Nimble is on the move! Today we announce Nimble 3.0 — packed with new features, product enhancements, and a focus on insight-driven engineering.

Insights Front and Center

Nimble 3.0 is on a path to give you actionable insights — to surface the data that matters to you. Our product roadmap is focused on presenting you with relevant information you can use to make your business relationships a driving force in your success.

Nimble’s insights tell you who you should be in touch with, why they’re important, and when to reach out. We want you to have intelligence that directs you confidently — not just to ANY door, but the RIGHT door. We present you with the opportunities in your network that are most important — the topics and areas of interest that mesh with yours. In short, we surface  the best signals from all the distracting noise — and we make dealing with them a seamless part of your day.

How the Magic Happens — The Nimble Rules Engine

At the heart of Nimble’s commitment to insights is our Rules Engine. Your actions and input will inform the Rules Engine and guide the intelligence that Nimble surfaces for you. Then we monitor and adjust. Each time this “virtuous cycle” happens, the Rules Engine learns more about your needs. This is the power of Nimble — an ongoing concentration on valuable insights, a higher-quality network, and more targeted engagement opportunities.

The Rules Engine spearheads an entirely new Nimble experience — telling you things about your network that you didn’t know — without having to speak two programming languages! We’re taking your network of contacts and giving you back more than you gave us. And we’ll do this automatically — every time you open Nimble.

Our New Features

1. Today’s Top 3 tops the next generation of our Today Page. Every time you sign in, we present you with three of your contacts who have a job title or match a keyword that you’ve told us is important to you. You can then tell Nimble whether the contact is important, set a date reminder to engage, or indicate that the contact is not important at this time.

Here’s “Eric” as an example of someone you might not want to know better:

Just say No, and Eric gets shelved.

If a Yes is warranted, you can set a reminder right then and there to stay in touch.

Of course, you can always let Nimble know that a contact is important by using the star system next to their name:

With the Rules Engine hard at work, Nimble shows you who to engage with, why connecting is important, and where to reach out to connect. Did someone take an action that involved you? Do you have a task or meeting coming up? Have you been out of touch? Are there opportunities out there that you might have missed? If someone started following you on Twitter, are they potentially important to you?

No guesswork! Nimble actually knows what’s important to you — because it’s a smart relationship tool that adjusts itself based on your own behavior and your assessment of the results Nimble surfaces.

No algorithm is perfect, but the Rules Engine learns over time and refines the information you value most. Our roadmap includes much more development of the engine over the rest of the year and beyond. (including automatic reminders, reminders based on low engagement for in-progress deals, reminders to engage for upcoming events and meetings, etc.). As it evolves, the resulting insights will carry through to your overall workflow, your ability to sort data, and your ability to work intelligently.

2. The next generation of the Today Screen. Fueled by our amazing Nimble community’s feedback on the first version of Today, we’ve moved the Today Screen out of beta and invigorated the Nimble experience. The Today Screen is the place where you can immediately act on the intelligence Nimble surfaces to you each day. Here you see your ToDo List, Engagement Opportunities (personalized to your network), Deals in your pipeline, and Milestones (birthdays and job changes) among your contacts. Your Nimble automatically looks at spheres of influence and surfaces the right signals. No wasted time sorting through raw data  – your networks report to you.

3. Search Improvements (including Last Contacted feature) - The search function in Nimble is now capable of finding relevant, exact matches on any group (similar to Google) or any Tag, as well as an automatic sort of the last time you or a team member has engaged with someone in your network. You can easily see who you’re losing touch with or have not been in contact with in a given time period. Nimble automatically keeps track of all communications, making it an intelligent archive of all interactions. You’re always well informed, because we keep track of how, when, and why you engage.

4. Nimble “Signals Screen”: The new Signals Screen (beta) presents notifications across social networks and automates contact reminders that are important and meaningful for you to act upon immediately — and an augmented search tool with last contacted status is built in. By combining Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook signals directed to you—such as invites, likes, shares, connection requests, and mentions— Nimble makes relationship building using social media easier.

