That’s a rough formula of how using social media tends to work, whether you’re doing so for fun or as part of your business’s marketing strategy.

Craft a compelling tweet about a new product you’re launching, for instance, and post it to Twitter.

Create an event on Facebook to promote a special flash sale taking place in your store on the weekend.

Write a LinkedIn post that helps your followers understand why they should look at your firm as a strategic business partner.

Film a short video of a recent staff celebration and share it on Instagram to demonstrate that yours is a firm where people looking for a great job should apply.

All of these tactics are great, and the companies that do them well tend to be among the most successful in their market or sector.

On their own, however, there’s one thing these activities don’t do:

They don’t tell you if you’re really nailing your social media strategy.

This assumes, of course, that you actually have a formal social media strategy in place at your company. There are many companies out there that still don’t.

That’s because the idea of investing in social media is still new enough that many organizations are still investigating, experimenting and learning about the pros and cons of each platform and how they could use them to help their customers and grow.

Eventually, though, you’ll want to put down some key objectives that align what you’re going to be doing on social media with what your company as a whole is trying to achieve.

Then, as with any other operational aspect of a business, you need to monitor what’s happening and whether the strategy is being well-executed.

The concept of “nailing it” may also include a few less tangible elements. Let’s look at all of them:

1. You experience an ‘IRL’ moment

We’re all so immersed in social media now that there’s an acronym, IRL, that distinguishes what happens “in real life.”

This isn’t restricted to more casual face-to-face encounters, though. It can actually be a soft measure of social media success in a business context.

When you’re at an industry event or in a customer meeting, someone might say, “I saw what you posted on LinkedIn about that new regulation coming out,” or “Your Instagram Story the other day was so funny.”

It’s good to collect those IRL anecdotes because, even if people aren’t liking or commenting, they might still be watching, reading and appreciating. Always ask for more detail to determine what worked, what didn’t, and how it can lead to a stronger brand.

2. You spot the conversion funnel in action

It may seem like the Holy Grail, but keep your social media activity consistent and watch for the customers to open their wallets. It really does happen.

Conversion funnels take many forms, but here’s an example:

• You post on LinkedIn about a webinar.
• People register for the webinar.
• They attend the webinar. A sales rep reaches out afterwards.
• They agree to a meeting, and eventually make a purchase.
• Closed deal!

Some conversion funnels might be shorter — like a tweet that takes interested buyers straight to your e-commerce page — and some will be longer. Just be on the lookout for what’s converting and then see if you can scale it.

3. You notice those following are outpacing those churning

Companies talk a lot about customer churn, but not necessarily social media follower churn.

Even as you get more people following your brand on Instagram or Twitter, though, it’s inevitable that some people will decide to press the “unfollow” button.

When you’re really nailing it, though, you’ll begin to hold onto more followers, usually because they’re seeing so much value in your activities that they want to hang around.

If churn is a problem today, look at what you’re posting, how frequently, and if you need to spend more time commenting or liking others’ content instead.

4. You receive an unprompted case study or testimonial

It can be a lot of work to ask customers to take the time to sit down for an interview, review a case study or testimonial once it’s been drafted, and then try to market it to prospects from your online resource centre.

Sometimes, though — almost like a gift — a customer will post a comment to something your firm shares on social media about a great experience they had with your brand.

Or they’ll create a post on their own account pointing out how your firm is a good example of what leadership in your industry looks like.

Don’t just thank them for these unexpected tributes — screen shot them and ask if you can use them on your own social accounts, and in other marketing channels.

5. You see the holdouts become the advocates

Social media can take some getting used to.

Not everyone in your company may be comfortable, at first, with writing posts, sharing images or having themselves filmed for public consumption.

As your social media strategy begins to resonate with likes, shares and other engagement, you may see those who initially held out begin to change attitudes.

Instead of asking them to contribute, they volunteer.

Or they suggest ideas for social content based on their own insight.

These culture shifts are worth celebrating. And building upon.

6. You see a new social platform — and know exactly what to do

The early days of social media involved a steep learning curve in some cases.

How was a company supposed to “talk” on platforms like Facebook and Twitter, and how might customers respond?

Although it may be a stretch to describe today’s social media channels as completely mature, getting started today means you may find the best practices you develop easier to apply as time goes on.

Today, for instance, many brands are scratching their heads at TikTok, but those that have developed a consistent tone of voice and approach for other social media platforms have migrated there more easily.

Don’t worry if you’re not “nailing it” every day on social media. See it as a long-term part of your marketing efforts and just step back every now and then to appreciate how far you’ve come — and how far you could go.

The post 6 Signs You’re Nailing Your Social Media Strategy appeared first on Salesforce.

Same goes for spotting them creating a pitch deck for a prospect, or writing a follow-up email after a recent customer meeting.

Watching them scrolling through or “liking” posts on Facebook and Twitter, on the other hand, might look like they’re taking a break at best — and just goofing off at worst.

The concept of “social selling” is still new enough that judging how well reps are doing it is somewhat less than intuitive.

If they comment on a post or reshare posts, are they doing a good job?

Or should you simply look at their win rates or whether they’re meeting their quota, and assume social activity accounts for some of it?

These questions may have led some companies to conclude social media investments shouldn’t rank very high on reps’ list of daily priorities. If that sounds like your firm, you’re probably making a mistake.

