Benefits Of Facebook For Small Business Online

Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook has greatly changed the communication among individuals and even on the marketing side. As the number one social network site in the world, Facebook is steadfastly growing bunking on the ever-growing popularity of virtual communication that encompasses personal, business and corporative relationships.

While Facebook may have turned the world upside down and partly affected how people perceive the effectiveness of personal communication, these are also the factors that have made it the new "it" thing in marketing. And for some - albeit, debate for its potentiality and security - the new online shopping tool.

These are positive factors that can be taken as advantages for companies who want to step up customer relations and social market viability of their products on Facebook.

There are three advantages to the way Facebook has changed company-customer relations:

The Emerging Social Shopping Trends:

Social shopping is an emerging trend. People already use to do it. Women go shopping together or they gather around in coffee shops and talk about their latest finds and buys. They compare prices and check out shops that sell the most affordable products. Only today, this practice has gone social and many people are obviously caught up with this.While Facebook is not a social shopping network, its users are predominantly online people. They log in to Facebook to share their thoughts on the most mundane things. It includes their new gadgets or products and what store did they buy them. They share to their friends what they love about a particular store or what pissed them off. That's free advertising and indirect product recommendation.

And almost always, Facebook friends buy what their friends are buying.

Facebook as a Customer Support Tool:

Customers who like a particular product or company support always find them to like a product or company page. Some customers even use company or product Facebook pages to post inquiries, issues and problems.If a company is quick to reply, the customer friends and other followers will be able to see the efficiency and excellent support of the company.

The Social Network Attitude:

While review sites are still the most reliable sites for most consumers in belting out their complaints or impressive reviews, it cannot be discounted that Facebook users also post their concerns or opinions regarding certain products. If a company or a product has impressed a customer immensely, it's certain that the customer is going to rave about the product for days - complete with pictures and anecdotes regarding her latest finds, be it a new Kindle or Be Present Capri pants. The more social media presence there is for a company, the more it can access its customers and potential customers in the social media. Tapping millions of Facebook membership for product marketing and sales is not an easy feat, though. Company will need to use effective tools in order to catch the attention of Facebook users and direct them to particular products. But, the gains are worth exerting efforts for. Facebook users are the most potentially active online customers who spend great amount of time browsing the net, checking new products and trends. And if they're impressed enough, they spend for products online.

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•  Image by My Blog Guest

Justin Hernandez. He is a owner of Zinzz Chat Network. Full time web entreprenuer and Social Media Blogger. Follow him at @JustinNY.

Sales Hacks- 5 Ways To Tidy Your Business For 2013

Sales Hacks- 5 ways to tidy your business for 2013

1. 1.       Spring Clean

Removing deadweight can lift your productivity, whether it’s old stock that won’t sell, antiquated sales techniques that no longer apply, or thinning out the sales line. Fewer but better always beats more yet shoddy. Doing something as basic as clearing your computer system of unnecessary items will naturally make you feel more efficient, simply by getting rid of clutter.

1. 2.       Be brave

Why not? Success in this game is only for those who move with the times and stay current. No one is saying gamble on a blind hunch, but by taking intuitive decisions to alter things in favour of a new approach, you can modernise without causing a catastrophe. Playing it safe is not the worst thing in the world, but it means you will never excel. If mediocre, run of the mill is your aim then no problem- but he who dares wins.

1. 3.       Square pegs in round holes

So we come to people management. Owning your own business and dealing with staff falls under the same category as a commission based sales rep dealing with customers. No one wants to be treated as a statistic. You don’t want to feel like the 100th person on a list, a chore to get through. Expecting your workforce to yield a standard output without considering individual factors will not benefit in the long run. A personalised approach takes more effort, granted, but the advantages are evident.

1. 4.       The Sales Robot

Why are you bombarding information upon the unsuspecting public? Droning out the same script of why this particular product will change their lives will leave you (and by association your product) jaded with no real results. Get out there and speak with people, not at them. Find out what it is they want and they will respond better than you telling them what they need.

1. 5.       The SACI Principle

SACI stands for Simple Actions, Consistently Implemented. Client relations are of course a big part of a business, but how often do you check back on existing customers to see if they’re still satisfied?  Do you have blogs, and if so are they published on a weekly basis?  These practises we all know about, but doing them is often a different story. You don’t have to move the earth to get better results, just look after the little things. Success is built on the back of many small achievements, not one huge one.

hannah Brankin has developped over years a whole set of management skills that has helped her kept her business in an efficient and productive way. She now writes about strategies in business development.

http://www.yourcarlog.com

Tips For Starting A Website

So you may have already decided to take the plunge and are looking on starting a website.  You already have your domain, web host, chosen platform, and all the other stuff you practically need to start it with.  Many try to create their own website, but only a percentage of those people succeed into making a solid mark in the industry.  How do they exactly do it?

Image source

First, you may have already had a blogging platform or tool to use.  Let’s say WordPress.  Now, when you install it on your site, it has its own default theme.  Don’t get the me wrong, the theme looks good somehow, but your site definitely must have its own uniqueness with the design.  So whether you hire a professional web designer or you do the designing yourself, it is a must to change your site’s design.  Make it more like you, or better yet be creative enough to let the design be related to what your website’s all about.  We don’t want cartoon characters in a blog about cars, would we?  

Next, you really have to remember to make time to focus on fixing your blog.  You personalize everything, add a logo maybe, complete articles to put up to it (you definitely would not want it blank), put tags, keywords and all that stuff.  It’s time consuming, I know.  But it would definitely be worth it.  Don’t you think successful bloggers and website owners also put their time and effort for their blogs to begin with?

Now after the design, there goes the plugins to be used.  You have to know what exactly your website will need.  There are themes with built-in plugins installed with them, but every single blog has its own necessity, and therefore its own variety of plugins.  Would your site be focusing with social media?  Then you have to add plugins related to that.

If you have hired a website professional to do the design for you, make sure he/she also can be contacted for any problems with your site.  Because anytime these things arise, your potential visitors may stop visiting you.  Also if you yourself have your own queries about your site, you should definitely be able to clear them up by going around forums and other sites to look for answers.  Let Google be your best friend.

Now everything is complete with your site, check everything if they’re in the right place.  Never miss a detail when doing this.  You should know what a visitor feels when he/she suddenly get bugged by something wrong with a website he/she’s visiting, of course, the initial reaction would be – bye! 

Now let’s go to the serious part.  You definitely want to keep the visitors coming back.  You have to have unique articles people will enjoy reading.  You have to be creative but still right on your topic.  You should already have few things in mind while doing this website, or else you would have a beautiful site, with nothing in it.

If there are also things you cannot fully comprehend about your site just yet, either do not do it yet.  Let the first few days of your launch be a smooth ride.  And once everything goes into its place, do the complex stuff you left behind.

What I’ve listed above are just some tips though.  Every single blogger all started their own website from scratch, and though each and every successful one created their own journey, they only have one common thing – focus.  So get focused, and you’ll have your website in no time. 

This was a guest post written by BlogSetupGuide.com - How To Start A Blog.  There is a plethera of information on starting your own website on my website.