Blog | Social Media Content with Stephsandy Consulting

Calling all Calls to Action!

Well, it’s the holidays and everyone has something to say! Have you noticed the amount of ad clutter vastly increased this past month?

So, how’s your promotion going? Could be better? You don’t say…

Here are a few suggestions to ponder:

Make your call to action personable. You’re talking to P-E-O-P-L-E who would enjoy being spoken to in a friendly manner. Instead of using the CTA: Contact us or Call Now! what if you tried something like “Drop me a line” or just “Talk to us.”
Give it to them straight. What are you offering? What is it and how it is useful to the customer? Describe that “it” quickly. Bullet points come in handy here. And then follow up with your awesome CTA button.
Be Creative. Can they build or create it online? In that case, say “Build My ____” or “Create My ____.” Are they downloading money saving tips from you? You could say, “Show Me The Money!” or “Let’s Do It!”
If you’re not having fun, the customer isn’t either. You may not be selling or offering something “fun” in your opinion, but there MUST be some fun way to think about it. There MUST be some angle you’re not seeing that would be successful.

If you absolutely cannot find anything fun or creative about what you’re offering, ask for help! There are a lot of creative minds out there ready and willing to be of service.

I’ll take a stab at it, if you’d like! Let’s give ’em something to talk about!

Thanks all! And, Happy Holidays!

Making Your LinkedIn Profile Unforgettable

Just as the typewriter had it’s time, so did paper resumes… and it’s safe to say those are, for the most part, in the past.

Your digital resume and digital “business card” are the present, and in case you want to think ahead: video is the future.

But for the sake of this blog post, let’s focus on your LinkedIn profile. Here are some tips to make you stand out.

How would you describe your current profession?

This should be an easy question, with a short and simple answer. It should be located right under your name when you look at your LinkedIn profile. Think about how people are searching for your skills and be sure to include those keywords here. For example: Experienced Marketing Consultant, Web Designer and Information Architect, Visionary Entrepreneur and Investor

Don’t pigeonhole yourself in just one job title either… think about all of your areas of expertise and choose the most important ones.

The Most Important Part Of Your Resume Falls Under “Experience”

Your experience gives you your credibility. Make sure to include all the details from your resume and keep in mind the keywords that people are looking for when they are searching for someone with your experience.

I shouldn’t have to say this, but I will anyway: don’t forget to double, nay, triple check your spelling and make sure everything makes sense before publishing to the online universe.

Ask To Be Recommended

When it comes to your online resume, it is ideal to have your references recommend you on LinkedIn for all to view. This not only adds to your credibility, but it allows a prospective employer to get to know you a little bit better through the eyes of your previous employers. Ask people to recommend you – it’s so simple and makes a huge impact on your LinkedIn profile.

Personal Branding

Your profile photo and cover photo are an important window into who you are and what you do. Make sure that you use a professional photo as your profile picture and a cover photo that tells us something about you and what you do. Are you passionate about your job/industry? How can you show that in your cover photo? Maybe a photo of you speaking at a conference/meeting/event. If you’re a real estate agent, you might want to put a photo of your sign in front of a house that says SOLD! There are so many ideas and options, the important thing is that you use this visual to tell a story about you. Stock photos don’t really tell a story about you.

Other Things To Note:

Be specific about your skills and accomplishments.

Use the summary area as your Elevator Pitch… include the things you really want future employers to know about who you are and what you do in case they don’t get a chance to continue to scroll down to the rest of your work. It can also be the reason that someone decides to continue reading more about you, so make it interesting!

Don’t forget to update your information as you gain a new certification, skill, award, etc. You’re always learning, so keep that in mind when thinking about new skills and accomplishments.

Review your profile as if you were a future employer, or better yet, ask a friend you trust to review your profile for you. Sometimes a fresh pair of eyes can catch things we may have missed.

Good luck out there my fellow LinkedIn connections!

-Stephanie | Social Media Consultant | www.stephsandyconsulting.com

Facebook Just Keeps Getting Better & Better For Business. Here’s Why.

Facebook just announced new updates that you may have already begun to notice in your business page settings. Here are three of them that are sure to help your company’s customer service on this social media platform.

Page Responsiveness

Remember when your page asked your to respond to messages quickly so that you could be seen as a ‘Very Responsive’ page to your followers? Well, that feature, introduced in September, is now getting a much needed upgrade.

You’ll notice if you go to your page Settings, there is a new tab called “Messaging” which gives you some information on Response Times and Instant Replies… if you’re into that sort of thing.

“Starting this month all Pages can set the average time it takes for them to reply to messages. Admins can choose to show that they respond either “within minutes,” “within an hour” “within hours” or “within a day”. Average response times for Pages are calculated for each Page automatically and the response time shown on the Page defaults to their average response time, but admins can now control what response time shows publicly on their Page. So even if a Page typically responds to messages within an hour, they can set their visible response time to within a day and set customer expectations accordingly.”

One of the new features that I find helpful is the fact that you can now set your status to “away” so that people know that you are not currently available to respond to their message/comment. Facebook will still be rating your response time, but not when your “away” status is up, so keep that in mind!

Inbox Redesign

You might also notice changes to your Messages Inbox. For example, you can view the bio information on person you’re speaking with for a better and more personal customer experience.

This new inbox displays an array of information about the person your are communicating with including when you last spoke. Admins can also take private notes on the conversation, so you could record their purchase history or certain preferences that person has that you’d like to remember for your next conversation. These notes are viewable to page admins only. But wait… there’s more! You can also categorize and tag conversations to better organize your inbox… kind of like email. Pretty nifty, Facebook.

New Activity Tab

You might not have noticed this one as Facebook used to have an Activity tab… but this tool is way better at tracking conversations on your page.

“This new tool offers admins a single place to view and respond to customer comments on both desktop and mobile. Admins can flag interactions for follow up, reply privately or mark them as done, helping them keep better track of comments in need of responses and eliminating the risk of skipping over a customer comment.”

This one hasn’t rolled out everywhere yet, but is something to look out for as a useful tool for the future. One thing’s for sure… Facebook is still not going anywhere, at least for a while, in my opinion.Looking forward to continuing to improve business with it as long as it remains a relevant and an integral part of the marketing world.

@Stephsandy Consulting, LLC