When you look at how much time people spend online and on social media, you will understand how much potential it holds for your business. According to a 2021 report, the Philippines spends an average of 10 hours and 56 minutes on the internet daily via any device. We also spend the most time on social media, averaging four hours and 15 minutes一almost double the worldwide average.
How are you using this to your advantage? Although social media has long been used for promoting brands and expanding customer reach, it is also emerging as an independent online sales platform. Leading sites like Facebook, Instagram, and Tiktok, for instance, are frequently updating and introducing their latest features to create a more business-friendly vibe.
You need a solid plan to integrate social media into your sales strategy. Start with these steps:
You need to go where your customers are to determine which social media platforms can give you more product visibility. Monitor these to learn where they discover and engage with your brand the most. Then select the top sites where you can sell your products or services and increase your online presence there.
You can also survey your target audience on different social media platforms and find out where most online shoppers would highly make purchases. Once you have decided where to sell, maximize the social media platform’s features to improve your online storefront.
A shopper experience index in 2021 revealed that nearly a third of consumers rely on social media to learn about new products. This is why it’s important to provide relevant information that will help potential customers understand your products without having to go to a separate page to find what they are looking for. Indicate and update prices. Add short and snappy product descriptions about its features and uses.
Make sure to curate your photos and make them visually appealing as well, to entice others to purchase your products even more. Give them ideas by sharing practical tips on how to use your product. This type of shareable content will likely make its way to their friends’ inboxes, too.
Build the credibility of your brand by adding a star rating widget, and allow users to provide their feedback for social proof.
According to Hootsuite, 59% of customers expect to message businesses to make purchases.Take time responding to all customer queries as soon as you can. Likewise, humanize your replies with a pleasant tone to show your brand’s personality. This way, you can foster genuine connections with prospects.
Rather than giving a simple answer to a question, take the opportunity to recommend specific products, share a direct link to purchase, and offer a promo code as a way of securing the sale assertively.
The rise of social media as a direct selling tool is ushering in the development of multi-channel commerce platforms. Integration with the latter makes it possible for businesses to create a central hub for its various sales channels to streamline business processes, eliminating the need to transfer from different portals every now and then.
ChatGenie is a perfect example of a multi-channel E-Commerce platform. It is an all-in-one solution that provides businesses the opportunity to create their online store through social media. ChatGenie’s numerous functions help businesses sell products, automate orders, process payments, and track deliveries to provide customers a hassle-free buying experience with just a few clicks.
Social media analytics tools offered by Hootsuite, BuzzSumo, and Google are crucial in determining the best platforms that followers use to engage with your brand. These confirm the effectiveness of your strategy in selling products directly from social media by calculating the number of likes, shares, and comments about your content.
If necessary, analytics results could also suggest the need to adjust your sales approach and make your content more compelling to prospects. Take note that social media analytics can gauge customer behavior to understand the customer journey aside from measuring sales.
As more business owners realize how vital social media is to increasing sales, Globe Business sees the need to help MSMEs build their capabilities in social commerce. ChatGenie is among many digital solutions that help simplify the sales journey for both customer and seller, and give businesses the ability to make data-driven decisions. To help you set up your shop, Globe Business offers different payment options plus free onboarding sessions from our training experts.
Learn more about ChatGenie by talking to a Globe Business agent today.
These days, the majority of our needs and wants can be fulfilled online. From socializing to shopping, entertainment to education — there’s almost nothing you can’t get done with internet and a smartphone.
So what does this mean for restaurant owners? With the surge of food delivery apps (especially during this quarantine period), takeout and deliveries reaching an all-time high, and new tech-based models such as cloud kitchens cropping up, having an online presence for your restaurant is no longer an innovative move — it has quickly become the norm.
So restaurateurs should now be asking: how do I improve my online presence? Here are a few do’s and don’ts:
Consumers pay attention to brands that are in the loop and have a steady presence online. Find creative ways to be part of conversations that people are having in real-time by staying updated with current events, trends, and popular culture and tying your restaurant in with it. It’s not just about offering promos during major holidays or events but finding fun and clever ways to promote your dishes whenever an opportunity presents itself.
