A presentation made possible by the Center for Enterprise Opportunity (CEO) in Spearfish on Thursday, April 8. Scott Meyer told us how it is possible to live and work effectively from anywhere in the world. His brother, John Meyer, a Top Businessman Under 25 and the idea guy of the operation, told us why digital literacy is important. This post is the first in a short series on the importance of this not-so-new marketing tool.
Why is digital literacy important? Fluency can improve your customer service, sales, research and development, brand, lead generation and brand/product awareness. Social media can help you to grow your digital presence. It is important to be effective before efficient, so where do you begin? Begin with research, then some more research, then implement, which will provide info for more research.
Research begins at home. You are who Google says you are. Type in key words at Google places, check out your homebase and ensure accuracy (blog, Google places, Facebook, Twitter). Own your space. Check Google place listing, photos and videos, consumer reviews. 18% of consumers trust ads; 78% trust reviews.
It’s not about ‘what your site looks like’ anymore as much as ‘what does it look like on my phone?’ People are always on the go. 25% today projected to 50% in 5 years check social media on their phones. 80% of phone searches are local so make sure you drop your pin on Google places, and it wouldn’t hurt to drop a pin on the other search engines, too. When someone performs a local search from a phone, you will be glad your information is accessible on a mobile device.
What allows me and my business or ideas to connect? Words? Photos? Videos? Facebook? Facebook is currently the third largest country. How do I attract customers to my sandbox, to my Facebook page? Scott and John suggest a balance for Facebook posts with a push/pull, one personal/one professional message. Small-town SD is primed for Facebook because of the personal, friendly connection. (more push/pull later).
But what if someone says something bad about me on Facebook? How do I handle negative posts and reviews? I am afraid a digital presence will be more of a hassle than a help and just allow people to post criticisms that will drive customers away. How will that help my customer service?
(story) ITC’s Facebook page—friendly, allows them to respond and lets all their connections know. People are already saying negative things about your business. You want them to say those things in your sandbox so that you can respond to change the opinion. A negative post in my sandbox, i.e. on my Facebook page, means that I have a chance to change the outcome. One ITC customer was disgruntled with an inconsistent connection and posted the dissatisfaction on ITC’s Facebook page. Within 15 minutes, a comment was posted by the page administrator that customer service would be contacting the Facebook user. The next day, that user posted a positive review for the customer service received. All of that customer’s connections were able to see that positive review. I could see the response time for the administrator, and the comment the next day, and a conversation was unfolding with comments from other customers that were also positive.
Use Search.twitter.com to find out when people are talking about pizza. 9 million tweets/day and 500,000 about pizza at 5-ish. If you start tweeting your daily specials and pizza ads around quarter till, you will reach your target audience: hungry people seeking pizza. Listen to tweets to identify your target market. *Twitter is not a big market in this part of SD or SD as a whole so it is only important for out-of-state dealings at this time.*
Up next: How social media helps you create an interactive, caring community that will assist you to further your goals.
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