Online Social Engagement is Lacking in Modern Singapore
Singapore is a great modern city in the Asia Pacific region. I live here and proud to be a Singaporean. Singapore is one of the fastest growing economy in the world today. However, in my opinion, except our hotel industry, many Singapore companies here are still lacking in what I defined as “online social engagement” with their prospects and customers. Amazingly, we are still pretty much far behind from others.
Everyone, Your Customers, Your Employees or even Your Competitors' "Spies" Can Become Your Company Spokesperson.
Online social engagement is consider as a new way of public communications. It is simply engaging your existing customers as well as potential prospects on the internet one on one. Today, we see that it is highly significant to do social engagement; this is because with the advent of Web 2.0 and beyond, everyone can be a spokesperson for a particular product, company, celebrity or even part of the government sector. He or she may or may not work in that company. The internet has somehow “personalize” the company or product.
When I mentioned about anyone can be a spokesperson of the company; it can also mean the competitor, the hater, the customer or simply anyone on the street. That means your company or organization are opened to criticisms as well as praises. Hence, there is a very critical need to have an individual department body in the company to focus on online social engagement. Yet, we seldom see companies or MNCs in Singapore doing their own online social engagement except for those in the hotels industry. Much companies and organizations still prefer the “I Speak, You Listen” method when they do their PR. If complaints arises online, they either ignore it or simply sent a lawyer letter to sue the poster. Online social engagement is still seen as a long way to go for most companies but as a performing marketer for your company, you should start and initiate this immediately so as to prepare your company anytime should the time come.
You will never know when you need to do online social engagement, by the time you knew it, it will be too late. So you should start today.
Here is how to start doing your online social engagement:
Say Sorry for the Mistakes You Make Regards to your Products and Services; People will Respect You.
1. Subscribe Google Alert for your company keyword. The reason why is because whenever somebody mentioned about your company and is indexed on Google, you will know immediately. If the mention is neutral or good, it be ok for you. However, if the mention is a complaint, you will need to resolve it immediately. This is because once the page is indexed on Google, forever it will be. If it is a popular complaint page, it will soon be listed on the first page of Google and cost you tons and tons of potential prospects for your business!
2. Be Honest. Every company, big or small, makes mistakes. Because companies have people working for them and people are not 100% perfect. When the comments on the internet is true, says sorry and tell the complainer that if he or she wants to sue your company they can do so, but you will not run away from the mistake you made, you will solve the issue with them together. Admit the mistake you made, and take action to rectify it.
3. What about malicious remarks made by your competitors pretending to be your clients? This can happen if your company is large and leading your industry. The first thing you should do is to apologize and investigate immediately. Be a gentleman even if you know that the person who post the comment is dishonest. The next step you should do is to reply online to ask the “complainer” to message you his or her invoice number, when is the date they came to your office or buy your product. If they are not able to produce the evidence for their complaint, you will need to publicize again that you will only resolve their problems if they produced genuine receipts or proof of their buying their products at your premises. This is to show prospects that this is clearly an online slander craftily build to tarnish your company reputation.
4. Improve on yourself. Since you have made the mistakes, apologized for it; and move on. Improve to be better in your products and services thereafter. Don’t run away when people said things about your organization, face them with your sincerity.
In summary, social engagement is a must for every organization to practice in their daily work operation. Online social engagement is not a complicated thing to do. All you need to do is to be sincere, honest and responsible towards whatever that is said about you on the internet.
Filed under Internet Marketing by on Dec 10th, 2011. 
There has been a lot of discussion on which site is best for marketing your business. It seems like their are more pages to manage than there are hours to keep up with it all. How do you choose a Social Media platform for your business?
6 Things to Consider Before Creating a Company Page on Google+ Pages, LinkedIn Company Pages or Facebook Fan Page:
1. Which Social Media Platforms do your Ideal Customers use most?
My rule of thumb is Linkedin for B2B and Facebook for B2C or individuals who are sole proprietors or small biz owners. Google+ pages are unproven, but will likely favor early adopters of technology until it goes more mainstream.
Bear in mind that although your customers may be on face on Facebook or LinkedIn, they may not be looking for your content when interacting with the site.
