Steinar Knutsen » twitter

7 Tools to Increase Social Media Efficiency and Save A Ton of Time

Steinar — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 01:14:33 +0000

Nearly everyone agrees that social media is a great way to reach and communicate with your market online. Weather it’s through Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn, direct access to your target market has never been easier. The challenge, of course, is finding the time and resources to make the process efficient and effective. Following is my list of 7 Tools to Increase Social Media Efficiency:

1. Google Reader

This one might not be so obvious, but Google Reader is a great tool for market intelligence and brand management when it comes to social media. Basically, Google Reader allow you to subscribe to the RSS feeds on other websites, blogs, Facebook Pages and Twitter Searches that you want to track or find relevant to your market niche. You can also subscribe to Google Blog or News results containing your name, product or brand. Finally, sign up for BackTweets and track Twitter updates that link to your content.

Now you have a powerful one-stop-shop for getting up to speed on the latest news, trends, and brand mentions in your niche. Now, use this for inspiration in your next blog post, reply to people’s comments about you, and share links with your social network.

Congratulations! You just saved hours a week by setting up a proper system that pushes your content to you!

2. WordPress “Press This”

“Press This” is a often overlooked bookmarklet that comes with every WordPress blog. Essentially, it allows you to highlight text on a website and then easily quote the content in a blog post. So instead of copying and pasting text and links back and forth between a webpage and your WordPress post editor, you can now do it with the single click of a button. This is a huge time saver!!

3. Ping.fm

If you’re like most people using social media today you have accounts on multiple social media networks. Ping.fm allows you to update multiple platforms at once without having to go to each individual account. The beauty of this system is that you have central control over how information is distributed.

For example, when this blog post is published, Ping.fm will automatically send a link to Twitter, Facebook, linkedIn, and Delicious. If at any point I decide to change my distribution strategy all I only have to login to my Ping.fm account and make the changes there. This is much more efficient than re-routing my content on each individual network.

4. Smart Phone (iPhone, Droid, Blackberry, etc)

Today’s smart phones provide users with many of the same capabilities available to them on a laptop or desktop computer. However, most smart phones also have cameras and GPS capabilities that add visual interest and location-based information to your social media updates. The tools are so easy to use that literally within less than 60 seconds you can take a picture of something, tag your location, and update all of your networks with just a few clicks.

To do this from your desktop or laptop computer would take considerably longer and would be virtually impossible to complete using a standard cell phone.

5. TweetDeck or Hootsuite

Tweetdeck and Hootsuite suite are two applications that allow you to control your Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn updates from one single location. This is very helpful because you no longer need to log into each individual account to post an update or to see what others have to say. Another great feature of these services is the ability to schedule or timestamp your updates for future release.

For example, if you knew that next week you were going to be announcing a new product, you could schedule your updates over the course of the next few days all at once to correspond with the upcoming product launch. This saves you the time and hassle of manually updating your accounts every day with Marketing copy you already have available now.

6. InstaPaper

InstaPaper is a free and very simple online tool that allows you to save a webpage or article for later reference. Rather than printing the article or saving it to your bookmarks or favorites where he can easily get lost, InstaPaper keeps everything organized and accessible across multiple devices by storing information in the cloud. This is particularly important if you don’t have time to read the article now and/or you would like to reference the article in an upcoming blog post.

For example, I can save something using the InstaPaper bookmarklet on my iMac desktop and it will be instantly available for viewing and sharing within my iPad InstaPaper App. Dozens of third-party applications are supported and the functionality continues to expand, so check out InstaPaper when you get a chance.

7. Posterous

Posterous is a terrific blogging platform of sorts that allows you to easily capture text, images & audio and then share this content across multiple social media networks automatically. The real differentiator is that you can e-mail content to your Posterous account, and it will use a smart filtering process to determine where and how that content is posted on your blog.

For example, you just took a picture on your cellphone and would like to post it to your Posterous account, but you would also like that picture to get posted to your Flickr account at the same time. In this case, you would e-mail your picture from your phone to Flickr@Posterous.com and Posterous would take care of the rest. Again, trying to do this manually would take considerably longer.

There are so many other tools and approaches that you could incorporate into your process to increase your social media efficiency. I hope you learned at least one new idea in this post. What other tools are you using that help make your social media life easier?

More Evidence that Social Media is Critical to Online Business Strategy

Steinar — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 01:14:33 +0000

I help companies map out their Internet marketing strategies and one component is often the use of social media. A common response is that their customers do not use social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. I often argue this point, given the growing numbers and expanding demographics of those using social media.

