Engagement is lacking but why when it’s so easy?

Posted by admin on 5 June 2018 in Brand Advocates, Business, Communities, Customer Service, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Social Business, Social Engagement, Social Platforms, The Social Family | ∞

One thing that is becoming more and more apparent in the online world, is the complete lack of Engagement that is taking place in today’s world of Social Business and all the Applications that it contains.

It is really interesting that when someone walks into our home, office, shop or say other type of business premise, if that person talks to us, we take the time to acknowledge them or even – shock horror – we actually answer them and engage in a conversation with them!

The same happens when someone actually rings us – well it depends actually who is calling – we either answer or send them to voicemail if we know the number/person or if we’ll answer out of curiosity or just reject the call.

When someone sends us an email or letter, we’ll open it and either delete straight away, reply or file it to answer, read or share at a later date.

The main thing is that we take action when someone acknowledges us, speaks to us, rings us or sends us something, yet why in the world of Social Business are we so different?

If we just ignored everyone and never engaged with anyone in our business lives, we would have no job or business – yet why online, do we behave this way?

If you are serious about operating your business online via the various Social Business Applications that allows your audience to engage with you, or you yourself are using these Applications in a professional or personal capacity, you really need to be yourself. You need to operate the same online as you would face to face with that person.

So often you will see people swearing and being abusive to other people and companies, yet if you meet them in the street, they would never behave that way 99% of the time. We know, you’ll always get that 1% that will be abusive but again, 99% of the time, they will never be that abusive if they are on their own and in front of people that they do not know.

So just sit back and make sure you’re online behaviour follows the same etiquette that you would use in real life. This behaviour you have to remember is not forgotten as in today’s online world, what you wrote today, yesterday, last week, last month, last year or even a few years ago, will still be there online in one format or another in 5, 10, 15 or 20 years times!

Depending on the situation, occurrence or occasion, sometimes you won’t be able to respond or engage with with every comment or question you receive but you need to attempt too. *

Look at what’s arrived and then make sure you take them in priority and the first always, is “The Question”!

If someone is asking you a question, this is because they are interested and want to find out more before making a purchase or wanting to connect because they need to engage, collaborate or discuss something. Both options are key and very important to your business, as if you don’t engage, the failure they will see will be shared by them and the damage to repair your reputation/image will be very hard to undo or repair. *

The next will be an issue or complaint and all these have to be replied to, as these will as well get you the bad publicity that you don’t need. *

Finally, if time permits and people are making positive comments, then instead of just saying thank you or liking their comment, take the time to engage back and make a personal comment – Social Interaction like Social Engagement will really help to show that you are real and engaging. *

In all the above cases, whilst a standard copy and paste response from the list of of template answers you have in front of you may form the basis of your reply, please endeavour to make sure your reply is personal and relative to the point in question. *

By being personal, whether it’s one, two or three from the above three segments, making sure you are being personal and are showing you can relate to the question or comment left, shows that you are prepared to listen and be engaging. *

Doesn’t this sound familiar?

Of course it does, it’s because it’s how you behave in real life!

Whilst you may think LinkedIn is so different to all the other Applications that the world of Social Business offers, it’s not when it comes to behaviour and the etiquette you use.

One of our great friends – Melonie Dodaro – has wrote an amazing chapter on how to you use “Best Practices” and “Etiquette” when it come’s to using LinkedIn, in her book LinkedIn Unlocked

At the start of Chapter Four, Melonie writes:-

In this Chapter, I am going to cover the best business practices to follow when using LinkedIn to generate leads through social selling. If you don’t follow proper etiquette, you risk damaging your credibility, and your social selling results will be dismal.

Whilst that paragraph may relate to Social Selling, it is actually very much part of the whole aspect when it comes to Social Engagement and how you behave online whether as a business or person to and with your audience.

We do hope that this post will make you sit back or sit up think as to how important engaging online is and why you must always attempt to reply to or engage with everyone who reaches out to you.

If there are any questions or comments, please do complete the form below and we will endeavour to help and answer your questions.

One last thing, if we can ask you to take one thing away from reading this post, make that small investment whether it be as the eBook or the Paperback, please do seriously consider purchasing LinkedIn Unlocked or one of the other books that Melonie’s has written. This investment is one of the best investments you’ll ever make when it comes to investing in your Social Engagement as part of how you operate and behave in the world of Social Business.

* ( Note:- if you feel that you can’t always respond, on Facebook you can utilise their Bot Messaging reply system and there are also other platforms/plugin’s that you can also use to provide automated responses. Whilst many people don’t like these, at least by replying automatically, it will give that person a time-frame as to when you will be returning to answer them )

Tags: Communication, Discussion, Engagement, Facebook, Feedback, Instagram, LinkedIn, Social Business, Social Engagement, Twitter

Instagram – do you take or do you engage?

