Nutcrackers top 10 things to remember when using social media…

1.     Don’t pitch! There is no need to yell at customers and bully them into purchasing a product or service from your business. The basis of social media is to build a relationship through connecting with individuals and not pitch. It is this relationship which will encourage individuals to use your organisation over your competitors who may not have made any previous effort to connect with them.

2.     Keep your account up to date! Many organisations create a social media account and leave it at that. They actually forget or don’t realise how important it is to regularly upload content. We recommend that social media accounts are updated daily as when customers visit your company page all of the content should be up to date. If customers see that it has not been updated in over a month, they may assume that it is inactive and decide not to follow your company. Failure to update your account could result in your prospective customer going to a competitor’s recently updated page as they feel that they will get better customer service.

3.     Decide on updates carefully. Your company is accountable for whatever it posts within its social media accounts and the content is in the public domain on the internet forevermore. Therefore ensure that the people managing your social media accounts are aware of their responsibility and that they are representing the company at all times.

4.     Be prepared. Even your customers have bad days and will feel the need to vent their frustrations on your page, blaming you for everything! It is important that you do not remove any negative comments from your page. Make an attempt to deal with the customers issue offline ie, via a telephone call BUT don’t make promises you can’t keep. Once the situation has been resolved post a comment on your wall.

5.     Communication is key. It is important for your organisation to understand that for social media to be successful you must interact with your followers. That means joining in with conversations, answering questions and leaving comments. However if you do not realise the significance of engaging in this manner then social media is not for you and as a result you may lose touch with your customers and as a result be unable to satisfy their requirements.

6.     Don’t forget to link. If you find an article or other content particularly interesting and it is relevant to your organisation, then link it to your Twitter and Facebook page. Tell your followers why you have chosen to link the information with your account and post questions or incites.

7.     Be open and honest. It’s ok to share what your employees are doing within your social media accounts. Take photos of office celebrations, company days/nights out or charity events and upload them. The photos help to create a positive and humanistic element to the organisation.

8.     Publicise your blog. You can spend days writing the perfect blog article to have no one read it…sound familiar? So why not link you blog to your social media accounts and mention it with links in your posts and tweets? It allows you to give your customers large amounts of information that you may not want to feature on your website, yet they are too large to be included as status updates. Problem solved!

9.    Tell everyone. If you have differing social media accounts such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube or a blog then you really need to let people know how to find you. It is a good idea to have the links on your company website and corporate stationery reminding/encouraging people to ‘add’ you.

10.  Be trendy – create a trend. If your organisation does something at the same time each week mention it to your followers. For example if you have a special offer each week then display what it is within your social media so that people will visit your page at the same time next week to see what the next offer is. It is a great way to get people onto your social media and into your organisation.

Have fun with your social media and don’t be afraid to get creative! Think about what you would like to see and read…ask questions that your customers can answer and keep your accounts up to date.

Google+ decoded by Nutcracker!

A phrase you may have heard a lot recently may be ‘what is Google+?’ Loads of people have been talking about it and now we are going to fill YOU in on what the hype is all about!

Last week Google introduced us to their brand new social network Google+ which has been dubbed ‘the Facebook killer’. At Nutcracker we have been exploring whether this will actually be the case, by investigating what Google+ actually offers.

Obviously the launch of Google+ is Google’s attempt to introduce social networking into their expanding portfolio and therefore gain market share within this area. Google explains its new service below;

‘We realise that today people are increasingly connecting with one another in the web. But the ways in which we connect online are limited and don’t mimic our real-life relationships. The Google+ project is our attempt to make online sharing even better. We aren’t trying to replace what’s currently available; we just want to introduce a new way to connect online with the people that matter to you. Sounds pretty cool, huh? And it is. There are 5 main features to Google+: circles, hangouts, instant upload, sparks and huddle.’

So here Nutcracker goes at explaining them!

Circles

Other social networks such as Facebook are about sharing content with a wide audience. Google however have chosen a different approach in that circles allow the user to group friends, family and colleagues for example into groups. This allows the information displayed to each group to vary. This feature allows for the separation of your personal and private life a characteristic that Facebook does not have.

Hangouts

These are a great feature which sets Google+ apart from Facebook. Within hangouts up to 10 users can simultaneously video chat face-to-face with each other. How good is that!

Instant uploads

This allows the photos that you take on your phone to be easily accessible. Whilst you practice your photography skills, Google+ adds your photos to a private album in the cloud. This allows all of your pictures to be available across your devices ready to share as you see fit.

Sparks

Have you heard the phrase ‘spark a conversation’? Well this in many ways explains this feature. Google+ keeps a feed of content based on your hobbies, interests and preferences which you can view at any given time which you can then choose to share with other friends/contacts who have the same interests.

Huddle

This group text chat tool is for individuals to have private conversations within a circle. This feature can be used directly from a mobile phone (Android 2.0+ or iPhone 4.0+).

There is some fantastic information about these features within the videos on the below link.

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/06/introducing-google-project-real-life.html

Things to remember about Google+

• At present there is only an Android App available for Google+
• Awaiting approval is an Apple App
• ‘Pages’ similar to Facebook ‘Fan Pages’ will allow businesses to market their service on Google+ according to Google’s Jeff Huber.
• Google+ has adapted its privacy settings by eliminating the ability to share certain semi-private posts to other users and friends.
• On Google+ you still own everything you put on there unlike Facebook which takes co-ownership.
• Gaming rumours for Google+ are already circulating.
• Facebooks response to the Google+ hype is the announcement of ‘something awesome’ on 6th July 2011…a deal with Skype maybe to launch a video chat service?
• Information site Mashable has already published instruction on how to import your Facebook contacts into Google+. No time wasted there!

But you can’t get Google+ yet! Only a few selected individuals received an invite so for now all you can do is sign-up to receive notifications of when new invites will be available.

So is Google+ the end of Facebook..?

Well we don’t think so. It will take a lot for Facebook users to switch over to Google+. Most non techy Facebook followers are content with their user experience on Facebook. They are on there because everyone else is! Unless Google+ offers something significantly different to Facebook which could compel users to switch across then we think Facebook is safe for the time being.

Finally Google join the social revolution with Google+

Well the time has come. Google have unveiled Google+, a social strand to add to the company’s search engine which is set to rival the likes of Facebook and Twitter.

Vic Gundotra Google’s senior vice president of the social sector has managed a yearlong project which has finally led to the rollout of Google+. Despite the project been delayed several times it is now set to challenge Facebook’s dominance within the social networking arena.

You may have noticed that Google have redesigned their home page navigation bar. The familiar grey strip at the top of Google has been replaced by a black bar displaying new options for accessing your Google+ profile and engaging with other users.

The underlining function of Google+ is to become a social network. Initially users will be introduced to the ‘stream’ feature. This is similar to Facebook’s ‘news feed’ and allows for the users content to be shared with friends.

Explore Google+ for yourselves by clicking on the below link then let us know what you think on Twitter @nutcrackernet.

https://plus.google.com/up/start/?sw=1&type=st

At the moment Google+ is still on trial and only a select number of people are able to participate during this period.

However it won’t be long before we can all have a go!