The Ambassador Program

Posted on March 31, 2013 by admin

Social Storytelling combines strategic marketing, public relations, digital marketing, and social media into one integrated program designed to connect with prospects, nurture your current customers, and encourage them to become loyal customers. The ultimate goal is to empower your customers to become your best marketers, A.K.A. your brand ambassadors, through word-of-mouth marketing.

Converting loyal customers into ambassadors has become a bit easier with the growth of social media. True brand building usually happens organically. Here are 5 ways to create a brand advocate program for your business.

1. Work from the inside out
Start with your employees first. Empower your employees by explaining the story you want to share and then] providing them with the right communication tools. Encourage them to serve as your first line of brand ambassadors.

2. Speak with one voice
Social media is a powerful tool. Use social media to grow your business’ brand but create guidelines for your employees to give them some direction and consistency. It’s important for all your brand ambassadors to share the same message.

3. Don’t try to buy your friends
That goes for your customers too. Offering cash prizes or other promotional incentives have become “old school” tactics. Your customers will be more motivated by free trials or sneak peeks of your products, insider access to information about your business, and other tangible benefits than by a mundane cash prize. Plus, your customers will feel more connected to your brand if they are informed

4. It takes a village
Create a blog on your website and encourage your employees and customers to participate in sharing relevant content stories about your business, products, or services. Providing your audience with an avenue to share their thoughts, ideas, and opinions can contribute to improving your brand. A blog also gives you access to monitor what people are saying about your business.

5. Use people-speak language
Customers typically don’t want to read your business jargon. Make sure your presenting your message in terms your customers can understand. Community engagement is about allowing the human side of the brand come through.

Whether it’s a customer or an employee, people look to the web and use social media to become more informed. With the right strategy and marketing tools, you can turn your customers and employees into your best marketers!

Storytelling: No Pain. All Gain.

Posted on March 28, 2013 by admin

Traditional advertisers are always looking for the immediate opportunity to close the sale. As one of our favorite marketers, Seth Godin, points out, “The goal then is to create tension, to escalate need, to amplify conflict until action is taken.” But his point is this pressure marketing strategy tends to fail in today’s immediate access but very selective society. Consumers are already bombarded with seemingly thousands of messages a day. Their response: “We don’t need more stress in our lives. We need fast relief.”

Social Storytelling focuses on sharing relevant information not high-pressure sales verbiage. Here’s the way we look at it. Instead of focusing on exposing conflict and pain, why not share engaging information designed to inform and create a closer connection with your target audience?

The traditional “fear” strategy is a short-term strategy. Storytelling is a long-term strategy designed to successfully connect with the prospect so you not only close the sale but continue to build a long-term relationship with the customer. Mix in a good customer experience program and you increase the chance of converting those customers into loyal customers or even brand ambassadors.

Storytelling isn’t brain surgery. It’s just good common sense.

Storytelling: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

Posted on February 26, 2013 by admin

There is a distinct difference between writing engaging content for the digital audience and the traditional mass media audience. The good news is the fact that digital story writing is basically free to publish. The bad news is that unless your stories are relevant and worth reading then the message is lost. The good news for traditional advertisers is that they can pay to have their story shared with a mass audience. The bad news is that their advertisement only interests a very small percentage of the total number of people who potentially read it.

Traditional advertisers tend to struggle to write good content for digital media channels because they are used to writing average content for a mass audience. Some traditional advertisers go so far as buy “likes”, pageviews, as well as irritating popovers, popunders and all sorts of new ways to interrupt online users.

Successful Social Storytelling starts with the realization that you must write good content that is worth reading or watching. And sometimes when your stories are so compelling your audience will not only read it, but share it with their online friends and followers.

The ugly part – even though you take all the suggested steps to attract attention it might be the exact opposite of what you need to do to get your target audience to respond. Producing an off-beat video with talking guinea pigs may attract a million views but it won’t necessarily cause the result you intended. And yet – it’s still a step in the right direction.

Just remember, you rarely engage a new customer with just one story – whether it’s good, bad, or ugly.

Why Does My Business Need A Facebook Page?

Posted on January 30, 2013 by admin

Even though Facebook now reports over 1 billion active accounts, there are still business owners that aren’t convinced that Facebook offers any real benefits. This article attempts to address the common concerns for starting a Facebook Business page.

