Social Media and your Office

[adreyyy]

In the office I work at, we are trying to implement FB Likes in the office to promote new frames and frame lines, events like trunk shows, and some free education to patients that will get them engaged and really thinking about their eye health, vision, as well as their individual style.

I was wondering what do you guys do to incorporate social media into your office to connect with your patients? Do you use FB, Instagram and Twitter? Do you hire a marketer/advertiser for promos and marketing solutions? What 'go-to' resources do you fall on to help you with advertising?

[edKENdance]

We use social media. Instagram is our most active followed by FB and Twitter. Word of mouth has been the most effective. We don't see the need to pay for any advertising in this day and age. We've only been open for 8 months now but it's been rather effective.

[adreyyy]

For your Instagram, do you post daily? And is it like Promo's for frames? What resources do follow to get ideas on advertising for your office? We have been open for a while but we haven't really had a good following on Social Media so I'm trying to implement new ideas to get more traffic.

[edKENdance]

pm'd you

[iD]

For your Instagram, do you post daily? And is it like Promo's for frames? What resources do follow to get ideas on advertising for your office? We have been open for a while but we haven't really had a good following on Social Media so I'm trying to implement new ideas to get more traffic.

I'd like to know this too. I recently created a FB fan page.

VSP does offer services to help you promote your page. They will post info on latest eyewear and health related articles. But they did take a while to get back to me about it. So don't know how good they are.

[adreyyy]

I'd like to know this too. I recently created a FB fan page.

VSP does offer services to help you promote your page. They will post info on latest eyewear and health related articles. But they did take a while to get back to me about it. So don't know how good they are.

I heard that Facebook is limiting when it comes to advertising and promoting if it's not within their restrictions. Didn't know VSP offers those kind of services but it'd probably be pretty costly and just advertise THEIR selection of frames and lenses. And by their I mean, Marchon/Altair products.

I heard Instagram is a great place to market and theirs not a lot of restrictions on what you can say or do to promote your page. I'm really considering looking there as we are more of a visual community.

[iD]

I heard that Facebook is limiting when it comes to advertising and promoting if it's not within their restrictions. Didn't know VSP offers those kind of services but it'd probably be pretty costly and just advertise THEIR selection of frames and lenses. And by their I mean, Marchon/Altair products.

I heard Instagram is a great place to market and theirs not a lot of restrictions on what you can say or do to promote your page. I'm really considering looking there as we are more of a visual community.

I haven't read Facebook guidelines when it comes to promoting. I'm still in the process of gathering likes/friends. VSP called us about it and offered to us. I asked if there was a cost and they said no. Too good to be true right? well comes out that they were supposed to contact me months ago to set it up.

[David_Garza]

we use FB Google+ and twitter.

ChickenDance can you post or PM your instagram handle? I'd like to see how you are utilizing it.

[hellosarah]

We see the most activity on Instagram and Facebook, from all ages but they're more or less different audiences.

I've managed social media, web sites/analytics, and blogs in the past and have a few freelance clients I maintain in my downtime.
I really like the following FREE user friendly tools...
Iconosquare gives you Instagram statistics (iconosquare.com) & Facebook Pages give you "insights" about interactions & your audience.
Canva makes it really REALLY easy to make promo images, post cards, etc. (https://www.canva.com/)

You can see if there's a "Social Media Breakfast" in your city - it's not just for people who work in social media or digital/creative jobs but also good networking and advice.
My biggest pieces of advice are: to try to find a balance for # of posts; be personable & try to be unique.

[adreyyy]

We see the most activity on Instagram and Facebook, from all ages but they're more or less different audiences.

I've managed social media, web sites/analytics, and blogs in the past and have a few freelance clients I maintain in my downtime.
I really like the following FREE user friendly tools...
Iconosquare gives you Instagram statistics (iconosquare.com) & Facebook Pages give you "insights" about interactions & your audience.
Canva makes it really REALLY easy to make promo images, post cards, etc. (https://www.canva.com/)

You can see if there's a "Social Media Breakfast" in your city - it's not just for people who work in social media or digital/creative jobs but also good networking and advice.
My biggest pieces of advice are: to try to find a balance for # of posts; be personable & try to be unique.

Thanks for the tips Sarah! I'll be using those resources!

I have another question, do you guys always have on going sales and promotions going on or do you try to limit it to certain, seasons, holidays, and what not?

