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Social Media Management: A Complete How-to Guide and 10 Best Tools

While it can bring enormous sales and awareness to your business, social media management is complicated. With so many different social media sites to post, run contests and track analytics, doing everything manually seems to be exponentially difficult.

Whether  you are a skilled professional or newbie, learning how to be in constant interaction with your following across all major channels is a huge topic. Lucky for you, Sleekflow has rounded up a range of useful tips and tricks that are perfect for your marketing strategy, together with the best 10 social media management tools that can help to achieve your goals for social media. Let’s get started!

Definition of Social Media Management

Social media management refers to a comprehensive system of creating, posting, and analyzing the published content  across social media channels such as Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube and Twitter, as well as engaging with users on those platforms. 

To truly leverage the power of social media, one must go beyond just posting updates to  your business’ profiles, the more important tasks are to engage with your audience and look for new opportunities to improve reach and visibility. Today, with the help of both free and paid tools, along with the professional services offered by agencies, businesses can easily streamline their social media management in a much more organized and straightforward manner.

Why Do You Need Social Media Management?

Too often, businesses open too many social media accounts and neglect to maintain an active presence, causing failure in reaching social media’s full potential. When managed correctly, social media is definitely a powerful and effective marketing tool that should be included in every business strategy. Here are several benefits of using social media management to market your business.

1. High cost-effectiveness

Staying within a tight budget is challenging for many small companies. Social media, however, is able to reach a massive target audience without the need of investing a ton of money. According to Fourth Source, social media might not even cost a business anything at all, while being very effective in enhancing exposure and complementing a fruitful marketing campaign. The claim is synchronized with Buffer’s research, in which over 70% of marketers believe that their efforts through social media marketing have been “somewhat effective” or “very effective”.

(Oberlo, 2019)

Social networking itself is free, together with its posting, sharing and engaging functions. Not to mention there are many other tactics to legitimize and attract people to know more about your products or services.

2. Wider reach

Statista’s latest figures revealed that there are 3.6 billion social media users worldwide by the end of 2020. Going forward, the number of social media users will continue to rise, rendering businesses an opportunity to expand their online global network much easier.

(Oberlo, 2020)

Unlike traditional marketing and advertising, with only one click on a button, brands can reach at least thousands of people all over the world. If you are interested in a specific group of people, you also have the flexibility to reach these niche audiences according to their common characteristics, like demographics and behaviors.

3. Have influences on consumers’ purchase decision

Incorporating social media into your marketing strategy allows you to align your marketing initiatives with user behavior. Research has shown that more than 70% of people were more eager to buy something based on social media referrals, whereas 74% of consumers admitted they relied on social networks to consider and evaluate their options before deciding to purchase a product or service.

(Ozzz, 2020)

Social media is proven to be highly productive when it comes to convincing consumers to purchase, businesses should therefore make good use of different social platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to engage potential buyers.

4. Drive traffic to your website

Social media is considered to be the primary source for generating e-commerce traffic, it leads ahead of the traditional media in gaining website visitors and getting referrals. 

(Smart Insights, 2013)

Monetate has published a list of data based on 500 million visits amongst their clients, and they discovered that social media such as Facebook and Pinterest played a very important role in driving e-commerce traffic. Although it can be a process that requires a lot of effort, time and hard work, it is a crucial element of digital business growth.

What Platforms should be Included?

If you want to better allocate  your time and resources, you have to know what social media networks are the most valuable to your business. Below is a brief overview of the different platforms and what advantages they can offer.

1. Facebook 

Facebook is the #1 social media platform used by businesses. With over 2.70 billion active users each month, it isn’t hard to imagine why so many businesses, large and small, have chosen to use Facebook as a means of interacting and engaging with their customers.

Demographics: As of October 2020, nearly 10% of global active Facebook users were women between the 18 and 24 year-old, and male users between the ages of 25 and 34 years constituted the biggest demographic group.

(Statista, 2020)

Pros: Facebook ad formats and Pages are designed to capture attention and prompt action. They offer creative flexibility, work across devices and are built to help you reach your goals.

2. Instagram

According to Statista, Instagram’s social media presence currently brings with it over 500 million active users on a daily basis. With that many available eyeballs, there is no limit to the success a business can reach with a dedicated Instagram strategy.

Demographic: The gender mix on Instagram is quite even - 52% female and 48% male. Meanwhile, Gen Z takes center stage as the largest user base, followed by millennials who have also made a massive impact in shaping what the app is.

(Hootsuite, 2020)

Pros: Instagram has evolved over the years, and now there is a greater emphasis on making money through product placement. With the launch of “shoppable posts”, businesses can now tag their products in photos with links that include a product description, price and the ability to "shop now," which will lead the user to your online store. With this new service, it's simple for a business to attract actual sales from the site.

3. LinkedIn 

LinkedIn is one of the most popular social media sites in the world today and it positions itself as “the world’s largest professional network”. Given its more formal and professional image, a LinkedIn strategy can differ greatly from that of other social media sites.

Demographic:  With reference to Oberlo, in terms of global usage, the majority of LinkedIn users are between 25 and 34 years old, whereas 35 to 54 year-olds account for 30% of the platform’s total user base, followed by 24% of users in the age of 18 to 24. It has also been stated that the group of 18 to 24 year-olds make up a quarter of LinkedIn’s overall advertising audience.

Pros: By receiving recommendations and having followers on LinkedIn, a company presents a great opportunity to grow their business. After all, a business is much more than just sales, it is also about connections and networking on a professional level. LinkedIn offers numerous opportunities to increase businesses’ referral and knowledge base, including but not limited to attract new business and quality employees, increase credibility and exposure of products or services.

4. YouTube 

Youtube is one of the most popular search engines in the world with a staggering 2 billion users. From a business perspective, it's hard to deny the effectiveness of video marketing. Businesses of all sizes can adopt a video marketing strategy as part of their inbound marketing strategy so as to cover the content in a more in-depth, engaging manner.

Demographics: Generally speaking, YouTube’s usage by gender leans more towards men. It can be considered as the perfect platform for reaching a teenage and young adult audience, as 91% of users aged between 18 and 29 are using the platform. Interestingly, YouTube is popular across other age groups as well. There’s a 87% usage among US internet users ages 30 to 49, 70% among ages 50 to 64, nearly 40% ages 65 and older.

(Sprout Social, 2020)

Pros: It is estimated that by 2022, online videos will make up more than 82% of all consumer internet traffic, which is 15 times higher than it was in 2017. A large reason for this is that individuals simply prefer to watch a video than read an article. Another added benefit of posting video content to YouTube is its syndication. In short, YouTube makes it extremely easy for your content to be shared with others through other channels like Facebook, LinkedIn, email, and other websites.

How to Perform Social Media Management

Social media management is in fact a vague term, thus, it is very normal for you to question what are the key elements included. Usually, you can focus on the following 5 processes:

1. Managing multiple accounts 

It's no secret among marketers that jumping between different tools and accounts can be exhausting. Quite frequently, social media managers have to end up managing several accounts based on different branches of the businesses, and all of them are on different platforms. Some accounts might be dedicated to sales while others are used for customer service or digital marketing. As a result, in today’s state of social media, one of the hardest aspects is to keep up with the sheer number of accounts.

Still, managing multiple accounts on different social networks is necessary for your business growth. With social media management, all those accounts get narrowed down into a single platform. You can now be able to post on every single in one click, saving you plenty of time. In addition, with the ability to post the same content on multiple accounts at once, Consistency across all channels can be guaranteed.

