How to Use Twitter as a Customer Service Channel Read more: http://www.articlesbase.com/smo-articles/how-to-use-twitter-as-a-customer-service-channel-3261886.html#ixzz0zygsMQq2 Under Creative Commons License: Attribution

Using social media, virtually anyone can complain about a company, its service or products. What this means for companies is a need to swiftly manage customer complaints so they don't escalate and damage brand reputation. This is particularly applicable to Twitter, as its real-time search functions means companies can monitor customer complaints and respond to them quickly.

Many companies now maintain their own Twitter page in an effort to provide a new type of customer service. Instead of the traditional customer service model, where consumers had to approach and contact companies, companies are being increasingly proactive and actively seek opportunities to mitigate customer complaints.

For example, US Telcom giant AT&T maintains a Twitter channel (@ATTCustomerCare) which has a dedicated customer care team who spend their days monitoring the AT&T brand and helping people with their issues. Their channel has over 4,000 followers and acts as the customer care headquarters addressing issues ranging from product information to faulty goods. This Twitter channel also centralises AT&T's online customer care and directs individual customers (with their complaints) to the relevant departments' Twitter accounts. They do this by tagged departments with @replies. By doing this however, also means that the company has publicly acknowledged the customer's complaint and any mishaps can be seen by the world.

From a consumer's perspective, Twitter helps eliminate some of the common frustrations that surround customer care, including having to call various departments and wait for the dreaded ‘please hold the line'. That said, because Twitter is a real time channel, customers may also have higher expectations for customer service. Once customers tweet their complaint and companies' acknowledge it; customers expect a follow up or resolution within a timely manner. After all, the company has publicly acknowledged their complaint, which means consumers expect companies to step up their customer service.

However, before companies dive into using Twitter for customer care and support, it is important to remember that the key (like most social media) is to listen. Companies such as Big Pond and their customer service team (@BigPondTeam) spend most of their time listening to customers and proactively approach them. This however means responding when both complaints and compliments are made, as this shows customers they are heard and valued. By doing real time searches, companies can see what is said about them and what sort of complaints people are making. This helps nip the bud of any issues that may escalate. From a company's perspective, Twitter is thus useful for customer service not only because it's a preemptive system, but because it also facilitates innovation. The more attentive companies are to their consumers, the more they know about customer needs and find new opportunities to improve company service and products.

It is however, important to put Twitter in context to overall customer service. Although it's useful to understand how companies can use Twitter to respond to and ‘nip the bud' of customer complaints, all customer service channels must be treated with equal consideration. Companies which focus their attention all on Twitter and social media may risk caring more about their brand and reputation than they are with true service.

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Online Community Management

The internet is one enormous community. And this community talks. A lot. They create blogs and content, post comments and feedback, and ultimately create discussions and drive conversations on an incredible range of things. So whatever industry you're in, or whatever product you may be selling, chances are, people are talking about you. A quick search will prove this, and will show you why more and more companies are paying attention to online community management.
Think of Wikipedia for a moment. It's a huge community, with 7,000 new articles created each day and 10 million edits per month. And one reason which contributes to its success is because there are editors who manage and oversee the evolution of articles. Online community management is similar, but on a much larger scale. Because there is so much conversation going on, companies not only want to know what is said about them, but they also want to get into the conversation and understand their market, their competitors and consumer better.
Whilst any company can read what consumers are saying about their products or brand, trying to make sense of the sheer volume of information can be overwhelming. Thus, when delving into online community management, many companies decide to employ online community managers who act as their eyes and ears, who help them break down exactly what communities are saying about them. From this however, comes the most important part; companies need to determine the purpose of the online community manager. Is it to promote a new product? Or is it to conduct primary research? Or perhaps it is to see how to improve their products? Whatever the purpose is, it will set out the sort of tasks and methods online community managers will use.
Regardless of the purpose however, there are still basic foundations to online community management. To successfully manage online communities firstly requires a good understanding of online channels, and that's not just social media, but includes any community websites that are relevant to the company's purpose. For example, an online community manager working for a cat food company will have accounts in the usual Twitter, Facebook, Youtube and Google Reader, but also will also monitor popular cat owner websites, discussion boards, blogs and channels. They would also have set up tracking and alerts for relevant keywords, which will once again depend on the company purpose. If it is to conduct an evaluation of product launch, the online community manager may set up tracking for the company's product.
Social Media Channels
However, another thing to bear in mind is the importance of listening and monitoring what is being said in these online communities. Without a solid understanding of the key stakeholders in these online communities, diving into conversations will be both meaningless and fruitless. When the online community manager is comfortable however, they may engage in these conversations, perhaps starting with replying to posts, providing feedback, and from there, create posts and begin blogging.
The foundations of online community management are to build, grow and manage communities around a brand, cause or topic. But in order to do this, companies must be willing to be a part of the community. If their sole purpose is to monitor online communities so they can directly market to them, it may come off as insincere and may backlash, causing damage to brand reputation. Successful online community management drills down to active listening, and from there determining the necessary steps to achieve company objectives. Ultimately, online community management is similar to customer service; you have firstly listen to know what people want, so you know what to do and how you can help.


