Author: Rallio

Social

How to Conduct a Social Media Competitive Analysis in 5 Easy Steps

Post author By Rallio
Post date March 30, 2021

When you’re working to build your brand on social media, it’s important to know what your competitors are up to. A social media competitive analysis will help you see how you stack up against them and identify opportunities to get ahead.

The purpose of a social media competitive analysis is to reveal both your strengths and weaknesses on social platforms, as compared to your top competitors. You can use your social media competitive analysis to:

Identify your primary competitors on social media
See which platforms they’re on and how they’re using them
Stack-rank yourself against your competitors
Do more of what’s working well in terms of content, ads and lead generation
Determine any threats to your business on social media, i.e., any potential ways your competitors might outperform you
Eliminate underperforming content and ads
Add in new content and strategies to strengthen your position on social media

With billions of people around the world using social media, a social media competitive analysis can become an indispensable weapon in your social media arsenal. Follow the tips below to get it done in five easy steps.

“In 2020, an estimated 3.6 billion people were using social media worldwide, a number projected to increase to almost 4.41 billion in 2025.” — Statista

Step 1: Conduct Keyword Research

First and foremost, you’ll need to identify the major keywords for which you wish to rank in search engines. Google AdWords Keyword Planner is a useful free tool for developing a keyword inventory and determining which brands you’re competing against online. Keyword Planner will help you:

Analyze your website for keywords
Conduct keyword research
Narrow down the best terms for your brand
Estimate the level of competition for those keywords
Obtain bid estimates for each keyword so you can set an ad budget
Refine search campaigns as keywords shift over time

Even if you don’t advertise with Google AdWords, Keyword Planner will help you ensure that your social media competitive analysis is analyzing brands that are actually competitors of yours.

You can furthermore enter those keywords into search engines to get a feel for your online competition. Try clicking through to their websites to locate their social media profiles, and make a note of these links in a spreadsheet (or your social media competitive analysis tracker of choice).

Lastly, make sure you enter these keywords into the social media platforms themselves. For example, enter a search term into the Facebook search bar and filter by “Pages” to see which businesses are associated with those keywords. You might find the results differ from the search engines, so it’s important to conduct both types of searches.

Step 2: Hone In on Your Audience

Head over to your analytics pages on the social media platforms for insights into the types of brands your ideal audience follows. If any of these brands are similar to yours, you might consider them to be competitors.

However, make sure you check out any given page itself, along with their website, to make sure it’s a true competitor. In other words, some pages may be irrelevant.

Limit your list of competitors to five of the top threats, so you can be thorough with your social media competitive analysis. This way, you can stay focused on the brands with which you’re most closely competing on social media.

Step 3: Be a Spy

Now that you have your list of competitors, it’s time to snoop around on them. Click over to their social media pages and make note of:

Their number of followers
Levels of engagement on their posts, such as likes, comments and shares
How frequently they post and at what times of day
The types of content they’re posting
Any ads they’re running, viewable in the Ad Library under the Page Transparency section
The calls to action they’re using, such as Learn More or Shop Now buttons

Throughout this process, you will find that your competitors might not be doing certain things, too. Let’s say they have a large following but low engagement rates — posts with little to no comments or likes, for instance. Maybe they’re not running any ads, or the quality of the posts is poor.

You can learn more about the types of quality content you should be posting, plus why you should be advertising, in this post.

Step 4: Dig In to Your Data

Now that you have all this data, what do you do with it? Analyze it, of course. Here’s where your social media competitive analysis really starts to take shape.

Note that in this step, you’ll be performing a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis based on your own internal factors. We’ve detailed the SWOT process in How to Do a Social Media SWOT Analysis and Amplify Your Results. It should identify:

Strengths — Anything you’re doing well, like posting local content and engaging with your audience when they comment, direct-message you or submit online reviews; account for metrics like higher rates of engagement and/or followers
Weaknesses — Anything that could stand to improve, like posting higher-quality content and replying to your followers anytime they engage; account for metrics like lower rates of engagement and/or followers
Opportunities — Based on the numbers above, any areas where you could stand to improve
Threats — Accounts for any anticipated changes that could impact your competitive advantage, such as competitor with a rapid rate of growth on social media

Step 5: Revisit Your Social Media Competitive Analysis

In order to keep your social media competitive analysis current, you’ll need to revisit it periodically to update the information. There could be new competitors who come on the horizon, or otherwise non-threats that transform into bigger competitors.

With the help of technology, you can make sure you’re posting highly relevant, engaging content and keeping track of the conversations around your brand. As you do so, you’ll pull ahead of the competition and find that your social media competitive analysis evolves over time.

Rallio’s SaaS platform includes one dashboard with one login for all your social profiles, where you can keep track of all your content, ads, engagements and online reviews. Our inbox/outbox feature pulls in all your incoming and outgoing content and conversations. By organizing all this information in one place, your social media competitive analysis will become easier and easier.

By repeating this process regularly, you’ll be able to continue refining your strategy and creating the best content for your audience. And you’ll likely find that your competitors are the ones trying to keep up with you.

Tags social media marketing

Social

4 Big Reasons You Should Outsource Your Social Media Marketing

Post author By Rallio
Post date March 26, 2021

As a business owner, eventually you may come to the realization that you can’t do everything yourself. Late nights, early mornings and a nonstop busy schedule catch up with you at some point. That’s when you might decide to outsource your social media and certain other responsibilities.

Why outsource your social media? The real question is, why not let the experts do the heavy lifting of curating, posting, advertising, and engaging with your social media content?

To give you a better understanding of what exactly is entailed with creating an impactful social media presence, we’ve outlined the basics of each step in the process. The key point to keep in mind is that posting on social media is no longer a “nice to have” for any business today. Your customers expect to be able to find you, engage with you, and report customer service issues on social media platforms. So it’s imperative that you do it right and deliver on their expectations — or they’ll head over to one of your competitor’s pages instead.

Curating Content

In order to have a vibrant, engaging social media page for your business, you need great content to put on it. Photos and videos featuring you, your team members, your customers and your community are all perfect types of content that you should be curating.

These real, authentic assets are what give life to your social media pages and distinguish you as a brand that people want to follow. It’s important you have someone dedicated to taking these types of photos and videos. It could be you or a team member — just make sure it gets done at least a few times a week.

Tips to make sure it gets done:

Put it in your calendar with a reminder to snap photos.
Make a habit of pulling out your phone anytime you have a workplace celebration or a special event at your business.
Delegate the task to someone on your team, and ask them to carve out time to take photos.
Create an employee advocacy program that gets your whole team involved in crowdsourcing photos. Rallio Activate allows you to set up employee logins on our mobile app, so they can upload photos, post them on their personal profiles, and even earn rewards.