2. Building your content calendar

Social media content calendars are the best way to plan and organize upcoming content. Whether it’s a simple grid with a few links, or a bespoke dashboard that can plan out dozens of feeds, the calendar can be as simple or complex as your brand needs it to be. Apart from preventing minor panic attacks, a content calendar also helps to increase your organic reach. Whether you’re trying to increase your Instagram likes, your YouTube subscribers, or you’ve implemented social media KPIs, the key is to post consistently. Via showing up in your audiences’ feeds more often, your posts get shown to new eyes, and new people will therefore start following your brand, ultimately, lifting your conversions.

A comprehensive content calendar also comes in handy if you want to schedule posts in advance. Scheduling offers you the freedom to post at “peak” engagement days and times, even if you’re not available at those specific moments. You have more time to worry about other meaningful responsibilities and less on logging into social media to upload a post.

3. Creating platform-specific content

A ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach never works in social media marketing since every social media platform has its own rule, namely the algorithm. When you’re communicating a message across multiple channels, creating platform specific content is key to maximizing your impact.

For example, you might write medium length captions with a light hearted tone and lots of hashtags on Instagram, while on LinkedIn, you’ll go for a formal approach, lengthy captions, and only a couple of hashtags. On the other hand, each social media site operates its own bubble, the audience has particular expectations for the content they anticipate and want to see on a specific platform. Hence, it is important for the marketers to tailor the way of presentation across platforms based on its audience’s demographics, interests and expectations.

4. Responding to your followers

There is one crucial rule in social media management that should never be broken: you must interact with your followers and respond to all commenters. As said by Sprout Social, social media is the second more preferred channel for customers to seek refund, discount, logging a complaint, or raising awareness about an issue. Given that customers nowadays are using social media as their prime source for connecting with the brand and business, it is of utmost importance to ensure a smooth delivery of a positive experience. 

With customer service being a key driver in the modern competitive business world, listening to what your customers have to say via social media is essential. And sometimes the little nuggets they give you on social media can even help you to identify gaps in your product and service, which you may have overlooked. As a matter of fact, almost 70% of millennials pointed out their loyalty towards brands was impacted by the speed of the response they receive in return, showing how responsiveness on social media could drive customers’ loyalty.

5. Monitoring your social media performance

Every social media platform has its own native analytics, for instance, Facebook has Facebook Audience Insights, a tool specifically designed for marketers to learn more about their target audiences; whereas in Instagram and Pinterest, a business account is needed before seeing information about users’ geography, demographics, purchase behavior and more. If you are a social media professional, social media metrics are the indicators to demonstrate the value of your work, as well as the impact of the decisions your have made. Not only does the right data assure their investment in social media is paying off, but it also allows marketers to keep making smarter, more data-driven decisions in the future.

Simply put, great marketing requires analysis and measurements. For every goal, you need a related metric, which will help to determine if your social strategy is hitting the mark or not. Apart from giving your chance to showcase the impact of your work to executives, consistent social media metric reports can also lead to major shifts for your social team, including budget increases and increased access to resources. 

Top 10 Tools for Social Media Management

Managing multiple social networks presents new challenges. Fortunately, there are tools to help, depending on your business needs.

1. Buffer 

Buffer is one of the longest-running social media tools aimed primarily at scheduling posts. It supports Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram, and Pro users can schedule Pinterest updates from one simple dashboard. For basic free plan users, you can connect up to 3 social accounts, including Facebook Pages and groups.

2. CoSchedule

Coschedule is an editorial calendar and social media marketing tool. Users can use it for planning, organizing, and executing content marketing. The drag-and-drop calendar interface makes it easy to collaborate and schedule all projects in one place, allowing you to plan projects, collaborate with your team, and keep your content calendar organized in an all-in-one platform

3. Crowdfire

Crowdfire works with Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Wordpress, Etsy, Shopify, Medium and many more platforms. Users can analyse multiple social accounts, download analytics reports and schedule an export for weekly or monthly reports. Also, it allows users to replay all social mentions from one single dashboard, saving tons of time and efforts.

4. Hootsuite 

Hootsuite is free for up to 3 social network profiles, whereas switching to the PRO version can manage more accounts and access additional features including the mobile Inbox. It allows users to create and publish content, edit drafts, and schedule posts to all social profiles from the palm of your hand. Users can also use AutoScheduler to publish posts automatically when there are gaps in your content calendar during peak times.

5. HubSpot

HubSpot is a complete CRM platform with all the tools you need to grow better - whether you want to increase leads, accelerate sales, streamline customer service, or build a powerful website. The Marketing Hub feature is tailor-made for social media management, it helps users to attract the right audience, convert more visitors into customers, and run complete inbound marketing campaigns at scale on just one easy-to-use platform.

6. MeetEdgar

MeetEdgar is specifically made for professionals who want to manage their social media with more consistency and in less time. It can automate content for your Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and LinkedIn accounts. Another stand-out feature is the recurred posting queues for ever-green content. These queues post on selected channels on a loop. If there is no more content added to that queue, it will start back from the beginning until new content is added.

7. Sendible

Sendible is a social media management tool that helps agencies, companies, and individuals boost their productivity on social media. Using the all-in-one dashboard, users can schedule messages, engage with the audience, and measure performance across all social media channels.

8. SocialFlow 

SocialFlow takes a data-driven approach to social media posting and optimization. It provides a social commerce platform that facilitates sponsorship opportunities. For example, via the AttentionStream feature, it automatically matches brands with content, allowing them to reach a new audience through sponsored posts. 

9. Later

Later is the leading visual marketing platform for businesses on Instagram, and it’s not limited to just Instagram posting, it also works on Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter as well. It favores businesses and brands that need to manage multiple accounts and platforms within one integrated hub.

10. Zohi 

Zohi supports 6 social media channels: Facebook Page, Twitter Profile, Instagram Profile, Google My Business Listing, LinkedIn Page, and LinkedIn Profile. Its feature includes scheduling and publishing content in multiple ways, creating intuitive reports and responding to what matters, helping brands to establish a strong presence on social media.

5 Social Media Management Tips from the Pros

1. Both quantity and quality matter

When it comes to quality and quantity, it is not an "either-or" proposition, every business needs an appropriate mix of the two.

Studies show that quantity of content does matter when it comes to web traffic. Researches at HubSpot discovered a positive relationship between posting frequency and inbound traffic. Quality, on the other hand, is critical for search visibility and conversions. Since Google heavily weighs the quality of the content and how well it serves the people online, creating high-quality content can genuinely bring your business long-term benefit. In short, there doesn’t need to be a trade-off between content quality and quantity. With the right content strategy, you can have the best of both worlds.

(Neil Patel, 2018)

2. Always keep track of social media analytics

The unique information provided by the analytics can benefit your social media marketing in so many ways. Media analytics brings to light your marketing strategy which has the best impact on your brand's online campaigns. For instance, you get to see what kind of content has a higher impact than others, allowing you to streamline and maximize your marketing efforts to the fullest.

By investing in analytics tools and services, tracking the leads and converting customers through social media efforts can be achieved. In addition to that, you'll not only save money and gain higher profits for your business, but you also get to know your audience for long-term healthy customer relationships.

3. Reduce manual tasks with tools

The suitable marketing automation tools can significantly minimize the need for manual input, automating many of the time-consuming processes that are still essential for creating a successful marketing campaign.

