Social Media’s Influence on Sales

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At least 72 % of the population in America owns a computer and has access to the internet. Thus online marketing or the new age marketing has become more popular, and people prefer to get their products or at least its information at their footstep rather than them walking up to it. This has highly influenced the sales pattern in the past few years.

The influence of social media on the conversion of sales is outstanding compared to traditional marketing. 97% marketers today believe that including Social Media as a part of the overall business strategy only provides value to the business. Being involved and creating a community using social media has never been as important as it currently is today. It is a proven science that a one-on-one interaction with customers creates a rapport between the consumer and the business. Building trust and loyalty converts into more sales. Social Media is turning out to be an excellent tool to build a strong community that cannot be reached with banners, flyers, commercials, and other ad campaigns. Social interaction between businesses and customers is a growing trend that is increasing sales and growing brand loyalty by keeping in contact with a community on a day to day basis. Statistics show that 67% of shoppers who receive a recommendation from their social media graph are proven to spend more money.

Your business could already have current customers searching for your businesses Fan Page to view news about your company. A Fan Page can be used to represent business news, sales, and events that consumers may be interested in. When consumers are able to learn news in an instantaneous manner, it is more appealing to them. Facebook and twitter are the best platforms to create social interaction with your customer base and create brand loyalty. According to an article published by emarketer it has been said that “when consumers were exposed to social media in addition to other online ad formats or marketing channels, such as search, email and display, the average revenue per order for US advertisers was $280.71—more than double the order size compared to the average of all digital channels”.

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The better connections brands have with consumers, the more likely those consumers will be positively inclined to buy. Many social media ROI models are based on a direct marketing approach with an offer and response approach.

A lot of productive social media marketing efforts are more likely to influence business outcomes. Social media provides brand-advertising benefits and inspire consumers to buy sooner, more quantity, or more often, as well as to choose one brand vs. another.

10 Tips to Building a Successful Facebook Fan Page

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Businesses and e-marketers are well aware of the potential of Facebook and have lately realized it better that with just a few minutes invested, they can get their message out to people all around the globe. Facebook accounts for more than 800 million members, hence the kind of exposure it will give to your brand is to definitely think about.

The more fans you have the more chances of getting new customers and business growth along with profit. Here are few steps which might come handy to build a successful Facebook fan page.

  • It is very important to complete your full profile i.e. fill in all your details. An incomplete profile doesn’t give a good first impression and there are chances that the people might find your page as fake and then might completely ignore it.
  • An eye-catching and helpful profile picture plus an organized and wise cover photo is something that can represent your company or campaign, making it easy for friends to recognize you. This is highly helpful in solidifying your brand recognition online to gain even more fans on Facebook.
  • Since the timeline has rolled out, apps are getting more prominent by the day as they are listed in large icons above the posts. They can be used effectively to improve and extend your Facebook fan engagement.
  • Share your content on multiple platforms, apart your community page. The more the content is shared the more people get aware about your brand. Try and encourage your fans to share your content among their circles.
  • Search out for your brand influencers not only on Facebook but even on other platforms and ask them to contribute their views on Facebook as well.
  • A Facebook ad campaign costs as little or as much as you want it to. Run ads on Facebook as the user definitely looks out on the screen and if they find your advertisement attractive, they’ll definitely spare a minute or two to go through it.
  • Social media is absolutely not a one-way street, so you do need to reach out and make connections when it comes to building popularity on Facebook. You must start conversations, ask questions, and respond to people when they talk to you for your ultimate success.
  • Admin panel helps you in managing posts, listing company milestones, tracking analytics and so much more, so you can keep a tab on what kind of an impact your product and posts are making.
  • Linking is also made easy and effective. To add a link to your page, simply select the pencil icon, then choose, “link to the tab”. A link appears in your dialogue box which you can copy and paste on your Wall post. This helps in easily sharing and highlighting your important contents.
  • It’s essential not to get too carried away with the whole promotion that you completely forget about the audience and their views. Don’t just share your own content or spend all of your time promoting yourself as People come to Facebook for a discussion, not a deal.

