People don’t buy from companies.  They buy from people.  Somewhere along the purchasing decision a person is involved: either a friend or colleague that makes a recommendation or a good salesperson or helpful customer service or even a question answered on an online forum or network.  Even online people may purchase from a company once without a human interaction, but it’s probably the person-to-person contact somewhere along the line that brings them back.  People make a company what it is.

Jim Connolly’s post, Social media rock stars? Get real!, reminds us of how important it is to build a community – one with relationships and conversations instead of racking up followers:

Those numbers represent people. Real people. Real people, with real lives, real needs and real dreams.  Business is all about people too.  If we forget that, and just go for the numbers, we place a very low ceiling on our potential.

I think that too often businesspeople get caught up in the numbers – how many followers, how many retweets, etc. that they forget that the power of social media is in the ability to have conversations with more people.  There’s so much to learn from customers and potential customers about what they want and how they feel about your brand.  There’s also an opportunity to help out and build long term relationships.

Something like 80% of people trust peer recommendations over company advertisements.  Even if the relationships you’re building don’t lead directly to sales, they may lead to one down the line – when someone asks for a recommendation.

How are you building relationships through social media?

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Technorati tags: customer service, relationships, social media, business, marketing strategy, marketing

I was in the grocery store the other day and this nice older gentleman was driving around his shopping cart.  As he passed people he would say hello or stop to chat for a minute.  I doubt he knew many of them, but just about everyone responded with a smile and walked a way a bit happier.  Think about your favorite businesses.  Do you go back just because of the quality of their products or do the people that work there make a difference?

BiggbyBob has built a network of coffee shop franchises (Biggby’s) based on a friendly, welcoming place to have a cup of coffee or work out of the office.  Every time you go in, you’re greeted by the staff and you can stay as long as you want (although I think they require you to purchase something, which is reasonable).  BiggbyBob uses social media to build relationships and have conversations with customers, but he also travels around to individual franchised stores to converse with customers in person (and franchisees).

Our favorite local bagel shop, Blazing Bagels, operates under similar circumstances.  A loyal group of regulars comes in every week to get a bagel and coffee and have a chat with each other and the owner.  Another local favorite, Pastries by Ellen, also has a friendly and welcoming environment.  You’re always welcomed with a smile and treated with respect.

Do all these places have great food and drinks?  Yes.  Could you get similar food somewhere else?  Probably.  But there’s something to be said for treating customers like people and being friendly.  You give them a reason to want to come back.  Sure, your competitive advantage may be in your awesome soup, but someone else is probably making better soup.  People will be loyal to the places where they’ve built a relationship, and they’ll tell their friends (free advertising!).  Being friendly can go a long way – and it costs so little.

What are your favorite places?  What makes them stand out?

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Technorati tags: customer service, usability, customer experience, business, marketing strategy, marketing

I run into this quite a bit – a client who wants to improve conversions on their website (which is good), but during our conversation they’ll say something like “I can’t seem to get people to pay for this” Huge warning flag!  If people aren’t willing to pay for your product or service then you’re either 1) charging too much or 2) don’t fulfill a need or 3) aren’t explaining things in a way that makes sense to the customer.  Upon further investigation, it often is #3, which is good, since that’s not too difficult to fix.

Since most small businesses write their own marketing and website copy, they’re often thinking about what they think is valuable about a product.  The problem is, customers don’t care about what you think is valuable.  They want to know what’s in it for them.  What benefits to the customer does your product provide?  What needs does it fulfill?  Specs and features and dimensions are all well and good – if the customer cares about those sorts of things.  You have to explain everything in a way that makes sense to the customer.

If you’re having difficulty with selling your products or services online, try re-writing your text and marketing message to focus on the customer needs.  Once you’ve rewritten it, try asking some customers what they think (you can do that at any point – and should).  Sometimes the best way to improve something is to ask those it’s intended for.

Still stuck?  Try filling in the blank:  Our product will help you ____ by  _______.

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Technorati tags: customer service, usability, customer experience, business, marketing strategy, marketing

Kevin from KidsDesk.net asks: Do Twitter Giveaways work?  While it’s hard to get actual numbers from Twitter giveaways and contests, they do seem to work for most of the businesses that use them.  Here are some guidelines and tips to avoid breaking Twitter’s terms of service and to make the giveaway work…

What’s Your Goal?

