Lisa Novak: Five social media tactics to employ to attract buyers (and sellers!) Elite Agent
* This article was originally published here
Tuesday, August 31, 2021
How to Create a Social Media Budget for Every Size of Business
If you’re using social media to market your business, you need a social media budget. Here’s how to put one together — and how to ask your boss for the investment you need.
Bonus: Download a free guide and checklist to help you convince your boss to invest more in social media. Includes experts tips for proving ROI.
What is a social media budget?
A social media budget is a document that specifies how much you plan to spend on social media over a specific time, e.g. a month, a quarter, or a year.
Usually presented as a simple spreadsheet, it creates a clear understanding of the costs of your social media efforts and is a valuable tool for measuring return on investment.
How big should your social media budget be?
There’s no set rule for how much to spend on digital marketing in general or social media in particular. However, there are some general guidelines and benchmarks backed by surveys and research.
Overall marketing budget benchmarks
According to the Business Development Bank of Canada, the overall marketing budget varies depending on whether you’re marketing to consumers or to other businesses:
- B2B companies should allocate 2-5% of revenue to marketing.
- B2C companies should allocate 5-10% of their revenue to marketing.
Here’s the average amount each size of business spends on marketing per year, based on the same research:
- Small businesses (<20 employees): $30,000
- Mid-sized businesses (20-49 employees): $60,000
- Large businesses (50 employees or more): more than $100,000
Social media budget benchmarks
According to the February 2021 CMO Survey, the percentage of marketing budget businesses will spend on social media in the next 12 months breaks down as follows:
- B2B Product: 14.7%
- B2B Services: 18.3%
- B2C Product: 21.8%
- B2C Services: 18.7%
The same research found the amount of marketing budget allocated to social media this year also varies by sector:
- Consumer services: 28.5%
- Communications and media: 25.6%
- Banking and finance: 11.7%
In five years, the overall portion of social media in the marketing budget is estimated to be 24.5%.
Source: CMO Survey
Use these averages as benchmarks. Then, tailor them around your goals and resources (more on that below) when planning how to budget a social media campaign for your business.
Remember that your social media budget is not just the amount you spend on paid ads. As we’ll describe in the next section, even if you use only free social tools, you need a social media budget to cover factors like staff time and training.
What should your social media budget plan include?
Content creation
On social media, content is and always will be king. Many social marketers spend more than half of their social media campaign budget on content creation. Here are some of the line items you may need to include in this section:
- Photography and images
- Video production
- Talent, i.e. actors and models
- Production costs, i.e. props and location rentals
- Graphic design
- Copywriting, editing, and (possibly) translation
Costs will vary significantly depending on how custom you want your social media content to be.
For example, you can get started with photos and graphics from a free stock photography site, in which case you can budget $0 for photos. However, if you want a more custom approach, or you want to show off your specific products, you’ll need to hire a photographer.
Don’t underestimate the importance of good writing, especially for the short character counts of social media posts and ads: Every word counts. Copywriters are generally paid by the word or by the hour.
A good guide to rates for copywriters, editors, and translators can be found on the Editorial Freelancers Association website. The median rates based on an April 2020 survey are:
- Copywriting: $61–70/hr
- Copy editing: $46–50/hr
- Translation: $46–50/hr
Software and tools
Your social media budget will likely include some or all of the following tools and platforms. You can find more information about the costs associated with each category of tools in our curated lists:
- Design and editing tools
- Social video tools
- Project management and collaboration tools
- Social media management tools (of course, we recommend Hootsuite)
- Social media monitoring tools
- Competitive analysis tools
- Social advertising tools
- Social customer service tools
- Social media analytics tools
Again, costs will vary significantly depending on the size of your business and your team. Some software tools (including Hootsuite) offer free plans with basic features.
Paid social media campaigns
Your social media strategy might start off using only free tools to share organic content and engage with fans across your social media accounts.
Bonus: Download a free guide and checklist to help you convince your boss to invest more in social media. Includes experts tips for proving ROI.
Get the free guide right now!But eventually, you’ll probably want to add social advertising to the mix. Here are some of the options you might consider including in your social media advertising budget:
- Facebook ads. Facebook offers a variety of formats, campaigns, and targeting capabilities.
- Facebook Messenger ads. Placed in the Messenger app home screen, these ads can be good for starting conversations.
- Instagram ads. These can reach target audiences in feeds, Stories, Explore, IGTV, or Reels.
- LinkedIn ads. Reach a professional audience with sponsored InMail, text ads, and more.
- Pinterest ads. Pinterest’s promoted Pins will help you reach its DIY network of planning Pinners.
- Twitter ads. Drive website clicks, Tweet engagements, and more.
- Snapchat ads. Branded filters, story, and collection ads might be right for your next social campaign.