Currently, three quarters of Internet users worldwide visit a social network or blog when they go online — that’s a 24% increase over last year.

Joe Average (the international version) spends 66% more time on these sites than he did a year ago — for example, your average user spent 6 hours on these sites in April 2010, while last year he spent 3 hours, 31 minutes.

Facebook, YouTube and Wikipedia make an appearance among the world’s most popular brands.

via How the World Is Spending Its Time Online [STATS]

If your company is considering social media as a tool to reach your market online, engage with existing customers, or expand your brand to connect with new prospects, I recommend you get started with three platforms: Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

Facebook is the leading online social network with over 500M users. Facebook Pages are a great way for a business to leverage this volume. Pages can be custom branded to fit within your other online assets and provide an excellent channel to offer a new communications channel to your online community.

Twitter is the leading microblogging platform. Currently Google indexes Twitter content into their “Updates” results and it’s believe to provide future value in how search engines determine webpage rank. In other words, if you’re engaged with customers on Twitter, it’s an indication that your website has value and may have some level of influence over others. There certainly are a number of tracking tools that indicate this is directionally true.

YouTube is owned by Google and is the leading online video sharing site. It provides companies with the opportunity to engage with customers using video rather than static text and images. Statistics suggest that video is more engaging and website visitor retention rates are higher when video is present. Video doesn’t need to be a high production excercise and I recommend you take a more casual, conversational approach with video when using it to speak directly to your customers.

Not convinced yet that social media is right for your company? What’s holding you back?

Record and publish online video with no additional hardware or software with screenr.com

Steinar — Wed, 19 May 2010 17:17:44 +0000

Sharing video content online is something we would all like to do and screenr.com makes it easy. It’s basically a free web app for simple screen casting. It’s great if you want to narrate a powerpoint presentation or share something you’ve found online via video.

Details: Up to 5 minutes, audio recording, download finished video, save or export to YouTube, embed link and custom URL’s for linking. Plus, it’s integrated with Twitter so it’s easy to share with your friends.

Check it out at screenr.com.

Share iPad links on Twitter and Facebook with Ping.fm bookmark in Safari browser

Steinar — Fri, 07 May 2010 23:19:21 +0000

Here’s an easy technique to share iPad Safari browser links on Twitter and Facebook with a Ping.fm bookmark.

One of the most popular tasks in twitter is sharing links with your followers. On a laptop or standard computer this is fairly simple since you can just cut and paste from the browser into your favorite Twitter client, such as Tweetdeck or Hootsuite.

You can do the same on the iPad but Ping.fm makes the process significantly easier by adding a Ping This bookmark in your iPad Safari bookmarks. I use MobileMe , so the Ping This bookmark is already there from my iMac and Macbook Pro.

What do you think? Easy right?

Audio and Video: How to podcast from your iPad and publish on WordPress with AudioBoo App

Steinar — Tue, 04 May 2010 14:53:20 +0000

The iPad serves many purposes, but for me it’s about marketing and finding new and different ways to leverage mobile technology to grow my business and engage my market online. New media has been especially interesting and I’ve confirmed the iPad is great for recording audio to create podcast episodes which can translate into new WordPress blog posts.

Listen or Download

I’ve written previous posts on how to post audio directly to WordPress from iPhone, so I won’t repeat everything here.

I love using my iPhone to podcast with AudioBoo and now I can do the same with my iPad. It’s a a great free app from the Apple iTunes store that allows you to record up to 5 minutes of audio, share on Twitter and tag for use in other platforms.

Personally, I use the AudioBoo RSS feed and WP-O-Matic WordPress plugin to automatically import my audio episodes into WordPress as individual posts. It’s great when you want to get content out on the fly and don’t necessarily have time to write a post or record a video.

What do you think? Have you tried AudioBoo? Does it seem like a good fit for your audience?

What

Find Balance in Your Social Media Communications Strategy for a More Rewarding Experience

Steinar — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 15:36:05 +0000

Clients often ask me what they should tweet about once I set them up on Twitter. It’s a valid question, given that most new Twitter users shut down only days after getting started. The fact is, most of us are not wired to opening talk to strangers and find the fear of criticism paralyzing. We’re all victim to this at some degree.

Hopefully, the following 3 components will help get your head around how to approach your social media communications strategy. Start with the component that feels most comfortable and grow from there to create a complete picture of yourself for others to follow.