These are some basic steps that business can use in order to make their Facebook page more interactive. Let us know what your thoughts are and what else we can do make Facebook page’s more interactive.

 

 

6 Ways to Make Your Website More Social

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Corporate sites are generally plain and boring and thus fail to deliver the appropriate value to the current and potential customers. Corporate websites also end up empowering customers alone of doing the job of sharing with others and don’t utilize the power of testimonials, quotes and videos. Corporate websites need to get more social as over 140 million tweets sent per day and 30 billion pieces of content shared each month on Facebook, thus the need to get your website on the social forefront gets essential by the passing day.

There are many steps you can take to make your website more social and engaging for your visitors.

  • Position the share buttons on all blog posts, articles, photos or videos that are posted. Using content-sharing buttons such as the “Facebook Share” or “Twitter Tweet This” buttons, allows the visitors to post your content on their networks, encouraging their friends to visit your website.
  •  Allow people to comment and share ideas on your site, it gives them a sense of ownership.
  • A socially friendly site is one that is constantly changing but is the one which keeps the whole thing entertaining and impressive for the visitors by keeping its content updated and fresh. Adding dynamic elements to your site; keep your website visually interesting, plus it gives you a chance to experiment and learn.
  • Don’t be afraid to give your audience the opportunity to re-purpose your content. By giving your customers the opportunity to interact with your brand this way, you’ll be bringing them into your community and increasing their loyalty. 
  • Remind visitors to become a fan of your page by installing a floating social bar to your website that stays with the user as they browse your content. 
  • Allow users to log in and interact with your site using plug-ins like Facebook Connect, thus the activity will be automatically published back to that users’ social channel, and will encourage their friends to engage with your website as well.

Social Commerce : The Way To Go About For Start-Up’s

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E commerce or Social Commerce has been around now for some time and has now become a growing industry. It has added a layer of easiness to the shopping process, especially for people who hate shopping by making shopping a very social experience.

Social Networking platforms such as Facebook have already taken a step into this by allowing brands to set up stores in their domain and exploring a completely new word for the consumer and brand. It’s fair to say that not everyone has jumped into this medium so far, as most brands still believe in getting the customer onto the website and then making the sale. On a whole it can be said that Social commerce is growing rapidly and has given shoppers new and almost limitless opportunities, brands have various options to enhance their E-commerce operations by making it more social. The big dilemma that most brands face especially if you are a start-up is how to go about with Social Commerce. Here we elaborate on how you can about Social Commerce.

  • The first thing to do is setting up your Social commerce store and letting this know to your fans through various Social Media options such as blogs, Twitter, Newsletter and others.
  • Have content in place on how you want to update your fans about new products and promotions. This will help you in keeping your fans engaged and will also do word of mouth publicity for you.
  • Make your fans feel special; don’t let them feel as they are taking to some automated feed. Keep the human factor alive let your fans feel as if they are walking into a real store and taking to a Sales rep and not just any virtual store. Strengthen your fan base by taking feedback from them on new products or existing products, let them share their thoughts.
  • Entice your fans to shop at your Social store by giving them exclusive deals and discounts which will not be available to them at a real store. Games are hit on any Social Platform depending on the product that you have, offer your fans something exclusive which they can redeem on such games or anything else.
  • Social Networks are used by people to stay connected with each other and to share things with each other and if you want your store to be a hit then you need to encourage your fans to generate interest in your brand by sharing their activities across their friends. Promote with your fans this is the best way to promote your brand to a larger audience.

These are just a few basic ways of going with of social commerce. You can be more creative with your approach it’s all about getting the right formula for your brand.

Steps To Create A Effective Social Media Plan

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In today’s modern age of Internet and Social Media if there are still marketers who believe Social does not mean of much importance then they better check the stats.  More than 80% of Americans use Social media to communicate with each other. According to 2011 Social Media Marketing Industry Report 78% of marketers saw an increase in the website traffic by investing 6 hours a week in Social Media.