- TikTok ads. The popular-with-teens video app offers full-screen ad placements, hashtag challenges, and more.
So what do all of these paid advertising options cost? The answer is: It depends. And it will likely take a little testing to discover exactly the right ad spend to maximize your ROI.
To get you started, here are the minimum spend amounts required to run a campaign on each of the major social networks. The minimum spend won’t get you access to all advertising options, or a lot of exposure, but they give you a sense of how little it can take to get started.
- Facebook: $1/day
- Instagram: $1/day
- LinkedIn: $10/day
- Pinterest: $0.10/click
- Twitter: No minimum
- YouTube: $10/day*
- Snapchat: $5/day
- TikTok: $20/day
*YouTube says this is what “most businesses” start with as a minimum.
To calculate how much you should spend on your next Facebook ad campaign based on your revenue goals, try the Facebook Ads Budget Calculator from AdEspresso.
Influencer marketing
Working with influencers (or content creators) is a good way to expand the reach of your social content. Consider both how much you’ll spend to boost Influencer posts and how much you’ll pay the content creators themselves.
Influencer campaign costs vary, but the basic formula for calculating influencer rates is: $100 x 10,000 followers + extras. Some nano- or micro-influencers might be willing to use an affiliate commission structure.
Training
There are lots of free social media training resources out there, but it’s always worthwhile to invest in training for your team.
Social media changes fast, and your team’s roles can change and grow equally quickly. If your team members are ready and willing to invest their time in developing new skills, it’s a good idea to enable that through your social media budget. You’ll be the beneficiary of everything they learn.
Depending on your team’s skill levels and campaign needs, these are a few training options you should consider including in your social media budget:
- LinkedIn Learning. LinkedIn’s business courses extend well beyond the use of the LinkedIn platform. They feature instruction from and interviews with subject matter experts including Sheryl Sandberg, Adam Grant, and Oprah Winfrey.
- Hootsuite Academy. From single courses to certificate programs, Hootsuite Academy offers a catalog of courses taught by industry pros and tailored for businesses.
- Hootsuite Services. Hootsuite Business and Enterprise customers get access to guidance and coaching, with custom training available as a Premier Service.
- Industry-expert training. Social media managers are senior strategists, so training and education opportunities should extend beyond the specifics of social media. Hootsuite copywriter Konstantin Prodanovic recommends Hoala’s Professional Master Course in Brand Strategy and Mark Ritson’s Mini MBA in Brand Strategy.
Some #MondayMotivation to help you start your week right. pic.twitter.com/oim8et0Hx6
— LinkedIn Learning (@LI_learning) June 28, 2021
Social strategy and management
While there are tools that make social management easier, and outsourcing is always an option, it’s good practice to have at least one person in-house supervising social.
Even if you outsource your social media efforts, you’ll need someone in-house to coordinate with your partners and represent your brand in discussions about strategy and creatives.
Keep in mind this is not an entry-level position. The day-to-day tasks of creating, scheduling, and publishing social content and ads are just the most visible parts of the social team’s work.
Your social team also engages with social fans, provides social customer service, and manages your social community. They use social listening to learn about your audience and alert you to potential threats and opportunities. They build a social strategy and — yes — manage social budgets of their own.
When building this role into your budget, consider the average U.S. salaries for social media managers, as tracked by Glassdoor:
- Lead social media manager: $54K/yr
- Senior social media manager: $81K/yr
Looking to hire or become a social media manager? Here are the essential skills every candidate should have.
How to create a social media budget plan
1. Understand your goals
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again. Every good marketing strategy starts with clear and well-thought-out goals. After all, it’s impossible to determine how much budget to assign to social media if you don’t know what you want to achieve.
We’ve got a whole blog post on effective goal-setting to help with this part of creating your budget, but here’s the gist. Especially when using them to create a budget, your goals should be SMART:
- Specific
- Measurable
- Attainable
- Relevant
- Timely
Specific goals tied to measurable results allow you to measure the value of social media, so you can determine an appropriate amount to spend for each desired result.
Measurable goals also allow you to track and report on your success, so you can adjust your budget over time to better support the strategies that work for your business.
2. Analyze your spend from previous months (or years, or quarters)
Before you create a budget, it’s important to understand the current state of affairs. How much are you spending on social media now? If you’ve never made a budget, you may not be completely sure.
If you’re already producing social media reports, you’ll have a good source of information to draw from. If not, a social media audit is a good first step to help you understand where you’re currently spending your time on social media. (And remember: time is money.)
Next compile a list of all your specific social marketing expenses from previous periods, using the categories outlined above, so you know where you’re starting from.
3. Create (or update) your social media strategy
You’ve now got some good starting information to help build out your social media strategy. This will help you work out how you’re going to go about achieving the goals you set in step 1.