Why social makes sense as a sales tool

As much as you’ll likely still nurture customer relationships and close deals in person and via phone or email, those are no longer the only channels where customers spend their time.

Given that we’ve now had major platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn running for more than a decade, there’s an entire generation of business professionals who have grown up on social media. They expect to share their experiences, have conversations digitally and to get a lot of news and information using such services.

Social media also serves as a reminder that making a purchase is not something that happens in isolation, but is a series of steps that smart businesses recognize and through which they support their customers.

Yes, they may ask key questions during an in-person briefing or phone call, and they might sign off on a deal via an email. Long before, though, they’ve gotten to know your company and its products through a variety of ways, social media included.

It could start with a link shared by one of their friends, peers or coworkers that takes them directly to your site. It might be a short post that serves as a mini-review of your firm. Sometimes they might ask their network for product suggestions, and your firm’s wares are among those mentioned.

This is all part of the customer journey. The rep can wait to make cold calls or follow up in some way after monitoring social media activity, but the better approach is to get actively involved as such conversations unfold.

Using social to set the stage for selling

Reps most likely realize that being too direct or pushy on social will backfire, of course. No one wants to scroll through their Facebook comments or direct messages on Twitter and find someone saying, “Are you interested in our industry-leading product?”

Figuring out what they should say, however, could be a little less clear.

Here are three key ways social can be woven into the sales process that helps reps succeed, while avoiding the risk of damaging customer relationships:

Bringing personas to life: Sales and marketing strategies are often informed by developing a target customer persona — the key traits that represent the needs, challenges and other characteristics of those who make purchases.

Personas can only take you so far, however, given that real-life customers will always have unique traits of their own. Social media is a great way to do a bit of field research, observing what they say and how they say it in a public environment.

Instead of simply resharing their content, liking a post or making a generic comment like “Great post!” reps should interact on social with questions or comments that reflect a genuine interest to get to know them better.

Social media — even consumer-oriented ones like Facebook, if they’re willing to accept your friend request or make their posts public — can help nail down the details about a customer.

This includes their goals, the barriers they’re trying to overcome and even who else might need to be part of a purchasing discussion.

You don’t want to pummel someone on social with questions, obviously, but good sales reps often have a great ability to network and socialize. Now it’s a matter of applying that ability to social media channels.

Warming up a lead: A customer or prospect might have downloaded an eBook or attended a webinar. Even if a rep follows up by phone or email right away, however, they might not be quick to respond.

If they’re sharing their thoughts about their business priorities on LinkedIn, on the other hand, reps can remind them of a key piece of advice from the eBook or webinar that they could use.

If they attended an event your company hosted, meanwhile, you could tag them in a Twitter or LinkedIn post that summarizes the key takeaways.

This may not be something that converts into a sale right away. Just as you probably won’t close a deal immediately after meeting someone at a cocktail party, this is about getting to know someone better and letting the relationship evolve naturally.

Arranging or confirming a meeting: Customers may have an overwhelming number of email messages in their inbox. They may not be eager to return voicemail messages.

If they spend enough time on social media, however, “sliding into their DMs,” or direct messages, could be a better way to take an opportunity to the next stage by suggesting you connect, or reminding them about connecting.

Bear in mind that it’s up to an individual whether their DMs are open to others, especially if they’re not following them. This is also not a place for relentless followup — if they don’t respond through such channels, try other ones.

If you encourage reps to make use of social media with these kinds of approaches, monitoring performance and coaching becomes easier. Make sure part of your regular touchpoint with each rep includes a discussion on how they’re using social and the end results, or encourage comments among the team during group meetings.

Should social media be part of your sales strategy? If you want sales to continue growing, the answer is a resounding “yes.”

The post Should Social Media Be A Part Of Your Sales Strategy? appeared first on Salesforce.

The volume and amount of time people spend on Instagram — not only looking at content but interacting with it through likes and comments — means it has quickly evolved into a place where almost any business’ customers are likely gathering.

According to data from Instagram itself, more than one billion people use the social media service every day. Don’t assume the bulk of all this activity is happening in the United States, either.

This past July, data from eMarketer showed that Instagram is the fastest-growing social media platform in Canada, with more than 20 percent additional users joining in 2018 and a forecast of seven percent additional users this year. That would mean a total of more than 12 million users in Canada.

This doesn’t mean people are intentionally going to Instagram to look for products and services to buy, but they can be open to it if they see the right kind of content and have a journey to purchasing that’s fast and easy.

A good example of content that leads to commerce on Instagram might be a travel company that shows off a fantastic hotel property, or an attraction in a locale that appeals to their target audience. If the photos, videos and text are compelling enough, those who see it on Instagram might be inspired to go beyond a “heart” or double tap and actually open their digital wallets.

Some companies don’t simply offer this kind of content themselves on their own account, but by working with third-party content creators (sometimes called influencers) who partner with a brand to weave in products and services into the things they post on Instagram. Either way, you’ve got a golden opportunity to sell through this channel.