Is your goal to increase awareness of your website?  To signup for a newsletter?  Figure out what you want to ask people to do to enter the giveaway.  Most Twitter giveaways just have people follow and then retweet about the contest – meaning their goal is to increase followers, which is fine, just keep that goal in mind if you have something else you’d like to do.

Don’t Anger Twitter

Make sure you follow Twitter’s Guidelines for Running a Contest on Twitter.  Don’t have the same thing tweeted over and over again (duplicate tweets from the same person is a no-no) – let people enter only once.  Don’t encourage the creation of multiple accounts – make a statement that using multiple accounts will cause disqualification.  It’ll probably easier to track entries if your username is included in the tweet (have them include @yourname).

Work on Your Tweets First

Your profile needs to already have interesting tweets if you want people to continue to follow you after the giveaway (if you’re having them follow as part of the contest).  This is where the 80-20 rule comes into play: 80% of your tweets should be informative and interesting to your audience (and not be about you), then 20% can be about your blog posts and promotions (and what you had for lunch, although that’s not interesting to most people, except maybe your mom).

Don’t Be Annoying

Set guidelines that limit the annoyance of the giveaway to your audience (and to the followers of people who will be playing).  Don’t run contests very often.  And keep the contest short. 1-3 days is about the limit of people’s attention.

Worthwhile Giveaway

In order for people to be willing to enter the giveaway, it has to be something worthwhile.  It looks like at least $50-$100 for smaller businesses – and probably something tangible instead of a discount on your products.

Use Your Network

In order for contests to be successful, they need to be seen by those who have active followers.  This means you’ll probably want to reach out to some key influencers in your network and ask them to retweet your contest tweets.

Conclusion

I’ve seen some fairly successful Twitter contests by both larger and smaller companies.  The key seems to be running the contest in a responsible way with a giveaway that is valuable to the audience.

If you’ve run a successful Twitter contest or giveaway, we’d love to hear how it went for you – what tips do you have?

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Technorati tags: twitter, web strategy, strategy, marketing, twitter contests, business

Facebook provides some pretty interesting statistics for business pages.  You’ve probably seen a little box on your page (viewable only by page admins) titled Insights with a number (and some stars) for Post Quality, the number of Interactions this week and the most active country.  Cool.  But what does it all mean?

If you click on the See All in the upper corner of the Insights box, or you access your Insights by editing your page and clicking on All Page Insights under the Insights box on the right, you’ll be taken to a page with some graphs and charts.  Let’s break it down:

At the top of the page, you’ll see some numbers that look like this:

This will tell you how many interactions you’ve had this week (this is any time someone posts a comment, likes, shares or posts something to your wall – basically any time they do something other than read your page), which is further broken down into how many likes (when people like a post), how many comments (on your posts), and how many wall posts (you’ve posted, not total). In the upper right corner, you’ll see a number with some stars – post quality.  This is a measurement of how engaging your content is – how many shares, likes and comments you get on how many posts you’ve done in the past 7 days (it doesn’t count any posts by others).

Next you’ll see some charts and graphs for fans who interact with your page:

The chart on the left will show you how many interactions, posts, likes, and comments there have been per day for the past 7 days.  You can also select to view charts for interactions per post, post quality, posts, discussion posts, reviews and mentions for the past 7 days.  This can give you some feedback on which posts have done better than others and what your fans are engaging with.  On the right you’ll see some demographic data about the fans who are interacting and posting on your page, which may help you tailor your message (and possibly your product).

At the bottom is another chart and graph for total fans of your page:

The graph on the left gives you an indication of how many fans you’ve gained and lost over the past 7 days, but also can show you new/removed fans, top countries, demographics, page views, unsubscribes/resubscribes and media consumption.  On the right you’ll see demographics for all your fans (whereas the top chart shows demographics for those that have interacted with your content in the last 7 days).  If there is a large demographic of fans who isn’t interacting, you may have an opportunity to try to tailor a message towards them.

Hope that helps give you some basics for understanding Facebook page statistics.

How do you use your Facebook Page Insights?

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Technorati tags: social media, analytics, statistics, marketing, Facebook, social networking, business