Concern #1 – No one cares: My kids use Facebook and I think it’s a complete waste of time.
Key Fact: Facebook offers pages for personal users and a separate page for businesses. For the most part each has a completely different type of audience. In short, the personal profile page is used for social purposes and the business page is used to share relevant content designed to actively engage customers and prospects.

Concern #2 – Negative Publicity: Facebook opens the opportunity for critics to post negative remarks about my business.
Key Fact: This is absolutely true. As a matter of fact those same critics and competitors are already talking about you on the internet. So, you have a choice. Ignore the negative publicity or welcome it and address all of your customers’ issues on your Facebook page. Many businesses now use their Facebook page as a customer relations tool and a resource for research and development. Turn the negative into a positive.

Concern #3 – Zero benefit for B2Bs: Facebook is better suited for B2C businesses.
Key Fact: Marketing-minded B2B companies have realized that this is simply not true. All customers (businesses and consumers) actively use the internet to become better informed prior to a purchase. From a sales perspective the primary goal is to be perceived as a “trusted advisor”. Providing relevant and engaging content through social media channels such as Facebook is critical in achieving this sales philosophy.

Concern #4 – Lack of Likes: My business won’t attract enough Fans to make my Facebook page worthwhile.
Key Fact: The success of a Facebook page is not based on the number of “Likes” (fans) you have. Some Facebook pages can attract an amazing amount of people who “Like” your page. But, attracting more fans doesn’t always translate into gaining more sales. It’s far more valuable to engage qualified leads that can be converted to customers..and eventually loyal customers.

We’re certain there are other concerns for not creating a Facebook page for your business and we understand that Facebook is not right for everyone. But, we do believe that it can be a very effective channel for sharing your unique story – with over a billion potential customers.

“Can we go back to using Facebook for what it was originally for -
looking up exes to see how fat they got?”
~ Bill Mahar

Ten Ways to Use Social Storytelling to Improve Your Business in 2013

Posted on December 18, 2012 by admin

Listen. A good story starts by listening to your customer in order to learn what they really want to know.
It’s not about you. Make sure your story focuses on what you can do for your customer versus just telling them what you do.
Earn trust. One key to developing customer loyalty is to earn the reputation of providing valuable information that helps to educate your customer.
Pain relief. Develop engaging content that is specifically designed to help solve your customers’ problems.
Tell a friend. You know your stories are working when your customers share your valuable content with their friends.
Spread the word. Post your stories on every channel your customers access: web, email, social media, mobile, etc.
Prepare for a marathon. Once you start to share valuable content with your customers they are going to want more..so be prepared to meet that demand.
Encourage conversations. Ask your customers to share their stories and ideas. You may be amazed what you learn.
Tell the truth. Another basic key to long-term success is being honest with your customers. A quick way to failure is deceiving your buyers with bad information.
Discover your story. Every successful business was built on a good story. Most businesses have an idea what their story is but they struggle to articulate it and share it with their customers. That’s where Social Storytelling comes in.

Behind Every Successful Business Lies a Good Story

Posted on September 26, 2012 by admin

Most marketing and advertising efforts typically promote what they do or how they do it. But today’s savvy consumers are more likely to respond if they can relate to who you are and why you do what you do. Social Storytelling is the art of identifying and sharing your company’s unique stories with targeted audiences that have the greatest potential of becoming your most loyal customers.

Social Storytelling is designed to gradually enhance your current marketing and sales strategies with digital media solutions. It’s an ideal program for smart decision-makers who realize they need to use tools such as email marketing, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube but are overwhelmed with the learning curve or just how to get started.

Social Storytelling is surprisingly affordable and it’s measurable. Each campaign includes a unique but simple method of tracking responses and capturing new information about your prospects and your customers. The more you know about your customers the more you can deliver what they want and when they want it.

So, what’s the catch? The most important ingredient for a successful Social Storytelling program is delivering good content and lots of it. Social Storytelling requires an ongoing effort to keep your customers engaged with information that matters to them. And that’s where we come in. A+H can help you write and share your stories or we can train you to develop engaging content.

But it all starts with a good story.