Entries Tagged 'social media' ↓

This article was written by Daniela Baker, a small business blogger at CreditDonkey, a credit card deals website. She helps entrepreneurs compare small business credit cards to find rewards right for their business. 

The author’s views are entirely his own and may not reflect the views of FreelanceCopywritersBlog.com. If you are interested in producing a Guest Post for this blog, please get in touch with your ideas.

When was the last time you went to a corporate website, other than your own? OK, now when was the last time you went on Facebook or Twitter?

Yeah, this is the reason why some people are asking whether social media is killing off company websites!

According to blogger, public speaker, and social media strategist Jeff Bullas, company Facebook pages seem to be absorbing corporate website traffic.

For example, he cites three companies that have both a booming Facebook presence and developed corporate websites: Coca Cola, Starbucks, and Oreo. A quick check this morning revealed that Coca-Cola boasts 36.6 million Facebook fans, Starbucks has 26.6 million, and Oreo has 23.7 million. They’re doing well, right?

Except Bullas noted that Coca-Cola’s corporate site traffic dropped by over 40% last year, Starbucks’ site traffic reached a plateau, and Nabisco’s traffic plummeted from 1.2 million hits each month to just 321,000 per month in a year. The social media strategist pointed to a Webtrends study showing that 68% of Fortune 100 websites have been experiencing negative growth, with a 24% decrease, on average, in unique visitors.

Even back in 2009, blogger and Internet media entrepreneur Adam Ostrow pointed out how common it was becoming to see business cards which included Twitter usernames instead of domain names and ad campaigns that included URLs to Facebook pages.

But is this death, or just specialization?

It’s important to note that neither Bullas nor Ostrow are predicting the death of company websites. Rather, the rise of social media seems to be taking them in a different direction.

Bullas, for example, argues in favor of integrating and optimizing content for different websites, such as Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. That way, consumers can be more engaged all around.

He suggests using social media pages to send traffic to your corporate site by offering links on your company’s social media profile pages. For corporate blogs, include a sample of the start of the latest blog post in your company’s Facebook status or tweet, then include a link to the article. Make a Facebook or MySpace contest that requires users to track down information on your website, then announce you’ll publish the winners on your corporate website. Use social media to link your fans or followers to on-site coupons and use e-mail marketing, too.

That way, social media sites can help interested visitors find your corporate site instead of being a replacement for it.

Need help figuring out how to make your company website and social media communications play well together?

If this is all leaving you confused, consider hiring a social media consultant to help. With so many experts participating in the social media trend today, this task has never been easier.

Many major freelancing websites, such as Elance, even allow you to pay remote workers using your credit card. Business credit cards can be particularly helpful when using this strategy. Using a business credit card allows you to earn rewards that go toward your bottom line, access a steady source of cash to help you through dry periods, and establish business credibility.

Look for a social media strategist that’s familiar with many different social networks, has good feedback from past clients, can show you their own social media presence, understands new technology, plans ahead, and has a professional attitude.

Social media presence + corporate website = better communication with consumers.

In short, your brand’s social media page may take some attention away from your corporate site, but that doesn’t mean that you have to choose one or the other. With a little effort, you can make them work together for best results.

Think of it this way: your brand’s social media page can hand out flyers while your corporate website hosts the party.

For many new tweeters, that is probably the first question that springs to mind.

After setting up your account, you probably searched for friends, family and colleagues and then came to a grinding halt.

What happens next? How do you find new followers?

Let Twitter give you a helping hand

If you go to your Twitter page, you should see something like this:

At the top of the screen you can see #Discover, clicking on this brings up this screen. As you can see, it gives you the options ‘who to follow’ and ‘find friends’.

But what happens when people follow you?

Should you automatically follow them back?

The simple answer is no. Take control of your Twitter stream and follow only those people you want to follow.

Here are 5 very simple ways to make sure you get value out of your Twitter experience:

1. Say farewell to spam

When someone follows you, take a look at their tweets. Are they excessively promotional? If so, they are more than likely going to be a spammer. Unless you want your stream full of their plugs, don’t bother following them back.

2. What are they saying?

Someone’s Twitter feed will tell you a lot about them. Take a look at their past tweets – do you find them interesting? If so, follow them, if not, don’t bother.

3. OTT

Tweeters come in all shapes and sizes; some have a lot to say, others very little. If someone follows you who is a prolific tweeter think carefully before following them back. Do you really want them to be filling your Twitter stream 24/7?
If what they’re saying is interesting, go ahead and follow. But if you’re not so sure, it may be better to pass.

4. Silent night

Twitter is all about being social and that means interacting. If you’ve been trying to engage with a particular follower and they’ve just been ignoring you, you’re not really getting any value out of that relationship so it may be time to unfollow and find someone who’s a little chattier.

5. Bio and interests

The best way to find out a bit about your followers is through their biography. Personally, if there is no avatar (i.e. uploaded their own rather than using a generic one), or there is no bio (or a very poor one) I won’t follow back.

Your bio is where you can add details about you, your likes and dislikes. It’s the best way to work out whether you have something in common with your follower or not. If you do, you are far more likely to enjoy a great Twitter relationship.

