Will Your Company's Social Media Efforts Pay Off?

"Here’s a few social media truisms that many brands simply don’t want to hear.

1.      Social media success takes time. Don’t expect overnight success. While customers increasingly expecting an almost instantaneous response to their inquiries, generating a worthwhile return on investment (ROI) requires considerable effort and patience.

2.      Social media success takes resources. Do you have someone with several hours of quality time per week available to dedicate to your social strategy?

  

3.      Social media success takes you out of your comfort zone. Are you prepared to share other people’s content in your social channels – even that of your competitors? Are you will to engage with other people and open conversations? Do you create original content that other people will want to share? Are you able to handle and respond to public criticism and customer complaints?

Be sure you’re ready before you commit. Customers expect a response, and a ghost town of a social media profile is not a good sign to anyone who comes looking to learn about or engage with your brand. 

By MediaBistro

Volunteer Job Opening For Social Media Manager! Apply Now!

Galaxy 4 Peace is looking for two talented, hard working, gifted and creative undergraduate or graduate to serve as Social Media Manager.  The candidate would help the organization expand its current brand and spread its voice and as such an interest and skills in social media would be required.

This is an unpaid position and you will be reporting to and working closely with our communications coordinator.

Your role in this position would vary from creating and posting contents on G4P social media pages such as facebook, twitter, instagram, pinterest and Google+.

In addition, you will be putting up post blog posts.

The 10 Commandments Of Good Customer Service

1. Know who is boss. You are in business to service customer needs, and you can only do that if you know what it is your customers want. When you truly listen to your customers, they let you know what they want and how you can provide good service. Never forget that the customer pays our salary and makes your job possible.

2. Be a good listener. Take the time to identify customer needs by asking questions and concentrating on what the customer is really saying. Listen to their words, tone of voice, body language, and most importantly, how they feel. Beware of making assumptions - thinking you intuitively know what the customer wants. Do you know what three things are most important to your customer?

Effective listening and undivided attention are particularly important on the show floor where there is a great danger of preoccupation - looking around to see to whom else we could be selling to.

Are You A Young Entrepreneur In/around Surulere? Read This:

Are you a young entrepreneur in/around Surulere? Apply now to be one of the 10 candidates for #SurulereStartups!  #NigerianStartups is a community-based enterprise programme that kicked off in April 2014 with the pilot #SurulereStartups, where young entrepreneurs are engaged, mentored and supported to create a network of value-adding activities. 

COOL FM OAP - MAXY Says GoodBye...

COOL FM OAP Amaka Alusi has announced to her listeners that she’s leaving the station and moving on to bigger things. The beautiful MAXY as she’s fondly called, changed the face of overnight radio in Nigeria. She was passionate about people, life and she wanted to see positivity in every situation. 

On the Overnight Show, MAXY was a friend, a sister, a motivator, a role model and a mentor. Effortlessly, she drew everyone who listened to her to fall in love with her beautiful heart. 

That everyone is going to miss MAXY on the overnight show on COOL FM is an understatement. But we do know that she has to go forward and we absolutely cheer her on… Go girl!

Dear Vanguard Newspaper, Have Your Editors All Gone On Strike?

I was in the news room last night with my colleagues... hanging out and talking about everything and anything really. Of course, when three or four journalists gather, the conversation must drift towards the job and the media industry in general.
Somebody picked up the Vanguard newspaper from a stack nearby and randomly flipping through, he found the picture you're looking at. On page 36, of Saturday September 20, 2014, was a picture of a group of women with breasts completely exposed. Right in the middle of a weekend paper that kids are likely going to read. The Blocks you see here, are mine. The original photo in the paper is totally exposed.
Who allowed this to go to press? Has the person been suspended yet? Who are the editors on this paper?

Your Business On Facebook: Engage Your Customers With Photos.

If your business has a Facebook page (and why shouldn’t it?) tell your story and engage with your customers (and would-be customers) with creative photos that enhances your brand.
According to social media examiner, Photo posts account for 93% of the most engaging posts on Facebook. They can get 53% more likes, 104% more comments and 84% more click-throughs on links than text-based posts!
So make it fun, make it catchy and make sure it makes a bold statement that drives home the message!
Check out these examples..

Twitter Offers Ideas For Social Media PR People...