By utilizing the social media management tools such as those listed above, you’ll find it easier to free up your valuable internal resources for further productivity and profitability, leaving you with more time to develop and grow your core business.

4. Have a strategy, plan and goal

Having the right social media strategy is vital to the success of many businesses. It is well-known that today’s customers expect companies to be very good at engaging through social platforms, responding in a timely fashion and adding value to the core brand. Failure to be responsive can have a destructive negative impact on the business. 

Establishing and documenting your social media strategy will help focus your efforts, understand your objectives and goals, and plan the steps you need to achieve them. This focus and planning will minimize wasted effort and improve your social media marketing productivity.

5. Never stop learning

Social media is getting more complicated and faster than ever, with its fast-moving feature, it has also brought a fresh tech layer to marketing. New technology is driving consumer habits and these new habits are pushing the technology to evolve. Thus, marketers have to stay tuned with these trends and be bold enough to embrace the new changes.

In the age of online tutorials, webinars, and interactive demos, there’s no shortage of options when it comes to learning. Always make good use of the free available resources online and build off that knowledge with an accreditable course to go deeper, after that, practice what you have learned until you manage to demonstrate that knowledge to the benefit of your works completely.

Read More:

The 12 Social Media Trends Marketers Have To Know In 2021

How to promote your business using Facebook?

Top 4 Inbound Lead Generation Tips for Small Business

Original Link:

https://sleekflow.io/zh/blog/social-media-management/

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Ecommerce Marketing 2021: 20 Proven Strategies to Drive Sales

Ecommerce sales are growing rapidly ever since people have started adjusting to a 'new normal'. In fact, many retailers have made triple-digit online sales gains in the second quarter of 2020, as reported by CNBC. Stepping into the age of smartphones and tablets, online shopping is expected to be a key growth engine for every brand in the coming years.

(CNBC, 2020)

With this on-going transformation of the digital retail landscape, you might have to consider ditching some less profitable brick-and-mortar locations, and doubling-down on your ecommerce efforts to give the sales a big boost. Below are the top 20 ecommerce strategies and trends for 2020 and beyond.

H2: How Does Ecommerce Marketing Work?

Instead of relying on a physical local, ecommerce marketing utilizes various online channels, such as social media, digital content, search engines and email campaigns, to bring in traffic and drive awareness. 

Briefly, ecommerce marketing is about using a mix of both paid and organic strategies to reach potential customers and send them targeted messages, which will ultimately result in a sale.

H2: 20 Must-Know Ecommerce Marketing Trends of 2021

1. Getting helps from AI-based chatbots

After receiving a customer’s message, chatbots will run the texts through an algorithm so as to figure out the best response accordingly. Although it sounds complicated,  the whole process only takes about 2 seconds to complete. 

Chatbots play an instrumental role in sales leads and conversions, for example, Sephora’s has increased the average user spend to over $50 USD, whereas Tommy Hilfiger’s has contributed to nearly 90% rate of returning customers.

Apart from the aforementioned advantages, there are more compelling reasons to get your company a chatbot, including but not limited to 24/7 customer services, lower cost, shorter response time, and most importantly, allowing the company to live to the customers’ rising expectations of “always-connected”. Truth to be told, there are currently more than 300,000 active chatbots on Facebook’s Messenger alone, it is believed that more and more businesses will start introducing chatbots to their customer support.

2. Being everywhere at all times

According to BigCommerce, online spending is distributed evenly between marketplaces, large retailers, web, and category-specific stores. In other words, businesses need to deliver a seamless and consistent shopping experience at any given touchpoint.

(BigCommerce, 2018)

To succeed in omnichannel retail, you first have to make sure every single touchpoint is deeply connected. Disney has demonstrated perfectly from start to finish: it begins with the customers' initial experience on its mobile-responsive website. After purchasing tickets, customers can scout plans, consume content and prepare for the entire trip on a mobile app called My Disney Experience. Once the customer is physically at the park, they can use the app to see wait times for all attractions and events on a real-time interactive map. Customers can even use the app as a photo storage device for any photos taken with the Disney characters and a food ordering tool at the restaurants. That's a truly omnichannel experience in that Disney manages to immerse their customers in the world they create literally at every moment.

3. B2B ecommerce is becoming a top growth sector

Late in 2017, Frost & Sullivan expected the global B2B ecommerce sales to surpass business-to-customer (B2C) valued at $3.2 USD trillion by 2020. B2B refers to business-to-business, and speaking of ecommerce, it is defined as the business model that focuses on selling goods and services to other companies through online channels.

Instead of targeting an individual customer, B2B companies offer raw materials, finished goods, services or consultations that other businesses need to operate, grow and profit. Examples include Dropbox, General Electric, Xerox and WeWork.

The collaboration between Forex and Spotware is one of the best practices. Spotware has developed a trading software called cTrader and sold it to forex brokers. For a trader to access the forex markets and trade online, they will need to use a trading platform or software. This is clearly a win-win situation since Spotware could therefore get a greater range of sales which leads to more income for the business. On the other hand, if Forex has not adopted cTrade, the brokers would have to make some software by themselves which would make it impossible to offer services at affordable costs. If you have overlooked the importance of B2B ecommerce, you are losing more chances to develop.

4. Manage multiple channels through one single platform

As businesses grow, there is a pressing need to eliminate human error when managing commerce data coming in from various channels. With the emergence of integrated platforms or super apps, product data can be extracted and mapped automatically across multiple channels without the need for manual input.

Sleekflow, for example, allows businesses to access all ecommerce channels such as Shopify, Shopline and Woocommerce on just one platform, improving the operational performance by delivering a single interface for both staff and supervisors across multiple teams. The system is capable of pulling data such as new user registrations, orders and delivery details from different websites, allowing businesses to keep track of all prospects and leads much easier.

5. Expand your business internationally

The cross-border purchasing has also surged dramatically in recent years , bringing new opportunities to brands and retailers. Despite slowdowns across some of the regions due to the coronavirus pandemic, sales have bounced back in many countries, for instance, there was a massive increase in the United States’ cross-border online sales in May.

(Global-e, 2020)

Thanks to the internet, taking your ecommerce business global is no longer a daunting task. The easiest strategy is to partner with trusted digital platforms, such as Amazon Global Selling and eBay Global Shipping. These websites are specifically designed for global reach, everything from the language to the price to the shipping rates will change automatically depending on the market, so the whole experience will be more appealing to overseas customers.

6. Subscription programs are hot

Subscription-based marketing is one of the predominant elements in modern businesses. Ever since the concept of customer relationship management has been introduced, many brands started prioritizing customer retention over customer acquisition. With reference to Zuora’s report, the subscription-based business model has exploded by over 350% since 2012, growing 5 times faster than S&P 500 company revenues and U.S. retail sales.

(Zuora, 2019)

Running a subscription service is good for both business and customers. First of all, as a customer, after signing up, he/she can just sit back and enjoy the premium service. The autopilot simplicity of subscriptions removes the thinking out of a purchase decision - subscribers never have to remember to reorder every month, which gives them the reassurance that they will have whatever they need before they actually need it. Meanwhile, the longer a customer is with you, the more they trust you and the more you become top-of-mind, thus, bringing in more longer-lasting and higher-paying referrals.

7. Adopting progressive web apps

Progressive Web Apps (PWAs)  are a blend of the traditional browser experience and the mobile app experience. Simply put, PWAs are web-based applications that are intended to cater to users on a laptop or a mobile device. With the same application accommodated on both iOS and Android uniformly, PWAs save both time and cost of developing a native application.