Then, by analyzing the amounts you’ve spent in the past and the efforts you want to make to achieve those goals, you can determine a reasonable amount to spend on each part of your strategy moving forward.
A summary of your social strategy is a good document to attach as a cover letter in your social media budget proposal, since it shows that the amounts you’re asking for are based on real data and solid planning.
4. Create a budget proposal for your boss
Now it’s time to get technical. The good news is, we’ve taken care of setting up a social media budget proposal template for you, so all you have to do is enter the information specific to your business and your plans.
If you’d prefer to create your own social media budget calculator, include the following information in an Excel Spreadsheet or Google Sheet:
- Category: Content creation, software, etc. Create a section for each of the relevant items listed above, then break it down into specific line items for each individual expense.
- In-house vs. outsourced expense: In-house expenses are based on the amount of staff time dedicated to social media. Outsourced expenses are anything you pay for outside your company, from consulting to ad fees. Some categories may include both in-house and outsourced expenses, so break these out into separate columns.
- Spend per item: For each line item and category, add up the internal and outsourced costs to indicate a total spend. List this as both a total dollar figure and a percentage of your total budget so you (and your boss) can clearly understand how you’re allocating resources.
- Ongoing or one-time expense: If you’re including any one-time expenses in your budget that will have value over the long term, it’s a good idea to flag these so your boss understands it’s a one-time ask. For example, maybe you need to buy some equipment to set up a video studio. Use separate columns to tally your one-off and ongoing costs.
- Total ask: Add it all up to show the total amount requested.
Make the most of your social media budget and easily manage all your social media profiles using Hootsuite. From a single dashboard, you can schedule and publish posts, engage your followers, monitor relevant conversations, measure results, manage your ads, and much more.
The post How to Create a Social Media Budget for Every Size of Business appeared first on Social Media Marketing & Management Dashboard.
* This article was originally published here
How to Create WhatsApp Ads
Do your prospects and customers prefer WhatsApp to Messenger? Have you considered WhatsApp ads for your business? In this article, you’ll find out how to set up your WhatsApp business account and use Facebook ads to let WhatsApp users call or message your customer support team with a single click. Why Does WhatsApp Business Matter? […]
The post How to Create WhatsApp Ads appeared first on Social Media Examiner | Social Media Marketing.
* This article was originally published here
Community is the Future of Shopify
A community is a valuable asset that will keep your brand constantly moving forward.
* This article was originally published here
Facebook Engagement - 9 Ways in Which You Can Increase Your Facebook Performance
Nowadays, Facebook engagement is the meaning of something more than a couple of likes thrown at a post.
It is the way through which customers establish a one-to-one communication with their favorite brands and address their concerns.
The buyer journey has changed a lot over the last few years.
Before finalizing the buying process, people are now looking for a recommendation on Facebook or Twitter, they are asking their friends or family and they are reading the Facebook page's reviews.
A higher engagement rate per page increases the number of positive reviews on your Facebook page and the overall experience with your products and services.
That's why I’ve put together a list of tips meant to help you increase your Facebook engagement and your account’s performance overall.
Let’s dive in!
9 tips for increasing your Facebook engagement
1. Choose the right posting time and post consistently
When stepping into digital marketing, one of the first and most important tasks you’ll have to complete, as a social media manager, will be to develop an optimized content calendar.
That means, besides actually writing the copy and maybe even making the visuals, which we’ll cover in a bit, you’ll also need some strategic thinking besides the more practical skills.
Questions like “when is my audience online, how often should I post, to what type of content my audience responds best or what and how I want my community to do something” should be top of mind before creating any plan or social media campaign.
First things first, the stage when you actually start writing comes only after you researched your desired audiences and discovered what their online habits are.
No worries, nobody expects you to start guessing and be right. For this part of the job you can always rely on analytics to give you a hand.
In order to improve your Facebook engagement you can check the insights displayed in your native analytics, or turn to a third party analytics tool, for more in-depth information.
Once you’ve established a time schedule, you need to have consistency.
And that’s because your customers need to know they can rely on you to offer them the information they need, information that’s up to date and aligned with the trends and their interests.
2. Focus on fan-centric content
We mentioned earlier something about having a strategic thinking.
Well, since every planning starts after a bit of brainstorming, let us tell you something important about content, that can have a huge impact on your Facebook’s engagement improvement project.
What you absolutely must have in mind when designing your content is that it’s not all about you. People don’t want to hear you brag about how awesome your products are, over and over again, but rather they need to be let to discover by themselves.
What you can do instead is to try to create meaningful and valuable relationships with your customers. And since any relationship is a two way street, once in a while you should offer them the spotlight and drive your attention and social media efforts towards them.
After all, let’s not forget they are the ones buying and advocating for your brand. And the world of mouth should never, but never be undermined.