Posting on the Major Platforms

Now that you have all that great content, what do you do with it? Get it on your pages, of course!

It sounds simple enough, but the truth is that many business owners simply get too busy to think about posting on social media. As important as it is, social media marketing might get pushed to the back burner if you’re busy with sales, hiring, inventory management, customer retention and other areas of your business.

Yet in reality, many other parts of your business can function more smoothly if you get your social media pages working the way they should be. We’ll get into that more in the next couple of steps, but for now let’s just talk about how you can make sure the assets you’re compiling are getting onto your pages.

Tips to make sure it gets done:

If you can’t do it yourself, delegate the work to the same person you’ve tasked with snapping photos and videos.
Again, use employee advocacy programs to outsource your social media “in-house.”
Use technology like the Rallio platform, and the Rallio Local team of social media gurus, to schedule your content ahead of time, compile your assets in one database, and keep track of your content calendar. In this way, you can outsource your social media to a technology platform.

Advertising Your Content

Don’t let all that hard work of curating and posting content go to waste. Make sure people actually see your posts by allocating ad dollars toward your content.

Every social media platform has advertising options to let you get your content in front of more people. That’s because having followers doesn’t equate to people actually viewing your posts. By advertising, you ensure more people see your content.

You can learn more about advertising in this article, but in the meantime, you’ll want to make sure you budget for ads.

Tips to make sure it gets done:

If you can’t do it yourself, delegate the work to the same person you’ve tasked with snapping photos and videos and posting your content. They’re already working with your assets, so they might as well promote your posts.
Engage the Rallio Local program to outsource your social media boosting and creation of ad campaigns.

Engaging With Your Audience

The final piece you need to make sure you have covered is engaging with your followers. As you curate, post and boost your content, you’ll hopefully get more people interacting with your posts. Their likes, shares, comments and direct messages shouldn’t be ignored, nor should their online reviews.

Tips to make sure it gets done:

Delegate the work to the same person you’ve tasked with snapping photos and videos, posting your content, and promoting your posts. The added benefit here is that they’ll get a good idea of what’s working and what’s not in terms of engagement, so future posts can get even better.
Engage the Rallio Local program to get help responding to your engagements and online reviews.

Ready to Outsource Your Social Media?

Looking over the steps above, by now you might be drawing the conclusion that you need someone dedicated to your social media marketing. You could do it all in-house, but then you have to consider:

If you delegate the work to a team member, that person might not be an expert in social media marketing. For example, asking your receptionist or human resources manager to handle your social media might not get you the results you desire.
If you choose to hire a social media manager, you’ll be taking on the responsibility of adding someone to the payroll.
Even if you hire someone, you need the right technology to streamline the process.

Now consider the flip side of bringing in the experts at Rallio:

You won’t be taking time away from other team members, and you won’t be in charge of the work yourself. Everyone can do the jobs they’re best suited to do.
You’ll pay one flat fee, and it’s customized to what you need in terms of technology and services, as well as how involved you want to be.
You can lean on our expertise to amplify your social media results, potentially leading to more leads and sales. Remember what we said earlier about other parts of your business running more efficiently with proper social media marketing?

As a top-ranked provider of social media technology, employee advocacy and local social media services, Rallio not only lets you outsource your social media, but also bring in the technology and team you need. If you’re ready to outsource your social media and focus on other parts of your business, contact sales@rallio.com and visit rallio.com.

Learn more: Should I Outsource My Social Media? 6 Questions to Ask Yourself

Tags social media management tools, social media marketing

Reputation

3 Tips for Responding to Your Online Reviews: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Post author By Rallio
Post date March 22, 2021

Getting a great online review for your business has a way of putting a spring in your step, doesn’t it? Whether your Love Language is “words of affirmation” or you just love to hear someone singing your praises, positive online reviews tell you that you’re doing something right. And most importantly, you’re making your customers happy.

Negative online reviews, on the other hand, have a way of ruining your day. It’s like if the waiter comes along and takes your plate away while you’re away at the restroom. “Oh, you were enjoying yourself there? Not so fast!”

In either case, it’s important that you respond to all your online reviews — both the positive and the negative. The more you engage with your audience and let them know you’re listening, the more professional, approachable and trustworthy you become. That’s especially true when it comes to negative online reviews. If you handle yourself with grace and avoid lashing out, you will come across as the cool-headed business that wants to solve problems and make things right.

Sometimes, particularly with negative online reviews, you might be unsure how to handle a review or find the right words. Even positive online reviews can be tricky; if your response lacks feeling and appears canned, it’s almost worse than saying nothing at all.

To help you hone your review-response skills, we’ve compiled some imaginary online reviews. With each one, you’ll see responses that fall within the “good, bad and ugly” range. Aim for the “good,” and your review responses will get an instant upgrade. Avoid the “bad.” And although it seems outlandish that anyone would venture into the “ugly” territory, we just never know, so we’re throwing it in there. If nothing else, it may give you a good chuckle.

The Thankful Patron

If you want to improve your responses to online reviews, the easiest place to start is by replying back to customers who like and appreciate your products or services. Oftentimes, business owners overlook these positive reviews, thinking, “Well, they’re happy! Nothing else to see here.”

In reality, customers want to hear from you even if their words are positive. In fact, they might actually be offended if you ignore them when they took the time to sing your praises. Imagine a great review going south just because you didn’t express your thanks!

Hypothetical positive review from Mark Smith: “We had such a lovely time dining at Marvin’s Steak House. The food was exquisitely prepared, the service was exceptional, and we never felt rushed to finish our meal. The entire experience was nothing short of magical. The to-go box even had a voucher for a free dessert on our next visit!”

Good response: “Mark, we are so thrilled you enjoyed your experience with us. In these challenging times for restaurants, it’s people like you who remind us of why we love doing what we do. We can’t wait for your return visit, and we promise to have a fresh tray of desserts ready for you.”

This response is personal, calling out specific details of the review. It shows that a real human actually read the review and took the time to respond — about the same time it took Mark to write it. Mark is going to hang on to that dessert voucher and hurry back in for a visit soon.

Bad response: No response at all. Or how about just “Thanks”? How quickly do you think Mark is going to hustle back to the restaurant?

Ugly response: “Glad you liked the service. Your tip didn’t really reflect that though, eh?”

The Irate Customer

Sometimes, you’ll get a customer who is upset about something that happened at your business. They may have a valid point, or they could just be overreacting. But whatever the case may be, this is your chance to act like the professional that you are.

Hypothetical irate review from Jane Painter: “This place is the worst. I needed help picking out a paint type for my ceiling, and the salespeople were either on their phones or talking to each other, paying no attention to me. I ended up leaving and going to the paint store across town. I’ll never be back.”

