How Your Business Can Make the Most Out of Facebook

Posted on by Chris Jenkin

Facebook activity has increased regularly, to the point where people use it just about every day. At the end of 2015, Facebook had over 1.5 billion monthly users. Amongst smartphone users, the average amount of time spent on Facebook is one out of every five minutes. With so many things to do on Facebook, it’s not a surprise that there are people who spend the whole day just browsing their news feed. After all, it’s free!

As a business owner, it’s important that you know how to properly use Facebook to your own advantage. Because Facebook has a huge number of users, you can easily get your message or product across without spending too much money. For the most part, Facebook is an effective marketing tool for your business. If you already have a Facebook page for your business, it’s time you put it to good use. Here are 10 tips that will help your business make the most out of your time on Facebook:

Separate Your Personal and Business Account

One of the first things you should know about using Facebook for your business is how to separate the things you post on your personal account from your business page. When you post the right things on your Facebook page, you appear professional and serious about your business and what you’re trying to promote. Avoid posting something that you wouldn’t want your suppliers, customers, or co-workers to see on your business account. Apart from looking unprofessional, this can turn off potential customers from following your page.

At the Same Time, Be Friendly

While you shouldn’t post personal information on Facebook, you should practice being friendly with all who send you a friend request. For your business, the goal is to gain as many followers as you can. Just remember that when you’re approving friend requests, they should be from real people and not fake accounts.

Be Careful with Your Tags

A common mistake of business owners on Facebook is that they tend to abuse the tag button. Users don’t like seeing a tagged notification on a post they are not even part of, or have shown no interest in. While it does get their attention, it also puts them off. You should only tag people in your photos or posts if they are interested in the products you are offering.

Do the Opposite with Likes

While it’s important that you don’t go overboard with the tags, liking posts is a different story. When you like a post, Facebook sends a notification to your friend. And the more posts you like, the more curious they will be as to who is giving them a like. At the same time, Facebook’s algorithm works in such a way that when you don’t like a person’s posts, it will stop showing them to you. This is why you should be generous with your likes.

Don’t Ignore Your Comments

One way you can build your brand is to engage in discussion with your friends/followers. And when someone leaves a comment on your post, it means that they took the time to do so. In response to this, you should acknowledge their comment by giving it a like. This builds interaction and lets them know you appreciate their thoughts.

Use a Photo When Posting

According to studies, picture posts tend to get more attention from users compared to text-only posts. This is a great way for you to get your message out to your users, even if you are just sending out a holiday greeting. At the same time, Facebook promotes picture posts more than text-only posts.

Remember to Greet Your Friends

Another way you can increase your followers is to spend some time sending out a Happy Birthday greeting. Think of it as a daily task that you do first thing in the morning. This helps you increase interaction with your followers and let them see you as someone who’s taking the time to know them.

Secure Your Account

Remember that when all of your posts are publicly available, you should also set a setting for the things your friends post on your wall. You can turn on the option of approving tags before they appear on your timeline. This way, you can filter out other people’s posts that are not good for your business page.

Be Interesting with Your Posts

The things you post on Facebook should be informative and interesting. Avoid trying to push your products to your customers as this is a big turn off. Get creative with how you post things on your page. Carefully think about each post you make so you can build your brand and increase your interaction with your followers. This also helps your friends stay interested and looking forward to your next posts.

Post at the Right Time

With Facebook, you have to remember that you should post business-related posts at the right time. The best time to do it is to post things during the late afternoon and early evening on weekdays. On weekends, you can post in the mid-afternoon. Timing your posts can help you ensure that your followers see them. Otherwise, they’ll end up on the bottom of their news feed and they’ll be too tired to scroll all the way down there.

These 10 tips can help make your business’ Facebook page earn more likes, comments and shares. At the same time, you’ll be able to make good use of Facebook to reach your customers without paying for anything.

How to Keep Mobile Shoppers Loyal

Posted on by Chris Jenkin

Mobile shoppers have many desirable and distinct traits, however commitment is not always one of them. How do you keep mobile shoppers loyal when there’s so much competition out there in the “cyber” world? The following tips might help you get a return click.

1. Be Mobile-Friendly- Customer loyalty lies largely in whether or not the customer feels doing business with you is convenient and of value. If your mobile website is not user-friendly your visitors will likely take their search somewhere else next time.

2. Lack of Customer Service- Are you hiding behind the laptop screen? If your business takes place on the internet and your consumer interactions are few, you’ll need to work twice as hard to build brand interest and also to maintain relationships. Ease of contact and prompt replies are necessary not only for local businesses, but internet companies as well.

3. Be Competitive- With the endless supply of resources available on the world wide web, your customers have the upper-hand when it comes to making the sale. If your products are not priced competitively you run the risk of losing repeat customers.