3 Essential Content Types for Effective Social Media Communication

Talk about …

Yourself – this gives your readers some clue about you as a person. People like to talk with people so make sure to inject a little about your personality, hobbies and daily life.
Your company, product or services – at the end of the day, if your goal is to sell something, find new customers, or engage with existing customers you must talk about what you have to offer. This is basic, but is a must.
Your industry or community – social media is about community so get involved. Something happening in town you think others might find interesting – share it with your followers? Developing news in your industry? Serve as the go-to-person within your niche for the latest news and share information as it comes across your desk.

WARNING: do only one of these three things and you risk turning people off.

Only talk about yourself and people will get bored or even annoyed.
Only talk about your company and you’ll come across as a pushy salesperson.
Only talk about your community or industry and you’ll just be a news source.

The trick is to have a balanced approach that provides your followers with a complete picture of you as a person, member of the community and provider of valuable products and services.

What do you think? Does this make sense as an approach to execute your social media communications strategy?

Use Safari, MobileMe and Ping.fm to share browser bookmarks and content across iMac, iPhone and iPad

Steinar — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 12:53:45 +0000

Here’s a quick video to illustrate how I use Safari, MobileMe and Ping.fm to share browser bookmarks and content across my iMac, iPhone and iPad.

Why do I take this approach?

MobileMe syncs Safari bookmarks across any Apple device you setup with MobileMe and Safari
Safari is a great browser - fast, reliable, and compliant with most of the latest website components
I constantly switch between devices and need consistent access to the same bookmarks
Ping.fm allows you to centrally manage how you share and distribute content. Rather than setting up share controls in individual applications like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, I prefer to centrally control the content from my blog and use Ping.fm to handle the distribution.

What do you think? Do you see value in using Safari, MobileMe and Ping.fm to share browser bookmarks and content across multiple Apple devices?

PS – here’s how I made that finger cursor mouse on my Mac

Finding your Rhythm for Blogging, Social Media and Engaging Customers Online

Steinar — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 20:38:51 +0000

Whether you are new to blogging and social media or have been at it for a while, finding your rhythm can be a challenge and something that requires continuous improvement. This is especially true as the tools and platforms change in relation to your marketing strategy for engaging customers online.

This is my 100th post on this blog, so I thought it would be fitting to review my daily process. Let’s start with my goals.

My blogging and social media goals:

Stay informed of the latest news, trends and topics within my niche
Connect with other marketers, customers, and folks I find interesting
Share my thoughts and those of others with my network
Deliver valuable content to build my network, engage my market and grow my business online

Daily blogging, social media, and market engagement process:

I use Google Reader to find the latest news and keep my finger on the pulse of what happening within my niche. I subscribe to dozens of news sources, popular blogs and Google searches to find relevant articles, with which I can share, comment on, or use as inspiration for my next blog post. I usually check Google Reader 2-3 times a day for 5 minutes each and complete 1-2 actions as a result.
I use this blog as the main source for content creation and distribution. Creating content on my own domain allows me to maintain full control. Sure I post information on Facebook and Twitter, but anything with substantial content resides on my blog. I publish new posts every 1-2 days.
I use the WordPress ping.fm plugin to automatically share my blog RSS feed with Facebook, Twitter, Delicious, and a few other popular social media and bookmarking sites. Again, this allows me to maintain control rather than setting up 3rd party sites to receive my RSS feed. If I ever want to turn off my stream, I can control this from one central dashboard in ping.fm. Not everything flows through ping.fm – only content that I want to share with my entire network.
My iPhone is my Internet Marketing Remote Control. I can manage Twitter, check Google Reader, update WordPress posts, reply to comments on my blog, check in with Facebook friends and fans, snap images and record & publish podcast episodes from my iPhone with the click of a button. Of course, I can also use email and talk on the phone.
At night, I like to use Google Reader to answer questions on Twitter from people looking for help. I have several dozen search queries set up and RSS feeds organized in Google Reader to make this simple. Answering people’s questions on Twitter allows my to meet new people, learn something new, and share content I find helpful.

Keys to Success with Blogging and Social Media

The keys to successfull blogging and social media vary, depending on your particular situation. Here are a few things I find helpful:

Write original content. It’s OK to quote others, but the majority of your content should be original.
Find a frequency of engagement that suits you and be consistent.
Reply to comments, messages, and mentions quickly.
Write as if you were talking with your reader, but keep search engine optimization in mind.
Proactively promote your content by leveraging your RSS feed and providing links for people to find you.
Have a content creation strategy to help define what you will talk about and how that unfolds over time.

