We promised more information on the importance and joys of adding Facebook Stories to your workflow, and so we are going to deliver!

Hello again, sweet Summerville! Welcome back. We hope you and yours are staying safe and healthy. Keep washing those hands and practicing social distancing! If you have the chance, we also encourage you to support local businesses as much as you can right now. So many of the staples we love that are Summerville through and through need your love and support. Get carry out, pick up some coffee, and visit your favorite local artist's websites or Etsy pages! Every little bit helps right now, and we encourage you to pay it forward. If you'd like some recommendations about some of our favorite local businesses, please don't hesitate to reach out to us! We have been enjoying our fair share of our favorite Summerville things thanks to delivery and pickup!

Now, let's jump back into some work. Our last blog kicked off our blog series discussing the importance of Facebook Stories. We just had so much to share - we couldn't limit it to just one post!  Even though we are all smartly practicing social distancing, one of the many ways we can all stay connected is social media. We can stay close and remain in contact with as many people as our hearts desire thanks to social media. This is why it is so important. You can remind your audience that you're still here, you still care about how they're doing and that you and your company will still be here when all of this is finally over

YOUR CUSTOMERS; THEIR NEEDS
We've touched on the topic of customer experience and service multiple times throughout our blogs in the last few months. The importance placed upon it needs to become one of your top priorities. Good customer service is one of the top digital trends for 2020. How to listen and connect with your clients needs to evolve and grow over time. We love being heard, and we all love when our opinion is valued and listened to. Stories, videos, and going live on Facebook gives your client an in-person opportunity to give and voice their opinions. It opens up the floor to more of your followers to join in on the conversation and to agree and disagree with their peer's needs or opinions in a safe and productive environment. Take what your followers say to heart. If they aren't opinions or needs that you feel are in your companies best interest, that's ok. But acknowledging them means a lot to your customers. You can create images and stories to hype up announcements, new products, sales, and exciting events they can all attend - either online or hopefully soon, in person. When you go live on Facebook, you can see the comments your follows are making in real-time and you can physically respond to them. What an instant connection! You can answer questions, solve issues, express gratitude, and connect with your audience in real-time. This frees up time that you would be spending answering these questions and concerns via email or phone call, allowing you to get back to work.

ANOTHER CHANNEL
Being consistent is an excellent tool in branding and leading a successful company. Being consistent creates a subconscious connection between you and your clients and a sense of safety and trust that they can depend on. But, that doesn't mean that everything you post has to be the same. This can draw more of your follows to check out other platforms that you run your social media on, and is another tool you can use to get your customers excited. For example, you might only make announcements about new products, deals, and giveaways on your Facebook stories. But, you hint on all of your social media platforms that to view and learn about these announcements you have to view it on Facebook stories. This can then bring your Instagram or other platform's audience to your Facebook page and vice versa. This is a great way to cross-promote your social media platforms and to keep up traffic to all of your pages. Also, different audiences prefer different types of social media platforms. When creating any story, tailor them to the platform and the audience that prefers it. Not only are you speaking to your audience through your Facebook videos, but you are also speaking to a very specific group and demographic.

IT'S ALL IN THE TIMING
Just like Instagram, Facebook Stories live right at the top of your followers' Facebook feeds. They are the first thing that pops up once the app is loaded on their phone or computers. Staying at the top of their page and in their minds' eyes is very important and effective for your business. This is very similar to putting in the much needed time for SEO and getting your company in the top few results in Google searches. This is why you need real and in the moment, not perfect, videos. The more honest they are and the more you draw in your audience, your stories will remain in a consistent spot in their feeds.

Are you getting excited about the potential Facebook stories can bring to you and your company? We hope so. Even if you're still a bit skeptical, now is a great time to try out the many features Facebook stories can give you. Have fun, be bold, and be honest. Your audience, customers, and fans love and support you for a reason. Let that reason shine through your posts! Don't let your audience forget about you, and don't forget about them. We hope you're doing well, Summerville. We miss seeing you and look forward to enjoying our town together very soon. Stay safe, stay smart, and stay home!