5. Our Cool Reminder Tool. The first Iteration of our Today Page introduced a clever Reminder Tool so you can schedule follow-up reminders on the fly from a dropdown menu — without switching screens.

6. Recently Contacted is now a Saved Search. Engaging with contacts often runs in cycles, so we’ve added Recently Contacted as a saved search on your Contacts page’s left siderail. This handy feature gives you quick access to the contacts you interact with most day to day.

7. The Contact Record has been streamlined. You’ll notice a handy ellipsis icon, which expands and contracts the record details with a click.

8. A refreshed website. With some design and navigation love, we think the new look more closely aligns with our brand ideals.

Nimble Apps Marketplace Has Over 100 Integrations

Nimble has an open API, and we will be continuing to encourage integration partners and expand our Nimble Apps Marketplace of popular and useful tools. Our integrations roadmap is broad and deep. Integrations add muscle to Nimble — augmenting your powers.

The Nimble Apps Marketplace has a raft of integrations. You can stitch together your worktools in infinite variety to turn Nimble into a custom efficiency and productivity machine! Nimble’s Apps Marketplace adds new, automatic sync with Cazoomi with new services such as MailChimp, ExactTarget, Constant Contact, Vertical Response, Act-On and Netsuite; Direct integrations with ClickDesk, QuoteRoller, RightSignature and Contact Monkey; and joins the 100’s of Apps connected by itDuzzIT. The most recent integrations join popular favorites such as Evernote, HootSuite, Podio, Quickbooks and Wufoo in ever-expanding Nimble workflows.

Nimble Is Changing the Role of CRM

Our team is passionate about relationship management and cus6tomer engagement. It’s a business we’ve been immersed in for over two decades, since Jon Ferrara created CRM powerhouse, GoldMine. Nimble is now pioneering the landscape of a new kind of CRM — one that goes beyond “social,” beyond “CRM.” In fact, we’re changing the very lexicon of CRM based on the vision Nimble shares with many thought leaders and influencers about social selling and the future of relationships in a socially-networked world.

We know you are dealing every day with a noisy, distracting world where it’s hard to keep track of people, conversations and the contacts that matter most. We think Nimble 3.0 is the smartest tool available to help you turn your treasure — your business relationships — into opportunities!

Read more about the new Nimble Features:

• Contact Sorting Features
• Recently Contacted
• Nimble Today Screen
• What’s New at Nimble
• Signals Screen (beta)

If customer service isn’t rocket science – and it really isn’t – why do so many companies get it wrong?

Common sense goes a long way.

We all know it costs more to attract a new customer than to retain one. We’ve heard ad infinitum how social media has made it so much easier for a disgruntled customer to spread the (ill) word. And we recognize as well that the message about social media’s reach doesn’t sink in.

Too often, common sense is missing in action, because of the rule book, fear of a precedent, or just plain, well, ignorance. In retail in particular, empowering front-line employees to use their brains is all that is often all that is needed to resolve sticky situations.

“If you handle a complaint badly or with a ‘couldn’t care less’ attitude or, worse still, if you hide behind the ‘rule book’, you will lose that customer for good,” writes Jonathan Farrington, CEO and founder of Top Sales World. He points out that one unhappy customer tells 10 to 15 others about the experience. “If it’s really bad, they’ll tell the whole world.”

Anticipate changes in expectations.

Yes, customers aren’t always reasonable. Part of it is impatience in a fast-moving society characterized by smartphones that instantly connect customers with the world at large. However, that’s not necessarily a reason to reject your requests.

“Customers have changed, and customer expectations have greatly changed!” says Becky Carroll, author of The Hidden Power of Your Customers: Four Keys to Growing Your Business From Existing Customers. “Social media has put everything into a new light as empowered customers are taking up their mobile phones and tweeting their distress for all the world to see.”

It’s about empathy, not money.

Outstanding customer service doesn’t necessarily require throwing money at a solution, but instead entails a clearer understanding and appreciation of the customer experience. Or, more simply, it means simply putting yourself in the customer’s place. Seeing things through the customer lens goes a long way toward understanding what frustrates them – no matter how trivial the matter may seem.

It’s about accountability.

