Blog. Search & Social Concepts

Business Goals Affected by Social Media

Posted by Kimberlee on May 21, 2012 in Blog, Content & Copywriting, Content Engagement | 0 comments

What are your business goals, and how can social media help achieve them?

Customer Support
Keep your customers happy, see what they have to say about you on Twitter and Facebook. Address any Support Requests and see what you can do to manage the issue or connect the user with the appropriate department.

Understanding the Customer Better
By tracking customers you can learn more about their demographics: where they live, what they do, their age and sex. You can also learn about what interests them: who do they follow on Twitter, what movies are they seeing, what TV shows do they watch? By having a better understanding of your customer you are able to directly target them.

Customer Relationships
Nurture your customer relationships by keeping them happy online. If they say something positive about your company be sure to thank them. Let your customers know that you value their opinions and business.

Help Customers
Create a FAQ, service or contact page on your website that allows customers to find easy solutions instead of calling a hot-line.

Nurturing Sales Leads
Tweet at and about your leads. See what they are into and give yourself a reason to contact them again. Provide something on your site or Twitter that interests or benefits them.

Increase Customer Engagement
By being active on social media it gives your clients more opportunities to interact with your company. If you are vocal, they are more likely to be too and this content can drive more of their friends and followers to your content too.

New Hires
Instead of hiring a recruiter, post about employment opportunities on the website, Twitter and Facebook. You’ll save money and could get a wider range of people applying.

More Sales
Increasing your social media presence will drive my traffic to your website, creating more sales leads and ultimately increasing your conversion rate.

Drive Traffic to the Website
Tweet and post about your website, new blog posts, promotions and employment opportunities with links that lead back to the company site. Followers will read these and possibly click to your website.

Strengthen Brand Identity
Show a side of your company that is rarely seen. If you donate money or volunteer, tell your customers about that. This can also be a great opportunity to show a humorous side of your company.

Groupon For Businesses? The good. The bad. The Ugly

Posted by Kimberlee on Dec 7, 2011 in Blog, Inbound Sources, Tools & Tips | 0 comments

The deal-of-the-day website Groupon has been growing tremendously since it began less than four years ago. Since then, thousands of businesses have taken to Groupon to offer discounted gift certificates to customers. As of 2010, Groupon has over 35 million registered users.

A company that has that millions of users and is valued over 1.85 billion dollars must be doing something right. Groupon works for businesses because it guarantees a minimum number of customers. If the minimum isn’t reached, then the deal is void. The nature of Groupon allows a large number of sales to be done in a short period of time. Because the offers expire so quickly, users are likely to pass it along to friends and family. It is essentially free word of mouth advertising across platforms like Facebook and Twitter and a great way to attract new customers. Beside the social media exposure, your offer is also featured on the Groupon’s daily email that is sent out to subscribers.

Businesses that use Groupon gain exposure and tons of sales in a short period of time and because Groupon is only successful if your promotion is successful, there is no risk involved. How can it go wrong?

One huge and sometimes detrimental mistake a business owner can make when using Groupon is to not be prepared for the outcome. Groupon mentions on their website, it is a “risk-free promotion.” Not quite. We Can Help You.

Although there is no risk if you do not sell enough offers, there is a risk you run by selling too many. It has happened many times where a business puts out a deal and thousands more purchase the deal than expected. As a Groupon user, you must honor the fine print and accept each Groupon a customer brings in, if an issue arises with a customer, it can leave a bad impression and you risk the chance of losing them.

Groupon does expose your company and bring more people into your doors. They boost your sales for the time being, but that doesn’t mean every customer will come back. Sometimes these customers just move from deal to deal and if you don’t continue offering deals, they aren’t likely to come back.

The last big mistake businesses make when signing up for Groupon, is not realizing how it will affect their profits. When a business signs up for Groupon, they must offer around 50% or more off of their merchandise or service. Of the money they have left, 50% of that goes directly to Groupon, leaving the business with 25% or less of the original value.

Groupon’s deals are made to benefit the customer. Though there are benefits with mass exposure and increasing sales, each business needs to decide if Groupon is the best promotional device for them.