If you’ve never sold on Instagram before, you should be aware of both the tools offered via the platform itself and those from third parties. There are basically three areas on Instagram to think about from a sales perspective:

1. The post

Much like Facebook or LinkedIn, Instagram’s main interface consists of a series of posts that people tend to look at by scrolling downwards from one account that they follow to another. They might also browse through the “Explore” tab to discover posts from accounts they hadn’t heard about before, but the main format is the same.

A post can be a still image or a short video, and the emphasis is on using that content to entertain, educate or inspire. Depending on what’s in the frame, though, you can also give people the opportunity to click directly to buy clothes, jewelry, or other items.

Instagram makes this simple with Shoppable Posts, which are open to any company that has an Instagram business profile that is connected to a Facebook catalog. For customers, the best part is not even having to leave Instagram to shop — they can simply click on tags on the post.

There are also third-party services like InstaOrders, which is designed to turn your Instagram feed into a shoppable store, and Postcart, which facilitates e-commerce through the content of individual Instagram posts.

2. The story

Above the feed of posts, you’ll see circles showing all the people you follow on Instagram that have created Instagram Stories — short, multimedia combinations of photos, videos and text that have been uploaded within the last 24 hours.

Instagram Stories are prominent in the app for a reason: 500 million people watch them every single day, according to the company, representing astronomical growth since the feature was first launched approximately three years ago.

If you have an Instagram business account with more than 10,000 followers, you have the ability to link directly from your Story — whether the content is a photo or video — and letting your followers “swipe up” to click through. They’ll still be in the app but will be able to see a page on your site where they can make purchases. Even if someone isn’t following you, such Stories can be served up as promotions on the platform.

Since 2018, Instagram has also offered shoppable stickers, which are similar to tags in posts but work within Instagram Stories. You might see a shopping basket icon on a product featured in a Story, for example, that lets the viewer buy it immediately.

3. The caption

It may have started as a way to share pictures, but Instagram lets you do a lot with text as well.

With hashtags, for example, it’s easy to get your post discovered by people who want to follow certain topics or even kinds of products on Instagram. You can also use the caption area to feature your best copywriting, providing incentives for your audience to look up more information about your company and its products online after they’ve left Instagram.

While you can’t link live URLs directly within an Instagram caption, you can include at least one specific link in your Instagram bio. Third party services like Curalate’s Like2Buy allow companies to take this approach a bit further by generating a bio link that will take an account’s Instagram followers to an entire marketplace of products and services.

Next steps: Making the most of the Instagram sales opportunity

With applications like Marketing Cloud, companies can use social studio tools to plan and manage campaigns across platforms like Instagram.

This is important because you not only want to generate lots of engagement, but to analyze your progress and determine whether using Instagram as a sales channel actually leads to bottom line-driven metrics like revenue.

Also remember that people may shop via e-commerce on Instagram for some products, but might want to work more directly with a sales rep for bigger-ticket items. That means any relevant data should also be fed into your CRM, like Sales Cloud, to ensure you’re not treating Instagram like an isolated touchpoint.

Instead, Instagram can become a key element in a more thoughtful — and successful — customer experience.

The post Ready To Make Your First Sale On Instagram? appeared first on Salesforce.

These make public relations (PR) and social media sound like very different kinds of groups within an organization, but they both serve the same ultimate goal, which is to make an organization’s ideas and messages better understood by the communities they serve.

PR, to be sure, has a longer history, stretching back to at least the year 1900 when one of the first agencies, The Publicity Bureau, opened in the United States. Over time, PR has expanded and become more specialized to develop corporate communications strategies to reach investors, government agencies and even internal stakeholders like employees.

Social media, of course, began with early platforms like MySpace and Friendster before really taking off with the arrival of Facebook, Twitter and (more recently) Instagram. These services were introduced at about the same time we saw an overall shift to digital experiences thanks to cloud computing and mobile devices.

There’s no hard-and-fast rule on how social media and PR duties should be handled within a company, especially if it’s a small to medium-sized business (SMB) versus a large enterprise. Some firms have a dedicated social person to post and manage marketing-related content as well as an internal PR person. Others combine PR and social media into one department, or farm out part of the work to external parties like agencies.

Whichever path you choose, be aware of the ways PR and social media activities should complement each other, and think about how to drive greater collaboration between whomever handles each area.

1. Share the story, but customize for specific channels

Let’s take a hypothetical example to make this easier: A startup company is getting ready to launch its latest product. In addition to paid ads which it may run across various sites or on TV and billboards, the company has developed content marketing assets to help drive more organic kinds of awareness.

These might include a blog post ghostwritten for the company’s CEO, and maybe a video that walks through the product’s essential features. The firm can post both of these assets on its own website, of course, but there may be a much bigger audience that’s interested beyond your site’s visitors.

PR and social media teams could also make use of those assets, but in different ways. For PR pros, those assets might help form the basis of a press release that’s sent out to newspapers, magazines and third-party bloggers that cover their industry. A social media manager might simply send links to the blog post and video to the company’s Twitter or LinkedIn account, or perhaps add a few explanatory lines of context about why its followers should click through.

These are just different channels, in other words. The underlying message can be the same, but it might be tweaked to drive different kinds of action. The PR team might want journalists to respond to the message with a request to interview the company for more information.

Elsewhere, the social team might need to have more details in the content, given that it will be shared to channels where it is consumed directly by customers and prospects who might not be as knowledgeable about the company as the media who cover it.