Even with all the statistics available for reference if you ask most marketers “How to link a Social Media Campaign with dollars and profit?” the answers coming are not that clear. For most of then the three challenges that they face with linking a Social Media Campaign to dollars are three things:

  • The first thing is how Social Media will make a difference to their business or brand.
  • How to measure the reach of a Social Media campaign once undertaken?
  • And last how to link Social Media with ROI?

Well below is a three step way which will help organizations to develop an effective Social Media Strategy but also to answer the above questions.

  1. Understanding and Listening to the Target Audience

The first step in Social Media is to understand the target audience and the best way to go about this is to listen to your audience as a brand. For a brand which has presence on Social Media there is lot of data available in terms of reviews, message boards, forums. It’s important that data which is relevant is used and from the correct channels. A brand which is a good listener will always get more from its customers not only in terms of reviews but also in terms of relationship with its customers. There are many ways brands can turn out be good listeners to name a few here are some commonly used methods by some of the most successful brands in Social Media.

  • Asking customers about their biggest achievements
  • Answering Questions on the most commonly received questions
  • Having Services which the audience is most commonly looking for

 

2.      Analyze and Develop

 

Once you have understood and listened to your target audience the next step in line would be to use all the data from step and start putting it into use.  The data from step one can be easily used by brands to analyze the following things

  • To identify who can be brand ambassadors for their brand are
  • Who are the top influencers for the brand
  • What type of content is most popular with the audience
  • How many followers are there across the various Social networks for the brand

 Along with analyzing the next step in having an effective Social Media plan would be to start developing an action plan for the content in picture and how to nurture the leads into the buying mode for the Social Media Marketing Campaign in picture. While developing an action plan towards the content its important to pay attention to very detail as this forms the foundation for the next step in picture for example

  • What type of Content would be right?
  • When to release the content and across which channels?
  • What will be acceptable and what will be not?
  • What would be the Call to action for the prospects?

 

3.      Respond and Monitor

Once you have understood your audience and analyzed and developed your Social Media plan the next step in the line should be to respond and monitor the results. There are different ways brands can respond to their audience. The best way to respond would be being where the audience is and responding to them via emails or blogs and build relationships with them. Start using Social Media to monitor the performance of your Social Media activity at each stage and start figuring out what’s working and what not.

Does you business have a Social Media plan if you think yes then feel free to share your thoughts with us and let us know what you think are the right steps for having a Social Media plan.

Social Media: Don’t Ignore The Power Of Social

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Social Media has set the tone for E-Commerce over the last five years. We now see brands using social media to promote and to do business. However there are still startups that have a doubt on whether they should use this approach to marketing or go with the traditional approach. In this article we let you know why social media is crucial for your business and why you should not leave this opportunity.

Every customer if they want to make an online purchase today they begin with a search. They Google, research, browse, read reviews and compare prices. They will ask opinions in their social circles to find out what people feel about the brand or if there are any better options than this. In such a case as a brand you can get a real time feedback from the consumer which can help you in understanding the market demands and how you should take your business ahead.

Imagine you are searching a restaurant at a location where you have not been before, as you are driving down the road if you notice billboards which direct you towards the restaurant I am sure that it will make u feel happy and relaxed as you are able to reach the place safely. The same is the case online if people are looking for a brand and they don’t find it there might be a feeling that the brand is not that serious on driving business or maybe it’s not that keen on having an online presence which could be a big drop off for your brand especially among the youth.

Having a presence on Social Media not only gives your brand the much required exposure but also gives you a chance to engage with your fans and reach to more potential consumers with the help of our fans.