It could be a company’s refusal to take responsibility for a screw-up. Remember musician Dave Carroll and his United Breaks Guitars saga? Instead of owning up at the outset to breaking his prized instrument and arranging reimbursement, the airline suffered a ton of grief – and lowered earnings – by stonewalling.

It’s about fixing the little things that rankle most.

More commonly, it’s the little things. Why not open a second line when the single checking line is full of irritated customers? How about refunding the purchase price of a product even if the guaranteed 30-day return ended two days ago or honoring that coupon that expired last week? These minor decisions on the fly in favor of the customer cost little and return a lot more in goodwill that will bring people back.

It’s about trusting employees to act wisely.

Southwest Airlines is a fine example of a company that empowers its employees. As Bob Thompson of CustomerThink points out in his new e-book How Customer-Centric Leaders Empower Employees to Drive Customer Value, things that happen that can’t be anticipated are where employees that have authority to act can be a tremendous asset:

“At Southwest Airlines, for instance, leaders believe that employees should use their own good judgment handling passenger situations,” he wrote. “And for the most part, they do. It’s one reason that Southwest has been leading the airline industry in customer loyalty for the past 18 years.”

I experienced that Southwest employee empowerment myself late in February in trying to get to DeKalb, Ill., for an aunt’s 98th birthday celebration. A snowstorm struck the Mideast the day of departure and I learned upon arriving at Denver International Airport for departure that Southwest had cancelled flights to my intended destination, Chicago’s Midway Airport.

While my wife and I sipped coffee at Denver International Airport, I called Southwest and learned the earliest we could arrive in Chicago was the next evening – too late for the mid-day birthday event. Standby wasn’t even a viable option given the number of others whose flights were cancelled or delayed.

Ah, but it all worked out. Thanks to two different gate agents there at DIA, and then another one at Minneapolis where we ultimately were diverted, we arrived at Midway that same day about five hours later than our original flight. We also were able to book a later return flight to give us more visiting time.

No extra charge, either. Southwest employees used initiative, we were pleased, and I shared that on Twitter.

Great customer service = no reason to leave.

I recently read an instructive article on OpenForum.com called “Why Gen Y-ers Are Better at Customer Service” that observed a change in the value of great customer service in the post-recession economy. Unfortunately, the article no longer is available; however I did capture its key message.

“With geographical advantage largely obliterated in today’s world,” it said, customer service has become the “only sustainable competitive advantage. It is the only proven way to ensure long-term profitability for your business.”

Business, take heed! Keeping the customers you have is just as important, if not more so, than acquiring new ones. They can become the loyal advocates and evangelists that are the rocket fuel of your growth and success.

Paul Simon is a Web content curator, editor, and webinar host for hire. Follow him on Twitter @PaulContentMan

Starting a Facebook page is literally like opening up a branch office. It takes some initial time to build, but over time will become a valuable marketing tool. There are real estate agencies generating more business from Facebook than web portals! It’s a social channel that allows you to engage easily and be interactive with your customers, which is an investment in a longer-term relationship that may take place over many years and many homes!

Here are 25 Facebook tips:

1. Complete the information tab and all other places where you can enter data on your page.
2. Add high quality clear pictures — good visuals are a proven draw. (Here are some great tips!)
3. Add a property search tab that will link back to your website.
4. Add designed tabs (e.g. “Request a valuation”) to attract more leads and provide a more personal experience.
5. Add an app (e.g., “fan of the week”) for excitement and a dynamic feeling.
6. Add an “invite friends” app – Get the crowd to spread the word!
7. Add a Twitter app.
8. Add a YouTube app and post videos of select, photogenic properties.
9. Add the Contact app – Encourage fans to send you a message if they want a fast response.
10. Encourage staff/friends to Like you to begin with – You have to start somewhere.
11. Post educational links (e.g., an article on how to create “curb appeal” when you’re selling your house, or a list of sites to estimate your mortgage payment).
12. Set up Facebook links from your website, and on your email signatures, and from your blog. This will encourage link building.
13. Offer incentives to vendors to Like you and share your news on Facebook (e.g., have a “Vendor of the Month” drawing for a small prize for vendors who have promoted you).
14. Encourage recommendations on Facebook from your happy clients after a sale — if possible, include pictures of them enjoying their new home.
15. Ask relevant questions — Facebook is a great place for questions — A way to find out what your fans want from you.
16. Reach out and Like relevant companies/ facilities locally – schools/ restaurants/ golf clubs etc. They show the context for the homes you sell.
17. Share/Like local companies status updates if you find them valuable. They will then start to reciprocate.
18. Post your blogs on your Facebook page.
19. Post relevant newsworthy statuses on a regular basis (local/regional or property related)
20. Use Facebook insights to establish what posts are more successful than others. Use the stats to adjust your activities and messages.
21. Acknowledge new fans by posting on your wall — welcome them and offer assistance.
22. Set up Facebook ads to spread brand awareness locally
23. Add videos that have many views on YouTube — just make sure they are relevant to your business!
24. Add fun illustrations (captioned photos, funny pets) or funny scenes from movies that pertain to real estate (e.g., The Money Pit).
25. Have a complaints procedure in place – and be prepared to address them quickly!

