Social Media Marketing

Posts Tagged ‘social media marketing’

The Power Of A Facebook Store

April 8th, 2012

It’s a big announcement, and though you’re reading this here and now, it was first announced on our Facebook page.. Why you may ask? Well this announcement has to do with the power of SHARING and the persuasiveness and advocacy in brand marketing. It was only fair to divulge this first on Facebook.. For those of you who haven’t heard..

Our newly designed and SOCIALLY loaded Facebook store is now out!

The New Design
With the new Timeline for business pages, the area allows for more space, so we had to take advantage of this, and allow for more categories per page view. Add the search ability for easier browsing, as well as a clear layout for custom pages so you’re sure your offerings are clearly visible to help you sell on Facebook. We’re pretty proud of this new look, but this is just a little taste..

The Shopping Experience
In line with our mission to keep customers engaged within your website and brand, the new Facebook store, allows your customers to browse products for sale, share their favorites with friends, and complete a purchase within the Facebook shopping cart. Yes the entire process can be completed without leaving your Facebook page! Using payment gateways like PayPal Payments Pro and Authorize.net, the customer pays and is never directed elsewhere. And now the payment gateway PayPal Express, brings them back to your Facebook page to confirm the transaction. We hope this decreases the number of abandoned carts and gives you a boost in sales.. But wait that’s not all…

The Capitalization of Sharing
Facebook is all about sharing, and now your customer can become your advocate. After a purchase is made, customers can share their excitement with a single click and post their purchase to their own Timeline and share with friends. This is done without authorizing an app, just a simple share button that we’re all used to. Your customers can now become your own marketing tool. Yes this is all about REACH.. If you like the sound of reach and fcommerce advocacy, we’ve got more for you..

More features with the Facebook store include the ability to preview audio before purchase, allowing musicians and artists to showcase their tunes and sell music directly to fans within Facebook. They can sell songs, sell CD’s or even autographed prints! Looking for more? Well how about multiple language support, zoomed picture view, sharing to social platforms like Twitter and Want, and include related products for cross selling.

We mentioned it’s a big release, and we must say, we’re not finished yet! Stay tuned for more exciting releases from Wazala coming very soon!

Promoting Your Facebook Store

March 30th, 2012

Getting the word out about your Facebook store, or offers and specials you’re having is pretty easy! We promise that once you read through this, you’ll know what we mean by EASY!

Link to Your Facebook Store

Once you’ve added the store to Facebook, and positioned the store tab well for fans to see, you can link to your Facebook store from anywhere. This can be a post in Facebook to announce it, or even a newsletter or email you’re sending out. Your Facebook store URL would be as follows: https://www.facebook.com/Wazala/app_147605761926866 – Just replace the page name Wazala, with your own page name as it appears in your own Facebook URL.

Facebook Specific Offers

So let’s say you want to offer your Facebook fans a coupon code to entice them to buy. The Wazala’s social promoter engine, can help you get the word out. Whenever you add something newsworthy to your store, like a coupon code or place a product on sale, Wazala reminds you to post this on Facebook and/or Twitter. It will provide you with suggestions for your post that you can edit to your liking, and with a single click, this post can be posted to your Facebook page without you ever logging into Facebook! Go ahead try it, we know you’d love it and your fans would appreciate the love.

Happy Facebook Selling!

Setting Up Your Facebook Store

March 20th, 2012

Creating a Wazala store is easy, and when you’re done you should add your own store to your Facebook page. Just in case you’re not sure why here are some of the Great features of the Wazala Facebook Store.

Why Wazala to Sell on Facebook?

•    Customers are not directed elsewhere to pay or complete a purchase. The entire process can take place within the Facebook Page.
•    Customers can share what they bought with their friends, without authorizing a Facebook app, giving the store-owner (You), a brand advocate on Facebook.
•    With the Wazala Social Promoter (think of it as your own marketing guru), your news is automatically published out to the social sphere with a single click. Never forget to market out again!
•    Sell both shippable products and secure digital content, even preview audio before a purchase. Great for musicians to sell directly to their fans on Facebook.
•    Any changes you make to your store, like adding products, placing a product on sale, tweaking a description (really anything) will be automatically changed on your Facebook store as well!
•    It’s FREE! And it’s available in the FREE Wazala plan!

How to add your store to your Facebook Page

Now that we covered the why’s, here is how to add the store to your Facebook page and sell on Facebook directly.

Grab your unique Wazala key, and copy it to your clipboard. This can be found under the Facebook section in the “Account” tab, within the Wazala Store Manager.
Login to Facebook, and go to https://apps.facebook.com/wazalastore/. This will take you to the Wazala App page within Facebook.
Once on the Wazala application page in Facebook, you need to authorize the app.
Next you will need to add it to a page. Facebook will ask you to select a page to add it to, especially if you have several pages you admin. Select the page, and you will be automatically directed to your page.
Once on your page will see the Wazala tab within your tab section. Simply click on the tab and a new page will open up. Your next step is to paste your Wazala Store key. Once you do this, your store will appear.

