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Tips for Creating a Social Business

There’s no doubt about it: marketing has gone social.  Customers are more apt than ever to start tweeting about their service.  So what are you going to do about it?

Commit

It’s likely you’ve either thought about or have already set up a Facebook account for your business.  However, many business owners fall into the trap of neglecting their social media accounts.  These accounts should be treated like another touchpoint for your business, like adding another customer service number that the whole world can see.

Keeping on top of updates like when you’re having a sale and responding to customer comments is essential.  Though it may add another hour to your day going through your social media outlets, it will create another layer to your marketing dynamic.

Contemplate

If you haven’t created a Youtube, Twitter, or Facebook account for your business yet, you should probably take a deep breath and think about it.  Although it takes a few minutes to set up, you must be willing to commit.  A poorly maintained social media outlet is like having an unkempt front entrance.

Lacking in time and resources to commit to a  social media campaign is a sure sign you quit while your ahead.

Comprehend

Should you chose to accept this task, you should invest in media monitoring apps.  For example, Radian6 is a paid services that gives you reports on your various social media outlets.  That way you can track and see what garners attention and what doesn’t.

Social Media is still in it’s infancy.  It seems like the Wild West where every business, large and small, are on the frontier.

As always, you can count on us in case you need an it services company to cover all your IT needs.

IT and the Customer Experience

In the world of free enterprise being better than your the competition is the name of the game.  However, how do you measure better?  Price is a major factor, but that’s often out of your control.  Quality of goods is another facet; however, you and competition have access to the same manufactures so that’s wash.  What can you do?

You could provide a superior customer experience.  What’s that you ask?  Well according to Adam Richardson of the Harvard Business Review, customer experience is essentially the interaction between you and your customers.

This includes everything from face-to-face meetings, ad views and when a customer pursues your website.  All these areas of interaction are call touchpoints and they are an element that you have control over.

Well, how can an IT consultant help you with that?  A simple example within your brick-and-mortar store is setting up an Easypay account so people can pay with their smartphones.

Another simple example is logging onto a social networking site and seeing what everyone is talking about.  If everyone is talking about the big game, it might be time push certain merchandise.

A little more forward thinking and investor heavy is seeking out new in-store technology.  Walmart has been planning on deploying new near field communication technology.  The idea is giving their customers more ready access to information about the products they are viewing.

Though I believe they may be developing this convenience so they control what information their shoppers first see. Caveat Emptor!