Once you put a good group of these tips into practice, you’ll find your Facebook site humming along and gathering interest. It requires little time each day to maintain a vibrant, dynamic site!

Ian Charles Watson is the principal of Agent Media. Agent Media stays on top of the latest technological advances in full digital marketing solutions specifically for Real Estate Agents — helping them make the most of their marketing budget in a competitive marketplace.

House key image: Jeannie Rhoades

Today we’re pleased to announce an integration between Traackr and Nimble, which we think anyone contemplating or currently engaging in Influencer Marketing will find interesting. Traackr and Nimble subscribers will be able to manage all aspects of an influencer program in a seamless manner, navigating and sharing information between both platforms.

What is Influencer Marketing?

Influencer marketing is the relatively new activity of finding and building relationships with key individuals who have influence over potential buyers. Once you discover them,  attracting, connecting and sharing between the brand and influencer builds the relationship. From this relationship stems potentially outsized rewards, such as increased attention, awareness, 3rd party validation, high quality leads, and signed deals.

Influencer Marketing turns on 5 common activities:

• Identifying influencers across various dimensions the brand cares about (e.g. product, keyword, vertical, etc).

• Ranking them in order of importance, organizing outreach.

• Marketing to influencers, building awareness of the brand.

• Marketing via influencers, whereby influencers increase market awareness of the brand (especially with their own audiences).

• Sales influenced by influencers, influencers become advocates of the brand.

This represents a model of closed-loop influencer marketing. And, as Marketing moves beyond a generally ad-driven mindset to a more personal, humane (if not human) approach, influence marketing has an increasingly relevant part to play.

What is Traackr?

Traackr is a leading influencer marketing platform. The beauty of Traackr is that it surfaces the people who can have a disproportionate and measurable impact on your brand — helping you effectively identify and rank influencers for virtually any keyword.

The Benefits of Using Traackr and Nimble Together

Up until now, companies that have invested in influencer marketing have faced the challenge of reconciling siloed solutions to manage their marketing programs with discovery, research, engagement and management happening in different places, making it difficult to truly nurture relationships. Using Traackr and Nimble together provide users the ability to perform influencer discovery and tracking, relationship building and nurturing, as well as activating and measuring results.

• View an Influencer in Nimble – In one click, users can add an influencer from a Traackr project to Nimble and bring over complete online profile information for each person.

• Centrally Manage Influencer Outreach Efforts – Once inside Nimble, users can see all of their email and social communications with an influencer, access a complete conversation history, then effectively message, schedule activities and nurture through an engagement lifecycle.

• Coordinate Influencer Engagement Across Teams and Projects - Via Nimble, users can collaborate with team members working on multiple influencer projects to make sure relationships are managed consistently. Everyone on a team can access past interactions and notes about a person.

• Record Key Insights about Influencers - Users can make notes about how to maintain a relationship with an influential person while accessing insights about them in Traackr. For example, they can note key pieces of content to reference or look at an influencer’s social network while in their Traackr projects and access that information when they engage via Nimble.

