The Hidden Benefits of Social Media Marketing
Most businesses venture into social media expecting to see a big return on investment. The hope is that new customers
Image via CrunchBase
will come in droves, and that the benefits and revenue generation will be huge. However, this is rarely the case. It takes time to build momentum with social media, and the benefits aren’t always as obvious as we would like.
If you’re feeling a bit skeptical about social media marketing and whether or not it’s worth the effort, following are some reasons why it may be working better than you realize.
1. Brand Recognition – One of the most powerful ways to use social media is as a brand-building tool. With social media, you get to decide how you want to position your company and what you want people to know about what you do. With consistent effort and great content, you can build a reputation for your brand around your company’s values, benefits, and advantages.
2. Community – There is nothing like social media when it comes to cultivating a community. When your followers become part of your community, you gain instant access to them. That means you can find out what challenges they are facing and what they like and don’t like about your offerings. You can engage in ongoing dialog that can be more valuable than any kind of paid market research.
3. Repeat Exposure – There is an old marketing adage that says it takes six to eight exposures to a product before a customer decides to buy. A clear benefit of social media is repeat exposure with your network. You have the opportunity to remind them over and over again about what you have to offer, which can shorten your sales cycles dramatically.
Click Here to Read More (Source: Stephanie Chandler, Forbes.com)
Help Wanted: Benefits Technology and Social Media Support
New part time position in Keller office has been posted! We are looking for a great talent to join our team! The position will start with 15-25 hour per week but will increase in hours – being able to work between 15-30 hours a week is what we are looking for. This position will be in the office with the ability to work from home when needed, flexible days and office hours. Not a sales marketing position.
Position Description
Benefits Technology and Social Media Support will be the primary focus of the position. Learning the process and ongoing support we provide clients will lead into managing client projects and relationships. Tasks included setting up social media profiles, posting content to blogs and other platforms, simple website updates, conference calls with clients and customer support. Communication, organization and follow through with clients and our team are most important and what we are looking for in a candidate.
Requirements
Experience with Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn clearly required, some background in pro tools like Photoshop or Dreamweaver is preferred but may not be required.
The ability to manage clients by email and phone, great attention to detail, excellent follow through and focusing on tasks are key. The Technology aspect of our business can be taught, these skills cannot!
Contact Us
Email your resume or detailed qualifications to jeffh@etekhnos.com. Interviews will be scheduled for potential team members in the next 2-3 weeks.
About Our Company
We are the nation’s leading web design and social media firm for employee benefit professionals. We manage over 800 custom benefit portals for employers of all sizes for benefits, HR, enrollment and more. Visit us at https://etekhnos.com/ & http://www.rockstartechnology.com/
Benefit Portals Build Direct Relationships
Not only is self-service technology helping employer-clients control benefit administration costs, it might also be insurance carriers’ missing link to employee consumers once they leave the workplace.
This potential is not lost on MetLife, a large New York-based provider of non-medical group benefits with accounts at more than 3,500 organizations. To better service the needs of close to 17 million employees working at its client companies, MetLife embarked on an effort five years ago to build an online employee benefits portal called MyBenefits.
By all measures, the online self-service portal has been a hit. Recently, MetLife announced that the one-millionth employee had registered to access accounts online through MyBenefits.
The portal enables employees to log in-either from work or from home-and get answers to frequently asked questions, learn about plans and coverage specifics, obtain price quotes for certain products, and enroll in dental benefits, critical illness insurance, long-term care, life insurance, auto and home insurance, disability insurance, and banking services.
Users can also check their claim status for certain products, locate a dentist who participates in a MetLife preferred dentist program, or learn about retirement savings options. A popular feature is service e-mail, such as e-alerts that notify employees of claim updates.
The first iteration of the MyBenefits portal was launched in June of 2000, according to Sachin Shah, vice president of MetLife Workplace Solutions. MetLife has upgraded the portal several times since that initial launch, with the most recent upgrade taking place in 2003. Shah estimates the site is being accessed an average 800,000 to a million times a month, and transaction activity has been almost doubling each year.
There were three primary considerations in launching the portal, says Shah. First, customer companies were anxious to reduce processing burdens incurred by benefits administration.
“Our employer customers-plan sponsors, or HR offices-needed to promote more self service, and reduce the related costs of the administrivia with benefit programs,” he says.
The ability to lower administration costs has been a key selling point to employers, he adds. “In our business, things that we can do to provide employees a better way to manage their benefits, without having to call the HR office, are real winners. It takes work from employers, who would otherwise be getting phone calls and inquiries.”
