Social media can engage customers

ASK AN EXPERT

Q: I’m a middle-aged business owner who needs to get savvy with social media trends and apply it to my business. Any tips?

A: Social media is touted by the experts as the new Dark Art. But it’s not a hard concept to grasp, and you can go a fair way reading blogs, articles and looking around who is doing what in your industry. That said, starting from scratch can be confusing. There are tricks, short cuts and pitfalls that a social media expert can help you with.

First up, do some observing. It’s easy to set up an account on LinkedIn or Twitter, connect with a few people and topics to watch what happens.

Don’t use your business name just yet; use a nom de plume or your personal identity to experiment with. You can learn a lot this way.

Read up on basic terminology; find out what a “hashtag” is, learn what it means to “retweet”. There are free online seminars but a teenage connection somewhere close will school you as fast as anyone will.

Once you have tried a couple of social media platforms and think you know your Facebook from your Four Square, it’s worth looking at what you want to achieve from social media.

This is where someone who has done it before, either a friendly social media savvy business owner or a consultant can help draft up some goals. Don’t believe the hype that social media is free. It costs to get good advice, and it takes time and resources to do it properly.

The value of social media strategy is the “pull” – creating a voice and personality for your business that people want to engage with. This allows people to “click” with your brand, to follow you and for your message to extend through the networks you are part of.

Steve O’Connor, GM of Creative HQ business incubator.

A: The number one tip is do not focus on the tools – focus on the message and intent. Social media is just a fast and efficient way to engage with customers.

Be clear around your customer value proposition, brand positioning and market segments as if you were talking to them at your local cafe face to face.

Social media is about giving to your target market, listening and being there to answer questions that arise.

Do not bombard your market with spam messages, just directly selling your product.

It does not take long to learn the basic tools.

One thing that is for sure is you cannot ignore this important customer engagement model. Start by listening first, before mindlessly broadcasting.

Mark Robotham – GM Escalator Investment Ready Service – building investment ready businesses, blog: succinct.co.nz

If you want to ask a question of either of our experts, email jenny.keown@fairfaxmedia.co.nz

– BusinessDay

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Facebook date ends with supermarket robbery

This screen capture is from the CCTV footage recovered after the supermarket robbery.

If something seems too good to be true, it probably is — especially when it comes to flirty strangers on Facebook. Unfortunately one supermarket manager had to learn that lesson the hard way.

A Belgian supermarket manager’s bizarre education started when he was chatted up by someone named ”Katrien Van Loo” on Facebook, Sophos reports. The woman sent him a friend request — seemingly randomly — and the two quickly hit it off.

A bit of online flirting later, the man received an invite to join the woman for dinner at her apartment.

And that’s when the whole romance came undone.

Instead of meeting the object of his affection, the man found himself facing two men who overpowered, blindfolded, and gagged him. The men took the keys belonging to their confused victim’s apartment and proceeded to go there in order to snatch up the keys belonging to the supermarket he manages.

For whatever reason, it seems that the men did not seem interested in stealing anything else from the victim’s apartment and instead proceeded to hand off the keys to a third accomplice who then cleaned out the supermarket’s safe.

The mysterious Katrien Van Loo was nowhere to be seen at any point and is believed to have never existed in the first place.

It’s worth noting that while this crime occurred several months ago, the Belgian police have just now released a detailed account of the events as well as CCTV footage recovered from both the victim’s apartment and the supermarket. They are still seeking information on the suspects and have provided contact information on their website.

Related stories:

• Facebook doesn’t want you to use its secret iPad app
• How to turn off Facebook’s creepy face recognition
• Fugitive caught after taunting cops via Facebook

Rosa Golijan writes about tech here and there. She’s obsessed with Twitter and loves to be liked on Facebook. Oh, and she can be found on Google+, too.

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