Option to ‘Save’ content to check out later on Facebook

So Facebook has upgraded its user interface with a good addition. Adding “Save”, A Read-It-Later List For Links, Places, And Media Pages.

The idea of Facebook Save is pretty simple. It allows users to create a list of Places, Events, Movies, TV Shows, Music and Articles they can check out later. It’s basically for those who are too busy to go through all of the news on a Facebook News Feed, setting stories aside to be read later at the user’s discretion. The links saved are completely discreet and only visible to the user.

Let us have a look how Facebook Save actually works:

When ever your Facebook News Feed is refreshed and new stories pop up, for instance you have liked a page which reviews new cars, you can easily click on the drop down menu button in the form of an arrow on the top right corner of that news and then save the article for a later time and this works for both the mobile and personal computers. But there is one thing to be remembered regarding saved links, you need to have live internet access in order to open those saved links as Facebook does not cache the saved content. Another good thing about all this is that Facebook reminds you of all the saved links in your News Feed.

save-for-later

Save might not be caching the read-it-later feature, instead the main focus may be on teaching Facebook what you and everyone thinks are high-quality stories and should be displayed in the News Feed. The Saved list is organized by category.

screen-shot-2014-07-21-at-10-13-46-am

All in all this add-on seems especially relevant now that the average News Feed has become so cluttered and the chronological order of posts is almost lost.

Although Facebook is too late to add this feature after the success of Pocket but none the less we are happy to have it 🙂 

 

Social-Media Sources of Testimonials for Your Business

Every good organization has a page dedicated to testimonials by consumers so that every person who opens the website can read about the products benefits and their awesomeness. People usually read these testimonials to make up their minds about the products and services, whether they satisfy everyone’s needs and wants. These testimonials are reviews from those people who have used the products and services.

Testimonials

Let us have a look how social media can help you boost your business buy getting feedback from people in the form of positive testimonials.

Facebook Reviews

Now a days every company maintains a Facebook page because it is the best source of free marketing and advertising of products and services. Companies put up their products with images and gather information from customers and consumers, any positive reviews are then shifted to the company website on the testimonials page. When you set up your company page with Facebook, it automatically gives you the option of reviews. You can share your products and services on your timeline or share it publicly so that people can view it for a feedback.

YouTube Video Reviews

Everyone has heard that a Picture is worth a Thousand Words! What about a Video? Sounds interesting right. What if your customers use your products and services and the post a video review for those products and services? It will definitely give your business a great boost because people tend to watch videos more rather than reading a long paragraph. So you can always give a start-up line and then post the video link in your testimonials or even you can make a separate tab for video reviews which will make finding the required product video testimonial easy for new customers. Another option is you can make your own companies YouTube official page and ask people to give reviews about the products they have used. Then you can favorite the most positive ones and share on your company website.

LinkedIn Recommendations

when you run a company you have many employees who work with their clients on your behalf. This can benefit you because the individual employees if working excellently, can gather recommendations from their clients which in turn you can use on your testimonials page on company website. People can always visit the company profile and employee page on LinkedIn for the authenticity of the recommendation and testimonial. More employees leads to more recommendations.

Twitter Tweets

Using twitter to gather recommendations is very healthy for your business. You can hashtag your company name and its products and keep monitoring the re-tweets and which tweets are favorite. You can ask people to tweet anything that relevant to your company and products, this way your business will have more marketing and lead to new customers and target market.

Google Alerts

One of the best ways to keep track of what people are saying about your company and products. Not everyone who uses your products and services comes and writes about it on your official social media pages or company profile. Many people use private blogs to review products which sometimes go unnoticed by the company. You can set up Google alerts by mentioning your name, your company name, your products and services so that whenever someone is writing about your products you get an immediate alert about it.

The most important thing about reviews and testimonials is that with good you also get bad. You cannot always monitor your public pages and forums and maybe someone writes something negative about your company’s product behind your back. What to do in that case, you should respond to it positively and try to solve the problem because this will portray an image about you and your company that you care about your customers and you will never abandon them.