Second, organizations are gradually reducing their financial stake in benefits plans. “Employers are beginning to cost-shift to employees, and that cost shifting continues to grow, certainly on a dollar basis, because costs in aggregate for medical programs in particular have gone up,” he explains.
“That cost shifting has required us to work with employers to begin to provide much more information to employees, and get them to become more aware of, and educated in, benefits offerings.”
Third, Shah says, there’s a strategic shift occurring in the benefits administration marketplace. “Employers are getting out of the benefits administration business,” he notes.
“Strategically, the marketplace is moving toward a world in which we have two customers – the employer, and more importantly, the employee. Making a sale to the employer is no longer a guarantee of revenue, as it was in the past. It’s just a point of entry. Ultimately, making the sale to the employee, and keeping the employee as a customer, has become our driver of revenues and earnings.”
Read More (Source: Joe McKendrick, Insurance Networking News)
Twitter set to become more like Facebook
Twitter is to become more and more like Facebook with its new profile redesign. The new exciting main features of the new look are the “Best Tweets” feature, which makes tweets with the most traffic appear to be slightly larger and more prominent, “Pinned Tweets”, which allow you pin a tweet to the top of your page and “Filtered Tweets”, which allow you, when browsing other profiles, to view tweets, tweets with photos and videos, or raw tweets and replies.
How does this affect you – you may be wondering? For the moment, not a great deal but Twitter will be rolling out the new redesigned profile across all of their existing users over the next few weeks with new users signing up today getting the new profile automatically. Unless you have any Twitter site placement specific images – then there is nothing you will need to fix but being aware of the new look and features will help you get significantly ahead of the popular crowd.
Using the “Pinned Tweet” feature will almost be a supplement to your initial bio or indeed it could be used to be an easy in-house advert for your company. For example, a “Pinned Tweet” could be pinned to make sure that everyone knows about the upcoming company BBQ or that you are running an April promotion?
The core essence of Twitter will of course remain the same. Don’t think that they will replace the beloved #Hashtag just yet but as they merge closer to being flashier and including more videos and pictures – will we still be able to contain our thoughts about the new Twitter within the 140 character set limit?
Everyone Benefits from an Employee Portal
Not so long ago, it was only large corporations that could even consider setting up self-service portals for their employees. But now, thanks to the outsourcing model, companies with only a handful of workers are taking full advantage of employee portal technology.
They’re saving everyone involved – employees, the HR department, management – significant time, money, and effort.
Perhaps best of all, by reducing paperwork and speeding access to important information, such employee portals are helping companies to boost employee satisfaction and loyalty – and, in turn, productivity. Here’s how:
LESS WORK
Think of the employee portal as your HR department embracing the power of e-commerce. That means eliminating the tedious filling out and shuffling of paper forms and having to decipher employees’ scrawl. And it means no re-keying of data into a computer. In addition, most follow-up phone calls are done away with, as well.
Instead, workers can visit their company’s employee portal via any web-equipped computer or hand-held device and gain direct – and entirely secure – access to a wide range of useful work-related information all on their own, with practically no need for anyone in HR to get involved.
INSTANT ACCESS
Employees can view insurance benefits, 401(k) plans, company policies, you name it, all with just a few clicks of their mouse. And they can browse or print out any number of important documents, such as the employee handbook. Likewise, should their employer decide to make it possible – and many do – employees may enter and update their HR-related data all on their own. They can change their withholding status, enroll for new benefits, or update time and attendance records.
Naturally, all of this employee portal activity is controlled with the latest in security techniques. Each employee can be assigned his or her own, unique log-in ID and password for authorizing entry to the portal. In addition, the HR department can specify exactly which data and documents are to be made available to each particular employee.
MORE PRODUCTIVITY
Clearly, this kind of employee portal pleases its users. They no longer have to waste time filling out form after form or waiting on hold when calling HR for, say, an explanation of their medical plan. Moreover, the people in HR are freed to devote their time and energy to productive tasks, as well. It’s win-win for everyone.
4 Things You Need to be Doing on Social Media — Now
By now, if social media isn’t a critical element in your online marketing strategy, it should be. Having a presence on sites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn can add value to your product, to customer service and ultimately to your brand.
But simply having an account and broadcasting company news isn’t enough. To attract and keep customers — and to build a strong brand online — business owners need to be active on social media. They have to provide valuable information and engage with their followers.
Here are four things businesses should be doing on social media in order to grow the brand online:
1. Engage with followers and provide customer service.
Your customers are engaging with your brand wherever they are — including over social media. Don’t miss this opportunity to listen to what they’re saying to and about you, and to provide the best customer service.
Why is this so important? Responding to customer questions and resolving issues over social media shows everyone who’s following you — and potentially anyone who is online — that your company cares about its customers, potential customers and goes the extra mile for people.