Hello! Check out these tweet ideas for your twitter marketing and promotions. Either you are promoting a product, an organization or a service, the following tips from Twitter Small Biz (@TwitterSmallBiz) can help you.

Tweet Idea: Reply to a few mentions from followers or thank customers for supporting your business. #mktgkickstart
— Twitter Small Biz (@TwitterSmallBiz) September 12, 2014

Tweet Idea: Interact with followers by asking them a question, such as whether they would attend a free workshop. #mktgkickstart
— Twitter Small Biz (@TwitterSmallBiz) September 5, 2014

Tweet Idea: Get creative by using Vine videos to showcase your products & services. Start here: https://t.co/2yawSKGicA #mktgkickstart
— Twitter Small Biz (@TwitterSmallBiz) August 27, 2014

For Startups: How To Introduce Your Business In One Sentence

If you’re a small business owner doing your own PR, you should be able to answer questions about what you do in 1 sentence. Use this template below:

My Company  (name) is developing (what you're offering) to help (target audience)( solve a problem) with (your unique selling point)

Very easy!  Just fill in the blanks and keep all the unnecessary grammar away.  Make it pure and simple.

Make sure you practice your one sentence pitch, make sure even your grandma understands it, and you’re good to go!

Cheers! 

Tips to help you avoid mistakes on social media:

Social media is a great marketing avenue for you and your business, free to access and if used correctly, a wonderful and rewarding tool for increasing brand awareness and business inquiries.

We must though pay special attention when using social media to make sure that we maintain a professional profile and presence. Remember, that once an update or comment is made, though able to be deleted later, is still released into the viral world and can be subject to much debate and negative feedback if what you have shared is viewed as incorrect or debatable by others.

With newspaper, radio, television adverts etc. you are able to review what you have done and even share it across the office or further feedback, whereas social media is more responsive, impulsive reactions. Once an update is released, just like when a deadline for changes have passed for that newspaper advert, it is out there to be viewed by thousands or millions.

Tips to help you avoid mistakes on social media:

    Review all posts before releasing them.
    Make sure you stay clear of debates as your opinion may offend other users.
    Topics to try and avoid include religion, politics and football.
    Try not to spam on your timelines as this can annoy others.
    Don’t include people in groups / pages / spam Tweets without permission.
    Use your own content only, do not infringement copyrights.
    Check your account for hacking regularly, change password every month.

As you build your social media presence it is important to consider more and more not only the marketing opportunity it offers you, but also your need to protect your brand identity for the more people that follow you, the bigger any mistakes you make can become.

SOURCE: http://www.marketme.co.uk/

From PR Daily: 4 listening styles communicators should know

 Hearing is the practical, and listening is the strategy. And as with most things strategic, there's more than one way to listen.

As a communicator, you should know which type of listening to use in every situation, as well as how to use those skills to your advantage. Here are four (of many) types of listening:

1. Appreciative listening

Appreciative listening is exactly what the name implies — listening to enjoy the story, music or information you hear.

The American Society for Training and Development recommends that, to truly embark in appreciative listening, you should avoid engaging in other communications and focus solely on the sounds or words.

So, when someone is speaking to you, put your phone down!

2. Critical listening

Critical listening involves hearing what someone says, identifying key points and/or arguments and solidifying your opinion. Think of a debate, or how you feel when you listen to a politician speak.

When you engage in critical listening, your goal is to analyze what the speaker is saying and determine his agenda.

3. Relationship listening

Relationship listening is one of the most important skills to have when dealing with people. Relationship listening is also known as therapeutic or empathetic listening.

You would use relationship listening to help a friend through a problem, solve a conflict between co-workers or prompt people to open up through support and honesty.

4. Discriminative listening

Discriminative listening is when you look past the words you hear to detect the underlying message. It might be one of the most important types of listening for online marketers.

This works best in person, as you can look to body language, tone changes and volume to determine what the speaker really thinks and feels.

However, these days we're not often face-to-face with clients or customers. We need to adapt to become better online discriminative listeners as we engage more and more via texts, Facebook comments and snappy tweets.

Understanding the difference between hearing and listening is a vital skill, whether you deal with people in the boardroom or through comments on your brand's blog.

Which types of listening do you practice most?

Lindsay Bell is the content director at Arment Dietrich. A version of this article originally appeared on the Feedblitz blog.