Posted by admin on 7 July 2016 in Brand Advocates, Brand Ambassadors, Branding, Social Business, Social Engagement, Social Platforms, SoLoMo, The Social Family | ∞

One of the interesting points to note, how these “Instagram Coaches or Experts” are always going on about how they can make you money by teaching you how to use Instagram……but they are the ones making from you when all they are doing is taking the basics and missing the main key points that you should be taking action with yourself….

Firstly – don’t think of yourself as a company but as you and how you want to be treated……this is key as if you can’t behave like you would in real life, want is the point of using Instagram?

Secondly – look at how you behave when using Instagram. Do you take care how you make/create your photo or video posts? If you do, make sure you are doing this with your company posts too.

Thirdly – when you post a photo/video, if someone comments, you reply – so, if someone comments on your company posts, make sure you post and engage too!

And finally – if are following people/companies, make sure you like or comment on their posts too. After all, if you are following someone, you are following them for a reason. If you take a few minutes each morning and night, like or comment on the people/company’s you are following and thus create that Engagement process.

This is all pretty simple things but if you actually look at the Instagram accounts of these Coaches/Experts, they will reply to a few people (and note these tend to be the same ones all the time!) and only speak to new followers to get them to sign up to their emails or courses!

Whichever way you look at things on the various platforms, these coaches/experts may have five or six figure followers but sit back and look at:-

How many followers do they have and how many actually like their photos or videos?
Following the same ethos as above, how many of these followers actually comment on their photos/videos?
How many of their posts are actually engaging posts? Most are getting you sign up to what they offer or watch them at an event etc – this isn’t actually creating a truly engaging community, is it?
How many of the people or companies they are following, do they like or comment on those posts?

When looking at our own account, yes we could be following too many but when we set up our Instagram, due to it being owned by Facebook, it matches you with your Facebook friends and you can follow them all.

This can be the major downside as who do you follow or not follow? That’s the hard one but it’s something that we are slowly working through to remove a lot of the people we’re following to make sure they are more relevant. After all, when this was created, the person who set it up, followed people they thought would be relevant to us, times change as well as how we operate. Also, now we don’t need to be following people/company’s to message as we needed to when Instagram started. As now, we don’t see the need to message directly as you can direct people to your email or other messaging App’s to strike up conversation.

For you as an individual or company, in my honest opinion, you just need to:-

Make sure you have the right tools ie your camera on your phone is working properly and produces a good quality photo or video
If you want to create a good video, sometimes using the camera on your smartphone is better than the camera within the Instagram App
When creating video, what type is it you are wanting to create? Maybe, downloading the Boomerang or Hyperlapse App’s could give you a different video format to post
If you are wanting to create a photo but have multiple phones yet you want a single photo, then look at using Layout as this can create some great ways to share multiple images within a single post photo
If you are wanting to create image to share with words or phrases on, then look to use Pablo as this is a great tool for using stock photos of by uploading your own
If you are following people/company’s, endeavour to make sure you have liked all their photos and where you feel relevant, comment on their posts that appeal to you
Hashtags – now there is two views here! Either do you post including message and include the hashtags at the end OR the second train of thought, is to do your post and message then publish. After publishing, do the first comment yourself which is all the Hashtags as the comment
(There is no right or wrong way here but it depends on what you are trying to get across as you only have three lines of text visible meaning the tags are missed off as people scroll their timeline – but adding the hashtags into the first comment, means they get seen too)
Try to create your own hashtag, so that when people look at that hashtag on any other Social Platform it will relate back to you and company by association
Identify the all the relevant hashtags to make sure you use the right ones for wider circulation. For example, when doing food images/videos, besides #food, the most common one is #foodporn – thus is people search for foodporn, your photos/videos will appear.
If your post is made up of components, break them down and include what the event is. So for example, if you are having say Sunday Lunch, make sure your post has the hashtags like:-
- #SundayLunch #SundayDinner #SundayTea #Sunday #Weekend
- #Food #FoodPorn
- #Beef #RoastBeef #Potatoes #RoastPotatoes #RoastSpuds #Veg #Vegetables #Peas #Carrots #Cabbage #Beans #GreenBeans #Gravy
Try to make your summary/comment/statement/overview is one that can lead to making your audience comment back. For example, using the above, you could say
- Here’s my Sunday Lunch which is looking and smelly amazing – are you having Sunday Lunch or are you having a Sunday Dinner tonight instead? Are you having Beef or something else? If you are a vegetarian, what are you having instead meat?
If you are going to want people to go elsewhere, putting a web link into your post will not work as it’s not clickable and thus, delays/prevents the engagement you are wanting to create, so direct them to click the link in your Bio
Clicking the link in the Bio may mean you will have to keep changing the link every time you post something that directs them to a different place, so using a different landing facility: –
- Have a specific page on your website for Instagram where when clicking the link, people will land on the page to the relevant article. Thus, if you post different links, this page will list them and people can go to not just the article they are clicking on but ones from the past too!
- Whilst the above is a great thing to do, you can use further promotion of your other Social platforms to boost your exposure. If you post the same image on your Instagram board on your Pinterest account, you are driving people to see your Pinterest account too! When they get to the same picture, that can be a clickable link through what you are promoting also – a bigger win-win for you!

