The Daily Dose by Dream Local Digital

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5 Ways to Give Your Customer a Voice on Facebook (& Build Brand Loyalty)

Involving your customers in your social media content is paramount to building a relationship with them. When you allow your fans to have an honest dialogue with you, you will build brand trust and a solid relationship. Here are some ways you can build brand loyalty on your Facebook by offering your customer an authentic conversation.

1. Customer Photos & Video

There are a few different ways to implement customer photos. You can either get the customers’ permission to photograph them with your product or you can ask them to submit their own photos. There are also contests involving photo submissions, sometimes you can just ask and people will send in their photos. Always remember to ask for permission if you’re showing a customer’s face and name on your page.

Ex. A simple photo congratulating a family on their new home encourages fans of that page to believe that they, too can find a new home through that Realtor.

2. Polls

Understanding your customers’ needs is essential. Sometimes the easiest way to do this is just to ask a question on Facebook. This also allows the customer to have a real voice on your territory, which helps you build brand trust.

Ex. If you’re a garden center and you ask your fans, “What are you growing in the garden this summer?” you’ll find out which seeds, fertilizers, and equipment your customers will need from you.

3. Contests

You can build brand awareness and gain new fans by involving your current followers in a contest. This invites rewards, such as coupons or gift certificates, for spreading the word about your brand. A particularly effective contest is a “share” contest.

Ex. Offer a reward to a random user selected from the pool of users who “Share” your contest post. Every share is an entry, and at the end of the day (or couple of days) you can pick a random winner. Even if only 5 people with 400 friends each share the post, that’s another 2,000 people who just heard your company’s name. (Note: Be sure your contest follows Facebook’s rules.)

4. Invite Their Opinions

Tell customers you want to hear from them. They’ll have good ideas on what they’re looking for, and you will be able to improve your services or products, build more brand loyalty and increase sales.

Ex. Write a post about how you’d love to hear their recommendations on the Facebook page, or how you want to hear from them in a private messages about something they’d like to see at your store.

5. Offer a Solution

It’s okay to tell the customer that you have what they want. This is an expert-level move, though. You’ll need to pre-empt this offer by going to the customers and asking them what they want. Then, present the solution they were looking for and tell them to take it. It’s okay to give a call-to-action like, “You asked and we delivered! Buy our new yellow cotton paper today.”

Ex. Share a post with a product or service you have that will be an answer to their problem. If you’re a plumbing and heating company, offer them something like a discounted air conditioner tune-up if they call in the next 24 hours and schedule an appointment.

When you focus your content on customers, they will respond. Seek out their voices and let them be heard. They will see you as an open company who willingly accepts their needs and offers a solution. You can be an influencer by focusing on your fans and being available for them. You can build brand awareness and loyalty through daily customer involvement.

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This article was written by Corissa Poley – Online Marketing Strategist at Dream Local Digital. Corissa lives in Portland, Maine and believes Maine is the best state in the U.S. She brings her can-do attitude from the busy pace of her former residence in the New York/New Jersey Area. Her professional experience with the Portland Public Library, green construction publishing, Apple Inc., and the Information Technology Group at University of Nebraska-Lincoln gives her a diverse outlook to feed her ever-curious and creative mind. You can reach Corissa at corissa@dreamlocal.com or connect with her on Twitter.

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If your company is working to establish a brand identity online, this is a must read. Responding to critical feedback from customers can make or break your image on the internet and it is being done badly often!

Exhibit A:

You own the company that just had this customer post on Facebook. What do you do?

Here’s what I suggest you don’t do:  panic, delete the post, respond with pandering or generic prose, not respond.

Here’s what the company where I found this post has been doing to most of these:  deleting the posts and not responding.

What do you think the result is from this company response?

In the past, in traditional media, it would be one disgruntled customer (and maybe his closest friends and family if he was really vocal) deciding not to do business with this particular company ever again.

Guess what! We live in a new world where one person can make a tremendous impact with one negative review or comment on the internet.

So these networks of computers are controlled by people who communicate with each other, relaying valuable and timely information to the global community.

“For every person online, there are two who are not. By the end of the decade, everyone on Earth will be connected.” – Eric Schmidt, Google, April 2013

That means everyone is a potential customer or an existing customer. When they post a review on your website, product page, Facebook page, Yelp link, or on their own blog, you MUST respond. It cannot be erased or ignored.

One thing to consider before responding is the potential energy involved. This customer has probably put considerable effort into attempting to do business with your company and it’s not going as planned. How many of your current customers spend that much time and energy on your company when they are happy? If you’re lucky it’s half as much. Consider surprising and delighting your disgruntled patron with an exceptional reward or offer, like a personal letter from the top of the company with a viable solution, for their extra effort. Make it right by contributing a new, more positive experience or just solving the problem with a smile. Empower your employees to do the same. It shouldn’t cost a lot of money to make your customer’s day. It should be genuine and come from a place of understanding. This is how you build a brand champion.

What happens when you comment on the original complaint with an update about how your business went out of the way to provide a solution for the customer?

A case study that stands out in my mind is Dell.

Here’s a useful blog from Andy Sernovitz on what happened and how they turned a negative customer experience into a new marketing approach on the internet:  http://smartblogs.com/social-media/2009/03/12/andys-answers-how-dell-turned-around-negative-word-of-mouth/

I remember this story from 2009, when it was breaking news. Basically, Dell is now participating in a conversation about their company that is going to happen whether or not they take note. And by participating, they can learn, improve, and shape the story about who they are and how they put people first. Now that’s worth a little loyalty from a customer such as myself!

This timely piece of information will hopefully help you with negative feedback from customers in the future, but what about the stuff that has already happened on your Facebook page or has you mentioned in somebody’s Twitter feed?? It’s never too late! Respond, respond, respond.

In your own words:  Have you had an experience that turned a complaint into a delight with the power of the internet? Which company turned it around for you?

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This article was written by Eliece Hammond – Online Marketing Strategist at Dream Local Digital. Eliece is from the Pacific Northwest and has recently relocated to Silicon Valley with her new husband, Jim. Maine has a special draw for her and she is excited to work with the team and support local commerce. Eliece attended college at an early age in Illinois, earning a high school diploma and AA degree in Graphic Design in June of 1999. She later went on to complete a 4-year Business Administration degree from the University of Washington with concentrations in Marketing and Finance. Her focus has always been on entrepreneurship, with 14 years of experience developing business models and marketing plans. You can reach Eliece at eliece@dreamlocal.com or connect with her online at: http://about.me/eliece

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This article was written by Alyssa McCluskey – Online Marketing Strategist at Dream Local Digital. Alyssa has lived in the Midcoast area for seventeen years. Raised in Hope, Maine, she recently graduated with her Bachelor of Arts degree in English from the University of Maine at Orono. Alyssa has been a part of the local community for a number of years: she was a member of the Pen Bay Sailfish Swim Team for twelve years, and worked for the Penobscot Bay YMCA by helping to develop youth through swimming lessons and summer camp. She was also a member of the UMaine community during her four years in Orono as a Resident Assistant. Her past community involvement gave Alyssa the skills to interact with people and the desire to get involved and watch local businesses thrive. She is very excited to use her skills as a writer and to learn more about social media by working with Dream Local Digital. To contact Alyssa, email amccluskey@dreamlocal.com.

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This article was written by Corissa Poley – Online Marketing Strategist at Dream Local Digital. Corissa lives in Portland, Maine and believes Maine is the best state in the U.S. She brings her can-do attitude from the busy pace of her former residence in the New York/New Jersey Area. Her professional experience with the Portland Public Library, green construction publishing, Apple Inc., and the Information Technology Group at University of Nebraska-Lincoln gives her a diverse outlook to feed her ever-curious and creative mind. You can reach Corissa at corissa@dreamlocal.com or connect with her on Twitter.

Welcome to Geekbook —  Capturing the weekly buzz in digital media and online marketing & design, as well as trends, news, and cultural topics that are helping shape and inform today’s readers.

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Google Takes on Pandora and Spotify

Google held its annual developer conference, Google I/O this week, introducing several updates, including those for Google+, Gmail, Maps, and Search. One release that captured the attention of the internets was the introduction of Google Play Music All Access. Awkward name, I know. The new service gives users unlimited access to a cloud-based music library with discovery features and sharing capabilities, for $9.99/month. Critics are not giving Google much credit for creating something to differentiate it from others, though. As with anything Google does, there are many opinions on both sides. With its vast reach and extensive library of data, I wouldn’t count them out yet, though I hope they come up with a better name. – TIME

You Can Now Send Money Using Gmail

More Google news this week, as they introduced a new and rather intriguing feature. You can now send money using Gmail. Using their existing Google Wallet service, users will now be able to send each other payments, even if the other person doesn’t have a Gmail account. As is my usual take on Google’s new offerings, though this new service is similar in many ways to other existing services, the popularity and wide use of Google products give it a massive advantage. If this functionality scales-up to a broad user base and even forces the market to consider how this could be used at physical checkouts, we could be reaching a tipping point in digital payments. — Los Angeles Times

Yahoo May Buy Tumblr

Several reports this week indicate that Yahoo CEO, Marissa Mayer may be closing a $1 billion deal to buy  microblogging social media website, Tumblr. Yahoo continues to look to bolster its image in the social media world and this potential acquisition would give them a leg to stand on. Though considered a niche site in many ways, Tumblr is a powerhouse, with 107 million blogs and 15 billion pageviews a month. — GigaOm

Newsweek.com’s Impressive Redesign

It stinks when someone else launches your idea before you do, but that is apparently what happened to Newsweek. When the New York Times launched its immensely popular Snow Fall story earlier this year, it demonstrated a huge opportunity for the design and publishing world. Combining amazing imagery with a long-form essay and presenting it in a visually stunning way online, was the right recipe. Incidentally, at the time, Newsweek’s redesign was two months in the making, and reflected a similar approach. After shutting down their print magazine last year, this new strategy looks to create ‘Snow Fall’ stories on a weekly basis. This approach feels right to me. By taking the best traditional media content creators and combining them with this new user-focused design, legacy organizations have the ability to transform themselves and succeed in an increasingly digital world. — Advertising Age

Banner Ads That Work

Though banner ads are less effective than native advertising, I was pleasantly surprised this week as I sat through this one from IBM, that displays Internet statistics for the amount of time I watched the ad, even displaying my time on that current page. It caught my eye, though didn’t get me to click. One step at a time.

“Inspiration does exist, but it must find you working.” – Pablo Picasso

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(Images via L.E.H., Technobuffalo.com, Mashable)

Geekbook is produced by Jeff Howland, Community Manager at Dream Local Digital, a marketing agency specializing in interactive media, marketing, SEO and social media.

Tips, additions, or comments? E-mail me.

Follow Jeff on Twitter and Google+.

Let’s dive in and look at some of the new features.

Homescreen

First, the home screen. What’s different? The matte design streamlines the feel of Google+ to match other Google mobile applications, such as Gmail and Google Now. The options to make a new post are cleaner, and invite you to share something with the gentle green pencil. The posts you follow will be in your stream as columns now, instead of one stream.

The new “Home” button in the upper left hand corner will be your guide to all things Google+, whether you’re logged in as your business or just for your own profile.

The menu on the left has become more streamlined and dynamic, so that you can see it simply by mousing over your Google+ location in the upper left hand corner. There, we have the list of options to visit different sections of the Google+ community just as we had before.

We’ll look at some of the design changes on other pages, such as Communities, since that is an excellent avenue to increase engagement on Google+ for your business.

Communities

On the Communities page, you’ll be able to select which community you’d like to view. You will be able to see which communities have been updated most recently by the number of new posts in the red box that sits inside the Community Page’s profile photo.

The stream is similar to the previous Communities format. Much like the home page, the Communities pages contain multiple columns of recent content, as opposed to a singular news feed.

People

The “Circles” page has become the “People” page, though you can still view individual circles by selecting them at the top of the menu. Below, we’ve selected the “Customers” circle. The option to share a post directly from this circle’s page is now available.

You can also customize how often you see posts from this circle in your newsfeed, under to the gears icon that sits in the upper right corner of the “In This Circle” block at the top of the page.

Profile Pages

The business profile pages mimic the old style as well, but with a cleaner look and new ways to share your content. It looks much like the main news stream, but on the business page. The user profile page is also much like the business profile page. Keep in mind that your menu is no longer below your business page title and basic information. Now, it is above your cover photo and scrolls with you as you move down the page. 

Status Posts

Sharing your content or status post is a little different as well. Now, when you click inside the “Share what’s new…” status box, a popup appears.

There are a few different ways you can customize text now in your status posts. Above you can see that in the example post we have used an underscore as well as an asterisk to do different things with status text.

If you add an underscore before and after a word, it will appear italicized in the post. For example, the word “post” above is the same one that we saw under “ _post_ ”.

In a similar fashion, the word “formatting” above would have been the same word we saw under “ *formatting* ”. 

What do you think about the new Google+?

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This article was written by Corissa Poley – Online Marketing Strategist at Dream Local Digital. Corissa lives in Portland, Maine and believes Maine is the best state in the U.S. She brings her can-do attitude from the busy pace of her former residence in the New York/New Jersey Area. Her professional experience with the Portland Public Library, green construction publishing, Apple Inc., and the Information Technology Group at University of Nebraska-Lincoln gives her a diverse outlook to feed her ever-curious and creative mind. You can reach Corissa at corissa@dreamlocal.com or connect with her on Twitter.

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Businesses are finding exciting new ways to use Pinterest to reach customers and gain feedback and insights on their products or services. Entrepreneur Magazine posted an interesting article recently recommending several new approaches that I’d like to expand upon here.

1 .  Topics of interest to your target audience – boards that speak to obvious themes that are important to clients and potential clients.

I’d add that creating boards that are relevant to the default categories available on Pinterest can be inspiring. Connecting your business and your services to categories that are already relevant to potential customers brings those pinners one step closer to the sale.

2.  Educational value – build a “how to” board with informational content relevant to your business industry.

My addition to this would be to follow and capture pins from industry leaders who are already putting out great content on Pinterest.

3.  Feedback for your business – create a board of images requesting feedback about potential product or service offerings, treating your Pinterest followers like a virtual focus group.

On top of that, ask customers for their opinions about your current products and services to improve upon the services you already offer and come up with new inspiration for what may be missing in your current lineup.

4.  Upcoming events – pin information about speakers, workshops, training sessions, and sponsors for upcoming business events to promote your current events with followers.

Promote events in your community and encourage followers to participate with your business at volunteer and networking events that strengthen your community to create and uphold a business that is closely linked with the town that it operates in.

5.  New products or services – rev up audience anticipation for new product launches by pinning information about the features and benefits and a countdown to product launch.

Give followers on Pinterest a first crack at a beta test or make a unique service offering as a “soft” launch that is exclusive to avid followers.

6.  Showcase your company culture and employees – give followers an inside peek to your business by telling the story about unique employee style, company culture, and interests.

Create a board that highlights your company branding in unique ways. For instance, if your predominant logo color is chartreuse:  dedicate a board to the color and collect pins across Pinterest that are predominantly chartreuse.

7.  Provide social proof – evidence that famous celebrities, your family members, people in your town or country are already enjoying your business offerings. May include customer testimonials, profiles of sales, or images of people using your branded services or products.

You can also create a shared board and invite fellow pinners to pin their own images and stories about your brand. For instance, a shared board of landscape maintenance customers where followers pin images of their beautifully landscaped yards throughout the seasons.

8.  Discussion groups – a Pinterest discussion board features a designated topic and invites other pinners to weigh in with responses in the description box.

Additionally, create a series of Pinterest boards based around loosely relevant topics to your business and invite engagement and pinning. Example:  a kitchen and bath remodeling company shares a Favorite Recipes board with current customers so that they can post their favorite things to prepare in their gorgeous new kitchens. Your business can comment on these pins to the shared board and say “I bet cooking this up in your new kitchen is a lot of fun!”.

Finally, participating on a regular basis and following proper business etiquette on Pinterest goes a long way to getting your business the kind of reach and engagement you really want on this unique social media platform.

Read Pinterest’s Business Pinning Principles here: http://business.pinterest.com/pinning-principles/

Read Entrepreneur Magazine’s original article here:  http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/226533

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This article was written by Eliece Hammond – Online Marketing Strategist at Dream Local Digital. Eliece is from the Pacific Northwest and has recently relocated to Silicon Valley with her new husband, Jim. Maine has a special draw for her and she is excited to work with the team and support local commerce. Eliece attended college at an early age in Illinois, earning a high school diploma and AA degree in Graphic Design in June of 1999. She later went on to complete a 4-year Business Administration degree from the University of Washington with concentrations in Marketing and Finance. Her focus has always been on entrepreneurship, with 14 years of experience developing business models and marketing plans. You can reach Eliece at eliece@dreamlocal.com or connect with her online at: http://about.me/eliece

Welcome to Geekbook —  Capturing the daily buzz in digital media and online marketing & design, as well as trends, news, and cultural topics that are helping shape and inform today’s readers.

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The Onion Hacked by Syrians

The Onion, a highly popular parody site, had its Twitter account hacked this week. While The Onion has already parodied the event, incidents like this are forcing Twitter to improve its security. Twitter responded to the attack this week by saying they continue to work on a two-step verification process and also has provided advice to journalists to help improve their account security. – Adweek

LinkedIn Turns 10

LinkedIn reached the 10 year milestone this week and this article takes a look at how it started, how it has evolved, and how it is changing the way we work. With over 225,000,000 registered members, the company looks to generate added revenue through its advertising and job recruiting platforms, while continuing to bring our professional lives online make them more social. — The Next Web

Facebook Rolling Out Video Ads

As Facebook continues looking for new ways to generate revenue, they plan to tap into advertisers’ television marketing budgets by offering video ads. The ads will become part of the newsfeed starting in July. 15-second ads will likely be autoplay and muted by default and will be initially targeted at one of four demographics. Digital video advertising is expected to grow over 40% in the U.S. just this year — Financial Times

Longread: Millenials’ Impact on Journalism 

A great essay by Ben Adler looking at the dynamics of news consumption and how younger generations’ expectations from digital media are impacting journalism. Faced with the need to adapt to quick-hit stories which are shared primarily on social media, and working with an audience who expects to be part of the process, writers and media organizations are coming up with some creative solutions to maintain the context of their stories but also keep this audience satiated and engaged. Ben looks at these dynamics at some depth, highlighting four overlapping trends that are driving change. —  Columbia Journalism Review

Mother and Daughter Reunite on Facebook

After years of searching for her birth mother using more traditional methods, Cyndi Lane turned to social media, hoping for better luck. 44 years after her birth, Cyndi set up a Facebook page named, “Are you Cyndi’s mother?” and within two days the photo she posted had been shared 1,100 times, including her cousin, who saw the similarities and made the connection. Cyndi then made the call to 82 year-old Audrey Gilligan — “I was adopted in 1968 out of Olean, and I think you may be my mom.”  – The Daily Beast 

“Take time to deliberate, but when the time for action has arrived, stop thinking and go in.” – Napolean Bonaparte

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(Images via L.E.H., The Next Web, Twitter)

Geekbook is produced by Jeff Howland, Community Manager at Dream Local Digital, a marketing agency specializing in interactive media, marketing, SEO and social media.

