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3 Steps to Improve your Social Media Strategy

Posted on April 10, 2017 by ANS SM Team | Posted in Marketing, Social Media Leave a comment

We have talked a lot about the importance of having a social media presence for your business. Not only is it a good way to open up channels of communication with your customers, but also lets you know first-hand what your customers want. Having that kind of an edge on your product or service offering can be a fantastic way to help grow your business.

These are 3 simple steps that can help you gain traction and see more action for your business. Having a social presence for your business is not the only way of communicating with your customers and marketing your products, but it is a tool that can add value if used properly.

1. ANALYZE your target audience

The nice part about this step is that with the tools available to you from your social accounts you can gather a lot of information about your primary audience. Please note that if you started your business a month ago, you probably won’t get as much information—give yourself some time to build a decent sample of your clientele. Once you’re ready, start collecting the data on your followers.

For Facebook, use Facebook Audience Insights to better understand who likes your page and who is engaging with you. You can also create lookalike audiences on Facebook to further your reach. LinkedIn is a great place to gain insights about industries that make up your followers, how your followers found you (e.g. organic or sponsored), and how you compare to other companies within your industry. This and more is available to you through the analytics tab from your companies LinkedIn page. Another way you can study your target audience is by using Twitter. You can monitor key demographics, languages, and interests on your Twitter account by clicking on “audiences” from Twitter Analytics.

Let me also add that you can get a great head start on analyzing your audience by using the services of our sister company, West Coast Data Services. Their professional team can quickly take your customer file and run a quick analysis that will leave you with a clean and accurate list to help you reach the audience you are aiming at. It’s worth looking into what West Coast Data Services can do for your market analysis! For more information, contact our representative, Patti, at 800-434-1851/

2. DIVERSIFY your message

When you have multiple social accounts for your business it’s best to follow the general platform guidelines for how each platform should be used. In this post I want to give a brief explanation of how to use Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn promote your business and engage with your followers.

Let’s start with Facebook. Facebook is a perfect way to communicate all aspects of your business. Users on Facebook like to see business content that is fun, but not too intrusive with sales and promotions. On Facebook you want to post photos, videos, and status updates that are related to your product or service offering. Find more information on how to use Facebook to grow your business here.

Twitter is great for monitoring communication with your business. You want to be tweeting often, and your tweets need to be catchy so that people don’t just scroll past without even a glance. You also want to use twitter to engage in conversations with people and provide customer service. Ask and respond to questions! Find out more about using Twitter for business here.

LinkedIn is interesting because it is A social platform centered around businesses and professionals. It’s the place to share professional thoughts and work-related experience. Use LinkedIn to network with people and companies within your industry. You can also join and create LinkedIn Groups to get more direct communication going about your business. Learn more about using LinkedIn for business here.

3. POST! Post! Post!

Perhaps the most important part of your social media strategy is to be active on social media. This doesn’t mean simply creating an account on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Google+. In order to be effective you need to be actively engaging on these platforms. Frequently post to your accounts, but make sure that your copy is relevant and engaging for your audience.

A few closing thoughts

After reading this, you may be thinking: “How am I going to have time to implement all of these steps to get a better handle on social media for my business?”. At American Name Services, we want to see your business succeed. We provide social media help that can get your business’ social sites rolling. If you would like help with boosting your social media for your business, give us a call or check out our website! You can also email our social media manager, Lindsey Lefevor at: lindseyl@a-names.com. We would love to hear from you! Leave a comment below if you found this article helpful or not.

Blog post by Michael Peterson, Social Media Marketer at American Name Services

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Are you on Twitter?

Posted on February 16, 2017 by David Brian Fiso | Posted in B2B, B2C, Marketing, Multi-channel Marketing, Social Media

Are you on Twitter? This is a question that I often ask people I meet. You see, I am a Twitter junkie. I love Twitter. I spend a lot of time on Twitter every day. I get my news, stay connected to my sports teams and friends, and keep tabs on the world in general all through Twitter. As a marketer, I use Twitter to engage with clients, market our products, and to generate leads. Yes. I did say that I do lead generation on Twitter. Yes. Twitter is a great platform for businesses to market on. In fact, @heatherheuman shares 6 Tips on How to Use Twitter Marketing to Increase Leads to help organizations leverage Twitter for business.