Good response: “Jane, we are so sorry you had this experience at our store. We really let you down when you needed our help, and we regret that you didn’t see the best version of us on that particular visit. We will be sure to address the customer service issues you mentioned with our staff, and we’re using your review to improve our service. We’d love an opportunity to make things right with you, if you’ll give us a second chance. We have a gift card we’d love to send to you, if you could please email [address] and let us know where to send it.”

Professional and reasonable, this response accepts responsibility and makes an effort to smooth things over. It’s up to the customer how they respond at this point, but in the public’s eyes, the business did everything they could to ask for forgiveness.

Bad response: “We are a high-volume store, and we don’t always have time for every little question. Our website has answers to a lot of FAQ. Next time, just get our attention!”

Yikes. Jane is about to fire off another negative online review about you now.

Ugly response: “lol if you don’t know how to paint, just hire someone!”

The Fibber, the Faker, the Turmoil Maker

Still other times, someone might flat-out lie in their online review. It’s frustrating, but it happens.

First off, if someone says something that just plain isn’t true, you may have some recourse with the review platforms. In some cases, you can ask that a review be removed if it contains information that isn’t factual. Check with individual platforms if this happens to you, and if necessary, follow their process for requesting that a review be removed.

In the meantime, while that process is underway, you’ll want to post a reply. It’s possible that your review will remain posted even if you go through the proper channels to have it removed. So just be sure you post a public response.

Hypothetical lie from Sarah Liesalot: “I tried to take a class at Sir Spins a Lot, and I was refused entry because I didn’t have shoes with me. The website says they rent shoes! What a joke!”

Good response: “Sarah, we regret that you left our facility with incorrect information. We do not rent out shoes, due to current health regulations in our county. Our website does not state that we rent shoes, and in fact, it states that bringing your own shoes is a requirement for entry. This information is also stated in our waiver, which you signed prior to taking class. If you have any further questions about our policies and procedures, please reach out to us directly at [email or phone].”

By sticking to the facts and avoiding the “liar” label, the business educates both the reviewer and the public. New students will be more likely to bring their own shoes, and Sarah will either do so the next time or avoid the business in the future (win-win).

Bad response: “You’re a liar. We don’t rent shoes. Nowhere on our website does it say that we do. You signed a waiver stating you would bring your own shoes. How about you read the waiver before you sign it, hmm?”

Name-calling and being confrontational only makes you look bad and further aggravates the customer.

Ugly response: “Nope. We don’t rent shoes, lady. Show me one place on our website that says this. Yeah, I don’t think so!”

Online Reviews Are a Delicate Matter

One final thought about responding to online reviews: Some people will never be happy, no matter how accommodating you are. Avoid getting into back-and-forth word battles, which are ultimately losing efforts. Do your best to resolve any issues quickly and professionally, and invite the customer to take the conversation offline if needed.

Knowing how to respond to your online reviews is one of the most valuable skills you can attain as a business owner. By the way, the same goes for any direct messages and comments you receive on social media.

Your customers are already using social media and review platforms as customer service channels. They expect quick responses to complaints, and they also expect quick responses to compliments.

If you lack the time to handle this kind of volume of incoming messages, consider letting Rallio do some of the heavy lifting for you. Our dashboard pulls all of your comments, reviews and messages into one central inbox so you can easily see and respond to them all. We also have Social Strategists who can do the responding for you through our technology, if you would rather get an expert eye on your reviews.

Head over to rallio.com to see how it works and request a demo. And if you like, send us a message. We promise our response will fall in the “good” range — and steer clear of the ugly.

Tags online reputation, online reviews

Social

3 Marketing Lessons From the Pandemic: One Year Later

Post author By Rallio
Post date March 16, 2021

If you’re looking for marketing lessons from the pandemic, you don’t have to look far. Just one year ago, businesses were forced to adapt to lockdowns, closures and a new way of doing business. Those that have survived are using marketing lessons from the pandemic to continue growing and staying resilient despite tumultuous times.

With the initial cuts, layoffs and closures behind them, many businesses are using the marketing lessons to better their businesses. With the help of marketing and technology, business owners have been able to continue providing their products and services to customers. Hang on to these lessons as you move forward and plan for a brighter 2021.

Lesson #1: You Need to Go Digital

With the pandemic, there’s been an increased demand for online shopping, contactless pickup and delivery, and “buy online, pick up curbside/in store” ordering experiences. Businesses that did not previously offer these types of buying options have had to add them into their processes. Consumers not only expect them now, but they’re also critical to your bottom line.

Even businesses that don’t rely on retail purchases have had to rely more on digital offerings. Fitness clubs, concert venues, art galleries and other brick-and-mortar entities found that livestream and on-demand experiences let them swing open their digital doors, if not their physical spaces.

By meeting your customers where they are, so to speak, you’re able to identify any weaknesses in your businesses. Maybe you’ve had to upgrade your ordering processes, implement an ecommerce system or develop an app for your business. Whatever the case may be, giving your business much-needed upgrades can only be good for your bottom line.

Lesson #2: Communication Is Key

With in-person interaction being more limited during the pandemic, businesses have had to communicate more frequently through social media and other online technologies. The use of social media has become particularly important, with people turning to their feeds for information and entertainment from business’ social media pages.

Moreover, they’re finding out basic information such as hours of operation from “near me” searches. This means it’s imperative that businesses have their directory listings up-to-date with details on hours of operation, in-store or curbside buying options, and health and safety guidelines.

No matter what kind of business you have, the pandemic has made it clear that maintaining an up-to-date online presence is critical to your survival. If you’re not already updating your social media and keeping your directory listings current, people will go somewhere else — somewhere that’s making life easier for them.

Lesson #3: Keep It Real in Your Campaigns

There’s nothing worse than a tone-deaf marketer failing to see the reality of the world around them. The pandemic has taught marketers to stay in touch with the current situation while looking for ways to market their brands.

An example of being tone-deaf might be showing images of people gathering in large crowds in the height of the pandemic. On the flip side, showing clips of people videoconferencing with friends and family from home is an example of keeping up with the times.

Another way to “keep it real” is by posting hyper-local images of people and customers from your location. They can be photos and videos that you snap yourself, those that your employees snap if you utilize them as employee advocates, or those from social media influencers. These are the kinds of authentic images your followers want to see and interact with.

This marketing lesson from the pandemic applies even if in the absence of a global health crisis. Marketers who are sensitive and in touch with people’s current realities appear more trustworthy and relatable. Those are the brands people will remember long after the pandemic is gone.

It’s a real opportunity to uplift others instead of focusing on selling. The end result could very well be increased sales simply because people like and respect your messaging. See how that works?