Another thing to keep in mind when creating your posts, that will surely be healthy for your Facebook engagement is variety.
By diversifying your content you will prevent your potential customers from getting bored, and even more, you’ll stir their curiosity, which will only draw them towards you more.
Tip: try mixing up product posts with mood posts - from tutorials to tips and tricks, sky's the limit. Be creative and try out whatever is suited for your business segment.
3. Analyze your most popular posts & repackage successful content
Well, if in the personal development sector, “stop comparing yourself to others” may be a good piece of advice and an essential first step to do in order to grow, in the business sector, it is certainly not the case, at least not when it comes to marketing.
But before starting to talk about why competitive analysis is mandatory to be done in order to improve your Facebook engagement, let’s first cover the need of evaluating a brand’s own posts and performance.
Or, in other words, with the “get to know yourself” moment, if we continue the comparison started.
Sure, after you understand your audience’s needs and interests, it’s way easier to craft top-notch content, meant to skyrocket your Facebook engagement.
But there will always be posts that will perform better than others, and continuously keeping an eye on which ones are the best will only help you further create equally, or even more awesome content.
Also, a very helpful technique that sometimes marketers neglect, or just don’t concentrate on that much as they should, is repurposing.
For example, if you’ve written a blog post that really caught the reader’s attention, you shouldn’t waste the opportunity of not promoting it on Facebook as well, taking that interesting topic and playing with it in a bunch of other creative ways.
You can make a funny video, an eye-catching insightful carousel, a bold post with an edgy visual, or even a mix between them, whatever is more suited for your brand’s identity.
Remember, sky’s the limit!
4. Use great visuals
In the last couple of years, visual content has gained significant ground on all social networks.
According to our social media industry benchmarks study, conducted in the early days of 2021, 25 out of the 35 industries analysed had images as their primary type of content posted on Facebook.
And because in order to succeed in the social media era, you must give your audience what it wants, which translates into bold and interactive visuals, you must certainly step up your game in this area, if you want to create successful Facebook posts.
But let’s remember when we’re talking about visuals, we’re not only talking about images, since nowadays, video content is rapidly gaining advantage, reaching a usage of 15% from the total content posted on the platform, and starting to generate the highest levels of engagement on Facebook.
Now, regardless of the type of visual you’ll choose to focus on, depending on your business and your goals, you should know that quality is something that will never go out of style, and something that your audience will always appreciate.
A good tip that I can give you is to try creating sensorial experiences with your content, pictures or video on your Facebook page.
Important to mention is that, when creating visual content you should try, as much as you can to personalize it, to align it to your brand identity and make it a piece of the puzzle that is your brand’s story.
That’s why the color palettes and writing styles are a key, identificatory factor for a brand’s posts on social media.
Of course, creating engaging and impactful visuals is not an easy part, and can become very time consuming sometimes.
But just like you have analytics tools to help you with that part of the process, for this next phase you can find a lot of helpful apps to give you a hand, as well.
Canva is, for example, any social media’s best friend for creating all sorts of visual materials and presentations, but it is certainly not the online one.
Depending on your needs, you’ll discover there are a lot of tools for great social media visuals, the secret is to know what you want to achieve.
5. Talk to your fans
As a brand that puts a lot of money into social media, you surely know your popularity comes from your followers.
After all, their involvement and sympathy is the reason behind all those online efforts.
Therefore, if your marketing goal is to boost your Facebook engagement, then you must know you have to be available for your fans, to dedicate as much time as needed to reply to their comments and questions.
Social media is a two way communication street, which means your community expects you to be equally involved and keep the conversations going.
After all, everybody wants to see their opinion matters and that are important enough, especially for those they admire.
Moral of the story: if someone cares enough and dedicates even the slightest amount of time to comment on your post, you should take your time to reply to them.
Ask their opinion, thank them, engage with them, and invite them to join you on your brand mission!
Changing their emotions when they first comment or write to your page influences their buying decision shortly, plus for sure will recommend your product to their friends.
6. Use stories
Ever since its first appearance on Snapchat, the story type of content has found a way to win over the people on social media, thanks to its ability to rapidly put them up to date with everything that’s going on, in many creative ways.
What is great about stories is the fact they easily humanize a brand.
Which is awesome, considering that nowadays customers want some sort of relationship from which they can gain more than a product, they expect more from brands than just being sold to.
Social media shouldn't be treated only as a selling channel, since it is the new way of consolidating businesses.
By posting all types of stories, like funny or emotional ones, ingeniously packaged like behind the scenes or before and after moments for example, is how you can keep your community hooked, and interested in interacting with your brand online.
Regardless of your approach, remember this: be authentic, and try to Create meaningful relationship moments with your fans base, through Facebook stories, and not only.
By doing so, your results in your Facebook engagement won’t take long to appear.
