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The Role of Social Media for Small and Mid-Size Businesses

December 14, 2018 by admin Leave a Comment

For small businesses with limited budgets, the role of social media in growing and advertising your small and mid-size business is enormous. Having a social media presence is a must for most small businesses, especially if you don’t have an established website. Your presence on social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn can be your primary advertising opportunity and helps potential customers find out more about your business and services. With all of the responsibility of running your own small or mid-size business (SMB) it can be difficult to find time to set aside to properly manage your social media accounts but poorly managed social media accounts can spell the end of your emerging business. Read on to learn more about the role that social media plays in helping you build and establish your business and your company’s reputation with customers.

Social media strategy

Lack of social media presence

With our increasing reliance on the internet for information, a potential customer’s first resource for finding a new business or service is often a quick web search. Developing a website takes significant time and effort, but establishing your business on social media is a quick solution to helping customers find you online.

Your social media accounts can also be used to consolidate your customer referrals and reviews. Your Facebook or Twitter page provides customers looking for your services with access to reviews of your business. If you don’t have a presence, it will be more difficult for potential customers to find you and they’ll be more likely to turn to another business that is easier for them to find.

Manage company social media account

Your social media persona

When you build your business from the ground up, you often become synonymous with your business. If your business and personal pages are intertwined, it’s more difficult for potential customers to distinguish between your SMB and you personally. Establishing a persona for your business that is separate from you as the owner is important for many reasons.

If your business’ social media page contains profanity or inappropriate or irrelevant content, you are probably doing great harm to your business and its professional image. You should also be careful to moderate your social media pages. Business pages can typically be set to require the page admin’s approval for comments to be visible to other viewers. If you receive a post comment that is inappropriate, simply block the comment from appearing on your page.

Handling negative reviews

It’s a fact of life for business owners – negative reviews will happen. Addressing these critiques with professionalism and ensuring that issues are dealt with appropriately can be an opportunity to turn a negative into a positive for your SMB.

How to deal with bad reviews

Don’t engage in arguments with customers, competitors, or random commenters on your social media pages. Whenever possible, contact customers offline, either via email to get a better understanding of their concern and to correct any valid issues. After you’ve corrected the situation, ask your customer to post a new review or a revision to their existing review.

Always show your best face when dealing with customers. By truly listening to your customers’ complaints and taking the time to make it right, you are demonstrating to other existing and potential customers that you are dedicated to delivering quality customer service.

Show off a little

In an increasingly socially conscious world, customers want to learn more about the company’s they are doing business with. Your social media accounts can help your customers get to know more about your business, your social commitments, and your expertise in your industry.

Using social media to gain consumer trust

Use your social media accounts to help customers become more familiar with your products, your manufacturing processes, where you source materials from, who your employees are, and all about your community efforts. Post associate spotlights singing the praises of a highly dedicated employee. Share photos of your volunteer day your larger customer community. Show off the awards and certifications that your business earns from community and industry groups. Are you hosting a company event? A great way to show off your business and get your audience engaged in your social media page is to have a live feed of your social media account during trade shows or corporate events using HDTVs, video walls, or tablet rentals!

Your social media should also be used to establish your business’ expertise in your niche. Posts should be relevant to your customers and encourage them to learn more about you and visit your location. Share relevant information and posts from other sources so that customers get used to coming to your page for information they need on your industry. The more information you provide, the more clients will see you as a trusted source they can turn to when they need services in your field.

Learn to use social media like successful businesses do

Just because your business is small or mid-size doesn’t mean that you can’t play the social game like the big boys in your industry. By setting aside time to carefully curate your content and create thoughtful posts you can help potential customers discover your services while setting yourself up as the go-to business to meet their needs.

Social media strategy

Running an SMB can be a challenge. SMB Now provides tips, expert advice, and information about the services that you need to help make running your business easier. Visit us often to stay up-to-date with SMB Now and follow us on social media. Join in the discussion by commenting below.

Posted in: Marketing, Medium Business, Small Business, SMB, SMB Advice, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Social Media Strategy Tagged: 4K TV Rentals, Facebook, HDTV rentals, instagram, LinkedIn, medium business, pinterest, small business, social media marketing, social media presence, tablet rentals, Twitter, video wall rentals

More and More Small Business Owners Turning to Social Media Sites

November 18, 2011 by Zack Duncan Leave a Comment

social mediaA large number of small business owners are starting to discover that social media does not have to be a painful process or one that is restricted to the younger generation. As a result of this revelation, many of those entrepreneurs that are deciding to take advantage of social media sites say that they’re reaping big rewards aside from being able to commune with customers.

The Fall 2011 Attitudes and Outlook Survey, put on by Constant Contact, an email marketing firm, has shown that small businesses are becoming more aware of the desire of customers for engagement. As a result, the companies are responding by actively “listening” to their clients on sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and company websites.

What many small business owners are beginning to realize is that not only are social media sites a great way to stay in touch with customers, but they also offer unique advantages that can help their small businesses in ways they may not have initially thought.

One benefit is cost savings. Since Constant Contact’s last survey six months ago, the firm discovered that small business owners who said that they’re allocating time to social media marketing climbed to 81%, an increase from the 73% reported six months ago. When asked why, 83% of small business owners named cost savings as their #1 reason to market online.

Another benefit is ease of use. An additional 67% of small business owners stated that social media marketing is easier to master and use. That is an increase from the 54% in the last survey. In addition to that, it was also discovered that 51% of owners found out that their customers prefer to use media channels, an increase from 38% six months ago.