4. Know Your Customer- If you want to keep mobile shoppers loyal you have to have a keen sense of what they’re looking for. Staying on top of their interests through polls, surveys, special events and mailings will help you develop a more personal relationship with your shopper so that you can meet their future needs.

5. Increase Search Results- Your mobile site needs to keep growing if you want to thrive. In addition to social media posts that highlight company products, news, sales, specials, etc., you’ll want to start a blog that keeps your brand prominent in search results. Weekly blog postings help search crawlers find you, so they can direct new and return customers right through your door. Your blog should be informative and engaging, and highlight your area of sales or expertise. Not only do blogs provide entertainment and value to new visitors, they attract loyal mobile shoppers who want to stay on top of the news from their favorite brands. After all, they’re loyal. Right?

2016 Digital Trend Predictions

Posted on by Chris Jenkin

Author: Barry Whyte

Lists: I love them. Especially at this time of year. So here is one of the many lists I’ve written in anticipation of 2016. This one is for when a client asks me, “what’s going to happen in digital?”. Steal liberally!

1. Tech grows up. 2016 will be the year the tech industry is dragged kicking and screaming into the real world. Over the past few years, the industry has transitioned from a relatively minor part of the economy outside of California, into the primary driver of growth in a bunch of advanced economies.

Both courts and customers will force Uber, Handy and every other sharing platform you can think of to begin treating their employees like, well, employees. With regular income, health insurance, notice periods and everything else we have the right to expect from our employers. Pressure is mounting on both the left and the right of the political spectrum, and public support is beginning to sour was people reappraise these multi-billion-dollar tech giants as Goliath versus David — not the other way around.

Have you ever had an Uber driver complain to you about Uber? No? You will next year.

2. Workplaces will change. The trends currently playing out in the tech industry — unlimited vacation, shorter working days, no appraisals and work wherever you like — will creep into ot,her high-skill industries as the war for talent intensifies alongside higher economic growth.

Expect the physical manifestations of work: offices, conference rooms and business hotels to fundamentally change along with workplace behaviours.

(That said, I shouldn’t hold your breath for management to disappear. Reports of their demise have been greatly exaggerated.)

3. Microsoft is back. Now Apple has moved from being a challenger brand to become the new mainstream, hipsters who once worshipped at the house of Jobs are turning their backs in droves. Where will they go?

It turns out that during all these years, when Apple obsessively focused their energy on secrecy and voodoo magic, Microsoft just had teams of people away from the San Francisco bubble who were building really good computers. Huh. Who would have thought? When you touch a Surface Book, you’ll understand. It’s the feeling when you touched an iPhone for the first time, all over again.

“Our belief was that if we kept putting great products in front of customers, they would continue to open their wallets.” Steve Jobs might have said it, but now Microsoft is the one doing it.

4. Estate agents become a relic. This one might have a slight London bias, given the real estate obsession we have in my home city, but the trend will emerge across all markets. If you think about it, it’s almost staggering that online estate agents haven’t taken over the industry by now. It’s an industry ripe for digital transformation: high transaction margins, relatively basic yet people intensive processes, and a business model that everyone in the transaction despises — both buyers and sellers.

Imagine all that wonderful high street retail space that will become available when we finally get rid of them.

5. Self driving cars will transform the urban streetscape. It’s been on the cusp of happening for so long, it’s almost become a cliché to talk about it. But self-driving cars are no longer just on wide American highways, they are being tested on the narrow, tight streets of London. It won’t be long before you are in one.

Just think how the streetscape will change. Cars will drive closer together, fewer vehicles will be needed and the streets will empty. Those vintage 1900s photos you see of a city free of traffic? They’re about to come back to life.

How to Make an Unforgettable First Impression

Posted on by Chris Jenkin

Your first meeting is really the only chance you’ve got to sell your brand, your product, and most importantly-yourself, to prospective clients, employers, and people. Are you making an unforgettable first impression?

Are you leading the pack on your own path, or are you making one of those “What was her name?” impressions? (It’s OK. We can fix that.) We love Danny Rubin’s advice for 11 quick ways to make a lasting impression. So just to make a lasting impression of our own, we thought to share.

 

11 Quick Ways to Make a Lasting Impression

1. Introduce yourself before someone else has to introduce you

Otherwise, a person has to say, “Oh, sorry. This is my friend Jenn. I should have introduced her already.”

Stick out your hand, say “Hi, I’m Jenn. Nice to meet you.” Then, you beam with confidence.

2. Ask a question based on your last conversation

When you run into someone you haven’t seen in a while, ask about something you recall from the last interaction.

“Hey, a few months ago you told me you were preparing for the big presentation at the national conference. How did it go?”

