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Home > News And Information > Newsletter > July 2011 Yahoo Store News Part 1

July 2011 Yahoo Store News Part 1

Welcome

Social Media is no longer a hobby. It's a required tool for store owners.

Do you remember the first time you heard the word social media? How about the first time you heard the name Facebook? Where were you when you heard about the first tweet?

No matter where you were or how you heard about them, I bet you never imagined that you could be using these "tools" for your business.

Yet, social media has evolved and your customers are on Facebook, they are tweeting, they are blogging, they are reading blogs, they are watching videos, and they are connecting with multiple companies every day.

Whether they watch the news, read the newspaper, or walk into their local stores... customers are being bombarded with messages to connect on Facebook and Twitter.

HUGE corporations are paying BIG money to promote these connections with new and existing customers.

The problem...

Many store owners are not doing their part to promote their own Social Media oppurutnies.

The BIGGER problem...

Store owners are not taking advantage of the connections being made with the billions of customers available through Social Media.

The solution...

Every single email should include, "We would love to connect with you!" or "We would love to talk with you!" or "Want to connect with us and find out about great deals too?"

Whichever one you pick, include links to your Twitter, your Blog, your videos, your Facebook Page, and/or any other Social Media Platform you are using to connect with your customers.

Make sure the customer sees this information in the confirmation email and the shipping status emails as well.

Remember - It usually takes 3 times seeing a message before your customers respond or react to the messages they are seeing.

The second part of the solution...

When customers like your page or follow you on Twitter, start connecting. Thank them for joining you. Ask them open-ended questions on a daily basis.

For our Now What Project Website we ask questions like:

What are your plans for today?
What are you sewing today?
What are your plans for the weekend?

Notice we aren't asking when they are going to buy from us again. We love these customers and we want to get to know them. We like them and they like us.

By doing this, we have established the first part of the buying process... Like

Remember, they have to like, know, and trust us before they purchase.

We let them into our daily lives and they get to know us � that�s the second part.

Asking open ended questions help our customers get use to posting on our Facebook Page. We do our best to get them involved as often as possible. We turn lurkers into active fans.

When they make a purchase, they have no problem sharing their experience on Facebook and Twitter. Our other fans get to see these comments and that helps with the third process - trust.

Bing Helps People Make Decisions Based on Their Friends Decisions

Bing has promoted itself as the decision search engine. No longer will your customer have questions and keep finding themselves lost in more confusion. When they search on Bing, they find the answers they need.

The latest commercials from Bing show a new way of making the decision even easier...

What do your friends think?

Now your customers are going to see their cousin Bobby Jo or their co-worker Sue Ann "liked" a particular product or website. Great! The decision has become even easier which one to pick out.

The problem...

Store owners are not taking advantage of this major movement in social media.

The solution...

As I said above, the time is now to start engaging with your customers. Ask them what they think about certain products once in awhile. Encourage fans to speak up about what they think and how they feel.

Promote your Facebook Page by picking out a Facebook Fan of the Week. This let's your fans know that you care and appreciate them. Send your special Fan a gift for being chosen. Ask them questions and let other fans get to know them and help to create relationships.

Google Relies on Social Media to Help Weed Through the Spam

In the beginning Google's search engine was a popularity contest. If you had 10 links to your website and your competitor had 100 then they must be way more popular than you are. There was a huge problem with this method of ranking websites, the site with 100 links usually picked them up from some link farm and the site was complete garbage.

Google learned over the years the little tricks of the trade and the spam techniques that were being used to "trick the system." Today Google makes over 400 algorithm changes every year....that we know of. They are constantly tweaking and fine tuning the algorithm to remove the spammy websites from the search results.

One way to weed out the garbage is by using Social Media. When you write a great blog article, people will tweet about it. When you create a great video, people watch it and make comments. When you create great original content that is relevant to your audience, it will be shared on Facebook, it will be liked, and Google can use this data to determine whether or not your website should be ranked in their search engine.

The problem...

Store owners aren't using social media to its full potential.

The solution...

Start with a blog. The blog is going to be the home base operation for everything that you are doing.

Next find out where your customers are the most. Depending on their age and preferences, they may be on Twitter more than they are on Facebook. With the new Google + that came out, you may find all your customers have moved there.

Either way, you need to find out where they are and get on there too. Start talking with them - not selling them.

Build relationships with your customers with education. Everyone loves to learn new things and if you are passionate about what you are doing, then you have something that you can share.

How can your customers do something better?
How can your customers do something easier?
How can your customer do more with what they have?

Is social media really worth the effort?

As you know, I built a store about 5 months ago so that I could show store owners what to do AFTER they've opened their online store. I have used only social media to grow this business.

I am happy to report that the total sales have exceeded $47,000.

Now What July 15th

This is even after going through this major surgery which has really put me out of commission for several weeks and put us severely behind on sales. Oh, and this last weekend (June 9th) we had 200 people in our backyard for our son's wedding. So sales are a little down :)

So now my question to you is...

How are you going to up your social media game and connect with more customers? More importantly, how are you going to up your social media game and increase sales?

Sincerely,

Shawna Seigel
(Formally Shawna Fennell but, I got married in 2010 on the Fourth of July!) Click To See Pictures

P.S.

Here are some links to amazing articles for further reading:

By The Numbers: How Facebook Says Likes & Social Plugins Help Websites
7 Google Plus Data Points That Could Change SEO
Report: Google Still Web�s Dominant Traffic Driver, But Some Niches See Facebook Gaining
How To Convert Website Visitors Into Facebook Fans
Google�s Locksmith Spam Problem Hits The New York Times
Does Google+ Rapture Indicate �Pent-Up Demand� For Facebook Alternative?
Google: Hold Off On Creating Business Profiles On Google+, �Non-User Profiles� Will Be Shut Down
Google�s Sending Webmaster Notifications About Bad Links Pointing At Their Sites

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We have the New Life Book Club where we are reading the Yahoo! Style Guide that shows you how to write content for the web. It will show you how to write better newsletters, blogs, and everything else.

We have a Mastermind Group that works together on weekly projects and to do lists.

We have the Now What Project that shows you a brand new website, shows you all the mistakes, fixes the mistakes, and then shows you the increased conversions. Learn from these mistakes!!

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Finally, you can always give us a call to help you as well. Pick up the phone and dial 888-312-7839.

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Air Date: July 26,, 2011