How to Leverage your LinkedIn Group

Posted by Kimberlee on Nov 11, 2011 in Blog, Tools & Tips | 0 comments

This week LinkedIn launched its brand new feature, analytics for Group owners. Now Group owners have the ability to track areas of the groups they’ve created and managed. The analytics tool provides insights into the Group’s members’ demographics, growth and interactions using charts, graphs and other visuals.

What you can do with LinkedIn Group Analytics.

1. Look at your Group’s overall performance:
When you don’t have time to go in depth to find information, use this tool. Using the Summary tab gives you a quick overview of your Group’s statistics, showing you one or two stats from each of the measurements. When you don’t have time to go in depth to find information, use this tool

2. Group’s Demographics:
By using the information posted on the Group’s members’ LinkedIn profiles, it shows you everything from location, industry, senority and more. This tool helps you understand who is in your group.

3. Group Growth:
This tab breaks down the growth of your group. Group owners are able to see how many members added that day and over the lifespan of the Group.

4. See how your Group is engaging:
Use this tool to see what kind of activity is occurring in your Group. Look at what people are discussing, maybe you’ll need to start more conversations to get them going, or steer the conversation in a more productive direction. See the results here.

Don’t have a Group? Here are the top 5 reasons to create and  manage a Group on LinkedIn.

1. Gets your name out there:
Making and managing a Group is a great way to show associates and potential business partners your leadership. Taking on the venture of creating a Group and actively engaging your members is no small task and people will take note of the initiative.

2. Builds your network:
Having a Group is a great way to make more connections. You are an influencer and people want to show they have a connection with you. The bigger your network, the more opportunities there are for you.

3. It provides easy access to industry information:
Having a Group that is focused around a specific industry allows members to quickly view what people in their industry are talking about. It allows news, content and opinions to be easily shared amongst the Group.

4. It drives traffic to your website and LinkedIn profile:
Easily promote your website by posting about it in your Group. Make sure to include a link, and create a discussion about it. Or inform your Group’s members about any updates they should see on your site.

5. More opportunities:
As mentioned earlier, having a bigger network will give you more opportunities. LinkedIn gives you the chance to connect with people, learn about job openings, give and recieve referrals and stay up to date on your industry. Having these connections will be beneficial to you and your business when you need something from them in the future.

Take a look at our LinkedIn Glossary to clarify any terms.

Domain Names with Keywords, Still Smart?

Posted by Kimberlee on Nov 5, 2011 in Blog, Inbound Sources, Tools & Tips | 0 comments

Choosing the right domain name might seem like a breeze after deciding what to name your business. But don’t take this task too lightly, there are some major benefits that come from having the right domain name.

When choosing your domain name, be sure to have one that is rich with keywords. Doing so can boost your search engine rankings. Google places a lot of weight on domain names that exactly match the keyword search query. Using keywords in your domain name ranks you higher, leading more people to your site. It also builds brand awareness and recognition. Having a strong domain name that matches keywords from their search query is appealing to users and easier for them to recall.

Keys to creating a strong domain name:

Make it memorable- Having a catchy domain name will allow customers to easily recall your site and it helps build brand awareness. The name does not necessarily have to be short, but names that are not riddled with hyphens and wordiness are less appealing. The name should have your keywords in it, you may need to sacrifice a short and simple name for a catchier longer one that includes the keyword.

Avoid hyphens- Users often forget to use the hyphen when typing in your domain name. This could potentially lead them directly to your competition. Sometimes this is the only way to get a domain name that is close to what you want when others are taken.

Domain names should be the same as the website- It is very important that these match or are very similar. When looking for your site, users will try to type in your brand name first. It is easier for them to recall a brand name rather than a site if the two are different.

Avoid extra wordiness in the domain name- Sometimes when the domain name you want is not available, an alternate but similar name is suggest. Typically the available names have words like, “the” and “my” in the title. For example, BrainStorm.co is taken but MyBrainStorm.co might be available. Like hyphens, the extra words are likely to be forgotten and could lead the user to your competitor.

Get multiple versions of your domain name- If you have the resources, try to obtain any sensible variation of your domain name. This insures that your competition wont end up with a name similar to yours. It also allows for users to access the site when they spell your company’s name wrong.