A new study, ‘The Impact of Social Media on Sales Quota and Corporate Revenue’, has shown that 72.5% of marketers who use social media sites frequently outsell their competitors. More than 40% of participants said that they’d closed between two and five deals thanks to their social media campaigns, and 10% confirmed that “it directly contributes to my closes”. Social media users also exceeded their quota by 10% more than their offline counterparts – clearly exemplifying the difference that social media marketing can make when it comes to sales.

The research also looked at the success rates of different platforms. The top social selling sites were shown to be, from first to last:

1. LinkedIn
2. Twitter
3. Facebook
4. Blogging
5. Google+
6. Other (Pinterest, Vine, Instagram, etc.)

Fortunately, although it may seem overwhelming to manage multiple sites simultaneously, 50.1% of sales people said that they spent less than 10% of their selling time managing social media – which implies a pretty good return on investment when you consider the rise in their sales figures. Ultimately, Keenan’s research shows that businesses of all sizes can benefit from social media – and those who aren’t already using it are missing out.

NS Design offers a range of social media masterclasses designed to help you seize social media opportunities – find out more here.

You may remember that we recently brought you 3 Twitter fails from companies who could have done with a little more social media training before they launched their campaigns! Well, we’re back with more blunders, this time from one of the most iconic social platforms: Facebook.

Walmart

Walmart’s 2007 campaign is still remembered for one key reason – it removed the ‘social’ from social media. The supermarket realised that their page might attract negative comments as well as positive ones, so they limited their conversations to wall posts and neglected to offer a discussion board.

Lesson – The possibility of negative comments is always present, but limiting your customers’ access to free speech is not the way to address this issue. If your page receives a negative post, don’t ignore it – address their concerns and do your best to put the problem right.

Nestlé

Nestlé’s customers were allowed to make comments – but the responses the brand gave to their posts only created new troubles! Their representative made antagonistic comments to a community member (“thanks for the lesson in manners…but it’s our page, we set the rules”) giving a bad impression of the brand.

Lesson – Always treat your customers with the same courtesy you would give them in person! Hiding behind the screen is no excuse to patronise or disrespect them.

Grey Poupon

Mustard brand Grey Poupon tried to make their Facebook page appear desirable by turning it into a ‘private members club’, with admission as a fan by application only.

Lesson – No excuses, no exclusions. You should never cut out a portion of your audience.

If you want to get your brand on the path to social media success, rather than falling into any of these traps, check out NS Design’s social media masterclasses.

Video is becoming more and more important to customers in all industries. In fact, 46% of consumers say that they’d be more likely to seek out information about a product or service after seeing it in an online video – but producing video for your business comes with a host of challenges, and many SME’s feel that they lack the experience and budget necessary to add video to their marketing arsenals.

However, contrary to popular opinion, nowadays all you need to make a video is a decent smartphone and a dash of creativity. Here are some quick and simple ways to incorporate video into your social media marketing plan and get filming (without the Hollywood budget!).

1. Demo one of your products

This video is great for you and your customers – they’ll get all of the information they want about your product in one easy place, and it won’t cost you a penny to make. Sit yourself (or your most charismatic member of staff) in front of your camera and give a quick run-through of the product and its perks – it’s a quick and easy way to secure yourself a sale.

2. Introduce your team

Making videos of your team members is a fun, friendly way to introduce them to your client base – particularly when you’re in an industry where staff work directly with customers. Ask them a few simple questions about what they do and what they like to add an endearing, personalised feel to your page.

3. Film an event/exhibition/speech

The next time you’re at a conference or an event, whip out your smartphone and capture a few quick clips of some of the most interesting exhibits or engaging speeches of the day. You can post them on your YouTube channel and tweet them to the people involved – you’ll probably find they’ll be more than happy to share them and generate some social signals for you too!

Hashtags on Twitter are something of a conundrum for marketers. On one hand, they’re a great way to promote your products and services, but they need to be carefully thought through or they can bring more negative publicity than positive (we all remember Susan Boyle’s ill-fated album release hashtag, #susanalbumparty). However, a new survey from Radium One has shown that social media marketers can and should be using hashtags – here are some of the key stats.