For example, just because there are a lot of Sales Managers on Facebook, they are not likely to be looking for tips to motivate employees while surfing Facebook. They are most likely sharing photos and using it for entertainment.
Those same people may be using LinkedIn to find tips to help Sales Managers because their frame of mind is around their business.
2. What is your Value to customers when they use your Google+, LinkedIn, or Facebook company page?
You need to be willing to create compelling and relevant content in order to drive viewership, or at least sharing relevant content from elsewhere in order to hold their attention. You must give them a reason to visit your page more than once. Numbers mean nothing if your customers don’t do anything once they get there. Consider making your company page around a related topic and not necessarily a sounding board for your company. One way is to share your expertise in your field to stir discussion. If your page is a resource on your field it will attract customers who need the information and will add brand credibility to your company. Try not to use it for just sharing the same content you share elsewhere or product announcements.
3. What do you want Customers to do once they get to your Company Page on Google+, LinkedIn, or Facebook?
One big mistake companies make is to not have a clear purpose for their Social Media pages. You need to determine the action you want people to take and why. Are you trying to generate business leads or simply do some branding for your company. These two strategies will have vastly different implications on how you design your page and your content. If you want to build a brand image, focus on spurring customer to customer conversation that is relevant, but not directly tied to your product. If you are trying to generate leads, be sure to lead the conversation back to your products and provide an incentive to get them off LinkedIn, Google+, or Facebook and on to your email list or sales page. If you are generating leads all the content shared should be your own as it will drive people to your site. And then you can work to get their email and converting them to customers.
4. How does a Google+ Company page, Facebook Fanpage, or LinkedIn Company Page Integrate into your Current Marketing Strategy?
People feel like they are missing out on opportunity when they don’t have a presence on each and every social media site. That is not necessarily true. Yes you need to be in front of your potential customer as much as possible, but just because you are in more places doesn’t mean you will generate more leads. Having a deeper and more meaningful presence on one Social Media Platform does more for your business than have a shallow presence on many.
Think of it this way, when you see a Facebook Fanpage with 30 people on it , would you consider it an “Authority” on that topic? Would you then check LinkedIn or Google+ to see if the company has other pages on the same topic to total up their followers? Of course not. Now what if I said that same Company had 7,000 likes, a lot of content, and a bunch of user interaction on their wall? You would probably think about this brand differently. If the topic and content was relevant, you would probably join into the conversation and like the page.
So make sure you are not spreading yourself thin. If you already have a successful Fanpage, don’t commit to a Google+ or LinkedIn page unless it fits your model and you can dedicate the necessary time or resources to it so that it becomes as engaging as your current efforts and more.
5. How are you going to manage it? What Social Media tools?
As social media gets larger, more feature rich, and fragmented, social media management tools have increased in importance. You need to make sure you know how you are going to update your content, reply to posts, and generally interact with you customers on our pages. There are great tools out there, but not all of them are appropriate for your purpose. For example, hootsuite is a great tool, but it doesn’t have support for Google+ pages in their iPhone app. For me, that prevents me from managing my page from my mobile and forces me to sit at a PC. That is wasted time given that I travel a lot and don’t want to take out my laptop to reply to a post. What does your current tool support that you can use to manage your presence.
6. Who will Manage our page on Google+, Facebook, or LinkedIn?
Your page doesn’t need to be managed by you, but it does need management. If you don’t have the time, you have a few options. You could hire a social media manager. You could outsource to a Social Media Marketing company or you could hire a virtual assistant.
If you plan to do it yourself, I would recommend doing something semi-automated with an alert tool. Remember that none of this should be fully automated. Nobody wants to talk to a robot. Alerts can be automated, but responses should not be. Automated alerts tools will allow you to know when there is a post while not requiring you to log in each hour or day to your page.
A poor mans method for Alerts is to set up a filter in your email that puts all your Facebook, LinkedIn, or google+ notifications in a folder. You can check them each morning and generate your responses. This saves time and effort without forking over any money.
Once you answer these questions you are prepared to choose a platform. For tips on how to build a profitable fanpage find me @MrSimpleMedia on Twitter.
If you know of any tools, tips, or have questions, leave a comment below!
Filed under Internet Marketing by on Nov 23rd, 2011.
Have you ever tried learning another language?