Heather’s 6 Tips

Have great images in your tweet
Use properly sized images for tweets
Use the Advanced Search function on Twitter
Tweet value rather than just titles
Automation is your friend for evergreen content
Create lists with influencers and experts

I’m sure you’ve heard the first one before, everyone says that you should post great images. While images take time to find, edit, brand, and publish (especially if you do it right); there is a reason to this suggestion. In her article, Heather cites a @buffer study that states that tweets with an image get 18% more clicks, 89% more favorites and 150% more retweets. Why would you ever put marketing content on Twitter without a great image? Hopefully you won’t ever again. That is, unless you are including video instead…but that’s a whole different topic.

When it comes to determining the copy that will accompany your great image, focus on tweeting value as opposed to just titles. What do I mean by tweeting value? While you could just tweet the title of the article you are sharing, doing so adds no value to the people that read your tweet. Instead, focus on tweeting something of value that will help the user find what they are looking for. For example, while tweeting about an article on Conversion Rates, tweet something like:

“Are you looking to increase your #ConversionRates?”

This will help drive qualified traffic to your content. This helps your campaign result in better leads from your social marketing efforts on Twitter. Always tweet something of value instead of just names and titles.

A few more Twitter Lead Generation tips

To Heather’s 6 tips, let me add the following:

Tweet curated content relevant to your target audience
Research and strategically use hashtags
Tweet often

Posting curated content should help you to build your marketing narrative, not someone else’s. It should support the call to action you are driving with your marketing strategy. Find articles and other content that your target audience would be interested in, then share that content with original, value-added copy. Use curated content intermingled with your own original content so that it supports your position as a thought-leader, not a thought-sharer. But remember, only share great content.

However, great content (whether original or curated) means nothing without an audience. Hashtags are the key to placing your content organically in front of your target demographics. Research the hashtags you use and look for hashtags your ideal customers are using. Use relevant hashtags and tweet them often.

But how often? At what cadence should you tweet? How do you define too little or too much in the Twitter world? According to Heather’s article, the average lifespan of a single tweet is 18 minutes. This means that you need to tweet often enough to ensure your message reaches its target. There isn’t a set number, but be sure to tweet often.

Be sure to read Heather’s article on Twitter lead generation for information on implementing her 6 tips, then reach out to us on Twitter @ANSinsights for more help with marketing in the Twitter-sphere.

This article review was written by @DavidFiso, Twitter Genius and Digital Marketer at American Name Services.

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How to use Twitter to grow your business

Posted on November 28, 2016 by ANS SM Team | Posted in Marketing, Social Media

Twitter for business

The big game was about to start and I couldn’t log into the streaming service that was airing the game. My subscription was paid and current. I hadn’t changed my password, or any settings for that matter. I had been using the service just two days prior without issue. Now, I was going to miss the big game. Upset, I turned to Twitter. I quickly drafted a stern tweet mentioning the service provider and voicing my displeasure. I was angry. Then they responded.

Within a few minutes of my tweet complaining about the service not working, I received a reply and a direct message from the service provider offering help and support. With their help, the problem was resolved via Twitter direct message in less than 10 minutes. I was able to watch the game. Life was good.

Twitter is an ongoing conversation about everything. Even if your company isn’t on Twitter, the chances are very high that your customers are. Chances are also high that some of them are talking about you. Here are 3 tips to leverage Twitter to grow your business:

1. Join the conversation

This should be obvious. You can’t use Twitter if you aren’t on Twitter. The goal of marketing is to control the message. With the explosion of social media today, controlling the conversation is nigh impossible. However, you can help steer the conversation and influence customers through posting relevant and helpful content on Twitter and other social media platforms. You can understand your customers better through brand monitoring to learn what the voice of the customer really is.

2. Be responsive

The number one thing that builds my loyalty to brands I consume is customer service and responsiveness. Twitter is a conversation. A conversation is a two-way street. You can’t rely on simply posting content without any effort to respond to customers’ needs and concerns. Instead, be responsive. Respond when customers mention you to give praise or raise concern. Monitor keywords and hashtags to see what people are saying about you, and respond accordingly. Learn about what your customers need and want, and then do what you can to get them those things. Remember not to let emotion dictate your replies, but rather the sincere effort to serve your customers.