• 43% of consumers said that they found hashtags useful
• 20% believe that hashtags are primarily useful for identifying information about a particular product or brand
• Consumers are already wise to the trend of hashtags on a personal level – 58% of people are already using them
• 70% of those people are posting them from mobile devices, meaning that they are using the tool even when they are on the go
• When questioned about their use of hashtags in relation to brands, 50% of participants said that they would use them more frequently than normal if they were linked to a discount
• 17% said that they would be willing to share the promotion on their social profile and follow the brand that the promotion came from, if they weren’t already

The lesson here for marketers is that consumers are willing to connect with your brand using hashtags – particularly when you’re willing to offer them an advantage in return. However, you don’t always have to lure consumers in with money off – hashtags are also a great way of indexing your tweets and making it easier for consumers to find content that interests them. Either way, consumers appear to have a positive perception of hashtags whatever the circumstance – it’s time to fire up your Twitter account and get hashtagging!

We all know that social media is one of the strongest tools in our marketing arsenals, but it’s a fast moving, time sensitive medium that requires you to post fresh content on a regular basis. If you’re stuck for inspiration or have simply exhausted your existing resources, it can be tough to come up with something to say! Fear not – we’ve put together 5 easy ideas for social media posts that you can use on any day, at any time.

• Create a poll
  If you’re debating a new product, service or development in your business, why not ask the people who are most likely to use it what they think? Creating a poll is just as easy and quick for you to create as it is for them to respond to, and can spark some interesting, insightful conversations between you and your audience. 
• Ask a question
  Of course, you don’t have to start a poll to get people’s opinions. Simply asking a question –even something as general as “did you have a good weekend?” – will open the doors for communication and make your brand feel more personable and approachable. 
• Post a funny picture
  Firstly, animal pictures make the Internet go round, so there’s probably at least 50 related to your industry tucked away in the depths of the web, but even if you can’t find an image featuring Puss, Fido et al, you can still share a funny meme or cartoon that relates to your offering and makes your customers smile. 
• Use a hashtag
  The trending hashtags on Twitter are changing constantly, which means they provide perfect inspiration for tweets and updates! Keep an eye on the trending section and join in with hashtags that can be adapted to suit your business. 
• Add a link
  Posting links to your latest blogs, articles and achievements is a great way of highlighting the knowledge and expertise of your company, whilst keeping your social media updates fresh and boosting your SEO – of all of the suggestions here, this one is definitely a must do for every business!

You may have noticed that Instagram have officially disabled Twitter cards for their images, meaning that any picture that you tweet from now on will appear only as a text link. Rumours are rife that the changes may be due to a potential deal that went sour between the two companies’ just weeks before Instagram was snapped up by Facebook – and whilst it remains to be seen whether the gossip is true, it seems that the two social networks are unlikely to become compatible again.

You may find yourself wondering what impact this small change will this have on your business, but over the last twelve months we’ve seen a big shift in focus when it comes to content – with much of the emphasis now on the visual side of the spectrum. This is illustrated by the popularity of networks like Instagram, and its other contemporaries like Pinterest, which prioritise image-based content.

If your visual content is no longer as easily accessible, you run the risk of losing the less patient portion of your audience when they are asked to click through to Instagram to view your latest product or update. Twitter have since revealed their own photo filters to allow users to create Instagram style effects, but to many, they’re just not up to scratch when compared to the original, leaving many companies wondering whether to prioritise Instagram or Twitter when devising their social media marketing strategies.

Where does your allegiance lie – will you be sticking with Instagram or switching to Twitpics?

Social media giant Facebook has revealed a new feature, which will be known as ‘Global Pages’, designed to help brands target their campaigns to different global audiences.

Kelly Winters, product marketing manager at Facebook, explained the function in a recent announcement: “With this new structure, Facebook users will be directed to the best version of a Page based on the country those users are in, enabling them to see localized cover photos, profile photos, Page apps, milestones, “about” information and news feed stories from Pages – all while remaining part of the global brand community.” Company pages will still operate under one URL to ensure that they retain a consistent online identity, and users will automatically be directed to the most relevant version of the Page for them.
Winters also listed businesses that are already using a multi-page strategy, with big name brands such as Disney, Holiday Inn and Kit Kat coming top of the mentions.