So, I hope these helpful hints will help you with how you use and boost your Instagram engagement…..

If you’d like to learn more about how we can help you with your Instagram or other aspects fo your Digital and Social platforms and strategy, please complete the form below as we’d love to help you…

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Tags: Apps, Boomerang, Camera, Food, Foodporn, Hahstags, Hashtag, Hyperlapse, Instagram, Layout, Pablo, Photos, Videos

So why aren’t you SoLoMo yet?

Posted by admin on 8 June 2016 in Branding, Business Strategy, External Communities, Influencers, Internal Communities, Social Business, Social Engagement, SoLoMo, The Social Family | ∞

It is truly amazing how many of the “Social Media” Coaches, Experts, Guru’s and Trainers are all telling you how to do your Facebook advertising, Facebook pages, Google plus pages, Instagram posts, LinkedIn Sales, Twitter posting, etc, etc, etc – the list goes on and on…..

Yet again the common misleading factor you fall for, is them getting you to buy their services – which when you look at what they are offering, is the same as so many others and just common repetetive ideas – and do what they are telling every other company like your’s that are using their services.

(oh and by the way – this is all the things you should have been doing back in 2012-2014 but then again, these people probadly weren’t around then and in a completely different industry, yet you trust them to know about your business and how to market your business?)

The whole industry of how we buy products and services and how we are being influenced is now (more than ever before) been done by the likes of Generation Y, Millennials, Generation Z and Generation Alpha!

Yet these people charging you to make both you and your business “Digital” and “Social” are only focusing on getting to you promote to Greatest Generation, Baby Boomers and Generation X – OUCH!!

Why OUCH?

Simple – it’s because it’s what they have read about, listened to people talk about and watched on YouTube before deciding to jump on the latest fashion bandwagon of being a “Social Media” Coach, Expert, Guru or Trainer! Thus, not what is really happening into today’s world because they aren’t actually looking forward…..

Today’s world is no longer shaped by the likes of Greatest Generation, Baby Boomers and Generation X – they are declining and before long will be dropping below the 40% mark!

So, these people advising and teaching both you and your business, are getting you to do the same as every other business they are “coaching” (and what they are coping from other people!!) and not fully understanding what is happening now with the other growing/apporaching 60% of decision makers and influencers – you are losing out and just arriving in 2014/2015!!

WAKE UP – IT’S 2016

but

YOU SHOULD BE THINKING 2018 / 2020!!!

The landscape has changed and we are now truly becoming more and more Social – the question is for you – are you looking at Social and the whole aspect of what Social means?

The essence of Social is really growing and moving at such a rate that you need to “climb out of your box” and “leave your comfort zone behind” to actually look worldwide to make things happen for you locally, regionally, nationally and internationally!

So why look worldwide first?

Simple fact is that if you aren’t placing yourself worldwide, someone else will and this will damage your brand or get your audience interacting elsewhere…..

And this is where SoLoMo really is starting to take a strangle hold but you – like many of your peers – are missing out on this as you aren’t been given the insights and future visions that you should be incorporating into both marketing and business strategy plans.

When you next meet with your “Social Media” Coach, Expert, Guru or Trainer – ask them what they are doing to help you implement your SoLoMo strategy?

And if they can’t answer straight away – that means just one thing…..

They don’t know what SoLoMo is and need to go away and ‘Google it’, ‘Read about it’ or ‘Watch YouTube’ to learn more before coming up with an answer for you…..

If you are happy to work with these people who “can’t answer straight away” or be honest saying “they aren’t sure/don’t know about something” and be left back in the mindset of 2012-2014 then let us ask you one thing…..

Are you really happy to move your business forward in the past just starting to enter 2015 or are you really wanting to be at the front for your audience and customers with 2018/2020 vision?

To discover more not just on SoLoMo but what else your business needs to be doing now using the 2018/2020 mindset, then just complete the form below…….

