Social Media Commerce For Dummies Book

Introduction 1

About This Book 1

How to Read This Book 2

Foolish Assumptions 3

How This Book is Organized 3

Part I: Prepping for Social Media Commerce 3

Part II: Adapting Your Web Presence 4

Part III: Casting for and Catching Customers 4

Part IV: Supporting Your Social Media Commerce Efforts 4

Part V: The Part of Tens 5

Icons Used in This Book 5

Where to Go from Here 5

Part I Prepping for Social Media Commerce 7

Chapter 1 Social Media Commerce and Your Bottom Line 9

Social Commerce Beginnings 10

Defining Social Media, Social Business, and Social Commerce 11

Making Money by Connecting with People 12

Changing Communication through Technology 15

From word of mouth to 1s and 0s 16

The end of the cold call 17

Adding social media to the mix 19

Creating Relationships with Your Customers 19

Creating a Social Media Action Plan 22

Chapter 2 Competing in the Social Media Realm 25

Big Advantages of a Small Business 26

Examining Big-Business Mistakes 28

A Motor City kerfuffle 30

Red Cross disaster recovery 31

Studying Success Stories 34

Finding out who has Klout 34

Social media reach for professionals 35

Growing a base for an online retailer 37

The "Bagel that won the West" goes worldwide 41

Stellar Twitter accounts 44

Finding the Time to Initiate Social Media Commerce 45

Hiring help 45

Doing your own social media 46

Chapter 3 Creating a Social Media Policy 47

Twelve Guiding Words 47

Determining Employee Guidelines 48

Establishing Clear Company Guidelines 51

Part II Adapting Your Web Presence 53

Chapter 4 Passive Engagement: Creating a Social Persona through Your Website 55

Getting Started with the Basics 56

Planning your site 56

Hosting your site 58

Putting together the pieces 59

Getting, Engaging, and Keeping Customers 65

Adding industry information 66

Selling and linking to products 68

Blogging for Your Business 69

Deciding whether to blog 70

Blogging successfully 71

Making blogging easy with free tools 72

Chapter 5 Active Engagement: Connecting Directly with Your Customers 75

Romancing the Customer 75

Understanding How Service Affects Sales 76

Educating Your Customers through FAQs 79

Connecting with Your Customers through Web Chat 81

Grabbing visitors quickly with SnapEngage 82

Setting up a customer service number through Google Voice 84

Making free calls with Skype 86

Chapter 6 Claiming Your Space on Review Sites 89

Amazon and eBay Lead the Way 90

Understanding the Effects of Peer-to-Peer Reviews 91

Three Review Sites to Watch 93

Yelp 93

Angie's List 95

New in town: Google+ Local meets Zagat 97

Handling Positive and Negative Reviews 99

Chapter 7 Knowing Where to Share Your Content 101

Posting on Facebook and Twitter 102

Posting Videos on YouTube 104

Developing Your Own Podcasts 108

Spreaker.com 109

Liberated Syndication 110

Sharing Your Photos 112

Using others photos from Flickr 113

Storing and editing in Google+ and Picasa 115

Part III Casting for and Catching Customers 117

Chapter 8 Finding Your Customer on the Social Web 119

Simplifying the Data Machine 119

Understanding Your Customer Demographics 121

Wolfram I Alpha 123

Zillow 124

Using Free Tools to Find Customers Online 125

Searching the competition through Alexa 130

Checking out your website data through Google Analytics 132

Getting insights from your Facebook business page 134

Big Online Numbers Don't Mean Dollars 137

Ranking your followers on Twitter 138

Unfollowing the excess 140

Chapter 9 Seizing the Social Media Conversation 143

Building a Community on Twitter 144

Tweeting for business 145

Choosing who to follow 148

Answering the "who should I follow back" question 150

Making Friends and Fans on Facebook 151

Facebook business page benefits 152

Finding friends (or fans) for your business page 154

Engaging and building your audience 156

Finding Other Social Media Sites 159

Google+: The online networking directory 159

Building a professional profile on LinkedIn 160

Chapter 10 Cashing In: Doing Real Business Online 163

Making It Easy for Your Customer to Do Business Online 163

Using Cost-Effective SaaS Cloud Services 166

Implementing real-time restaurant reservations 167

Booking personal services with a click 169

Boosting Your Web Presence with Apps and the Facebook Store 171

Website store integration without the cost or hassle 172

Building a store and adding apps on Facebook 174

Chapter 11 Building Revenue through Links and Deals 177

Helping Amazon Help You 177

Linking products from Amazon 178

Joining Amazon Associates 180

Touring the Associates site stripe 182

Making links and widgets 182

Pinning on Pinterest 185

Making it personal 187

Linking back to content 187

Joining a Local Social Platform: MerchantCircle 188

Chapter 12 Making a Direct Hit with Mobile 193

Making Your Site Mobile-Friendly 194

Developing Your Own App 197

Checking In by Mobile 199

Part IV Supporting Your Social Media Commerce Efforts 203

Chapter 13 Handling Customer Service without Picking Up the Phone (Well, Almost) 205

Handling Customer Service Issues Online 205

Participating in Customer Service, Social Media-Style 209

Defusing issues before they escalate 210

Posting publicly in social media 213

Building Your Own Community 215

Handling support issues with help desk tools 216

Helping customers is everyone's job 217

Chapter 14 Monitoring Your Online Reputation 219

Free Speech and the Law 219

Monitoring Comments with Google 221

Improving search results 221

Setting up Google Alerts 224

Listening in on Blogs and Twitter 226

TweetReports 226

Twilert 228

Social Mention 228

Samepoint 231

IceRocket 232

Chapter 15 Marketing in a Social Way: New Media Advertising 235

Building Sales through E-Mail 235

Commercial e-mail and the law 236

Less marketing and more connecting 238

Best practices for e-mail marketing 241

Targeting Your Audience on Facebook 242

Sponsoring posts and stories 244

Promoting through Facebook ads 249

Chapter 16 Improving Productivity with Apps and Widgets 251

Using Client Apps to Manage Twitter 252

Tracking Your Links with bitly 254

Scheduling Posts with BufferApp 256

Managing with HootSuite 257

Part V The Part of Tens 259

Chapter 17 Ten Ways to Build an Online Presence Now 261

Go to a Search Engine 261

Find Listings on Review Sites 264

Get Your Website Up to Snuff 266

Sign Up for a Facebook Business Page 267

Study Your Competition 268

Identify Your Community through Keyword Searches 268

Update Your LinkedIn Page 269

Promote with Friends and Associates 270

Schedule Social Media Time 271

Enjoy Social Media 271

Chapter 18 Ten Ways to Get Social Media Feedback 273

Crowdsourcing Your Following 274

Collecting Product Feedback on Twitter 274

Study Sentiment on Social Mention 276

Twitter Lists: Seeking Industry Experts 277

Creating Your Own Feedback Community 279

Adding a Survey to Your Website or Blog 279

Running a Poll on Facebook 280

Crowdsourcing a Video Focus Group 281

Crowdsourcing via YouTube Video 281

Asking and Answering Questions on LinkedIn 282

Glossary 283

Index 293