Let the Marketing Lessons Carry You Forward

This month marks one year since the pandemic changed our world forever. The marketing lessons learned since that time will stay relevant in the months and years to come.

Perhaps the most important marketing lesson of all — one that overarches all the others — is that it’s necessary to establish trust, transparency and relevancy with your audience. You can never go wrong if that’s your guidepost for every marketing campaign.

And while there are many other marketing lessons to be gleaned from the past year, we want to leave you with the above three. They’re so critical to your success that it’s imperative you focus on implementing them right away. We’ve helped hundreds of business owners thrive during the pandemic using our SaaS platforms and local social media solutions.

At Rallio, we have an entire suite of technology applications designed to help you manage your entire social media presence. Whether you’re a franchisor with multiple locations or an independent small-business owner, we have the right technology to meet your needs, which may include:

Getting more online reviews
Responding to online reviews, social media engagements and direct messages
Updating your directory listings quickly across the web, in just a few clicks
Posting local content on your social media pages
Increasing your following
Keeping track of your analytics so you know what’s working and what’s not

To find out more and schedule a demo that walks you through our various solutions, start at rallio.com or email sales@rallio.com.

Further reading: Why You Need to Keep Up Your Marketing Despite the Coronavirus

Tags coronavirus, social media marketing

Social

Boosted Posts Vs. Facebook Ads: How It Works and Why You Should Advertise

Post author By Rallio
Post date March 12, 2021

Advertising on Facebook and other social media channels helps you to build brand awareness, generate leads and grow your following. If you’re not familiar with boosted posts and other types of ads, this article will help you understand how it works and why you should consider doing it for your business.

Why advertise on Facebook? As we discuss in this article:

When you have a business Facebook page, the content you publish doesn’t necessarily get seen by all your followers. Even people who have chosen to follow your page might initially see your content organically, but they won’t continue to see it unless:

You regularly post engaging content that interests them and inspires them to interact with it; and
You pay to get it seen. Yes, Facebook is a “pay to play” platform.

This winning combination of great content, coupled with ad spend, increases the likelihood of making your content visible in newsfeeds.

Boosting is a form of advertising that differs from Facebook ads, and each ad type has its own unique objectives. Let’s review the basics of each so you can decide when to boost and when a different kind of Facebook ad might be more appropriate.

Boosted Posts

With boosted posts, you take a post from your page’s timeline and pay to expose it to an audience of your choosing. You can also create a new post and click “boost” instead of “publish” to boost a new piece of content.

You can think of boosting as the simplest way to advertise your content. You can customize your boosts for various goals — such as boosting website traffic, getting more calls or messages, or getting more leads through fillable forms.

Once you boost a post, it will show up in your audience’s newsfeed as an ad. You can also choose Instagram as an ad placement for a boosted post.

To boost a post, you’ll need to know:

The target audience you want to reach
Your max budget for the course of the campaign
The duration of time you want to run your boosted ad

Boosted posts are ads in the sense that they require an advertising budget. However, there are some differences between boosted posts and other types of Facebook ads you should know. For starters, boosted posts are not created in Ads Manager and don’t have all the same customization features as a Facebook ad. Still, they can be quite effective at boosting brand awareness, increasing engagement and follower count, and showcasing the personality behind your brand via local content.

Facebook Ads

Because they’re created in Facebook’s Ads Manager, Facebook ads provide more advanced customization and placement options. You may choose to select placements in side ads, Messenger ads, Instagram Stories, instant articles and Audience Network. In addition, you can customize the look and feel of your ad with various formatting solutions.

Lastly, you’ll have advanced targeting capabilities. While boosted posts allow you to choose interests, age and gender for your ad targets, Facebook ads also let you create overlapping audience types, lookalike audiences and more.

Note that with Facebook ads, in addition to some of the more advanced features, you can use retargeted ads to reconnect with certain users who have already shown an interest in your product or service. These might be people who interacted with your brand in some way, either on or off Facebook, including those who have:

Interacted with your Facebook page or Instagram page
Shared their email with you and joined your customer list
Watched your videos
Engaged with your Facebook events in some way
Viewed or interacted with your website

Learn more: The Difference Between Boosted Posts and Facebook Ads

When to Boost Versus Use Facebook Ads

Both boosted posts and Facebook ads should have their place in your advertising budget. Boosted posts are great for quickly exposing a post to more people in newsfeeds than you would organically.

Oftentimes, it’s best to boost high-performing, hyper-local posts that have already earned engagements such as comments, shares, likes and clicks. Other goals might require you creating an ad in Ads Manager.

When you create an ad on Facebook, the app will help you choose your ad type based on your goals, such as:

Get more leads
Get more bookings
Get more messages or calls
Get more website visitors

This takes some of the guesswork out of knowing which type of ad to use.

New to Facebook Advertising? Jump Into Boosting

If you’re new to Facebook advertising, boosted posts are a great place to start. It’s fairly simple to get started with boosting and start seeing results quickly, and it’s especially effective for newer pages that want to increase their following. Once you have more likes on your page, the more advanced ad tools might make more sense in tandem with your boosting campaigns.

With any type of Facebook ads, you’ll need to set up an ad account for your business page to start boosting. Then you can pick which content you want to promote, such as:

Real photos or videos from your location, including the owners, employees or customers, behind-the-scenes content and other authentic, hyper-local posts
Events you are hosting at your location
Job postings if you have them
Photos or videos of anything new at your location

Once your boosted posts appear in newsfeeds and earn engagements, your page will be deemed more “relevant,” meaning it’ll become more visible to your followers as well as their friends and people who aren’t following you yet.

General Guidelines for Boosted Posts

To further amplify the results of your boosted posts, follow these guidelines:

Avoid text-heavy posts. Facebook might reject your ad or limit its exposure if you have too many words. (Read this article to learn more.)
Be as specific as possible when choosing your audience. Make sure your audience includes people who are likely to engage with your content based on their location, gender, age or interests.
Limit the duration of your ad to five to seven days to avoid having your post decline in performance.
Continually monitor the performance of your ads throughout your campaigns. Make any necessary tweaks to better target the people you want to reach.

Be sure to check out our Social Spots video, featuring our pal Roscoe, for a quick breakdown of Facebook boosting. Need some extra guidance and the right social media technology to help automate and manage your social media marketing, visit rallio.com and request a demo to view all your options.

Tags social media marketing

Social

Content Writing 101: How to Write Emails, Headlines and Captions That Get Results

Post author By Rallio
Post date March 6, 2021

Content writing is an art and a science. The art comes in the form of beautiful imagery and word wizardry. The science comes in the form of carefully crafted phrases, written in just the right combination of characters.