Since PWAs are created with reusable codes, whereby developers can repeat the same codes and modules in quick succession. In addition, as the app primarily redirects to the original e-commerce site, the groundwork has already been laid. For e-commerce business owners who want to offer customers native app-like features in a short time, implementing a PWA is the most efficient alternative.

(Divante, 2018)

8. Don’t forget about D2C

D2C is commonly known as direct-to-consumer, meaning the  manufacturers and producers start selling directly to end-consumers via an e-commerce site. Normally speaking, the traditional retailer business model has to go through wholesalers, distributors, retailers, and then finally to a consumer. But D2C suggests cutting out the middlemen, instead of solely focusing on bulk purchases, the providers should consider selling individual items to individual customers.

As a matter of fact, over 50% of shoppers prefer to shop directly with brand manufacturers over retailers, according to Astound Commerce Insight. The researchers also discovered that nearly 60% of respondents already used a brand manufacturer's website for researching products and usually made their purchase there as well.

9. “Try Before You Buy” is the new trend

While there are just a few benefits of physical stores, in-store sampling was supposed to be the most prominent one. Unfortunately, today’s online shops also offer customers with the “pay later” option, if they are not satisfied with the product, they are more than welcome to send it back for free.

As an ecommerce giant, Amazon launched Prime Wardrobe to Prime members in 2017. The customers are given a 7-day trial period before checking out, they can then pay for the items they want and return items they don’t with the provided return label. If you are interested in investing this feature, please make sure to have a clear return policy with foolproof instructions. The simpler the returns process is, the more likely customers are likely to shop from you again.

(Digitaltrends, 2017)

10. Modern buyers want more flexible payment options

In the early days of ecommerce, payment options were often limited to card payments, but now there’s a much wider range of payment methods for online shoppers. Statista has researched the preferred payment methods of online shoppers worldwide, between them, credit card payment is still the most popular, but e-payment and other methods are also growing rapidly.

(Statista, 2020)

When it comes to ecommerce payment methods, of course the more the better. After all, consumers are likely to abandon their carts if their preferred payment method isn't available. By equipping your site with a payment gateway that includes an array of payment methods, you give your business more opportunities to gain sales.

11. Dynamic pricing to drive revenue

Dynamic pricing is now taking ecommerce by storm. It is a pricing strategy in which prices change in response to real-time supply and demand, giving retailers the best chance of selling a product while making the most possible profit from each sale.

(Forbes, 2019)

Dynamic pricing strategy can appear in several forms, each of them can be used for achieving different goals. Uber, for example, has chosen to match fares to a number of variables such as time and distance of a customer’s route, traffic and the current rider-to-driver demand. Sometimes, this means temporary surge charges during particularly busy periods. With this system, Uber manages to make sure there are always enough drivers to handle all ride requests, customers can therefore get a ride quickly and easily.

12. Product visualization for interaction

Product visualization for ecommerce is a powerful way for e-tailers to gain profit from online sales. Wake up to the fact that ecommerce is growing faster than ever, it’s high time to represent products with a fresh look. Many companies are doing this by enabling their websites with visual product configuration software. Via this method, customers can see a picture or rendering of the product while they're completing their orders online.

To best explain its effectiveness, Retail Perceptions concluded that nearly 40% of consumers would be willing to spend more on a product if it offered an augmented reality experience. Thus, putting retailers who offer augmented reality features online at a competitive advantage that’ll likely increase sales, conversion rates and number of products sold for their online store. IKEA was quick to adopt this technology to assist its shoppers in making better buying decisions - the company collaborated with Apple and built the “IKEA Place” app that allows customers to visualize IKEA products in a superimposed graphics environment.

(Retail Perceptions, 2016)

13.  Use videos to promote your products

While grabbing people’s attention is a huge task, video contents are able to help viewers to forge a positive, memorable association with your brand and what it stands for. Wyzowl has discovered that approximately 80% of customers preferred using videos to get information about a product over reading text on a page.

There are a variety of formats to create a marketing video. Given that online audiences enjoy short, snackable content, you might consider launching a charming animated video like Starbucks’. Starbucks debuted a cartoon web series called 1st & Main, every episode is about a cast of anthropomorphic animals that were going through struggles in art. Storylines were based on observations about the coffee vibe and culture, showcasing Starbucks as ‘the third place’ between home and work.

(Starbucks, 2016)

14. Voice search is the next big disruption

As presented by Adobe, almost 50% of customers used voice search technology to conduct general web searches, whereas over 90% of brands have been making significant investments in voice. The reason why customers love voice search is mostly because of its “hands-free” feature, it lets people carry out searches while they’re doing other things. As voice search technology continues to improve, some even more powerful algorithms can understand user intent, then reference previous searches and purchases to cater to the user’s special needs.

To prepare your site for voice search, you have to improve your voice search optimization. Due to the more conversational nature of voice searches, long-tail keywords are more important than ever. Long-tail keywords are more specific than standard keywords, which means that they usually have lower traffic volume, but also less competition. It can be impractical to manually track your keyword targets and results, you are therefore highly recommended to utilize free tools such as Google Search Console and Google Analytics for keywords data.

15. Every marketing decision is guided by numbers

Analytics is the core of growing an ecommerce business. It is helpful in optimizing the copy of your Call-to-Action button, creating superior meta tags to your competitors and so more. Since there is a lot of data to measure, parse, and analyse, finding the right ecommerce analytics tools to process large amounts of data and produce actionable insights can definitely offer your brand an immeasurable advantage over other competitors.

Google Analytics is perhaps one of the most well-known analytics tools used by website owners from all corners of the globe, it can be easily integrated into many ecommerce platforms. The only drawback is that in order to get really detailed reports, you really need to spend a lot of time fine tuning the filtered perspectives. Luckily, thanks to the popularity of the tool, there are countless tutorials available online. Google even set up an Analytics Academy to help you learn about this powerful measurement tool.

(Google, 2020)

16. Keep investing in social media 

Ever since its emergence, social media has always proved itself to be invaluable for brands looking to boost sales and brand awareness. According to Absolute, close to 90% of online consumers believed social media helps them make a right shopping decision.

With such huge market potential, the social media companies themselves are also actively exploring new ways to better enable shopping via their platforms. In particular, Instagram rolled out shoppable posts feature which allows customers to tap on the product tags in organic posts and complete purchases. Snapchat also launched its visual search feature, by pointing the camera at products or barcodes, users can be redirected to the Amazon store to make purchases. Not to mention Facebook Messenger has incorporated chatbots to facilitate customer service.

17. Micro-markets have great opportunities

Too often, marketers only focus on big or middle-sized markets such as China, India, United States and the other, ignoring the fact that even sparsely populated areas might render an unique opportunity for cross-border e-commerce.

For example, New Zealand, Ireland, Latvia, Malta and Iceland can be considered among the micro-markets. They have small populations, a very decent infrastructure to which most of their population has access. Running business in these regions only has to face very limited competition as most of the largest brands paid no attention to them - there is no IKEA in Malta or Amazon in Iceland. Hence, there are plenty of rooms for you to fill in the blanks, especially when you are already competing with these stores in your domestic market.

18. Customers are making more green purchase decisions

Green purchase behavior usually refers to buying environmentally friendly products which can be recycled and bring benefits to the environment. Increasingly, consumers are becoming more knowledgeable about the environment and reflecting this knowledge in their decisions to buy green products. As reported by Nielsen Company, a whopping 81% of global respondents felt strongly that companies should help improve the environment, in light of this, consumers around the world are making adjustments in their shopping habits.

