BlogPosts from August, 2012

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How to Create a Successful Multi-Channel Experience

As a business, you will need to find a successful way to grow your brand. Offering your consumers a multi-channel experience is a great way to do this. What better way to promote yourself or your brand than on Social media?

Having spent the last 5 years focusing on how Social Media can increase sales and brand awareness, I wanted to share with you some great case studies that have happened to me over the past four weeks that proves how successful a multi-channel experience can be.

First, I used an online application called Slideshare which allows users to upload and share publicly or privately PowerPoint presentations, Word documents and Adobe PDF Portfolios. I spent over four hours creating a Facebook for Business presentation for one of my trade show seminars. Once I had finished it, I uploaded it to Slideshare. After three days and 115 views, I noticed on my twitter mention stream, the below tweet.

Slideshare had actually chosen my presentation as “Presentation of the day”. They have over 73,000 followers on Twitter alone. Within three minutes of their tweet, my presentation went from 115 views to over 8,000. This one tweet was so powerful from Slideshare because some of their community went on to ‘pay it forward’ and the presentation now has grown to 12,500 views. (Picture below)

I then went on to write a blog based on the Slideshare presentation which further validated the power of social media. The “Facebook for Business” blog attracted more attention from my readers and as show below, it was shared over 130 times, generating more views of the presentation via the blog.

In the blog, I shared a link to a Facebook for Business webinar, based on the original presentation. I took this blog and ‘pinned it’ to my Pinterest account. This was then picked up by one of my followers and ‘repinned’ to their board.

Not only did that person sign up to the webinar, and attend; one of their followers who saw the ‘pin’ on their board, signed up to the webinar. This allowed me to capture their email address and add that my database. The same happened inside of Twitter. One of my followers retweeted my tweet and she, along with two of her followers signed up to my webinar.

I then received an email from an event organiser in Slovakia who saw my presentation from one of their followers who retweeted it, and contacted me. I am now asked to speak at their event later this year. I was also contacted by a TV personality who has asked for my help in generating traffic to their online store. I also shared the presentation on my Facebook Fan Page and Google+ Profile.

After seeing how much interaction I had around my Social Network accounts, I decided to check my Klout score. I was pleased to see my score had jumped up and I had become a strong influencer of Facebook.

This marketing was 100% free and started in one place. Social Media works as snowball effect if utilised to its fullest. I have proved that anything is possible with Social Media if you use the right networks and the right tools.

Facebook for Business

With over 900 million users on Facebook, there is the potential to reach more customers when using the right tools on Mark Zuckerberg’s social network. The ‘Like’ button or ‘Comment’ box is used around 3.2 billion times each day. Yes, 3.2 billion. Don’t forget the 300 million photo uploads each day.

When I hold my keynote seminars at various events/tradeshows I always ask the audience to raise their hand if they have a Facebook account. At least 90% of the audience raise their hand. When I ask them if they have a Facebook Business Page, only 50% of that original 90% raise their hand. Why? Because they don’t see the potential Facebook has to offer.

Holding the largest tech IPO in History with acquisitions like Instagram and LightBox, Facebook has proved its worth to its users. Despite the slight drop in shares, Facebook is still at the top of the Social Network Hierarchy.

Did you know you can create an online shop within Facebook? Take your business to your consumers and let them buy your products where they feel most comfortable; inside of Facebook.

If you would like to find out more about Facebook for Business, I will be holding a free webinar on August 23rd at 4:00pm. You can book your place here. Limited to 100 spaces so be quick!

I will also be speaking at Pure London from 19th – 21st August. On the 19th I will be holding a Facebook Workshop, on the 20th I will be holding a Social Media for Business Seminar and on the 21st I will be holding a Pinterest Workshop. If you would like to see my talk times, please click here and if you would like to book your free ticket to this event, please click here.

Do you have a Facebook business page?

Protecting your Brand on Social Media

The Olympics is now coming to a close and social media has played a huge role in a partaking athlete’s brand protection. A great video I found that was shared by Mashable shows spectators giving their views on Social Media and Olympic Athletes, with one quite rightly saying “Everything is hitting Twitter before it hits the news”.

With Usain Bolt’s twitter following increasing by over 300,000 from the beginning of the Olympics to this date, he has not only protected himself and his brand, but he has also gained a lot of support. Why? Because people like him.

For your business to have a successful Social Media presence, people need to like what you do. This isn’t to say you won’t receive negative comments however; you need to deal with this in the right way. British Diver Tom Daley is a prime example of this. After receiving malicious tweets from one of his followers, he reported this to the police who then arrested the culprit.

Another example is glass repair company Auto Glass. I noticed on one of my colleagues twitter timeline that there were a lot of negative comments towards this company. After reading through the conversation between Auto Glass and my colleague, I then realised where they had gone wrong. Rather than actually apologising from the beginning, they spent around four tweets trying to justify their unacceptable service. In the end however, Auto Glass called my colleague and offered a full refund on the repair for the inconvenience. Once something is out in Social Media, it cannot be taken back. Regardless of the end result, this case will have damaged the reputation of Auto Glass as it was not dealt with in a swift manner.

It has been suggested that only 31% of Social Media complaints actually receive a response. In my eyes, this is not good enough. As soon as you see a negative comment about yourself or your brand you need to address it straight away. If you are struggling to monitor the chatter around your business in Social Media, you should use Social Mention Alerts.

To make sure that I protect my Business Gloople and my brand Warren Knight I use various tools. Along with Social Mention, I also use Google Alerts and specifically for Twitter; Twilert.

Protecting your brand is crucial, especially on Social Media where freedom of speech can damage a business’s reputation.

I would love to hear about your good, or bad experiences with companies that operate on Social Media.