Starting Fresh

Good morning everyone, we hope you are all doing well and that you found yesterday’s article insightful.

While yesterday we spoke about automating material for your social networks, today we will speak about a completely different topic. Starting fresh in Social Media, a few steps a business / brand /user must take in order to succeed in Social Media when getting into it.

First of all, we’d like to ask you how long have you been Social Mediaing? Have you found it easy to get to where you stand now?

Believe it or not, many brands are still entering the very varied world of Social Media and everyone knows from experience that during this transition it is very hard to know what is right and what is wrong when it comes to attracting the right kind of attention.

So what are the tricks to getting in the spotlight? Firstly, it is very important that one decides what the daily discussions will be based around, avoiding to speak about random subjects will keep your audience interested even though it is recommendable to relax sometimes and speak about unrelated subjects (this should be done not very regularly, lets say every Friday is fine).

Secondly, engagement is a must, if your audience engages with you, don’t keep them waiting. Respond to every query, reply or simply take the first step and engage with your audience, waiting for someone to talk to you doesn’t always work.

Finally, keeping rules within the social sphere will help make sure that nothing is done unintentionally and that one is always on top of what is happening, of course, for some this has not worked hence why we have to emphasise that this must be done on a daily basis.

These are simply some of the important steps to take when entering the social world, there are plenty more to take into account but if you have done the above then you are on the right path to finding the all sought for Social Exposure!

Do you find the above helpful? Have you done any of these steps so far? Has it worked?

Let us know by commenting below or replying on Twitter with the Hashtag #DGCSteps

We look forward to hearing from all of you.

Think before you tweet

Hello everyone, we hope you are all well.

Yesterday we spoke about why brand advocates are important for a brand or business, did you find the information valuable? Let us know.

Today we will speak about what happens when thinking gets overshadowed by tweeting. There have been many mishaps in the past with brands tweeting the wrong content and obtaining a hostile reaction from the public.

Today we will use The Onion and their tweet relating to the Oscars 2013. The Oscars have generated an immense amount of activity in Social Media and of course, Social Media wouldn’t be what it is today without a few mistakes.

The Onion tweeted what many found offensive, unfortunately we cannot quote this tweet due to its nature or show a sample of it as it is now deleted. Many thought that the four letter word used to describe the young 9 year old actress Quvenzhane Wallis was not appropriate, even more so since it is coming from such an entity.

Unfortunately, this will be a wound that The Onion is going to have to wait to heal, events like this can have uncontrollable consequences as once the public is aware of what has happened it is very complicated to return to how things were before, even after issuing an apology like their director has done.

So remember, think before you tweet or the consequences of it may be more than you can handle.

What do you think of the above? Have you followed this story? Your thoughts are valuable to us so share them here 🙂

Why brand advocates are important

Good morning everyone, we hope you are all well and ready for another week. As this week begins it is time to look at some aspects of Social Media and highlight its benefits, today’s topic will be brand advocates.

Do you have any yet or are you still trying to find who they are? On our last post we spoke about why Fridays are good in Social Media, this is connected with finding your advocates.

It is amazing how everything is linked in social media, one thing can open the door to another and so forth. So, what is a brand advocate in the first place?

Many have their own explanation to what a brand advocate is but it doesn’t matter how many different explanations are used, it all comes down to the people who engage with you the most, be it simply replying to your posts or sharing them.

However, only doing this does not make one a brand advocate, there has to be some sort of positive interaction towards the brand or towards other users mentioning the brand in question. This is why a brand advocate is important to have, while all social media efforts may generate activity across channels, a brand advocate has the potential to attract the right type of attention to your brand.

Most times they are all around you, silently waiting for you to take the conversation to the next step. One simple rule to finding your brand advocates is to simply engage with your audience, the people who engage back and have positive statements to share about you are the ones to keep happy as when the crisis hits they will be there to give a helping hand.

What do you think about brand advocates? Have you found any in your community so far?

Let us know or take part in the discussion on twitter by using #DGCBA

Why Fridays are great in Social Media

Hello everyone, we hope you are all doing well and ready for the weekend.

Yesterday we spoke about why patience is important while devising and carrying out social media plans to increase business productivity (Advertising / Marketing).

Today we will speak about how great Fridays are when it comes to reaching your audience. We will start by asking all of you how you usually attempt to reach a number of people, do you use Facebook for this, Twitter, or any other social network?

Of course, not all social networks offer the same opportunities, whereas on Twitter you can simply tweet #FF and add a couple of Twitter handles to reach more people, on Facebook the same rule does not apply. Unfortunately there is no such thing as follow Friday on Facebook which makes us wonder, does Facebook experience less traffic on Friday than all the other days due to Twitter’s follow Friday?

On Twitter on the other hand, Friday is the only day where it is acceptable to tag people in your tweet for no apparent reason without sounding like a stalker, this on its own has its advantages when used by businesses as it allows them to reach a huge number of people without people thinking they are being sold something, of course with some people this will not be the case.

Overall, Fridays are great for Social Media users and taking full advantage of it should be priority to anyone wanting to grow their reach and increase awareness about their products or services.

What do you think of the above? Do you have any suggestions to the questions asked? Let us know below with a comment or go onto Twitter and answer with the hashtag #FFArticle.

Why patience is important

Hello everyone, we hope you are all well and that you’ve enjoyed yesterday’s post.

After looking at why you shouldn’t be too hasty with Social Media we will now look at why patience is very important while waiting for results.

With many brands launching massive advertising campaigns on several social networking sites hoping to reach massive amounts of audience, it is sometimes difficult to wait for the results to come in whether positive or negative. It takes time to obtain any results from such efforts and in some instances it will take longer than usual depending on which platform is being used.