At the end of the day, Twitter is about being social. It’s not about a band of silent stalkers that don’t interact with each other.
Choose who you follow carefully to make sure you get the most out of your experience. By following these 5 very simple ‘quality checks’, you’ll be able to ensure your Twitter followers will add value to your social media activities.

Sally Ormond – Copywriter and Tweeter

Although many businesses are now using social media as a marketing tool, few of them have worked out how to see a return on their investment.

Let’s face it, if you are going to spend man-hours on using social media as part of your marketing strategy, you’re going to want to see some sort of return for it.

In an earlier post, The Money’s in The Relationship, I showed that your return through social media is measured in relationships rather than cold hard cash.

Taking that a step further, I came across a great post on socialmediaexaminer.com that looks at the 4 steps you need to take to sell with social media.

After all, it is your customers you are interacting with through Facebook and Twitter, so there must be a way to encourage them to buy from you through those platforms.

The post tells use that to improve your ROI your marketing and campaigns must include these essential components:

• Attraction
• Retention
• Conversion
• Measurement

To read more about how it’s done, follow the link and discover the 4 steps to selling with social media.

 What do you think?

Are you convinced? Can you sell through social media?

Leave a comment and tell us your experiences.

All social media sites have their place and LinkedIn’s is right at the top of the professional networking tree.

You often hear stories of people being ‘found’ by prospective employers and being offered their dream job, all because of their LinkedIn profile.

So how can you make sure you stand out from the crowd?

Well, it’s all about getting noticed, so keep reading to find out how you can maximise your profile.

7 ways to boost your LinkedIn profile

There are 7 elements within your LinkedIn profile which must be maximised to make the most of your listing.

1. Headline

As with all sales and marketing, your headline is the very important.

You need to sum up, as succinctly as possible:

• Who you are
• Who you  can help
• How you can help them

This will tell the reader everything they need to know in an instant and allow them to decide whether they want to read on or not.

2. Be real

It’s too tempting to be boring, business like and wooden in your profile.

Granted, people are going to want to know about you from a business perspective, but they also what to get to know the real you.

In your summary, show something about yourself – your goals, what you love doing, what makes you get out of bed in the morning. By offering a personal insight into who you are enables a connection at a personal level.

3. Spelling

This one always crops up in lists like this, mainly because it’s so important.

It doesn’t take long to proofread something, so make sure you go through your profile and spell check it. A typo or grammar gaff could cause you to be overlooked.

4. Call to action

One thing often overlooked in LinkedIn profiles is a call to action.

It’s something you automatically place within your copywriting, so why not add one here too?

After your profile has told them how great you are and what you can do for them, direct them to your website for more information or give them a phone number/email address so they can easily get in touch with you.

5. Proof

OK, so your profile shows you can talk the talk, but so you have any concrete proof to back everything up?

Make sure you detail your education background, any awards you have won as well as recommendations from past clients. All this evidence will help convince the reader that you’re the person they need.

6. SEO

Yes, you can search engine optimise your profile.

Make sure your keywords appear in your:

• Headline
• Current work experience
• Past work experience
• Summary
• Specialities

7. Be different

This one will make you stand out from the crowd. Try and be original when putting together your profile. Don’t stick to the normal description that will make you blend in. Think about what you can say that will make you different. Don’t just follow the crowd, try to put yourself across in a unique and memorable way.

Over to you

Have you had successes with your LinkedIn profile?

Did it land you your dream job?

Leave a comment below and let your experience help others.

Using social media has become a part of our everyday lives.

Once upon a time, we would pick up the phone or pop round for coffee when we wanted to catch up or arrange outings.

Today, it’s a whole different ball game. You can maintain relationships through outlets such as Twitter and Facebook. But there is one major difference with the social media age compared with the ‘olden days.’

91% of employers use social media to screen applicants

When you post a comment on Facebook or send out a tweet, it’s not something that just disappears after your conversation has ended.

Before, you could say anything to anyone (within reason) and you could get away with it. Your private life and social life were completely separate from your employer. Unless you told them about the bender you went on at the weekend, they were unlikely to find out.

But, social media changes everything.

The rather sobering statistic above was recently reported by The Drum.

Because your status updates on your social media sites are there for all to see, they are an invaluable source to perspective employers.

Let’s face it, when in an interview situation, we all just tell the panel what they want to hear, so the impression they get of us isn’t always the whole truth. But now, by using social media channels such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, they will see the bigger picture.  In fact (according to the Reppler survey):

• 47% of employers check social networking sites to screen prospective employees immediately after receiving their job application
• 69% have rejected a candidate based on something they saw
• 13% of candidates were rejected because they’d lied about their qualifications
• 11% were rejected because of posting inappropriate comments, inappropriate photos, posting negative comments about a previous employer or demonstrating poor communication skills

But before you head off and delete all your social media accounts, it’s not all bad.

68% were found to have employed someone because of what they saw about them on a social networking site, with a positive impression on their personality and organisational fit being at the top of the list.

The moral is…

Social media is great, but be careful what you post.

As the above shows, more and more employers can use these channels to dig below the surface and discover the type of person you really are.

So next time you are about to post in haste, stop and think about what you’re typing.

Sally Ormond – copywriter and social media addict