The person will feel like a million bucks. Maybe a billion.

3. Say “I agree” and not “I don’t disagree”

It’s OK to let other people be right.

4. State your full name and purpose when you make a business phone call

Too many people call a company and say something like, “Hi, is Steve there?”

Then the person needs to respond with, “Can I tell Steve who’s calling?”

Begin with something like, “Hi, I’m Jackie Reynolds, and I’m looking for Steve so we can follow up on the Anderson account.”

Prepare your intro before you dial the number. It’ll help.

5. Bring several (at least five) printed resumes to a job interview

Enough for the boss and anyone else you might meet. It looks impressive.

6. Pick a follow-up question rather than launch into a “me” answer

The person says, “We just finished with the Lambert account. Boy, that was a tough one.”

Then you say, “Why was it tough?” and not “Yea, that reminds me of my own clients…”

Keep the focus on other people. Again, it’s impressive.

7. Update people on the status of your project — even if they don’t expect an update

Give people peace of mind, and they will respect you for it.

8. In the job interview, be curious about the employer’s own career

Before you dive into what you’re all about and the job you want, pose a question that shows you thought hard about the other person’s background.

For example, “I read that you worked for 11 years in marketing for a minor league baseball team. What are some of the craziest promotions you ever staged?”

9. “I’ll do it.”

The one sentence that takes anyone from face in the crowd to bonafide leader.

10. When a person connects you to someone else via email, offer to drop them from the chain

After the introduction, the “connector” doesn’t need to hang around. So politely remove him/her.

It might seem like a minor courtesy, but the “connector” will remember it.

11. Treat every day like a “temp” situation

Prove yourself. Earn your place.

And tomorrow, do it all again.

7 Web Development Trends You Should Consider

Posted on by Chris Jenkin

Author Credit Chris Winn. Chris Winn is a Senior Web Engineer at Creative Market. Creative Market is a platform for handcrafted, mousemade design content from independent creatives around the world.

Every developer has a collection of tools that are indispensable to getting the job done. In this article, we will take a look at 7 web development frameworks and trends that are set to become even more important in 2015.

1. React

React isn’t new in 2015, but it’s going to keep winning the hearts and minds of engineers. Seeing frameworks like Angular, Ember and Meteor all embrace React means virtual DOM-diffing and unidirectional data flows are a proven pattern.

A_JavaScript_library_for_building_user_interfaces___React

2. Flux

MVC is here to stay — just not on the client. JavaScript frameworks seem like they’re in a constant state of reinvention. That can be a sign the problem is being solved the wrong way. Flux is simple, easy to work with, and pairs great with React.

Flux___Application_Architecture_for_Building_User_Interfaces

3. Microservices

Loosely typed, dynamic languages are great for rapid iteration on the web, but it makes a lot of sense to split off parts of a large project into more focused, smaller applications. Break up your monolithic application with API-driven, modular components.

This article over at the NGINX blog explains the difference between a monolithic architecture and a microservice architecture pattern. In this example, they’re building a new taxi-hailing application intended to compete with Uber and Hailo.

10WebDevelopmentTrends3

4. Not jQuery

jQuery has been the most important, impactful library in web development for the past decade, but manual DOM manipulation is on the way out. Instead, think about user interactions, data state, and components — then have something like React manage the rest for you.

Check out this example of a sidebar component built with React, CSS transitions and SVG path animations.

react-burger-menu

5. Server side JSX

Node and JSX fit together naturally thanks to V8, but for teams not heavily invested in the Node ecosystem, we think there is room for interfaces between V8 and other languages.

JSX___XML-like_syntax_extension_to_ECMAScript

6. PHP

We’re biased on this one, but PHP is due for another good year. For all its shortcomings, PHP still gets things right when it comes to the fast feedback loop necessary for the web development. And the tooling is only getting better.

PHP__Hypertext_Preprocessor

7. Go

While we’re just getting our feet wet, we love Go at Creative Market. It feels simpler and safer than C and can pick up the slack where PHP falls short.

The_Go_Project_-_The_Go_Programming_Language_and_Untitled-3___100___RGB_8___

Social Media Tips for Your Digital Marketing Strategy

Posted on by Chris Jenkin

Special thanks to Sean Smith at Sprout Social for reaching out and sharing their blog post for our readers. It’s Friday and I didn’t feel like writing anything anyway, so this was helpful.

Thanks Sprout. Thumbs up!

Author Credit:Jennifer Beese

 

How to Use Social Media for Small Business

A couple of years ago, small business owners were questioning whether social media was a worthwhile investment. Now, it’s no longer a question of should you be using social media, but rather how you can use it efficiently and effectively to drive your business forward.

Jump to the Social Media for Small Business Infographic.