Whether on your site, social media profile, or a third-party app, it’s critical that your customers can easily find and navigate what you’re offering. Take some time to make sure that dish descriptions are written out well, that the menu is sorted properly, and that there are beautiful photos included too. Remember: you’re competing with a lot of other restaurants sharing the digital space, so attention to detail can make or break a sale.
One of the biggest opportunities of having an online presence for your restaurant is being able to provide customer service to your valuable patrons. See to it that you’re answering messages and inquiries promptly and courteously, and are handling possible negative feedback with integrity.
A great way to optimize your customer service systems is through loyalty solutions such as Rush from Globe myBusiness. This comprehensive digital suite allows you to be present across all customer touch points, create a community for your patrons, and allows you to provide top-notch customer service.
Understanding how paid ads on Social Media platforms like Facebook work can be overwhelming, but it’s definitely a must-know if you want to take your restaurant’s marketing to the next level. The easiest way to do this is with the Facebook Ad Creator available with Globe’s myBusiness ThePLAN. It helps you control your ad spend, optimize and monitor performance, and set up your advertisements with just a click. Your ad spend will also be charged to your postpaid mobile plan, so you don’t need to worry about linking a company credit card just to run your ads.
No one wants businesses to be selling to them non-stop. Instead, balance out your promotional posts that highlight your menu items with brand-building content. Give some personality to your restaurant and show off your values, your sense of humor, or whatever you believe is authentic to your brand Make sure you’re always trying to engage your customers — ask them questions, respond to their comments, and find fun ways to get them involved such as games, GIFs, surveys, contests and the like. This is what garners likes, comments, and shares, after all!
There’s a reason why the hashtag #foodstagram has become ubiquitous — we all know we eat with our eyes first. The fact is just that netizens love a good food photo and great shots of your dishes can oftentimes be the clincher in securing a customer’s order.
Advertising and building presence online means you have the luxury of tracking your results and statistics. Which posts garnered the most likes and shares? Are certain topics attracting more comments? Understanding these means you also get to understand your consumers and what they respond to, and will allow you to optimize your content accordingly.
It’s easy to focus on creating content for Facebook or Instagram, but what some businesses miss out on is the power of mobile blasts. SMS is targeted, more personal, and can keep those who are already engaged with you updated and grow loyalty to your brand. For a convenient, easy, and cost-effective automatic mobile blaster service, check out M360 from Globe Business. Subscribing to this plan will allow you to send messages to thousands of customers at once, customize your restaurant’s number to add security and credibility, and create and manage multiple subscriber lists!
With focus shifting to the online space now during the pandemic more than ever, don’t let your restaurant be left behind. Invest time and effort into building your brand’s online presence, stay connected with your consumers, and watch as it translates into a thriving restaurant.
Keep your existing customers engaged with a custom-branded loyalty solution powered by Rush. Sign up now and get a free 3-month trial.
Promote your special offers and send out relevant announcements to your customers via SMS powered by M360. Get double the SMS allowance for 3 months when you sign up until December 31, 2020.
Stay connected with all your suppliers and customers. Check out Globe myBusiness Postpaid Plans with Unli Calls and Texts to ALL Networks and more data than ever before. Want to know more? Click here.
Meetings and group discussions are the life sources of businesses and collaborations. Today, they can be in conference rooms or held online. You, your team, and clients can brainstorm, come up with ideas, and make important decisions during meetings.
Thanks to the digital age, meetings are easier and more convenient to organize. You can virtually get together anywhere and any time with internet, messaging apps, and social media.
But are your meetings productive? Do your employees and clients feel it’s a waste of time? Because let’s face it, we’ve been to unproductive ones. We’ve felt that we can be somewhere else actually working and hitting the targets.
So how do you measure a meeting or group discussion’s success? In a nutshell, it’s when you arrive at the right plans or decisions that everyone agrees upon. It’s unsuccessful if:
When you face these, it’s time to wear the Six Thinking Hats.