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Increase the Popularity of Your Web Page using PageRank Read more: http://www.articlesbase.com/smo-articles/increase-the-popularity-of-your-web-page-using-pagerank-3269198.html#ixzz0zygWCx32 Under Creative Commons License: Attribution

PageRank is a factor used by search engines for determining the importance of web page. It determines where your web page is displayed in the search results. It provides a significant impact on the ranking of your web site on the Internet. A high PageRank makes your site looks like a specialist in its field. It is an affordable search engine optimization technique.
Sometimes, it is very difficult to find relevant information in the Internet because of the large volume of pages available on it. PageRank is the means that has been devised to do away with this difficulty. By using a logarithmic scale, this device gives ranking to the web pages and helps to match the web key words searches of the net users. The main object of this factor is to enable users to search more sites in less time by getting the most relevant search results. It is the most effective way to give priority the web search key terms results.
The popularity of a web site is judged by determining the number of pages that link to the page in question. Its popularity goes up if the linking pages are popular. To determine the popularity of a particular page, PageRank also considers a large number of links on the page; for example, if a page has only few links on it, then those links will be appeared more popular and important.
online promotion services firms increase the PageRank of the web sites using various strategies. The most excellent way to increase PageRank is to have quality content on the web page, which the users want to link with. To achieve this, you may consider taking help of the search engine promotion services. Also, you can increase the ranking by trading links with other people. Keep in mind that while trading links with other, you trade only the relevant links.
PageRank is measured on the scale of 1 to 10. It is not assigned to individual pages of the entire web site, but only to individual pages within a web site. Very few pages reach the scale of 10, given to the large number of pages in the Internet universe.


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A Beginner's Look At Social Networking

For someone who has never heard of social networking, much less ever bothered to sign up for sites like Facebook or Twitter, the new Internet landscape can be a pretty daunting environment to be sure. Old pros see page after page of photos and links and text as background noise while to a beginner, it may as well all be in a foreign language. Social networking web sites can be informational, educational and entertaining for everyone as long as you keep a few things in mind.

When you sign up for a social networking web site, you will be required to provide a username and password. Don't ever use the same password that you use for your email accounts, and don't use common words or phrases such as nicknames, spouse or childrens' names, etc. Keep the password original, and change it often (no less than every 90 days) to be as safe as possible while online.

Should you receive a message with odd text or a link that doesn't quite add up, don't click the link or open any attachments, even if the message comes from a trusted friend. First check with the person to make sure they sent it. Often you will find that their account had been compromised and the message was malicious.

To avoid similar things happening to you while using social networking web sites, password protection and encryption sites like Logaway can help keep you safe by guarding your passwords and private information from nearly any web site in the world. Hackers won't see your password on social networking sites because Logaway blocks them from seeing it! The best part? Logaway is a FREE service!

So go ahead and sign up for social networking sites like Facebook. You will have fun and possibly even reconnect with old friends and loved ones. Just stay on your toes and protect your password with Logaway!

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