(Nielsen Company, 2017)

One of the easiest ways to reduce your business’s environmental impact is practicing green procurement, such as avoiding excessive packaging, using raw materials that are free of toxic substances, adding recyclable or reusable elements into your products.

19. Customers still love stories

It’s no surprise that the marketing world has embraced storytelling, in fact, it’s one of the most effective ways to connect on a deeper level with consumers and humanize a brand. The best-known textbook case is probably Harry's, a company that sells shaving equipment and men’s grooming products. Just from looking at their site, it’s easy to see that brand-oriented storytelling is a major component of the company’s identity. They talk about fair pricing and issues that affected the founders, along with discussion about “modern masculinity”, keeping customers engaged while coming to the conclusion that men can be anything they want.

(Harry’s, 2020)

20. Go for ecommerce personalization

Ecommerce personalization means delivering personal experiences on websites by dynamically showing content, product recommendations and specific offers based on previous actions, browsing behavior, purchase history, demographics, and other personal data. It comes in many different forms, from personalized product recommendations on homepage to cart-abandonment marketing emails, with the ultimate goals to push repeat purchases, drive sales and increase conversion.

Customers want to feel special and personalization helps to improve their shopping experience. As claimed by Accenture, nearly 40% of consumers have left a website because they were overwhelmed by too many options. That’s why you should make good use of the cookies collected, discovering the particular category that the users are interested in. Next time, when the visitors return, you can personalize a homepage for them accordingly, allowing them to shop without any distractions.

Read More: 

The 12 Social Media Trends Marketers Have To Know In 2021

Introducing Automations on SleekFlow: Go Autopilot

3 Things to Invest In Post-Pandemic

Original Link: https://sleekflow.io/blog/ecommerce-marketing/

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Social Media Marketing Trends 2021

Social media is always changing at a rapid pace. Working in such a fickle industry, the only constant is to get prepared for both the expected and unexpected as we can never tell what will go viral and flop tomorrow.

Take Snapchat as an example, it was once the most-popular social media channel which has risen rapidly in early 2016. But as soon as Instagram Stories was launched, its user growth was put into coolant. As of October 2020, Snapchat even needed to take not losing (also not gaining) any active users as a win.

To succeed in the game of social media marketing, it is of utmost importance for us to stay ahead of the curve and understand the latest social media trends. Let’s reveal what is shaking up the social landscape nowadays!

Social Media Marketing for Businesses

Social media are the websites and applications that allow users to share real-time content quickly and effortlessly. They encompass a wide range of functions, for example, Twitter specializes in sharing links and short written messages, whereas Instagram and TikTok are built to facilitate the sharing of photos and short videos.

To ensure the feeds are relevant and useful to the audience, social media often uses algorithms to determine what and how the content appears in users’ first page. Since different social media serves multiple purposes, there are a thousand algorithms behind a thousand platforms. Facebook is known for familial and friendly posts, so high engagement rate is the key to its algorithm layout. Meanwhile, given that Pinterest users normally get online to find ideas, it will keep pushing topics that have been previously viewed so as to guarantee the content is more likely to be consumed and pinned.

Not only does this mathematical set of rules help users to obtain read-worthy content, but it also provides merchants with clearer guidelines for streamlining their advertising practices. Through understanding how each social media platform works individually, marketers can think strategically about how to create and distribute content that will ultimately contribute to their brands.

As a matter of fact, it's high time for businesses to start establishing a strong social media presence. Ever since Facebook, Instagram and all the other social networking sites began to explode in popularity, there has been a tremendous shift in how buyers are researching and buying. According to an ODM Group study, 74% of customers counted on social networks during their buying journey. Hubspot's report also backed this up, showing that over 70% of consumers are more likely to make purchases based on social media referrals.

12 Key Social Media Trends to Watch for 2021

As 2020 closes out, marketers across the globe are looking forward to their 2021 social strategy planning. No matter what business you are in, you should take a look back to the past 12 months: what worked, what didn’t, and where to pivot.

Below is our breakdown of the current social media trends based on recent research and happenings worldwide. 

#1 Ephemeral Content

“Ephemeral” means “lasting a very short time”.

Modern people are having the shortest attention span ever, subsequently, the way they like to consume content has also changed. 

Ephemeral content can take many forms, including photos, live-stream videos, product demos, narrative stories, and more. It is a rich media that only stays temporarily, after 24 hours, it will disappear forever. They are short, engaging, and addictive in a way that people can spend hours scrolling through one Story after another without being bored. With its short-lived nature, it creates urgency, fueled by the fear of missing out, which is certainly a powerful motivator of purchase decisions. 

With reference to a research conducted by Hootsuite, 64% of businesses have either implemented Instagram Stories into their social strategy or plan to do so. Are you part of them?

#2 Micro-influencers

When a consumer is scouring the internet to find related reviews, many are turning to micro-influencers for reference. 

Micro-influencers are those who excel in their respective niche. They are happy to share their opinions about products or services, making the buying process easier for their followers. However, they only have between 10K to 50K followers.

Still, these smaller, more focused niche experts manage to connect on a deeper level with their audiences. An interesting statistic showed influencers with 1,000 followers generated 85% higher engagement than those having 100,000 followers.

When planning campaigns, marketers can consider hiring a micro-influencer to improve the quality of outreach. Unlike well-known or celebrity influencers, micro-influencers are more affordable for brands, most importantly, are viewed as more trustworthy by consumers, which are more likely to drive better results. 

#3 Live Streaming

Today, more and more vloggers, social media marketers and influencers are using live streaming to interact with their audience in real-time without needing support from teleprompter or visual cues. 

As a game changer in social media marketing, there are few fascinating facts about it. First of all, DaCast revealed 92% of mobile users share videos, while live streaming has 114% more mobile views than other forms of content. Also, as reported by Wowza, the promotion rate of live videos is 78%, surpassing the overall video posts on Facebook.

Launching a product using live streaming is an incredible way to streamline your sales instantly. So many brands have done it right: Google, Apple, Honda. Apart from attracting attention to the event, the brand, and the product, it can also deliver authenticity by demonstrating the real reactions of people behind a brand name.

#4 Instagram is Removing Likes on posts

To reduce competitive pressure among people on the photo sharing service, Instagram has been hiding the number of "likes" in some markets since April 2020, beginning in Canada, and later expanding to Japan and Brazil. 

Needless to say, this will dramatically impact all aspects of the social media marketing industry, from influencer discovery to campaign recaps. The good news is that “likes” count is not the only metric. Instead of focusing on “likes”, marketers should put more attention to the action-based metrics, for example, look at how many swipe-ups stories receive or how often a promo code or affiliate link was used. These datas are far more important than “likes” since it allows brands to see how many people actually made it to their site, began the checkout process, and actually placed an order. 

#5 Private Channels

The biggest selling point of these channels of course is privacy. Snapchat, for example, is created for direct communication. Without being bothered by noisy and impersonal public feeds, the engagements feel more curated and personal.

A study of BI Intelligence has discovered the combined user base of the top four chat apps is larger than the combined user base of the top four social media, implying private messaging channels are becoming more relevant to the average social media users.

Since many consumers feel the most comfortable in social media settings, for both their personal life and customer experiences, brands need to adapt and meet the consumer where they are. In view of that, marketers should make very good use of direct messages and story interactions to offer intimated one-on-one communication.