Nimble continues to work with great partners like Traackr to build out our hearty Apps Marketplace and augment the benefits of relationships for social selling success.

Recently when I was speaking to a group of professional speakers, I was asked “What do you do when someone you don’t know asks you to connect with you on LinkedIn?” When I first started using LinkedIn, the answer was simple: I ignored their request and I marked it as spam. When I first started using LinkedIn, I was very concerned about people stealing and spamming my connections from me, so I didn’t connect to anyone I didn’t know well. That was my initial LinkedIn strategy for connections, and it served me well.

In fact, according to LinkedIn: “LinkedIn connects you to your trusted contacts and helps you exchange knowledge, ideas, and opportunities with a broader network of professionals.” That’s right, LinkedIn is for connections to your TRUSTED contacts. So what does that mean?

The answer is — it depends on who you are. Who do you trust, and with what do you trust them?

This is why you need a connections strategy for LinkedIn. You need to determine who you trust – and with what, and let that guide YOU on who to connect with on LinkedIn.

My personal connections strategy on LinkedIn:

First, the person I am connecting to needs to be living, breathing human. How do I determine who is human, and who is not? It starts with the message they sent me to connect. Is it a real message that explains how we know each other – or how we can benefit each others’ businesses or lives? Generic invitations mean I need to look closer. Next, I look at the picture. Do they have a picture? If they have no picture, I don’t automatically boot them from my network. I will just look much more closely at their profile to see if they’re human or not. Next, I look to see if they have more than 25 connections. Don’t ask me why 25, it just seems like a reasonable number to me. Then, I look to see if they have a real profile. Doesn’t have to be complete, but it has to be real. I accept most connections from human beings.

But let’s say you send me a generic message, you have no picture, and you’re brand new to LinkedIn. Do I automatically ignore or mark the request as spam? Not on your life.

Next, I look to see if the person is from Milwaukee. That’s where I live, and it’s where I do a good percentage of my business. If the person is from Milwaukee, I just might let them into my network — and often I do, as I speak to a lot of groups in Milwaukee where I share my contact information and invite people to connect with me.

Heck, I speak to a lot of groups not in Milwaukee too, and I invite them to connect as well.

But there is one final test to pass, whether you’re from Milwaukee or not: You have to prove you are a human.

How do you prove your humanity?

Instead of accepting the request, I simply reply to the invitation with a simple note.

“Hi <name>. Thanks for your connection request. I apologize for not remembering where we met. Can you refresh my memory? If we haven’t met in person yet, can you let me know how we know each other, or how we can benefit each other’s networks? Thanks a bunch! Phil”

And then I wait.

If the person replies with anything other than “I’d like to sell you something,” or they don’t lie to me, I typically accept them into my network. And I seldom get spammers or people who don’t add value to my network in my network. Sure, I don’t know everyone perfectly well, but I know them

That’s my LinkedIn connections strategy. What’s YOUR strategy?

Phil Gerbyshak is Chief Connections Officer at www.philgerbyshak.com where he works with organizations to connect their marketing to their customers in meaningful ways.

We think human relationships are the most important part of your business!
Try Nimble today for free!

Late last week, we learned that Nimble won  Best Relationship Management Solution in the prestigious Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) CODiE Awards. The list is the industry’s only peer-reviewed awards program, recognizing applications, products, and services that deliver solutions for use by business, government, consumers, academic, and other organizations.

When he accepted the award, our CEO, Jon Ferrara, gave credit for Nimble’s success to our extended community of supportive users, evangelists and the entire Nimble Team.  Jon lives his passion. He believes relationships make or break business success. He says that the ongoing dialog he and the Nimble Team have had with our community has enabled us to continue to hone our product into an insightful relationship management solution, still evolving with community input. It was this community he thanked for guiding the thoughtful and deliberate path leading to the CODiE Award.

Your generosity with your time, advice, and strategies has led us to where we are today — and to the Nimble that is emerging and evolving. Identifying and nurturing contacts, dealing efficiently and productively with incoming social signals, and completing activities to keep things on track — these are the pieces of our product that are possible, in large part, due to your help.

Innovation and growth is all well and good — but the bedrock of Jon’s vision is all of you. The entire Nimble team would like to join him in conveying our thanks.