That’s it! A simple copy and paste and you’re selling of Facebook!

NOTE: Like visuals? Checkout our step by step guide here: http://www.wazala.com/start/help/wazala-store-on-facebook/

Promoting Your New Product

March 14th, 2012

Got a new product in your online store? Hooray! New things are always exciting, but the tough part is getting your customers excited as you are. There are many steps you can take to ensure that your product launch is a successful one, and we hope these would help.

Have a Goal in Mind
What are you trying to accomplish? Coming up with a promotional directive is a great way to lay the foundation for your promotional campaign. Do you have a set inventory and wish to reach a certain amount of sales? Maybe your new product open doors to attract a new customer base? Or are you trying to up-sell, or get previous customers to come back for more. Setting an ambitious but realistic goal will help you to hone your promotional tactics and measure the campaign’s success more efficiently. If your goals are usually similar from launch to launch, the results of these campaign can be A/B tested against one another to hopefully give insight on which tactics work best for your products.

Get a Good Mix
Every product launch should involve a familiar mix of tools, such as newsletters, press releases, social media marketing, and even paid advertisements. Making sure to utilize all these venues can help increase your sales. In addition to using your go-to means of communication, you should also try to add something new into the marketing mix, be it a guest blog, a YouTube video, or even a Pinterest post. Try as many new avenues as you can. It can’t hurt, and might prove to be extremely rewarding if utilized effectively.

A Fresh Product Description
No one wants to buy something that sounds boring. So make sure to add some spice to your descriptions, and add cool images that really make the product pop. Checkout our earlier posts on writing killer product descriptions, and showcasing your product pictures well.

Facebook Contests
Facebook contests are a great way to get people involved and excited about a new product. Have people upload photos, videos, or post on your wall. Get creative! The prize doesn’t have to be huge; maybe the winner will get your new product for free. In order to enter the contest, each person should have to like your page, which will gain you fans and raise awareness about your brand and the contest. Offer everyone who enters the contest a discount on your new product, which will in turn give them more incentive to buy.

Feature It
A simple tweak to your website home page to feature your new product can definitely help. Place it on top and make sure to state that it is available for sale. You can also create a new category in your store as “NEW ARRIVALS” and add it there. New and returning customers like to see that you’re constantly adding new goods for sale. This tweak can also help in attracting a new audience, especially if you’re product is unlike anything you usually sell.

These are just a few of the many options available to you when promoting a new product. Just find out what works for you, and run with it!

Happy Selling!

Monitoring Your Ecommerce Business

March 7th, 2012

In order to have a successful business, one must constantly reflect and measure certain key factors. Here are 3 components worth evaluating on a consistent basis.

The Budget
If you don’t keep track of your cash flow, your business will likely fail. Keep your finances in order. You need to be aware of how much money you have coming in, and how much you’re allocating for different aspects of your business. Spending with abandon, and without keeping accurate records is a recipe for disaster.Asses your budget, and see which purchases and investments you can make now, and which ones you should hold off on until you have more free cash. Keep this up and you will increase profit.

Online Presence
Keeping track of online store web traffic is pivotal to any ecommerce business success. To do this, you need to have a way to monitor and analyze how many people are visiting your site. Google Analytics is a free tool that can help you in this respect. It also paints a detailed picture of your customers behaviors and inclinations as they browse your page, and gives you detailed reports on conversion rates that will allow you to make informed decisions about what is working and what is not. Wazala integrates with Google Analytics, and if you’re new to this, Google provides a good starting guide here.

Customer Satisfaction
This one is obvious, customers satisfaction is paramount to a healthy business, so keep tabs. Are you using a support desk to communicate? Many email solutions like Zendesk offer the ability to engage and ask customers for a satisfaction rating this will help automate your communication as well as report satisfaction. Engaging customers via social media is another effective way to keep a finger on the pulse of their contentment. This will allow you to address any complaints or concerns your customers might have before they evolve into a bigger issue. Also you may consider sending out a brief survey after each purchase is delivered. Knowing your positive and negative attributes will help you build a better service.

Just like you have to continually exercise to keep in shape, you must regularly monitor these elements in order to keep your business in tip-top condition. It’s an ongoing process, but if you follow through, you will find yourself reaping the rewards that accompany knowing where your business stands.

New Orders Are Now Simpler To Deal With!

February 6th, 2012

Our team has been working on a new Order tab design, that not only allows you to sift through your orders with ease, but helps making your order fulfillment faster. It’s out, it’s colorful and we hope you like it as much as we do.

The latest release of the Order Page allows you to clearly mark orders that require your attention with different statuses and colors. The hover-over preview allows you to take a quick look at the order without loading a new page, and of course, searching for a specific order is now even easier!

An added bonus we’re sure you would love to know about is the ability to print out an order receipt (with the order total) or a packing slip (with no mention of payment total). This is found in every order view page, click on Print to preview and proceed.

And last, for those orders you wish to remove from your daily view, a newly added Archive status allows you to store this order away and come back to it at anytime if you need to.

