Wednesday, 5 April 2017
Tuesday, 4 April 2017
#SproutChat Calendar: Upcoming Topics for April 2017
This April at #SproutChat, we’re talking about everything from measuring success across all social platforms to educating colleagues on personal branding best practices. Be sure to click the “add to calendar” links to add a meeting notice with all the Twitter chat details to your schedule.
Wednesday, April 5: Success Across Social Platforms
Many social platforms besides Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram have launched. But few have stuck around long enough to boast an active number of users or keep a brand’s attention. During this week’s #SproutChat we’ll analyze what success metrics look like across all major social platforms and talk about ways to ensure a consistent voice and tone across each touchpoint. We’ll also aim to answer the age old question: Does your brand need to allocate time to every network?
Add to Calendar: Outlook • Google • Yahoo • Outlook.com • Apple Calendar
Wednesday, April 12: Educating Your Colleagues on Developing a Personal Brand
Establishing your organization’s identity on social has undoubtedly helped you perfect your own personal brand. But what may seem obvious to a social media managers is a whole new world to other departments at your company. At this week’s chat, we’ll talk personal branding and how to convince leadership and colleagues that fostering a personal, industry-adjacent social community impacts a company’s bottom line.
Add to Calendar: Outlook • Google • Yahoo • Outlook.com • Apple Calendar
Wednesday, April 19: Managing a B2B Brand on Social With Sprout All Star, Alex Bimonte
On social media, consumer brands thrive. B2B brands on the other hand, have to be more creative about crafting content and targeting the proper audience. At this #SproutChat, Alex Bimonte, Social Media Manager at Modernizing Medicine, will share her best practices for successfully managing B2B brand on social.
Add to Calendar: Outlook • Google • Yahoo • Outlook.com • Apple Calendar
Wednesday, April 26: Metrics That Matter With Sprout All Star, Steph Nissen
Social platforms provide an array of metrics signifying success. However, not every data point can be directly attributed to your brand’s goals. So how do you sort through the numbers to present the important benchmarks? During this #SproutChat, Steph Nissen, Director of Digital at Atomic Revenue, will join us to talk about pinpointing the most valuable data and presenting it in a way that shows progress and makes sense.
Add to Calendar: Outlook • Google • Yahoo • Outlook.com • Apple Calendar
See you at our next #SproutChat or in our Facebook group!
This post #SproutChat Calendar: Upcoming Topics for April 2017 originally appeared on Sprout Social.
from Sprout Social http://ift.tt/2oyMhoP
via IFTTT
Monday, 3 April 2017
Sprout Social Receives 2 Top Awards in G2 Crowd’s Latest Software Report
Sprout Social was recently recognized by G2 Crowd as the Most Implementable social media monitoring software with the Highest User Adoption—two distinctions we are both honored and humbled to receive.
According to G2 Crowd, a product’s Implementation score is calculated by a proprietary algorithm that factors in real-user satisfaction ratings for a number of implementation-related review questions. They collect a minimum of 10 reviews and 5 responses from real users for questions regarding ease of setup, implementation method, average time it takes to go live, and average user adoption.
“Sprout Social scored greater than the category average in all of our implementation ratings, highlighted by an average ‘go live time’ of fewer than 10 days,” said Mitch Lieberman, Director of Research at G2 Crowd.
Sprout believes a successful implementation process starts with a strong foundation of superior, intuitive product design. We want our platform to be so user-friendly that customers can generally learn the platform and get familiar with our features by simply clicking through the software. As such, we have an industry-leading time to value, enabling a secure and customized platform deployment in a matter of days, not months.
As a company dedicated to customer success and creating exceptional experiences, it’s imperative that we also offer extensive, highly personalized customer support. Every single customer has access to our customer support team 24/5 across multiple channels, detailed trainings, webinars, and many, many more guided or self-service resources to ensure success in the platform.
In our culture of success, we consider our implementation process as part of a larger ecosystem of world class customer care. We’re thrilled that our customers, and in turn G2 Crowd, have recognized those efforts.