Facebook statistics reveal that there are more than 400 million active users on Facebook and more than 50% of the users update their status on a daily basis. If we look at Twitter also which is probably a business tool rather than a social networking tool, the stats reveal that close to 50 millions tweets are tweeted per day. In fact in an article by E-Marketer it says that by 2012 67% of the US Internet population will be reading blogs once per month. According to a report from E-Consultancy and BigMouth Media, advertising on Social Media is expected to grow to $1.64B by 2013. The key thing over here once you go through these numbers is that the usage of Social Media is increasing and people are making a note of various things across the web. In such a scenario not having your presence on Social Media as a brand will only harm to you rather than doing any good.

Tips To Keep Your Fans Engaged on Facebook

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So your brand has a Facebook page and you have good community size, ever thought what next ? How do you plan to get the likes on the Facebook into actual sales and get the revenue that you are looking for? The secret to a successful Facebook page is a highly engaged community, an engaged fan who interacts with your page is developing a loyalty for your brand, by being actively involved in your page, they are aware of your product launches and special deals, and are therefore more likely to make the purchase. So how do we go about keeping the fan engaged is a question which comes across to many people? Here are some ways by which you can keep your fans engaged.

  1.  Provide The Human Touch and Be Creative : Facebook was not built for promoting business and neither are the people who like your brand their to help you make business, they are their because they want to talk with friends and family. So keep the human touch while posting your content, if you’re not sure what your customers like, ask them. Do not use automated services to post to your page, people easily find out such posts as they are highlighted with a third party icon. Post with a personality, feature photos and videos of staff members, and show another side of your organization. Most importantly make sure it’s relevant and timely.
  2. Initiate a Response and Keep it Short : Don’t write a thesis describing your product or while writing a status, keep in mind people like it when it’s short, remember they are not here to promote your product. Short posts have a clearer purpose and are much more likely to receive a response. Ask questions in your posts, ask for fan feedback, ask them to share your content, ask them to recommend your page to their friends. Get your fans involved and keep them engaged with your page this increases fan loyalty leading into more recommendations and sales.
  3. Run Contests and Take Feedback : To keep your fans on their toes hold contests every once in a while. A good contest is an excellent way to build some hype around your brand, add value to liking your page and reach a larger audience. Keep in mind that you follow the rules of Facebook while holding a contest. Use the built in Questions application by Facebook to get feedback from your fans, you can use this to get customers make decisions about your brand or your page. Make your wall a combination of your posts and posts from fans by allowing your audience to posy their data also.
  4. Use Facebook Demographics to Promote Your Brand : Keeping the same message for everyone won’t work for you so make use Facebook Demographics in identifying your target audience and change your message accordingly depending on the area. This is where your smartness in preparing the content for your audience has to come, a particular message which work for certain area but it may fail in other so work on strong on content creation.
  5. Have a Strong Content in Place : If you want to keep your fan active then along with all of the above things you will have to work on content that your fans can’t get anywhere else. Provide offers on a launch of new product that maybe available only to Facebook fans. Provide exclusive behind-the-scenes content during the launch of a product. Share links, video and photos, people are much more likely to read a link that has an interesting image than one that does not have. A good and well planned content increases the Virality of your page which in turn affects the sales.
  6. Be Consistent and Appreciate your Fans : Decide how you want to keep posting on your page; just for the sake of posting don’t keep posting everyday. Keep a plan in mind in that way your fans will be excited about your posts and will eagerly wait for it. Also appreciate your fans, thank them when you reach particular milestones for being involved with your brand. This in turn will prompt them to share your product with more people and increase your fan loyalty.

These are just few ways by which you can use Facebook to promote your product. If you have any other ways please feel free to share with us.

How To Use LinkedIn For Building Your Business?

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Over the last few years there has been a huge growth and popularity of social and business networking sites. People were skeptical initially thinking if these sites  would really work, this has all changed now with most people and businesses realizing that these networking channels have opened up opportunities that had not been available in the past. LinkedIn is the largest business networking site online, with over 120 million users and still growing. The real power of this business networking site is that it’s a powerful tool for building and maintaining relationships. Here are some tips on How you can use LinkedIn to promote your brand :

 

1) Define Yourself Clearly : The first and foremost thing before you go ahead and use LinkedIn features for building your business, is to start with creating a strong profile. A good profile will help you attract people’s attention, increase your visibility, and help you achieve better rankings in the search engines. As a direct seller, there’s a lot of value in achieving these three things. You should use words that clearly define you or your business, but, at the same time use keywords that are relevant to your industry and will allow others to easily find you.

