Social media management: Tools for businesses

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Social media is no longer just for individuals who want to connect with friends and family online. Businesses are now taking advantage of the power of social media to communicate with clients, promote products and services, and track competition. Below are two cost-effective programs which can help businesses effectively manage all their online accounts:

Sendible - Sendible is a social media management, monitoring, and analytics tool rolled into one. It allows businesses to engage with their customers across varied social media platforms, particularly Facebook, Twitter, and blog accounts. Through Sendible, online users can schedule updates, and they can post simultaneously to Facebook, Twitter, and blog sites with one click. Sendible starts at $9.99 a month for eight accounts, and offers plans for $ 99.99 for 120 accounts.

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Viralheat -- Like Sendible, Viralheat tracks a business’ Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest accounts, as well as blogs, company websites, and video sites. It also monitors conversations in real time so businesses can understand what’s going on online and how to best engage with its audience. Viralheat’s analytics also lets businesses stay ahead of the competition by understanding the competitor’s performance on social media. Viralheat is offered free for seven accounts and charges $ 499 a month for 50 accounts.

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Sendible and Viralheat are just two of the many social media management tools available in the market today. Such tools will help businesses effectively and efficiently market their brand online.

Be in the know of the latest in social media marketing by following this John Bohan Twitter page.

Measuring ROI of social media

Nowadays, business owners have adopted the principles of social media pioneers, like John Bohan and Jay Baer, and many entrepreneurs would agree that measuring the ROI of social media is one of the building blocks in coping with social media trends and strategies. How does one put a corresponding amount to a ‘tweet’ or a ‘like’? Here are some points to help businesses get started in calculating digital success.

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This article discusses metrics that online marketers can use as benchmarks that determine whether their social media efforts are paying off or not:

• Re-examining content strategy. Social media platforms should be able to interact with their target audience by asking them questions, speaking with them, and creating dialogues. Reviewing their content strategy should be done to make room for this practice.

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• Sharing of voice. It is the online marketers’ duty to make it a point that their brands’ presence can compete with other brands’ image in the industry. This has something to do with the size of their audience, followers, and fans.

• Acknowledging advocates. Engaging and leveraging the loyalty of avid followers, re-tweeters, and pinners for the brand kicks businesses into higher gear.

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To complement the above-mentioned practices, tools such as SourceMetrics and Klout help companies improve their bottom line.

This website provides industry news and tips on measuring social media’s ROI.

Social media strategy: Stepping up your game

If your business has been exposed to social media long enough to know that it takes strategy that doesn’t happen overnight, then you’re in the right track. However, if you have signed up on Facebook, Twitter, or any other social media platforms and noticed that the sales are not coming in as expected, you may be doing something wrong along the way.

Looking for some suggestions to address this concern can help you step up your game. This articlediscusses some methods to consider in making social media work for your brand:

• Organizing a social media team. The very first step toward having an effective social media strategy is to establish a team that will take care of the social media responsibilities. You may hire external manpower or utilize available personnel within your departments.

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• Getting rid of social media firewalls in the workplace. Allowing your employees to use social media at work is helpful for your business. Using free and fast publicity, your employees are able to help increase your brand awareness. But then, this is with the assumption that you’ve hired responsible individuals whom you can trust to use social media channels within the confines of their job descriptions.

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• Developing a consistent brand voice. Although this is one of the hardest strategies for effective online marketing, there are several options of doing it. Forbes offers 10 suggestions to get you started.

• Making your social media accounts interactive. Asking questions to your audience, adding a human appeal to your platforms, and replying to audience comments and queries in a timely fashion are some points to look into.

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Social media marketing is ever dynamic and coping with it is just fitting in order for you to prevent the risk of being left behind.

John Bohan is a pioneer in social media marketing solutions. This Facebook page offers more links to articles on social media.