Whoever said honesty is the best policy was definitely on to something, especially when it comes to branding and customer service. Authenticity with your customers is highly valued in social media marketing—and can keep your relationships positive. Customers are bombarded with brands, services and products every single day across social media channels. With fake advertising, false news and companies taking advantage of their consumers and covering up mishaps—it’s no wonder some social media users have trust issues. Read on →

Social media marketing is an essential tool for businesses of every size. Today, there are over 2 billion people using and interacting on some form of social media—that’s one-third of the entire population. No matter what product or service your business is offering, a large portion of your audience is engaging on social media. Engaging with them and joining the conversation is vitally important. Even more important, however, is the need for your business to be connecting with your consumers on a level that feels personal, friendly and approachable. Read on →

Social media is quickly transforming the way that companies are doing customer service—and if your business isn’t working on your response time and social media customer service skills, you’ve fallen behind. Did you know that two out of every three consumers today use social media to solve their problems? Customer service used to consist of long phone calls, automated voice messaging systems and an agonizing amount of time waiting on hold for a representative. Read on →

Been on Insta lately? If so, you may have recently seen a new feature introduced where users can include a “questions” sticker in their stories—and then respond to those questions in an Instagram story post. This is similar to the polling feature that Instagram recently implemented, where you can poll your followers to answer a certain question, giving them two options to vote on. If you’re wondering how you can benefit from this new questions feature, the answer is simple—it can help you create real conversations and engagement with your followers. Read on →

Social media provides a wonderful way to connect with your customers—between sharing things they’ll love and responding to their inquiries, connecting to consumers on social is an incredible tool for getting involved in the community. However, with so much on social, it can be hard to know what to pay attention to. While you’re likely tuned into your newsfeed and notifications tab, studies show that over 30 percent of tweets containing company names don’t include their direct Twitter handle—meaning there’s an entire segment of social your brand might not be seeing. Read on →

The world of social media is fast-moving, ever-changing and quite frankly intimidating at times. As a small business, it’s hard enough to keep track of the benefits of all the networks and how to utilize them—much less set aside the time to manage them! While social media can seem complex, it is such a valuable resource for businesses in any industry. It offers unique abilities to connect with your audience, reach new customers and set yourself up for digital marketing success—meaning it’s worth investing the time and energy into learning how they work. Read on →

We’ve recently talked about how the consumer-brand relationship is similar to a “relationship-relationship”—the phases of single, it’s complicated, and dating apply more to social media marketing than you might think! We’re not dating gurus by any means, but that got us thinking about the inner workings of how brands and consumers grow to become attached. Consumers love their favorite brands—they advertise for them just by talking about their favorite products, and you can find them engaging with nearly every single social post. Read on →

According to a recent study, one in five Americans use social media websites as a source of healthcare information. While most C-level execs are aware that their industries should be focused on lead generation via social media, within the healthcare industry, social media plays a much larger role in getting in front of the right people. For nearly 40% of recent hospital or urgent-care center patients, social media was a key determining factor in their choice of facility, and more than half of 25- to 35-year-olds reported that they were influenced by it. Read on →

Have you heard of influencer marketing? While it’s a fairly new addition to the world of digital marketing, it’s quickly become one of the fastest-growing sectors. And with 94% of marketers reporting positive results from it, it’s easy to see why people are curious! So what is influencer marketing? Basically, it’s when a brand partners with someone (an “influencer”) who has a strong, engaged social media following. They pay the influencer in exchange for their posting of promoted content and product advertisements on their own social media channels, in order to gain exposure to that influencer’s sect of followers. Read on →

There’s no doubt that social media is a powerful platform. It’s changed much more than just how we connect with friends; it’s also altered how we connect with colleagues, brands, and strangers all over the world. In fact, even the most personal details of a person’s life have been influenced by social media. The ability to define your relationship was one of Facebook’s first features and changed the way friends display the more intimate details of their lives. Read on →