#6 Contest

The social media is now flooded with countless blogs, videos, photos and banner ads. To rise above the nose and get new customers outside of conventional traffic sources is more challenging than ever. Lucily, the old marketing trick of attracting people by giving something away still works.

BHU Foods received a 35% increase in online sales by adding social media contests to their marketing strategy. Another brand Hydroflask started on Instagram with as little as 300 followers, and successfully gained over 200,000 followers on Instagram when they started to use giveaways as a gimmick. Till this day, they still continue to use social media contests as their strategy to grow their brand.

#7 Automation

As the number of users on social platforms keeps exploding, business owners are having a hard time to fully engage with their clients. However, customers don’t care how stuffed your inbox is, all they want is an immediate response to their problems which should happen in no more than an hour.

Thankfully, Chatbots can take a huge chunk of activities off your shoulders. Bots are best for addressing the most common customer queries, so real people can save time handling the more nuanced and complex conversations. Automation also includes scheduling social posts ahead of time or republishing popular articles.

#8 Personalization

Personalization has changed marketing from the bottom up, improving the customer experience, and, in turn, making businesses more profitable. Still, successful personalization in the funnel is like playing chess, you have to think several moves ahead. Many companies failed at implementation.

According to a research done by Marketo, 63% of consumers were highly annoyed with generic advertising blasts, and 90% claimed they were attracted by personalization. 

#9 Visual Search

Visual search has lifted up the user experience to a whole new level: People can upload an image to conduct a search and get more specific results.

Pinterest, as a visual based social media, has come out with a visual search tool that allows users to take a photo of an item to find out where to buy it online, as well as searching for similar products or view pinboards of related items. As reported by VentureBeat, since the launch of the beta version, Pinterest's Lens now recognizes 2.5 billion home and fashion objects, has inspired over 600 million searches on Pinterest’s mobile apps and browser extensions, and has seen a 140% uptick from launch day.

#10 Micro-Moments

Micro-moment refers to an intent-rich moment when a person turns to a device to act on a need – to know, go, do or buy. Below are the major moments people generally make instant decisions within:

To win, marketers have to be there to meet customers in these micro-moments. Once you know what customers’ desired journey is, you should then apply design principles to each phase and appropriate channels. Understanding them and anticipating them can result in better mobile conversions and overall more brand engagement. 

#11 User-generated Content

According to the Nielsen Consumer Trust Index, 92% of consumers trust organic, user-generated content (UGC) more than traditional advertising. In other words, if you know how to use this marketing goldmine, it can create a snowball effect of higher engagement and more social followers.

In 2018, Buffer grew its Instagram following by almost 400% – from 4,250 to 21,000 followers. And a large percentage of this growth was a result of embracing and sharing UGC. The execution is simple, users create and share posts featuring your brand, exposing your products and services to their audience. Better yet, you can share that content with your own audience, boosting your credibility in the process.

#12 Local Targeting

Location-based marketing is a powerful strategy to explore opportunities based on the target audience’s location. It could be a targeted campaign for a location-specific audience, based on proximity, or contextual targeting based on history and customer behavior. It helps you reach out to customers in real-time and enhance customer experience.

Brands can also use geo-targeting to get more people to attend their local conferences and brand events. Or, they can use location filters in their social media ads, to advertise only to a relevant, local audience.

5 Most Active Social Media Platforms

In the middle of the global movement towards a totalizing digital age, every business has to know and use a variety of social platforms to stay relevant. Below, you'll find the 5 most popular social media in 2020. Some might be familiar, others may not. Let’s see if there is anything great for your brand but you have yet to explore.

#1 Facebook - 2.70 Billion Active Users

Despite the fact that some of the younger demographics are passing up Facebook in favor of tools like Instagram and Tiktok, Facebook remains the market leader. If you want your business' content to reach consumers, having a presence on Facebook is a must.

Facebook supports a great variety of post formats - text, images, videos, live videos, and Stories. These can be powerful ways to communicate with customers and potential customers, allowing them to see your product or service without having to visit your premises. You can also try adding call-to-action buttons to your advertisements so as to drive your audience to take actions you care about. While not every post needs to encourage action, actionable posts may increase engagement and provide business value when the action is directly related to your business goals.

Please be reminded that Facebook’s algorithm will always penalize brands that push sales too hard, therefore, your goal should be providing more value than promotional material to keep followers engaged. 

#2 YouTube - 2.00 Billion Active Users

YouTube is a free video sharing website where users can watch tons of videos every day. Each account can create and upload its own videos to share with literally everybody in space.

Videos are a great way to differentiate your business and stand out among your competitors online. YouTube is no longer perceived as a mediocre entertainment site, it has grown into an invaluable business resource. The platform is especially friendly to manufacturers, retailers, and service based small businesses, they can demonstrate their unique market specialty products and techniques in a much colorful way. After all, who will choose reading an article or lengthy instructions over watching a funny short video?

Since the YouTube SEO process begins with video keyword research, you first need to choose the right keywords for your videos. Here is one hack for you - YouTube's Search Suggest feature. All you need to do is head over to YouTube and type in a word or phrase, then you will get a whole list of related keywords.

Because these are terms that people actually type into YouTube, you don't have to worry about whether they’re popular or not.

#3 WhatsApp - 2.00 Billion Active Users

WhatsApp has quickly emerged as the go-to messaging app in the past few years. It’s a fast, simple, and convenient way for family and friends to chat, create group texts, share photos and videos, send and receive documents, and engage in private, secure conversations with almost zero boundary.

In 2018, WhatsApp released a business version which is exclusive to small and middle sized businesses. If you are interested in introducing WhatsApp Business into your customer-oriented engagement strategy, let’s check out our Essential How-to Guide!

#4 Facebook Messenger - 1.3 Billion Active Users

Yes, Facebook Messenger is a separate service from the main Facebook social network. As explained by Mark Zuckerburg, Facebook Messenger has to move out as a standalone app since Facebook's primary purpose is its News Feed, and even though more and more people are messaging, the messaging feature was tough to get to, which created a lot of friction. With the purpose of offering a more focused messaging experience, Facebook Messenger was born.

Being in the top 5, it is proven to be a stellar platform for reaching new customers and nurturing existing ones. Businesses can advertise, create chatbots, send newsletters, and answer FAQs via Messenger. These features have given marketers a myriad of new ways to grow their business like never before.

#5 WeChat - 1.20 Billion Active Users

Back when WeChat was first released, it was just a messaging app. But as time passes by, it has become an “everything app”, connecting users to gaming, ridesharing, shopping, and even government services, along with friends and family. WeChat users can now do everything on the app, from posting videos to filing for divorce.

Given that a Chinese business license is not required when creating an account, many non-Chinese brands have used WeChat’s Mini Programs and platform features to break into this enormous market. While WeChat is largely used in China, the app also has users outside of China. If you are doing business in those areas, WeChat could be a very helpful tool.

4 Leading Social Media Sites in Hong Kong

Does the result match with your habits of using social media? Unsurprisingly, Facebook is Hongkongers' favourite, 5.62 million people are using it which accounts for nearly 75% of the entire population.

Facebook Messenger is the third most popular. Although it requires users to take an extra step, it hasn’t lost its influence on the social media market. It continues to daringly shape the dynamics of how Hong Kong people interact online.

Hong Kong internet users also expressed a strong preference for Instagram and LinkedIn. Since we haven’t covered them yet, let’s dig deep!

