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10 emerging examples of best practice in social customer service

From reactive and pro-active engagement techniques to mapping customer journeys and developing multichannel, what are the current trends in social customer service and how will they affect what we consider best practice in the future?

Speaking on this subject last week at Our Social Times’ Social Customer Service Summit 2014, was social media strategist Martin Hill-Wilson.

During his keynote speech, Martin explored various techniques and trends that may well come to define social customer service in the near future.

In particular, the need to think of social in a bigger context: as part of a multi-channel customer service strategy.

Does innovation by Chinese social networks give a glimpse of Facebook’s future?

Social media users in Western nations tend to be very precious about their favourite networks.

Witness the uproar when Facebook introduced the new timeline back in 2011, or the disbelief when Twitter dared to introduce blue lines linking related tweets.

We seem to be unwilling to accept that social networks should do anything other than the simple tasks for which they were originally designed, ignoring that fact that agility and innovation was what made these companies successful in the first place.

Instagram is perhaps the ultimate example of this, as it has become phenomenally popular despite the fact that all it does is share photos (admittedly it does that extremely well and I’m an avid user).

And I’d be interested to see the reaction if Instagram ever tried to drastically alter the interface or develop new functionality.

Five key insights from our Search Engine Marketing Benchmark Report

Search marketing budgets are set to rise, with companies increasing spend on PPC and SEO in 2014. 

58% of companies plan to increase their paid search budgets this year, up from 55% in 2013, while 55% will spend more on SEO, up from 51% a year ago.

These findings come from the UK Search Engine Marketing Benchmark Report 2014, produced in association with Latitude.

Here are a few of the key findings from the report… 

Content marketing, social media and the artist: can brands be the new patrons?

The imaginero (maker of images) has always found it tricky to make a living.

Even painters we now regard as masters died without fortune and sometimes in poverty. Painting was a trade. It paid as such.

Of course, when means for mass reproduction came along, artists or their gallerists could distribute works that would meet public approval and this made some very rich. But even then, many of the best suffered a lifetime of penury if their works didn’t conform to the tastes of their time.

Fast forward and the emergence of the commercial internet has meant artists can promote themselves. The din is greater than ever and it’s hard for artists to get heard.

However, commerce, the internet, increase in media consumption and social media specifically make for greater demand than ever for visual design. As web design gets both more commonplace and more sophisticated, companies seek to differentiate themselves with better branding, advertising and content marketing.

And perhaps brands are getting serious about patronising new artists?

Whatever time an artist lives in, patronage has always been the surest way to security. Whether of the King of Spain or Charles Saatchi or Debenhams.

Yep, Debenhams.

Alibaba: 30+ amazing stats on China’s ecommerce giant

China’s Alibaba Group is gearing up for what could be the world’s biggest ever tech IPO, so it’s probably about time you discovered what the company is all about.

Alibaba was founded in 1999 by Jack Ma, who is now said to be worth more than $12bn. He served as chairman and CEO until May 2013 but stepped down to follow other business interests.

And to give an idea of the scale of the business, I’ve rounded up a load of stats that show why the world is so excited about its upcoming IPO.

For more information on this topic, read my blog post looking at 25 stats that show the scale of the ecommerce market in China…

Google Shopping explained: how to get started

Once known as Google Product Search and way before that known also as Froogle (which in terms of puns isn’t the most fitting, surely nobody involved wants you to be economical with your cash), now simply Google Shopping, this is a service that lets consumers search for products and compare prices through Google Search.

Previously I had assumed that consumer products appeared on SERPS through an ecommerce site’s own specific markup or through the relative strength of the Google algorithm.

This is no longer necessarily true. Since Google Product Search transformed into Google Shopping, ecommerce sites now have to pay to have their products appear in these listings.

Google Shopping is not a place for organic listings, it’s a place for search marketers and advertisers to exploit. In some respects this is great, especially if you’re a small business with a significant enough budget to go up against the bigger brands. There’s theoretically much less competition now. 

84% of female Pinterest users are still active in their fourth year: stats

In terms of user retention, this is an incredible figure. Especially compared to the competition.

In February 2014, I looked at Google+ and discovered that although it had 1.15bn users, only 35% of those were active monthly. Similarly 36% of Twitter’s registered users are active on a monthly basis.

Facebook fairs a lot better, a recent GWI Social report reveals a global account ownership figure of 83%, of which 49% are active and 56% of users log in more than once a day.

Of course social channels are very reluctant to reveal their true figures for active users, so its up to third party studies to estimate this and just because your regularly using Twitter right now doesn’t mean you won’t still be doing so in four years time. Which is why the headline figure for Pinterest is so encouraging.

In Q4 2013, Pinterest overtook Facebook for UK referral revenue for the first time, and is expected to do the same in the US in 2014.

RJMetrics has explored 50,000 random pinners and their pins to understand how Pinterest is currently doing in terms of engagement, pinners’ aspirations and the future of Pinterest.

The emergence of real-time video on social media

Amplification has been a big word in social media for over a year now and Twitter’s Amplify product allows advertisers and broadcasters to push photos and video through Twitter Cards.

Facebook has reduced the reach of organic posts from companies and is consequently providing a clearer proposition to advertisers, particular with some of its mobile and location-based products.

Grabyo is a UK company that provides a video platform working with Twitter (through Twitter Amplify) and Facebook to allow sharing of real-time video clips on social media. 

In a new report, the company has analysed 2,500 clips of live TV shared on social by major broadcasters and rights holders between September 2013 and March 2014.

Here are some of the findings.

Seven handy tips for a webinar newbie

Yesterday I took part in my first webinar.

I’ve hosted many webinars, but never done the speaking part. I must admit, I’m not a great fan of the format.

However, this reticence when it comes to speaking to lots of mute people whilst rustling through a slide deck is almost certainly a result of nerves about tech and public speaking.

Once all possible hitches are unhitched, or at least made unhitchable before they get a chance to hitch themselves, the experience is, in very real terms, more approachable (this sentence is an example of the way a nervous person can start speaking on a webinar).

What I mean to say is perhaps webinars can be enjoyable if you follow a few steps beforehand and bear in mind one or two points whilst speaking.

Here are some of the things I’ve learned about the tech, and yesterday, very quickly, about the speaking bit.

Ecommerce in China: Why are Western brands flocking to Alibaba’s Tmall?

Western ecommerce brands seeking to expand into China cannot ignore the 500lb gorilla that is Tmall.

Even ASOS was recently forced to admit that its best chance of cracking China was to establish a presence on Tmall, while Burberry became the latest UK fashion brand to open a Tmall storefront in April.

In fact the Alibaba-owned marketplace currently has around 2,000 foreign brands among its 70,000 sellers.

So what’s so important about Tmall that it can make the likes of Apple, Uniqlo, Reebok, and ASOS create a store within someone else’s domain rather than rely on their own website?

The B2C marketplace was spun out of Taobao in 2010, which is itself a C2C marketplace that’s similar to eBay. Tmall allows brands and retailers to establish a digital storefront, which is again similar to the new model offered by eBay.

Start Me Up! BLAP for painless mobile conference calls

Conference calls are boring and what almost makes them interesting is how painful they are. Except it doesn’t make them interesting, it makes them painful.

Pain is not interesting. That’s why I thought it would be good to feature a conference call app in Start Me Up. 

The app calls participants, it isn’t VoIP, gives you local numbers and can be used on your network minutes or as PAYG with the platform. That makes it worth taking a look at.

It’s called BLAP, and you can read on for more info, or to find out what it’s like working in a startup in this competitive arena.

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