Trends in Social Media Content – Part 3

This is the 3rd post in a series that offers new ideas for local businesses. Engaging audiences with fun social media posts is difficult, so we’ve collected the best ideas and are presenting them here. Check out the Part 1 and Part 2 of this post for more fun ideas.

9. Throwback Thursday

ThrowBackThursday is most popular on Twitter and Instagram. It’s used to show some memories from days past. Use it to recycle some old content, an event, an award, anything worth reposting.

#TBT is the hashtag that people use to mark the fun or unique memories they have. Here are some ideas of what to post on #TBT.

• Share an old event you hosted
• Old business cards, logos, offices or storefronts
• Post baby photos of your team
• Photos of past projects
• Repost old advertisements
• Post customers having overcome obstacles (with their permission)
• Fun and relevant fact about your business
• Awards or recognition

10. Video Testimonials

Having your clients and customers advocate and promote your brand is the best form of marketing. Your prospects are looking for reviews and confirmation that you are the correct choice, and videos are atop the list of things that help convert them.

Ask satisfied customers if they would help you grow your business by recording a quick testimonial about why your brand is the best option among the competition. You can shoot them on your phone, a camera, and make it a quick thing if you like.

Or you can have it be more professional and have a tripod, a nice backdrop or something that you are proud to post and display on the web and on social platforms. Good locations can also be industry events, conferences, or right in the middle of you delivering the product of service.

11. Social Media Takeovers

A takeover is a fun option for brands that have access to influences, industry experts and others within your community with a large following.

The person who takes over your account will make posts, stories, videos, or anything that is their style to highlight your products or services.

This is fun because it shows your business from an outsider’s eyes, allowing for new avenues of communication. It also can bring your business into the eyes of more people who would otherwise not notice you regularly. These work extremely well on Instagram.

Examples could be:

• A local celebrity taking update posts on Instagram stories for a spa
• A professional athlete taking over the social media stories for a local gym or supplement store

When selecting this option, here are a few key steps to making sure it is successful:

1. Decide who is going to take over- Are they famous/popular? Is their network a crossover of yours? Does it bring new audience into your sphere?
2. Select the network. In what type of media does this person excel?
3. Set criteria. Establish objectives, develop an outline, determine content material, set limitations.
4. Set permissions for their access.
5. Align goals. Make sure both parties will benefit from the arrangement.
6. Promote the event. Ramp up the excitement, tell your followers what is to come so that you can have people waiting for the event.
7. Monitor the results. Was it a success? Did you get above average engagement? Conversions? Followers?

This is the end of our three-part series. Hopefully, you get some social media ideas for local business. These trendy and innovative tools are a great way for you to develop your following and increasing engagement and ultimately conversion into clients.

Find out more about Neovora and the social media posting services we offer.

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Page Title: Trends in Social Media Content – Part 2

Trends in Social Media Content – Part 1

How to Get Onto Social Media – Quick Strategy Guide

We all know social media is here to stay and needs to be a big part of your strategy to get new customers and build relations with existing ones. If you aren’t already working with social platforms, and are wondering how to improve social for your business, the best time to start is now.

Here are some tips if you find yourself in the situation of wanting to increase your presence online.

1. Decide what networks to use.

There are hundreds of social networks out there, and you probably already know what is ideal for you, especially if you are in a niche that is rare or sequestered. But for the most part, you want to be on the most popular, to get the biggest potential audience. Consider visiting these networks:

• Facebook: Most users, best advertising platform, highly specific audiences you can target with some work. It helps to generate leads easily and comes in an affordable package.
• LinkedIn: Business networking. It’s good for B2B and lesser for B2C. Allows you to build trust and authority.
• Twitter: Perfect for businesses whose major audience is younger and when you want to break time-sensitive information.
• Pinterest: If your business is visually based. Things like restaurants, clothing, travel, anything attractive in front of a camera.
• Snapchat: Has the youngest audience. Use it for special offers, granting exclusive access, and using influencers to drive sales.

2. Have an objective in mind.

Perhaps you want to get more sales, have better relations with customers, get more prospects, get more reviews, generate client photos and content, have more web traffic, or go viral.