I hope you find this helpful as you continue to define or improve your process for blogging and engaging your market online through social media.

Any thoughts? What tools and process do you follow to increase your efficiency and effectiveness?

4 ways to use Google Reader to track your industry, engage your market and monitor your brand

Steinar — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 22:54:27 +0000

As many know, Google Reader is one of my favorite tools to help establish yourself as a market leader online. In this audio post I discuss the 4 ways Google Reader can help you track your industry, engage your market and monitor your brand.

Listen or Download

Four advantages of Google Reader

Ability to track your industry by subscribing to popular blogs or RSS feeds that contain the latest news, trends and product information
Ability to share information with your social network via share button, shared custom Google Reader RSS feed or email link
Ability to save searches from Twitter to easily identify opportunity to engage with people asking for help on topics you understand
Ability to track mentions of you, your company, your brand or your products and service so you can jump in the conversation early and often.

How do you use Google Reader? What other online tools do you use to accomplish these or similar tasks?

What does your Twitter psychological profile say about you?

Steinar — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 13:12:34 +0000

I have been doing some research on tools to analyze customer sentiment on social media networks and ran across TweetPsych which maps your psychological profile versus other Twitter users.

My results are pretty accurate based on my interests, work, and stream of content I share on Twitter. I’m most interested in Internet marketing, SEO, and new media and specialize in consulting, teaching and generally helping others learn how to leverage the Internet to grow their business. This comes accross clearly when you look at the TweetPsych analysis.

Visit TweetPsych to view your profile.

What do you think? Do you find it useful have this kind of Twitter psychological profile information?

The Future of the URL Shortener and All Those Links We Are Creating

Steinar — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 13:02:04 +0000

Everyone is getting into the URL shortening game these days. Google, YouTube, and Facebook are just a few joining the likes of the established players such as Bit.ly. And now Microsoft is jumping in. But there’s something weird about their URL.

via Fa.il: Bing’s URL Shortener Is Longer Than Bing’s Own Domain.

Seems like every link you see these days has been shortened by one of the popular URL shorteners, such as bit.ly or tinyurl. These services are great, especially when using a social network like Twitter where messages are limited to 140 characters.

It was inevitable that Microsoft would get in on the game, but it raises an important question. What happens to all those links when one of these URL shortener services goes under?

I see a couple major implications:

all your links old become broken
any search engine optimization benefit you enjoyed would now vanish

If you are a casual user of the Internet and social media, this is probably no big deal. But companies or individuals investing in the business of driving traffic online should beware. The rapid proliferation of URL shorteners should be a clue that ultimately some will not survive.

And then what?

Do you use URL shorteners? Have you considered the potential risks of handing control of your links over to a 3rd party?

Facebook Via – Twitter Retweet Meets Facebook Allowing Friends to Easily Share Content

Steinar — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 13:55:04 +0000

It was only launched last night, but I’m already seeing use of Facebook’s new share feature or “via”. It basically allows you to share links from your friends’ posts, add your own commentary and give credit to your friend’s original post.

Generally speaking I think this will go over well, due to the limited nature of the simple “Like” feature and closed in nature of “comments.” By allowing friends to share and comment on each others’ content, Facebook is encouraging many-to-many conversations, like those taking place on Twitter.

We’ve long speculated as to when Facebook might get its own version of Twitter’s Retweet, and it appears that the time is now. This evening, the site rolled out a “via” feature that lets you repost another user’s shared items, with a “via” link attached for attribution.

via Facebook’s Version of the Retweet Has Arrived.

No doubt, anyone who owns a business should be delighted by the improvement if you’re leveraging Facebook to grow your business, since most of the updates businesses post on Facebook include a link.

What do you think? Have you tried the new “share via” features yet?

5 ways to leverage social media to better engage customers

Steinar — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 16:31:46 +0000

Engaging customers through social media is not a trend, it is part of human nature. People simply want to feel like they have a voice, especially when dealing with a company they do business with.

This quote from eMarketer reinforces the idea that companies marketing on social media platforms need to take this to heart and make the extra effort to truly engage with their market:

Most businesses have realized that when it comes to social networks like Twitter or Facebook, simply broadcasting content isn’t quite enough. Consumers want companies to engage with them on social networks — not because they want to have a relationship, per say, with a brand of soap or shampoo, but because they appreciate the opportunity to give feedback on products, receive meaningful information from brands, and catch the occasional bargain, among other things.

via The eMarketer Blog.