]]> http://www.nimble.com/blog/nimble-wins-2013-codie-award-for-best-relationship-management-solution/feed/ 0 http://www.nimble.com/blog/managing-sales-teams/ http://www.nimble.com/blog/managing-sales-teams/#comments Thu, 09 May 2013 20:56:18 +0000 Josiane Feigon http://www.nimble.com/blog/?p=4142 ]]>

Have you ever talked to your team and noticed how differently each person listens?

I’ve found that people usually fall into one of four “zones” that influence the way they listen and learn. Interacting with coworkers and employees requires you to know which zone each person is in so you can communicate effectively.

The Zones:

1. The Dead Zone: People in this zone have checked out. Basically, they just don’t care. These folks are probably low to medium performers. They’ve lost focus and ambition, and have no desire to advance further.

2. The Comfort Zone: People in this zone are sitting comfortably in their own little world. They are complacent; they resist any change that is happening around them. These average performers will do just enough to get by, and won’t show initiative for anything else.

3. The Panic Zone: People in this zone feel anxious, nervous, frazzled, and overwhelmed. They care a lot — a bit too much; they are ambitious and take on a lot. Panic Zone members may not know how to manage their time productively – how to prioritize or know what’s important versus urgent.

4. The Stretch Zone: People in this zone are excited (but not overexcited), enthusiastic, and ambitious. They have a list of goals, ideas, and strategies. They care a lot and want to do things differently if it will improve things. These are probably your top performers.

Depending on the size of your organization, you may know all these people. No one stays in the same zone forever. For example; a person may begin in the Stretch Zone. But once they learn what is involved in the job, they may jump to the Panic Zone. As time passes and they get to know their job really well they may move into autopilot, resting in the Comfort Zone. If they’re not happy and motivated, they may start caring less and less and end up in the Dead Zone.

Coaching and Managing

Once you’ve determined the zone, you can begin to tailor your management and behavior to meet their needs.

Managing in The Dead Zone: This zone is dangerous because people who no longer care are resistant to trying anything new –  they are very close to leaving the organization. When coaching them, find out what got them into this zone — it could be for personal or professional reasons, or both. Then have that tough talk with them. Ask them if they think they are in the right role.   Many managers fail to recognize when someone is in the Dead Zone. They think that giving them new tasks or new hires to mentor will help them feel needed and get them out of their “funk.” Big mistake! The Dead Zone can easily infect your new hires.

Managing in the Comfort Zone: People who have been part of the old sales regimen may fall into this comfort zone. They are resistant to adopting new ideas and they’re stuck. But they can be managed, because they really care. When you talk to someone in the Comfort Zone, include strategies that shake them up and change their routine, their territory, their product responsibilities. or perhaps a new vertical market. It might also include putting them on a new project to manage, giving them the opportunity for recognition and reward. Be careful! Someone in the Comfort Zone who isn’t managed properly can eventually find themselves in the Dead Zone, where it might be too late for change. You might try pairing up your Comfort Zone employee next to someone in the Stretch Zone — they just may share some needed energy.

Managing in the Panic Zone: These people can be those who finally realized what is expected of them and are running scared; they may be senior team members who are overachievers with low self-esteem (e.g., who concentrate on meeting sales goals at the end of each month). Help them understand that panic isn’t the answer, and help them separate things that really need their attention from those that can wait. Be gentle. The last thing they need is pressure from you — they are putting enough pressure on themselves. Prioritize with them. Help them slow down, sort through, and organize what’s in front of them.

Managing in the Stretch Zone: We wish all our team members could be in the Stretch Zone.  Nonetheless, managing someone in this zone is delicate — you don’t want to kill their spirit, just keep them on task. Coach them to stay focused, enthusiastic, and ambitious, but keep them in check.

What percentage of your team is in each zone? For a larger team, you can afford to have all zones represented and coaching will be a priority. For smaller teams, you will need to hire with great care, aiming for Stretch Zone candidates.

