Using Social Media to Convey You’re Eco-Friendly |  |
- Using Social Media to Convey You’re Eco-Friendly
- Measuring Your Company Goals
- Annie Tsai of Demandforce: Automating Customer Relationships
- Maybe The Bar Graph Fell Over
- Franchises Cut Prices on Opportunities
| Using Social Media to Convey You’re Eco-Friendly Posted: 05 Oct 2012 01:00 PM PDT Sharing via social media is, of course, hotter than ever. But it's not just an opportunity to showcase your products or services. It's also opportunity to engage your customers in your green initiatives, which, in turn, should engender more respect, loyalty and love for your brand. Consumers are tired of blatant advertising — they want interaction, evidence and inspiration. The first step is to understand the various social networks and why and how people use them. Here’s a quick primer. Once you understand the differences, it's then about using them to better explain your green initiatives and the impact they’re having. Of course, you need to balance your green messaging carefully: Studies have shown “green” is a secondary concern to most customers. They ultimately care more about whether the product is useful, well-designed and cost effective. Also, remember that social media isn't just about relaying information – it should be fun and engaging. Put some thought into how you tell your story and how your environmental sustainability initiatives fit into that. With that in mind, here's a look at three ways businesses have used social media effectively to discuss their green initiatives: Toyota Toyota's Facebook page for its gas-electric hybrid car, the Prius, provides great examples of green-topic-related posts that don't just tell customers something, but also get them involved in the action. In September, the Prius page had posts such as this:
Or then there's this gem that garnered more than 400 "likes" and more than 90 comments:
These posts provided great ways for Toyota to converse with customers truly engaged in the Prius brand while helping them better understand the environmental benefits and cost effectiveness of driving a Prius. Method Household cleaning products maker Method has been a trendsetter in using social media to engage its customers its ecofriendly practices. Earlier this year, the company launched several music-fueled videos on YouTube as part of its "clean happy campaign" that tried to explain why the company's cleaning products are less environmentally hazardous than mainstream products. But instead of blatant advertising, the videos were more suggestive and inspirational. Watch its "clean happy anthem.” The videos were posted on various social media outlets, including Facebook, with some receiving more than 1 million views. Timberland Outdoor apparel maker Timberland announced back in 2008 that it wanted to create a community of one million people dedicated to environmental change – tying the community-building to its Earthkeeper line of green footwear. Four years later, Timberland has more than 800,000 "likes" on Facebook and more than 22,000 Twitter followers. And environmental friendliness remains part of its overall brand-building. The company posted on Facebook and Twitter about how it uses recycled materials in its shoes, and how it sources its leather from more environmentally responsible tanneries. There is also the company's tree planting in China and Haiti. Check out how Timberland wrapped a lot of the themes together into a Pinterest page. Keep in mind that you don't have to sell ecofriendly products or be a “green brand” to engage your customers in your green initiatives. Even if it's steps you're taking to reduce energy use in your facilities or reduce packaging, you can get the word out to your customers via social media. Eco Friendly Social Media Photo via Shutterstock The post Using Social Media to Convey You’re Eco-Friendly appeared first on Small Business Trends.      |
| Posted: 05 Oct 2012 11:00 AM PDT I’ve been making New Year’s Resolutions for my business for years. You could also call what I compile at the start of the year goals for my company. Rather than creating a stagnant business plan that I forget to update, I simply revisit what I want for my company at the fresh start of the year. So why am I telling you this when New Year’s is so far away? Because the rest of the year I measure my goals. I create a neat little spreadsheet like the one pictured below to see how I’m doing each month toward those goals. Why Measurement is Good So many companies I know set goals (“we want to increase sales”) but don’t set milestones to check how they’re doing. Sure, you want to increase sales, but by how much? How soon? And what will you do to increase sales? With my spreadsheet, I check in once a month and update these categories. I can see how well I’m doing against my goals and tweak my strategy accordingly. I can look back over the past few years to see how things have improved. What Your History Tells You When I look at my goals from two years ago, I laugh, as they are so off from where I am now with my business. But at least I have insight into where I’ve been as an entrepreneur. Having historical data for your company can help you shape future decisions. For example, if you decide to move into a new target market, you might be able to look back to the last time you wanted to try a new market and see that it utterly failed. Does that mean you shouldn’t try again? Not necessarily, but you should be able to look to your past strategy to determine what you could do differently this time. Change is a Good Thing Sometimes I delete a goal halfway through the year because it no longer applies. I add new ones, too. Goals, just like your business plan, are meant to be change to adapt to your business’ ever-fluctuating objectives. Nothing is set in stone; don’t be afraid to shift your focus or completely remove goals from your list. Why Year ‘Round Resolutions Work It doesn’t matter if you set your resolutions on January 1st or October 15. Your best chance for success is to keep those goals in front of you every month and track how you’re doing. You won’t hit some goals, and that’s okay. It’s more important to view your progress in the bigger picture so you can tweak your goals next year if need be. By paying attention to your goals, you are, in a sense, helping achieve them. The post Measuring Your Company Goals appeared first on Small Business Trends.     |