We have Edward de Bono to thank for this international bestseller he published in 1985. The doctor, psychologist, professor, author, and inventor highly believes in the importance of language and styles of thinking. He is also the father of ‘lateral thinking,’ or a way we solve problems indirectly and creatively through reasoning. It’s quite effective for brainstorming and coming up with new inspirations.
Through the years, de Bono’s Six Thinking Hats has helped create better discussions in the business rooms, and even homes. It’s still relevant in today’s age. Even when we can communicate better through technology, people have trouble listening and understanding. Often, logic is thrown out the window.
Our perception plays a big role in decision making. De Bono’s Six Thinking Hats stresses the importance of using these thinking perceptions or points of view. You can shift your perception by changing a ‘hat’. This helps you see all sides of an issue. Then, you and your team can address the problems and make the right decisions.
Six colored figurative hats (blue, white, green, red, black, and yellow) represent different manners of thinking. You and your meeting mates must wear all the hats to arrive at new inspirations and fresh perspectives.
When using the Six Thinking Hats approach, your group does not have to wear the Hats in a specific order. What’s critical is wearing the Blue Hat first to lay down the outline and process. Also avoid wearing the Black Hat at the early stages of a meeting or brainstorming session.
Here’s a good strategy to follow:
This suggested strategy is very effective in making more friendly, productive, and creative meetings.
Also take note that the Six Thinking Hats approach is focused on thinking styles. It’s not about the individuals’ characters. Results are usually reliable and safe from drawbacks this way.
Today, we suffer from information overload. Sources can be unreliable. Biases take over facts. It’s important to use the logical methods in Six Thinking Hats for better collaboration efforts, online or offline.
Want more advise that can help your business in this digital age? Join the Globe myBusiness Academy community.
Since consumers nowadays spend hours online, it’s easier for business owners like you to figure out if your social media strategy is working or not. Are customers engaging with your posts? Are they clicking on links and leaving comments? And the most important question of all — are you flooding them with too many posts? If you are personally experiencing social media fatigue, chances are, your business can suffer from it as well.
Techopedia defines social media fatigue as a user’s “tendency to pull back from social media when they become too overwhelmed with too many social media sites, too many friends and followers, and too much time spent online maintaining these connections.” For businesses with online platforms, this can also refer to oversaturating your audience with too many posts, resulting in low engagement.
Revisiting your social media strategy can help you work around social media fatigue. If the numbers show poor performance, here are some solutions you can work on:
While most brands have official Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube channels, you don’t have to be active in all of them. You can house your videos on YouTube and constantly update one or two channels where your customers are. Don’t spread yourself too thin, especially if you’re posting the same thing anyway. According to Econsultancy.com, Facebook and Twitter are the “can’t miss social channels” as these are two of the most-used platforms by customers.
Business accounts on Facebook and Twitter give you access to insights that help you get to know your audience better. These numbers give you a peek on what type of content they engage with, the demographics of your fan base, and the time they consume your content.
The most common and probably the most important of these metrics are:
Knowing these metrics is important so you’ll know if you’re talking to the intended market and clue you in if you need to adjust your social media strategy.
While posting every hour may not work for every brand, a better approach would be to contextualize and optimize your post scheduling so you have a better chance of getting your message across. Avoid saturating your audience with random content and develop a posting strategy which involves figuring out the frequency of posts, the best times to publish, and the consistency and tone of your content.
A single post or two that has content relatable to your audience or depending on your current campaign can go a long way. Brands pushing snacks and healthy meals can post in the afternoon, at a time when their audience are about to have merienda. Promoting coffee or breakfast oats? Try posting it early in the day.
Timing is also crucial. Based on your data, figure out what the peak hours are so you can schedule your content accordingly. As much as possible, don’t post during downtimes. Remember, social media fatigue syndrome works both ways — it can affect your audience negatively and cause them to disengage from you.
What kind of content do your customers engage with? Do they love watching videos or will animated images suffice? Are they okay with text or prefer infographics? Go back to your data and see how each post performed. Based on their performance, it’s best to devote your time to content that works to avoid fatigue from social media.
If you would like to experiment with new content types, go slowly and see the reception first. Set an experimentation timeline and determine if a new content type is worth pursuing or not.
