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Let’s face it-KEEPING customers loyal to you is much harder than FINDING them. You may simply have been the people they came in contact with when they needed your services but it doesn’t really mean that they will close their doors on using your competitors as well. How can you get your customers to be loyal to you and only you?

Social media can be a huge help in this area. You can use your Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and all to make sure that  your customers stick to you.  Here’s why this will work.

1. If you have a brand on these sites and connect with your customers, they will likely share this with friends. In short, simply showing some appreciation and getting them to be connected will be all you need to get even more customers! It’ll be as good as ‘using’ them to market for you.
2. People will more likely choose their word over yours. Being a company, you will only sound like you are after more customers but from somebody who has tried your services, they are more likely to believe.

There you have it. With social media around, keeping your customers loyal to you doesn’t have to be  difficult. Simply create a page, get connected to keep them interested and even get them to share you with friends.

Read more here.

Have you ever wondered just what makes people ‘like’ or ‘share’ stuff? It’s definitely not random so just why do people decide to ‘like’ one thing and not the other? The answer is really interesting.

In a nutshell, this is what was discovered in a recent research done on the matter:

If something results in higher physiological “arousal” because of action or emotional stimulus, then you’re much more likely to share it—it’s actually built into our nervous system, working unconsciously.

This takes social media marketing to a totally different level! The way you word whatever you are trying to sell or promote matters to the nth degree. So how exactly can you get people ‘aroused’ so that they ‘like’ or ‘tweet’ what you share?

You have to get them EMOTIONALLY involved somehow. It may be by making them laugh, getting them angry(in a good way), or some other ‘positive’ emotion. Do this and they’ll ‘retweet’ and ‘share’ automatically even without really liking your product.

The thing to avoid here is those ‘negative’ emotions. You get them sad, depressed or neutral and you won’t have such good results.  It really does make sense when you think about it:

What sites, links or pictures are you likely to tell your friends about? Yes, those that made you laugh out loud, or were somehow ‘contraversial’ in nature.

You don’t ‘feel’ anything, you don’t share it-it’s as simple as that. So start thinking how to get people engaged on an emotional level now!

Read more here.

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With the popularity of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social media sites, many companies are finding it beneficial to create a profile on these sites. Marketing online with the help of social media has lead many to increase their revenue a lot. Would it be wise though to focus all efforts on these sites and forget about your website?

That would be a huge mistake! The fact is Websites and social media should work hand in hand to promote your business properly. If you simply use social media, there is very little that you will be able to accomplish.

Social media sites have a limit when it comes to the number of characters you can post. This means you can’t say much at once. Only on a website can you do this. You can give more information about your business if you have a website.

The key is  balance. Keep your website. In fact, upgrade it and do whatever you can to get its ranks up. Then use Social media to direct traffic to your site. This will be a far better strategy.

What companies should all keep in mind is that social media cannot stand alone. For you to be effective, you have to use other online marketing techniques and bring them together on your social media sites.

In other words, social media needs to support a company’s Web site, and a Web site needs to support a company’s social media efforts. They complement and work for each other as opposed to competing. It’s not an either/or proposition.

More information here.

What’s the connection between Facebook and finding a job in the first place? With the popularity of Social Media, many companies are actually using these sites to carry out background checks on applicants. The information they find on your Facebook can therefore be a huge factor in deciding whether you would make a good addition to the company or not. And how exactly do these companies do this?What kind of things should you ‘clean up’ then?

Social Intelligence is the answer. Many companies hire social intelligence companies to filter out ‘needed’ information that is ‘legal’ for them to access. How about Google you may ask? We all know that a simple search on google will reveal loads of information about any person. CEO of Social Intelligence Corp.  gives the reason:

Because a Google search provides too much information, says Drucker. It can turn up things like your ethnicity, religious background, or sexual orientation – factors an employer can’t legally consider when hiring you.

What kind of information then is considered ‘safe’ to check into? They look for four things:

Racially insensitive remarks

Sexually explicit materials

Flagrant displays of weaponry

Other demonstrations of clearly illegal activity

Whatever information is found in these four areas is then sent to the Company for review. If you have some photo with arms for example, the report will include a picture of this.

Invading privacy?

The question that we may all have now is whether it is even legal to access all this information? The thing about these Social Intelligence companies is that they will only access what you have allowed to access with your privacy settings. Stuff that is only for your friends’ view will stay that way. They won’t ‘break into’ your site just to derive this information-THAT is what is illegal.

Other than that, whenever companies plan to carry out background checks on their applicants, they are informed about this. In short, they already have asked permission to gain access to the profiles but simply get pros to do the dirty job of filtering through all the info.

How long do they keep the info?

Once the company gets the report back from the social intelligence sites, it keeps it for 7 years. Why? Because these social network background checks are as good as criminal records that need to be kept by for 7 years according to the Fair Credit Reporting Act. It’s for the company’s protection. If you get into any illegal behavior while under their ‘wing’ they may use this information to know if there was any hint of this in the past.

Does it matter?

So does this mean that if you have any information on any of the four aspects, you have no chance in getting a job? Well, not exactly. It will really depend on the kind of position that you are applying for and kind of job. The more ‘respectable’ the ‘cleaner’ you ought to be. The bottom line is whatever is on your profile will have a huge impact on your present and future employment prospects.

The message is clear: CLEAN UP THAT FACEBOOK PROFILE NOW!

Read more here.