Hope these features improve your fulfillment of orders! And stay tuned for a lot more to come!

Using Twitter as a Support Desk of Sorts

November 9th, 2011

Twitter users love to do two things most: gossip and air their complaints. More and more, people are are logging on to twitter every day to engage brands. This is really cool because it provides an open forum in which conversations can happen about your products. But what do you do if someone complains about your brand in a tweet? How do you respond? Do you respond at all?

The answer to this is actually pretty straightforward. Yes, you should try your very darndest to respond all the time, and you should respond in an extremely helpful manner. Most people expect you to respond, and if you don’t then you’re not meeting their expectations, and that’s just horribly unprofessional of you. According to Maritz Research, (some big customer experience research company), people view Brands who respond to tweeted complaints very positively. People are surprised and delighted to know that there is actually someone on the other side listening, someone that represents your brand who is concerned about their concerns.

And you should be genuinely concerned. Or at the very least, act concerned. These are your customers, and this is a public arena. All eyes are on you. We believe you should always try to be kind and understanding towards your clients, but even if you can’t stand your customers, your brands twitter page is not the place to show your true colors. Your business is your baby, and responding to a tweet that says “your products suck” with an expletive laden rant that mentions Ghandi and a Porto-potty in the same sentence won’t win you any points (unless it’s really, really funny!). Be the bigger man. Or at least direct them to customer support where your exchange will be (slightly) more private. Just remember, the customer is always right, especially on twitter. So treat them as such, and you may get a few treats in return. On a side note, we have a bunch of left over candy from a productive Halloween night that we’re looking to sell in bulk/trade for the 6th Harry Potter DVD. Hit up Wazala on twitter if you’re interested PEACE.

F-Commerce – Selling on Facebook

October 27th, 2011

We all knew it was only a matter of time. Facebook and ecommerce locked eyes, and it was love at first at sight. A whirlwind romance ensued, followed by an Elvis themed Vegas wedding. Not long after a romantic honeymoon spent almost entirely under the sheets, the happy couple welcomed a child, a darling baby they named fcommerce.

Though still in its infancy, fcommerce has the shown potential to change the way we buy things, the way we shop, and the way we use social media. Consumers can now buy things directly from a Facebook page, share their purchase with their friends, and see what their friends are buying. They can take advantage of special Facebook promotions just for fans of products, and even get deals when they “Check In” to retailers physical location. It has positioned itself as a convenient place to buy for 600+ million Facebook users. That’s a lot of potential. But how do you, a seller, utilize this potential effectively? While there’s no one way to the the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, here are a few choice routes to get you on your way.

The biggest advantage for selling on Facebook, is that you’re integrating your store into a thriving community. So use your words. You want your page to be a place people flock to, like a Taco Bell after the bars close. To do this, you need give people incentive to visit and stay on your page. The easiest and least costly way to do this is to put out interesting and amusing content. Post links that you find interesting, that you would want to read. It doesn’t necessarily have to be directly related to your store. You just have to use discretion. That really funny video of babies dancing? Post it. Heartwarming marriage proposal? Post it. Drunk high school girls knife fighting during morning assembly? Probably not. Its okay to be a little edgy, just don’t go roaring off the cliff.

After you’ve gotten the hang of finding interesting links, you should start initiating conversations on your page. Pose a question that you think will open up a debate. The more activity on your page, the better. You could even post a link, then ask a question relevant to that link. For instance, if you posted a link about a cool new tablet computer, you could ask “Do you think it stands a chance against the iPad?” Post your answers below”. Sometimes people will respond, sometimes they won’t; its a numbers game. If they do, keep them engaged by posting follow up questions and acknowledging their points.

Offering promotions and contests exclusively to your Facebook fans is a sure-fire way to draw people to your page. People love free stuff like a fat kid loves cake. If you offer something exclusively to your Facebook fans, your fans will feel like they are in on some sort of secret.

So now your getting some traffic on your Facebook page. How do you convert that traffic into mucho mulah? That’s where Wazala comes in. Wazala has a powerhouse shopping cart widget that you can embed directly into your fan page, allowing you to sell anything from your Wazala store right on Facebook. It looks great, smells great, and is absolutely amazing in bed (or so I’ve heard). Plus, its crazy easy to use, both for the seller and the consumer, so once everyone is hanging out on your page, they will be able to buy your products without issue. Wazala makes you money, and saves you time, so you can get back to your true calling: making it rain at the club!!!!.

To check out an example of the Wazala Facebook store, checkout the demo store here:

http://www.facebook.com/Wazala?sk=app_147605761926866

Creating An Online Holiday Pop Up Store

October 23rd, 2011

With the Holiday season just around the corner, more businesses are catching onto the idea of a Holiday Pop Up Shop. These little businesses open around the Holidays spreading their marketing hard, then simply disappearing once the season is over. Halloween shops are found in strip malls, while Christmas gifts and gift wrapping businesses take advantage of this in small mall carts and little huts. They pop up out of nowhere, make a quick profit during the holidays then close shop.