2) Make Your Profile Visible : To strengthen the visibility of what is essentially your business profile, here are some quick tips :

  • Put up a professional-looking photo.
  • Make sure you link you website to your profile.
  • Put up a good Summary of what you do.
  • Promote your blog.

3) Use LinkedIn Groups : Grow your network by joining industry and alumni groups related to your business. Perhaps the greatest value of using LinkedIn for your business is its Groups feature, because here is where discussions happen, where people exchange ideas and information, and where relationships and connections really form. With the help of LinkedIn Groups  you can answer questions in Questions and Answers show expertise without a hint of self-promotion.

4) Write honest and valuable recommendations for your contacts. Don’t turn off your contacts by over promoting your brand.

5) Start and manage a group or fan page for your product, brand or business.

6) Use a combination of Social Platforms when someone asks a question in Twitter, respond in detail on LinkedIn and link to it from Twitter.

Truly, there’s a lot of value that LinkedIn can provide for your business. Once you really understand how to use this excellent platform, you can really take your brand to new heights, it has yet to reach. These are just few ways to go ahead and use this Social Platform you can be more creative if you want to but do not underestimate the power of this business platform. So if you haven’t gotten started, the right time to do so is now.

Strategy Building With Social Media and Content Marketing

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Social Media Marketing has set the tone for retailers over the last few years on marketing over the Internet. The launch of new social platforms has given rise to new marketing techniques adopted by brands to attract more customers, however the one thing that all brand have understood that at the end of the day if you want to attract more fans then the content of what you want to say needs to be good. The importance of telling a good and clear story has given a clear hint that Content Marketing will be the key in coming days; Content drives visitors to your website, so it makes sense to blend your content marketing efforts with your social media efforts for a more powerful strategy.

Before we look at how we can combine Social Media Marketing and Content Marketing lets try to understand what they actually stand for.

Social media marketing refers to the process of gaining traffic or attention through social media sites, whereas Content Marketing means creating and freely sharing informative content as a means of converting prospects into customers and customers into repeat buyers. If both the techniques are blended properly by brands then it can turn out to be a very good and profitable way of attracting more customers and driving more business. Lets try to see how these two marketing techniques can be used together to build a successful strategy.

  • No marketing technique will work if you don’t know who your target audience is and what are their likes and dislikes. Make use of Social Media analysis to understand your audience and start preparing an exhaustive list of topics for your audience based on their content. Find out what others in your area of businesses selling to the same market.
  • Once you know what type of audience you have based on your brand decide which Social channels you would like to use to promote your brand. Not every channel may work for you so decide which is the best mode for you to reach to your audience.
  • Do content Analysis to find out what is missing in your content before you present it to your audience. Use Social Media analysis to know what the audience is looking for and what they are currently getting from the market.
  • Invite experts from your industry to share their story through other content formats such as e Books.
  • Once you have shared your content with your audience use email or video to capture feedback and link this to their websites, blogs, and other social media profiles. This helps in driving more traffic to your website from other sources.
  • Use Infographics to illustrate your points, try making it attractive and colorful by using different data or by using animations.
  • Get content from different sources in your field and advise your readers to check them out by giving those URLS.
  • Structure and mange your content in a proper way. Monitor Social Media to understand which content is driving more traffic and eliminate the unwanted part and recycle the content which is giving you results.

At the end of the day what all brands needs to remember is that in today world of high speed its very easy for everyone to connect with each other using various Social platforms. In order for a brand to be successful the key would be going social and sharing the right content across using the right strategies to get the job done