7. Try posting more videos
Videos are amazing. As a time-efficient, easy-to-access and more interactive way of delivering information into the user’s feeds, video content rules the engagement on social media, and especially on Facebook.
Brands and marketers use storytelling to appeal to the user’s emotions, as they are the most powerful drive for anything.
And for being a more immersive way of communication, videos are a powerful instrument for making people part of that story, and therefore engaging more.
TIP: It’s only normal for Facebook to prioritize native videos, as a way of rewarding the users exclusively relying on the platform, so for better results in terms of your Facebook engagement, upload the videos directly into the app.
Another important thing worth knowing about Facebook videos is that compared to pre-recorded ones, live videos perform way better, having the potential of reaching even doubled values, as we’ve discovered in our recent study.
So, if you’re looking for ways to increase your Facebook engagement, here it is. Camera, light, go!
8. Get active in Facebook groups
Facebook groups are a great way of creating strong, long-lasting relationships with your customers.
Keep in mind they are now looking for person to person communication, and this might be the missing piece when it comes to successfully unifying your community.
A Facebook group is the perfect place to start a customer loyalty program for example.
By serving your subscribers exclusive content, that you know for sure they’re interested in, since they joined your Facebook group, you’ll show that you’re willing to reward them for the loyalty shown.
Which will only make them appreciate and increase their trust in you even more.
To keep it short, my advice would be: engage with your fans on your Facebook page and groups, share useful content for them, appreciate their comments, ask questions regarding their concerns.
9. Drive traffic from other sources
The more you’ll opt for a 360’ communication strategy, the more profitable your business will become.
As important as it may be, marketing it’s not only about social media. But, in order to have the whole picture, understand your identity and what you do, your audiences need synergy.
Besides, since you worked that hard to ensure communication materials on other sources and platforms, wouldn't it be such a shame to lose some exposure potential by not linking your social media accounts with other channels your customers can find you on?
Now we’ve cleared that, put the right buttons and let the shares come!
Final thoughts
Facebook Engagement is an important KPI to measure for every social media manager. But it’s not only about the numbers, it's also about the connection between a brand and its customers.
Build your brand through engagement.
Did your fans experience a positive feeling while interacting with your brand on social networks?
- they become loyal to your brand
- they recommend the brands to others
And for sure you’ll be their top of mind choice when googling related products or services with your business.
Support your sales teams with empowering content, nurture your fans and invite them to be the brand ambassadors of your brand.
Related articles:
* This article was originally published here
Global Web Content Search Portals And Social Media Market Report Forecast to 2021-2027 -Google, Facebook, Tencent, Baidu, and Netflix – UNLV The Rebel Yell - UNLV The Rebel Yell
Monday, August 30, 2021
Social media collaboration company Planable launches image editing feature for a more seamless collaboration with the teams' graphic designers - Business Review
How to Add a Link to Instagram Stories (RIP Swipe Up Link)
Want to add a link to your Instagram Story? We have good news and bad news. (And then more good news!)
The good news is that even though Instagram has retired its swipe-up feature, you can still add links to Stories using Instagram link stickers.
The bad news is that, so far, you still need 10,000 subscribers or a verified account to get access to link stickers.
Which leads us to the OTHER good news: we have a simple hack to add a link even if you don’t have access to link stickers, yet! Read on for all the steps.
Download your free pack of 20 customizable Instagram Stories templates now. Save time and look professional while promoting your brand in style.
Wait, what was the Instagram swipe up feature?
The Instagram swipe up feature helped brands and influencers reach their audiences and gain more followers by allowing them to add links directly to their Instagram Stories.
Viewers could swipe up on a Story or tap an arrow at the bottom of their screen to access a link without leaving the Instagram app or navigating all the way back to the bio to find that “link in bio.”
But in August 2021 Instagram announced it was retiring the swipe-up feature. Why? Random theories abounded: perhaps Instagram has secret plans to make Stories move vertically like TikTok, rather than horizontally? The mystery remains unsolved. (Actually, Instagram did give its reasons, which we’ll get to in a second.)
Regardless, the end result is that now users can include links in their Stories by adding a link sticker, instead.
What is the Instagram link sticker?
The Instagram link sticker replaces the swipe up feature, letting users add an external link to an Instagram Story.
Story link stickers are the easiest way to promote multiple pieces of content and products on Instagram, while allowing analytics to help you optimize your Stories strategy.
Instagram says that when it comes to links, the sticker has three major advantages over the swipe-up feature:
- Stickers are familiar and popular with users, who use them for music, questions, locations and polls, etc.
- Stickers allow more creative control over how a Story looks than swipe up links did.
- And most importantly, stickers allow viewers to engage with a Story, whereas the swipe-up feature didn’t allow replies or reactions.
Simply put: just like swipe-up before them, Instagram link stickers are an important tool for any Instagram business strategy.