Instagram 

In October 2020, the number of Instagram users in Hong Kong stood at 2.7 million. People aged 25 to 34 were the largest user group, which reflects that it really is a platform for young customers. Thus, if you wish to reach your younger audiences, Instagram is your go-to tool.

The Instagram algorithm in 2020 works by showing users the content they are likely to engage with. Your Instagram feed isn’t only based on who you follow, it’s also based on the accounts and types of posts you’ve liked historically. That being said, the more the Instagram algorithm thinks you will like a certain type of post, the higher it will appear in your feed. This is why consistently is so important. It sends positive signals to the algorithm and gives your audience more opportunities to interact with your content.

Linkedlin

LinkedIn is a social network that focuses on professional networking and career development. It allows businesses to create company pages to define and promote their brands. Apart from it, you can research other businesses and people who have similar interests, strategies or profiles to yours.

Through LinkedIn, it is possible to promote your brand’s core values, nurture leads and of course, improve the visibility of any job opportunities currently available. In addition, to build a strong network of individuals who can add daily value as well as help develop a sales pipeline. 

If you are at the beginning stage, you first need to figure out the goals your company wants to accomplish on LinkedIn. Are you going to use LinkedIn for business hiring, social selling, connecting with customers, or all of the above? You can then map out a content calendar, planning posts in advance so as to source images, write thought leadership articles, and prepare content accordingly. This practice can ensure all your LinkedIn marketing goals, from webinar promotion to engagement, are well covered.

Read More

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Top 5 WeChat Official Accounts Features

Facebook Messenger Guide: All You Need To Know for Business

Original Link: https://sleekflow.io/blog/social-media-trend/

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How to Use WhatsApp Business with Multiple Users

Gone are the days of losing customers because of delays in service delivery, with an instant messaging tool in place, businesses are now able to engage the customers in a conversation on the fly. In 2020, there has been a big increase in business activity on WhatsApp (WhatsApp, 2020) - customers use it to get real-time support, whereas businesses take it as a touch base with every potential customer. Despite the fact that WhatsApp offers significant benefits for both parties, it has its own limitations.

One of the biggest restrictions is WhatsApp Business only allows one user to sign into one account at the same time, which is quite unfriendly to large companies with several customer agents. Fortunately, the WhatsApp Business API emerged as a turning point in 2018. If you are getting too many messages that are impossible to reply solely on your own, or tired of sharing one device with multiple teammates, Sleekflow is here to bring you the ultimate solution.

Whatsapp Business - Advantages & Disadvantages

Founded in 2009 and famously acquired by Facebook 5 years later by 9 billion, WhatsApp hits more than 2 billion monthly active users as of 2020. The success is definitely not a coincidence. With its ease of use, clear interface, multimedia messages sharing, ad-free feature, and so on, WhatsApp is truly outstanding. Together with the tailor-made functions for different types of users, including small and large businesses, almost everybody is fascinated with this revolutionary messaging platform.

Still, some might find it hard to manage due to certain capacity and message limits. Simply put, since WhatsApp applies an authentication system distinctively connected to one phone number, a WhatsApp account is not supposed to be accessible to more than one device at the same time. It is exceptionally challenging for medium and large businesses, with over thousands of messages coming in, how can they keep track of all communications with only one device?

How to Use WhatsApp Business with Multiple People?

But as we just said, WhatsApp’s #1 position in the global messenger apps ranking list is well earned. In August 2018, Facebook announced the launch of WhatsApp Business API (VentureBeat, 2018), making it practical for brands to manage a very large volume of requests.

Through WhatsApp Business API, businesses can finally integrate WhatsApp with  Customer Relationship Management (CRM) softwares, saving them from a lot of hassle, as well as boosting team productivity and streamlining communications with different stakeholders. 

Adding WhatsApp to a CRM system unlocks many add-ons. For example, the whole team will be able to view and respond to messages received through WhatsApp as the app is no longer limited to a single phone and user. Moreover, if a potential customer writes to you for the first time, a lead card will be created and saved to the system. Once a lead already has an assigned responsible service agent, he or she will be the only one to be notified, thus, the rest of the team won’t get distracted. More smart combination of messaging channels can be found on the Facebook Partner directory.

In short, WhatsApp Business API can greatly enhance workflow efficiency by allowing integrations with your own systems, helping the team to unleash the full potential of WhatsApp as a channel for communication with customers.

Having Extra Users on WhatsApp Web without API

If your team is having a really tight budget, there are actually several hacks that might work for you.

The most straightforward is to pass the phone around the team, however, it clearly lacks efficiency and privacy.

Another trick is to first open the WhatsApp Business App on your phone, then open WhatsApp Web on the second user's computer. You are free to choose between WhatsApp Web and WhatsApp Desktop, the process of connecting your smartphones is the same.

Although it is not perfect, at least you can have an extra pair of hands to help answering messages. Especially when it comes to a growing small business, nothing is more important than cost-effectiveness.

WhatsApp can Soon be Used on Multiple Devices

Meanwhile, WhatsApp itself is currently beta testing the multi-user function on Android and iOS devices, as reported by The Independent. This new update would let chat history synchronize between various devices, along with end-to-end encrypt the conversations to keep them secure. 

According to WABetaInfo, WhatsApp users can log in to the same account with up to 4 devices at the same moment. It also shed light on the “no internet connection required” stipulation, suggesting users can use WhatsApp Desktop as usual even when the main phone is off.

The above screenshot revealed there is an exclusive section reserved for beta testers in a future Android build, if you have previously enrolled in the beta program for the multi-device beta, you are welcome to activate this function once it launches. Your devices will then be in sync and any action taken from a device will be automatically replicated on all your other devices. Although both beta versions of Android and iOS are now full, you can certainly keep an eye out for any future openings.

Sleekflow - Best Help for Your WhatsApp CRM

If you are not sure whether WhatsApp Business API suits your business, here is a quick question for you: are you feeling overwhelmed and stressed out by your inboxes?

If so, you should consider leveraging business process automation and other functionalities of custom CRM solutions by reaching out to a professional WhatsApp Business provider. 

For example, Sleekflow combines all channels in one user interface, via which users can send and receive messages across all messaging channels, including but not limited to SMS, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, WeChat and Line.

In order to improve the operational performance, multi-staff access feature is available. With Sleekflow, you can quickly and easily add users to your platform and organize them into teams. When a new conversation comes in from a new customer, it will be set as unassigned. As soon as one of the teammates replies, he or she will automatically take the conversation, any new notifications from such conversation will therefore only be visible to that person. In the following tab, members can see all the conversations assigned to them.

All these basic functions help to boost customer support efficiency and cross-functional collaboration across teams. You can also adopt the automation workflows to segment contacts and allocate enquiries to specific staff. By making the bots to handle all the fuss, businesses are now capable of providing better prompt assistance at various touchpoints of the customer journey.

Applying for a WhatsApp Business API Account

Want to sign up for a WhatsApp Business API account but don’t know where or how to get started? Fret not, simply click the “Apply Now” button below and our team at SleekFlow will help you to apply for an Official WhatsApp Business account for free!

About Us

SleekFlow is an Omni-Channel Social Commerce Platform that helps companies manage communication channels such as WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, WeChat, Line, Live Chat, SMS and Email all in one place. Use smart routing rules and targeted campaign messages to streamline sales, customer support and marketing workflows while integrating with 2500+ tools including eCommerce platforms and payment gateways to automate the whole customer journey with ease.

