Social Media Skills: Is Your Brand Proactive Socially

by christine | Nov 22, 2012 | Branding, Business Success, Interactive, Social Media

The Social Media skills now required to maintain a good social media reputation has evolved. Most of us (businesses and brands) have our social listening strategy in place, writing content and posting on our social media accounts. So…how is it going? Are you monitoring your accounts, interacting with your followers on each account? If you are, good. We all know that it’s imperative to listen to what your customers have to say… as this will keep your brand honest and transparent.

Does your social media strategy include the necessary social media skills?

Being proactive in your social media accounts has never been more important. With the daily launches of new social media blogs and sites, keeping on top of your brand’s social calendar takes time and resources. Don’t lose faith! These efforts can and will be reap Brand rewards in the end. Engagement with your customers is imperative to keep the “stickiness” on your sites and also loyalty and trust with your brand. More importantly understanding and knowing how to handling both positive and negative feedback properly can be indeed a powerful tool to gain loyalty from your target audience and enhancing their experience with your brand. Keep in mind these steps below to become socially proactive:

1. Proactive and engagement on your social accounts should be your primary measurement of how your brand is doing. Keep an active conversation with your customers, so when and if a problem arises you can respond quickly with a solution

2. Respond Quickly to all Social Media Feedback, especially negative.

3. Don’t script your response. Be human and sensitive… an actual “real” live sensitive caring person (customized responses will go a long way to creating a supportive community online).

4. Support your response with detailed information; again give qualified information to help turn the negative experience into a resolved, positive experience. (We all remember being on the other end of those endless customer automated phone messages…that keep telling us to press the next sequence of number’s to get help, but in the end, it feels like we are on a never ending carousel spinning round and round, and in the end we hang up out of frustration or just get lost in a loop of unhelpful automated annoying computer generated voices.) We want our customers to feel that someone is actually listening and with a positive timely response your customers will probably post a very sincere thank you back and become a loyal customer in the end.

5. Dedicated customer service email and resources are a must. In support to #3, you have to specifically set up for your social media accounts. This will help garner a great customer support service within your social media communities. You should allow for a dedicated resource for these platforms to monitor what’s being talked about online and also join in on the conversation to build strong relationships and provide positive customer experiences.

6. Be Honest and Transparent…this will go a long way for validating that yes we all make mistakes, but lets work together to fix it and make it better by actually listening to what your customers are saying.

7. Be Empathic, stay objective. Look at it from the consumers point of view, have all your facts and as said earlier try to resolve as quickly as possible.

Now to make it all work! Now that you have your social listening strategy, resources, and your social customer service in place you need to add some tools to help you get the edge on your competition by taking charge of your social media and your online presence. You can start with some free resources and or customized packages. No tools work the same, so do your research. This is just a small sampling of links below to get you started:

RSS Feeds, Google Alerts, Track Tweets, Comments and Discussions on fan boards, etc, and Netvibes

Want to know more about social media? Download Social Media Understood here.

Please feel free to add comments, tips, and suggestions; I always like to hear how other people adapt new strategies to their social accounts. And remember be Proactive!

Brand vs. Icon

by Miriam Hara | Feb 25, 2011 | Branding

It may be a market warrior’s dream to make the brand they develop for a company into an icon. Chanel, Coca-Cola, Nike, Michelin – all brand names that have become synonymous with their symbolism. Brands that became more than commodity culture, they became pop culture. When you have strong visual cue, brands are conduits. People relate to them on a personal level because good brands, ones that survive, have personality and wit. Going beyond the brand mechanics, they position themselves. They never follow a trend… they should encourage one.

Image provided courtesy of the Nike, under the creative commons license.

Iconic brands might be an industry brass ring, but brands don’t fail if they fail to become cultural icons—many widely respected brands still maintain a name within a designate community, such as Sick Kids and Anne Taylor.

Brands aren’t just for corporations either. Personal brands come by way of blogging, podcasts and other new media-driven personalities. Whether it is creating a personality for a product, or a person, the key is conveying that character to the market. The human element, in all forms of art, is the one that resonates. So get to know your brand, and perhaps in the future, everyone will know it too.

Brand Fitness in Challenging Times

by Miriam Hara | May 19, 2010 | Branding, Business Success

Hold it. Maintain it. Sustain it.

When an athlete is weary, run down or even a little discouraged… is it realistic for him or her to go and run a race, without much training in hopes of coming in first? No.

Original photo by d_vdm available under a creative commons license

Likewise, it’s not very realistic to aim to come out of a recession thinking you’re going to be in first place without having put the time into training your consumers. Branding is critical to create an educated consumer, a consumer who knows your product is front-of-the line. There’s no need to push the envelope of your marketing budget and to go for glory in these tough times, but keeping the momentum is key. Maintain the brand energy, and nurture your brand investment. You’ll make sure the long-term brand fitness by keeping it fit on a daily basis!

What is brand fitness?

A fit brand is a brand that lives a long healthy life, one of profitable longevity.Hold it. Maintain your existing budget to sustain your market share.

Brand Tactics: Time Stops for No One

by Miriam Hara | May 19, 2010 | Branding, Business Success

Brand Tactics need to be re-evaluated on an ongoing basis.

To often, brand managers feel that once they have used a brand tactic, and it hasn’t worked, it will never work. That’s just not so. As time marches on, it is increasingly important for brands to stay in shape, (sound familiar?). Keeping pace with market shifts and trends is key to brand survival. When market conditions are tough, as they are today, it’s time to take the time to get fit. It is also the precise time to plan for the future. There is an old adage, “time stops for no one”… there is another wise saying: “this too shall pass”. Consequently, your brand tactics need to be timely, in top shape and ready to go!

Photo by basheertome available under a creative commons license

How do you evaluate brand tactics? Suffice to say, in every type of market condition there exist three fundamental pillars: The right approach. The right offer. The right time.

The approach and the offer must be in sync with the timing of any marketing initiative in order for it to be successful. Failure of a vehicle in the past, may have been the result of the wrong offer or, of “off” timing. When reviewing how to get your brand to lift off in time for the next full market up swing… keep an open mind and review and assess with a 360 degree scope. Make time work for your brand.