2. Aim for consistent cross-promotion

A press release or statements crafted by a PR department could also become an asset that could be shared across social media through a simple link. That’s not the only way to cross-promote each other’s efforts, though.

Those in PR can include links within a content asset like a press release where certain phrases are highlighted with links for sharing, or where key points are boiled down into a “click to tweet” callout area. This can help make it easy for journalists to get news out on their own social channels, or to quickly identify the social handles of the companies they’re covering.

Similarly, there’s nothing stopping those on the PR team from resharing or commenting on content about their companies on social platforms like Facebook or LinkedIn. Social media teams, meanwhile, should be ready to help amplify the content individual members of the PR team create and post on their own professional accounts.

3. Boost each others’ following

What if you tweet or share something on Instagram and nobody pays any attention? That’s a lot less likely when you have a PR team that knows the names of the most influential journalists who might be interested in following a firms’ accounts and learning about its latest news through those channels.

Similarly, social media is often a way for brands to get to know their customers much more intimately. That can come in handy when PR teams are looking for opportunities to involve their customers in the work they do, whether it’s a webinar or live event. Those same journalists, meanwhile, can become easier to track and to send direct messages, if the social media team helps out their PR counterparts by building Twitter lists, for instance.

All this comes down to the age-old issue of communication. While both social media and PR team members are forms of professional communicators, it’s how they establish and maintain a healthy dialogue with each other that really makes the difference in how effective they can be.

One last suggestion: if you’ve had social media teams and PR teams operating in silos up until now, look for ways to galvanize a more strategic alliance.

Conduct a chat using an internal social media tool where PR pros can share the questions about social they’ve always wanted to ask.

Get the social team to draft a press release about what they think the key priorities of the PR department are today.

Start the conversation, and then find the best ways to include your customers in the discussion using the best of what each team can offer.

The post How PR And Social Media Should Work Together appeared first on Salesforce.

These are all ways of communicating in which the etiquette or norms for demonstrating professionalism are already well established. On social media, however, things seem to be constantly changing, to the point it’s not always easy for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) to know how they’re supposed to behave.

Even though it’s just one marketing channel among many, the stakes for getting social media best practices wrong are high. The way you interact with customers and prospects on social media could have a bearing on how they perceive your brand — in good ways or bad. That, in turn, might influence how they respond to various attempts to capture them as leads for the sales team.

The other factor to keep in mind is that social media is not just a marketing channel. Services like Facebook and Twitter are also increasingly seen as a place where customer service issues can first come to light, and where certain segments of your customer base expect to see their questions answered and their problems resolved. If you’re not up on the latest social media best practices, retention rates may suffer and churn may increase.

Although it would be great if every SMB could hire its own dedicated full-time social media manager, the reality is that these duties can be just one facet of several people’s jobs. That means it’s not just a matter of continuing to study social media and understand the most appropriate ways to use these tools. You also need to make sure other members of the team are kept up to date and trained as well.

Thankfully, the information you need is often right in front of you:

1. Become a subscriber, not just a customer

Whether you’re spending hard cash on a social media service or not, you can still act like a paying customer by taking advantage of the many resources platforms often offer to encourage best practices adoption. As soon as you finish reading this post, for example, you should:

• Sign up for any relevant newsletters that social platforms publish about changes to their usage policies, feature updates or thought leadership-style advice
• Register for a webinar that delves more deeply into how the platform works and what the smartest businesses do differently
• Download guides, which are often free of charge, which can be passed around to others on your team and used as a basis for discussion and policy development

2. Don’t just be a follower—be a student

Part of your social strategy probably involves figuring out who’s popular or influential among the kind of people you want as your customers and prospects. Following those accounts, commenting on and reshaping their posts is a good way to get their attention and to show your community you’re interested in being part of it. The benefits don’t end there, however. You can also turn to them as role models.

Here’s an easy and low-effort idea: on a monthly or even quarterly basis, conduct an audit on a social media influencer who you believe your audience deeply respects or admires. What can you identify in terms of the way they create posts? How do they tend to respond to their followers? What’s the typical cadence of their activity on those platforms? Look for as much detail as you can.

Even if they’re not an influencer with a huge follower count, do the same thing with your best or smartest customers who are active on social media. Much in the way a sales pro tends to mirror the behaviour of those they’re pitching, imitation in this case is far more than flattery. It can also be a powerful way to learn.

3. Look for offline opportunities to ask questions

One of the great things about using social media is that you’re often acting in real time. With that, though, comes some uncertainty and chances you’ll make a misstep. In the rush to get things done and move onto the next marketing or customer service task, you may occasionally post, respond to or share content in a way you’ll regret.

Not all social media best practices are shared online, however, and it’s worth occasionally taking the time out to go and attend conferences or events that delve into this more deeply.

Of course, SMBs are often torn between going to many different kinds of events, but what you learn about social media can often be applied elsewhere in the business. The way you create, distribute and amplify content is important whether you’re marketing, selling or doing other things that contribute to a better customer experience. Come armed with honest questions and maybe even some previous examples or scenarios of situations you’ve come up against. The experts — whether they are people who work for the platforms, influencers and other third parties — are often eager to help.