Those annoying popups of the early 2000s are back and better than any of us ever imagined. The next time you're using a website for your job or you're doing some online shopping, take advantage of those online chat boxes. You might be surprised that more often than not, you'll be talking to an actual person! 

Happy September friends! We are happy to see it inching closer to what might be cool fall weather here in the Lowcountry. But we're  also excited for the future fall decorations and any excuse to drink more coffee. With all these new exciting flavors, who doesn't love a cup of hot goodness with a splash of pumpkin? As we are ushered into a new month, it means a new blog! For this blog, we will be talking about the benefit of online chat boxes and how they could help businesses and its users.  

Now, we do remember those annoying chat boxes from our early days of the internet. They were able to maybe answer two questions before directing you to a FAQ site that led to more confusion and frustration than when you started interacting with the chatbox to begin with. But today, the chat box is back and better than ever before. And this time, there are actual people behind the keyboard to help with your questions and concerns faster and more efficiently than ever before. 

In this age of social media, people expect answers and information right away. If it's not received in this timely manner, you could likely lose a customer. On average it takes almost ten hours for businesses to respond to social media comments and 12 hours to emails. For today's standards, that's just too long. Live chat boxes let you have in the moment conversations with your customers while they're visiting your website. The rate of 10-12 hours is cut down to an astounding 1-2 minute response! How amazing is that? But live chat boxes go above than just response time, there are so many incredible assets these little boxes can do for you. 

• It will help you get sales. Since there is someone right there ready to answer questions, it eliminates doubt and allows you to answer questions right away. 
• You can handle more customers at one time with these chat boxes instead of being weighed down by answering a ton of emails over a long period.
• You have the advantage of keeping customers who aren't comfortable with calling on the phone. We get it, sometimes you just want a simple question answered and don't want to call with the chance of reaching a recording.  
• These chat boxes give you a human connection, forming a line of trust between you and your customer. 
• It can lead to getting the reputation of having wonderful customer service and providing your customers a great experience while they're online. 
• You can gain their information faster and avoid having customers fill out forms to gain all of this information. Even if they don't buy something or don't need your services at this time, this provides you with the information you need to stay in touch with them and offer an opportunity to them in the future. 
• Not a lot of companies out there are using this tool to their advantage. Using it now will put you ahead of your competition, and help draw a following. 
• These chat boxes allow you to get to know your customer's wants and needs by gathering a lot of information at one time. Make note of repeated questions, worries, frustrations, and other trends. This information can help you interact with your future customers better, and build a website designed better for their use. You can also use this knowledge to focus and drive your Ad and Social Media campaigns.
• Chat boxes allow you to be proactive in fixing issues for or with your clients. 
• It can provide better analytics. You can know how many people are visiting your website, what times they're visiting your website, how many chats are received, how long the wait times are, and the performance of your employees on these chats, etc. 

You have the choice of hiring a company to operate these chat boxes for you, or you can do it within your company. It just depends on how much you'd like to invest in this service. 

The great news is that even if you don't have an actual person behind the chatbox, there are now intelligent bots that can be installed into the systems when you're away. You can program them to help with basic questions in such a way that will keep your customers interested and informed, and lure them back to talk with a human once you're back to answer their questions. These bots aren't the annoying and unhelpful bots that were originally created, thankfully. They are now offering quick, insightful, and engaging info while your customers wait.

There is a ton of chatbox software out there, you just need to decide what version is right for your company. Some are free and almost all of them offer a quick and easy setup and they are easy to customize. Some examples to look into are Intercom, Drift, Influx, Autopilot, Olark, LivePerson, and SnapEngage. 

It's been interesting watching this technology make its comeback, and we are very intrigued to see where it will go. With smarter AI growing and the opportunity to connect faster with one another than ever before, this could transform the way businesses are run and how efficiently money is made. Follow this trend with us and let us know how you feel. If you've experienced a chatbox recently with these attributes, share your experience below! 

Have a great week, friends! We will see you next time!