3. Use Twitter for marketing

Twitter is not just a place for clever memes and funny GIFs. Twitter is a place your customers are spending a significant portion of their days. Leverage Twitter to get your product in front of your target audience. Use Twitter’s in-depth advertising features as well as targeted original content. Hashtags are a great way to get your potential customers searching for you without even knowing it. Using Twitter for marketing can be very powerful.

Conclusion

I’ve taken my complaints to companies on Twitter several times, the issue with the streaming service wasn’t the first or the last. Those that used Twitter as a platform to support me and help me solve my problems are those that I still buy products and services from today. Those that failed to follow the three tips above, however, are those that lost my business. Don’t be the company that loses business. Start growing your business on Twitter today.

Written by David Brian Fiso, Digital Marketer and Creative Designer at American Name Services

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Social Media for Your Organization

Posted on May 16, 2016 by ANS SM Team | Posted in Digital Marketing, Social Media

Social Media for Your Business

Everyone is asking; “How do I use social media to promote my business?” From the freelancer, to the entrepreneur, to the fortune 500. Although, hopefully, most fortune 500 companies are defining the way to use social media rather than playing catch-up, like many small businesses. The dilemma is that not all social media platforms are created equal and not all social media plans will make sense for all companies and organizations. For this reason, companies must research the different social platforms, explore posting options, engagement, and more to determine if each platform is relevant to their client base or reasonable for the content the company would like to distribute.

Too often many small companies feel as if they desperately need a social media presence, but don’t know where to start or what to do. When people understand what one does as a social media specialist, the requests start to roll in… Can you look at my accounts to see if I’m “doing it right”? Would you be interested in running the Facebook page for my company?

The other often asked question to a social media team are about every possible social media platform. “Have you thought about using Tumblr?” “Have you heard of or even experimented with Periscope? No. What?! Why not, it’s over a year old?” “How about Meetup? Have you considered how having a presence could be potentially beneficial for you R&D department as well as connecting with your consumers?” These types of inquiries can be overwhelming and make small businesses feel as if they are behind the times. It is important to not get caught up in the social media-hype, but rather look at all the different platforms against the needs of your company.

The response to all of these questions is simply, “What is your intention as a company with any social media presence, and what are you trying to accomplish?” With social media nearing a decade of business related activity; it is more than a buzz word or fad. It has proven its relevance for businesses and organizations. However, as the article Social Media is Not For Every Business points out, the Social Media world is not a “one-size-fits-all”. The standard four; Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram may be more than enough to connect with your consumers. This is the best place to start, and even then, not ALL four of these basic social media platforms will be worth the resources needed to invest for the potential outcome.

Let’s look at these standard four, what are the reasons your company would need to have a presences on each:

Fantastic for business-to-business communication, professional networking, and promoting business services.
Connecting your employees to your business. Every company needs a company landing page. This allows employees to connect their current job with the company logo and page.
Putting your employees to work. Assist your employees in developing an all-star level profile. As well, set into practice an active presence on LinkedIn; adding clients and individuals met at conventions to their network of connections, and participating in groups and discussion boards.

Facebook

Keeping your followers updated on products and services as well as engaged with your brand. Facebook is the easiest and generally most used interface to promote reaction, discussion and sharing.
Consider unique ways to use Facebook yard sale pages, interest groups, and events to find new clients and engage with existing customers.

Twitter

Valuable for its potential for business-to-business communication, professional networking and engaging with consumer followers.
This is the place to over-post. Best practice is to post more than three times a day. It’s recommended to re-post your companies original content up to 3 times a day.
If your company has content that can be shared in succinct tidbits that are engaging conversation starters.
Twitter allows for quick, in-the-moment, unintentional and deliberate collaboration and customer service.

Instagram

Excellent for visual businesses.
Experience the power of the hashtag; discovering trending and relevant hashtags as well as developing new unique hashtags is integral to gaining momentum.
Great for understanding your business’ brand and style. Being visual forces your company to portray all that it is, through imagery only.
Fabulous playground for connecting with new collaborators and clients.

Do you need guidance for your business or organization with your social media accounts? Call Patti Thompson at American Name Services today 800-434-1851.
Here’s a brochure of our social media packages.

by Emily White, Creative Specialist at American Name Services

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