Tag Archives: Pinterest

How should your BPO be using social media?

July 18, 2016 by 123outsource
Categories: Social Media | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Do you use social media? Most of us do. Do you use it for your outsourcing outfit? Many people do. But, are you using it the right way?

Most companies engage in a lot of self-promotion, boring industry news, and don’t make an effort to constantly maintain their social media profiles.

Get a blog & then promote it on FB, TW, etc.
To do well in social media you need your own content in the form of a blog. You could have a forum if you have some serious industry players who like to interact on your medium as well. Then, you need a way to promote that blog such as a newsletter, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, or any of the other mediums. Despite all of the new kids on the block, I have never seen a social media platform perform even 10% as well as Facebook does when it comes to harnessing the power of clicks. Mark Zuckerberg — my hero! Another reason I like Facebook is that Mark Zuckerberg speaks Chinese as a second language and so do I.

Blogging from A to Z
The problem is that blogs don’t just write themselves. You need a constant supply of ideas every month. You should be publishing at least 12 articles a month. But, where will you come up with those ideas and who will do the writing? Next, you should ideally have some nice photos to put in the blog articles. If you write about how great your company is, nobody will be interested. But, if you take industry information, jazz it up and make it interesting, you might get some readers. Roughly 5% of your blog articles should be self-promoting. After you have gained a loyal following, you can try to sell them a little bit. But, honestly, the real selling happens when people are impressed by your level of knowledge and sophistication in your blogging. If you become a source or the source of industry specific information in your specialty — people will flock to you without any attempt to sell them anything. That is the secret. So, get writing my friends!

Facebook, etc.
Once you have some blog articles, the next step is to promote them. You can promote to existing clients via a newsletter. However, you also need to reach new prospects, and social media platforms are a great way to do this. My Notary directory gets tons of traffic from Facebook. I study what works well on Facebook and create more content based on that data. The problem is that it takes years to develop a good Facebook following even with paid advertising. We have been using Facebook since 2009 with amazing results, but it didn’t happen overnight or by accident.

Ideas for writing
You can write about what others in your industry are doing in the form of stories. Stories are fun to read and will gain you followers. You can write how to articles. Nothing is more popular to read than how to. Writing about what goes on in your office will help people get to know you before they ever talk to you. The closer people feel to you, the more likely they will actually use your service one day. Show photos of what you did on Valentine’s day, Diwalli, or Ramaddan, etc.

Is there a faster way?
Succeeding on the internet can be fast if you sell a product. But, competition for products is so bad, that your competition will be equally fast in putting you out of business. Success takes time and a lot of effort. But, it is also fun. So, start using social media for your business today!

Pimp my Tweet – a BPO company specializing in Twitter

September 16, 2015 by 123outsource
Categories: BPO, Social Media | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

I remember the MTV show long time ago called, Pimp My Ride. But, how come there is no agency that can help give tweets a makeover? Most people write boring tweets that could stand a lot of improvement. There are after all 140 characters and endless tag variations to work with. With all of this flexibility, why is it that most people can’t tweet? Even the biggest profiles that I follow that have over a million followers write very dull tweets. They tweet the title of their blog instead of working some magic out of it most of the time. And when they do rephrase the tweet based on some juicy internal content, it still isn’t all that.

Here is some sales literature from a fictional India based social media BPO company.

Pimp My Tweet BPO Pvt. Ltd.

Tired of the same old lame-ass tweets?
It’s time to put some style in your Twitter handle.
Here is what our experts recommend!

If the tweet don’t flow — then it must go
If the tweet ain’t hype, you must retype
If the link don’t fit, you must find wit
If you put your tag in the wrong spot—good job – Not!

For the dopest, phattest tweets around, come to Pimp My Tweet BPO.

(ring, ring)

SUJATA: Thank you for calling Pimp My Tweet BPO, this is Sujata, how may I help you?

CLIENT: Yes, my Tweets are quite boring actually. I was hoping that you could help.

SUJATA: Yes, we can help jazz up your tweets. Let me take a look…. (pause) Oh, I see the problem.

CLIENT: Were you able to take a look at my work?

SUJATA: Yes. It is not (pause) bad… But, it is too straight. You just tweet straight facts and basic sentences. You need to put some play in yo jive.

CLIENT: Wait a second. You are located in Bangalore, and you know 1970’s Bronx street slang?

SUJATA: Well, it’s actually a problem you see. If aunty ever finds out I work for a company whose title includes the name pimp, I’m in huge trouble. I have rehearsed what I’m going to tell her if there is a problem. It is a typo, and it was supposed to be “Pin My Tweet” — on Pinterest, you know. Aunty is used to typos, they make a lot of them where she works.

CLIENT: Got it. I know how that is. I was at a hamburger spot in Chennai called Mary Brown, and they spelled Mary like Marry which means to have a wedding, etc., if it has two r’s. Comical actually.

SUJATA: You sound like a character. Which makes you 139 short of a full tweet. Well Anyway, you basically need to put some strut to get out of your rut. Do some jive to get out of your hive, and most of all — don’t tag outside your territory, or that could cause a turf war.

CLIENT: Oh, you mean graffiti? Well, the internet isn’t like that.

SUJATA: I know that, but we are trying to appeal to New York Street sensibilities. Our clients grew up on the streets of New York. Generally on more affluent streets if they can afford us, but nonetheless they would be familiar with street culture.

CLIENT: The other companies can barely function in English, but you know our slang — at least the antiquated slang.

SUJATA: We aim(s) to please! And we’ll make your dull Twitter handle into the hippest, coolest, dopest account in Twitter history. Just give us a chance. We offer samples of our work for a low introductory offer. After that we have a contract for a monthly arrangement. 60 tweet revisions per month for one low price of rps3000 / month which is only about $60. And we have a viral surcharge. If any of our tweets go viral, we expect a generous tip.