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Tags: Branding, Coaches, Decision Makers, Experts, Futurists, Gurus, Influencer, Social Business, Social Engagement, Social Media, Social Strategy, Social Telling, SocialSelling, SoLoMo, The Social Family, Trainers

It’s not numbers – it’s engagement……

Posted by admin on 12 May 2016 in Branding, Business, Communities, Community Management, Customer Service, External Communities, Influencers, Instagram, Internal Communities, LinkedIn, Social Business, Social Engagement, Social Platforms, The Social Family | ∞

One of the things that we keep hearing about from people and companies, is we need followers and we say why?

Their common answer is that “the more followers we have, the more business we will do due to them seeing our tweets and posts” – well the answer is NO!

This may be controversial to say, but just do a spot of analysis and you will see a common theme…

Have you spotted this theme?

The answer is clear whether you are talking Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat or Twitter – look at the number of comments, emotion likes, likes and retweets!

It doesn’t matter whether you have thousands, hundreds of thousands or millions of friends or followers, the engagement rate is very low but don’t be put off. Whatever platform you are on, once you break the 500 to 1,000 mark, you will start to see less than a 10% core follower base and of which, between 10 to 25% will be commenting on your posts.

(Note and yes we stuff here too but if you think that means we can’t help your company – just look at the so-called experts as well as the big Social, Digital and Marketing companies – they are even worst! Don’t just take our would for it – look at their numbers against the interaction they receive!)

So, don’t be disheartened – just be you….

Remember that people buy from people and it’s how you position yourself. Make sure you are being you as after all, if these followers actually meet you in person or visit your company, the way you treat them in person is the way they expect to be treated on-line.

Take for example, if someone emails or rings you/your company, you reply and answer their reason for reaching out, thus, if people message you/comments on-line, why are you not responding?

And before you say you are too busy too reply, just remember, you aren’t too busy to reply that email or answer that ‘phone call, so why is on-line different?

How do not know that that person is not your next customer or client?

As after all, if you ignore them, they will say to their family, friends, followers and connections that you never engage or reply – this feedback they share is what we call Social Selling.

This medium is nothing new, it’s the modern day Digital and Social version of what has been happening for years….

Referral Marketing

or otherwise known as

Word of Mouth Marketing

Remember, it’s not about numbers – it’s all about your Social Engagement and how you operate and manage your Social Community…..

The final question is…

Have you got both your Internal Community and External Community in place to handle your Social Engagement?

To learn more about how you you need to be creating your Social Strategy and implementing all the other aspects of The Social Family, then complete the form below to discover how we can help your company:-

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Tags: Audience, Community, Connections, Digital, Emotion Likes, Engagement, External Community, Facebook, Family, Followers, Friends, Instagram, Internal Community, Likes, LinkedIn, Posts, Referral Marketing, ReTweets, Shares, Snapchat, Social, Social Communities, Social Community, Social Engagement, Tweets, Twitter, Word of Mouth, Word of Mouth Marketing

Are you shouting your story to an empty room?

Posted by admin on 21 March 2016 in Business, Communities, Community Management, Customer Service, External Communities, Internal Communities, Social Business, Social Engagement, The Social Family | ∞

The art of moving forward is to understand your audience

But….the real question is….

Are you understanding them?

One of the big main things that is really changing is the cycle of communication yet so many companies are not just grabbing this.

If you are wanting to create an audience – whether they buy your product or service or not – you need to make sure you aren’t just trying to sell constantly.

The whole ethos of having a Audience and Community is to actually engage or create a starting point or discussion.

Take for example the Media channels we hear, see or read each and every day – they are operating a sinlge of point of reaching out and stop there.

Whether it is the radio, television or newspaper (in physical print or on-line), they will announce a story and discuss leaving you to take it forward BUT it ends there!

They create the starting point and then their audience/community will share and comment yet they don’t reply but the if you are lucky, the person behind the story may make an appearence and add their comments, yet this is rare!

So, don’t be disappointed if you post something on Facebook or Twitter and people don’t comment, look at what else is done with it. How many likes, emotions, retweets or shares you get, can show the level and interests of what your audience/community is looking for.

The whole aspect which so many people and companies are still not grasping is that we left the world of Social Media several years ago and entered into the world of Social Business.

Now, in 2016, we are actually moving forward via many aspects within The Social Family via Social Community, Social Engagment, Social Selling and Social Telling – the big question is, are you embracing/adapting this ethos?

So, forget about selling, create the engagement factor that will get people communicating with you and this will build up the trust factor.

Using tools that will make you listen to see what your audience and community are discussing, will give you the foundations to work from.