Josiane Feigon is the founder and CEO of TeleSmart Communications. A 20-year veteran of the industry, Josiane is recognized as one of the world’s leading experts on inside sales team and manager talent. Her book Smart Selling on the Phone and Online is quickly becoming the sourcebook for inside sales and forthcoming book, Smart Sales Manager [July 2013 release] will be the new playbook for sales managers who need to lead their teams through today’s 2.0 landscape.

Success on Twitter is not the result of diluting your feed with praise about yourself and your company.

Success on Twitter is the result of using your content to influence and connect with your target market. Over 500 million people worldwide use Twitter. Anyone can connect with you, if they are motivated to do so.

Some basic Twitter know-how goes a long way for successfully tweeting about your company. Here are 7 tips to make your tweeting a success:

1. Keep the content about you and your products to a minimum, and focus on engaging your customer.

2. Create interesting, witty content.

3. Ask for a RT (a retweet).

4. Use #’s (hashtags).

5. Use @mentions and RT’s to interact with your market and thought leaders.

6. Respond to your @connects.

7. Use contests and coupons.

Let’s look at each of these:

1. Keep the content about you and your products to a minimum, and focus on engaging your customer.

While this may seem counterintuitive to traditional marketers,  social media is about interacting, sharing, and creating a bond with your customer. Generally speaking, your customer doesn’t really care about you or your products, unless you can connect with them emotionally. Let’s face it, as consumers, we like to talk about ourselves, not be talked to about your product.

If you can create content that engages, piques the interest of, and emotionally connects with your consumer, you will become a more important part of their world. You/ your product/ your brand will more likely to be shared with others who share the same worldview.

Understand your product, understand your customer, and speak to them on Twitter. Associate your products with feelings, thought provoking information, and lifestyles.

It’s okay to add your products in some of your tweets, but don’t shout about them.

2. Create interesting, witty content.

Great content gets shared. Shared content means more brand exposure, which means more leads, which means more sales. Write tweets that are of interest to your market. And try to be witty, in a way that connects with your market.

Think of the text of tweets as headlines or ad copy. The more attention grabbing they are, the more likely they will be read. The more they are read, the more likely they will be retweeted and shared.

3. Ask for a RT (retweet).

This may seem so obvious that it often gets overlooked, but – ask your followers for a RT, or even better, a retweet. You will likely get good results.

A study by Buddy Media has shown that tweets asking for a RT get 12 times as many retweets, and spelling it out by asking for a ‘retweet’ actually increased that rate to 32 times more. The study also found, however, that currently only 1% of brands use this tactic. (Mashable)

You don’t want to use this too often, though, or your customers will soon become disinterested. But, do give it try occasionally — especially when you have something great to share!

4. Use #’s (hashtags).

Including hashtags in your tweets makes them reach a larger audience. Your tweet not only goes out to all of your followers, but also to everyone who follows, or searches for a particular hashtag.

Remember, hashtags are a way to organize topics. You can create your own hashtags. You can make funny or obscure hashtags that specifically relate to your market and/ or product and brand.

Some brilliant uses of hashtags include @MapleLeafFoods use of #bacon:

5. Respond to your @connects.

Check your @connects frequently. Twitter is about conversing with your customer. Many of your customers these days use Twitter more than email as a way to connect with companies.

A response on Twitter is expected fast.

If a customer is mentioning you in a tweet, you need to pay attention and take action – even if that action is a simple thank you.

Use Twitter as a customer service tool, to respond quickly, and well, to your customers’ needs.  This can go along way to build trust, develop loyalty, and generate more leads and sales.

6. Use @mentions and RT’s to interact with your market and thought leaders.

Twitter lets you communicate with your market very easily. It’s also a great way to get in touch with thought leaders, celebrities and newsmakers in your industry.

If you have a great customer who follows you on Twitter, for example, mention them. Send them an @handle tweet to thank them, retweet a tweet, or mention them in a #ff (#ff stands for FollowFriday). This weekly shoutout has been a tradition on Twitter, and still has some merit. It gives you the chance to acknowledge your valuable and worthy followers, and suggest that others follow them as well.

Because Twitter is such an open forum, you can easily get in touch with thought leaders, other businesses, celebrities and more. You can use this to develop new business leads, get RT’s from industry leaders to gain further reach, and open dialogue to associate your company with others.