If you have, you know that each language has nuances with regard to things like tone, or idiomatic expressions. Jokes that work well in English may sound totally inappropriate in German, for example.
I read an excellent short article today that claims that Social Media is a Conversation. It makes total sense to look at this way – authors share an idea, and readers respond: first, to the author, then to one another. So why do so many companies look like they’re standing in a corner at a cocktail party, mumbling to themselves?
There are those who claim that the conversation isn’t the point, but rather, the ability to publish. I find this a little old-fashioned, but they claim that so much is published with no response, that the value of social media is really the act of publishing, not what you publish.
What good is publishing something that no one reads? What good is saying something that no one hears? Why are we arguing in the first place?
Because until you know how to start a conversation, you won’t get anyone to converse with you.
Filed under Internet Marketing by on Oct 31st, 2011.
This is your Monday morning wake up call. Before you attend that all-important meeting or start making those endless phone calls or tweets, do yourself a big favor – update your LinkedIn Company page now. As we all should know by now, LinkedIn is an incredibly valuable networking and marketing resource for businesses. Hopefully you have taken care of your personal brand with a strong, up-to-date LinkedIn profile. What about your company page? Here’s an opportunity to directly attract qualified sales leads from the best known professional social network in the world. Let’s get busy with that.
Getting Started
If you think you don’t have a company page yet, you may be mistaken. When you and your employees sign up for LinkedIn with a common company e-mail address, a company page is created for you. The first person from your company to access your company page is able to start assigning Administrators. Once that happens, only they can update your company page. ***Important*** Make sure that first administrator is someone not likely to leave the company, like an owner. Then, make sure other trusted employees are given administrator access. Why? Because if a single employee is your page administrator, and they subsequently leave the company – you’re stuck unless they voluntarily add new administrators and remove themselves.
Company Page Strategy
Once you’re straightened out company page administration (which is a mess and needs to be straightened out, LinkedIn!), you should create a marketing strategy for your page that is in line with your overall business development strategy. Your objective is to communicate who you are, what you do and why the reader should be interested in your products and/or services. Just like your website, only now you can be pretty sure that your visitors are business professionals, not spammers or SEO companies looking for business.
Company Profile
Complete your profile with all of the pertinent contact information and upload a good quality logo image. Your description is crucial, since this is the first thing people will read about you. Hint: Create an impressive first paragraph, under 297 characters in length, that is essentially your “elevator pitch”. LinkedIn truncates your description and places a “more…” link below that to allow visitors to read more of your description. If you haven’t hooked them before that, there’s little chance they will read more or visit your Products or Services pages. Don’t forget to add a contact person and phone number! While you’re here, make sure you include your company Twitter ID and Blog RSS Feed – those will keep your company page fresh with your latest blog and social media content.
Products and Services
This vital section of your company page is often overlooked. Don’t miss this opportunity to promote your core products and services. Click on the Products and Services tab and include a representative image and a short description for each item. Now you’re making an elevator pitch for individual products or services. Tell your readers what it is, why it’s valuable to them. Address a specific need and how your delivery solves the problem. Next, ask for recommendations. Don’t be shy, ask your best customers to go to your Product or Services page and add a brief recommendation for the ones they’ve purchased. This will go a long way towards convincing new customers, just like customer ratings in Amazon.com.
Promote Your Company
Last but not least, drive qualified leads to your LinkedIn company page. Include a link on your website, blogs, e-mail marketing content, PPC campaigns and LinkedIn ads. I think you’ll find that LinkedIn quickly becomes one of your best sources of qualified business leads and customer conversions.
Filed under Internet Marketing by on Aug 8th, 2011.
When Netflix raised its prices last month, users reacted in a big way. Through social sites like Facebook and Twitter and even on Netflix’s company blog, users responded to the announcement with thousands of negative remarks.
Will users abandon the site as a result? And is the company’s reputation tarnished? WebProNews spoke to Bryan Gonzalez, the director of Social Media Labs at the Entertainment Technology Center at the University of Southern California, who told us that he didn’t think the impact would be that significant for either Netflix or the users.
Although some users could actually drop Netflix, they would have the chance to see what other services are available. On the Netflix side, Gonzalez said that users might realize just how valuable its offerings are.
What do you think the impact will be?
Filed under Internet Marketing by on Aug 5th, 2011.
