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Handling Negative Comments on Social Media

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Social media is a powerful tool for businesses of all types. It helps you engage and connect with your audience and eventually establish a relationship with them. In addition to that, it also helps increase traffic to your website, increase brand awareness and ultimately, increase sales. However, social media is not perfect.

We live in a world where everyone has a voice. People can talk about their experiences, whether it’s positive or negative, with your business and post them online. Unless you’re perfect, you’ll have to deal with negative comments or feedbacks sooner or later. What should you do when negative reviews come in?

Here are 4 principles to guide the way you deal with negative comments on social media.

Do not delay

Negative comments and feedbacks should be addressed as soon as possible. Mind you, words travel swiftly on social network. This can damage your reputation so be sure to act fast.

Most people post negative comments online because they believe that no one wants to listen to them. Show your customers that you care for them and you’re willing to listen by responding quickly. Also, reassure them that you are willing to set things straight and solve the issue in the soonest possible time.

Own up to your mistake

We are humans, and we all make mistakes. If someone is complaining about your products or services, do not be afraid to say you’re sorry. Recognize the complaint, apologize publicly and then settle things privately.

Offer an incentive

Sometimes, offering a discount, free merchandize or business service can help calm the situation. If your product failed, replace it and offer discount on their next purchase. If it was a dining experience, refund their check. Try to make things right, even if it costs you. This is a great way of showing your customers how much you value them.

 

 

 

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How to Increase Fan Engagement on Your Facebook Page

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Not long ago, writing a Facebook post and asking people to share, like or comment is all it took to maintain an active business page. But with Facebook’s algorithm changes, capturing the attention of your target audience becomes increasingly difficult.

If you’ve given up hope of ever reaching your target audience, then we’re here to help you out. Read on and we’ll show you how to increase fan engagement on your Facebook page.

Use visual content

Like the old adage says, “a picture is worth a thousand words”. But for a business owner like you, it’s worth more than that.

Survey revealed that visual contents get 180% more engagement as compared to other types of content on Facebook. This is because they are easy to digest, clear and concise. Post infographics, quotes, memes, tips, people, places etc.

Post more often

If your goal is to reach more people, then you have to be active on social media. We suggest that you post at least 4 times a day. This way, you’re giving your fans 4 chances to see your posts.

Feel free to post photos, talk about news, ask questions etc. Also, publish useful content with a consistent voice that your community knows.

Post interesting content

The simplest yet most effective way to capture the attention of your target audience is to publish great content and entice them to engage.

Make use of your knowledge and experiences by giving helpful tips to your fans. You can use past blogs or newsletters and turn them into quick tips. You can also share your knowledge by creating video tutorials and sharing them on Facebook.

Include call to action

Most people would browse quickly through their news feeds. Always include a call to action if you want them stop and take action. Sometimes, all you need to do is ask, but try to be as non-salesy as possible.

 

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Low Cost Ways to Market Your Business


BIMS_4.28.2“Making money costs money”. While there is some truth to it, you do not necessarily have to spend a fortune just to get the word out about your business.

Marketing your business is not all about spending money. It’s about coming up with creative ideas and implementing them properly. So the question is, how do you promote your business and get your name in front of potential customers while working on a shoestring budget?

Here are 3 low cost yet high impact methods to advertise your and promote your business.

Social media

Social media is undoubtedly the one of the most affordable and effective ways to engage with yours customers. Millions of people from all over the world are using social media on a daily basis. So, you should include that on your marketing strategies.

An effective social media marketing starts with defining who your best prospects are and creating contents that anticipates their needs. Establishing strong relationship with your customer base is also important.

Search engines

Creating a website can be comparable to building a house. Your family and friends won’t know you’re building one unless you tell them. Also, they’ll never find it unless you give them the address. The same goes with your website.

You can’t expect people to visit your website unless they know it actually exists. Submit your website to search engines. Also, use keywords and key phrases that your customers will be searching for so it will be easier for them to find you.

Content is king

Everyone knows this, but I’d be neglectful if I do not include this on the list. I cannot stress enough the importance of creating great content. If writing isn’t your strong point, you can always hire someone to do the writing for you.

Write articles that demonstrate your expertise in your field. To increase your reach, you can submit these articles to websites that accept guest posts. Be sure that your name and business name is included in the article.

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How to Use Pinterest to Attract Customers

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With over 70 million users, Pinterest is considered as one of the fastest growing social networking sites. Armed with that information, it is safe to say that Pinterest is just as important as Twitter and Facebook when using social media to reach your target market.

Since Pinterest is all about graphic images, your goal is to create visual images that your customers would enjoy. The more appealing an image is, the more likely it is to generate attention.

So, how can you use Pinterest to attract and engage customers? Here are some tips to get you started.