Finally, improved efficiency is another benefit to using social media sites. 45% of those surveyed said that they were drawn to the fact that social media marketing doesn’t consume a lot of their time. This figure is also up from the 32% that was recorded in the survey six months ago.

Facebook was pinpointed as the #1 site among those surveyed with an overall 96% approval rating. An additional 76% say they use Twitter, though 86% said they preferred Facebook for actually using social media tools. 60% of owners found Twitter to be useful for their marketing channels with another 55% saying they found Linkedin makes a lot of sense as a marketing tool for their business.

Source: Entrepreneur – More Small Businesses Extol the Benefits of Social Media

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Posted in: SMB, SMB Advice Tagged: Facebook, LinkedIn, small business news, small business owners, Small businesses, social media, Twitter

Best Business Apps for iPhone

November 2, 2009 by Sarah Leave a Comment
The Best iPhone Apps for Business

These days, cell phones are becoming an important part of many different businesses. If you own an iPhone, there are even more ways to put your phone to work; the App Store has over 2,000 business apps! Below is a list of some of the must-haves:

Oracle Business Indicators: The Oracle Business Indicators app provides real-time business performance and information. Customize your financial, HR, supply chain, and customer relationship management analytics for free, as long as you own a version Oracle Business Intelligence Suite Enterprise Edition Plus or Oracle Business Intelligence Applications.

LinkedIn: LinkedIn.com fans and users can access the website anytime, anywhere with the LinkedIn iPhone app. Send and receive invitations, messages, post status updates, and find contact info. The best part is, it’s free.

Thomson Reuters: The Reuters app keeps you up to date on breaking news, global market information – including deals and mergers – and allows you to personalize lists of stocks and companies to watch. Browse in-depth company profiles with business descriptions, contact information, and employee profiles, and search relevant location-specific news. There is also technology, sports and entertainment news.

FedEx mobile: With the FedEx mobile app, you’ll find up to date information on the status of your shipments by creating a watch list for important packages or inputting tracking numbers to track packages individually. Info can be personalized and all tracked FedEd packages appear automatically in the system.

Salesforce.com: This app allows business users to view and edit Salesforce.com records, accounts, opportunities and leads, as well as access account activity as needed. The app comes in two versions: Mobile Lite provides you with a stripped down version of the website, to all customers with Professional, Enterprise, or Unlimited Edition licenses; the full version allows you to create, edit, and delete capabilities and requires you to have the Unlimited Edition or Mobile license.

Huddle: The Huddle iPhone app allows you to share files, manage projects, organize virtual meetings, access your data on the go (including tasks, discussions, spreadsheets and presentations) and so much more.

Adobe LiveCycle: This one is also free, but you must have Adobe LiveCycle Process Management ES2 configured. The Adobe LiveCycle app allows you to connect to your lists of pending tasks and process, and approve or reject them directly from your phone. You can also view PDF files, call or email task initiators and share task lists with colleagues.

RSA SecurID token: If you need to access sensitive networked information that is protected by RSA SecurID, this app allows you to do it directly from your iPhone, with your phone becoming a software authenticator. You can import a software token that will generate a SecurID password and eliminate the need to carry an authenticator. Again, this app is free but you must already own RSA Authentication Manager and RSA SecurID Software Token Seeds.

Cisco Mobile: This app provides you with access to your company’s internal phone system, allowing you to join meetings, answer business calls and check your voicemail. It also alerts you to missed calls, redirects business calls to your iPhone and allows you to dial via the office. You may also join Cisco Unified MeetingPlace via your phone. While the app is free, you must have a Cisco Unified Mobility Advantage server to use it.

Various Airline Apps: Many airlines offer free apps that provide you with up-to-the-minute information on flight arrival and departure for that particular airline. Browse flight schedules, plan your itineraries, or book and manage flights, and check-in online with these apps, depending on what airline you fly.

NetSuite: This one provides mobile access to NetSuites business management suite. Access real-time dashboards, financial and customer data, including sales orders, support cases and opportunities, and task management. Free to all current NetSuite users.

Wyse PocketCloud: User can manage their entire Windows desktop, data, and applications with this app. It offers secure Remote Desktop, VMware View, Thin-Browser and automatic keyboard activation when users install the free PocketCloud Windows Companion on their desktops.

Citrix Receiver: This app allows you to access any Windows app or document directly on your iPhone so that you may open documents, update reports, approve expenses and join webinars. You can also use the app to zoom, pan, click, scroll and type. All of your data is saved on your company’s network. It uses Citrix HDX technology to deliver multi-media content. This is another free app, but it requires you to have a wi-fi or 3G connection, also XenApp Web Services and Citrix XenApp 5 or Presentation Server 4.5.

iAnywhere Mobile: With this app, you can have access to Lotus Domino and Micrsoft Exchange, and supports email, calendars, tasks and contacts, as well as providing email push notification. It includes several great security features such as password protection, data encryption, and on-demand data wipe.

Skype: Call anyone with a skype account or send instant messages with this app – as long as you have a mobile data connection or wi-fi access. You may also use it to call landlines worldwide at cheap rates and send cheap texts.

Evernote: This app allows you to create text, picture and audio notes and then synch them with a Mac, PC, or the internet. You may also access them offline. Each note includes geo-location information for mapping and search.

Tagged: Airlines, Apple, Business Apps, Cisco, iPhone, iPhone Apps, LinkedIn, NetSuite, Oracle, Reuters, Skype

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