CLIENT: You’ll get tips, referrals and more if you help me go viral. Thanks a bunch. I look forward to you guys pimping my tweets. Just don’t get up on my honeys.

SUJATA: Oh, no we wouldn’t think of it. And one more thing.

CLIENT: Yes

SUJATA: If you meet aunty on any subsequent trips to Chennai, please don’t mention that I work here. Let’s keep it between you and me. Can you dig it?

CLIENT: Yes, I dig.

Pinterest is really cool with the various boards & amazing pictures

May 13, 2015 by 123outsource
Categories: Social Media | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

I am always the last one to try a new social network. But, now I feel that my future depends on it. I want to be a social media expert, so I am trying new things. I am stumbling, pinning, posting, tweeting, and might do some snapping soon too.

Pinterest is cool
The thing I like about Pinterest is that you can create different boards. Other social media platforms don’t have this characteristic to my knowledge. Google lets you have circles for your followees, and Twitter lets you have lists. Facebook is complicated and someone else handles that for me. But, Pinterest lets you have interest specific boards in your account to post on. I fill these boards with great looking pictures that other people posted and then post a few of my own articles too.

Followers?
So far, after several very quick sessions on Pinterest, I have accumulated 14 followers! Wow. And 12 were in the last 24 hours. I think I’m on to something. I can’t say for sure, but it might be easier to attract followers on Pinterest than on any other network. I’ll have to do some real research and takes notes to be sure about that. It will be interesting to see if I get any clicks out of Pinterest as well.

More clicks please…
I would love a new source of clicks. The other thing I like about Pinterest is that it is not huge yet like Facebook and Twitter. The big accounts in my industry on other mediums have between 4000 and 50,000 followers. On Pinterest, they only have about 1000, so it will be easy to play catch up ball and overtake them! I love outdoing others!

I’ll keep my readers informed as to how my future in Pinterest goes. As a general rule, if you want your business to do well these days, try to do well on social media. It can really get you a lot of customers and some great exposure!

What is the best social media network to test your content?

September 14, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: Social Media | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Doing well at social media marketing is all about having great content. Popular content draws in the crowds and increases your interaction rate. Having lots of followers doesn’t benefit you on social media unless they interact, click, share, etc.

The problem is: what does well on one social network doesn’t always do well on other ones. Some social networks are more text oriented such as Twitter while some are more balanced between text and graphics like Google+. Others are much more photo oriented such as Stumbleupon and Pinterest. Putting aside the differences in networks, if you want to do well, you need to publish content that you know ahead of time will be popular. So, what is the trick?

Google+ is a growing network. They don’t have as many “active” members as Facebook or Twitter. My definition of “active” includes people who post several times a month, although Google+ has a high volume of members who visit their account at least once a month which is another metric of “active” that I don’t find useful. Google+ has less overall content on most topics that I am interested in. So, if you post on Google+, you might be a lot better off finding content that you obtained on a different network.

Finding Content
You can find great content anywhere. You can use Guy Kawasaki’s tips and use alltop, or some of the other content networks. I did not personally have good luck with these because their articles were not focused enough for my industry. You can Google article topic keywords. You can look on Twitter. Or you can make a long list of your favorite blogs and post their content and see what happens.

Testing Content
Being good at finding winning content is a very important part of the social media game. And yes, it is a game. Testing your content is the next stage of the game. How and where do you test your content? I recommend making a weekly list of one hundred or so articles that are very relevant or somewhat relevant to your industry or the interests of your followers. The only type of non-relevant content that does well with my networks includes travel articles with stunning pictures as almost everyone likes that. Make your list and then post these articles one by one.

Testing on Google+
I feel that Google+ is a great place to post really good content with stunning vertical photos. Photos that are horizontal, or that are not stunning tend to not add so much to the appeal of the post and don’t get that many more clicks than just publishing a really good article. Additionally, Google+ decides how many people to show your posts to. If you publish too many at once, they will not be seen by that many. You need to spread posts out on Google+, perhaps at least one hour apart for best results, even if you publish your posts on huge communities.

Testing on Twitter
I feel that Twitter is the best place to publish posts. If you publish more than two posts at the same time, you will lose followers quickly as they will be annoyed that you are monopolizing their feed. On the other hand, I had very good luck spreading test posts out every 3-10 minutes on Twitter. I got excellent feedback and did not lose hardly any members. It is not recommended to post more than 25 posts a day on Twitter or else Twitter will slow down how many profiles get introduced to your profile. However, if you did 33 posts a day for 3 days, or 20 posts a day for 5 days, you can test your 100 posts.

Analysis for Test Posts
After you post your posts, you can see which ones got favorited, shared, commented upon, etc. Keep a chart on paper or excel as to which posts got the most retweets, favorites, and comments. Guy Kawasaki puts the greatest value on retweets, while I feel that intelligent comments are more valuable as you can have a great dialogue and develop a much more close following with someone who interacts well. After you tally up the results for your 100 test tweets, pick your top five or ten and put them on Google+, Facebook, and your other networks. Please note that if you had content that performed in the top 20%, but is not on your top 5 list, but has a stunning photo, it will do better on Google+ because of the visual appeal, so you might add that to your Google+ publishing list.

Summary
By publishing only top, tried and true content, you will have a much more popular social media account. Additionally, you will save yourself the time of publishing junk on all of your networks. Yes, it takes time to test out content on Twitter, but once it is tested, you can use it on all your networks and you an use it more than once. Moreover, you can write your own blog articles based on topics that did well (that others wrote) that you published and learned were top performers on your particular network(s). Good luck!