For example, if you are marketing and promoting your products to your audience/community via mediums which have the age demographics of 35 plus, why are you doing this when your target market is 14 to 25 age groups?

The art of identifying your marketplace is so much easier in 216 with all the tools that are on offer to you and this investment will create a much better RoI for you than paying for adverts, email marketing and SEO!

What is the point in spending out on email marketing or Facebook adverts if your really audience is using items like Pinterest, Snapchat and Tumblr?

You need to make sure you truly are looking at how #TheNewWayToEngage and #NewWayToWork is being used by today’s Audience and Community’s – as if they are are there and using it, what is the point in doing what you are doing?

To use an old saying….

“Why shout to empty room as no one is there to hear you…..”

So, step back, listen, create and engage!

This is where we can truly help you to identify what to be listening for and which are the rooms you need to be in and how to bring the two together…..

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Tags: email marketing, News, Newspapers, Radio, SEO, Social Business, Social Community, Social Engagement, Social Listening, Social Media, Social Selling, Social Strategy, Social Telling, Television, The Social Family, TV

SEO, PPC, Email Marketing – sorry you’re in the wrong place!

Posted by admin on 18 March 2016 in Communities, Community Management, Customer Service, External Communities, Gary Vaynerchuk, Internal Communities, Social Business, Social Engagement, The Social Family | ∞

Whilst SEO, PPC and Email Marketing are facilities you may use and see spoken about, let’s give you a comparison….

Ever heard of……

“PUSHING A PEBBLE UP A MOUNTAIN”

So, yes we are going to get “Flack” over this article and people/companies rubbishing it but let’s be clear about one thing – those that will be rubbishing/trashing this article, will be the ones that are selling or trying to sell you those services – NOT THINKING OF YOUR LONG TERM INTERESTS!!

Here at The Social Piggy whilst we can offer help, guidance and assistance in these areas, we don’t look at these as long term solutions and are in our opinion, items of the past – not the present or the future!

With us, we work with you and your company long term, building a strategy, ethos and Community to really make sure you are engaging with both your audience, prospective clients and clients – if you aren’t building that relationship, then you aren’t valuing your audience!

Let us look at this…

As an example, people are changing and wanting to get the most out of their time – so you need to make them feel welcome and part of your family.

If you are asking people to sign up for your newsletter before they get through to the right page they are looking for or have to register their details first, more and more people are either giving you their spam email or closing your site and going elsewhere!

(Note – Spam email is becoming more and more common! A Spam email is where someone sets up a gMail, Outlook or Yahoo email address for example and never use it. What they do, is give this email out when they have to sign up for something to divert all these emails away from their email InBox – have you ever wondered why so many of your emails aren’t even opened?)

The whole industry of Digital and Social changed entering 2014 and we started to see that people and companies did not want to be sold to and the switched on people really ramped up their game. (Yes we talk about this and maybe we should do more of what we talk about with regards to for example extending our Video and Live Streaming content, yet at present, we are focused on helping others to implement their strategy).

If you look back a few years for example, we already were riding the explosion of YouTube but 2014 was the real Boom where those in the know stood up and said, “see we were right” and thus Companies started to really embrace this by saying we need to look at this.

Now we have names coming from nowhere with the likes of Pew Die Pie, Zoella and Cutie Pie with 42.5 Million, 10.1 Million and 6.1 Million subscriber’s respectively, who are utilising Social Telling and Social Selling as a medium for brands to reach out to new audiences.

None of this is really using the implements of SEO, PPC or email marketing but the real life of Social Selling where using the old adage of “referral marketing“, people are watching and then sharing the links or telling their friends via “word of mouth marketing“.

So, this is why and how we work with you on your strategy to look at what you are doing and how you need to be looking long term with buliding first your Internal Community and then your External Community to embrace both Social Community and Social Selling.

With you following (if you are not – WHY NOT?) Gary Vaynerchuk, you will see that he is all about him and by this, we mean he is giving, sharing and communicating. He has built his community – #VaynerNation – whether this is on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter or YouTube, with him giving advice and assistance to everyone. He is open and transparent – very straight talking.

So, this is why we don’t say you need to do this and we will charge £X per week to manage your Facebook or run your Facebook Campaigns for example, we actually work with you to help understand what is happening in the worlds of Digital and Social to enable you to develop your strategy not just on Facebook or Twitter for example but the whole Social Eco-System.

Another example of someone who delivers the same ethos as us here at The Social Piggy (in our honest opinion) is Victoria Taylor. Victoria is constantly being there for others and helping to share content of others across her platforms. What she is doing is all part of the Social Sharing Economy where she is also seen as someone who understands Social Engagement over the Sell, Sell Sell, approach that is riding it’s way too much through the Digital and Social world today.