Read More

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Lockdown Hacks: Customer Service on Instant Messaging

What is Social CRM and why should you invest in one?

Original Link: https://sleekflow.io/cn/blog/whatsapp-business-multiple-users/

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Beginner Tutorial: How To Get Started With WhatsApp Business

Reasons to Use WhatsApp BusinessWhatsApp VS WhatsApp BusinessAs of October 2020, WhatsApp hits 2 billion users around the globe and the number is still rising. The market penetration of WhatsApp is especially astonishing in some countries, for example, over 95% of Netherlands smartphones have this instant messaging app installed (Statista, 2020).

Obviously, WhatsApp is massive. The high number of WhatsApp users indicates there are enormous potential audiences ready to be reached. In 2018, WhatsApp released a standalone business version, allowing companies to interact with customers via greeting messages, quick replies, and business profiles. From that moment on, many started scrambling over each other to explore this opportunity. However, jumping on the bandwagon is never easy. Let’s check out these helpful tips and tricks for getting the most out of the world's biggest messaging platform!

WhatsApp VS WhatsApp Business

Although the user interface of WhatsApp and WhatsApp Business is pretty similar, they serve very different purposes. Given that WhatsApp Business is specially designed for businesses to connect with their clients instantly in an official manner, there are a few exclusive features that are currently not available in WhatsApp:

Automated Messages

Quick Replies

Business Profile

Label Chat

Reasons to Use WhatsApp Business

In today’s instant messaging (IM) era, customers preferred having a real-time conversation rather than simply leaving a message. Responding quickly is crucial for customer satisfaction. According to the research published by HubSpot, 82% of customers expected an immediate response to a sales or marketing question, and 90% expected an immediate response to a customer service question. In such cases, automated messages are an extraordinary way to address this issue: it lets your customer feel heard. You can also make good use of the automated greeting message to gather more information from the customer, which will help you identify their particular needs easier and save some back-and-forth.

Of course you can use your personal WhatsApp account to communicate with both of your friends and customers, but it must be increasingly difficult to draw a fine line between private and business relationships. Not only can WhatsApp Business help you to stay organized, but they can also assist you in offering accessible customer service options, showcasing products and services and most vitally, creating superior brand connections with every customer.

With the WhatsApp Business, communicating with your customers is now easier than ever. Sometimes, customers’ inquiries are complex and hard to solve straight away. Instead of spending extra time trying to dig out all the information from customers, you can customize the WhatsApp pre-filled messages to reduce the number of these follow-ups to a minimum. Not to mention the predefined text can encourage your audience to engage with your company on certain topics. This can potentially contribute to your revenue growth, as well as improving customer satisfaction and streamlining your operations.

WhatsApp Business Tutorial

WhatsApp Business is a free app available on the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store.

To get started, you have to create your business profile by entering details under Settings > Business Settings > Profile. Make sure you get these accurate since any misleading information can cause you trouble.

Followed by the most important step, setting up the messaging tools. You need to go to Settings > Business Settings and check the messaging options available there. There should be 3 options: Away message, Greeting message, and Quick replies, you can set each of these depending on your requirements.

Apart from 1:1 support, you can also remind your customers about the latest promotions at once. To create a WhatsApp broadcast message, you have to go to the WhatsApp > More options > New Broadcast. Search for or select the contacts you want to add, then tap the check mark. You can select all the contacts you wish to send a broadcast to and send it, or you can organize your contacts with labels and then send a broadcast to one or more than one set of labeled broadcast lists.

For more app features, you can refer to Sleekflow’s complete guide on using WhatsApp Business.

WhatsApp Business Audiences Management

Creating a WhatsApp Business account is definitely not the hardest, while establishing presence in customers’ minds is. How can you keep in touch with your audiences without annoying them?

The key is to continuously deliver great content on relevant topics. Thus, it is of utmost importance for you to label all contacts, or else it will be very tricky to find the right person to stimulate conversation. The default setting already has a couple of different labels, but you are always welcome to add your own as well.

After putting your customers into different categories, you can start interacting with them via either a group or a broadcast list.

A group is a place for your fans and customers to come bond around, they can learn about your product and get access to exclusive knowledge through chatting with other like-minded people. It is also a handy channel for you to tap into some real insights.

Another practice is to send out a broadcast message as mentioned above. It is very similar to a marketing email but with a much higher open rate - the text message on WhatsApp gets an average open rate of 98%. Unlike group chats, recipients will see the message as a standard one appearing in their WhatsApp. With this one-to-many conversation feature, you can keep the conversation private and personal, all the replies will be restricted to the broadcaster only and no one else will get the reply of the message except the one who has sent it.

6 Must-Know WhatsApp Marketing Strategies

1. Present an Attractive Brand Persona

It’s 2020. If you want your brand to rise above the digital noise, a cold and sterile approach is the last thing you should attempt. To make sure your customers must be able to identify your brand quickly, you need to develop a strong, memorable, warm-blooded brand. For instance, including jokes about your brand on the business profile or getting festive profile pictures on special occasions. Quick reminder: don’t be afraid to use casual language such as “btw” and “LOL”, speak to your customers like you’d speak to your friends.

2. Build a Contact Base

Due to WhatsApp's anti-ad philosophy, cold call messages are not accepted. Businesses can only send messages to customers under 2 scenarios - customers initiate the conversation or the company’ phone number is on their contact list. In exchange for the WhatsApp number, you therefore need to offer them something of value. An exclusive coupon, promotional code or a giveaway campaign can all be good motivations for the users to begin their relationship with you.

3. Offer Relatable Content to Customers

Customers may come to you for very distinct reasons, in other words, you can’t use only one type of content to keep every audience engaged. Don’t forget to make good use of the Label Chat feature. You can create labels with different colors or names, and add them to an entire chat, group, or certain messages within a chat. By targeting those who are interested in particular topics and feed them with relevant content, you can eventually increase your customer base.

4. Deliver Excellent Customer Service

A 24/7 customer service used to be very luxurious, but with WhatsApp, even small businesses can now provide real-time support within budget. No doubt, speed matters in customer service. Fortunately, WhatsApp Business has the ability to send quick replies. With quick replies, you can create keyboard shortcuts for the messages, which is especially useful when you have to answer the same question over and over. This provides a considerable benefit when it comes to time saving while still actively connecting with customers.

5. Conduct Customer Research

Imagine you were trying to ask a girl on a date, how could you succeed without knowing her interests? Same logic, you must first have a deep understanding of who your buyers are, your specific market, and what influences the purchase decisions and behavior of your target audience members. Customer research is conducted so as to clarify the aforementioned details. Generally, people react more positively to images than blocks of text, so do try using visual aids in your questionnaire. Polls are also fun as they can give the respondents a glimpse of how they compare to others. By integrating a poll midway through a survey, the respondent can be immediately presented with the overall polling results, rendering them a sense of wider engagement with other respondents.

6. Utilize WhatsApp Status

Like other social stories, with Status Feature you share an image or video with your contacts that lasts for 24 hours. You can create special promotional codes your customers can share to redeem at your business. Using the instant photo and location feature, Status can let everyone in your group know about the on-going promotions. If you want to drive in traffic and create buzz, you can even launch a two hour flash sale or a one day special.

Read More:

How to Run Instant Messaging Marketing?

Essential Guide: Whatsapp Business API

WhatsApp Business: Pricing in Hong Kong and Worldwide

Original Link: https://sleekflow.io/zh/blog/whatsapp-marketing/