This post Sprout Social Receives 2 Top Awards in G2 Crowd’s Latest Software Report originally appeared on Sprout Social.
from Sprout Social http://ift.tt/2n52rpx
via IFTTT
The Email Blast is Dead: Here’s How You Should Really Connect with Your Audience
Give your subscribers content they love
Your subscribers join your email list to get something of value – an answer to a question, a solution to a problem, information or even entertainment. The more you give them, the more they’ll trust and rely on you. And once you’ve given them that value, they’ll be more likely to do something for you in return. In the book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, Robert Cialdini calls this the theory of reciprocity – when people feel indebted to someone who gives them something. Cialdini says, “The implication is you have to go first. Give something: give information, give free samples, give a positive experience to people and they will want to give you something in return.” There are quite a few ways you can give information and value to your subscribers. Once someone joins your list, send them your latest blog posts in a weekly newsletter or email automation series to provide valuable information. Or, consider giving people a free lead magnet or incentive in exchange for their email address. The benefits of this are two-fold. One, more people will fill out your sign up form. And two, it’s a great opportunity to kickoff your relationship with subscribers by giving them content they love. For example, AWeber customers often tell us they struggle with writer’s block and don’t know what to write in their emails. To resolve this problem for our audience and grow our list, we created What to Write, a free 7-day email course and guide that includes more than 20 fill-in-the-blank email templates. (Side note: If you want this course, I'm giving it away in your resource pack if you download it!)
After people subscribe for the course, the first email they receive includes the templates and guide we promised. But on top of that, we share two additional, relevant blog posts to give subscribers even more value. Bonus resource: Not sure what valuable content to give your subscribers? Download the bonus content for this post to get 25 Content Upgrade Ideas (That People Actually Want!)
Send targeted emails to segmented audiences
Sending the wrong message to the wrong person can really hurt your email engagement and your ability to build relationships with subscribers. It’s like a door-to-door steak salesman trying to sell meat to a vegetarian. Annoying? Yes. When you send irrelevant messages to a subscriber, they may feel like you’re wasting their time – which can lead to disengagement, unsubscribes and spam complaints. To avoid sending irrelevant emails, try segmenting your audience and sending them targeted messages. Segmentation is when your filter your subscribers into a group based on a unifying factor, such as their geographic location, interests, an action they took or skill level. This allows you to then send a targeted message by emailing relevant content to this segmented group. For example, Spartan Race Inc. sent me an email with the subject line, “Pennsylvania: Don’t Delay, Morning Heats Are Filling Up.”
Since I live in Pennsylvania, this email was relevant to me and immediately caught my attention. Once I opened it, the headline “Pennsylvania Ignite the Fire Inside” continued to address me on a personal level. This segmentation convinced me to open and read this email and likely increased engagement for everyone who received it. Bonus resource: Trying to figure out how to send personal messages? Download our resource pack to get a 7-day course that'll show you how to write more personal emails.
Welcome subscribers to your list
A welcome email is a message you create and set up to automatically send to subscribers when they sign up to your list. Welcome emails get four times higher open rates and fives times higher click-through rates compared to other emails. They're also an important part of building relationships with your subscribers and increasing engagement for future emails. In your welcome email, you should:- Thank your subscriber for joining your list
- Introduce your company
- Explain what kind of content they’ll receive from you
- Give them a lead magnet or incentive if you promised one on your sign up form
This email lets subscribers know they successfully joined his list, and sets the tone for future messages. Additionally, it gets people excited for his next email. Bonus resource: Get a free fill-in-the-blank welcome email template and 20 more templates when you claim the resource pack from this post!
Listen to your subscribers
One of the worst things you can do in any relationship is not listen. And this applies to building a relationship with your subscribers as well. Receiving and responding to feedback from your audience is an invaluable way to deepen your relationship with them because it allows you to send even more valuable content in the future. So how exactly can you get feedback? One way is to ask subscribers to reply to your email to share their thoughts, just as Thinkific does at the bottom of this newsletter:
Or, email your subscribers a survey. In the example below, Airbnb shares a survey with an eye-catching call-to-action button and mentions how easy it is to complete. 
Asking subscribers to give you feedback by responding to your emails or completing a survey are great ways to learn how you can improve your emails and offers. And when your emails are better, you’ll be able to build stronger relationships with subscribers. Once you receive feedback, however, make sure you listen and take action. Your subscribers will love you even more for it! Bonus resource: Ready to send your subscribers a survey to get feedback? There are a few mistakes you don’t want to make and guidelines you’ll want to follow. Learn all about them in our Survey Guide and Worksheet in the bonus content from this post.
Stop blasting. Start connecting.
Ultimately, there’s one rule you can follow to make sure your emails build connections with your audience: give them value. Your subscribers should love your emails so much that they’d never consider unsubscribing or marking you as spam. Instead, they should look forward to the next time one of your emails lands in their inbox. By delivering content subscribers will love, segmenting your audience, welcoming them to your list and listening to their feedback, you’ll avoid blasting your subscribers with emails they don’t want. Before you go, don't forget to download all the free resources from this post, like 20+ free email templates and 25 content upgrade ideas!The post The Email Blast is Dead: Here’s How You Should Really Connect with Your Audience appeared first on Email Marketing Tips.
from Email Marketing Tips http://ift.tt/2oBBRS3
via IFTTT