Much like learning a new skill or trying to get physically fit, social media best practices are something you have to continue to work at, rather than strive towards and accomplish completely. The better you get at it, though, the more you’ll be able to become the kind of expert others look to — maybe even by some of your customers.

The post How To Stay Updated On Social Media Best Practices appeared first on Salesforce.

With diversity and inclusion at the top of many organization’s corporate agendas, it’s more important than ever that companies speak on social media in a way that’s informed, thoughtful and provides genuine value.

The good news is that social channels are richer in storytelling opportunities than ever before, whether it’s using text, images, video or a combination of all three. It’s also a way to not simply speak out but take part in a dialogue with customers and those who might not otherwise have noticed your brand in the past. Use the following tips to guide your approach:

1. Skip the superficial and get specific

It would be easy enough to craft a tweet or other social media post that simply says, “Happy International Women’s Day! We support diversity in the workplace” and leave it at that. You might get a few likes, but it’s so generic it doesn’t really add much to the conversation. It also suggests you’ve done little research into what this day is all about, and how it’s being celebrated this year.

With a history that dates back to the early 1900, International Women’s Day has been recognizing the rights and achievements of women long before the need for more women in tech became a board-level priority in many organizations.

Given its longevity, it’s probably no surprise that the nature of how International Women’s Day is celebrated changes from one year to the next. In 2019, for instance, the theme is “Balance For Better.” Here’s what the site says:

From grassroots activism to worldwide action, we are entering an exciting period of history where the world expects balance. We notice its absence and celebrate its presence. Balance drives a better working world.

This means your social media strategy could speak more directly about how your brand is striving to strike a better balance, whether it’s hiring more women, creating a peer networking or mentorship program or participating in larger conferences and events that focus on women in business.

You can also consider using the hashtag #BalanceForBetter as part of your posts, in addition to #IWD or #IWD2019, to make sure they’re included among searches for similar kinds of content.

2. Build in credibility through internal consultation

In any traditional marketing campaign or strategy, some of the earliest steps involve talking to representative customers or conducting primary research on their issues, needs and problems. The creative materials that are used as a result tend to drive much better engagement because they’re based on an educated and authentic message.

Using social media to talk about International Women’s Day should follow the exact same approach. You want to weigh in on a celebration of women’s contributions to work and society? Talk to the women in your organization about what they see as some of the key challenges, whether it’s carving out a career path, having their voice heard or trying to enter traditionally male-dominated industries.

Remember that “diversity” should be thought of holistically. In other words, find and talk to women of diverse ethnicities, sexual orientations and age groups.

3. Keep your creative options open

Social media may sometimes involve more spontaneous kinds of conversations, but you can still do a lot of planning behind the scenes, just as you would in a more traditional marketing campaign.

It may make sense to come up with multiple variations on the key messages you develop, for instance, so that you can run them past the right people prior to posting them on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. You may also want to go further than a single message or post and develop a series of content that can be published throughout the day.

Keep in mind that different social platforms favour particular kinds of content. While short pieces of text with a URL back to your website or a landing page might work well for Twitter, Instagram demands a more visual approach, and links are often only available through the bio area of your company’s profile. Facebook offers a range of options, but both Facebook and Instagram also run “Stories,” which can be short videos and images that run in sequence, and which can be easily edited with text and other effects. Tailor your messages to best fit the medium your audience is most likely to be watching.

Final thoughts

Even if you see a lot of positive response to what your brand says about International Women’s Day on social media, don’t stop there.

As the “Balance For Better” theme suggests, improving diversity and inclusion requires a long-term effort. It’s not something we should talk about for a 24-hour period and then ignore until the same time next year.

Keep the conversation going, whether it’s on social media, internally or across other channels. And don’t just talk — listen and be prepared to act in ways that show you’re ready to help change women’s lives for the better.

The post What to Say on Social Media on International Women’s Day appeared first on Salesforce.

At some point or another, for example, a firm might decide to appoint a dedicated person or team of people who oversee social media activity, often as part of the marketing department. While the work those professionals do is incredibly important in terms of brand building, they are not necessarily equipped to cover off the customer service issues that may come through social media services.

Consider the expectations of customers who start following a business on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. If they have been enjoying the blog posts, videos or other content you share on those channels, they may think of them first when they need to reach out with a question or a problem. In many organizations, however, the majority of investment and effort around customer service has been focused on more traditional channels, such as phone calls or perhaps email messages.

Social media team members who report into marketing, meanwhile, already tend to have a full plate just sharing content and driving engagement. It takes a lot of work to build a following, determine the best time of day to post and which content from the accounts you’re following you should comment on, like or reshare. Customer service is a very different activity, with a heightened sense of urgency, and which is directly related to things like retention and revenue that can affect the bottom line.

While this is by no means an exhaustive list, some of the benefits of equipping customer service teams with social media tools include:

1. Listening for Common Perceptions and Experiences

Great customer service isn’t just about solving problems but about creating the best possible environment for a customer to get the most out of the products or services in which they’ve invested.

Social listening tools can play a huge role here, even if the majority of outreach from customers continues to come via calls or emails. The technology allows organizations to conduct “sentiment analysis” for example, when a new product is launched by looking for the tone in comments and other social content that relates to it.