Too many people are all of sudden becoming Digital or Social experts overnight without having the insights, knowledge and vision to look at both you and your company long term as they are just here for the quick sale using the Social ethos of pre 2014!!

Afterall, if you not are engaging, then how do expect your audience to be interested in what you are doing?

We have just seen the latest changes with Instagram where the natural feed is been changed by what Instagram feel you are interested as a priority. This has lead to outrage by many but look behind on the scenes and see what is really happening.

Whilst someone may be following you on Instagram but they are engaging mostly with say Food and Fashion by liking or commenting, but your business is books, then Food and Fashion posts are going to be placed first on their timeline and you will be pushed down.

So, you need to think smarter and act more Social by engaging with them. There are such simple ways to address this and this is how we help you.

Thus, the time has come for you to play catch up and you can do this by making sure you are really engaging with people that are listening and helping to develop strategies with their clients.

Can you really say this about your Digital and Social Advisors, Coaches, Experts, Trainers etc?

With the world of Digital and Social chnaging on a daily basis, you need to make sure that you are on-game and in the right places, thus we help you to roadmap your future with your communities and help you bring in those people/companies that can help with the channels you need to be looking at.

As if for example, you are using old marketing methods or using marketing tactics aimed at say the 40 plus groups – why are you doing this when your target market is the 14 to 28 age group?

All age groups have different platforms they use and you need to make sure your business is there!

Just think back to the above where we mentioned the likes of Pew Die Pie, Zoella and Cutie Pie, yet you mention these people to say the over 30/35’s or most broadrooms and they have no idea who you are talking about!

So, if you are wanting to create that Social Community for your audience to engage with you and your company in Social Engagement leading to Social Selling, then you really need to deliver “Jab, Jab, Jab Right Hook” as Gary Vaynerchuk is always sharing with #VaynerNation!

Whether you want to discuss your needs of how Digital and Social uses the elements of The Social Family or how to create your Social Strategy then make sure you are speaking to the right people who really understand about Social Strategy and the elements that make up The Social Family.

If you are wanting to look at examples of how of this can work for you before speaking to us, just take a closer look at the likes of Cutie Pie, Gary Vaynerchuk, Pew Die Pie, Victoria Taylor and Zoella to understand how they are being engaging with their audiences not SELLING!

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Tags: Cutie Pie, Digital, External Communities, External Community, Facebook, Gary Vaynerchuk, Instagram, Internal Communites, Internal Community, Jab Jab Jab Right hook, Pew Die Pie, Snapchat, Social, Social Community, Social Engagement, Social Sahring Economy, Social Selling, Social Strategy, Social Telling, The Social, Twitter, VaynerNation, Victoria Taylor, YouTube, Zoella

Email – are you still using it and sending it correctly?

Posted by admin on 4 March 2016 in Branding, Business, Gary Vaynerchuk, Social Business, Social Engagement, Social Platforms, The Social Family | ∞

One of the things that we have been looking at is evaluating the emails we receive.

The reason for saying that, is that we want to improve and delegate the emails in to an organised structure….thus improving the way we operate!!

With us, we are big advocates of the Microsoft eco-system and see that using Microsoft makes things much more easier across all levels of the business world whether down at the SoHo level, up through SMB, SME, Medium right to the top level of International companies. Thus, we have so many emails arriving on a daily basis, we utilise their rules facility, so we can organise and prioritise these into folders to action at the right and appropriate times. Also, Microsoft chip in here with their Clutter tool which is great for us too!

(Note – Google are now providing a filtering service and IBM are doing this with IBM Verse – both which can organise your emails like Microsoft do with their rules and Clutter too).

So the question to you – how do you send out your mailings and what do you use?

We are seeing that companies are sending out more and more mass emails without considering how they look when they arrive. If you look at the emails you receive and the email address these emails come from, you we will see that the address is a mass email sending address which has no unique address to allow mail sorting!

If you are using email marketing tools, make sure you are sending that under your own unique address to make sure they land correctly. If not, you are throwing the JAB’s but you are failing to land that RIGHT HOOK!!

An example (we won’t name the platform and the companies using them as we don’t feel this is the right thing to do) is that we are receiving emails from in excess of 15 organisations and all are using the same email platform. This means, that when you set up a rule for one company, you don’t just get their emails into their folder, you get all emails from those 15 plus companies arriving into that one folder due to the rule picking up all those due to them all having the same sending email address!!

Another example is one platform that has a number in it and this changes with every email that goes out. Thus, you set a rule specific for a company, but when the next email arrives from that company, the email falls outside of the rule! All due to the sending email address having a changing number in it! Again, you are throwing the JAB’s but you are failing to land that RIGHT HOOK!!