Related: 10 Tips for Using Twitter Like a Pro
Tools like Hootsuite and Tweetdeck can be handy for monitoring mentions of your brand over social media. As for when and who you respond to, set the tone early. If you reply often, people will expect it. If you don’t reply a lot, people will see that as well and might stop engaging with you as often.
2. Crowdsource ideas.
Use social media as a marketing research tool. Just as people can reach out to you, follow you and stay connected with you, business owners can do the same with their customers. Social media is a two-way street.
Say, for instance, you’re getting ready to launch a new product. You can ask your fans and followers what they think about specific details like which colors they prefer or what types of features they want. Not only can you get real, valuable market research at no cost, you’re involving the consumer in decisions. Asking customers for their opinions can help show that they matter, and when they see their ideas become a reality, ideally you create brand and product champions.
Read More (Source: Scott Levy, entrepreneur.com)
Why your Business needs an Intranet
These days, most corporations have their own intranet, which is somewhat like the internet except for the fact that it’s only accessible to those within the company. However, Intranets are not just useful for large enterprises, SMEs can benefit from them hugely too.
An intranet means that internal communications within a company are simplified substantially and make for more success in terms of growth, as productivity increases. It’s basically an internal database which every employee can access, with different permissions for various staff.
For example, it’s doubtful that you want junior office staff to be able to access all of your financial reports and forecasts for the year, so these are just given permissions to access certain areas of the intranet which is relevant to their job.
According to Microsoft: “In order for a company to succeed, all players must understand its goals. Neither long-term nor short-term goals should be confined to upper management meetings. It’s Business 101. Everyone needs to be working toward common goals”.
By building an intranet, employees and bosses alike can share information across the board; not only is it easier to set up and share appointments and information, but as a part of an intranet, employees can communicate better, leading to less confusion following meetings, when everyone has to take notes and remember everything afterwards.
Not only that but intranets have evolved dramatically over the past decade as CMS and social are added and the introduction of cloud computing often means that an intranet can be accessed from anywhere. This is ideal in these days of BYOD and telecommuting, as it makes for a more flexible workforce and again, ups productivity
That’s even before we go into the benefits presented by ROI, which can be substantial, depending on what model you use and the size of your business.
Developing an Intranet
It’s a good idea to carry out sound planning before implementing an Intranet; whilst they can and will benefit a business of any size, needs vary and so it’s worth investing primarily in a decent consultancy firm. These will be able to carry out an audit of your company and recommend what will benefit your business the most.
A modern intranet should be well organized and easy for users to navigate, especially if you don’t want to spend a fortune training your staff; again, this is something that can be discussed with a consultant.
A well planned business infrastructure is much more likely to be a successful one and one that your company can see clear benefits from. The ability to share internal information across the whole of your staff often does away with the need to constantly send internal memos and emails.
Discussion boards on an intranet can also help staff to come up with collaborative ideas before meetings or when working on a project, cutting down the time needed for physical meetings as everyone is aware of their position on a project.
Read More (Source: Kerry, elcomcms.com)
How to Attract More Customers With Content Marketing
Are you looking to attract prospects, convert them to customers and keep them coming back? Then social media and content marketing are a match made in heaven.
The key to success is to make the connection between content marketing and social media.
Let’s look at the content needed to get your marketing to that lucrative intersection.
#1: Attract Prospective Customers
The first question on a prospect’s mind when considering a purchase is, “What solutions are available?”
Your goal is to create awareness and make sure that your solution meets the buyers’ need when they’re ready to make a decision.
According to data from Google and Shopper Science’s Zero Moment of Truth report, consumers in 2011 consulted an average of 10 sources before making a buying decision. That’s up 100% from five sources in 2010.
The number of sources a buyer consults before making a decision doubled year over year.
Successful businesses are communicating with prospects on social networking sites and directing them to the material the prospects need to make an informed decision. How are they doing this?
One way is to create informational articles.
Social network users are constantly sharing, curating and consuming informational content. Often, the headline or a short description of the content appears on the social network together with a link to view the content on a company website.
Businesses need to share this informational content and have it written for prospects who are in research mode, learning about the solutions that are available.
Charles Schwab, a financial planning company, distributes links to resources via social networking sites and makes them available for prospective leads who reach out via social media.
Read More (Source: Russ Henneberry, Social Media Examiner)
Benefit Portals Build Direct Relationships
Not only is self-service technology helping employer-clients control benefit administration costs, it might also be insurance carriers’ missing link to employee consumers once they leave the workplace.