Build boards around your products

If you own a restaurant, there’s no better way to attract new customers by showing off your dishes. Be sure to create a collection of boards for each of your specialties. After all, food is the main attraction of your restaurant. So, focus on your menu.

Become an information curator

As an online curator, your job is to gather and organize all the best images related to your topic and present them to your virtual audience. When done the right way, people will see you as an industry expert and will eventually consider you as a go-to source for cool images and content.

Add compelling descriptions

If your goal is to capture the attention of customers, you shouldn’t stop at creating visually compelling content. Adding a description is just as important.

Since you’re using SEO to promote your site, why not use it as well to promote your Pinterest page. Use keywords in your titles, tags and pin boards. This is important as it makes it easier for people to find your content.

Engage with other users

The whole point of social networking is socializing. So, engage with customers, strategic partners and industry vendors by tagging them in your descriptions. Another way to interact with other users is to like their pins. This can be a way of telling them that you appreciate their content. Plus, it can help you build a following and convert fans into buyers.

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How LinkedIn Can Help Your Business

Since LinkedIn went public in 2011, the social media platform has grown to be the center for making connections, developing careers, and many other business related activities. With 2 million new users joining every second, and with 107 million users in the US alone, LinkedIn is continuing to skyrocket in the world of social media. Why should you your start making LinkedIn a priority for your business? It helps to attract new clients and accelerate market opportunities, while also allowing you to create and become a part of online communities and groups, helping your business to generate rewarding leads. LinkedIn has become a power tool for helping to strengthen millions of businesses around the world. Here are some tips on how to use LinkedIn to your business’ advantage:

Using Sponsored Updates:linkedin

Sponsored updates help raise awareness about your brand, build relationships, and drive leads. One of the greatest things about using sponsored updates is that it allows you distribute your content to the right audience, including those outside of your following. Sponsored Updates allow you to target your audience by geography, specific companies, industries, company size, job title, and more. You are also able to determine how effective your updates are with the help of the detailed analytics provided by LinkedIn. But, if not carefully planned, investing in sponsored updates could cost your business instead of benefiting it. To ensure that you’re getting the most out of this investment, make sure you are sponsoring posts that will be perceived as valuable to your target market. Focus your energy towards careful planning and great content, and this tool will help your business gain credibility and become more established in its particular industry.

Optimize Your Personal Profile:

When putting your business out there on LinkedIn, it’s important to make sure you are also building your personal profile. Having an equal focus on your personal profile and your business profile will help put a face to your business, help you gain credibility, and grow your relationships with your consumers. By optimizing your personal profile with related keywords and rich media content such as videos and presentations, this will help your business generate more leads. Make sure your personal profile is professional and not a “business logo”. Steer your focus towards grabbing the attention of your “perfect” audience. Also, remember to make sure your LinkedIn profile links back to your business website and blog.

Develop Relationships:

One of the greatest parts about social media for your business is being able to strengthen your relationships with your consumer. LinkedIn is especially great for this because it allows you to precisely choose who you want to connect with. Instead of worrying about the quantity of your connections, it’s important to focus on the quality of the relationships with your connections. Decide which of your contacts you’d like to know better and start reaching out to them periodically from your personal profile and business page. Share information, ask them questions and learn more about them. The bond with your customer is one of the most crucial aspects of growing your business. When you continuously reach out to your audience on LinkedIn and strengthen your bond over time, you’ll eventually become a go-to source if your customer needs help or has a question.

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Best Tools for Finding and Connecting with Influencers in Your Industry

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Social media marketing is one of the most effective methods of growing your brand. However, it goes beyond creating an account, posting occasional updates and special offers.

To make an impact to your target audience, you need a steady supply of quality content and get them in front of as many leads as possible. One way of doing this is by connecting with influencers in your industry. Even a single tweet from a well-known name in your industry could give you 1,000 visits as compared to the usual 100.

There are several tools you can use to find your desired influencer. Here are some of them.

Keyhole

This tracking tool helps identify influencers and content, especially related to events using a hashtag.

It develops that context by analyzing users who are engaging with your competition and gives you an idea as to who is leading in the conversations at industry events.

Klout

Klout is one of the most popular influencer discovery and engagement tools.

Just type in your desired keyword on the search bar and it will generate a list of top influencers. Here, you will notice a number adjacent to their profile image. This serve as their Klout score. The higher the score is, the more influential they are.

Follower Wonk

Follower Wonk is a strong Twitter analytics tool that can be used for several things. The key feature I recommend is the “Search Twitter bios”. All you have to do is to type in the keywords and it will give you a list of all the Twitter users with the specified keyword in their bios.

You can also track who is following you, analyze and sort followers and compare users by the number of followers they have. You can also add a location filter to find Twitter users within a specific region.