Thus – look at the platform you are using and see how the emails are going out. You’ll see the sending address and then compare this to the next email (or previous one) that goes out – than now see how they compare. Also, compare this to the emails that you are receiving too and you’ll discover the issue!!

Taking this forward – you need to make this work for your audience the way you want and expect the emails to land in your inbox.

You may be thinking that this isn’t important but we are now moving into “Smarting Working” ethos and those switched on businesses that are really progressing hard and fast have implemented the #NewWayToWork ethics as well.

So, if you are wondering why your emails may not be being opened, being deleted or not replied too – the reason that is becoming more and more apparent is due to email filtering – you need to make sure you get through these filters and FAST!!

We hope this insight makes you sit up and think about the way you use and send emails – now is the time to take this……

“Call to Action”

and fix this to make sure you send out that

JAB and you land that all important RIGHT HOOK

today in their inbox!!

So, to learn more about how you are using email marketing and how you should be using, then complete the form below to discover how we can help your company:-

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Tags: email, email marketing, emailmarketing, Gary Vaynerchuk, GaryVee, inbox, Jab, JJRH, junk, junk folders, Right Hook, spam, spam folders

Hints and Tails – Instagram…..

Posted by admin on 1 March 2016 in Instagram, Social Business, Social Engagement, Social Platforms, The Social Family | ∞

One of the things we want to keep you upto date with, is just some helpful “Hint and Tails” about the various Social Platforms that are available and some general House Keeping rules as to when it comes to using them…

Today, we thought we would have a look at Instagram and just give an overview/refresher course for you…

So, here are some thoughts, ideas and general etiquette for you….

Followers:-

When you are fortunate to have people/companies follow you, you may either want to or not want to follow back, thus, you can’t send them a message unless you do this privately and this could take quite some time, especially if you have a lot of new followers.

Thus, a simple thing to do, is take a quick look at their profile/page and see what their profile details about them and look at their photos. If this is a profile that may benefit you, then follow them back. If you like their profile but don’t wish to them back, change their layout from grid to list, then scroll through their photos and like a few that appeal to you. By liking some of their photos, you are acknowledging them following you and thanking them by liking their photos.

Posting:-

One thing that so many people are constantly doing which shows a lack of understanding, is just constantly posting photos and NOTHING MORE! When you post a photo or video, you have the opportunity to do of these things:-

Add a description/comment to the photo
Include the people that you may have been with, in the description
If people are with you in the photo you are sharing, you can tag them in
If you are happy to show where you are, then you can add the location
If a brand is involved and they are on Instagram, add their Instagram Name to include them
Make sure you add in Hashtags that relate to the photo, location etc

Comments:-

When people reply/comment on your post, make sure you endeavour to reply. Obviously, if you are getting hundreds and hundreds comments, you can’t reply to each and every one. But, when you do reply to someone, include their Instagram name. If you don’t include their name, then they will not get notified that you have replied.

Links:-

If you are wanting to add a link – DON’T put it in the message!

The reason is the link is not clickable!

So you have two options:-

Tell people to click the link in your Bio and then they can go to the page you are telling them (but remember this will disappear when the link changes with your next post)
So best thing to do is to have a holding page. Why? Simple – people will look back at your posts in the future, and then will see the comment saying click in the Bio. But as I said above, the link will change and they can’t find it. So what you should do, is to have a link to a holding page, where people will see the photo,comment and description. This then leads to the added bonus of people seeing your other posted links too and thus getting them to discover more about you and your company

Ongoing:-

Make sure that you don’t just post, post and post!

You are wantign to have an audience, so make sure you are throughly engaging with them. When you check your Instagram (and try to do this two to three times a day) that like photos that are appearing on your timeline from the people that are following you. Also, do try to comment too, so the people you are following see you engaging with them. As when they see you commenting and liking their posts, this will show them you are engaging and as a result, their engagement rate with you will be increased.

So, we hope the FIVE key points/overviews are helpful “Hints and Tails” for you and please please do remember when posting on Instagram to include a message/description and use Hashtags every time. These are two really big key points that so many people forget – closely followed by replying to people but not including their name!!

To learn more on how to implement Instagram into your Brand Advocacy, Internal and External Communities, Influencers and Brand Ambassadors Strategies, or about what The Social Piggy can do for you and your business when it comes to implementing The Social Family, then please complete the form below…..

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Tags: Hashtags, Instagram, Photos, Social Business, Social Engagement, Social Platforms, The Social Family, Videos

Social Selling via your real Advocates and Ambassadors…..