Start with the end in mind and work backward with a plan to get there.

3. Strategize.

Once you know the end goal, devise a plan to get there. What are your competitors doing? What are their objectives? How are they going about it?

• Assign roles. Who will be involved? What do you need to do? How often will you be engaging on social media, where, and how? Who controls that?
• Develop a calendar. What do you already have that you can use? What will you need to develop? What will it cost? How long will it take?

Know who your targets are and what they want to see.

4. Device content plan.

Make a plan for your strategy. Plan weeks and months ahead, this way you have a unified message and can deliver it seamlessly. You won’t look at your clock and say “Oh, I need a post at 3 pm, what to do?”

Themes are followed, messaging is differentiated and continuous, and you will have lots of foresight.

5. Use Tools and Automation.

You’re busy. We’re busy. Minimize your workload and find tools and automation that makes it easy. Spending lots of time on social media will ruin your brain.

Postplanner, Hootsuite, Sprout Social, Buffer, BuzzSumo are among the ones we recommend.

6. Seek engagement.

Everything you post must have a goal of prospect and client engagement. Seek for them to:

• Reply with photos
• Reply with anecdotes, stories
• Share information
• Converse with one another
• Answer questions
• Make suggestions or recommendations
• Tag friends

7. 80/20 Value/Sales

80% of the time you are delivering value: tips, tricks, news, and posting photos. 20% MAXIMUM of the time, you are saying “check our site”. Telling them about your new products, etc.

80/20 rule.

8. Don’t stop.

You will not go viral overnight. You will not increase sales by 100% in a week.

Social media is a slow game and needs to be perpetual. Be reliable, offer something for all of your future prospects, and monitor your channels every day to ensure you are following up on opportunities.

Tip: One to two posts per day on Facebook, as many as you want on Twitter, and about 10 on Pinterest all work.

9. Monitor the numbers.

Keep track of click-through rate, engagements, website visits, even overall sales and conversion. You will certainly increase all of these via social media, and you want to know which avenues deliver the most bang for your time.

About Neovora

We are social media experts and know how a strong online presence can spur growth. Get more information on social strategy and the best methods to increase conversion rates.

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Branding on Facebook – Social Media Quick Tips

When it comes to a Facebook branding strategy, there are a million routes, plans, and strategies that you can take. All will help you engage clients online with the purpose to deliver more revenue and increase client lifetime value.

Sometimes, marketing for small businesses can be hard with a small budget, and when you are busy running everything yourself. These best practices will help you manage your time better, and make sure they are more impactful.

If you’re currently not active on social media, or just looking for new ways to engage or new things to post, here is a quick list of business page tips to get the creative juices flowing.

Start Now

We all know the importance of Facebook as a social media platform. It has 2.4 Billion users, that’s like almost one-third of the world. But this post is not about that. How many people in your target market are on Facebook? Lots! Accept the fact that you need to be on Facebook now more than ever so draft a plan and get started now. Your page might not be viral, it may not make you a millionaire, but it’s the best way to market yourself online.

Get Real Voices On Your Page

Get your loudest, most vocal, happiest proponents onto your page. You want real people there having discussions or liking things so that prospects see there is some kind of action, community, or history of services you provide.

Get as many people to like your page as possible, and have something posted that they can engage with, if possible get their pictures too!

You can alert your clients about your new page or goal to increase your presence online with an email, link from your website to your Facebook where opportune, and give a reason for them to follow you online.

Be Friendly

Users are now hyper-aware of ad-speak, propaganda, and calls to action. Don’t be sterile, don’t be a business. Be more personable in your content, posts, and photos.

Use a brand voice, one that is familiar and respectable, but not overly so.

“Content is King”

It’s the most popular phrase online these days. Provide value in your content, and provide lots of it! The content you share should prove useful to your prospects and clients alike. Tips, industry updates, facts, knowledge base, news; anything that they might want to glance at or read more about are ideal.

If you’re a dentist, provide reminders to get cleanings, to brush often, and especially to floss and reasons why they should. A chiropractor can post stretches, poses, reminders to sit straight, things that are easily consumed. Try lots of things and see what gets more response.