If many customers start posting similar questions about a product’s functionality, for instance, that may be a good indication of what kind of issues will be brought forward to the service team. This is where companies can be more proactive in developing FAQ lists and other self-help tools to address problems before they become too pervasive.

2. Containing Negative Publicity

Many people have no qualms calling out companies on social media when their experience didn’t meet their expectations. After all, given how much many firms spend on marketing their best qualities, it’s only fair that they be held to account occasionally.

While a few negative comments here and there might not seem like a big deal, social media services have the tendency to create a sort of snowball effect. Others may decide to join in, resharing the negative comments and even adding their own stories (which might not otherwise have been shared).

These outbursts tend to get even worse when customers believe the company in question is failing to respond or somehow hoping the discussion will go away. A strong customer service team that has access to social media tools will ensure the opposite happens. They’ll respond earlier and, in many cases, move the conversation to a more private, one-on-one-channel where they can resolve problems. In many cases customers may post follow-up comments that serve as the best word-of-mouth marketing a company can get.

3. Solving Problems Visually

Many social media services are inherently visual, including Facebook and Instagram. Even Twitter has become a place where a lot of videos and images are embedded directly into tweets. While there is great entertainment value in these channels, it also offers customer service teams considerable educational opportunities.

Think of the traditional customer service scenario, where an agent has to walk a customer through a troubleshooting process using only a phone call. Much of the time might be taken up simply by asking a customer to describe what they’re seeing. Social media allows customers to take and easily send videos that could accelerate the time to resolution in service environments.

Customer service teams can also go the extra mile by sharing informational content, such as infographics or tutorial videos, on social media to let customers solve problems on their own. Even a screenshot of a chatbot conversation that addresses a common issue could help others avoid similar difficulties.

4. Empowering the Team With More Data

Customer service managers have often listened back to recorded conversations within a call centre to improve the overall performance of the team, or scanned through emails for issues that require a broader fix. What customers say and share on social media represents a huge addition to the input they can get — and act upon.

Weaving social data into a tool like Service Cloud, for example, will make organizations smarter about the things that trip up the majority of their customers, which can then inform how service agents are trained.

At an individual level, meanwhile, agents will have a richer set of information about how customers have engaged with the company, beyond the conversations they’ve had with sales reps or the content they’ve consumed from the marketing department.

The best thing about using social media tools in customer service is that the return on investment can often be tied directly to the same metrics that assess the team’s overall performance. This could include things like customer satisfaction (CSAT), Net Promoter Score (NPS) or even Customer Effort Score (CES).

When team members use social media to meet key objectives — whether it’s reducing the number of issues, boosting the number of advocates and helping drive greater loyalty and repeat purchase — it will be clear why they’re an important part of your arsenal. In fact, it may not be long before you begin to wonder what you ever did without them.

The post Your Customer Service Team Needs Social Media Tools appeared first on Salesforce.

Founded in 1993, The Learning Partnership is a charity worth highlighting as part of Computer Science Education Week, which officially ran through December 9. Among its many programs — which help foster entrepreneurial talent as well as social and emotional learning — Coding Quest is an innovative way to empower teachers and students in grades 4-6 with a grounding in computational thinking. That’s one of the reasons Salesforce.org has made a US$120,000 reinvestment in The Learning Partnership.

Teachers who register as part of Coding Quest receive support through e-learning resources and a half-day training workshop with The Learning Partnership to activate the program in their classrooms. Students learn to code using Scratch, a programming language that came out of MIT. The length of the Coding Quest program can run for as little or as long as teachers in a particular school need. The program culminates in a public showcase, the Arcade, where students present the educational video games they’ve developed, accompanied by a 30-second “elevator pitch” to real-world experts such as game developers or engineers.

Programming Education That Builds Off Curriculum

According to Soriana Mantini, a former school principal who is now The Learning Partnership’s national program manager, Coding Quest helps address a potential gap she noticed in similar initiatives around teaching STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) skills to young people.

“In other programs, students might do a coding challenge but once it is over they might not do anything for the rest of the year. They are left with a ‘Now what?’ feeling. Coding Quest is the answer to ‘Now what,’” she said. “Teachers don’t want something that’s an add-on, or something extra, they want something relevant to their curriculum and their teaching.”

Instead, Coding Quest is versatile enough that it can be adapted to what students are already learning in class, which could mean developing games that relate to topics like the circulatory system, or Canadian history.

Lorena Almaraz, who coordinates Coding Quest at The Learning Partnership, said the program can also tap into those students who might not immediately gravitate to programming. If they are interested in the environment, for instance, they could develop an educational video game that explores climate issues in some way.

“A lot of the tools and innovations for coding are developed by a certain kind of people, for a certain kind of people,” she pointed out. “We want to be able to offer at least the basic skills so anyone can be part of that digital conversation. This is an area that shouldn’t be thought of in a monochrome way — coding should represent the complexity and diversity of human talent.”

Bridging Business and the Classroom

Coding Quest is being offered at a time when every kind of business and public sector organization imaginable is being transformed by technology. This has led to lots of speculation about “the future of work” and brought waves of startups into industries that were once dominated by a few traditional players. Almaraz said the program helps by not only advancing core STEM skills, but also allowing teachers and students to get a taste of the highly collaborative dynamic that’s expected in many organizations today.