How to use the Instagram link sticker
Instagram Stories only stay up for 24 hours, but adding a link to your Instagram Story is helpful for increasing your conversions, boosting organic engagement, and making it easier for your followers to access the content you want to share.
Source: Instagram
Here’s how to add a link sticker to your Instagram Story. (Spoiler: it’s the same as any sticker.)
- In the Instagram app, press the plus sign on the bottom center
- Scroll to select Story (rather than Post or Live).
- Create your Story using all the gorgeous media you have at your disposal.
- Tap the Sticker icon in the top row.
- Add your link.
- Then send to your Story, and you’re done!
Once you’ve posted your first link sticker, don’t forget to track your metrics so you can optimize.
If you aren’t getting as many taps as you want, make sure you have a clear call to action, and that you don’t overload one Instagram post with too much information. Still stumped? Read our five other reasons that your Stories might be failing to convert.
Download your free pack of 20 customizable Instagram Stories templates now. Save time and look professional while promoting your brand in style.
Download the templates now!Who can use the Instagram link sticker?
Since the Instagram link sticker launched, access has been limited to those accounts that also had access to the swipe-up feature. In other words, your account must be a business account with 10,000 followers or be verified on Instagram to use a link sticker.
Instagram says it is evaluating whether to make link stickers available to everyone, but it is concerned about safety and integrity, as well as the spread of spam and misinformation on the platform. Rest assured that we’ll keep our ears peeled for more news on this front.
How to use Instagram swipe up or link sticker without 10,000 followers
If you’re not verified or don’t have 10,000 followers, don’t worry. You can still add a link to your photo or video Story with this IGTV workaround:
Here’s how to add a link to your Instagram Story if you DON’T have 10,000 followers:
- In the Instagram app, make or upload a 60 second video.
- Write a title that says something like “Get the link!”.
- Paste the link you want people to click in the caption.
- Post the video to IGTV.
- Now, on your feed, tap the paper plane icon under your new IGTV video.
- Tap add video to your Story.
- Tap on the link icon on top of your screen.
- Select + IGTV Video.
- Select the IGTV video with the link that you just created.
- Tap Done.
And that’s it! You won’t be able to see it on your screen, but people will be able to swipe up, see your video, and tap on your link in your IGTV caption.
Other ways to use links on Instagram without the link sticker
Sharing links with your audience is useful whether your goals are relationship-building or converting. If getting your Instagram followers up to 10,000 is not in the cards quite yet, here are some alternatives:
Link in bio
You’re probably doing this already, but you can add a call to action and a link in the bio section of your Instagram profile. Some IG users choose to put the one specific link they want in their bio or use link shortening tools for customization.
You can also use tools that allow you to host multiple links on one landing page (less updating your links, more conversions!). It’s called an Instagram link tree and it’s very easy to make.
Just remember to say “link in bio” in your caption when you post (we did an experiment, and don’t worry, it won’t hurt your engagement if you say it.)
Use your DMs
Post your Story and let your followers know that they can DM you for a direct link. It’s super easy for them, and a great way to build a relationship with your audience since it might feel even more personal when they receive the link directly from you.
Bonus Tip: Use the DM Me sticker: your followers can get in touch with you in one tap!
Create a poll
Share your content and then create a poll that asks people if they want to be sent the link. All you have to do is check who said ‘yes’ to your poll and you can follow up with a link sent via direct message in the Instagram app.
Ready to start driving traffic to your website from Instagram? Use Hootsuite to schedule Stories, posts, and carousels, engage your audience, and analyze performance—alongside all your other social networks.
Easily create, analyze, and schedule Instagram posts with Hootsuite. Save time and get results.
Try it for FreeThe post How to Add a Link to Instagram Stories (RIP Swipe Up Link) appeared first on Social Media Marketing & Management Dashboard.
* This article was originally published here
7 Best Customer Service Software Solutions for 2021
If you’re actively marketing your business, you need an equally active customer service program. After all, you can’t build your business without happy customers.
In this post, we’ll explore how customer service software tools can help automate, organize, and simplify your customer service efforts.
If you specifically want to know how to use social media channels to offer customer service, check out our post on social customer service. Here, we’ll look at tools you can use to support your customers both online and offline.
Bonus: Get a free, easy-to-use Customer Service Report Template that helps you track and calculate your monthly customer service efforts all in one place.
What is customer service software?
Customer service software is any software tool that helps a business manage, track, or streamline its customer service efforts. That could mean anything from a simple chatbot all the way through to a complex customer relationship management solution that integrates with sales and IT.
Obviously, a small business doesn’t need the same software tools as a multinational corporation.
But they do have something in common. The most important function of all software-based customer service tools is to improve the service experience for both customers and customer service agents. (Or for the small business owner if you’re a one-person show.)