Don’t just post on social media; talk to your customers by responding to comments and messages as well. Replying to consumers is an important part of your social media strategy as doing so keeps them engaged and feeling valued. Thank them for any feedback and welcome their ideas on how you can improve your business.
Plus, you can use customer feedback as content — think of it as a shout-out of sorts and they’ll be thrilled to share your post on their own timelines and feeds, for free!
Just like how you would take a social media break every now and then, don’t be afraid to practice the same habit when running the social media platforms of your business. Just because other brands are doing it doesn’t mean you need to follow suit. So if you feel that in the social media fatigue scale your business rates a 6 or more, take a step back and use that time away to see how you can improve your strategy and present fresh content to your audience.
Just because you’ve decided to pull back from social media doesn’t mean you have to go off the grid 100%. As mentioned, you can use the break to create better, more targeted content. You can also experiment with other sites and digital mediums, such as channeling your marketing and promotional efforts on email and SMS blasts, updating your official website and/or blog, and testing out new and not-as-frequented social media sites like Pinterest, Snapchat, or TikTok.
Social media advertising doesn’t have to be complicated. Find out how MSMEs can create their very own Facebook ads through Globe myBusiness and sign up here.
Online shopping is no longer a foreign concept to us Filipinos. In fact, 41 million Pinoys are fond of shopping online, and proof of this is the frenzy over sales occasionally held by the leading e-commerce websites like Lazada, Zalora, and Shopee. Even big companies like SM, Robinsons Supermarket, 2Go, and Honestbee are investing in e-commerce.
With such big players in the market, and with so many brands competing on social media, it can be challenging for micro and small- to medium-sized businesses to create a dent online. With proper use, however, social media can be a great tool in promoting your business.
Take Instagram (IG) Stories, for instance: it allows brands to not just increase their presence but also establish recall with customers. Learn how to maximize this popular Instagram feature to help boost your online marketing efforts. These three local brands share how.
Make it personal. “Instagram users nowadays no longer scroll down that much,” observes Angeli Narvaez, owner and crochet artist behind Gantsilyo Besh. “They subscribe to their favorite accounts or just watch IG stories, where people share what’s currently happening.”
With IG Stories, business owners can readily interact with their customers on a more personal level. “I use IG Stories when I have new posts, new products, and customer photos and feedback,” says Angeli. “[I also post about] events and bazaars I am joining.”
Add hashtags and special effects. Nicole dela Cruz, baker and co-owner of Hiraya Bakery, is a big believer in keeping their Instagram content as spontaneous, relevant, and visually appealing as possible.
“We use GIFs…to add dynamism to the visual, and to make the story more engaging through humor,” relates Nicole. “IG Stories allows more engagement with the brand because of a more real-time feel as it takes the audience right down to where the action is. It therefore allows businesses to be more intimate with the audience.”
To help potential customers find their posts easily, Hiraya also adds hashtags to their IG stories.
Interact with your audience. Angeli also uses the app to get customers’ feedback, real-time.
“I use polls and questions to know their thoughts about our earrings,” she adds. “People like it when you’re talking and listening to them.”
Jim Bacarro, owner of Isabel’s, a food delivery service that has more than 20 thousand followers, treats IG Stories as sort of a mini-vlog. “Aside from ‘behind-the-scenes’ footage, we like sharing the feedback from our customers by reposting their stories,” he says.
Showcase how your products are made. Customers appreciate it when they see how the products they buy are carefully made—whether it’s a dainty fashion accessory or a pack of delicious lunch.
“We use IG Stories to show the quality of our food and our preparation,” Jim relates. “From harvesting the vegetables to packing them into delicious salads, we aim to always have the highest standards. It’s nice to show our online community how much time and preparation is put into every meal.”
By injecting their brand’s personality and using IG Stories consistently, Gantsilyo Besh, Hiraya Bakery, and Isabel’s are able to establish not just a following but also a relationship with their potential and existing customers. You, too, can take advantage of this nifty social media feature as a means to make your brand stand out.
To learn more tips on promoting your business, sign up to Globe myBusiness Academy.
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