Posted by admin on 29 February 2016 in Brand Advocates, Brand Ambassadors, Branding, Business, Communities, Customer Service, Influencers, Social Business | ∞

Are you in-housing or out-housing your branding and advocacy?

One thing that is becoming apparent is the way the Brands seem to be focusing on Celebrities and the Media over Reality for promoting their brand.

Is there a reason for this?

Do the Brands feel that just because the Celebrities are seen with their product it is going to make people rush out and buy? Apart the Media/PR opportunities, how often do these people really use the items?

The same can be said for the Media too! A classic example is in the Technology or Motoring Industries where these journalists get their hands on the products and cars yet only probably only spend a few hours testing them. Plus, these tests are comparing them against other experiences and never really the way they are used in everyday life.

If in reality they actually got real users to test these products, then these users would be able to give the feedback that other users (or potential purchasers) are wanting to hear when they upgrade or make the switch from another brand to that one.

So if the Brand’s Customer Service, Marketing or Digital/Social teams were actually in place to handle the Brand’s Advocacy/Ambassador programmes, the feedback would be deliver a much wider and better placed foundation for Social Selling.

With more and more people actually taking to following Brands based on their Social Engagement and Social Story’s – then the Brands need to start having real testers.

These testers can (and will – warts and all!) share their experiences – highlighting what went right and wrong whilst discussing it with their family and friends. People are now start starting to trust family and friends much more than they have done over last 20 to 30 years and aren’t being swayed by Cold Calling, Marketing Mailing and Push Marketing anymore.

As with the shift of people engaging and relying on Social Selling more and more, these Brands really need to look who and how people are chosen to represent and promote their products via their Brand Advocacy and Ambassador programmes.

A classic example is say cars – just because a Celebrity, TV/Film star or Sport Stars is photographed driving one, does that mean all their fans are going to rush out and buy a Jaguar or Range Rover?

So Brands – isn’t time you actually looked at what is happening in the Digital and Social world to re-evaluate what you are doing?

Take for example the likes of Pew Die Pie, Zoella and Cutie Pie with 42.5 Million, 10.1 Million and 6.1 Million subscriber’s respectively.

These people actually started discussing and their share thoughts/opinions of brands they could afford and used/played with in their own lives.

Because of this, they generated huge followers based on their honest opinions and these brands have stuck with them as well as now sending them products to test as they know that these people’s audiences are the ones they want to sell to and will by the their products.

So, Brands, follow the lead above and make sure you are using Advocates, Ambassadors and Testers who will actually really use the products, test them honestly and share their opinions with their family, friends and audiences that will actually buy these products.

Time for you to bring things in house and actually start using your real audiences and users…..

” Are you ready to Social Selling via your real Advocates and Ambassadors into your Community yet? “

To learn more on how to implement Brand Advocacy along side Internal and External Communities, “Influencers”, “Brand Ambassadors” or about what The Social Piggy can do for you and your business when it comes to implementing The Social Family, then please complete the form below…..

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Tags: Brand Advocates, Brand Ambassadors, Brand Testers, Branding, Celebrities, Cutie Pie, Digital, External Communtities, Family, Film Stars, Friends, Internal Communities, Jaguar, Pew Die Pie, Pop Stars, Product Testing, Range Rover, Social, Social Advocacy, Social Engagement, Social Selling, Sports Stars, TV Stars, YouTube, Zoella

Customer Service via Twitter?

Posted by admin on 27 February 2016 in Business, Communities, Customer Service, Social Business, The Social Family | ∞

We have seen both “Digital” and “Social” being a playground over the last 3-4 years and now 2016, will be the year of putting all that practice into reality.

Twitter offers your company the opportunity to engage with both your clients and prospective clients whether it is good or bad.

Used correctly, Twitter will be the first port of call for you to assist/help/inform people of what you are doing and what they may be looking for.

Using Twitter as the conversation starter and the public face of your Customer Service will be the way of showing your audience that you offer both “Social Engagement” and “Social Community” that is open to everyone that is your audience to help them with all their needs.

Plus with deep dark Direct Messaging facilities where you are have indepth conversations with your prospective client or customer, the next stage of Customer Service is here……so…….

Twitter is a 24/7 Community – the question is…

“Are you ready to bring the Engagement from twitter into your Community?”

To learn more on how the implementation of Twitter and Customer Service can add to the ethos of Internal and External Communities, “Influencers”, “Brand Ambassadors” or about what The Social Piggy can do for you and your business when it comes to implementing The Social Family, then please complete the form below…..

Tags: Communities, Customer Service, CustomerService, External Communities, ExternalCommunities, Internal Communities, InternalCommunities, The Social Family, TheSocialFamily, Twitter

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