Why use customer service software?
As we explain in our post on customer service metrics, there’s a lot of important data to track in any customer service program. As your business grows, it simply becomes impossible to manage and track your service efforts without software.
Without software, customer requests can be missed, or you might take too long to reply. And you have no way to track your response times or customer feedback to see how you’re doing and look for ways to improve.
As your business grows, customer service becomes increasingly complex. For example, you might need a ticket system to manage support requests for multiple agents and departments.
But even when you’re small, you could use the help of customer service tools. They make the job easier, allow you to automate simple and repetitive tasks, and free up your time for more complex cases or working on other areas of your business.
Simply put, you should use customer service software because it helps you deliver better customer service. And customer service is a real concern for consumers, especially when making purchases online. 60% of Internet users said they are concerned about bad customer service online.
Source: eMarketer
On the flip side, 94% of U.S. consumers aged 18 and up said they are very likely to purchase more from a company with very good customer service. Compare that to 72% for a company with “okay” customer service and only 20% for a company with very poor customer service.
Types of customer service software
Now that you understand why you might want to use customer service tools in your business, let’s look at some of the different types of customer service software options.
Customer relationship management (CRM) software
Customer service is all about relationships. A customer relationship management (CRM) tool allows you to track all the interactions your company has with a customer, so you can learn about them as your relationship grows.
In addition to basic contact details, a CRM tool will track purchase history, product preferences, and all the contacts the customer has with members of your team, in any department.
An effective CRM tool improves customer service by giving support agents all the information they need to serve the customer most efficiently and effectively.
For example, they’ll be able to see:
- which products and versions the customer has
- how often they buy or update
- whether they’ve had any previous interactions with other agents or members of the sales team
Rather than having to start from scratch to learn about the customer’s challenge or question, the agent can jump directly into resolving the issue or providing a detailed and customized answer. The agent’s job is easier and the customer walks away satisfied.
Messaging and live chat software
Being able to chat with a human agent in real time is one of the most valuable customer service offerings for consumers. In fact, it was the highest value customer service feature in the Insider Intelligence Canada Mobile Banking Emerging Features Benchmark report.
Source: Insider Intelligence
Half of small and medium-sized businesses reported an increase in the use of online messaging platforms to build customer relationships in 2020. Most of those businesses said it was customers’ preferred communication channel.
Live chat and messaging can take place through your existing social media platforms. Or you can use software tools to enable live chat within your own website or app.
Social media inbox software
A social media inbox allows you to see interactions with customers across different social platforms in one place. Someone might ask a public question and follow up with a private message. A social inbox will thread them together so you can see the full conversation.
And if a person messages you on more than one platform, you’ll be able to see both messages so you can ensure a consistent response.
A social media inbox also allows larger teams to spread the workload. You can assign messages to specific team members across the company. Even better, it allows you to create a database of saved replies to common questions. This can increase response time or provide the basis for a custom reply.
Customer service ticketing software
Customer service ticketing software allows you to create a unique case — or ticket — for each customer support request. This allows the customer to track the progress of their case. It also ensures the right people can tackle the issue at hand.
Customer support managers can track the progress of a ticket. Teams can close a ticket when the issue is resolved. This way the team always knows how many support requests they have to tackle. They can then provide customers with an estimated time for resolution.
Like a social media inbox, customer service center software collects all communication in one place. Each ticket shows the context to get the customer’s request resolved quickly and effectively.
Customer service software for small business
Small businesses need the same kinds of tools as larger businesses do, just on a scaled-down level. Most of the best customer service software tools offer inexpensive plans for smaller businesses. Some even offer basic functions for free.
Bonus: Get a free, easy-to-use Customer Service Report Template that helps you track and calculate your monthly customer service efforts all in one place.
Get the template now!When pricing out customer service software tools for your small business, look for plans labeled “professional” (as opposed to “enterprise”). These generally have enough features for a growing small business.
7 best customer service tools
Here are our top customer service software picks.
Sparkcentral
Source: Sparkcentral
Sparkcentral is a digital customer service tool that allows you to manage all your customer care channels from one platform. You’ll have access to communications from SMS, social media, WhatsApp, live chat and apps, all in one inbox.
It includes virtual agent functionality — aka, chatbots powered by artificial intelligence — to give customers the fastest response. These chatbots are designed to collaborate with live agents. Customers always get the level of detail and personalized support they need.
Sparkcentral provides a dashboard to access data from chatbots, your existing CRM, and live agents all in one place. Robust reporting and survey capabilities help you understand how well your customer service efforts address customer needs. This means you can constantly work to improve customer satisfaction.
Hootsuite
Hootsuite is an effective customer service monitoring software platform. It combines the benefits of a social media inbox with a social media scheduler, content library and detailed analytics.