Even the greatest email promotions of all time won’t get opened without a great subject line. The most engaging photos fall flat on social media without thoughtful, engaging captions. And even the most articulate of prose won’t be read without an intriguing headline.

Staring at the screen and scratching your head won’t magically allow words to materialize on the page. Throwing together a careless email, caption or headline is a quick way to lose out on readership. So why do the words on a page or a screen matter so much? And how can you improve your content writing skills?

Content Writing 101

The goal of any marketing piece is to inspire a reader into action. There can be all kinds of different actions you want from your audience, such as:

Open an email
Click on a link
Share your content with friends
Read your article and take various actions based on the content
Follow you
Revisit your content because it’s just that great

These are just a few examples of actions your readers might take when you have well-written marketing messages. The way you word your emails, captions and headlines can help you guide your readers toward the desired action. Your content writing should be a reflection of the various marketing goals you have.

If you tend to get stuck trying to put together attention-grabbing subject lines, headlines and social media captions, just know you’re not alone. Even seasoned writers get writer’s block. Plus, marketing messages are tricky — you could lose your reader before they’ve even opened your email, for example.

The good news is that you can get better at content writing with practice. Our tips below will start you off on the road to compelling emails, headlines and social media captions.

Email Subject Lines

Quick — check the number of unopened emails in your inbox. Is it 10? 100? 10,000? The fact is, many emails sit unopened or get deleted simply because the subject line wasn’t enticing enough.

There are many different ways to structure your email subject lines in order to get people to open them. The style you choose depends on the goal of your campaign as well as whether you have an existing relationship with the customer or prospect.

Informational — Straightforward, no-nonsense subject lines are used to convey important information such as order updates, shipping notifications, a privacy notice or other details that are specific to that user. Example: “Your order has shipped”
Funny — A well-placed quip or play on words can help your email stand out from the crowd. Example: “Our eggs are hard to beat” for a breakfast restaurant.
Attention-grabbing — Used sparingly, shock value can spice up your subject lines, but proceed with caution. Avoid offensive or incendiary language in favor of intriguing text that makes a reader pause and want to open the email. Example: “Just give up” to promote a coaching program that helps people give up refined sugar.
Short and sweet — A single word or just a few words make your subject lines easy to digest in an overcrowded inbox. Example: “Be brave” for a seminar featuring a prominent author.
Numbered — Our brains are drawn to digits, so anytime you throw a number into an email subject line, it’s more likely to draw attention. Example: “10 signs you’re a 90s kid.”
Personalized — Great for remarketing and local offers, personalized subject lines work well for targeting people who looked at your products or services but didn’t buy, or for attracting your local audience. They can also tap into the “scarcity factor” for people who don’t want to miss out. Example: “Last chance: This offer won’t last” or “Your cart is calling” for abandoned carts; throw in a discount code to encourage the user to return to your site. Note: You can also use names to personalize emails, but avoid overuse as these emails may be viewed as spam.

A few final thoughts on email subject lines:

Use A/B testing to try out different subject lines as well as variations on initial caps/no caps with your text. Your open rates will tell you what works best with your audience.
Don’t go overboard on your character count. Around 50 characters or fewer is a good guideline.
Write several different subject lines before settling on the one or two you like. Again, you can A/B test different versions.

Headlines for Blogs, Website Pages and Marketing Materials

Many of the same guidelines used for email subject lines apply to headlines, too. Like your subject lines, your headlines are one of the first things people see if they’re viewing your blog or website, or if they’re seeing a link preview on social media.

According to CoSchedule, eight out 10 people will read a headline, while only two out of 10 people will click through. That means your headlines need to grab their attention right away in order to give your content a chance of being read.

To get started with headline writing, walk through the steps below. Above all, commit to doing a lot of headline writing before you decide on the one you’ll use for any particular piece of content.

Take a look at the headlines on some of your favorite articles you’ve read. Which words drew you into the article? Write down the words or numbers that caught your attention.
Write down 10 to 20 possible headlines for your content. Walk away for a bit and let your list sit. Take a literal walk if needed. Come back with fresh eyes, and cross out any headlines you immediately know won’t work. Now choose your top five.
If you have a writing team, float your headline ideas to them and see which ones they like best. If you don’t, that’s OK, too. Pick your favorite and publish your post.
Now you can test out different versions of your headline on social media. Tweet out your article using both the published headline and some of your alternates to see what kind of traffic you get.

The process above is a great way to get started with headline writing. The more you practice, the better you’ll get, and the more you’ll understand what resonates with your audience.

Learn more: 73 Easy Ways To Write A Headline That Will Reach Your Readers

Social Media Captions

And now for social media captions. The captions you write will vary based on the intention of the post. An inspirational, “straight from the heart” post might be longer than a video post that relies more on people viewing the video than reading your caption, for example.

The advantage of social media marketing is that you have more of a “complete package” to present to your readers — with engaging visuals that capture their attention as they scroll. Captions also make you more discoverable because you can incorporate hashtags that help people find you.

Again, the more you write captions, the better you’ll become at it. Follow these guidelines as you write:

Identify the “why” behind your post. Is it to create a connection with your readers? Do you have a specific action you want them to take? Do you want to showcase your personality? The words you choose should reflect the intention of the post.
Encourage interaction by asking open-ended questions. Imagine sitting down with a friend and chatting. Be conversational so your audience is more likely to post their replies. A photo of your green smoothie becomes instantly more engaging if you ask, “Is it just me, or do green smoothies taste better when the sun is shining?”
Include calls to action sparingly. Not every post should ask your readers to take action. How irritating is it to see a brand constantly ask you to “click here” or “download this”? Instead, sprinkle in these posts amid your inspirational, entertaining or informative posts — which should comprise the bulk of your content.

Learn more: 7 Tips for Creating Engaging Social Media Captions

The More Content Writing You Do, the Better You’ll Get

Not every single thing you write is going to be award-worthy, and that’s OK. Content writing takes trial and error and lots of practice. Over time, you’ll get to know your audience and how they respond to your content, and you can make any tweaks along the way.

Make sure you’re regularly reviewing your analytics to see how your words are landing. Rallio’s SaaS platform helps you pull in insights from various platforms and see how your content is performing. To see how it works and request a demo, head over to rallio.com.

Social

3 Steps to Knock Your Product Launch Out of the Park on Social Media

Post author By Rallio
Post date February 22, 2021

It’s the moment you’ve been waiting for — you’re finally ready to launch your product. Whether you have a brand-new startup or a seasoned business, the success of your product launch depends largely on how you market it.