First Look

Make your page a place that followers can get access to special deals, a first look at updates in your business.

Block Bad Vibes

If the Page is getting off-topic, or people are posting non-relevant content, links and comments – remove it! Be quick to “report and remove” followers that are not helpful or spammy.

Two Per Day

Keep posts, photos, updates, anything to two times per day. Beyond that is too much. You want to be a gentle reminder, not a barrage of info and sales.

Invite User Participation

Encourage followers to engage with your page. Ask open-ended questions, invite their photos, comments, posts. A dentist can ask, “Braces wearers! If you could go back in time, what’s the one thing you would tell yourself prior to getting braces?” An HVAC company can post a photo of their cat laying over a heating vent, then ask, “Is our cat the only one that lays over the vent? Reply with a pic if yours does too!” Make them responsive.

FB Page should be a push and pull. Push them info and posts, pull and extract commentary and insight.

Learn more about engaging prospects on social media, or visit our homepage to learn more about what we do. We also have more blogs you might be interested in.

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Exclusive Leads Vs Shared | Pay Per Call Local Lead Generation

Looking for information on shared leads instead of exclusive leads?

Let’s say that you’re a home improvement contractor for one of these industries:

• Air conditioning and heating
• Plumbing
• Roofing
• Tree service
• Etc

There are many online directory companies out there looking to sell their own home improvement lead generation service, and you know them well from their oftentimes aggressive marketing, that will sell leads to your industry catered specific to your location. Some of these online directories include:

• Home Advisor
• Thumbtack
• Angies List
• Yelp

They all sell you shared leads. We don’t believe in shared leads. They’re complex, inconvenient, and ultimately push prices down. We only supply exclusive leads.

What is the Difference between Local Lead Generation Types?

Shared Leads in Your Local Area (and why they’re trash)

From Revimedia:

Shared Lead Model

Depending on the vertical or industry, these buyers are most of the time a mix between national and local buyers. Shared leads can increase competition between buyers since lead contact data is sold to multiple buyers, but they are usually also sold at a cheaper price than exclusive leads. This allows buyers to buy more volume. If buyers have a strong brand and an optimized sales process, this lead model may work much better for them, since brand awareness is high and they have structures in place to manage lead follow-up and nurturing. These are important aspects when it comes to converting shared leads into sales.

A shared lead works like this:

1. Client opts into a lead generation site.
2. Lead generation site supplies all contractors with the leads.
3. Local contractors call lead and offer their service.
4. One contractor ends up with the business (maybe).

Breakdown of shared leads:

• Leads are cheaper (and often less prepared to buy).
• Leads are more voluminous.
• Leads are SHARED with your local competition (and you will have to battle it out for the privilege to serve that customer).
• Leads can often be lost by not getting to the prospect first.
• Customers get to watch companies drop their prices to battle for their business.

Shared leads are great for businesses that have low prices, large marketing budgets, and cunning sales teams who can convert leads at a higher percentage than the local competition.

We don't like this model. We want to send clients DIRECTLY to your phone with our pay per call lead generation strategies.

Exclusive Local Contractor Leads

From Revimedia:

Exclusive Lead Model

...Lead data is only sold to a single buyer. In theory, there is no competition (although nothing is stopping consumers to submit multiple quotes through different lead gen channels). The most common example of an exclusive lead is a live transfer, e.g. through Click-to-Call. Although there is less competition when it comes to exclusive leads, buyers are also less likely to be selective about leads they buy.

Breakdown of exclusive leads:

• Leads are more expensive (yet ROI is way higher than shared).
• Leads are less voluminous (yet convert at a higher rate).
• Leads are directly funneled to your phones (and they reach out to you).
• Lead quality is higher, and less jaded (not having been called by 5 local contractors).
• Leads don’t necessarily care if you have newer brand reputation.

