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The Benefits of Facebook Groups

10/16/2019

 
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Are you using all of the social media tools that are waiting at your fingertips? Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Linkedin, and the like might be frustrating. But once you dedicate time to any of them, you'll find a plethora of amazing advertising tools that you can use for free. You just have to keep looking and find what works for you. 

Hello friends! We've made it to fall, and we can't surround ourselves more with pumpkin spice and everything spooky. This week's blog will be focusing on the benefits of using Facebook groups for your small business. I can feel the perpetual eye roll, I understand that Facebook can be a beast to use and an even bigger beast to advertise on. But it's a fact of life that you need it, and if you give it enough time this tool can help you and your company grow in new and exciting ways. But you can't just create something and not nourish it. Creating a Facebook group and just letting it sit there is not the end all be all that will allow your company to grow and flourish without putting a little effort into it. You have to put work into it like you would any other part of your business. I'm sure that you know, that any business no matter the size, needs to have a strong presence on social media. This can all be rooted, cultivated, in a well-loved and well designed Facebook group. 

A Facebook group gives you a human connection and removes that big box store feeling and disconnect from your customers. It is a reminder that there is a living breathing human working behind the computer screen. As a business owner, you need to constantly have a presence that's engaging, real, and driven towards your target audience. Thankfully, even though there are some elements of business when running a Facebook group, it can take away the pressure Facebook can put on a business and help create an engaging platform without pushing too hard. 
  • A Facebook group allows more personal engagement between the company and its target audience and followers. Comments and discussions about your products and services that your company offers can thrive in the world of a Facebook group. People feel safer to share their thoughts and opinions in a group, as it is more unlikely to get trolled or attacked in this controlled environment. It allows you to become the face of the group and your business and not just be a fancy name or logo. 
  • You can use a Facebook group to show support and love for other similar groups, businesses, and followers that support you. 
  • Call to actions can be made loud and proud with welcome. If you remain focused on your values and aren't overly spammy when it comes to selling your products, you can gain more members to the group and gain more traffic to your content. 
  • You can immediately get feedback, opinions, and know the needs of your followers right away with the use of polls that Facebook offers or by creating your own. You can begin to understand what your clients want and need from your company. This also allows you to begin a safe conversation around any topic. A Facebook group is the rawest and most honest immediate feedback you can receive from your followers. 
  • You can use Facebook groups to mentor, teach, and help grow together as a group. 
  • You can use a group to announce offers and use the group as a form of free advertisement. You can announce sales and offers ahead of time and get your clients and audience excited about these offers in advance. 
  • You can use a Facebook group to build trust and a relationship beyond just being a seller and a consumer. You can use value to show the humanity and venerability behind your business that anyone could and does experience and can relate to. You can share first-hand experiences, answer any questions first hand with tools like going LIVE or by holding a question and answer session. If you take the time to read the comments, questions, and ideas left by your group members and respond to them, it shows that you respect your followers' opinions and that you are listening to them.
  • You also don't have to create a group just for people who want to buy something for you or to use your services. You can create a Facebook group just for your employees as a safe place for them to share, ask questions, give their opinions, and keep everyone updated with their lives. It's another outlet for them to feel heard and to be appreciated by those who employ them and those who work with them. 
  • You can use a Facebook group to network your business. 

We hope you walk away from this blog with a better opinion of Facebook and how to use the tools it offers. Don't be afraid to use them, your following and target audience is there waiting for you. Don't lose out on a wonderful way of communicating, connecting, and promoting who you are as a person and a business!

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Don't Hate on the Chat Boxes

9/19/2019

 
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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! 
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