Kicking off the second session at the Conversion Conference we have Robert Seeger, the Co-Founder and President from FMX World looking at Social Conversions and taking your social media marketing to the next level.
Most businesses have at least attempted to use Facebook, Twitter, Google+ or Pinterest but the ones that really suceed are the ones that are able to gain more and turn social media into a viable business option.
Stephen Pavlovich, the Director of Conversion Factory is moderating the session.
Provoking Impulses (Thoughts)
To start the session, Robert talks us through some of the provoking impulses and thoughts when it comes to social media. Below you will see some examples of these and companies that use them in the right way and others that don’t.
Don’t Make People Wait
If you are using social media, you need to be on the ball and respond to any messages quickly. People are often online buying because they don’t want to wait in a line in a shop so don’t make them!
Tiffany’s
Robert purchased a 15,000 Euro ring for his wife for their engagement from Tiffany’s. After making his purchase, he writes a message on their Facebook wall telling them about the ring he just brought and asked for some help with buying a suitable wedding ring. 80 hours later, Tiffany’s posted a reply telling him to call a phone number in the USA! The message was not only responded to late, but it was a generic and unhelpful message. What you can also see from Facebook is where the user is writing the message from. Robert was in Austria so when he got a reply telling him to call the USA, you can understand why he wasn’t happy.
The Naked Truth
You need to get the service right! If it is wrong the messages will be easily spread on all the social media platforms. Care about offline as much as you care about online.
Vodafone
A message from an unhappy customer was posted on their Facebook page and overnight, it had generated over 100,000 likes and comments. If the service had not been wrong in the first place, this would not have happened.
Downsize
Believe in the power of small. It isn’t about the volume of fans or followers you have. You need to be thinking about quality over quantity.
Heineken
Robert posted a message on their Facebook wall in English asking where you can buy Heineken on tap in Vienna. They have millions of Facebook fans but even with this sheer volume of people, they still managed to reply within just 20 minutes. Not only did they repond to the message, they gave him a brilliant answer and they even replied in German as they could see his location was Germany!
Edge Rank to Hell – You have to Sell
Don’t pay attention to the Edge Rank algorithm It has to work for your business. Updating your Facebook page 10 times in a day for Edge Rank may do more damage than good. You should be testing to see how much content your fans and followers want to see. Measure how many people stop following you if you post more than once a day.
Never Call us Fans or Followers – We are Your Customers
Have someone dedicated to managing your social media. This person should really know what they are doing as they are sat at the front of your business and your customer service. When you get a comment on your page, you need to reply in a timely manner and the question needs to be answered.
Europcar
Robert wrote on their Facebook page on a Friday evening saying that he will be arriving at a station the following day and wanted to know if they would have a car available. Six days after he added the message, he got a reply that simply said ‘We have two pick up places in the station you are arriving in’. Social media fail 1; the answer was not helpful and number 2, it was five days too late.
Couple of Tools/Applications
- Tout – Create 15 second video updates on your phone and Broadcast to Facebook and Twitter instantly
- Pair – A two person social network that is perfect for interacting with your partner and no one else
Commandments (Laws)
Robert went on to talking about some of the laws and commandments of social media. Some of the key messages for me are shown below and these can actually start to help you form part of your social media guidelines.
Be Social
If someone talks to you online, a response is needed. Think about it, if you are in a room full of people and someone asks you a question about your business, you aren’t going to ignore them so don’t ignore them on social media.
Be Professional
If you are responding to messages on your social media platforms, dedicate your time to this. Don’t multitask as mistakes can and will happen. There have been a large number of mistakes that have gone viral, one small mistake can cause huge uproar.
Have Fun
Social media never stops, it goes on every day of the year including Christmas. Being fun keeps the platform friendly and personable. It shouldn’t all be serious.
Show Cojones
O2 are a great example of this in action. When their network went down they were bombarded with offensive tweets but O2 replied to all of them and tried to put a fun spin on their reply. Sometimes things do go wrong, but dealing with them in the right way will be your success.
Work Together
Working with everyone in your organisation to formulate a plan for your social media is key. Different people in your organisation will have different ideas that they can bring to the table.
Think Mobile
Have content that is suitable for mobile. If it doesn’t work on a mobile, the error message is displayed and this gives off the wrong message for any brand.
Instant Take Aways (Ideas)
In the final part of this session, Robert gave us some key take aways that can be put into practice today.
1) Use a sheet of paper for the next update
Draw a funny picture and upload it to your Facebook page. This has been done on many occasions before and the response… Lots of likes and shares!
2) Start to use Instagram – today
If you haven’t started using this platform yet, start today. It is a photo application that allows you to take photos and upload to your social accounts. You can use hashtags which will then automatically allow you to generate an album of other photos that have used the same hashtag
3) Think Social Media Without Facebook
There are lots of other social networks and you need to ensure that you know which platforms your customers are using. Not everyone will be using Facebook but when we think social media, most people instantly think Facebook. Start to think beyond this.
4) Bend the Rules
Don’t always pay attention to the rules on the social media platform. There are campaigns that you can run that don’t always abide by the rules but these are the ones that often work best.
Speaker Bios
If you want to find out more about the speaker or moderator, check out the below or follow them on Twitter:
