digital media, social media

Marketing with Hootsuite

One of the questions I most get asked is how can professionals and small businesses use social media effectively. After a while I began to understand is they were really asking, “How can I use social media for marketing and sales?”

Great question. The easy answer is to listen to a need and fill it.

Here’s some tactics that I’ve employed on social media to help me market myself and our digital communications agency.

Listen. What are people asking for? What are they complaining about? What are potential customers saying and how can I help them?

Provide value. Are you filling the needs that you’ve identified while listening? Share with these people tips, best practices, and content they can use to enrich their own lives.

Lead them to the promised land. After you;ve provided value based on needs (over time) you will begin to earn trust with them. And this is where you can then suggest to your online community the actual products and services that you have available to them.

And how does HootSuite help us execute these simple steps: Simple. The HootSuite tool and dashboard allows me to listen to conversations on various social media channels and helps me to publish (provide value) content to these channels and accounts. I can also use the easy-to-use reporting and analytics tools to measure how effective we’ve been on social.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0CZS3SYVeQ?rel=0&w=640&h=360]

digital media, social media

Entering the conversation with HootSuite

After we listen to the conversations that are taking place online hopefully we will soon become comfortable. We will get excited about the positive comments and ecstatic about the opportunities we see. What about the negative comments. Choose to see these as opportunities to improve rather than hide your head in the sand. Hiding doesn’t make the negative go away even though we might hope they will.

Two things you should understand is:

  1. People move to social media to both congratulate and complain.
  2. People view a brand’s social media accounts (right or wrong) as customer service channels.

This brings us to entering the conversation.

Saying Hello:

Let people know who you are and what you do. However, don’t fall into the habit of spamming. I usually follow the 80/20 rule. 80% of the time you should be sharing interesting third-party content, RTing interesting content and replying to people online.  The rest of the time you can tell people about what you do and share with them your own content.

Positive Comments:

Positive comments give us the opportunity to receive validation on what we are doing and our industry. If someone leaves a positive tweet or Facebook comment regarding their interaction with your business make sure to thank them. A retweet (RT) or Like is not sufficient enough. Leave a comment thanking them for taking the time to leave a positive comment. And ask them what specifically they enjoyed. Even ask them to continue to use your service/product.

Negative Comments:

At our social media agency in Toronto we have the opportunity to work with many popular brands. Not too long ago, one of our long term clients underwent a rebrand. One of the changes was that the brand was open twice as long as they were before. Which means twice as many customers; twice as many happy customers; and twice as many negative comments. Our client could have shut things down and hid their head in the sand. Fortunately they understood the opportunity and have been engaging with everyone who leaves comments on their Facebook page or Twitter account.

Questions and Answers:

People will also have specific questions about your business. They may even have questions about your industry. Be open to answer all of these.

social media

Listening with HootSuite

One of the reasons I started using HootSuite was so that I could keep track of specific conversations. At the time I started using Tweetdeck and then HootSuite I was working for a company whose clients were real estate agents. I understood that Twitter allowed me to promote and market my company and our services. What I also appreciated was the ability to follow conversations via “#hashtags”.  I call this listening.

Listening on social media can mean a number of things. For some it can mean literally listening to what people are saying in general or specifically about you or your brand/company. For me, it means this plus listening for opportunities to insert myself in a conversation.

However, using Twitter to keep track of mentions, specific people and conversations proves difficult. Which is where HootSuite comes in:

HootSuite helps teams engage with audiences and analyze campaigns across multiple social networks like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+ Pages from one secure web-based dashboard.

I started using HootSuite to track mentions in Canada of keywords such as #commission, #realestate and #advance. I noticed that there were many real estate agents using these keywords. And thus, there were opportunities to build trust with them and hopefully earn their business. Another thing that occurred to me was that I could also use these keywords to market our company too via what I call “marketing tweets”. These are tweets that are  pure marketing such as: “I have #cupcakes to sell. Come see me! #Toronto”

I wrote about using search in HootSuite on our social media agency blog not too long ago.

social media

The simplicity behind HootSuite

I have been personally using HootSuite for more than 3 years. Probably closer to 5 years. I remember before HootSuite I was using Tweetdeck to send out tweets and keep track of certain conversations and people I was personally interested in.

However, for a number of reasons I soon switched over to Hootsuite to manage my personal online conversations. Ever since I have used HootSuite for work and business. And with all the other options out there (see HootSuite vs Buffer) I intend to continue using HootSuite and recommending HootSuite to anyone willing to listen.

For the rest of this week, I will write about HootSuite and it’s various functionalities. If you’re a professional or own a small business, this series is meant for you.

[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/43914561 w=500&h=281]

digital media

Live from BlackBerry Live in Orlando: #BBLive

For the past few days I’ve been working from Orlando while attending the BlackBerry Live annual conference. While drumming up interest and business for our social media agency, I’ve also been contributing to Canada’s source for business and technology news.

Highlights:

Alicia Keys. She might have stolen the show to be honest. At the Opening Keynote she announced an initiative aimed at empowering, educating and supporting women in STEM. The same day she hosted a panel on Women in Tech that was filled to capacity. Then in the evening she presided over a concert experience like no other.

BlackBerry Z10. I’ve been playing with the device since Monday afternoon and I’m really impressed. My primary device is a Nokia Windows Phone 8 so maybe comparing the two is not fair. But I’ve seen Android and iPhone users fall in love with BlackBerry’s newest device all week long. The apps are strong and the device is sleek. I know it’s probably not perfect but it’s a step in the right direction for the smartphone innovator.

BBM. The future is bright. Not just for the popular messaging system on the BlackBerry 10 devices. Watch for BBM to show up on your iPhone and Android devices this summer in a planned rollout. And also watch for BBM Channels: the newest social network.

BlackBerry.  When the keynote began with CEO and President Thorsten Heins announcing the new Q5 for emerging markets, I will be honest, my heart sank a bit. However, after digesting the full Opening Keynote I came away excited for the future of BlackBerry. Firstly, ignoring emerging markets is not smart from a business standpoint and BlackBerry is establishing itself as a leader here. Second, BlackBerry’s QNX and BlackBerry 10 is not only about smartphones. It’s about powering the whole internet and the devices and products that connect to it: smartphones, cars, homes, businesses, etc. Third, I mentioned it above but it’s worth repeating: BlackBerry supporting the case of increasing women’s role in leadership and technology is overdue in the industry as a whole. With BlackBerry carrying the torch, watch for other companies to follow suit.

I have embedded a number of links in the post to some articles and videos I produced during my time here at BlackBerry Live. Feel free to click on them for extra content.

Disclosure: As a contributor for itbusiness.ca I was invited to Orlando by BlackBerry and have been their guest during my stay.

digital media, social media

thirdoceanTV: Social Wisdom with Laurie Dillon-Schalk

A couple of weeks ago I had the opportunity to “interview” one of Canada’s top digital strategists and planners: Laurie Dillon-Schalk who is currently with DraftFCB’s Toronto office.  To be fair to Laurie, I think I learned more about the social/digital space during our conversation than the amount of awareness we might have generated for her and her work.

So, thank you Laurie for your time and your generosity. If you ever have a moment with her, don’t take her for granted.

The original post of our conversation (including notes) appeared on our social media agency website.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7l-SfiAzh0?rel=0&w=640&h=360]

digital media, social media

thirdoceanTV: Mark Farmer

At the beginning of May I had the opportunity to have an enlightening conversation with Mark Farmer. I met Mark when he was with The Royal Ontario Museum. He is now a digital strategist with York University.

The original post of our conversation (including notes) appeared on our social media agency website.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuO85jxswQI?rel=0&w=640&h=360]

digital media, social media

Walk Off The Earth at ING Cafe Toronto

Social media innovator, in the Canadian banking sector, ING Direct Canada today officially launched their newest campaign aimed at helping Canadians save their money.

Finding its home on YouTube, the campaign also features Canadian indie stars, Walk Off The Earth.

Earlier this evening, Walk Off The Earth visited the ING Direct Cafe at 221 Yonge St in Toronto to unveil their latest video (sponsored by ING Direct) which is a version of Madonna’s Material Girl. They also stayed to answer a few questions and take some photos.

I took a moment to record some of the event. Here is the unedited version of that recording:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPDoGSTwtac?rel=0&w=640&h=360]