According to research from LinkedIn, 81% of small businesses use social media. An impressive stat no doubt, but it also means there’s still a significant number of SMBs not taking advantage of social media for their marketing campaigns. That’s mind blowing when you consider the following:

With all of that potential for success, there’s no reason to be watching from the sidelines. Our guide focuses on using social media for small business. We’ll cover everything you need to get up and running, and how to sustain your online presence once it has been established. First, we need to review some marketing basics.

Define Your Goals

Using social media for small business is obviously a great idea, but you may wonder what’s the the real benefits for doing so? You won’t know if your efforts are truly paying off unless you have something to measure against. We’ll take a closer look at measurement a bit later when we talk analytics, so for now, let’s focus on objectives.

Not all social media strategies are created equal. Some are designed to drive awareness while others are built around engagement and specific calls-to-action. There are a lot of elements to social media. For instance, Facebook is a single platform that has many moving parts. You don’t want to approach it haphazardly. It’s inefficient and only creates more work for yourself.

By forming and actually writing down thoughtful and achievable goals, you’ll have a solid understanding of whether or not your social media efforts paid off. A study found 76% of participants achieved their goals through specific goal-setting strategies. There are numerous approaches to goal-setting.

SMART goals are one of the most popular goal-setting frameworks for businesses.

  • Specific. The more specific you can be with your objective, the easier it’ll be to see what it is you need to do.
  • Measurable. Can your goal be measured? How will you track your progress and know if your goal has been achieved?
  • Attainable. Think realistically. Is the goal you’ve set for yourself possible to achieve?
  • Relevant. Does your goal drive your business forward? Is it the right time?
  • Time. Goals are meaningless without deadlines. Give yourself one.

Define Your Audience

When it comes to marketing effectively, you wouldn’t walk into the center of a crowded room and start yelling at people, so why do the same thing online? Social media is one of the best ways to reach your target audience, but first you have to figure out who they are. Those details will help you figure out which social platforms are best for you and the type of content you’ll share.

When identifying your target audience, consider factors such as:

  • Age
  • Location
  • Income
  • Education
  • Career
  • Interests/hobbies

Remember, the more specific you can be, the better. This will enable you to create a strong social media marketing strategy around these individuals and take a more targeted approach to each the right people at the appropriate time.

Research the Platforms

Now that you know who you want to reach, you’ll need to figure out where they are. Social networks have varied user bases—some cater to niche groups while others are digital melting pots. As a small business, your time and energy is very valuable. It doesn’t make sense to invest it on one social network if your primary target audience is more active on another.

B2B & B2C Considerations

In a broad sense, the industry you’re in will help you decide which platform to use. B2B and B2C businesses use social media differently. Consider this when you’re trying to decide which platform to use. In Social Media Examiner’s 2015 Social Media Marketing Industry Report, B2B respondents listed LinkedIn as their number one choice for social networking while B2C businesses go to Facebook, and in larger numbers.

If you’re B2C, you’ll need to become very familiar with the key social media players and their demographics. It’s a time consuming endeavor, but not to worry because we’ve put together a complete guide to Social Media Demographics for you. Read through it for detailed insights across seven social media platforms.

Platform Strengths & Weaknesses

Going beyond just demographics, you need to know the strengths and weaknesses of each platform. If you specialize in video content, for example, then you’ll want to choose the platform that best supports that type of media.

Specifically, on YouTube, 300 hours of video is uploaded every minute, but 67% of Facebook users in the US said they discovered the videos they watch on the social network.
Do you want to work within a six- or 15-second time constraint, or would you like your content to disappear after it’s viewed?

How often do you plan to publish content? Is Facebook or Twitter better for engagement? If you’re going to update multiple times a day, then Twitter’s fast-moving stream might be the right fit. But if you only plan to post a couple of times a week, you don’t want that content to become buried minutes after it’s been published. Facebook has a longer lifespan than Twitter, making it easier to stay relevant without burning out on content.

Customer Service

Using social media for small business isn’t only good for driving awareness and engagement; it’s great for relationship building as well. When customers try to reach you with a question or complaint, many do so on social media. So which platforms are best equipped to help you handle customer service queries?

Consumers complain about brands 879 million times a year on Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites. What’s worse is brands aren’t responding. Seven in eight messages to brands go unanswered within 72 hours.

Being responsive and engaging has never been more critical, especially for a small business where the loss of a customer could be substantial. You have to think about which social media platforms are best equipped to help you handle customer service queries.

Although Instagram is great for engagement, it might not be the best place to direct customers with questions about your product or service.

Twitter and Facebook tend to be a customer’s first support resource because of their accessibility and private messaging capabilities. While you should monitor every platform you’re on for mentions of your brand, pay extra attention to Facebook and Twitter.