| Annie Tsai of Demandforce: Automating Customer Relationships Posted: 05 Oct 2012 08:00 AM PDT We all know that the online world has changed the way we do business. And one of the areas largely affected has been that of customer service and customer relations. However, many small businesses do not have the staff or the resources to stay on top of this to the degree that they’d like to. So what’s a small business to do? Tune in as Annie Tsai of Demandforce joins Brent Leary to provide an automated solution. * * * * *
Annie Tsai: We focus on the services industry of small business like dentists and doctors, spas and salons, auto shops, dog walkers, those types of people who are delivering services to consumers every day. What we do is help these small businesses thrive in the Internet economy. They traditionally have offline businesses, and we help them get online with customer relationships and email marketing, social marketing, as well as reputation. Consumer voices are becoming so powerful in terms of generating new business and becoming the referral engine for companies everywhere. Traditional small businesses need to have a voice. And in order to do that, they need to be online and we are helping them do that. Small Business Trends: There are a lot of traditional businesses out there that do most of their business offline but still need to have an online presence. Annie Tsai: Consumers are looking for a dentist in the new town they are living in. They are tracking things online, but they are asking for referrals from the people they trust. One of the messages we really try to drive with our customers is that it is not just about getting your views out there syndicated. We want to make sure that we are automating the relationship piece. We are asking for referrals for you; we are asking for the reviews; we are sending out thank yous; we are sending out birthday reminders. All of those things that people have historically been snail mailing, or calling for. We are doing it for them. Small Business Trends: In some instances, they aren't doing it at all. They have 20 things they are trying to do at the same time and things fall through the cracks. Annie Tsai: Yes, we like to tell our prospective customers that a lot of the really important things that Demandforce does for them is that we automate, and do a lot of the stuff that they would spend a lot of time doing manually. So they can be in front of the customers who are walking through the door and maximize the time they have. Small Business Trends: Let's talk a little bit about your title, Chief Customer Officer. When you were going to school did you hear that title and think that something that I wanted to be one day, or is it something that has kind of evolved as you started working? Annie Tsai: I think definitely the latter. For me it was definitely a little bit of a winding road. But I was happiest when I focused on the customer experience. And not just the customer experience from a marketing perspective, or from a support customer perspective. As the Chief Customer Officer, I have a really unique situation because anything that the customer is impacted by, my team has a hand in. That is really great because we get to help define the DemandForce voice, the voice we use to deliver a message. We get to help define the delivery of a variety of projects across all departments. I think that our customers are really seeing the difference there. Small Business Trends: How often are you interacting with customers on social networks, or email, or phone in general? How connected are you with the voice of the customer? Annie Tsai: We are very connected with our customers. I personally am on the Demandforce Facebook page watching stuff, and on our Twitter feed replying to the customers and talking with them throughout the day. I am personally talking to customers on a weekly basis and we bring customers in for focus groups and user group usability studies regularly. We also had a few community events that I have gone to where we have really been able to continue to have a conversation with them, continue learning from our customers and finding out which features are great. Which features need to be tweaked and also what do we need to do better. Small Business Trends: How do you take that information into the executive team meetings and say, “Hey, this is what the customer is saying.” How is that embraced when it comes to an executive team? Annie Tsai: I will give you an example. Recently, we rolled out with an new integration and there was one feature we started hearing feedback on because it was something that our customers felt was necessary. I empowered my team to own parts of the customer experience, so our technical support manager has a top ten feature list. He is the voice of the customer priority there, and determines what gets fixed and in what order for customers. He's done a great job of taking all of our various inbound channels and collating it. And taking the data that we have – and we have a ton of data we use to measure what has happened to our customers – he takes that and he is the voice. He says this is what is really important and this is why, and I take his message and I try to drive it home. We are also fortunate because every executive on the executive team is very customer focused. Customers still call Rick, our president, and leave messages with him and he calls them back. Sometimes I call them back too. It is really important for him to make sure that he is connected to the customer as well. Because they are what got us here, and we are continuing to develop products which make them successful. Small Business Trends: The fact that your CEO still is connected, still calls, returns calls, and interacts with customers, we don't necessarily hear that as often as we should. Annie Tsai: With 18,000 customers and growing, it really speaks to the fact we believe in our customers and believe we are doing things for our customers. We can't do that if we're not talking to them. Small Business Trends: Where can people learn more? Annie Tsai: You can visit us on our website at Demandforce.com. This interview is part of our One on One series of conversations with some of the most thought-provoking entrepreneurs, authors and experts in business today. This interview has been edited for publication. To hear audio of the full interview, click the right arrow on the gray player below. You can also see more interviews in our interview series.