“It’s very unique that it engages not only students but the teachers in a meaningful way,” she said. “If the teacher comes from a humanities background, for example, they may not necessarily know a lot about coding or that kind of thinking, which means they’re co-learning with their students.”

Classrooms aren’t simply exposed to a programming language, either. Coding Quest introduces elements of Agile, a methodology for developing software that has dramatically accelerated and advanced the way all kinds of projects are conducted within businesses. This could include standard Agile practices like a brief stand-up meeting, called the “daily huddle,” where students self-organize and discuss their progress. They also have to rigorously track all documentation, go through design exercises and even develop a marketing strategy in preparation for their presentation at the Arcade.

“It helps to bridge that gap between education and business,” Almaraz said.

Although many schools might have a coding club or offer programming as part of an after-school program, Mantini said the fact that Coding Quest happens as part of regular class hours makes it inherently inclusive and accessible to students regardless of learning ability, socio-economic level or any other factor.

“We feel there’s a responsibility to promote digital literacy and the role of technology,” she said. “It’s a real win in terms of our students developing global competencies and becoming engaged members of society.”

The post Why Salesforce.org is Supporting The Learning Partnership’s Coding Quest in Classrooms Across Canada appeared first on Salesforce.

While it may sometimes seem like every other organization has left the world of locally-installed software and hardware behind, the fact is a lot of companies decided to wait it out while some of the early questions around cloud computing were answered. These included cost, the reliability of such services, the challenges over who would emerge as leading providers and whether or not working in the cloud was secure. If you’re just starting on a cloud computing journey today, you’ll likely discover those concerns have largely been addressed.

Instead, the notion of a cloud-based business has become so commonplace that to ignore the cloud altogether can seem like a bit of an anomaly. Think about the startups who have been cloud-based from the very beginning, or the fact that even some of the largest financial institutions and government agencies now talk about having a “cloud-first” approach when they think about new technology investments.

Those who have opted out until now, meanwhile, have probably done so for a very logical and understandable reason: making such a change gets in the way of other things that may seem like a higher priority. Most companies are so focused on building their brand, generating revenue and providing the best possible customer experience, in other words, that they simply haven’t carved out the time and resources to begin adopting cloud services.

Eventually, however, everyone from suppliers and customers may come to expect your firm to offer the same kind of benefits that many cloud-based businesses enjoy. To that end, let’s chart a course to the cloud that won’t become overwhelming or put your company in a position to fall short of its goals in what’s left of this year and through 2019.

Talk to Your Smartest Peer (or Customer)

Competitors may have already moved at least part of their hardware the cloud, or have begun to adopt software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications in various parts of their business. It may be difficult, at least at first, to figure out what they’re doing, which is why you might want to reach out to your counterparts in a non-competitive but similar business instead. Another option is to discuss cloud computing with a customer you know is already further along in using hosted IT and SaaS tools. Some common questions to kick-start the conversation include:

• What was the key business driver that made cloud computing essential? (This helps build your own business case.)
• How did you decide you’d measure return on investment (ROI)?
• How did you move away from more traditional processes, such as managing information in spreadsheets and other “on-premise” software programs?
• What have been the biggest surprises — good or bad? Any advice on making the move?

Even if some of the details of what you hear don’t directly apply to your company, they might help spark some ideas around how you’ll need to develop your own plan of attack.

Assess What Staying Out of the Cloud is Costing You

Ever since the cloud emerged years ago, there have been ongoing debates around how such services affect capital expenditures, operating costs and a host of other financial considerations. There has been substantially less talk, however, about the opportunity cost of staying away from the cloud. In other words, are there ways in which sticking with the way business has always been done could hurt your firm in some way?

Consider the following areas:

Productivity

How much time does your team spend hunting through multiple on-premise systems for the right information? To what extent are your team members desk-bound when they could be handling more of their work through SaaS tools while on the road?

Flexibility

Cloud-based firms can often automatically upgrade to the latest versions of the tools they use and take advantage of the newest features. If you have to keep buying such things, how long does that take and what kind of integration challenges might it pose?

Customer experience

When demand suddenly spikes — like a rush of orders to your e-commerce site, for example — cloud-based businesses can quickly “scale up” to meet it. Those who don’t use the cloud, on the other hand, might have an outage. What are some other scenarios where you might be losing business or hurting your reputation with customers by not using the cloud?

Test-Pilot the Cloud in a Non-Critical Area

Becoming cloud-based takes more than flipping a switch, and doesn’t have to comprise a single “before/after” migration. Instead, many businesses move one area of their business to the cloud first to get an understanding of the impact.

Think about the way a company might store many of its older records, for instance — there are many cloud-based storage options which could house such information that aren’t likely to pose a lot of risk.

Once you’ve taken some baby steps, you’ll be ready to try things like cloud-based CRM to see what it can do to increase your volume of closed deals. Before long, you may find you move everything else to the cloud as well.

If becoming a cloud-based business isn’t among your resolutions for 2019, it should be. Making the move is faster, easier, and more compelling for growing businesses than ever.

The post How to Make Your Company a Cloud-Based Business appeared first on Salesforce.

