Advertising, Marketing and Communications

Social Customer Service (SCS) is the delivery of customer service using social media (SM) or some interactive session hosted through a website, applet or some other interface. The goal of SCS is to provide additional channels or means by which a company can be reached to get information, seek assistance or have issues resolved. Is this necessary though, or does it improve standing with the customers? This may vary as it is dependent on how responsive your customer service agents or the persons monitoring the SCS platforms are when there are tickets, comments, queries or requests coming in on them. If a company has a culture of not answering the phones or responding to emails, chances are a SCS strategy is just another channel offered which the company will use to further frustrate their customers. It also depends on the type of products/services on offer as well. If a company has an e-commerce enabled site, then having a chat option available for the customer to get r...

Social media (SM) has claimed its rightful place and has become a huge part of most marketing strategies around the world. There are many reasons why this has been happening and they all have to do with the fact that SM provides a high level of interactivity, is always changing and is the most exciting thing happening right now. I will discuss some of the influences currently being observed through the use of SM in modern-day marketing campaigns. SM has created a new niche that people are filling called influencers. There are people that have become very popular on these platforms as a result of their views, opinions or from just posting content that people like to see. Due to this, they have a large number of people that follow them or subscribe to their channel. This following is what marketers are interested in and this is why branded content is pushed on the influencer’s platforms or endorsements sought to influence their followers as they are almost guaranteed to see ...

Even the best-planned campaigns run by the best teams with perfect messages and delivery systems are not impervious to somebody doing something stupid. When this happens, it depends on whether it was something trivial and a mistake that anyone could make or if it was something deliberate, premeditated or simply just evil for profit. Perception is very important when handling a crisis and being sensitive to perceptions the cause of the crisis is critical. It is important to ensure that there is a crisis management plan (CMP) in place before the launch of any major campaign. A CMP goes a long way to ensure that if something does go wrong in a campaign that there is a plan to control the narrative, have a plan to engage the media on talking points, rationale and justifications for different scenarios etc. The CMP itself should comprise different scenarios that could be expected to play out should the direction of the campaign change. These scenarios should all be detailed, w...

So you want to run your social media campaign because you have become a wiz at this social media business huh? Well have no fear, I got you. I will keep it very simple and point you in the right direction so that you can make your own money moves. The first thing that you need to do is set goals for the campaign that you have in mind. These goals are normally in line with what the organization wants to achieve like increasing sales, increasing leads, brand awareness, etc. Next up is to set targets for your campaign. These are the things the campaign definitely needs to achieve in within set parameters or constraints. This would be like getting a set number of leads, sales, likes or followers within two weeks or a month. But let's be realistic when setting goals so they are not out of your reach. In order to properly plan your campaign, you must know how long you plan to run the campaign as well as how much money you have to do it with. This could mean the difference bet...

In the world of blogs, social media and all our opinions we forget where it all came from and why it was even started in the first place. One day, a thought popped into somebody’s head to create a webpage that is totally dedicated to a set of thoughts, opinions or just journal entries because some people’s lives are more entertaining than others. Strangely enough, the people whose lives aren’t so entertaining enjoys reading about what those others write, like you reading this blog. This collection of thoughts or ideas in web form is commonly referred to as a blog. It can be about anything, surrounding any topic or it could just be about absolutely nothing. But as long as you have people reading it or if you just like writing then it doesn’t really matter what is written in it. But a blog cannot exist without the person doing it which is the blogger. This is the creative person, sometimes, that writes all these posts that people, hopefully, enjoy reading. This dedicated soul toils ...

When people talk about a Social Media Policy (SMP), the thought that instantly comes to the minds of those that manage the company's brand/image are the guidelines that they should follow to maintain same. They think of how frequently posts should be made, what message should be put out, how the narrative should be controlled, etc. But that’s not what a SMP is about. Any company policy is generally put in place to control the behaviour of staff outlining what is acceptable and what is not. With respect to a SMP, it will generally outline whether or not SM is to be used while on the job, which subsets are allowed or not, if there is a particular time that employees are allowed to use SM and/or the internet in general but most importantly, if they are allowed to post or comment on company events, pages or activities on their personal SM platforms. Typically, only persons in Public Relations (PR) or the Communications Department are tasked with posting on SM platforms and managin...