Annie Tsai – DemandForce by smallbiztrends The post Annie Tsai of Demandforce: Automating Customer Relationships appeared first on Small Business Trends.     |
| Posted: 05 Oct 2012 05:00 AM PDT This cartoon was sort of a happy accident. I was drawing another bar graph cartoon and my hand slipped a bit and one bar ended up much wider than the rest. For a second, I was irritated because I’d have to redraw that cartoon, but then it occurred to me that I now had a whole different take on this kind of cartoon. Why was that one wider? What did it mean? Was it a mistake? Did the width add more weight? You never know where ideas are going to come from, but turning a mistake into an opportunity has got to be one of the best. The post Maybe The Bar Graph Fell Over appeared first on Small Business Trends.     |
| Franchises Cut Prices on Opportunities Posted: 05 Oct 2012 02:30 AM PDT Opportunities to start a new business or expand an existing business are always present. But in franchises particularly, costs to invest and get started are low. Does this mean that franchising represents the best opportunity for entrepreneurs these days? Not necessarily, say some experts. Here are some other tips you may want to remember no matter what type of business you are trying to start or grow. Focus on FranchiseLet’s make a deal. The real reason so many franchise chains are cutting prices is that there are too many chains competing for too few qualified applicants. The problem here is that lowering franchise costs can invite under capitalized owners into the system and cost the franchise long term, preventing investment in the brand. Forbes Lower your risk. Fortunately, if you still decide franchising is for you, there are ways to lower your risks a bit. Franchise expert Joel Libava has recently spelled out 10 tips that can decrease your risk when investing in a franchise. Libava’s approach involves some serious soul searching and a willingness to avoid the hype about what the best franchises might be, instead zeroing in on the best franchise for you. The Franchise King A Broader PerspectiveThis is the end. No matter what kind of business you’re pursuing, a franchise or another opportunity, blogger Tom Ewer has a sobering thought. However profitable your business may seem today, it may still be only one step away from ruin. Businesses that depend upon only one source of revenue or customer base face this threat every day. But there is a simple answer: diversification. MyWifeQuitHerJob PR priority. If you think your business is too small to worry about PR, this guest post from Ryan Derousseau, Director of R.M.D. Media, argues there is no such thing. Fortunately, handling PR chores isn’t so hard these days. What’s needed is a well-developed online presence and an understanding of how to pitch your business content to the media with an effective strategy. The Frugal Entrepreneur Marketing mechanics. Before your marketing campaign even get off the launch pad, there are a few things you’ll need to check on to be sure your approach is all it can be. Copywriter Kelvin Cech gives this overview of three major steps your business should be taking before putting a content marketing plan in place. These steps will ensure you are creating a marketing campaign appropriate for your brand. Function Writing Group A Positive ImageThe bad blog. You may have heard from gurus and others trying to encourage every entrepreneur and small business owner to get started with this highly effective self-branding and communications tool, that there really is no wrong way to do a blog. But blogger Sian Phillips disagrees. In this overview, Phillips looks at the things that will seriously hurt your blogging efforts. CorpNet Thinking of you. Many businesses think of their reputation too narrowly, says business coach Dave Brock. Buying experience and customer experience are both important, of course, but you should focus more attention on how your business is viewed in the community at large. In reality, customers look at everything we say and do, whether it happens to be part of the customer experience or not. So be sure the overall impression you create is a good one. Partners in Excellence The post Franchises Cut Prices on Opportunities appeared first on Small Business Trends.     |
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