Don’t be surprised if you notice hunched shoulders as they bend over the paper, a furrowed brow as they make sure they don’t make a mistake with their pen and possibly a frown of irritation at having to go through the process in the first place. This is just one example of how manual ways of carrying out everyday business activities can lead to a lack of engagement among employees — which is precisely why more organizations, Salesforce included, are creating innovative digital alternatives instead.

Employee engagement is arguably more important to Canadian companies of all sizes than ever before. It’s not always easy to hire great staff, demand for certain skills is becoming more competitive and when someone quits, there’s always an impact on areas like productivity and even revenue. Technology can play a huge role in boosting employee engagement by making it quicker and easier to do all kinds of tasks, but not all companies have the information they need to make the business case to apply it in this area.

To address that knowledge gap, we commissioned Forrester Consulting to conduct a study on the total economic impact of using Salesforce for employee engagement with platforms like Lightning and Heroku. Whereas developing internal apps might once have been intimidating and seen as cost-prohibitive, for instance, Forrester Consulting found an aggregate of multiple companies it interviewed saw a 50% faster application development process and savings of nearly $2 million over three years. Help desk calls also dropped 33%, and though it’s sometimes harder to quantify happiness, that suggests employees were probably demonstrating much more upbeat body language as they performed tasks quickly on their smartphone or laptop.

Even if those numbers are convincing, companies might still struggle to think through ideas for apps that will engage their employees. That’s okay, because beyond offering technologies like Heroku, Salesforce has plenty of case studies in how it has successfully acted as one of its own best customers.

Look at some of the following ideas and see if they resonate with any of your firm’s challenges, and whether you could develop a similar app to create a more dynamic working environment.

1. Transform an Impenetrable Intranet Into the Ultimate Employee Assistant

In theory, at least, the company intranet is supposed to be a one-stop shop for all forms and other resources employees need to be successful. The reality is that many intranets morph over time into catch-alls of content, much of which might be irrelevant or outdated. That’s when intranets became the digital equivalent of a dusty filing cabinet that nobody bothers to open.

Salesforce employees were once stuck in a similarly maze-like intranet, where 50% of the help-desk tickets entered through it got lost in the ether. Using only three developers, Salesforce built Concierge, an app based on Heroku and Lightning that makes smart use of data to personalize the experience for each employee, and modern forms of interaction like chat to streamline the process of asking for help.

Since it went live, Concierge has reduced the time it takes to resolve employee issues by 41%, and in 60% of cases they’re able to help themselves by reading a how-to article and not creating a case at all. In fact, more than 63% of Concierge users have completed at least five activities in the app. Canadian companies have already started doing similar things, like St. Joseph Health, to create a more engaging intranet experience.

2. Strike a Better Balance Between Security and Access

Nobody wants sensitive company information to get lost or compromised by a third party, but too often a focus on data protection almost seems to punish employees by making them come up with a litany of passwords they inevitably forget. You would think by 2018 we’ve reached a point where it’s possible to lock down what’s necessary in a way that doesn’t make life more onerous for team members — and we have!

Even if you’re not a security expert, you’ll probably recognize the concept of single sign-on (SSO), where an employee can use just one common way to identify themselves when they log into a cloud-based application. That’s one of the underlying features in Aloha, the tool Salesforce uses to let its own staff quickly start using the apps they need and even organizing them based on how often they need them.

As its friendly name suggests, Aloha is a welcoming way to greet employees as they move forward with a task while also making sure security features like two-factor authentication are consistently applied. No wonder Aloha now sees more than 100,000 SSO events a day, even as more than 12 new apps are added each week.

3. Bring the Team Together Around Common Goals and Objectives

We use the word “team” a lot in business, but many firms struggle to make sure everyone’s got access to the same playbook. In other words, if coworkers aren’t all aligned around the same vision, values, methods, obstacles and measures, the organization might seem disjointed.

That’s the thinking behind V2MOM, another internal app based on Lightning and Heroku that lets any Salesforce employee develop a plan around their performance goals right from their smartphone. Even better, coworkers can see each other’s V2MOMs, which makes everything more transparent and everyone more accountable.

4. Boost Collaboration, Even Among Distributed Teams

There are lots of organizations today where certain employees may need to regularly share information or contribute to each other’s success, but who rarely or never meet in person. That can cause problems when there isn’t a way to feel more regularly connected to each other.

Salesforce recognized early on the power of a “Community Cloud” that could let disparate members of our employee base turn to each other for help, share success stories and generally act more cohesively. Customers like Experian have adopted this as a best practice by creating their own Community Clouds.

5. Inspire Employees to Apply Their Time and Talent for Social Good

Great employers recognize that there is a lot of meaningful work to be done beyond what happens in their own offices. Having staff formally ask about taking time to volunteer, however, can be cumbersome and almost defeats the purpose.

A team of product managers and developers within Salesforce responded to that issue by creating Volunteerforce, which not only streamlines the process but helps employees discover new opportunities to contribute to worthy causes based on their skills, experience and interests. If they come across a nonprofit or other organization that’s not listed in Volunteerforce, they can add it, which makes the app even more powerful as a tool for nurturing corporate culture.

This handful of examples is just the beginning, of course. Download our eBook to learn more about many other ways the platform has changed life at Salesforce — and how you could use it to boost employee engagement in yours.

The post 5 Ways to Engage Employees with Apps for Everyone appeared first on Salesforce.