How Social Media Will Help You Grow Business

Three steps to your Social Media action plan

People often don’t understand what I do when I say I am social media engagement specialist. They think that it is only about posting on Facebook and Twitter but why will anyone need to hire someone to do that? What type of job is it?

Let’s explore what is social media to business and why is it important for success in this age. Guess what business owners are using right now to connect with clients? Yup. Social media!

When we googled the question “Will social media help me?” we were greeted with 1.6 billion suggestions. Had we added the word ‘business’ to it, they would still be few millions. Many of those will be repeating the same thing. Still it’s clear that getting started on social media is a question that business owners are looking for an answer to. Facebook campaigns, blog posts, news articles, corporate videos and more – again, everyone is looking to find the right way to do the social media.

What is the secret ingredient?

If you ask me, the secret is simple: You might want to start right away just like everything else that you do in your business. It is helpful to have a plan with measurable milestones and results. I was always amused by the idea of connecting with so many people virtually. I got more and more interested, every time I explored a new aspect of social media. I have a hobby to try new networks which I come across, just to study new ways of spreading virtual messages. Not kidding! Now being a social media engagement specialist, I know it’s not a myth or exaggeration that your social presence online is a representative of your company.

It was a challenge for me to make others understand that posting JUST anything on social media isn’t social media marketing.   You need to be specific to attract right kind of people. You can’t afford to say ‘what’s in your mind’ without thinking. It should be what others want to read because people will judge you accordingly!

Social Media2 (2)

Step 1: Why should your business want to be on Social Media? > Define your Social Media purpose

From having discussions with clients to monitoring conversations online, the overarching theme that prevents businesses from using social media is lack of understanding about why they NEED to be here! The typical responses we get include, “Our competitors are here,” “Because everyone’s talking about it”, “We want to be on everywhere.” The problem is that they fail to dig deep into bigger questions they need to answer:

  • What are your competitors doing on social media?
  • How can you differentiate yourself from the competitors with social media?
  • Will you be able to identify impact it will be have on your business?
  • Will you measure increased awareness, number of new leads through social media, heightened participation of potential clients and will you find out if it changes your bottom line?
  • Are you reaching your target audience?
  • Have you identified who that is?
  • Will you enjoy working with social media or is it just an extra chore for you?

Being able to answer these will allow you to move to next step.

Step 2: Where do you need to be? > Determine your Social Media channels

There are literally hundreds of social networks online along with power hitters Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn. Not to forget the forums, niche networks, community blog networks and more. No wonder so many businesses have trouble spotting the right path.

  • Define your market segment – Where is your target market in social networks? Are the business professionals on LinkedIn or every day users on Facebook?
  • Who do you want to be connected with? – Unless you are selling coke or pampers, you don’t need mass audience! Be specific. The closer you stick with your offerings, the fewer followers you will attract. But they will be delighted to connect with you.
  • Stick with maximum 3 to 4 networks – Work only with a number of networks than you can consistently maintain. Only if you can add meaningful content publish your business page on that network.

Step 3: How do you measure success= > Map out goals and success metrics

Try to define your goals and measure the success of your social media use. What do you want to achieve out of it? Quantitatively measure your efforts in terms of Likes/Follower growth or increase in frequency of engagement or brand mentions or amount of content to be shared etc.

  • Set up a calendar – Set up a social media calendar and break it down into results pattern like monthly, quarterly, biannually, annually .
  • Analyse results periodically – Study the difference in website traffic. Does traffic increase and which channels bring more traffic. Google Analytics will do the job!
  • Determine acceptable growth vs. ideal growth – Compare if you are at least reaching the former i.e. minimum growth you expected to achieve through social media. And how far behind are you lagging from ideal growth? An indicator could be your turnover that is generated through Social Media or leads you receive through referrals on Social Media (email does not count!).
  • Analyse the cost of implementation – Compare cost of implementation to the expected return (increased customer loyalty, word of mouth marketing, brand perception)

Remember content is the key! Stand out from the crowd through your content.

What is your greatest challenge when it comes to Social Media Marketing for your business?

 

Need my assistance in social media marketing? Email me at nabehalatif@live.com