Social media plays a huge role in whether your product launch will be a major success — or a total flop. Among the many mediums available to enable consumers to discover new brands, social media gives your brand exposure to people who otherwise never would have heard of you — all while they’re casually scrolling through their feeds.

It’s not unlike TV advertising in that people who might be simply watching their favorite show suddenly get interrupted by an ad that catches their attention. Self-cleaning toilets? Brow growth serum? Personalized vitamins? Throw out an ad to the right audience at the right time, and suddenly people start to think that’s a product they need in their lives now.

According to Global Web Index: “TV ads lead the field when it comes to brand discovery, cited by 36% of our respondents as the main way they find out about new products and services. But TV is even more important than this figure implies because, unlike search engines, it doesn’t rely on any existing need or interest in the product or its category.”

Now, consider the ways that social media mimics TV ads: “To some extent, brand discovery on social channels resembles the linear, semi-random nature of TV ads, which are interwoven throughout the content,” notes GWI. “By using social media and online display advertising, direct-to-consumer brands are reproducing many of the top strengths TV has enjoyed.”

Indeed, the nature of brand discovery has changed over the years. The numbers of people finding brands through recommendations or comments on social media, along with updates on brands’ social media pages, has been slowly climbing, says GWI. Take a look at the numbers:

Cost-effective, scalable, and readily able to connect directly with consumers, social media has the distinct advantage of immediacy over other mediums. See an ad for a product that catches your interest, and you can tap on it, maybe even purchase it on the spot from your phone.

TV is starting to integrate this kind of interactivity, too — with QR codes and interactive experiences making their way onto people’s TV screens. However, there simply isn’t another medium like social media that lets you see what your friends are liking, sharing, commenting on, and talking about in their posts and stories. Nor is there any other medium that lets you talk directly to followers and prospects via comments, direct messages and online reviews.

Get Your Product Launch Right

As you can see, social media needs to be an integral part of your product launch plans. Ignore social media, and you’re ignoring an opportunity to make your brand a household name with your target audience. And if you’re too hasty or fail to think through your product launch strategy, you risk having your message get lost in the crowd.

With our steps below, you’ll ensure your product launch is successful and propels you into growth.

Step 1: Create a content calendar that maps out your product launch timeline.

With all the moving parts that go along with a great social media marketing strategy, it’s essential that you organize everything in one central calendar. This way, you can stay on track as you march toward your launch date and make sure your entire team knows what content is needed and what kind of deadlines you have. Some of the things that should go on your content calendar include:

Product photos and explainer videos
Product descriptions for your website
Social media captions for various platforms
Email campaigns announcing your product launch
Ad copy with calls to action
Blog posts about your product
Pay-per-click advertising
In-store or online events

Assuming you aren’t going to handle all of the above yourself, make sure you have a team prepared to tackle these tasks. If you can’t or don’t want to hire a team, be willing to outsource the work. Rallio also gives you the technology needed to automate and organize your social media marketing in one central dashboard.

Step 2: Create a buzz.

Leading up to your launch, your social media should get people excited about your new product. Phrases like “coming soon” and “stay tuned” should be a regular part of your social media vernacular.

At the same time, maintain a sense of mystery. Don’t give away all the details, but rather hint at what you have in store. Countdown posts, product previews, stories, Reels, giveaways and contests are great ways to give a glimpse of what’s to come.

Contests and giveaways (with clearly spelled out terms and conditions) can be particularly effective at building engagement. Ask your followers to like, comment and tag friends to be entered to win your product, and you’ll quickly extend your reach to new followers. Just don’t forget to set a deadline to enter and pick a winner!

Step 3: Run social ads.

First, some background on the current state of social media advertising. Apple is rolling out privacy changes in iOS 14 requiring users to opt in to ad tracking across different apps and websites. Google is weighing a similar option for Android devices.

In response, Facebook has now announced plans to prompt users to opt in to ad tracking in order to have more relevant ads served up to them and “to help people make a more informed decision.”

Apple says it wants to provide privacy; Facebook thinks it can provide both privacy and personalized ads. If you look at the growth of Facebook ad revenue over the past few years, you can see that Facebook has a vested interest in maintaining its advertiser base:

Rather than panic about the changes, it’s important to take control as an advertiser. Here are a few things you can do to optimize your campaigns without relying entirely on the Facebook tracking pixel:

Run web-visit and lead-ad campaigns. Use your website’s internal tools to track whether a conversion occurred as a result of your Facebook ads.
Work in reverse, too. Capture leads on your website by requiring users to provide their email address in order to move through the sales funnel. You can then upload that information into Facebook to create a custom audience for your ads and remarketing purposes.
Explore advertising possibilities on other platforms like LinkedIn, Google and Bing.
Build relationships with your followers so they begin seeking out your content. Be hyper-responsive to their comments, direct messages and online reviews. The more you engage with them, the more they’ll engage with you.
Use employee advocacy to get your employees involved in sharing your content. When they share content on their personal pages, it’s more likely to be seen and engaged with than content from a business page. Our Rallio Activate employee advocacy platform is the exact solution you need to address any seismic changes to Facebook advertising. See it in action here with our client Pet Supplies Plus.

Get Excited About Your Product Launch

There’s a lot of work that goes into getting a new product to market. With the help of social media and the right technology tools from Rallio, you can make sure you hit the launch out of the park.

Before, during and after your product launch, keep track of your progress toward the KPIs you’ve set. Make any necessary adjustments to ensure you’re building excitement, growing your following and meeting your sales goals.

Once the product launch is complete, don’t forget about all the hard work you put in. Keep in touch with your followers so you continue building a relationship with them. Over time, their loyalty will contribute to the success of future product launches.

Tags branding

Social

Small-Business Technology Roundup: How Rallio Can Help You Run Smarter

Post author By Rallio
Post date February 18, 2021

Technology has changed the way companies conduct themselves today, allowing for greater efficiency and fewer headaches in all areas of business. One of the fastest-growing areas of technology is digital marketing, something that all businesses need to familiarize themselves with in order to succeed.

Rallio’s small-business technology tools take the guesswork out of your digital marketing plan — helping you run smarter and meet your goals. Take a look at the various options we offer, plus the numerous benefits, and you’ll see why we’re the technology provider of choice for hundreds of business owners nationwide.

Consider the Possibilities With Rallio’s Small-Business Technology Suite

With social media, email marketing, search engine marketing, pay per click and more, digital marketing has expanded the ability for businesses of all sizes to spread the word. We live in a world where social media and internet usage is at an all-time high, especially as we continue to navigate through pandemic times. And for many small businesses, technology has saved them during these challenging times.