Simple ways to engage customers with social media:

Actively search Twitter for people asking questions about your niche. For example search “how do i” [insert industry keywords]. Think of other leading indicators to surface questions and answer them directly.
Set up a blog search alert on Google and respond to any blog posts that mention your company name or brand. Include a link to your website or social media platform of choice.
Blog about your industry and your market. Invite customers to comment. Don’t edit the comments. Don’t hide the comments. Make the dialogue open and honest.
Setup a site similar to my Starbucks Idea and invite customers to provide innovative ideas. Make your customers part of the solution.
Reward customers that actively engage with you online somehow. Don’t make it some formal program. Make it a surprise and don’t publicize it. Let them do the promotion for you. That’s the power of social media

What do you think? How can companies leverage social media to better engage customers?

Leveraging events to drive SEO traffic to your blog (Audio)

Steinar — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 00:42:23 +0000

Listen or Download

Upcoming events are a great opportunity for you to leverage keywords related to that event and drive SEO traffic to your blog.

If you can, research an event within your niche and identify 2-3 long-tail keyword phrases that a potential reader might use to search for information on Google. Write a few blog posts about the event and use these keywords in your title, post text, meta keywords, and meta description. Follow up your post with a link in Twitter, Digg, Delicious, StumbleUpon and your other favorite social media and bookmarking sites.

In my experience, if there is little competition for the event I can usually score a top 3 position in Google if I choose my keywords correctly. There are several tools to conduct keyword research, but I suggest starting with Google Keyword Tool to familiarize yourself on the topic.

Although events come and go, the benefit of optimizing for them is the ability to attract new followers within your niche. Give it a try – it’s actually a bit fun.

What’s your experience leveraging events to drive SEO traffic to your blog? Any success or other tips to share?

Twitter Search RSS Feeds to Find Customers and Blog Content (Video)

Steinar — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 12:09:15 +0000

In this video I show you how to use Twitter Search to find people in your niche, answer questions, and find new content for your next blog post.

In particular I illustrate how to:

search twitter for leading indicators of questions
use exact phrase match to narrow in on the right tweets
save the RSS feeds to your RSS aggregator
leverage Twitter questions to build your following, knowledge, and business

UPDATE: if you want to exclude Tweets that include links, simply add -http to your search. This will weed out Tweets that look like user questions but are potentially links to an answer of some sort. Here’s an example:

I hope you found this useful. I know it’s been a great approach for me.

You else do you conduct real-time online market research? What other techniques can you share that work?

Getting funny looks when you mention Twitter. We can all relate. (Audio)

Steinar — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 22:52:12 +0000

Listen or Download

The fact is, many business owners still do not understand the power of social media and Twitter in particular. Those active in social media marketing can easily point to at least one if not several businesses that have derived some benefit as a result of their engagement.

Publish audio to WordPress post with iPhone via email (Audio)

Steinar — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 18:39:55 +0000

This is a follow up to my previous post in which I surface a series of questions to consider when publishing audio to your blog or website.
Publish Audio to Wordpres with iPhone

UPDATE: Here are full details on
How to post audio directly to WordPress from iPhone

In this audio post I describe how I am posting audio to WordPress with the following applications:

- VR+ iPhone application to record in MP3 format
- Posterous.com to forward the incoming audio file
- WordPress as the final posting location of my audio file

This results is a post that is both browser and mobile friendly. Time to post from start to finish takes about 2 minutes and is automatically shared via Ping.fm on Twitter and my other social media networks. Have you experimented with audio on your blog? What’s working for you?

Seven Elements of an Effective Blog to Drive Traffic, Engage Customers and Stay Organized (Video)

Steinar — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 17:42:55 +0000

Blogging is a great channel to deliver content online, deliver your message and engage in meaningful discussions with your target market. One of the challenges for bloggers is their ability to make their blog more effective and efficient.

In this video I discuss my recommendations on seven elements to drive effective blogging. There are more elements than just seven, but it’s the most I could fit into a ten minute video. For a great library of resources on this topic I encourage you to read http://www.problogger.com and http://www.copyblogger.com.

Topics Covered:

Unique & engaging content
Personality & balance
Consistent activity
Design with purpose
Focus & organization
Contact information
Comments & interaction

What’s been most effective for your blog? Which key elements am I missing?

Leverage Online Video to Engage Readers, Drive Website Traffic and Differentiate Your Business (Video)

Steinar — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 15:11:54 +0000

YouTube has been around for years and is without question one of the best video sharing sites. Getting your video message online is a terrific method of engaging readers, driving traffic to your website, and differentiating your business. It takes practice but the payoff can be significant.