Within the inbox, you can assign support requests to specific team members and track their progress. Hootsuite Analytics provides detailed reporting on response times and other important team metrics. You can see what’s working and improve what’s not.
Using Hootsuite boards and streams, you can also set up a social listening program. This means you can find public social posts that require a customer service response, even if you’re not tagged.
Zendesk
Zendesk is an online help desk platform, customer service ticketing software, and CRM. It gives customer service agents all the tools they need to respond to customer requests from multiple channels.
Zendesk also allows your team to contribute to an ever-growing knowledge base. This provides self-serve customer service, empowering customers to find their own solutions 24/7.
Source: Zendesk
Clickdesk
Clickdesk is a live chat app that allows your customer service team to offer support through text, voice, and video. Agents can see what the customer is typing before they hit send, improving response time.
Customized pop-up boxes in multiple languages encourage customers to reach out. Meanwhile, an integrated help desk helps keep everything organized.
Source: Clickdesk
Freshdesk
Freshdesk is a customer service management software that allows your team to offer service and support through multiple social channels and by phone.
You can also coordinate in-person service calls with simple appointment scheduling and real-time updates.
Source: Freshdesk
Hubspot
Hubspot is a CRM platform with a built-in ticketing system and live chat features. It includes tracking and reporting on metrics like response time and ticket volume.
Automatic ticket routing helps ensure the right person is assigned to each customer service request. Chatbots answer the most common questions.
Source: Hubspot
Salesforce
Salesforce is a CRM that is specifically designed to enable work across teams within companies to best serve the customer.
That means team members from IT, sales, marketing, support, and any other relevant department all have access to the same customer information and can help get your customers the support they need.
Source: Salesforce
Best practices for choosing and setting up customer service software
Now that you understand the options, how do you choose the right customer service software for your business?
1. Understand your needs (and your team’s needs)
This is fundamental to any choice you make for your business. As we mentioned above, a small business doesn’t have the same requirements as a massive enterprise. But think about more than size when choosing your software.
For example, do you do most of your marketing online? Through social media? Through your website? Are your customers likely to have technical requests that require another department to get involved? Do you talk to customers over the phone, or only through digital channels? Do you tend to get the same questions, or the same kinds of questions a lot?
Think about which customer service tasks currently take up the most of your time, or cause the biggest management headaches. Then think about what kinds of tools could make your life easier.
2. Understand your customers’ needs
Think of customer service as an extension of your marketing efforts. After all, it’s a lot easier to retain and resell to an existing customer than it is to bring in a new one.
So, you need to understand how your customers want to talk to you. If they want to chat with you on social but you only offer support through live chat on your website, you might be missing opportunities to resolve issues in the early stages.
Some detailed audience research will help on this front.
3. Think about your future growth
The customer service software tools you choose will become the basis of workflows across your company. You don’t want to have to change everything later because you chose a customer service solution you’ll quickly outgrow.
(If you’re currently managing customer support through Google docs and spreadsheets, you likely feel this pain.)
As you evaluate tools, look for room to grow. Can you add additional users as your team grows? Can you upgrade to a higher-level solution from the same provider if things really take off? Does the customer support software integrate with other tools you might need to add later as well as ones you already use?
4. Consider reporting capabilities
One of the key benefits of social media software is that it allows you to collect valuable data. You can use that data to develop a solid understanding of your customers, your team, and even your own products and services.
Your customer service software solutions should also allow you to gather information on team performance, so you can establish a baseline response time and satisfaction level.
This allows you to spot customer service superstars and look for ways to share their expertise. You can also spot team members who may need additional training or support.
So, rather than thinking only about the tasks customer service software will allow you to perform, think about the data it will allow you to acquire.
5. Check for free trials
Many customer service software tools offer free trials for a limited time or with a limited set of features. These allow you to see the product interface and get a sense of how intuitive it is to use and how well it will suit your needs.
For larger businesses, get in touch with the software’s sales team to talk them through your specific needs so they can explain how their tools are a good fit.
6. Review the support documentation
Check out the online help docs for the solution you’re considering before you commit. Is the help documentation thorough and easy to understand? Does it seem to address common use cases and clearly walk you through setup options?
7. Review your needs regularly
Customer service needs change over time. Check in regularly with your customer service team to make sure your software tools are keeping up with their evolving requirements.
Use customer satisfaction surveys to make sure customers are happy with your tools too.
Save time building an efficient customer support system with Sparkcentral by Hootsuite. Quickly respond to questions and complaints across a variety of channels, create tickets, and work with chatbots all from one dashboard. Try it free today.
Manage every customer inquiry on a single platform with Sparkcentral. Never miss a message, improve customer satisfaction, and save time. See it in action.
Free DemoThe post 7 Best Customer Service Software Solutions for 2021 appeared first on Social Media Marketing & Management Dashboard.
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