With digital marketing, businesses have multiple ways to communicate with customers and prospects even when they’re not seeing them face to face. Rallio simplifies the entire process with our award-winning suite of small-business technology platforms, including:

Rallio Dashboard

Have one centralized place where all of your brand assets live. Syndicate, publish or schedule social content to your entire brand or a subset of locations. View analytics, respond to reviews and engagements, run ad campaigns, and control your brand message from one dashboard with one login.

Rallio Local

Pair our dashboard with our Rallio Local services to free yourself up from some of the many responsibilities in running a successful business. In recent years, social media and reputation management have become critical items for your success. The Rallio Local team of social gurus will automate the process of creating ridiculously engaging, hyper-local content; make sure local targeted audiences actually see and engage with that content; and respond to all your social comments and online reviews.

Rallio Activate

Leverage the power of your employees to reach your customers like never before. With Rallio Activate, your employees become your built-in brand ambassadors. Create reward programs to your exact specifications, and incentivize your workforce to submit their own images and videos for brand content or share your message across their own pages.

Business Listings

With just a few clicks, you can manage your digital profiles across global business locations, reaching over 98% of consumers across top media channels. Promote your brand across social media, traditional search, mobile marketing and voice search. Deliver a more engaging customer experience by updating your imagery and logos. Instantly update your key business content across locations, and control and optimize your data across third-party digital platforms. Measure and optimize the channels that are impacting your customer acquisition, and improve your brand discoverability and search rankings across your brand.

Revv

REVV is an innovative service designed to help you increase your positive social reviews and reduce negative reviews while improving your overall brand reputation online through a one-question post-sale survey sent to recent customers. Our platform generates a quick post-sale text survey to your customers so they can provide feedback about their experience in your store.

Customers who respond positively are prompted to leave a review and linked directly to that store’s Google, Facebook or Yelp page. Watch your brand reputation increase, along with the volume of positive reviews for your stores! If a customer responds to your survey with a rating of 3 or below, they will be prompted to leave a comment and request further assistance. Your team is alerted via email of the poor experience, and the customer can be contacted directly before they post a negative review about your company!

How Rallio Small-Business Technology Helps Small Business

If you were to implement our suite of small-business technology platforms and services, the benefits go beyond having access to advanced digital marketing tools. Consider the many ways these platforms can help you in other areas of your business:

Customer service — The Rallio inbox pulls all your comments, questions, reviews and engagements into one central location. Because you don’t have to log in to multiple platforms, you’re able to get back to customers more quickly, handle any customer service issues, and respond to positive feedback to thank your customers for their business. Over time, this translates into greater overall brand loyalty and brand awareness.
Company culture — By getting your employees involved in your branding via Rallio Activate, you’re able to build morale and grow your company culture. Activate makes it easy to reward and incentivize your employees for helping to share their experiences with your brand.
Greater efficiency and productivity — Needless to say, our small-business technology streamlines and automates processes you might otherwise be doing manually. Think about the time savings involved with updating your business listings in a few clicks, easily responding to your customers and followers from one dashboard, and managing and scheduling your assets from a single dashboard that eliminates the need to log in to multiple platforms.
Greater engagement across the board — Rallio is all about “rallying” around brands and bringing people together. Our small-business technology suite is designed to get everyone — from executive teams to individual small-business owners — engaged in using technology to make life easier, more productive and more fun.

If you’re looking for smarter, faster small-business technology and services for your business, we would love to chat with you. Schedule some time on the calendar with us, and we’ll walk you through the best solutions for your needs.

Tags social media marketing

Social

How to Create a Culture of Employee Advocacy

Post author By Rallio
Post date February 13, 2021

You may have seen some of our recent articles on employee advocacy and how it can transform your team members into brand ambassadors. When implemented effectively, employee advocacy is, indeed, an effective way to spread brand awareness and broaden your impact on social media. Before you begin implementing an employee advocacy program, however, it’s important that you foster a culture of employee advocacy.

With this culture, your employees become willing participants in ambassadorship. A culture of advocacy will motivate employees to speak positively about your brand on social media. If you lack that kind of culture, they may be reluctant to share anything about your brand.

Why Does Employee Advocacy Matter?

Consider the ripple effect of creating a culture of employee advocacy, and you can see how important it is to foster this kind of environment at your company:

If your employees feel satisfied and engaged, they’re more likely to do great work. They’ll have good things to say about you, both internally amongst themselves and externally on their personal social media profiles.
If they post positively about your brand, their posts come across as believable and authentic, more so than your own branded content. Convince & Convert reports that a recommendation from a friend or family member makes 83% of Americans more likely to purchase that particular product or service.
Furthermore, if employees do great work, they’ll deliver an extraordinary customer experience by way of great products, great services and great customer support.
If your customers have an extraordinary experience, and if they see posts that are believable and authentic, they’ll be loyal to your brand — becoming brand ambassadors themselves.
If both your employees and customers are happy, they’ll continue spreading the word, extending your reach and engagement exponentially. You’ll gain new followers, new customers, and even new employees when you’re actively recruiting.

It’s one big happy cycle that you need to have working for you in order to experience ongoing success. Can you see how important a culture of employee advocacy is now?

A Culture of Employee Advocacy Starts With Education

If your employees aren’t actively advocating for your brand on social media, it doesn’t necessarily mean they don’t want to. In some cases, they may simply lack the proper language and knowledge to share confidently. In order to inspire confidence, provide them with the tools they need. Here are some key points to keep in mind:

Whether you’re onboarding new employees or working to educate existing staff, make sure you’re communicating your company’s core values and goals. Create internal programs that train your employees on your mission and vision, your product offerings and your competitive differentiators.
Remember, it’s not just your sales staff that needs this information; every single employee should understand what you stand for (so they don’t “fall” when trying to communicate about your brand).
The company’s “About Us” statement, which typically lives on your website and in any kind of communications about your brand, should be in writing and easily available to employees. Take the time to craft a company description that’s easy to understand and readily translated into talking points.
Live your mission by fostering communication between team members and their direct supervisors. Regular check-ins can help to encourage questions and clarifications as well as address any challenges that employees might be experiencing.

Use Technology to Your Advantage

Once you’ve adequately educated your team about your mission, values and goals, the next step is setting them up for success. It’s not enough to have a culture of employee advocacy; you also need to equip your employees with the best technology to streamline the advocacy process.

While your employees are naturally using technology already to post on social media, you can improve your results even more with a technology like Rallio Activate. With Activate, not only can your employees become brand ambassadors, but you can also create reward programs to your exact specifications. You’ll have the ability to incentivize your workforce to submit their own images and videos for brand content or share your message across their own pages.

Put another way, a culture of employee advocacy is necessary for your advocacy program to work — but incentivizing employees will give them even more of a reason to pull out their phones and snap a few photos.