For example, if you have written a blog post about a related company, you can send them the link through a mention on Twitter.

7. Use contests and coupons.

Ok, this is where I disclose my bias. Wishpond makes contests, coupons and sweepstakes apps. Social promotions do go a long way in developing emotional bonds with your consumer, as well as getting lots of retweets.

Contests are a fun way to engage your audience and generate buzz about your product. Who doesn’t like to win? And who doesn’t like to share when they’ve won? Contests can create user-generated content for you too. And user-generated content is some of the most shared content. People like to share what they’ve created.

Coupons generate a lot of excitement for your products too. And they are retweeted often to followers and friends. Check out, for example, how @LookoutBlizzard has used our Sweepstakes to generate buzz on Twitter for their new game:

Try out these Twitter tips. You don’t have much to lose, and you may just gain more engaged Twitter followers by doing so.

Krista Bunskoek is a Content Marketer at Wishpond. Wishpond creates social marketing tools tools for business. Their apps work on Twitter, Facebook, websites and mobile. Learn about their social marketing suite.

]]> http://www.nimble.com/blog/7-tips-about-tweeting/feed/ 0 http://www.nimble.com/blog/is-your-company-socialized/ http://www.nimble.com/blog/is-your-company-socialized/#comments Mon, 06 May 2013 16:36:07 +0000 Clay Franklin http://www.nimble.com/blog/?p=4132 ]]>

Many companies are still trying to determine the return on investment (ROI) for Social Media activities.  Other companies have embraced it and are even providing customer service with Twitter and Facebook and other social media sites. In my opinion, this service and support engagement on social channels is the next frontier for addressing the needs of your community of raving fans, loyal customers, and disgruntled grumblers — as well as a great place for the occasional promotion.

The Positive Experience: Comcast Does Care!

Take a company like Comcast that was struggling with a less-than-stellar reputation for excellent customer service with email.  They changed the way they handle customer service by using Social Media as a way for people to reach out to them.  Now when I have any issue with my Comcast Internet service I just send a tweet to @ComcastBill.  I will get a response in a short time frame like an hour or the next day depending on the time of day.  I will get assigned to a customer service specialist and get answers to my questions FAST.

Another satisfying customer service experience I had recently was with Yamaha USA Audio products.  I looked at the Yelp reviews for my local service centers and was not thrilled.  So I looked for another way to contact customer service.  I found the Yamaha Facebook page for customer service and submitted a post to the page with my question.  Within 48 hours, I was contacted and assigned a case number.  As it turned out, they offered to pay shipping to the service center for my in-warranty broken receiver.

These are two recent examples of how I have personally used social media to get exceptional customer service from “Big” companies.

Negative Experience: The Local Bike Shop with a Deaf Ear

I bought an expensive road bike from my local bike shop.  I followed them on Twitter and liked their page on Facebook.  I tweeted to them and commented on their Facebook page.  The company did not follow me back on Twitter or even like my comment or posts on their Facebook page.  Ouch. I probably will not pay much attention to their social sites in the future.  It’s not enough just to go through the motions and appear to have a social media presence, you have to actually participate, keep up the dialogue, and make customers feel like part of the brand.  I suggest fast response, follow your followers and like your fans’ comments, posts and pictures.

Best Practices

Whether you’re using social media for engagement or have gone to the next level and are providing customer service via social channels, there are a few important things to remember.

• Listen on all the channels where your customers and prospects live and play

• Follow people and companies on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and others

• Interact with fans and followers so they feel recognized and valued

• React quickly to both good news and complaints, with transparency and empathy

• Acknowledge and appreciate you customers. Take opportunities to offer value to existing customers especially. A retained customer is the most valuable of all. (Remember, promotions and contests are a great way to raise interest and gain fans; just keep them relatively rare and always fun!)

A final thought: Jon Ferrara, CEO of Nimble, talks about the 5 E’s of Social: Educate, Enchant, Engage, Embrace, and Empower. If you connect with your prospects and customers using those ideas, you will build a brand following to be envied.

Is your company Socialized?

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