The new feature will allow advertisers to target their digital marketing campaigns by country, giving much more scope for personalised, relevant advertisements than is currently available – a beneficial turn of events for both company and consumer.

Will you be installing Global Pages on your brand’s Facebook?

New figures from the Internet Advertising Bureau UK (IAB) have shown that £181.5m was spent on mobile advertising in the first half of 2012, compared with £203.2m for the whole of 2011. This means that mobile advertising now accounts for 7% of an overall digital marketing spend, and is likely to keep growing as smartphone integration increases.

The advertising expenditure report, which was conducted in conjunction with PwC, also gave an interesting breakdown of the spend within different areas of mobile advertising. This dissection revealed that mobile search spend has grown by a staggering 152% to £131.6m, making it the most popular mobile medium, accounting for 72% of overall mobile budget. Other mediums, such as SMS and video, increased to £49.9m which, whilst still impressive, is a relatively small figure in comparison.

However, the survey didn’t just concentrate on mobile marketing. IAB also generated statistics for other areas of digital marketing, such as display ads. This section of the report highlighted social media banners and video ads as particularly big business – they now account for 23% and 12% of display ad spend respectively.

No matter how you analyse the results, it seems that digital marketing (and mobile marketing in particular) is increasing at a rapid pace. How is your company attributing its digital advertising budget – are you following the trends, or playing it safe?

Like it or not, social media marketing is becoming an increasingly important part of an overall digital strategy – but it’s not always easy to keep track of all of your channels simultaneously. Social media dashboards can help you to schedule your posts and tweets in advance, to manage your time more effectively. Here is our pick of some of the best.

SproutSocial

SproutSocial is simple, straightforward, and easy to use. It allows you to post from a number of popular social media platforms, and measure the effectiveness of your campaign in terms of engagement and growth. There’s even a mobile app to give you even greater flexibility.

Spredfast

Spredfast is a great choice for social marketing teams, as it allows multiple users to access channels and assign tasks to each other as necessary. They pride themselves on being the best choice for business users – in their own words, “we check all the boxes of what big brands need” – and with facilities ranging from analytics to daily engagement, it seems that they deliver.

Hootsuite

Hootsuite allows you to post from all of the regular platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, but also includes more diverse sites like Japanese social network Mixi, from a sophisticated, streamlined centre. Their website’s ‘Hoo’s Using Hootsuite’ section boasts some big names, from McDonalds to Sony. With such high profile advocates already on board, it could be worth investigating Hootsuite for your social media needs too.

Everyone knows about the essential social networks. From Facebook and Twitter to LinkedIn and Pinterest, any internet-savvy business will (or should) have some kind of presence on the most popular social platforms.

However, there is a new generation of social networks on the rise which your business might not be aware of yet. Here are 3 of the newest platforms that we think you need to know about:

• App.net

We recently posted about the launch of App.net, a new social media offering with no adverts. Whilst this may strike fear into the heart of any digital marketer, it’s important to note that App.net has proved hugely successful, despite the fact it hasn’t even been officially launched yet. Whilst you won’t be able to advertise on the site, you may wish to adjust your campaigns on other networks in accordance with its popularity. Social media marketing is certainly an effective part on online strategy, but excessive campaigns can cause users to switch off, so it’s important to find a balance.

• Medium

Medium is a new platform centred on ‘collections’ of photography or writing which can be voted on by users, created by Biz Stone and Evan Williams, co-founders of Twitter. With the current popularity of other image based sites like Pinterest, this could be a useful site for your brand to sign up to.

• Branch

Branch is a new discussion based social network, again from the creators of Twitter. According to Stone, “This service holds the promise of a new platform for dialogue on the web – a necessary departure from the monologues we have grown so accustomed to reading online”. Branch has the potential to provide valuable, genuine interaction and conversation with your customers – a hugely important resource for any business.