Here’s how it works:

You incentivize employees with rewards programs that you create and collect assets into your brand’s image library.
Employees are able to submit their own photos and videos to earn points, as well as publish your brand-approved content on their personal profiles.
Your employees can take advantage of the available programs to start earning rewards. They’ll receive a push notification when a new program is available and reminders to participate before the program ends.

Simple as that!

To get an idea of how this process works for a real business, read through our case study we conducted with one of our clients, Pet Supplies Plus (PSP). Since the rollout of their limited mobile logins over two years ago on Rallio Activate, 3,395 PSP team members have been activated, equating to 173,513 images and videos submitted. Ultimately, these uploads have resulted in over 2,541,965 social media engagements (such as likes, comments, clicks and shares) from posts, which leveraged those assets that PSP otherwise would have not received.

If you’re curious how advocacy can work for your particular business, schedule a no-obligation demo to learn more. Just choose a spot on the calendar and we’ll make sure you get all the information you need.

In the meantime, why not start fostering a culture of employee advocacy at your company, starting with the guidelines above? You’ll be well on your way to a successful advocacy program and ready to make use of our technology for your own brand.

“Customers will never love a company until its employees love it first.” — Simon Sinek

Tags employee advocacy

Social

Top 5 Social Media Tips for Small Businesses

Post author By Rallio
Post date February 10, 2021

With our recent addition of Rallio Local for Small Business division at Rallio, we’ve been working with small businesses to help them optimize their social media pages. More often than not, we offer the same social media tips for small businesses over and over again.

Most small-business owners are so busy running their companies that they don’t have much time left over for social media marketing. Rallio helps them wear fewer hats and make a greater impact on social media. With our social media tips, technology and teamwork (hello, alliteration!), we’ve helped hundreds of business owners use social media to their advantage.

The following social media tips represent the five most common opportunities for greater success on social media.

#1 Post Local Content

Great social media marketers have local content at the forefront of their marketing efforts. As we discuss in this article: “The key element that makes local social media, well, local, is that it shows the real side of your business.”

Local posts consist of snapshots of the owners, employees, customers, product recommendations, how-tos, and other authentic-feeling images and videos.

It’s the difference between a post with a stock photo or a sales graphic versus a real photo or a video of a team member. When you see it, it’s instantly more relatable and engaging than something that feels like you’re being sold to.

Having local content on your page improves your engagement rates and reach with your target audience. As you post this content and boost it, you’ll ensure more of your content gets seen than it would with organic reach alone.

Make sure you:

Post real images and videos of your team, your products, your customers and your location.
Avoid stock photos.
If you’re a franchisee receiving corporate branded content, be sure you are also posting local content at least three or four times a week.
Read 31 Days of Social Media Content Ideas for more ideas.

Read the post: 7 Habits of Highly Successful Social Media Marketers

#2 Engage Your Employees as Brand Advocates

One of the fastest-growing trends in social media is employee advocacy, in which employees become loyal ambassadors for your brand. With more and more companies adopting employee advocacy programs, you might be wondering what types of content your employees should be posting for you.

Although branded content has its place, it should not be the bulk of what’s shared via employee advocates.

On the contrary, it’s the unpolished, unbranded types of content that will earn the greatest engagement on social media. This content showcases the authentic, human side of your business and is more likely to earn the trust and affection of your audience. Moreover, these types of content are more likely to be shared by your employees on their personal pages.

Own a coffee shop? The barista behind the counter will resonate more with your audience than a branded photo of coffee beans. It’s that simple. No matter what type of business you have, you need hyper-local content of your team members and their typical “day in the life” photos at work.

As employees post about your company on their personal pages, they’re doing more than just generating greater engagement for your accounts. They’re also actively contributing to the building of positive sentiment about your brand. The more that prospective customers and future team members see this content, the more they begin to view your company as likeable, trustworthy, and even socially and environmentally responsible under the right circumstances.

Read the post: The 4 Types of Content Your Employees Should Post for You

#3 Respond to Online Reviews

The cost of ignoring customer service issues can be huge. Nothing will tarnish your online reputation faster than reviews without responses from the brand, comments and messages that get ignored, and poorly crafted responses to customer questions or complaints.

Your response time matters, too. Consumers expect rapid answers — just as rapid as if they picked up the phone and called. Within minutes is ideal if you have the bandwidth, but you should at least be responding within 24 hours.

With a system for responding to customer inquiries, you can handle their requests quickly and build customer loyalty. You’ll also make it known that you’re a trustworthy brand when you post public responses to reviews, questions or complaints.

Read the post: 4 Social Media Marketing Lessons Learned in 2020

#4 Outsource Anything You Can’t Do Yourself

Here at Rallio, we’re on social media all day, every day. We live, breathe, eat and sleep social media. That’s because it’s our business to do so — just as it’s your business to live, breathe, eat and sleep your own business.

So if you’re busy running your own business, it’s likely that you don’t have the time to manage your social media. You also might not particularly want to manage this task, much less become an expert in it.

That’s all OK, because when you outsource, you can hire people who are experts in social media like Rallio. You don’t have to waste time or resources on something that draws you away from your core functions as a business owner.

Rallio, an Entrepreneur Top Franchise Supplier and an Inc.com fastest-growing company, has earned nationwide recognition for its service of the franchise sector, from corporate down to the franchisee level. With its new Rallio Local for Small Business division, Rallio is able to lend its expertise to small businesses that are independently owned and operated.

Read the post: Should You Outsource Your Small-Business Social Media? 4 Compelling Reasons It Makes Sense

#5 Use Technology to Automate

Rallio’s solutions include a social media management platform where users can access and manage all their social media accounts, in one central dashboard with a single login. Along with a mobile app, the platform enables clients to upload and schedule content, implement employee advocacy programs, reply to comments, messages and reviews, and much more.

Basically, Rallio makes small-business social media management a much smoother, easier process. Rather than having to log in to multiple platforms with different logins, you can simply log in to your Rallio Dashboard.

You’ll also avoid letting anything slip through the cracks like a negative customer review or an important sales lead. Everything will be in your inbox to review and respond to.

Read the post: Should You Outsource Your Small-Business Social Media? 4 Compelling Reasons It Makes Sense

Want More Social Media Tips? Get in Touch With Rallio

If you’re looking for more social media tips, we’re here to help. Our Rallio Local for Small Business division is an extension of our existing social media management and marketing solutions. As a top-ranked provider of social media technology, employee advocacy and local social media services, we’re thrilled to be offering our all-in-one social media solutions to small, independently owned businesses.

If you’re ready to outsource your small-business social media and focus on other parts of your business, contact localsales@rallio.com, and visit www.rallio.com/getlocal or www.rallio.com.

Tags social media marketing