Topic Covered:

Test and gain confidence (It’s all about practice)
Use the right tools to shoot, edit, publish, promote
Using Multiple platforms to share videos online
Leveraging the network to reach a broader audience
Engaging with readers unlike text or audio content
Search engine optimization to drive traffic to your site
Mix it up with different approaches to use video.

How can you get started with video today? What holding you back? Have any success or horror stories to share?

Use Twitter and Facebook to Market and Grow Your Business (Video)

Steinar — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 19:10:13 +0000

Twitter and Facebook can help grow your business online. These are the two most popular social media marketing networks and if use appropriately you can effectively find and engage customers in conversation.

Maybe you want to provide customer support or communicate new offers in a timely basis. The key is these platforms offer a place to listen to your market and engage in dialogue to better understand the needs of your new and existing customers.

In this video I highlight the key considerations such as:

Find prospects in your niche market
Connect with existing customers
Bring personality to your business
Share time-sensitive news & offers
Drive traffic back to your website
Deliver responsive customer service
Monitor competitive activity

BCS and Social Media: Here’s What Not to Do

Steinar — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 19:13:05 +0000

Bowl Championship Series … added a Twitter feed (@insidetheBCS) and Facebook fan page.

But it made the classic mistake — at least initially — of treating these social-media platforms like propaganda broadcast tools, rather than a way of finding out what, exactly, fans want. For several days after its Twitter feed went live on Nov. 18, nothing but ire was directed the way of the organization, which helped fuel the anger by failing to respond in any meaningful way to the incoming messages.

via BCS and Social Media: Here’s What Not to Do – Advertising Age – Digital

This is the classic mistake and I see it time and again – one way communication with little attention to listening to and interacting with your followers.

For me the answer is a three-way approach that balances your voice and participation in Social Media:

Tweets about your company, product or service
Tweets about your industry or niche at large
Tweets about you as a person or the people that make up your company

Combine that with a healthy dose of re-tweets and replies to others that you follow and you are much better positioned for social media success.

Social Media Marketing Strategy – Key Considerations

Steinar — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 13:40:15 +0000

Following is a quick overview of the key considerations for developing your business Social Media Marketing Strategy. It is in no way all inclusive, but does highlight some of the considerations important to an effective strategy.

Social Media Strategy – Key Considerations

B2B Social Media Communications Strategy

Steinar — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 03:52:19 +0000

Q: I am working on a B2B communication Strategy and need to know IF and HOW social media is used when communicating with customers?

via LinkedIn Answers | LinkedIn

A: Social media is used for communicating with customers. There are at least two emerging trends in this area.

The first trend is to use social media to connect and engage with prospects and customers. The goal is to listen to their needs and leverage social media to build trust, credibility and rapport. This is also an opportunity to sell them products, but approach pitching your product or service with caution. Frequent selling can come across as too aggressive and may actually turn customers away.

The second trend is to use social media to monitor and respond to customer service issues. For example, you might find that customers are unhappy with a product feature. You can then ask questions for clarity and share your solution. In the very least, social media gives you a new channel to learn about issues much more quickly and cost-effectively than other approaches. Of course, this depends on your customer participation in the social network.

Hope this helps,
Steinar

Tracking Customer Conversations Across the Web

Steinar — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 21:07:31 +0000

The topic of harnessing social media to engage with customers, share new developments and provide better service will be more important than ever in 2010. Seems like 2009 was the year that companies started to take Twitter and Facebook seriously. Now the question is “What are our customers saying and what do we do about it.”

Marketing and media relations professionals are now tasked with tracking millions of conversations, keeping an eye on which ideas are growing in influence, and then determining how to respond. But social media is not just about media anymore. The way the customer service is delivered, the way sales and hiring prospects are evaluated, and the techniques for product development are all being transformed.

via Tracking A Million Conversations – Forbes.com.

Clearly, some get this better than others. Starbucks and Zappo’s for example are fully engaging customers online and improving the products and service as a results. Starbucks has expanded it’s wifi service and added new breakfast foods to their menu, while Zappo’s employs a staff of customer service reps to monitor and track issues on Twitter.

More challenging is the need to scour the web to understand what customers are saying across multiple platforms. It’s fine to engage customers in one platform, such as Facebook, but finding customers where they hang out can be tough on the surface. In the most simple sense, RSS is the key to collecting this information, wheather it’s blog posts, forum comments, video mentions, or Tweets.