Enhancing Your Business With Social Media

Enhancing Your Business with Social Media

Presenter:

Alex Kehayias

Product Manager

Agenda

The recent growth in social media

Reasons you want to use social media

Platforms to implement

Our experience with social media

How to take action

Some downfalls

A free tool from Comodo

In this webinar we will cover:

Why Use Social Media?

Social Media is Growing

There are 87 percent more online social media users now than in 2003, with 883 percent more time devoted to those sites.

In the last year alone, time spent on social networking sites has surged 73 percent.

In February, social network usage exceeded Web-based e-mail usage for the first time.

* Nielsen April 2009, “Report: Social Media And Video Site Engagement Reshapes The Web”

Social Media Highlights:

What is in Social Media for me?

Three main reasons:– Marketing: Keep your ears to the street

– Operations: Use feedback to improve

– Sales: Generate leads

Why should I hop on the Social Media bandwagon?

Social Media Platforms

What should I use to get into Social Media?

Twitter: Microblogging platform based on 140 character messages

FaceBook: Social Networking site, can add friends, send messages and update profile

LinkedIn: Networking site geared towards professionals

Forums: Industry related discussion, or product based

VideoBlogs– Youtube– Example: Gary Vaynerchuk created a video blog which helped turn his small family wine

store into a multimillion dollar a year company http://tv.winelibrary.com/

Blogs– Wordpress– Blogger– LiveJournal

Popular Social Media Platforms:

The Power of Twitter

47 million daily visitors

The U.S. State Department asked Twitter to forgo routine maintenance so protesters in Iran would be able to communicate.

When reports of Michael Jackson’s death broke out people flocked to Twitter for updates causing Twitter Search to run about twenty minutes behind real time

Even NATO tweets http://twitter.com/nato_news

Companies successfully utilizing Twitter include; @DellOutlet, @Zappos, @HomeDepot, @JetBlue, @IBMEvents, @DunkinDonuts

Dell claims to have made over $3 million through its efforts in Twitter

Some Twitter Highlights:

A Twopportunity Lost

“62% of marketer neglect to join the conversation either by not monitoring social media or not responding to negative commentary. These companies are missing an important opportunity to learn what prospects, customers and influencers are saying about them, and to nip in the bud any issues that may negatively affect their brands.”

-MarketingSherpa 2009 Social Media & PR Benchmark Guide

Video Blogging

The number of American users frequenting online video destinations has climbed 339 percent since 2003.

Time spent on video sites has shot up almost 2,000 percent over the same period.

In the last year alone, unique viewers of online video grew 10 percent, the number of streams grew 41 percent, the streams per user grew 27 percent

and the total minutes engaged with online video grew 71 percent.

* Nielsen April 2009, “Report: Social Media And Video Site Engagement Reshapes The Web”

Video Blogging Statistics:

Our Video Blog: ComodoVision

Implement User Generated Content

Amazon and Ebay use reviews to further customer confidence

Nearly 9 out of 10 U.S. online buyers read customer reviews at some point before making a purchase.

86.9% of respondents said they would trust a friend's recommendation over a review by a critic, while 83.8% said they would trust user reviews over a critic. (Marketing Sherpa, July 2007)

Having testimonials on your site keeps customers from leaving tofind them elsewhere.

Reviews and Testimonials:

Step 1: Monitor

Tools for Monitoring and Engaging

Twitter allows for third parties to develop software– twittervision, twitterfeed, twhirl, tweetscan, twistori, twitter-search,

tweetdeck ,twitpic, hellotxt, twitterific

At Comodo, we use TweetDeck– Manages all functions of twitter in one interface

– We use it to monitor all conversations about our brand and products through key word searches

NetVibes

Google Alerts

Tools:

Step 2: Take Action

How to Take Action

Twitter: Establish guidelines for content, engaging and responding to feedback

Assign an employee to represent your company

General feedback (ex: “This company sucks, I hate them!”) should be avoided, but specific negative feedback, which you can turn around can be very beneficial to engage (ex: “I don’t understand ‘x’ feature, I keep trying but it just doesn’t work. Very frustrated.”)

Twitter:

FaceBook:Create a company page

Fans can write on your wall, check for updates and upload photos

How to Take Action

Record videos of tutorials, how-to’s and helpful tips and start a channel on YouTube.

Next step is creating an in-house outlet for video

Enlist and employee, executive or hire a content writer to write daily blog posts (recommended one a day)

Gives customers more insight into your company and they can leave productive comments

Video Blogging:

Blogging:

How to Take Action

Get your company listed

Start a group

Answers section allows you to establish yourself as an expert, and show that you give back to your community

LinkedIn:

In General:

Important to engage and give back to the communities you’re part of, not only take and push promotions.

Use feedback gained to improve operations

How to Take Action

Comodo’s UserTrust is a completely free testimonial engine. www.usertrust.com

UserTrust allows you to have testimonials right on your site instead of forcing your customers to leave your site and find reviews elsewhere. The more time spent on your site the better.

This is something you can do today

UserTrustReviews and Testimonials:

Step 3: Tracking

Tracking

Important to find which efforts are fruitful

Set up a Google Analytics account

Tracking codes

Use tools like Salesforce to record and track leads

Tips for tracking:

Social Media Downfalls

Social Media Drawbacks

Steep learning curve– Very hard to find the medium between useful information and pushy

promotions– Spam companies

Extra management– Must monitor employees talking about your company– Handling negative feedback

Can be difficult to trackLarge time commitment– Blogging, tweeting, answering questions, updating profiles, recording

videos

Some Downfalls:

Summation: Your Checklist

Summation

Are you monitoring your brand?

Are you engaging your customers?

Are you using Social Media tools?

Are you implementing feedback?

Are you using reviews?

Check List:

Thank You!

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Email us at: e-commerce@comodo.com