Exclusive leads are the real deal. And we set them up for you on a per call basis. What we offer with Call Adrenaline:

• Instant Results - Leads start calling in 1-2 days
• Hyper-Targeted - Leads want the exact products and services you offer
• Exclusive To You - Leads go straight to you and only you
• Flexible Package Leads - Choose the amount of leads you want
• Zip-Code Radius - Leads come from only the service area you choose

Click to learn How it works and see how you can scale your business.

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Turn Happy Clients Into Gold By Asking For Reviews

We all know that reviews are crucial for restaurants and hotels, as well as other establishments within the service industry… but what about other local businesses?

The statistics are out and it's clear that prospects are basing their buying decisions on social reviews...

• Star rating is the number one factor used by consumers to judge a business
• 49% of consumers need at least a four-star rating before they choose to try a business
• Review trust is at 88% compared to 83% in 2014

How do you maximize this information? How can you grow your business with a simple strategy you already know to be true?

Asking for reviews can be a simple and effective strategy to growing your business.

How Local Businesses Benefit from Online Customer Reviews

Having a ton of high quality reviews on the internet is not just fluff on social media. They actually matter and provide a big impact on your bottom line.

• Social Proof: 88% of consumers have read reviews to determine the quality of a local business.
• Looking For Special Services: Prospects may be looking for a specific service or product and online customer reviews may indicate if they will get exactly what they want.
• Safe Investment: No one wants to throw away money- businesses with lots of reviews are proven, have been verified by the local community, and assure good investment.
• SEO: Google search factors in local business reviews when determining the ranking of their results (we are testing this to find the overall weight of reviews… its definitely important).

Why Customers Leave Local Business Reviews

• They Want Something In Return - What can you offer them to incentivize them to leave a testimonial online?
• They Want Recognition - People want their voices heard, they want to be noticed. How can you leverage this?
• They Want to Help - Altruism really exists. I personally know a great mechanic, but his shop is always empty. Automatic 5-star review.

Asking For Reviews... Is That OK?

It’s definitely okay to ask for reviews on Google and Tripadvisor but with Yelp, its a big no-no. If you want to grow your social proof, you’ll need to get the ball rolling. Here are the proven methods to get clients to leave a review for your business on Google or Facebook.

Ask Via Email

Ideally, you’re communicating with your clients through an email newsletter. Providing ongoing value via newsletter is the best way to keep clients for longer, to build their loyalty, and to get them spending more, more often.

Send an email in your newsletter sequence that asks “On a scale of 1-10, how likely are you to refer us to a friend/family?” Then make sure you group the 9s and 10s, and lead them to your Facebook or Google Review page!

This makes sure that you only get 4 and 5 star reviews! This is also a done-for-you service that we offer called Touchpoint 80/20. Check it out!

Weed Out The Bad

Customers are more likely to leave bad reviews. You’ll find many businesses online with nothing but negative comments flooding their page. These negative experiences can end up dominating the social sites. Meanwhile, majority the of silent yet content customers is the group you absolutely need for your business to stand out. Touchpoint 80/20 can help you acquire these reviews that are crucial for your business.

Communicate In Person

Train employees to communicate with clients at the point of purchase. Let them know that you value their opinion and the benefits they bring, that their experience can help your brand grow!

The Kind and Personal, Bonus Approach

Here is a perfect example of the personal ‘bonus’ approach. At a resort, the waiter approached tables that he worked with and said:

“I am Ramon. It has been my pleasure to serve you tonight. As you may know, Le Kliff is very popular at certain times of the year, but in the summer we are closed in July, August, and September. I do not work at Le Kliff those months, so I am not paid in the summer.

We rely very much on reviews from TripAdvisor to generate our customers, since we are far from the city center. Our manager knows this (note: his name is Everado Vazquez. I talked to him afterwards, and he is an extraordinarily good restaurant manager), and he encourages us to ask our happy tables for reviews.

The way it works is for every review that shows up on TripAdvisor mentioning my name – Ramon – I am paid for one summer day.”

You’re On Your Way To Testimonial Throne

Implement these strategies and get the ball rolling on referrals to Google and Facebook (those are the most important). It will take a bit of leg work but the benefits can ensure your business stands the test of time.

If you want to see our done-for-you service and the larger client retention system it is a part of, visit our page to learn more.

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