This potential is not lost on MetLife, a large New York-based provider of non-medical group benefits with accounts at more than 3,500 organizations. To better service the needs of close to 17 million employees working at its client companies, MetLife embarked on an effort five years ago to build an online employee benefits portal called MyBenefits.
By all measures, the online self-service portal has been a hit. Recently, MetLife announced that the one-millionth employee had registered to access accounts online through MyBenefits.
The portal enables employees to log in-either from work or from home-and get answers to frequently asked questions, learn about plans and coverage specifics, obtain price quotes for certain products, and enroll in dental benefits, critical illness insurance, long-term care, life insurance, auto and home insurance, disability insurance, and banking services.
Users can also check their claim status for certain products, locate a dentist who participates in a MetLife preferred dentist program, or learn about retirement savings options. A popular feature is service e-mail, such as e-alerts that notify employees of claim updates.
The first iteration of the MyBenefits portal was launched in June of 2000, according to Sachin Shah, vice president of MetLife Workplace Solutions. MetLife has upgraded the portal several times since that initial launch, with the most recent upgrade taking place in 2003. Shah estimates the site is being accessed an average 800,000 to a million times a month, and transaction activity has been almost doubling each year.
There were three primary considerations in launching the portal, says Shah. First, customer companies were anxious to reduce processing burdens incurred by benefits administration.
“Our employer customers-plan sponsors, or HR offices-needed to promote more self service, and reduce the related costs of the administrivia with benefit programs,” he says.
The ability to lower administration costs has been a key selling point to employers, he adds. “In our business, things that we can do to provide employees a better way to manage their benefits, without having to call the HR office, are real winners. It takes work from employers, who would otherwise be getting phone calls and inquiries.”
Second, organizations are gradually reducing their financial stake in benefits plans. “Employers are beginning to cost-shift to employees, and that cost shifting continues to grow, certainly on a dollar basis, because costs in aggregate for medical programs in particular have gone up,” he explains.
“That cost shifting has required us to work with employers to begin to provide much more information to employees, and get them to become more aware of, and educated in, benefits offerings.”
Third, Shah says, there’s a strategic shift occurring in the benefits administration marketplace. “Employers are getting out of the benefits administration business,” he notes.
“Strategically, the marketplace is moving toward a world in which we have two customers – the employer, and more importantly, the employee. Making a sale to the employer is no longer a guarantee of revenue, as it was in the past. It’s just a point of entry. Ultimately, making the sale to the employee, and keeping the employee as a customer, has become our driver of revenues and earnings.”
Read More (Source: Joe McKendrick, Insurance Networking News)
Why your Business needs an Intranet
These days, most corporations have their own intranet, which is somewhat like the internet except for the fact that it’s only accessible to those within the company. However, Intranets are not just useful for large enterprises, SMEs can benefit from them hugely too.
An intranet means that internal communications within a company are simplified substantially and make for more success in terms of growth, as productivity increases. It’s basically an internal database which every employee can access, with different permissions for various staff.
For example, it’s doubtful that you want junior office staff to be able to access all of your financial reports and forecasts for the year, so these are just given permissions to access certain areas of the intranet which is relevant to their job.
According to Microsoft: “In order for a company to succeed, all players must understand its goals. Neither long-term nor short-term goals should be confined to upper management meetings. It’s Business 101. Everyone needs to be working toward common goals”.
By building an intranet, employees and bosses alike can share information across the board; not only is it easier to set up and share appointments and information, but as a part of an intranet, employees can communicate better, leading to less confusion following meetings, when everyone has to take notes and remember everything afterwards.
Not only that but intranets have evolved dramatically over the past decade as CMS and social are added and the introduction of cloud computing often means that an intranet can be accessed from anywhere. This is ideal in these days of BYOD and telecommuting, as it makes for a more flexible workforce and again, ups productivity
That’s even before we go into the benefits presented by ROI, which can be substantial, depending on what model you use and the size of your business.
Developing an Intranet
It’s a good idea to carry out sound planning before implementing an Intranet; whilst they can and will benefit a business of any size, needs vary and so it’s worth investing primarily in a decent consultancy firm. These will be able to carry out an audit of your company and recommend what will benefit your business the most.
A modern intranet should be well organized and easy for users to navigate, especially if you don’t want to spend a fortune training your staff; again, this is something that can be discussed with a consultant.
A well planned business infrastructure is much more likely to be a successful one and one that your company can see clear benefits from. The ability to share internal information across the whole of your staff often does away with the need to constantly send internal memos and emails.
Discussion boards on an intranet can also help staff to come up with collaborative ideas before meetings or when working on a project, cutting down the time needed for physical meetings as everyone is aware of their position on a project.
Read More (Source: Kerry, elcomcms.com)