[hellosarah]

We don't have deals, sales, promos etc. but instead have a really large variety in pricing.

Our social just has updates about new stock or cool client projects (musicians, artists, local community) and instead of asking for "likes" or followers, we actively tell customers that we post our new stock updates and our holiday hours online, our email signature and invoice has the info and we have a cute little sign in store.


I forgot to add that having a complete listing on review sites (with photos of the store/office/products) is very helpful for website traffic too.
Here are the top sites that more or less makeup the Internet Yellow Pages: Yelp.com, Foursquare.com, Yahoo Business, and Google Plus Listing.

That being said, telemarketers and the advertising dept from Yelp will solicit you :(

They're pretty easy to set up and some will send your company a post card to confirm or call your business with a confirmation code but none of them cost money. We only update them every few weeks with a new photo or two.

So in summary...here's a checklist:

Social Media Accounts
Facebook.com
Instagram.com
Twitter.com

Business Listings
Yelp.com
Foursquare.com
Plus.Google.com
Yahoo Business https://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/local-listings

[BP3]

I am in charge of all the social media accounts at our office.

Instagram and Facebook are our most accessed accounts, so I spend more time on those two accounts than I do our twitter or foursquare page.

Our Google+ page accessed frequently as well.

Feel free to take a look on how I utilize our Facebook and Instagram.

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/GaryTracyOD
Instagram - http://instagram.com/garytracyod
Website - www.garytracyod.com

I just started with the company 10 months ago and created an Instagram account and reactivated the stagnant facebook and twitter accounts. So far

[hellosarah]

Lookin' good, BP3!

Foursquare isn't much work - just making sure things are correct (same as Yelp! but they will solicit you for marketing and sometimes users will send the business a message that has to be answered through their services, they also time you :p )

Instagram-- the URL is http://instagram.com/garytracyod

You can schedule Twitter posts with Hootsuite, there's also a nifty auto schedule feature.

Facebook -- the URL is - http://www.facebook.com/GaryTracyOD (the ?fref=ts&ref=br_tf is a tracking reference use for analytical data and unnecessary to share with anyone unless you've created this link specifically for tracking.)

[BP3]

Lookin' good, BP3!

Foursquare isn't much work - just making sure things are correct (same as Yelp! but they will solicit you for marketing and sometimes users will send the business a message that has to be answered through their services, they also time you :p )

Instagram-- the URL is http://instagram.com/garytracyod

You can schedule Twitter posts with Hootsuite, there's also a nifty auto schedule feature.

Facebook -- the URL is - http://www.facebook.com/GaryTracyOD (the ?fref=ts&ref=br_tf is a tracking reference use for analytical data and unnecessary to share with anyone unless you've created this link specifically for tracking.)

Oops! didn't mean to send it just yet! But thanks for changing it for me :)

Also, not so much social media, but we use Mad Mimi for newsletters and we get many people engaging on that as well. Emails are required, but I just download the list from our EHR

[adreyyy]

Thank you Sarah and BP3.

I checked your links and they look awesome! What's nice to see about your Instagram and Facebook is that they are consistent which is what we definitely need. I started at my current job about 2 months ago and am working with the office manager to up the social media marketing to get more patients engaged. Just trying to get some ideas on what has worked and what hasn't. We are mostly just on Instagram and Facebook as well:

http://facebook.com/visioncitylascolinas
http://instagram.com/visioncitylascolinas
http://twitter.com/visioncity1

[hellosarah]

A few tips + what works...

Your engagement is helpful too. Comment on other businesses or non profits etc.

Make sure the email address you use for your social media account is the same as the one you email customers from.
Most of the social services allow users to search for people in their address book. If you're concerned about flooding your inbox, make sure your settings aren't emailing everything to you and you can alway make an email filter to keep the clutter down.

Perpetual 'on sale' signs make customers weary.

I'll call the frame collection out if they use social media, tag the customer's business or personal account if the conversation has suggested this is okay.

Instagram: Distribute event photos across months or weeks by using the #TBT (Throwback Thursday) or #FBF (Flashback Friday) hash tags. We also use #Caturday and often post customer's cats or cat eye glasses.

[MikeAurelius]

I find it a good way to announce new products and sales promotions. And even though FB changed its posting criteria, I'm still getting the number of engagements as I did last year before the change. In my personal account, I "share" the promo from the company page with any additional comments, and that sends the engagements through the roof.