 

 

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4 Ways to Improve Your Social Media Engagement

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There are about 2 billion social network users from all over the world. That number is expected to grow to about 2.5 billion in 2017. So, if you want to reach your target audience more effectively, you need to be active on social media.

In this article, we’ll share with you some methods that have helped us boost our social media engagement. Hopefully, these tips will help you earn more shares, comments, likes and clicks for your social media content.

Ask for their opinion

Business owners should think of their target audience as a pool of unlimited resources. Your current and potential customers will appreciate it if you listen to what they have to say.

Feel free to create a simple survey, ask an open-ended question or a fill-in-the blank type of question. This is advantageous as it will not only increase engagement, you can also use their suggestions to address their needs and requests.

Educate

Business owners and marketers are often stumped as they sit down in front of their computer and attempt to post a status update on their social media accounts.

Remember, your goal is to get your audience to engage with you and your content. To do that, you need to provide them with great content. Write about what you know and what they don’t know. If you do this, people will eventually see you as an industry expert.

Call-to-action

It’s not enough to write quality content, sometimes, it also pays to ask. Always include a great call-to-action in your posts. Ask them to visit your site, answer polls, provide content ideas or simply hit like. People are more likely to act upon it if you tell them what you want from them. As they say, ask and you shall receive.

Share photos

If you are struggling to engage with your target audience through content marketing, you might want to consider including more visuals into your marketing efforts.

According to Social Media Examiner, 87% of the most shared posts on Facebook were photos. Sharing photos are a great way to boost engagement as it can easily capture the attention of people and are easier to digest.

 

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Pinterest Tips to Help Strengthen Your Business

pinterestSocial media platforms have been the go-to business strategy for sharing content over the past couple of years. Recently, the main focus has shifted more towards visual content, which is why Pinterest has been on the rise for businesses. Pinterest has grown immensely over the past few years, with the latest statistics revealing that 70 million people use it daily, while 9% of all Fortune 500 brands are active on the platform as well.

Now is the time to get your business on board with Pinterest! Here is a variety of ways to help maximize your efforts:

1. Using Rich Pins

Rich pins are a new edition to Pinterest that add extra details to Pins from your website. There are six types are rich pins which include app, movie, recipe, article, product, and place. There are many advantages to using Rich Pins including real-time pricing and stock availability. They also help improve CTR and discoverability of pins by making them eligible for Pinterest’s own curated feeds.

 2. Focus on Pinning

Pin every new product, engage frequently, and keep it fresh. Knowing what types of images work best on Pinterest is extremely important. There are many tips and tricks to making your images high-quality and pinnable. Using colors wisely, keeping your mages anonymous, paying attention to size, timing, and your analytics through various Pinterest tools will ensure that you’re grasping your consumer’s attention and using Pinterest to the best of your ability.

3. Inspire

Rather than just creating boards that promote your product, create them around a particular lifestyle that appeals to your audience. Understanding your customer, knowing what they seek for, and exerting that through a Pinterest lifestyle board will help keep them interested and inspired by your brand. Many major brands use this strategy to promote what they stand for and to reach out to their consumer.

4. Running Contests

Increasing engagement is important on every social media platform, but not too many people use it to their advantage on Pinterest(and they should!). If done properly through following the Pinterest contest guidelines, contests can drive sales and help reach a wider audience. Be creative, make it worth it for your consumer, and look to other brands for contest ideas. Also, there are a variety of apps that can help organize your contest and host it on your site including Gleam.io, Wishpond, and Woobox.

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How to Promote Your Blog Content on Social Media

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Most people think that sharing content on social media is easy. They expect that their blog posts will be seen by as many people as possible with just a few clicks of a button. While social media can help drive traffic to your blog, a lot of blog owners fail to realize that advertising goes beyond just sharing all your blog posts on social media.

In this article, we’ll give you 3 effective ways to use social media to promote your content. Follow these tips and draw in new readers for your blog.

Identify your target readers

You first need to understand what your target readers are interested in before throwing up a blog post. You can do this by browsing around and visiting top performing blogs in your niche. See what kind of topics get the most engagement, which social platform they use to share their content and also, take note of the comments they get.

Doing this kind of digging will give you an idea about what your audience are interested in and which social media platform they use.

Embrace the visual

It’s no secret that images receive much more engagement on Facebook and Twitter. Even images on LinkedIn get more engagement.

Since the image you use will be the first thing people are going to see, choose a photo that sends a compelling message, sparks emotions and inspires curiosity.

Use the right social media channel

It seems that new social media platforms come out once in a while. While it’s tempting to use them all in the hopes of reaching as much audience as possible, you might not get the results you want if you do so. A better approach would be to determine the best social network for promoting your blog and focus there.

If your target audience is more visual, you might have more potential traffic on Pinterest, Facebook and Instagram. If your blog posts are more geared around business and professional readers, Google+ and LinkedIn are your best bet.

 

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