and this year is no different. If we look at some of the data in the infographic below, we can see that, unsurprisingly, ROI is the major focal point for most marketers and businesses. This has long been the case. In order to justify the very real cost that social media incurs, we need to be able to measure ROI from social media. Considering this, we can see which statistic is most interesting of the data below.

For those brands effectively measuring ROI (and there are a number of ways to measure it tangibly) they are seeing a 153% return on their investment into social media campaigns! This further exemplifies the great power of social media.

What campaigns have you run that evoke the power of social media? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

5 Original Ways to Engage Your Fans and Followers

October 15, 2013/by Corey Padveen

You should always aim to engage your fans on social channels, but it is much more fun to do it in a creative way!

One of the most important goals of your brand on social media should be to engage your fans and followers. While this is a great quality for any brand to have, it is made a lot better when it is done in a creative way! Engagement, remember, is not just about responding to comments left by your fans; engagement is often about starting the conversation.

Below is a quick set of new, fun ways to engage your fans and followers on social media that can make the customer experience much more enjoyable!

Devise a Weekly Segment

Consistency is key on social media. Not only does it remind your fans that you are there and help keep your brand top of mind, but it can also be a great way to increase your engagement rates.

Consider having a weekly segment wherein you encourage fans to tune in to see what each week’s instalment is. For example, on the t2 Facebook page, we regularly end each week with a #DogWeekend picture to usher in the end of the work week!

Ask a Question

Not only do people love answering questions, they also help provide you with some great insights into the tastes and preferences of your audience. Think of the answers your fans give as small responses to a poll you put out.

“Caption This!”

The “Caption This” post is a great one for Facebook engagement. These posts regularly lead to a ton of engagement and can be a lot of fun for both your fans and your brand.

Compare and Share

The ‘Like’ for A and ‘Share’ for B approach can be a good one for two reasons. First, it once again can generate a lot of engagement with the right content. Second, like the questions, it can give you some valuable insights into what your fans and followers like and in which direction your branding and marketing initiatives should go.

Jump Into Conversation

It is always fun for a brand to see comments start to fill up on a social network. The mistake that a lot of brands make, however, is not jumping in there with their fans.

Involve yourself in the conversation and help it along. Nobody likes to have a comment go unnoticed – whether it is by other fans or the brand itself. By engaging with your fans’ comments, you not only help them feel good about leaving the comment, but you encourage them and others to continue engaging with your brand in the future.

These are just a few great ways to engage fans without a “hard sell”. Try some of these out and see what works for your brand!

Tell us what you do to engage your fans and followers in the comments below or on Twitter!

4 Ways to Leverage Big Data

October 14, 2013/by Corey Padveen

Data derived from social platforms can be highly valuable if you know how to leverage big data for the right campaigns.

Big data is one of the most talked about concepts of the era, and for good reason. If your brand knows how to effectively leverage big data to optimize campaigns and generate results, you could be looking at unprecedented growth.

Below are four great ways to leverage big data and some examples of campaigns you can execute taking these data into account.

Implement Responsive Branding

Social platforms offer brands a unique insight that no other marketing channel has ever offered. For the first time, your audience is coming to you and telling you what they want and how they want it delivered. If you are properly monitoring your audience’s tastes and preferences, you can implement Responsive Branding initiatives that leverage big data in order to target a specific group according to what they like and when they are online.

Say, for example, that you sell jewelry. After you mine for data, you find out that your target audience is most active early in the morning. Imagine taking this information, and targeting this audience when you know they are most engaged – wouldn’t that make the most sense?

Optimize Search Campaigns

When it comes to search-driven traffic, the majority of our audience is going to come from organic results. That’s a well-known fact. That said, there is still a strong part of our audience that can be influenced by ads online. Imagine if you had more insights into what that audience was.

For SEM (search engine marketing) campaigns, you can easily leverage big data in order to narrow your scope and drive a higher click-through rate (CTR). On Google, anything above 1% is considered a strong CTR. Imagine knowing exactly what demographics like to click on your ads and targeting only that group. You may not see as many impressions, but rest assured your CTR will soar!

Increase Internal Efficiency

Marketing patriarch John Wanamaker said, “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.” That is no longer the case with big data.

Think outside just your marketing and advertising departments. You know where to allocate budgets and how much it costs departments to run. Now, when you look at data to see an even more in-depth analysis of where your dollars are best spent (i.e. what dollars provide you with the highest return on investment) you can eliminate waste from your budget and ensure that your spending – in marketing and elsewhere – is completely optimized.

Engage in Real-Time Marketing

Similar to Responsive Branding, real-time marketing is the concept of engaging with your audience while they are talking and capitalizing on events as they are happening. Monitoring your data in real time is a difficult task. The payoffs, however, can be great. First-mover advantage has never been more valuable than in the online world. By engaging in real-time marketing, you stand to benefit greatly as a result of your leveraging of big data.

These are just a few of the applications of big data. Find out about more by contacting t2 today.

How do you leverage big data? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

How to Track ROI on Facebook in 3 Easy Steps

October 11, 2013/by Corey Padveen

Tracking ROI on Facebook and other networks is always among the top concerns for marketers. This is one great way to track ROI on Facebook.

Despite all of the methods that exist to measure ROI on Facebook – some more complicated than others – there are still marketers and executives that refuse to acknowledge that it can be done! One great way to measure ROI on Facebook is with Facebook’s easy-to-use Conversion Tracking. Below is a step-by-step set of instructions on how to create goals on the network and measure ROI on Facebook.

Step 1: Go To Your Ads Manager (or Power Editor)

This is about as simple as steps get. Get started by going to either your Ads Manager and clicking on “Manage Your Ads” (the green button on the right of the header image) or the Power Editor (depending on how familiar you are with Facebook advertising).

Step 2: Set Up a Conversion Tracking Pixel

The next thing you are going to need to do is create a conversion tracking pixel. This is a small piece of code that you are going to place on your conversion page (this could be a checkout page, a download page, form submission, etc.).

First, go to your Conversion tracking in your designated ads platform.

Then you are going to click on the green “Create Conversion Pixel” button on the right hand side where you will see this box pop up:

Fill it out with the name of your goal (in this case, we are creating a goal called “View Blog”) and what category that goal falls into. Above, we have selected Key Page Views (essentially, the conversion is made when a user views a specific page) but other categories include Checkouts, Registrations, Leads, Adds to Cart and Other Website Conversions.

Now once you click “Create Pixel” you are going to see a small snippet of code pop up. You do not need to know any complex degree of HTML to work with this. In the code, you’ll see a line that allows to add a value to this conversion (the line with the red arrow next to it below). It is here that you can denote how much this conversion is worth.

Say, for example, you are sending people to a contact form for more information, and you have determined based on some fancy accounting work that any lead that fills out the form is worth $5.00. So, you would change this line to read five dollars (the currency is in the line just below it) and save the code.

Step 3: Load the Pixel Onto Your Conversion Page

Now comes the part where you might need the help of your webmaster or code-savvy friend.

Copy the code you have generated and place it in the header of your conversion page (detailed in the instructions before the code, above). Now, when people have clicked on your ads and found themselves at your website, Facebook will register that they have taken action (a conversion) based on when they land on that page with the conversion pixel uploaded.

And there you have it. Three simple steps to help you measure direct ROI from Facebook.

What other ways do you measure ROI on Facebook? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

Find out more about measuring your ROI on Facebook with our Consulting Services here.

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