Tips, additions, or comments? E-mail me.

Follow Jeff on Twitter and Google+.

Welcome to Geekbook —  Capturing the daily buzz in digital media and online marketing & design, as well as trends, news, and cultural topics that are helping shape and inform today’s readers. Subscribe here to receive Geekbook via e-mail. 

Native Ads Outperform Banners

A new study shows that the increasingly popular, native advertising format performs substantially better than banner advertisements. The data show that study subjects were 25% more likely to look at a native ad than they were at a banner, and they looked at them 53% more frequently. This story suggests, rightly so, that there is still a lot of work to do in order to prove how much more effective native ads are at getting consumers to click. – Forbes

Magazine Cover of the Year

Shot on the Wednesday evening after Hurricane Sandy hit, this image of Manhattan, taken by Iwan Baan, and captured on the cover of New York Magazine’s November 12 issue, was recently named Cover of the Year by the American Society of Magazine Editors. — Advertising Age

Warren Buffett Joins Twitter

Investor Warren Buffet sent out his first tweet (below) this week. He’s already amassed nearly 300,000 users. — Wall Street Journal

Instagram Adds Tagging

On Thursday Instagram introduced ‘Photos of You,’ allowing users to tag people, businesses, and products in photos, similar to how Facebook works. Previously users could link to others using the @ symbol, however with this new functionality, an archive will be viewable for those who have permission. Through creative tagging, this new feature could help brands drive more engagement and boost follower counts. —  Advertising Age

Twitter Moves the Market

Last week, when the Associated Press’s Twitter account was hacked, a false tweet sent the financial market into a two minute tailspin. Things recovered quickly, however the implications are significant and the event has regulators and the FBI engaged. In addition, Twitter later announced that they would be introducing new two-step security authentication to help protect against such incidents. — The Washington Post 

“It’s not much of a tail but I’m sort of attached to it.” – Eeyore

(Images via L.E.H., New York Magazine, Twitter)

Geekbook is produced by Jeff Howland, Community Manager at Dream Local Digital, a marketing agency specializing in interactive media, marketing, SEO and social media.

Tips, additions, or comments? E-mail me.

Follow Jeff on Twitter and Google+.

Big news in the social media world!  HootSuite recently announced that they now allow companies who schedule content on HootSuite to schedule Company Updates.

Okay, let’s back up…

HootSuite is a tool that many people and businesses use to schedule content on social media channels.  With this tool, users may decide what date and time their posts appear on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+.  However, until recently posts on HootSuite could only be scheduled for personal LinkedIn profiles, not Company profiles.  Rather than scheduling out content for their Company profiles, businesses on LinkedIn have manually updated statuses on LinkedIn to keep their content fresh.

This may not seem like a big problem to some people; to be perfectly honest, it’s not.  However, when it comes to running a business and updating LinkedIn statuses, which one usually gets put on the backburner?  Now businesses have one fewer online marketing concern on their minds.

Another great thing about HootSuite is that the service is free if the business uses up to 5 social media channels.  The average company has nothing to lose by opening a HootSuite account to assist with their social media marketing strategies.

Is your business using LinkedIn?  Get started here.

This article was written by Alyssa McCluskey – Online Marketing Strategist at Dream Local Digital. Alyssa has lived in the Midcoast area for seventeen years. Raised in Hope, Maine, she recently graduated with her Bachelor of Arts degree in English from the University of Maine at Orono. Alyssa has been a part of the local community for a number of years: she was a member of the Pen Bay Sailfish Swim Team for twelve years, and worked for the Penobscot Bay YMCA by helping to develop youth through swimming lessons and summer camp. She was also a member of the UMaine community during her four years in Orono as a Resident Assistant. Her past community involvement gave Alyssa the skills to interact with people and the desire to get involved and watch local businesses thrive. She is very excited to use her skills as a writer and to learn more about social media by working with Dream Local Digital. To contact Alyssa, email amccluskey@dreamlocal.com.