Take Facebook as an example, launching a paid advertising campaign there has a high probability of generating results quickly but on Twitter, due to the fact that it’s so easy to use a simple tweet as the advertising itself it will not be easy to track the results. Of course, bearing in mind that Twitter also offers paid advertising, this can also be an option if the resources are available.

So why is patience so important? Firstly, before any effort is made to reach an audience, one must make sure the right tools are in place in order to measure whether the campaign is having the desired effect and most importantly, one must always keep a watchful eye over everything that is happening around the campaign itself to avoid a ricochet effect!

Overall, when attempting to promote your services on any social network, you must look at what that network can offer in order to be able to see how everything works and how it can be measured as some networks do not have any insights facility like Facebook.

Advertising is a must when it comes to business and now with Social Media being part of it, the right plans and strategies must be in place in order for it to succeed.

What do you think about the above? Has this happened to you? Let us know by commenting below or join the discussion on Twitter @CCADGC.

Why run when you can walk?

Hello everyone, we hope you are all well. Did you like our post yesterday about tracking Social Media conversations?

Today we want to speak about how brands tend to be hasty by attempting to speed up Social Media progress, this is a dangerous feat that can work but can also have a huge impact if it doesn’t.

Normally, Social Media when done from the beginning will involve firstly building a community and then keeping the community happy or engaged, depending on what the purpose of the community is.

Unfortunately, for many businesses and brands this was not possible from the beginning, some have been around longer than Social Media meaning that once it became such a revolutionary tool they did not have the time to play catch up.

While taking the right steps may take longer, it is most likely to provide the desired results. Taking a fast lane which would entail for example, going onto twitter with 10 followers and throwing out massive advertising campaigns, not knowing who the audience is or who to target. This could have catastrophic consequences in the long run.

Remember, all social networks are connected in one way or another so a mistake you do in one can very well spread into another.

What do you think? Do you know anyone who has taken the fast lane?

Tracking, Monitoring and Engagement

Hello everyone, we hope you are all well.

Yesterday we spoke about the efforts that need to be made when trying to be successful at Social Media, today we will speak about three different aspects of Social Media.

First of all there is the tracking side of things. This is important mostly because it allows a brand to in a sense, search for mentions relevant to them. Of course this entails a lot of work but this amount of work always pays off at the end of the day. Tracking mentions always reveals the bigger picture about the brand.

Moving forward then there is the monitoring. Tracking is specific which means it will not take place every day unless you have a lot of time to play with, that’s why monitoring is great. It allows the brand to see what people are saying about them without having to sit behind a screen all day looking for the mentions, this usually takes place by setting specific queries and having the results come in automatically, saves a lot of time too.

Finally there is the final part, the engagement, of course this will only happen if it is absolutely necessary. While engagement with the community should always take place regardless of what the circumstances are, this type of engagement sometimes will not be necessary unless there is a crisis to manage or a brand advocate is found.

Overall, these steps are very important for a brand when trying to keep up with their customers and audience. Is there anything you would add to this?

Let us know with a comment below.

Efforts in Social Media

 Last week we spoke about many different aspects of Social Media and how it used by many different businesses.

Today we want to start by looking at all the efforts that are required in order to carry out a successful Social Media strategy.

Firstly, what is your definition of a successful strategy? Do you have specific steps you need to carry out within that strategy?

Being a business, it is normal to have many social network accounts. Normally businesses also tend to have several accounts but neglect them for long periods of time thinking that they will grow on their own. The most important action that must be taken when doing social media is to be active, no engagement means no success.

 Engaging with the community will not only increase awareness but will also increase following, businesses need to reach out to their current customers whether it is to retain them or to simply resolve an issue. This also then opens up opportunity to attract attention from potential new customers.

What are your thoughts on this? Do you think a business can treat social networks the same way they treat a website?

3 simple steps on how to Social Media

Hello everyone, we hope you are well.

Yesterday we spoke about the link between customer services and social media, what did you think? Was there anything that you would have added?

Today we will discuss some important factors to take into consideration when carrying out Social Media strategies.

The firs one we want to speak about is the goal you want to achieve. In order to get anywhere within social networks, whether it is reaching your audiences or simply promotion, you need to have a clear goal and steps of how you want to achieve this.

The second one is who and where your biggest audience lies? There are so many social networks all over the internet nowadays and knowing which platform is used the most by the people you want to reach will save a lot of time and will be more effective.

Finally, assessments of the whole effort need to be done from time to time, if something is not working then it needs to be corrected while there is still time.

These are simply some of the steps to take but as you go along there will be many others, have you taken all these yet?

Is there anything you would want to add to this list?

Let us know.

@CCADGC

Customer Services & Social Media by @CCADGC

The biggest challenge in Social Media for some is to carry out the well needed customer service over the social channels but the big question is: Why aren’t businesses taking to this new capability so well and quickly?

More and more people turn to social networks to express their opinions, not having to speak to a person directly allows them to be as direct as they wish and say anything they want and this is where the customer services would come in.

Unfortunately, not many businesses have adopted this strategy to deal with their customers’ queries or simple praise as let’s not forget that customers don’t always say bad things about a brand, many times they actually express how happy they are with the service or product and this itself, presents a massive opportunity for a brand to engage.

Take EDF Energy as an example, they use Social Media for customer services but simply by looking at the rate of which people complain about them we can deduct that they do not have any monitoring system in place as many complaints go unanswered.

This is simply one of the unhappy customers we have found which was mentioned by another influential account, this is extremely dangerous for a brand!

What are your thoughts on this?