With a mission to inform, empower, celebrate and advocate for British Columbia's current and aspiring business leaders, BCBusiness go behind the headlines and bring readers face to face with the key issues and people driving business in B.C.
Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/325830
66 BCBusiness July 2014 about products or services. Be helpful. Be relevant. Be interesting. Think of it as social media 'high-fi ves'—don't just look at it as a sales opportunity—it's all about relationship building." Essentially, your best brand ambassa- dors are those who are already engaged and motivated to talk about your brand—and you need to nurture that relationship. "The best way to get new customers is when you have your most loyal followers tell their network how great your brand is," says Edelman's Pea- cock. "Your best and most loyal custom- ers are more likely to forgive you if you screw up, as long as you make it right." Nurturing that relationship with your loyal followers can take a num- ber of diff erent forms: HootSuite, for example, gives its brand ambassadors discounts on its Pro membership and "ambassador swag" for those who orga- nize "HootUps"—meetups of HootSuite users to network and share best social media practices. And smaller busi- nesses, perhaps even more so, need to nurture that relationship too. Craig Boyd, co-owner of Precision Athletics, a small personal training and fi tness studio on Beatty Street in downtown Vancouver, says his team resources can't compete with larger fi tness chains; together with his business partner, Pepe Picco, he employs 10 personal trainers on a full- and part-time basis. Because his company is so small, his online rep- utation is one of his primary means of driving business to the club, along with their online training programs. "Get- ting ranked at the top of Google Places is always our priority," Boyd explains. In fact, he says, his company has managed to maintain top ranking for the search terms "personal trainer Vancouver." Boyd credits that ranking with posi- tive reviews from clients, though gar- nering those reviews isn't necessarily a straightforward process. He regularly holds contests for clients who post on Yelp and Facebook: those who write a review, positive or negative, are entered into a draw for a few gift certifi cates to local spas and restaurants, or a free month on their membership. The mul- tiple reviews keep his company name active before it slips in the rankings. "We used to be reactionary, but now we're proactive," he says. "Two to three times a year we run a review contest to get fresh reviews. "It doesn't have to cost a lot. You want perceived value—a free month of training, a $50 gift certifi cate. Com- pared to other forms of advertising, it's very cost eff ective. $100 isn't going to get me an ad anywhere, but 20 new reviews might boost my Google Places profi le to the number one spot." The trick is getting his fans to his Yelp page. Emailing the link directly to his customers will backfi re, as Yelp fi l- ters out reviews its algorithms deem to be potentially the result of solicitation. Instead, says Boyd, he encourages cli- ents to search for his business on Yelp on their own, and posts a Yelp link on his Facebook page. Boyd also publishes an e-newsletter and a blog (four of his staff contribute to the blog, and two contribute to the newsletter), and the company main- tains a lively Facebook page with the help of a social media expert—and while he doesn't have a team of staff to moni- tor every comment that Precision gets online, his tactic is to try to prevent the negative reviews in the fi rst place. "I think the amount of eff ort it takes to make a negative review, the user is only going to post if they're really pissed off . Your best response is to deliver good service. We try to address it in-house before they're angry." T he fact is, despite a company's best eff orts, a lot of consumers are still left angry—or at least, unsatis�ied—with their social- media interactions. According to a study released by Insights West in November of last year, one in three British Columbians said they used social media to criticize and complain about products or services—but only one in four was happy about how the grievance was handled. "It comes down to basic communi- cation skills," says SFU's Chow-White. "It's not just with the individual—other people are watching. How you brand yourself in terms of the image of your company is going to be affected by how you conduct yourself in public communication." The Insurance Corporation of British Columbia is one local organization that's put great eff ort into joining the online conversation about its brand. "We've been active on social media since 2006, when we started our YouTube channel," says Tracy Bains, manager of digital marketing for ICBC. "Being able to dia- logue with customers, that's been a key reason to be active in this space." For a while, they had just one staff member managing their social media. It was a problem, says Bains, as more and more customers began approach- ing ICBC via Twitter—particularly popu- lar with those who were under 25. "Our resource was tapped," says Bains. "That one person couldn't possibly know all the ins and outs of all the customer sce- narios that might crop up." Instead, the company shifted to a hub-and-spoke model in 2013, training nine staff members from digital mar- keting, customer relations and media relations to monitor, respond and pro- gram its social media feeds (one to two of those staff are on the feeds at any one time). "It allows us to really draw on their years of experience to resolve common questions and diffi cult ques- tions," says Bains. "These folks have been doing it year after year, so there's an opportunity for us to tap into that hive mind." Now, when a user tweets # ICBC sucks, someone from customer relations When a user tweets #ICBCsucks, someone from cus- tomer relations responds immediately. "We respond to anything, positive or negative," says ICBC's Kate Pasieka. "Even when people are swearing or starting out in a very negative vein, we sometimes see them turn around. Sometimes they're surprised we respond" on their own, and posts a Yelp link on When a user tweets #ICBCsucks, someone from cus- tomer relations responds immediately. "We respond to anything, positive or negative," says ber of diff erent forms: HootSuite, for example, gives its brand ambassadors discounts on its Pro membership and "ambassador swag" for those who orga- nize "HootUps"—meetups of HootSuite users to network and share best social media practices. And smaller busi- nesses, perhaps even more so, need to nurture that relationship too. Craig "Even when people are swearing or starting out in a very negative vein, we sometimes see them turn around. Sometimes they're surprised we respond" Join us at the year's highest-flying celebration! 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